The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1873-01-02
ANTIQUITIES OF CYPRUS.
TLOndOn Letter to the New York Herald !

." AiOAA ~ p1OS VIII NC SCl1l AOA WoIO
to New York. Archaologists and
students Of the history of art look on
the departure of this rare collection
from London with undisguised cha
grin. and the management OF the
British Museum is assailed for hav-
ing bargained and chartered and
promised to call again and exhibited
altogether a pitiful spirit of small
commerce ia the premises and thus
permitted London to lose the treas
uIes. 1t is scarcely too much to
say that 70 single collection of the
relics of the ancient world ever excl
ted equal interest or promised i'll its
thorough study such valuable con-
trlbutions to the knowledge Of Pc
Rod in the worlds history with
which our acquaintance is especially
small, and it is this interest that
moves such lively regret at its depar-
lure. In several museums of Eu-
rope there are collections fully illus
trating Egg ptian art, others illustra-
ting AssyriAn art and Persian art,
while the art OF Greece Is almost te-
diously familiar TO the catalogues !;
but hers are 10 600 pieces infinitely
illustrating the art, the life, the re-
ligion, the heroism and the daily
thought of period and a people
more interesting than any. because
by their peculiar relations to each
they shed light on all. This COL
lection, that is neither Egyptian nor
Assyrian nor Persian nor Grecian,
but is related to the art of all those
countries, is capable of casting vol
umes oflight on unimagined secrets in
the history of every one. Beyond
this it is also Of special interest in
regard to Phenican history and
thought, and to the relations of the
Phoemcan peoples TO that misty time
7nown in Greek history as the hero
ic age. There are statues in this
collection in almost every style, cut
from light porous stone. found in
the island ; for there is scarcely a
piece of marble i'll the whole collec
ton. Some of lhese are very rude
In character and appear to have
stood in temples. side by eide with
others, showing some advance i'll
art ; the ruder ones, perhaps, letaiu-
ing their places because revered
through the associations of some
sacred legends of the flames they
adorned There is, for instance,
? colossal Hercules OF the most
primitive sculpture, which, doubt
less, stood III the temple o: the god,
and on either sides of it are statues
OF priests in the temple of Venus,
and though these latter exhibited no
higher imagination than the colossal
figure, and are, perhaps, portraits of
famous and reveIed prelates of those
ages, their wonderful Iealism and
their accuracy CT their detail in fig
ure and feature is such as TO startle
the observer almost as with the YER
liable presence CT one of those old
pedlers OF superstition. Ordinary
visitors will be amazed to note the
pronounced Jewish type of some of
these faces.
Many of the heads have the Golf
that is familiar in Egg ptian figures {;
some have Greek helme.s. others a
headdress distinctly Phoeniclan, and
some have the Greco Roman fillet.
A colossal head found in the, Tenn.
pie OF Venus, AID, doubtless, part
OF the great idol Of the temple. has
wonderfully lAscivious physiogno-
N.Y. and am told by General Cas-
nols, is literal type of the faces
found among the people of Cyprus, so
that 1t would seem the fame of the
Cyprlans was not an idle tale OF
antiquity. Besides the statues.
there is an infinite variety of domes-
TIC utensils IN terra Gotta, amphore
drinking cups, lamps and votive o.
ferlngs innumerable. There are
also some wonderfully fine pieces of
glass, with the evidence of decay
given by its ages of burial in the
earth. Altogether the metropolis of
the Western world is to be congratu-
lated upon the treasure il is to DOS.