be seen or are recorded by extant copies, we find that
these fall into two classes. On the one hand, there are more or less
exact repetitions of the primitive stock or stone, the cylindrical
tree-trunk or the rectangular block cut from the quarry, with the rudest
indication of head and arms and feet, deviating as little as possible
from the original shape of the block. When images of this sort were, as
was often the case, of wood, they have, of course, disappeared; but we
can sometimes recognise copies of them upon reliefs or in stone. On the
other hand, we find another class of images which approximate more to
the attainments of Daedalus as described by rationalising writers of
later date. These images are completely in human form, and, if male, are
usually nude. They have their legs separated in a short stride, the left
foot being usually advanced; their arms are either set close to their
sides, or one or both of them is raised from the elbow; their whole
shape suggests a rigid system of proportions and a more or less
conventionalised form. These images have no resemblance to the
modifications of the primitive stocks and stones, and could not well be
directly derived from them; they are found in great numbers upon many
sites of early sanctity in Greece itself and in Greek settlements around
the Levant, notably in Cyprus, Rhodes, and Naucratis in Egypt. Sometimes
they seem to represent the god, sometimes the dedicator; but all alike
show the attempt of the early Greek craftsman to imitate the products of
more advanced and finished art which he saw around him. Many of them are
derived from Egyptian types; others show the influence of Mesopotamian
art, or of the hybrid craftsmanship of Phoenicia. The borrowing or
imitation of such foreign types may at first sight appear to show even
less promise of artistic progress than variations on the old native
images; but it is not in its origins, but in its development and
perfection that the chief excellence of Greek art is to be found.

The types borrowed by sculpture from foreign art are almost exclusively
of human form. The monstrous mixed forms in which the deities of Egypt
or Mesopotamia often found the expression of their superhuman and
mysterious powers do not seem to have appealed to the imagination of the
Greeks. Such mixed forms were, indeed, frequently borrowed by early
decorative art, and on "Orientalising" vases we constantly find
human-headed and bird-headed quadrup