The encircling snake, as already observed, is a masterpiece.
There is no better drawing in any of the other _paterae_.

At best they equal, they certainly do not surpass, the Praenestine specimen.
The intaglios of the Phoenicians are either on cylinders or on gems, and can rarely be distinguished, unless they are accompanied by an inscription, from the similar objects obtained in such abundance from Babylonia and Assyria.

They reproduce, with scarcely any variation, the mythological figures and emblems native to those countries--the forms of gods and priests, of spirits of good and evil, of kings contending with lions, of sacred trees, winged circles, and the like--scarcely ever introducing any novelty.

The greater number of the cylinders are very rudely cut.

They have been worked simply by means of a splinter of obsidian,[787] and are barbarous in execution, though interesting to the student of archaic art.