Rosettes, monsters of various kinds, winged globes with uraei, scarabs, sacred trees, and garlands or blossoms of the lotus were the ordinary "motives."[88] Occasionally human figures might be introduced, and animal forms even more frequently; but a stiff conventionalism prevailed, the same figures were constantly repeated, and the figures themselves had in few cases much beauty.
The brilliancy and beauty of the Phoenician coloured stuffs resulted from the excellency of their dyes.

Here we touch a second branch of their industrial skill, for the principal dyes used were originally invented and continuously fabricated by the Phoenicians themselves, not imported from any foreign country.

Nature had placed along the Phoenician coast, or at any rate along a great portion of it, an inexhaustible supply of certain shell-fish, or molluscs, which contained as a part of their internal economy a colouring fluid possessing remarkable, and indeed unique, qualities.

Some account has been already given of the species which are thought to have been anciently most esteemed.

They belong, mainly, to the two allied families of the _Murex_ and the _Buccinum_ or _Purpura_.