Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/255

 Bk. II. Cn. VII. ASIA MINOR. 223 knowledge of the architecture of the period. This may partly be owing to his ignorance of the art, and to his having no architect with him, but it does not appear that any architectural mouldings were discovered earlier than those of "Ilium Novum," two or three centuries before Christ. The so-called Temi)le of Minerva was with- out pillars or mouldings of any sort, and the walls and gates of the old city wel-e equally devoid of ornament. What w^as found seems to confirm the idea that the Trojans were a Turanian-Pelasgic people, burying their dead in mounds, and revelling in barbaric splendor, but not havinsr reached that deiiree of civilization which would induce them to seek to perpetuate their forms of art in more permanent materials than earth and metals.^ It is not clear whether any other great groups of tumuli exist in Asia Minor, but it seems more than probable that in the earliest times the whole of this country Avas inhabited by a Pelasgic race, who were the first known occupants of Gi'eece, and who built the so-called Treasuries of Mycenae and Orchomenos, and who sent forth the Etruscans to civilize Italy. If this be so, it accounts for the absence of architectural remains, for they would have left behind them no buildings but the sepulchres of their departed great ones ; and if their history is to be recovered, it must be sought for in the bowels of the earth, and not in anything existing above-ground. Next to these in point of age and style comes a curious group of rock-cut monuments, found in the centre of the land at Doganlu. They are placed on the rocky side of a narrow^ valley, and are uncon- nected apparently with any great city or centre of population. Generally they are called tombs, but there are no chambers nor any- thing about them to indicate a funereal purpose, and the inscriptions which accompany them are not on the monuments themselves, nor do they refer to such a destination. Altogether, they are certainly among the most mysterious remains of antiquity, and, beyond a certain similarity to the rock-cut tombs around Persepolis, present no features that afford even a remote analogy to other monuments which might guide us in our conjectures as to the purpose for which they were designed. They are of a style of art clearly indicating a wooden origin, and consist of a square frontispiece, either carved into certain ' One of the most interesting facts brought to Hght in Dr. Schliemann's excavations is that between the age of the " IHum Vetus " of Homer, rich in metals and in arts, and the " Ilium Nov- um " of Strabo, a people ignorant of the use of the metals, and using only bone and stone implements, inhabited the mound at Hissarlik which covered both these cities. This discovery is sufficient to upset the once fashionable Danish theory of the three ages Stone, Bronze, and Iron — but unfortunately adds nothing to our knowledge of aichitec- ture. These people, whoever they were, built nothing, and must consequently be content to remain in the "' longa nocte" of those who neglect the Master Art.