Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/114

 98 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. During our expedition in Asia Minor, we went straight from Delikli Tach to lasili Ka'ia, where the striking family likeness observable between the two monuments was brought home to my companion, M. Guillaume, and myself, with perhaps greater force than if a longer interval had interposed between one journey and another. Arguing from exterior analogies, we judged that they might extend to the interior. But we did not for a moment deem it possible that the sinking or false door could ever have been a grave. We were inclined to think that there was behind it a real mortuary chamber, entered by a shaft as at Delikli Tach. The next thing was to find the entrance, which we were disposed to seek at the summit of the rock, behind the broken finial crowning the pediment. 1 One of our party, M. Delbet, volunteered to climb up the rock, so as to test the truth of our hypothesis ; but his attempts were unsuccessful, and as we could not spare the time it would have taken to procure ladders, ropes, and so forth for the purpose, we were fain to abandon the undertaking. 2 Professor Ramsay, with true British tenacity of purpose and British elasticity of limb, succeeded in scaling the rocky wall, " whose top is so narrow that he could sit on the edge as on the back of a horse, pushing himself along with his hands." But he found no sign of an orifice to the well he was in quest of. He had, however, ample opportunity for observing that "as the stone is a soft conglomerate, a deep chimney of this kind would split it like a wedge." If the notion that the Midas rock is a tomb be persisted in, there is no other alternative but to seek the grave towards the foot of the rock ; or, rather, our only chance of discovering the entrance to the mortuary chamber is to clear away the silt and potsherds that have gathered in front of the faade to the height of three or four metres. The spade alone can clinch the question. On the other hand, no instance of such an arrangement can be adduced in the whole Phrygian necropolis, Hence the question we have asked before may be asked again, as to whether we are con- fronted by a real sepulchre, or a simple commemorative monument, whose imposing dimensions, elaborate and skilful workmanship, are witnesses to the homage rendered by the princes of the eighth or seventh century B.C. to the eponym hero, the legendary ancestor, 1 Explor. Arche. t pp. 105, 106. 2 RAMSAY, The Rock Necropolis of Phrygia (Journal, 1882, pp. 16, 17).