Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/169

 RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE. the door gives admittance. On each valve of the door, near the top, is a row of nails which served to fix a bronze lining. On the right wing is a defaced ornament, which may be a lock, or possibly a knocker. The door gives access to a little rectangular chamber, whose end wall is taken up by a very curious sculpture (Fig. 1 10). It represents two lionesses who stand on their hind legs, face to face, and rest their fore-paws against the head of a central figure, in which, despite its dilapidated state, we recognize a woman wrapped in long drapery, with a tall ovoid tiara upon her head. This woman can only be a goddess, and that goddess Cybele, the great local deity, whom lionesses she has tamed surround in play- ful attitude, and in whose company she travelled round the ancient world. The image was carved in relief fully a foot high, but the soft volcanic tufa was un- suited for a relief standing out so boldly, and the front part has fallen off, leaving only an uneven surface with the outline of the figure. The movement of the arms, however, can be made out from the difference of the angles at the elbows. The right hand, it would seem, was placed over the bosom, and the left hand over the middle an attitude rendered familiar to us from scores of simulacra of Asiatic goddesses. 1 Had the stone in this district been more compact, we should, doubtless, find many.another instance of this type. Thus, near the fine tomb already described (Fig. 64) a similar idol, albeit even more defaced, ruder and smaller than this, stands in a little niche three metres high (Fig. 1 1 1). 2 It will be understood, therefore, that if we left out from among the number of tombs the hypogeum of Arslan Kaia, it was because nothing about it betrays a funereal purpose. Every sepulture, in 1 Hist, of Art, torn. iii. Figs. 381, 382. 2 RAMSAY, Hellenic Studies, vol. v. p. 245. FIG. no. Arslan Kaia. Sculpture on the end wall of chamber. Journal, 1884^.285.