Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/198

 1 82 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. identified in the middle of the panel, whilst the lozenges carved about a number of these frontals are supposed to be reminiscences of joists (Figs. 48, 58, 59). When similar squares appear under the side beams of the pediment, as in the Midas rock, such a value may be given to them ; as to those in the inner slab, however, set out in sets of five, so as to form crosses, it is more natural, perhaps, to consider them as belonging to the category of designs imitated from carpets or embroidered stuffs. Lozenges, squares, crosses, meanders, all the forms that ornament these sculptured fronts, are of the kind the looms and the broideries of Asia Minor easily produce at the present day ; be it on those justly prized carpets made in the province which answers to the Lydia and Phrygia of olden times, or the bodices and aprons the native women embroider for themselves, even to the rosettes seen now and again on these frontispieces (Fig. 59). 1 The way to read these rock-cut monumental fronts is this. The tomb here, as elsewhere, is but a copy of the house. But the house which had served as model was wholly enclosed in masses of timber, pinned to supporting beams at the angles, which yielded no space to speak of whereon to trace furniture or ornament so as to introduce variety into the scene. Consequently the ornamentist was compelled to seek in other fields forms which it was not in the nature of a lignite architecture to furnish. These he found in pro- fusion in the sumptuous webs, for which the country has been noted from the earliest age ; where they served as floor and wall covering, drapery to divans of which an instance is found in these tombs 1 Stewart was the first to notice the striking analogy which exists between sepulchral and textile ornament (Description, p. 9) ; whilst M. Ramsay (Sfudies, iii. p. 27) lays particular stress on the resemblance these sculptured fronts bear to hanging carpets. This theory, which he strenuously advocated in 1882, he now abandons in favour of terra-cotta and metal inlays ; and he holds that the style of ornamentation which appears on these fronts " is but the imitation in stone of some kind of tile- work, e.g. the covering of a flat surface, floor, wall, and so forth, with a pattern of tiles or of square plaques of bronze" (Journal, . p. 153). To this view we will oppose the following remarks : It is not easy to conceive how wooden structures the forerunners of the rock-cut fasades, could be ornamented by a terra-cotta or a bronze lining, because, as a rule, coloured inlays are applied to stone and brick. Moreover, the forms we find here are those invented by the mat and basket maker or the weaver, which he elaborated by opposing strips and threads of various colours to one another. The principle of the Phrygian decorative scheme is the chess- board pattern, met with among people and nationalities the most diverse in the early manifestations of their industries.