Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/230

 214 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. Thought has means other than writing to express itself; so that the Phrygians learnt yet another lesson at the Hittite school, and derived from it the first rudiments of art. Their princes, however, even in the heyday of their power and prosperity, do not seem to have been moved by the lofty ambition which had fired the tribal chiefs beyond the Halys. But these, in their encounters on the battle-field and their transactions of a more peaceful character, had been brought in touch, albeit transiently, with the wonders of Egyptian and Mesopotamian culture. To sum up: Phrygian art stands as near as possible to Hittite art, as this does to that of Chaldaea and Assyria. It is the attenuated reflex of a far-off focus of light, whose rays have of necessity lost much of their splendour during their transit across the mighty Taurus range. Take for example the palace, the masterpiece of Assyrian architecture, represented in Cappadocia by edifices such as those at Boghaz Keui and Eyuk ; these, though plainer and on a reduced scale, reproduce the plan and special details of the Ninevite buildings. On the other hand, no such data have been traced in the ruinous structures of Phrygia, so that the question arises as to whether its tribal chiefs were not content to put up with a wooden dwelling. The Kumbet ram (Figs. 115, 1 1 6) is the one solitary instance which seems to indicate that an attempt was made here to reproduce a disposition to which Eastern builders were most faithful. But even so, it is not proved that the said ram was one of those janitors we have met everywhere at the threshold of royal mansions, from Persia to Cappadocia. The same impression is produced when we oppose Oriental to native sculpture. Whatever its purpose, the Kumbet ram looks shapeless as against not only the noble winged bulls at an important centre of culture (see Die Fehenreliefs in Kleinasien und das Volk der Hittiker, p. 70). We deeply regret that his memoir, aptly entitled Zweite Beitrag zur Geschichte Kleinasien^ should have appeared after the publication of our fourth volume. His observations and deep insight are of the kind that cannot be passed over lightly, and could not but have been of service to us ; whilst we should have been at pains to explain more fully the reasons which lead us to differ from him. We might perhaps have been brought to agree on many a point respecting which disagreement is more apparent than real. The only serious point of dispute between us is that Cappadocia and Syria are more intimately connected than M. Hirschfeld is willing to admit.