Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/294

 278 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. Considered as a whole, the dispositions of the tombs we have just surveyed belong to the type encountered everywhere in the Smyrna necropolis. Nevertheless, when placed side by side and looked into critically, slight differences become apparent. Thus the internal arrangement of the Tantaleis tumulus is a dry stone-work of small units (Figs. 14, 15). Around Sardes the pebbles are replaced by a system of radiating and concentric walls, and superimposed layers of earth and concrete rammed in as tight as possible. In Lydia the base of the tumulus is a truncated cone ; it is barrel-shaped at Smyrna. Here, too, the sepulchral chambers are found in the centre of the mound ; but at Belevi, in the royal necropolis of the Mermnada^, they never occupy that situation. The resemblances between the two groups of funereal edifices are sufficiently marked to justify the conclusion that they are the work of one race, a race which, on the slopes of Sipylus, as at the foot of Tmolus, were faithful to habits taken up, perhaps, in their cradle-land, and brought with them from Europe to Asia. But different hands worked at the two sets of buildings. On the other hand, differences are striking enough in the arrangement of the plan as well as the processes of execution, to induce the belief that they were due to two people and two different ages. This hypothesis is in harmony with our knowledge of the history of the Lydians and the Phrygians, their original affinities, and the difference of their ultimate fate. Funereal architecture is the only branch of that noble art which has left traces on the Lydian soil. On many a point of Lydia were sanctuaries, whose foundation and repute led back to the far- off days of national independence. Such would be the temple of Cybele at Sardes, and that of Artemis Gygsea, hard by the lake from which she was called. It is highly probable that here, as at Ephesus, the name of Artemis covers that other name of Anahith, so soon forgotten, or one or other of those goddesses who, in the eyes of Asiatics, personified the creative power of nature the power that calls forth beings into existence, to destroy them when their hour is come to make way for new generations. The site of both edifices is thought to have been identified ; what remains, however, or rather all that is found above ground, belongs to very late reconstructions. The two Ionic columns still standing on the right bank of the Pactolus, and fragments of an entablature lying on the ground beside them,. were part of an