Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/74

 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. the brushwood, formerly led to the platform. It is an elongated plateau, 150 m. by 25 m., with a steep declivity; its highest point is 370 m. above sea-level, and its lowest 325 m., yielding a difference of 45 m. (Fig. 29). The site looks almost too forbidding for human habitation ; nevertheless five or six cisterns, bottle-shaped, are met with, along with remains of houses in stages, on to the very brim of this thin, dizzy ridge. Thanks to the incline of the ground, the rocky mass was cut away in such a fashion that only the side and back walls, and sometimes the partitions between one apartment and another, were left adhering to the soil (Figs. 30, 31). The fa9ade, now disappeared, was artificial, and must have been constructed with adobes and stone chips; for nowhere do we find blocks of a certain calibre, real prepared stones. On the other hand, burnt tiles are not rare ; some are quite plain, others of a more complicated make served to cover the joints, thus imply- ing that a certain degree of care was bestowed upon the roof. The number of these dwellings, connected one with the other by short flights of steps, Is computed at twenty-five. To the rear of the uppermost a rectangular excavation, i m. 10 c. by i m. 55 c., by i m. 30 c. deep, has been cut in the living rock. Its faces are finely polished (Figs. 32, 33). M. Humann, who was the first to describe this tiny, quaint Acropolis, is inclined to re- cognize it as the throne of Pelops, which used to be shown on the summit of the hill above the Hieron of Mother Plastene. 1 1 Our description is abridged from M. HUMANN'S Ein Ausflug in den Sipylos, p. 10, of which a new illustrated edition has just appeared, entitled Die Tania- losburg mittheilungen, 1888. To Dr. Fabricius of Berlin we are indebted for Figs. 28, 29, 30, 33, as well as a discursive letter upon larik Kai'a, which he visited in FIG. 29. Topographic sketch. Dr. Fabricius. After