Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/85

 SlPYLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. 69 imagined. The sculpture, i m. 500. by 60 c., appeared upon a bold salience of the rock. The head looks full face, with flat nose, low retreating forehead, rounded chin, elongated eyes raised at the outer extremities. The hands meet in front ; a necklace of large beads is around the neck. The face is quite smooth, and without a trace of beard. Horns appear on either side of the cheeks where ears should have been, recalling the horns of Ammon. The position of the figure over the doorway of a sacred place is conclusive evidence of its being the image of a deity. By what name are we to address him ? Were the locality on the mainland of Greece, we could confidently say that a subterraneous fane was dedicated to no other than Pan or the Nymphs. Here, however, we are in the realm of that Cybele who maintained her sway over Sipylus and the hilly tract which it overshadows with its mighty crown to the latest times. It may be urged that a smooth face is no sure sign of sex, since it may with equal propriety belong to a youth as to a woman ; whilst horns, as a rule, are associated with gods. Ammon, Hercules, personified rivers. But may not horns, as symbols of strength, have been now and again attributed to a goddess, the embodiment of endless creative force, the tamer of wild beasts whom she obliged to draw her chariot ? And does not the figure whose body is lost in the depth of the cliff" admirably lend itself to represent the Divine Being so intimately allied with the mountain he inhabited as to be called r) [ATJrrjp opeua, the mother of the mountain ? This is not the place for attempting even a conjecture as to the date of the monuments we have passed in review. The time, if it should ever come, will be after we have duly studied Phrygia properly so called, where the Phrygian race had, if not its capital- it never owned a place deserving of the title at least its political and religious centre, its principal sanctuaries and royal necropoles. On the upper course of the Sangarius, monuments are far more numerous ; they have, if we may so speak, a first beginning of civil life written upon them, for they bear inscriptions which, despite obscurities, permit us to name with absolute certainty the people who made them, and to fix a proximate date to them. On our home journey from our exploring quest, we shall feel qualified to add to the weight of the hypothesis suggested to us by historical and mythical data ; basing it upon resemblances in style, mode of workmanship, and general dispositions. We shall bound over the