Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/123

 The City of the Ptertans. 107 what has been questioned, that an important place once stood here. The city wall is from five to six kilometres, and covers too great an area to have been designed, as proposed by the German traveller Barth, for a mere entrenched camp, where in troublous times the rural population found shelter under tents or temporary shanties.^ A similar supposition from a sagacious observer is only to be explained from the fact that his visit to Boghaz-Keul was of but one day. Totally different would have been his opinion, had time permitted him to inspect the monumental remains of the building on the banks of the stream, which must have been a palace. And a palace presupposes a man in authority, with a numerous retinue, and a settled population. Nomadic tribes would have left no vestiges. When stone edifices are encountered, built, like this, of massive blocks well prepared, we may safely assume that the people who erected them were accustomed to live under structural roofs. Moreover, we are here in the heart of Asia Minor, at an elevation of 960 metres above sea level, where the thermometer falls to zero at the beginning of November, followed by snow in December, which, said the natives, will remain on the ground.^ The notion, therefore, that these villagers would consent to forsake their dwellings partly excavated in the rock, to spend months, perhaps, of winter under the poor shelter yielded by canvas or unsquared timber, must be abandoned. But even without these massive ruins, the numerous fragments of tiles or painted pottery strewing the ground about the base of the walls, cisterns, silos, rock-cut stairways, subterraneous passages, apartments, portals, terraces, and so forth, sufficiently Indicate that structural houses formerly existed here. Examination of the surface above ground proves that the rock was untouched In many places ; for at such points no traces of structures have been found, leading to the conclusion that similar sites were reserved for gardens, a custom still prevalent all over the East. Our guide took us straight to the ruins described by T^xier as a temple to Anaitis,^ which Barth — with whom we agree — recog- ^ H. Barth, " Reise von Trapezunt durch die nordliche Halfte Klein-Asiens narh Scutari, 1858, mit einer Kartc von Dr. A. Petcrmann " {Ergdnzun^sheft zu Petcrmant{ s geof^^raphischen Mitthetlungcn^ in 4**, 1 860, p. 57). • The natives call the ruin Bazarlik^ *' small bazaar."
 * From observations taken by Dr. Delbet.