Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/206

 1 88 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud^a. attitude and movement of the hands, the one holding a bowl and the other a flower, are precisely alike. Then, too, on one of the bas-reliefs at Nineveh, figures are seen scaling the wall of a besieged city by means of ladders on which they figure in exactly the same clumsy posture as at Eyuk (Fig. 332), showing that the skill, or rather want of it, was pretty evenly balanced in both artists.^ Perhaps no set of rock-cut monuments come nearer the Pterian examples than those at Bavian and Malthai, north of Mosul, both in details and general character, be it in the mixture of human and animal forms (the former standing on real or fantastic ferae), the large rings about sceptres to facilitate their carriage or suspension ; with this variant, that in the Bavian group the object furnished with a hoop was a fan.^ As might be expected, Assyrian altars are more elegantly shaped than at Eyuk (Fig. 328), but both are top-heavy.^ If the art of Boghaz-Keui and Eyuk is so often in touch, to a certain extent this was due to the same models having been used ; nevertheless it should not be overlooked that it possesses features unlike any observed by us In this and former works, In the dearth of our knowledge with regard to the architectural buildings of Cappadocia, it would be futile to try and form an opinion on the subject. But, as stated earlier, the mode of defence that prevailed was essentially different from that of Anterior Asia ; nor did the Pterian builder go to Assyria for the rock-cut tombs which distinguish the Alajah Chai valley. The old Assyrians excavated canals and cisterns in connection with their rivers and streams, they carved inscriptions and pictures on the rocky hill-side, but I am not aware of their ever having scooped funereal chambers out of the solid rock. The hypogees of Egypt, on the other hand, were too far removed to induce the belief that they could have been borrowed from thence. This does not apply to sphinxes, whose type, impressed upon clay or metal art- objects, and small pieces of furniture, was scattered broadcast by the Egyptian and Phoenician artificer at enormous distances from Its native country. These Instances, meagre though they be, are all we can offer in regard to the Cappadocian style of architecture ; but no matter how BoTTA, Monuments de Ninive, Plate XCVII. Loc. cit., Fig. 310. ^ Ibid., Figs. 108, 109.