Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/207

 General Characteristics of Pterian Monuments. 189 scanty, they enable us to gauge its real nature, and to perceive that if quick in availing itself of foreign elements, it did not, on that account, abdicate its modicum of originality and inventive genius. Sculpture, whereby the peculiarities which permit Pterian monu- ments to be classed in one distinct group, yields richer material to the student. Many are the characteristic details which dis- tinguished it ; but of these none, we venture to say, can vie with the double-headed eagle at lasIli-Kaia (Plate VIII. E, and Fig. 343), a type which we feel justified in ranging among those proper to Cappadocia, since it was unknown to Assyria, Egypt, or Phoenicia. Its position is always a conspicuous one — about a great sanctuary, the principal doorway to a palace, a castle wall, and so forth ; rendering the suggestion that the Pterians used the symbol as a coat of arms plausible, if not certain. It has been further urged that the city was symbolized by it, that the place called by the Greeks, Pteris, Pteria, Pteron,  wing," was the literal translation of the name it bore with the aborigines, that in a com- prehensive sense it came to signify the whole district, the country of wings, i.e. of numerous eagles, double-headed and wings out- stretched." ^ Another feature, only seen at Boghaz-Keui and Eyuk, is the augural rod (Figs. 314, 321, 328), and the bar outlined in front of the figures at lasili-Kaia and Eyuk, which is not unlike a staff in shape, and serves to support the arm (Plate VIII. and Fig. 328). The long, pointed cloak, trailing behind like a bird's wing, is like- wise peculiar to Cappadocia (Figs. 314, 321, 328). As referred to, the posture of the personages is appreciably the same. With the short tunic it was almost impossible to conceal the arms ; but the peculiar movement imparted to them, the one outstretched, the other bent back beyond the line of the body, under the cloak or chasuble, could be distinctly seen (Fig. 328). Having attained this much, the artist seems to have been quite satisfied, and never to have looked further afield for a more artistic arrangement. The hair of the female figures at Boghaz-Keui and Eyuk is invariably worn loose (Figs. 313, 328); but the pointed tiara, the broadsword with a moon-crescent hilt, are found at Boghaz-Keui only (Plate VIII. and Figs. 312, 321). This, however, is no conclusive proof of their not having obtained in ^ Barth, loc. cit. p. 45.