Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/210

 192 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud^a. possible that they are later than the palace and the wall of the neighbouring city ; perhaps they were just finished when Croesus turned the country into a wilderness. The closer we examine them, the clearer is the conviction forced upon us that they are not of remote date ; but that they represent the most felicitous effort of the primitive civilized tribes that inhabited Asia Minor, the development of which was arrested by the rapid growth, the prestige and all-invading art of Hellas, whose types and methods finally bore down adverse opinion and opposition. We have now gone over Pterian or Cappadocian art, if pre- ferred, in its bearings with the civilization of Anterior Asia, and such claims as it may have to be considered original. One side still remains to be sifted, namely: are there beyond Asia Minor monuments that bear a closer affinity to those of Cappadocia than these do to the stone documents of Assyria ? Do we know of a group connected with the Pterian by analogies at once so intimate and special as to suggest the idea that they were the work of one people ? And is the comparison likely to throw light on the origin of the creators of these palaces and bas-reliefs ? Will it aid us to identify the Pterians of Herodotus, with one of the nations accounted great in the old world long before the Greeks entered upon the scene ? A first gleam of light is found in community of written signs. We called attention to a cha- racter, (od), of frequent occurrence in the Hamath inscriptions ; and which, slightly modified, reappears at lasili-Kaia.* It should be noted here, that when our photographs and drawings of the sculptures under discussion were taken, their importance and the issues involved in the hieroglyphs accompanying them were not even suspected. Hence we were not as solicitous as we should be, and as everybody is at the present hour, to seek and tabulate with the utmost care any vestige, tite Hieroglyphs, howevcr minute, of such emblems left on the wall of asii- aia. enclosure. In order to supplement our deficiency in this instance, we have reproduced the more accurate sketches kindly forwarded to us by Mr. Ramsay (Figs. 348, 311). The first shows three signs in front of a figure on the right hand side (Plate VIII. F), and the second, besides the prefix of divinity ^ Hist, of Arty torn. iv. p. 636.