Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/211

 General Characteristics of Ptertan Monuments. 193 reproduced by us, has a mule or ass's head ; a character often repeated in the Hamath and Carchemish inscribed stones (Fig. If this mode of writing is only represented by insulated characters in the sanctuary of Boghaz-Keui, it is not so in the town itself, where to the south of the palace, and close to it, I lighted upon an inscription of ten or eleven lines carved on a rock sloping upwards. The field on which the bas-relief occurs is 6 m. 50 c. by i m. 70 c. in height ; it has been chiselled and pre- pared for the work, but the rest of the rock surface remains in its natural state. The inscribed characters are sharply defined by dividing lines, and both are in cameo ; the height of the symbols is about 15 c. Owing to the damaged, confused state in which they are found, which is quite as bad as that of the cognate monu- ments (Figs. 254, 255, 256), we at first were uncertain whether we had before us a series of narrow friezes — a supposition induced by the human, animal, and other forms therein contained — or letters of an unknown alphabet. If, on the one hand, the inscription is so obliterated that not a single sign can be identified with those of the Syrian monuments, its arrangement, manipulation, and general aspect at a short distance render it undeniable that we are con- fronted by a Hittite document of the nature of the Hamath, Kadesh, and Aleppo inscribed stones. As stated, the fact that a number of signs met with in Syria have not been encountered in Asia Minor may arise from the dearth of monuments in the latter country, and the mutilated state in which they are discovered ; but nothing forbids the supposition that, as in the alphabets derived from the Phoenician, here also, local forms prevailed. Notwithstanding minor and altogether secondary distinctions, affinities are sufficiently striking to justify the hypothesis we uphold, i.e. that as the same style of epigraphy is observable from the Orontes to the Halys, this implies a common origin and culture in the tribes to which it belongs. inscriptions at present known, in a pamphlet by Professor Sayce, entitled, The Monuments of the Hittites^ pp. 8-1 1, after the plates of various authorities, includ- ing our own. In it the learned professor expresses the opinion that the characters denoting a deity (Fig. 311), the prefix and the hand of the female figure, are alone distinctly shown in the cut. Excellent casts of these bas-reliefs exist in the Berlin Museum, and it is to be hoped that with their aid the whole (lucslion will be reconsidered and finally settled. VOL. II. °
 * Those interested in the subject will find all the names of the deities in the