Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/224

 2o6 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud^a. erected this remarkable fortress. This gave them the command of the outlying country and the regions to the west, which they seem to indicate with their outstretched hands. The urseus about one of the figures is sufficient proof of his royal dignity ; the other was the elder, or at all events a favourite son, wont to head the young blood in quest of adventures and wild affrays. Their sculptured image near the pass they had so often defended, whence they had sallied forth to harry the land to the very edge of the great sea, was intended as a memorial to subsequent generations, and in part would account for their having been preserved. The Hittite remains, stated to exist in the vicinity of the tombs of the ancient kings of the Phrygians, somewhere between Koutahiah and Sivri-Hissar, will be treated in a separate study. For the present, suffice it to say, that in a valley of rocks, full of tombs and catacombs, rises a stony hill, the summit of which was levelled out, and apparently transformed into a vast high-place. Structural fragments, perhaps of the sanctuary which once rose here, may still be traced. Its approaches were covered by a citadel, almost entirely excavated in the solid rock. Fortunately for us there is no difficulty in tracing to their true owners the monuments under notice, for they bear upon them inscriptions, and the names of some of the Phrygian kings, written in characters akin to the archaic Greek alphabet, and in a language closely related to the Hellenic. But whether the Hittites were already in possession on the arrival of the Phrygo emigrants, and whether the place was dedicated by them to the great mother of the gods, Cybele, the Matar Kubile of the Phrygian texts, is not so easy to say. At all events, sculptured on a rocky wall, is a figure apparently more ancient than the images carved on the neigh- bouring stones (Fig. 353).^ It seems to be a priest standing before an altar ; he holds up a primitive lituus or staff, surmounted by a ball or globe, out of which issue twin horns. The position of the arms, the short tunic, and round cap recall Pterian figures, albeit the resemblance is not so striking as at Ghiaour-Kalessi. The most curious point about this image is the staff, which is quite unique of its kind, since, so far as we know, not one has been met with of precisely the same pattern, either in Cappadocia or ^ This figure has been described by Mr. Ramsay, in iQ Journal of Hellenic Studies, torn, iii., in a paper entitled, "The Rock Necropolis of Phrygia," pp. 9, 10, Plate XXI. B.