Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/251

 b HiTTiTE Monuments in Lydia. 233 right bank of the stream, and the latter on the left, 2 m. above water-level, on a calcareous boulder of rock which has fallen from the m.ountain (Fig. 363). The carved side of the stone faces east, and is parallel to the road ; the figure being in profile, looks north, i.e. towards the land he was about to invade, the marvellously- rich plains of Lydia. It would be sheer loss of time at the present day to try and demon- strate that Herodotus made a mis- take when he ascribed these two monuments to Egyptian influence. We know now that the most belli- cose and enterprising Pharaohs, contrary to the statement of the Greeks, far from penetrating into Colchis, never crossed the Taurus range, nor the Moeander and Her- mus streams. Rosellini long ago, and more recently Maspero, declared that the inscribed symbols were not Egyptian hieroglyphs; and the squeezes and. careful copies of the inscription taken by Professor Sayce have revealed the fact that the characters are precisely similar to those of the monuments in Northern Syria (Fig. 364). These signs were the name of the king or personage for whom the monument had been raised ; and although they cannot be deciphered, the sign-manual of the Hittite scribe is so clear and patent as to admit of no doubt that the symbols in question were as old as the monument itself. The close re- semblance which we find between these and the emblems of the M crash stelas, or the rock-cut sculptures of Cappadocia and Lycaonia, equally applies to the pseudo- Sesostris of Karabel, and the pictures of Boghaz-Keui and Ghiaour- Kalessi (Figs. 311, 313, 352). The only difference is in the weapons, which in the course of time would naturally be modified in some slight details, albeit the dominant lines fixed by tradition Fig. 363.— The second Bas-Relief in the Pass of Karabel, after A. H. Sayce, M.A. '^<^':^..-^ Fig. 364.— Group of Signs in first Bas-Relief of the Karabel Pass. Sayce, The Monuments,