Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/58

 42 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud^a. cities, being placed on the high-road of the invader, were oftener pillaged and destroyed than those of northern Syria, less open to aggressions from sea pirates. Then, too, the material used for building was the calcareous stone of the country, which, lacking the hardness of basalt found in the valley of the Orontes, when exposed to the disintegrating action of the elements, is apt to crumble away ; thus inscriptions or bas-reliefs worked on its surface were obliterated. If we except coins, which, being of metal, are not open to this objection, and the lintel of a door, which seems to have preserved some Hittite characters, the only old monument is an enormous ruin, near Tarsus, now called Deunuk-tach ; all the other remains, whether architectural or sculptured, date from the Roman occupation. Hence Cilicia, although for ages among the petty kingdoms of the Hittite confederacy, has preserved no monuments of this early period. Our only chance of finding specimens of Hittite art is in the volcanic region of northern Syria, notably the Naharaim, including Comagena and its capital Samosata.^ Here a stela was discovered bearing the distinctive impress of Hittite civilization. It represents a female figure, now almost disappeared, save a bit of her long garment and feet shod with boots which have the ends turned up, with Hittite characters on the edge of the slab.^ Other stone documents have been recovered at Merash in the upper valley of the Pyramus. Owing to its position, which lies outside the main road, we do not hear of its existence until we find it on the Roman itineraries. But should a chance stone suddenly turn up with its old Hittite name, there would be no difficulty in identifying it among the fortresses figured on Assyrian and Egyp- tian inscriptions that were captured after the battles fought at Kadesh and Carchemish. The only remains that have been found are rudely sculptured lions, which probably belong to the Hittite era — at any rate they are inscribed all over with characters ^ The birthplace of Lucian. — Editor. ^ I am indebted to Dr. Otto Puchstein for a drawing of this stela, the result of whose exploration in Asia Minor and Northern Syria first appeared in the Sitzungsberichte of the Berlin University, for 1882, p. 845, under the title, " Bericht iiber eine Reise in Kurdistan." A more detailed account was published in 1887, by Dietrich Reimer of Berlin, in i vol. in 8°, with atlas illustrative of the more valuable and best-preserved monuments. The work is divided into two parts. In the first, Herr Humann relates a journey undertaken to Angora for the purpose of taking casts of the "Index rerum gestarum divi Augusti," reproduced in the atlas.