Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/77

 Sculpture. 6i properly so-called, are plentiful, making it all the more singular that up to the present time not a single rock-cut exemplar has been reported, whether at the entrance of a pass, or on those volcanic cones that rise in countless numbers from the ground between Mount Amanus and the Kurdagh. All those that are known were carved on slabs, mostly basalt, as at Hamath. Of these tablets, some are rectangular, and others irregularly cut ; the former were evidently intended as lining to walls ; whilst it is equally clear that the latter, narrowing towards the base, were fixed in the ground of a cemetery or other sacred enclosure. Such would be the stela at Samosata, where the stone was thinned out below the rough plinth, upon which rest the feet of the figure, to facilitate its entering the ground. There is no lack of diversity in the themes treated by this art ; national deities, as a matter of course, holding the first place : such would be the bearded winged personage on the sculptured slab at Gargamish, standing on the back of a crouching lion, with tiara and long robe drawn in at the waist (Fig. 276). Next comes a figure with precisely the same costume, but without wings, a sufficient indication that he belongs to the sublunary world— a king or priest — and holds in his left hand a sacred object he is about to offer; but the con- dition of the carving does not allow us to make out what. From the same place is another sculpture, unfortu- nately much worn. It repre- sents a god, or genie, with four wings ; one set raised and the other inclined to the ground. In his hand is carried a vase, or basket, akin to those on Nincvite monuments. But for the Hittite characters at the side and the square bor- der of his robe, always rounded at Calach and Nineveh, wc might almost imagine that we had before us an Assyrian bas-relief. The figure on the next stela, Fio. 277. — Carving at Carchemish. Basalt, lieight, 76 c. British Museum.