Page:The Hittites - the Story of a Forgotten Empire.djvu/121

Rh and a seated deity, above whose hand is a bird. The two groups are separated by the picture of a boot—the symbol, it may be, of the earth—which rests, like the winged solar disk, on the symbol of royalty. The smaller seal has a different inscription in the centre, encircled by two rings, one containing a row of ornaments, and the other the same figures as those engraved on the larger seal, excepting only that the arrangement of the figures has been changed, and a tree introduced among them. What is curious, however, is that a gem has been found at Aidin, far away towards the western extremity of Asia Minor, containing a central inscription almost identical with that of the smaller Yuzghât seal, though the figures which surround it are not the same.

These circular seals must be regarded not only as characteristic of Hittite art, but also as a product of Hittite invention. We meet with nothing resembling them in Babylonia or Assyria.

The gems can be traced across the Ægean to the shores of Greece. Among the objects discovered by Dr. Schliemann at Mykenæ were two rings of gold, on the chatons of which designs are engraved in what we may now recognise as the Hittite style of art. On one of them are two rows of animals' heads; on the other an elaborate picture, which reminds us of the elaborate designs on the gems of Asia Minor. It represents a woman under a tree, facing two other persons, who wear the upturned boots and flounced dress that we find in Hittite sculptures, while the background is filled in with the heads of animals.

These gems are not the only indication the ruins of Mykenæ have afforded that Hittite influence was