Page:The Hittites - the Story of a Forgotten Empire.djvu/76

74 Northern Syria and Kappadokia to the western extremity of the peninsula. They follow the two highways which once led out of Asia to Sardes and the shores of the Ægean. In the south they form as it were a series of stations at Ibreez and Bulgar Maden in Lykaonia, at Fassiler and Tyriaion between Ikonion and the Lake of Beyshehr, and finally in the Pass of Karabel. Northwards the line runs through the Taurus by Merash, and carries us first to the defile of Ghurun, and then to the great Kappadokian ruins of Boghaz Keui and Eyuk, from whence we pass by Ghiaur-kalessi and the burial-place of the old Phrygian kings, until we again reach the Lydian capital and the Pass of Karabel.

Westward of the Halys and Kappadokia they are marked by certain peculiarities. They are found either in the vicinity of silver mines, like those of Lykaonia, or else on the line of the ancient roads, which finally converged in Lydia. None have been discovered in the central plateau of Asia Minor, in the mountains of Lykia in the south, or the wide-reaching coast-lands of the north. They mark the sites of small colonies, or else the lines of road that connected them. Moreover, with the exception of the image of the goddess who sits on her throne in Mount Sipylos, the western monuments represent the figures of warriors who are in the act of marching forward. This is the case at Karabel; it is also the case at Ghiaur-kalessi, where the rock on which the two Hittite warriors are carved lies close below the remains of a pre-historic fortress.

Such facts admit of only one explanation. The Hittite monuments of Western Asia Minor must be memorials of military conquest and supremacy. In the warriors whose figures stood on either side of the Pass