Page:The Hittites - the Story of a Forgotten Empire.djvu/87

Rh with red. It is an interesting fact that the memory of their relationship to the population on the Syrian side of the Taurus should have been preserved so long among these Hittites of Kappadokia.

Boghaz Keui and Eyuk are situated in the district known as Pteria to the Greeks. At Eyuk there are remains of a vast palace, which stood on an artificial platform of earth, like the palaces of Assyria and Babylon. The walls of the palace, formed of huge blocks of cut stone, can still be traced in many places. It was approached by an avenue of sculptured slabs, on which lions were represented, some of them in the act of devouring a ram. The head and attitude of one that is preserved remind us of the avenue of ram-headed sphinxes which led to the temple of Karnak at Thebes. The entrance of the palace was flanked on either side by two enormous monoliths of granite, on the external faces of which were carved in relief the images of a sphinx. But though the artist had clearly gone to Egypt for his model, it is also clear that he had modified the forms he imitated in accordance with national ideas. The head-dress, like the feet, of the sphinxes is non-Egyptian, the necklace passes under the chin instead of falling across the breast, and the sphinx itself is erect, not recumbent, as in Egypt. On the right hand the same block of stone which bears the figure of the sphinx bears also, on the inner side, the figure of a double-headed eagle, with an animal which Professor Perrot believes to be a hare in either talon, and a man standing upon its twofold head. The same double-headed eagle, supporting the figure of a man or a god, is met with at Boghaz Keui, and must be regarded as one of the peculiarities of Hittite