Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/66

44 about to deal a blow with her battle-axe. (Plate I.) To my surprise, I recognized this as a fragment from the frieze of the Mausoleum, twelve slabs of which were removed from the castle at Budrum by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, in 1846, and are now in the British Museum. I could get no information as to how this fragment found its way into the Museum in Constantinople. The figure is, I think, finer than any on the slabs in the British Museum, and the surface less defaced than most of them.

I also noticed here the head of a serpent in bronze, said to have been broken off from the cele- brated triple serpent of the Hippodrome. It is rather coarsely executed and deficient in style; the eyes, of which only the sockets remain, have been inlaid in silver or precious stones. There is also a curious plate, with silver figures raised in relief, representing Diana seated, holding in her left hand her bow, and wearing a mantle ornamented with stars: horns rise straight from the top of her head. Below are two grotesque figures, holding, one, a lion, the other a tiger in a leash: both these figures have horns. On each side of Diana is a dog, and above her, on the right, a turkey, and on the left a parrot. This is of the late Roman period.

The few fragments of sculpture which have been found in Constantinople itself of late years, seem to be all Byzantine, and of little interest as works of art, though they are curious for details of costume. A sepulchral relief of this class in white marble may be seen lying in the garden of the British Embassy, in digging the foundations of which it was discovered. I