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Some Phrygian Monuments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

W. M. Ramsay
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Extract

Of the five Phrygian monuments now published from the drawings of Mr. A. C. Blunt, No. 4 on Pl. XXVIII, may be assigned to an early period of Phrygian history. It has been already published by Steuart, Anc. Monum.; but like all his drawings, this is very incorrect and gives an inaccurate idea of the original. The monument is at Yapuldak (see the map in last number of this Journal). There was at this place a town or fortification of some kind on the top of a hill, which rises about 200 feet above the plain. The western side of the hill is a precipice of rock, and on all other sides it is very steep. On the western side an underground staircase cut in the rock leads down to the plain: a similar one at Pishmish Kalessi has already been mentioned above, p. 6. Near this staircase there is a doorway leading into a small rock-chamber, from which another door in the opposite wall leads into a second chamber, larger than the first. At the back of the second chamber a door admits into a third chamber, and in the back of this third chamber there is a door or window which looks out over the precipice to the west. One can step out through this window and stand on a ledge about eighteen inches wide; and this is the only way to get a near view of the carved front which is now given according to Mr. Blunt's drawing and measurements. The architectural work round the door shows the love of ornament characteristic of both Phrygian and Mycenaean art. It does not consist of curved mouldings: the section shows only straight lines. There is a high pediment over the window, the centre of which is occupied by a peculiarly shaped obelisk. This pediment is very like one over the door of a tomb in the side of Pishmish Kalessi, engraved by Perrot, Voy. Archéol. p. 146; but is much more elaborate. On the two sides of the obelisk, arranged in the usual symmetrical fashion, are two animals, on the right side certainly a bull, on the left side probably a horse. The horse is frequently represented on the outside of Phrygian tombs, but I do not know any other case where the bull appears on them.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 3 , November 1882 , pp. 256 - 263
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1882

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References

page 256 note 1 Steuart deserves credit as the discoverer of many of the Phrygian monuments, and for his good copies of several inscriptions. He was however no draughtsman, and his drawings have apparently been worked up at home.

page 257 note 1 Perrot considers the obelisk to be a phallus, a rude symbol of immortality: the dead man is a god, worshipped by his descendants, and his death is the birth into a new form of life.

page 257 note 2 Of course not necessarily later in date, though more advanced in art.

page 257 note 3 Curt, . Wappengebr. u. Wappenstil, p. 111Google Scholar.

page 258 note 1 Three of the same kind were found. Small shrines, in terracotta or metal, were common in Asia Minor. See Curtius, in Mittheil. Inst. Ath. 1877, p. 48Google Scholar; Acts Apost. xix. 24.

page 258 note 2 Dr. Milchhöfer has traced in the objects found at Mycenae three different elements: ‘ein orientalisch-semitisch, durch die Phoenicier vermittelt; einen bildlosen, hoch entwickelten decorativen Metallstil, als dessen Heimath Kleinasien, als dessen Urheber die arische Grundbevölkerung der Halbinsel, die Phryger, anzusehen sind; endlich eine einheimische nationale Kunst, am reinsten in geschnittenen Steinen, mit phrygischem vermischt in gravirtem Goldschmuck und Erabreliefs vertreten’ (Arch. Ztg. 1882, p. 82.)

page 258 note 3 Especially the Dionysiac worship and the Orphic mysteries.

page 259 note 1 Iliad iii. 185.

page 259 note 2 Hymn Aphrod. 111, ff.

page 260 note 1 Paus. v. 12, 4.

page 260 note 2 The shading on the sketch, Pl. XXIX., is too dark, and might convey the impression that there is an entrance to a deep hole in the middle of the sculptured front. It is merely that the ornamentation has been broken away in this part. The grave is a sort of well behind the carved front, accessible only from above.

page 260 note 3 Just as the Armenian merchants brought the products of Babylonia and India by the later route over Comana and Amisus to sell to the traders of the coast; Strab. p. 559, Huellmann, , Handelsgesch. d. Gr. p. 242Google Scholar.

page 260 note 4 Strab. xii. p. 546.

page 260 note 5 Strab. xii. p. 540.

page 260 note 6 Strab. xii. p. 546.

page 260 note 7 I find no direct proof in Greek literature that oriental carpets were made in Phrygia: but both embroidering in gold and carpet-making are still characteristic of the Phrygian country. Phrygio is the later Latin term for a gold embroiderer. The common epithets for carpets are Μηδικά (Ar. Ran. 937, Vesp. 1143), Пερσικά (Athen, v. 197 B., Herod. ix. 80); and I believe that these carpets came at an early period by Sinope, as they came afterwards by Comana and Amisus.

page 261 note 1 Philostr, . Vit. Apoll. viii. 7, 12Google Scholar.

page 261 note 2 See p. 50 of this Journal and Gelzer on ‘Gyges’ in Rhein. Mus. xxx.

page 261 note 3 See ‘Phrygia and Cappadocia’ in Journ. Roy. As. Soc. for Jan. 1883.

page 261 note 4 It is used in the Lycian alphabet with the same value as in Phrygia, v.l.c.

page 261 note 5 The date is determined with approximate accuracy by the evidence of the Assyrian Inscriptions.

page 263 note 1 No. 2, Pl. XXVII. gives a sketch of an interesting tomb of this period: it is now very much decayed, but enough remained to enable Mr. Blunt to restore it with perfect certainty. Space however forbids us to give the details.

page 263 note 2 Or Graeco-Roman.