Fig. 164.—Rock sculpture at Ibriz (from Wright, Empire of the Hittites).
The ruins of Eflatoun, in Lycaonia, scarcely consist of anything more at the present day than the façade of a ruined edifice; it is adorned with a bas-relief in which the winged solar disk is to be distinguished, the symbol of the deity in Egypt and in Assyria; below are two other smaller disks; then come two rows of figures with their arms raised above their head, as if to support an entablature.
Fig. 165.—Rock sculpture at Nymphio (Revue arch., t. xiii, 1866).
Hittite monuments grow more rare as we leave Cilicia, Lycaonia, Cappadocia and Phrygia to penetrate into more western regions. However, fresh monuments are met with every day in Lydia and even on the coast of Ionia, accompanied by hieroglyphs which do not allow us to doubt of the origin of the people who carved them on the rocks. Herodotus attributed to Sesostris two Hittite bas-reliefs, near Smyrna, which are to be seen at the present day. One, at the village of Nymphio, on the side of a rock which overhangs a branch of the river Hermus, rises at least 162 ft. above the ravine. In a niche, 8 ft. high, a warrior is seen wearing the conical tiara and clothed in a short tunic; he carries a lance and a bow; he is shod with the pointed boots. The second monument alluded to by Herodotus has been lately discovered by M. Humann; it is less well preserved, and represents an almost exactly similar warrior.[75] Besides traces of Hittite inscriptions, the style of these rock sculptures, the costume and attitude of the figures connect them inevitably with the bas-reliefs of Cilicia, Lycaonia, Cappadocia and Syria; there is the same indistinct outline and the same lack of modelling. Wherever the Hittite people went, they remained feeble imitators; the works of art which they have left us can be referred to two or three types, copied from Assyrian and sometimes from Egyptian sculpture, but always much inferior to the model.
Less mediocre is the manufacture of models in serpentine which have come down to us, and which were employed by Hittite or Lydo-Phrygian goldsmiths in making metal ornaments or talismanic figures. The two most curious of these matrices are that which is preserved in the Cabinet de Médailles under the name of Baphomet, and another, found a few years ago near Thyatira in Mæonia.[76] The latter, which is 3½ in. high by 4½ in. broad and ½ in. thick, shows us a naked woman, with her hands upon her breasts like the Babylonian Istar; next a man, perhaps Bel-Marduk, clothed in the Chaldæan robe with a series of fringes one above the other. Farther on there is a lion with a ring, intended to hang the ornament when it came out of the mould; a sort of altar; and, finally, the planetary symbols found on a large number of Assyrian monuments.
In the glyptic art, Hittite engravers surpassed themselves, and showed themselves worthy of their Ninevite masters. Far be it from us to treat with disdain the seal-impressions on terra-cotta, the seals of precious stone and the cylinders, the inscriptions and figures upon which have only recently attracted the attention of archæologists. The silver seal, now lost, of the king Tarkudimme, bears a bilingual inscription in Hittite hieroglyphs and in Assyrian cuneiform. A cylinder at the Louvre, found at Aïdin, in Lydia, shows a scene of presentation to a deity (fig. 167). Three figures walk in the same direction, with their hand upon their mouth, carrying the curved sceptre which we noticed in the rock sculptures of Iasili-Kaïa; a large table, supported by two lions, is laden with offerings. Then comes an Assyrian genius with two faces, a deity sitting upon a throne, and some secondary figures. M. Heuzey[77] has observed that though the subject is almost entirely Assyrian, there is, nevertheless, a national element in it; this is the decorative part of the cylinder. The ornamental design occupies, indeed, a considerable place on the surface; it is composed of a double border of interlacing lines and symmetrical scrolls, which are never met with except in monuments of the Hittite glyptic art.