The land of the Hittites

by John Garstang

The first object of this list, the inscribed lion, is well known, and has several times been published in illustration. We reproduce a photograph of its profile,[228] which is the most typical and interesting point of view. Its architectural nature is evident, and is entirely accordant with that of the lions found in situ at Sakje-Geuzi.[229] It must have stood at the left hand as the decorative corner-stone of a palatial portico, with its fellow lion in the corner opposite. The place on the back prepared for the reception of an upper course of masonry may be seen, and the relative alignment of both walls may be inferred. The forequarters and head of the lion stood out from the wall, and these are sculptured in the round; the rest of the body is in relief. The treatment obeys the now familiar canon, though not carried out in detail: the ruffle of the neck and hairy belly are suggested; the tail curls under, and is seen between the two hindlegs. Only one foreleg is seen in profile, in contradistinction to the familiar Assyrian representations. In this case, however, detail of execution is sacrificed to the long inscription, which uniquely covers the body and even the legs of the animal as well as the spaces between them. The hieroglyphs are deliberate and well cut; the basaltic nature of the rock probably accounts for their superficial roughness, especially in view of the great number of signs carved on a really small surface; for the object is much less than life-size, being only 17 inches high, 35 inches long, and just over 10 inches thick.[230] From the rendering of the inscription by Professor Sayce,[231] it would appear to have been carved by the Hittite king of the district, who united the priestly dignities with his office, as we should expect from the accounts of Strabo in parallel cases.[232] There are several striking points developed by this translation, which though unconfirmed commands our interest and respect. The king claims for himself amongst other attributes to be ‘the dirk-bearer[233] powerful,’ ‘citizen of Merash,’ ‘priest of Merash,’ ‘royal lord of these lands, king of the lands of the god,’ ‘who provides food for the sanctuary,’ ‘of the men of the corn land the chief,’ ‘seated on the throne of Kas.’ He also claims to ‘have nourished the sanctuary of the Hittite ... the god’s high place,’ and to ‘have made a high place for the dancers’ for the celebration of religious rites. The Assyrian name of Marash was Markhasi, which seems to take the form Ma(a)rghasi in the Hittite. There is a clear suggestion of a theocratic ideal in state affairs, beginning with the high priesthood of the sovereign, and borne further by naming the subjects of the Marash king ‘children of the gods,’ for which there is analogy in the Vannic inscriptions. Sandes seems to be chief god.

PLATE XLII

MARASH: ARCHITECTURAL LION CORNER-STONE INSCRIBED WITH HITTITE HIEROGLYPHS IN RELIEF

The stone sculptured with the representation of a Ceremonial Feast is reported to have been found, together with ‘lance heads and potsherds,’ in a vineyard of Marash.[234] This is another of that class of monument of which we noted the wide distribution and varying features in connection with that found at Kara-burshlu. In this case both figures are seated. They are presumably but not necessarily female. They are clad in long robes; details of the bust are not visible, and it is only the relative smallness of the feet and hands, and certain fulness in the treatment of the bodies, that offer a suggestion of their sex. They are seated on high square chairs with backs that curl away at the top, and their feet rest upon low square footstools. A table between them has straight legs, of which only two are shown, ornamented in some way at the feet. On the table are three round bread-cakes and a cup. The figures are vis-à-vis: each one stretches out the further hand, the left one holding a cup, the other a round mirror of familiar Egyptian shape. Their other hands are drawn back and only just protrude from their cloaks; each seems to hold the same sort of object, ‘perhaps a vase or pomegranate.’[235] The garment is curious, being continuous over the head-dress, and descending to the ankles, with a fringe or border all along the edge and round the bottom. There is a waistband to each figure, which is seemingly composed of separate strands, but it is difficult to understand its attachment.[236] The head-dress is singular, being cylindrical in shape, recalling most nearly that of the Turkoman women.[237] The faces of the persons are ill-drawn and unnatural, but prominence is given to the straightness of nose in line with the receding forehead[238] and to the fulness of the lips. Above and between the heads there are traces of a considerable inscription in relief, of which the signs towards the sides can be made out with some certainty; but the middle portion is too worn to enable one to study the sequence of the characters, or even to decide whether they form two groups, one referring to each person. The whereabouts of this stone is uncertain, but casts are in the Berlin Museum. Its height is 49 inches and width 35 inches; it is just over 15 inches thick. The material is basaltic stone or dolerite.

The portion of a statue from Marash[239] is of importance as numbering, together with a large hand from the same place and the broken figure from Kurts-oghlu, among the very few recorded Hittite sculptures in the round. Unfortunately this one is too broken and too small to tell us much in detail of this feature of Hittite art. With the exception of the right shoulder, however, the whole body is preserved, and only the head and feet are lacking; but the style of the object is formal, and in place of artistic detail there are merely four or five irregular bands of inscription in relief, with other signs upon the preserved shoulder. The right hand remains, but it is worn and lacks detail; in the left there seems to be held a sort of loop with pendent tassel. The material of the statuette is basalt. The height preserved is under 9 inches, its width 6 inches. This torso seems to have belonged to a figure quite distinct from another of similar material which seems to have come from the same vicinity.[240] Of this only two broad bands of the inscription remain, but they seem to mark the beginning of a long inscription; the symbols are boldly cut in relief, and are similar in every way to those of Jerabis. The fragment is rounded and apparently formed part of a hollow figure: it was copied by the discoverers amid much difficulty and subsequently disappeared. The existence of a third statue at Marash, but in this case of gigantic size, is indicated by a large hand, fully twice life-size, and carved in the round.[241] It is, of course, impossible to say from this fragment whether it is really of Hittite origin.

Another important monument of Marash has the appearance of a royal stela with a long inscription accompanied by an image of the king. This belongs to a class of monument of which we shall find further examples at Carchemish and in the neighbourhood of Tyana. In this case the figure occupies the central part of the stone, reaching almost to its full length; and the inscription is incised in six rows across the whole, the face and feet and forearms of the man alone excepted. The face of the kingly personage is turned to his right, and the whole figure is in profile with the exception of the shoulders, which are square to the observer—in conformity with the common Oriental principles of drawing. The right hand holds a staff which touches the ground in front of the right foot, and rises vertically as high as the shoulders; both elbows are bent at right angles, the left fist being closed and shown about the middle of the body. The robe is a single garment reaching to the ankles, the bottom being fringed or bordered. The toes of the boots are upturned, and, being represented clumsily, look like sabots. The face of the man is too worn to show much character; there is a long curled beard, a band around the forehead, and the hair or wig ends in a prominent curled bunch behind the neck. This stone seems to have been found outside Marash in a burying-place on the road to Adana.[242] Its height is nearly 3 feet 8 inches, and its breadth just over 1 foot 10 inches.[243]

This monument must yield place to another, which is of unique character and interest, more recently discovered[244] on the citadel. This is a block of granite more nearly cubical in shape, but with the top and bottom broken away, so that its original height remains problematical. The preserved portion measures about 2 feet 3 inches in height, and the combined length of three sides, which are approximately equal, is about 5 feet 2 inches. On three sides the inscription is continuous; the hieroglyphs are in relief and are arranged in five bands, of which four are seemingly complete. A sixth band at the bottom is partly traceable, and there may have been others below; at the top, however, the limit is clearly marked, so that the beginning of the inscription is preserved. The opening groups of signs resemble closely those on the lion previously described, though variations of single signs are noticeable, and may possibly supply philologists with alternative readings. It is not, however, the inscription, though unusually legible and complete, that attracts our interest, so much as the sculptures and composition of the whole. The inscription is preceded by a king-like figure in relief, who occupies the right-hand portion of the side on which he is carved and faces away from the inscription, to the right, looking that is to the corner. The inscription follows: the height of the figure is equal to four bands of the hieroglyphs, and the lower bands project under his feet. The second side is entirely filled with the continuation of the inscription, which comes to an end at the left hand of the third side (which is opposite the figure) with the upper part of the picture of a dagger and part of an attachment for it. On the fourth side there is no inscription; the corners are cut away, but there is seen in the middle a sort of tassel, on a large scale accordant with that of the dagger-hilt. It must be noted that the king is turned towards this object in the extended drawing: he is portrayed much as on the stela described above, but the drawing is not good or well preserved. He wears a long robe bound around the waist; the short sleeves are ornamented at the ends, whether with a plain band or otherwise; and the bottom of the plain skirt, which reaches to the ankles, is also fringed or bordered in some way. The toes are shown upturned. The head-dress seems to be a close-fitting skull-cap, behind which the hair descends in the familiar bunching curl. The beard hangs in curls. The face is crudely represented, the mouth being no longer distinguishable. The left hand, which is very disproportioned, is held up before the face with fingers towards the mouth, in the position which in the hieroglyphs is read to indicate the beginning of a personal declaration. The right hand is drawn up breast high, but no staff is shown, possibly because it would have traversed the body.

This stone is thought by Dr. Messerschmidt, who has studied it closely,[245] to have been re-dressed and re-used in Hittite times; he thinks that a large god-figure, wearing a dagger suspended from the shoulder, must have been originally the chief subject of the sculpture; and that this was partly effaced in Hittite times by the king, who had the stone re-dressed and his own figure carved thereon. The inscription he regards as pertaining to the larger figure; and he looks upon the mutilation of the figure of a god as the sign of a period of decline and degradation.

This monument is unique in character, and every respect must be paid to the conclusions of one who, being familiar with Hittite works, has studied this one carefully. Having only the photograph and drawings which he published as guide, we naturally hesitate to put forward any alternative view; yet it must be said that there are several fundamental objections to the explanation which has been offered. The most obvious and irremovable is that there is direct evidence on the face of the stone that the carving is all contemporary; for it is all in relief, and in accordance with precedent the background not sculptured must have been cut away, so that it would have been impossible subsequently to carve thereon a figure with the same relief as the rest. Added to this, it is clear that the inscription is arranged with due regard to the small figure, not the reverse. Also the ends of the inscribed bands are coterminous with the dagger, stamping the whole composition as contemporary. It must next be noted that no trace of a great figure is to be seen, nor can its form be conjectured, seeing that the dagger hangs on one side and the tassel on the next, unless indeed the stone formed the lower portion of a somewhat angular statue,[246] about four times its present height. A figure in relief would have occupied part of two sides of the stone including the corner—an unprecedented complication in Hittite sculpture. The analogy quoted by Dr. Messerschmidt of the god-figure discovered in the last excavations at Sinjerli breaks down at this point. That object was carved in the round, representing a deity standing in Hittite fashion upon a base composed of two standing lions, as on the monuments of Carchemish and Boghaz-Keui. He wears a dagger stuck into a belt, and with the trappings there is a large tassel of the kind seen on the fourth side in this instance. From these details Dr. Messerschmidt thinks that the Marash monument only differed in that the dagger must have been worn suspended from the shoulder, on account of the pendent position of the belt. On all analogy, however, the priest-king in this case must be facing the deity he is worshipping. If then no other form of deity can be suggested, we must take the only evidence before us as to its nature, which would lead us to infer that it is here represented by the dagger and tassel. We venture no hypothesis in explanation; the Sacred Dirk[247] as a cult object is known in Hittite symbolism and familiar in the hieroglyphs; and it would be equally accordant with precedent to imagine that the dirk was really emblematic of the deity with whom it was usually associated. Alternatively the object of worship may have been a great divine statue upon the skirt of which these representations were carved.