The land of the Hittites

by John Garstang

The other stones from Malatia[297] are four in number, each decorated on one face. Unfortunately no information is forthcoming in regard to them except the published photographs, which again are not satisfactory. The subjects carved upon the stones are of striking interest. In the first of the series a deity, wearing a conical head-dress decorated with rings,[298] stands upon the back of a horned bull.[299] His left leg is forward (as he faces to the right), and on his feet are tip-tilted shoes. In his right hand, which is drawn back, there is a triangular bow,[300] and in his outstretched left hand he seems to hold up a forked emblem, like the lightning trident,[301] and to grasp at the same time a cord which is attached to the nose of the bull. His dress is a short bordered tunic. Facing him is a long-robed personage, in whom we recognise the king-priest, distinguished by his close-fitting cap and the characteristic large curl of hair behind the neck. In his left hand he holds a reversed lituus; his right is partly extended and seems to be pouring out some fluid which falls in a wavy stream. He is followed by a small person who leads up (with some difficulty it would seem) a goat clearly intended for an offering. Some hieroglyphs complete the picture. It is instructive to compare the whole theme with that which decorated the left hand of the façade to the palace at Eyuk,[302] especially as the blocks of stone seem to be in this instance also cubical building stones. The second sculpture of this series shows a different deity, who is winged,[303] though wearing the same conical hat with rings and upturning peak. His dress is curious; the lower part seems like a many-pleated continuous flowing garment which winds around his body and one leg, and passes behind the other leg. His two hands are held near his body, and in the left he grasps some object which is obscured, but may be seen to have reached to the left shoulder. He is approached by the queen-priestess, who is recognised (as in former cases) by the low cylindrical hat and the long cloak or veil descending therefrom behind the shoulders to the ground. Her left hand is raised as in reverence, and her right one, extended but low, seems to hold a narrow jug, with side handle and long neck, from which she is clearly pouring an oblation into a two-handled vase which seems to rest on the ground before the feet of the god.[304] Behind her there follows a small attendant leading an animal which may be presumed to be a goat as in the previous case. The few hieroglyphs accompanying these figures are illegible. The third block of the series seems to have been decorated with a row of male figures, unaccompanied by any hieroglyphs. Two of these remain. Each is clad in a short bordered tunic reaching to the knees, a conical helmet with rings between the ribs, and shoes with turned-up toes. The second man, who brings the series to an end, is bearded; his nose is mongoloid rather than aquiline or semitic, and he wears a conspicuous curling pigtail. In his advanced left hand he holds in a vertical position a long spear (or similar object), the shaft of which rests on the ground. In his right hand, which is held to his side, he clasps the handle of a mace, the head of which is made up of a ring-like device similar to that seen in the helmets. At his waistbelt there hangs a dagger with curling blade and crescental handle. The man whom he follows seems to be beardless, and he wears a short mantle, one end of which is thrown loosely over the right shoulder. His knife is like his neighbour’s; but an object with long shaft that he carried obliquely, grasped in both hands, is difficult to recognise; from the upper end there seems to hang a short tassel or object attached by a cord. Both figures face to the right, and in obedience to convention, their faces and bodies are in profile, the shoulders in full view, while the left foot and left arm are advanced. The last of this series is fragmentary, and seems to be the decorated upper border of a larger subject. In what remains it is possible to see hypothetically a pair of hands held aloft amid flames. Over all is the pattern of a twisted coil of rope.

Looking back for a moment at the nature of these sculptured monuments, we may with some certainty attribute them to two different building periods. The earliest are those four just described, which, from the point of view of construction and of symbolism, resemble, as we have seen, the palace works and sculptures of Eyuk.[305] The other sculptured slabs, which we described first, correspond more nearly from both points of view with the remains of Sinjerli and Sakje-Geuzi,[306] which we shall find reason to believe in later chapters belong probably to a later phase than the foregoing. The one group may be dated in general terms to the later half of the second millennium B.C., and the other to the early centuries of the first.

Passing up the valley of the Tochma Su, a small group of monuments is met with just after passing Derendeh. There was a rumour, when the English explorers, Hogarth and Munro, passed that way in 1891,[307] of a sculptured lion at a place called Haüz, not far from Derendeh towards the north. But the monuments on record were found in the neighbourhood of Palanga (Chiftlik), which lies on the higher ground after leaving the gorge of the river, some three hours’ journey westward from Derendeh. Here a small lion carved in basaltic stone was seen built into the main gateway; while lying in a puddle near a well hard by, and used as a stepping-stone, was a fragment of a unique columnar figure made also of basalt. The lion was similar to those found in the neighbouring wayside cemetery, hence called Arslan Tash, which we shall presently describe; the columnar figure,[308] however, is unique and instructive. The fragment preserved is fifty-two inches high and about fifty-five inches in circumference towards the top: it swells a little lower down. It ‘represents the lower portion of a draped figure; it is a mere shapeless column without feet, but a double protuberance of the stone at the end of the first line of the inscription is evidently intended to represent the buttocks. The drapery consists of an underskirt, plain except for a short series of perpendicular pleats down the middle of the back, and an upper garment thrown round the left side, the folded edges almost meeting under the right arm.[309] This mantle or cloak reaches down below the level of the knees; its vertical edges are fringed with a border of narrow lappets or tags very similar to those represented on a terra-cotta statuette from Cyprus.’[310] The inscription on this monument extends from the front of the figure around the left side to the back, covering two-thirds of the circumference. The signs are incised, and arranged in four bands, whereof the lowest is broader but less carefully cut than the others. Mr. Hogarth, in his description, points out other interesting analogies. The columnar form, the flat treatment of the drapery, and the ribbed pleats of the underskirt, recall to him the Hera of Samos in the Louvre; while for the rendering of the zigzag folds at the edges of the cloak and the buttocks, a parallel might readily be found in early Greek art, as, for example, among the archaic statues in the Acropolis Museum at Athens. In particular, the large terra-cotta figures from Salamis present an interesting comparison as regards both form and the general disposition of the draperies.

It is difficult to point to any nearer analogies than those which Mr. Hogarth indicated at the time of his discovery. Though belonging to a different place and later period, the statue of Hadad, found near Sinjerli, seems to us to be a product of the same tradition in art.[311] There is another statue of later date from the latter place, the discovery of which was recently announced.[312] This is also of columnar form, though the bottom of the skirt and feet are shown. The arms also are in relief, while the head and face, the latter wofully ill-drawn, are in the round. It is a survival and development from the older motive.

PLATE XLV

PALANGA: INSCRIBED COLUMNAR STATUE

The string of monuments from Palanga to Albistan indicates a southern bifurcation of the route, linking in Hittite times with the valley of the Pyramus. The suggestion of an important Hittite road leading continuously up the valley of the Tochma Su, and so over the watershed to the Halys and possibly towards Pteria, seems to be substantiated by two further inscriptions found on the rocks at Gurun, which is some way further up the river on the edge of the divide. This place (the Gauraina of Ptolemy and Guriania of the Assyrian texts) lies in a defile on both banks of the river. Just above the village the waters race through a narrow rocky gorge, at the foot of which the two inscriptions were found.[313] The one is incised on the face of an overhanging crag, near a small spring. It fills a space about four feet wide and three feet high, and is placed about twelve feet or more above the ground. The other is somewhat higher on the declivity, and further from the stream: the hieroglyphs are larger than in the former case, and less carefully incised. The inscriptions are very weathered, so that it is hardly possible to make much of them, but they seem to be partly in duplicate. The emblems which distinguish the two chief male deities in the divine triad at Boghaz-Keui[314] may be recognised; and Professor Sayce has also detected a variant of the place-name frequently recurring on the inscriptions of Carchemish (Gar-ga-me-i-si-ya), which makes it appear that there was some political relation between the two places.

Turning from Derendeh southward up towards the divide, ‘Arslan Tash’ is reached, about three miles after passing Palanga. The place lies about one mile east of the Kurdish village of Yeni Keui. The spot is marked by a series of hummocks near a small wayside graveyard, and receives its name[315] from two great monumental lions of hard limestone,[316] one erect, and the other fallen on its left side. They form a pair each about eight feet in length, and nearly six feet in height. These monuments, though large and impressive, are of crude appearance. They recall most nearly two massive early lions found at Sinjerli,[317] but though obeying certain early canons they are less thoroughly worked, as well as more roughly drawn. Their mouths are open, but exaggerated in size. The rough of the mane is strongly but not finely marked; the legs are not at all disengaged from the stone; the forepaws are almost shapeless, but the hind ones are fully outlined, with the muscle of the thigh suggested. Only one forepaw and one hindpaw appear in the profile view (a purely Hittite convention) while the tail comes down between the legs forward, ending in a curl.[318] Mr. Hogarth thinks that as they lay when found these lions may have marked the position of the entrance to a building.