The outer wall was not the only defensive work which the advantages of the site afforded. Across the enclosure are a series of prominent crags overlooking the lower ground to the north, and marking by their alignment the edge of the acropolis which gives access to them.[483] One may be tempted to presuppose, as indeed we have already suggested, that these indicate a line of earlier defences and the natural limits of an earlier city situated entirely upon the hill. They were crowned with rectangular forts, built of square blocks of masonry arranged in courses, and constituted in any case a formidable second line of defence against attack from below. That which is called Yenije Kaleh is illustrated by our photograph:[484] its position is not naturally so strong, however, as that of the middle of the three forts of this series, which presents a precipitous face to the northern side. The largest of these knolls—hence called Beuyuk Kaleh—is to the east, and overlooks the gorge of the river on that side.[485] To the north, however, where the slope descends to the lower part of the enclosure on which lie the famous palace ruins, it is less abrupt, and it has been fronted accordingly with a stout buttressed wall, built of large stones roughly pentagonal or squared, the lowest courses of which are from two to three feet in height.
Hereabouts, in the dip between the two forts last described, is the weathered rock inscription known as Nishan Tash.[486] Descending thence to the lower ground, following the course of the stream which flows through the middle of the enclosure, two further rocks arrest attention by the fact that they have been worked by hand. The first of these is called the Maiden’s Rock, and has given its Turkish name of Kizlar Kaya to the stream which passes just below it. Though of considerable dimensions, this rock, besides being dressed around the sides and worked down squarely in two places in the body, has been cleanly cut across the top with the exception of a small table-like protuberance remaining towards one end. The other, which lies still further down and nearer to the Lower Palace, has been cleft in two, to form as it were a passage through it from side to side. It would be unsafe without evidence to suggest any definite use for these rocks in ancient times, and it is possible that their peculiarities may have resulted only from the quarrying of the stone blocks used for the Lower Palace or other buildings of the site.
PLATE LXI
BOGHAZ-KEUI: THE FORTRESS CALLED YENIJE-KALEH (See [p. 205].)
BOGHAZ-KEUI: REMAINS OF THE LOWER PALACE
We use the term Lower Palace to designate the foundations made famous by the visit of Texier,[487] and the later descriptions of Professor Perrot,[488] in distinction to those more recently discovered by Dr. Winckler on the Upper Acropolis, where the ruins of four such buildings were found, of which three were probably palaces and the fourth a temple.[489] The lower courses of the first-mentioned palace, however, are visible above the ground, so that its plan may be readily traced out; and whether to be identified as palace or as a temple, it presents an interesting study, and a peculiar link between the architecture of the East and West.[490] As may be seen in our photograph,[491] that which remains of it is built in large single blocks of stone about four feet in thickness and averaging twice that measure in length. Its form is rectangular, with a length just over two hundred and ten feet down the main axis, and a width of one hundred and twenty-eight feet. Its chief entrance is in the middle of the southern side, and, passing small guard-rooms on either hand, it leads into a large central court, around which are chambers, a double series at the ends and a single series at the sides. To the north and to the west a passage or corridor intervenes between the court and the rooms: that on the north seems to have been entered by an opening opposite the main entrance, and one chamber (across the passage and to the left) is filled by a large tank or bath of stone. These portions of the building may be judged to have been residential, while the front and east wings were devoted to offices of the palace. There are few further features of the interior obvious to the eye except the size and arrangement of the rooms, on which we do not need to dwell. The central court is paved with rough stones[492] at a depth of three feet below the present surface, a depth which probably accords with the foundations of the walls and with the ancient level.
The sloping ground to the north was prepared for this building by a stone revetment mounting in steps; and special precautions were taken against slipping in the bonding of the masonry on that side. Not only are the stones of the upper courses shaped to fit into one another in a scheme of ‘joggles,’ resembling ‘tongues and grooves,’ to borrow a term better known, but the lower course is provided with a ridge rising along its front edges, which further prevented any general movement of the whole in that direction. As for the upper part of this structure, it is for the excavators to decide whether it was carried up in masonry, of which there remains no visible trace, or whether it was of wood and brick, as in the Hittite palaces across the Taurus. The level nature of the preserved masonry, and certain features pointed out by Perrot,[493] suggest that the latter method was employed here also, as is indeed supported by observations made by Dr. Curtius in one of the upper buildings recently discovered in the acropolis.[494]
To judge by the foundations disclosed at a greater depth by Dr. Winckler’s expedition, the palace which we have just described seems to mark the site of an earlier and somewhat similar building, in the ruins of which were found numerous precious tablets inscribed in the cuneiform script. These are long-lost pages in the history of monarchs, of empires and principalities in Western Asia, and as such their relevance lies with a later chapter of our work. That which is important for the moment is the fundamental date they give, overlapping in part the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties of Egypt, and coming to an end shortly after the reign of Rameses II. in the thirteenth century B.C.
PLATE LXII