We begin with the site of Eyuk, a village situated some twenty miles northwards from Boghaz-Keui, sufficiently near to have been closely in touch with the activities and culture-progress of the capital, albeit sufficiently far to have maintained some local peculiarities. Here the ruins which we now know to be Hittite were lighted upon by Hamilton,[579] ‘the prince of travellers,’ in 1835; subsequently they were visited by Barth[580] and Van Lennep.[581] The account of them given by the last-named, who was for thirty years a missionary in Turkey, was the first attempt to hand down a reliable and complete description, accompanied by a rough plan of a building and sketches of the sculptures which adorned its portico. Then came Professor Ramsay, in 1881, and in the record[582] of his visit to these monuments we have the first scholar’s impression of their meaning and significance. M. Perrot visited the site and incorporated his notes in his great work on Exploration Archéologique,[583] and many inquirers have followed in his wake. The Liverpool Expedition of 1907 called here and secured a complete series of photographs and a measured plan;[584] and subsequently in the same year the Ottoman Government was enabled to make some useful clearances in front of the now famous portico of sphinxes, adding considerable information, and bringing to light two interesting sculptures which had lain previously buried.[585] The accounts of these various writers, though in the main agreed as to the nature of the ruins, differ to some extent in their description of details, and very considerably in their interpretation of the meaning of the sculptures. This being so, we shall use our own notes and plans as the basis of our description, indicating so far as possible the places where we differ in our interpretation from one or other of the more recent investigators. In the plan, also, we shall omit the present position of those sculptured blocks no longer in situ, but whose original position is known, because they have been considerably moved in recent years, leading to discrepancies in successive published plans. We shall also for the same reason use letters instead of figures to denote the blocks, in order to avoid further confusion with the various classifications and enumerations that have been published.
The mound which the little hamlet of Eyuk just covers is more or less quadrangular in shape with rounding corners; its length from north to south is about 250 yards, and its width a little more. It is not prominent as one approaches from Boghaz-Keui, as it rises gently from the plain on that side, attaining its greatest height of forty to forty-five feet towards its northern limits, whence it gives way again somewhat steeply to the level ground. The background on this side is a range of low hills, from which, however, the mound is quite distinct and separated. Traces of a wall enclosing the top of the mound may be seen here and there, and would be readily followed out by excavation. Near the northern brink the masonry is visible inside a stable with a low-lying floor; in fact, the new wall has partly used the old one for a foundation. It is generally similar in construction to some of the roughly polygonal masonry seen in some interior walls at Boghaz-Keui, like that which surrounds Beuyuk Kaleh. Hereabouts also a postern-way is reported, constructed entirely like that on the south slope of the acropolis at Boghaz-Keui, roofed with corbelled masonry, and sufficiently high for a man to walk through it upright. It can be followed in a southerly direction for some fifteen yards, when it turns abruptly westwards and continues for six or seven yards further.[586] In the ridge of the roof there may be noted a flat slab of stone perforated with a circular hole, as for the admission of light, or the drainage of water from above. We are not told to what depth the roof is now buried beneath the surface. About twenty yards westward from this spot, on the mound, there are a number of dressed blocks of stone, one of which at least has a rounded hole in one face, a feature noticeable in several instances at Boghaz-Keui.
From these general indications of an ancient walled town[587] we pass to the more famous sculptures, which are found on the lowest part of the mound towards the south-east, about twenty yards only from the cultivated plain. These decorated the lowest course of the façade of a gateway which in plan resembles closely that of the Lion-gate on the acropolis at Boghaz-Keui. This plan is shown to scale on the opposite page, so that we do not need to give detailed measurements of the blocks where the arrangement involves no reconstruction. Fortunately, though exposed for long ages, the alignment of the stones remains almost intact, so that the plan of this interesting gateway may be determined without much difficulty. It remains also unique hitherto among Hittite works of Asia Minor.
As in the Lion-gate at Boghaz-Keui this entrance has an outer and an inner doorway. The nearer one lies back from the frontage of the main wall a distance of just over thirteen feet. The width between the corners of the approach (E, G), making allowance for a slight displacement of the corner-stones, is almost exactly twenty feet: this is reduced between the great monoliths which form the jambs to a few inches over eleven feet. The interval between the faces of the outer and inner monoliths on either side is about twenty-six feet, which must have been approximately the distance from one door to the other. Between the two gateways the space widens out to the same width as the approach outside; but inside the inner gate the walls return at once on either side (II, KK) without any approach on that side corresponding to that from without. Thus the projection of the walls flanking the approach beyond the gates becomes by comparison with the Lion-gate at Boghaz-Keui an established feature of Hittite military architecture, designed to protect the gateway by enfilading fire from above.[588]
PLAN OF THE SPHINX-GATE AT EYUK.
References—A, B, C, D, sculptured monoliths forming the jambs of the two gates; E, F, G, H, line of the outer wall; II, KK, line of the inner return; X, Y, ends of a lower wall; a-g, l-n, sculptured blocks forming the lowest course of the wall on either side of the approach; h, i, k, o, p, sculptured blocks not in situ, of which the place of h and k is ascertained; q, r, sculptures on the sides of the sphinx-monoliths A, B; x, y, two sculptured blocks recently found in excavation.
The recent excavations conducted by Macridy Bey have thrown light on several important features not previously determined. From the plan which he publishes[589] it would seem that the frontage to the approach, on the left side at any rate (E, F), is really the outer wall of the gate tower and external to the main wall. We are thus confirmed in our conclusion that the entrance was flanked on either side by extra-mural towers, as later well known in Roman military forts and mediæval architecture of Europe. Unfortunately the excavators did not carry on their inquiry to ascertain (as might have been done with little difficulty) the line of frontage of the main wall of the whole building or enclosure. This we suspect would be in line with the nearer monoliths, though from a suggestion upon the plan it may have been a little nearer the interior—a position which from several reasons would not be probable—and, indeed, such a wall must have been much stouter than anything marked upon the plan.