There are no other carvings found in situ: of those lying about we may mention a large block with a few hieroglyphic signs[633] upon it, lying near the threshold (i in Plan); another stone with a border on two sides, and a figure in high relief upon it, which seems to us to be possibly the body of a seated goddess, though in another sense it looks like a crude crouching lion.[634] It lies in a garden not far from the gateway.[635] There are also a pair of large stones that seem to have formed part of the local series, but are now irrecognisable.[636] They lie a mile away on the rising ground, where they have been arranged at some forgotten date to serve as the jambs of an entrance which may be still traced below the soil.
Part II.—The Town and Sculptures of Sinjerli.
Excavations conducted during three seasons at Sinjerli by the German Orient Committee[637] have thrown a flood of light upon the archæology of Northern Syria. They have also contributed a great series of monuments to our list of Hittite works; and the later history of the city and neighbourhood are further illuminated by the discovery of several inscribed monuments, which though not dealing with the period of Hittite domination, nevertheless establish for us definite historical landmarks from which to work backwards in our argument. The monuments and architectural remains discovered belong to three main periods, which may be distinguished, terminologically at any rate, as the Hittite, Aramæan, and Phœnician. With the monuments of the two later phases[638] we are not concerned, except so far as they throw light upon the story of the Hittite occupation of the site: yet even in them the dominant feeling is derived from the Hittite prototypes.
PLATE LXXIV
COAST ROUTE ROUND THE GULF OF ISSUS TOWARDS ALEXANDRETTA: THE AMANUS RANGE IN THE BACKGROUND, BEYOND WHICH ARE SINJERLI AND SAKJE-GEUZI
Many of the buildings, indeed a whole series of sculptures as well as historical documents, belong to the so-called Aramæan period. At this time the place was the seat of a principality identified with Samaal (or Samalla), which in the eighth century B.C. was ruled at different times by local kings, named Panammu and Barrekub, under the suzerainty of Assyria. Formerly it had possibly formed part of the Hittite feudal state of Hattina,[639] which included also Iaudi and Unki; and it was absorbed by the growing power of Assyria under Tiglath-Pileser III., as would appear from the name of Panammu, Prince of Samaal, amongst his tribute lists of B.C. 738 to 735. In the next century, 670 B.C., Esarhaddon seems to have made the place a temporary residence during his warfare with Egypt and with Tyre, and he set up there a stela recording victories that were probably imaginary, showing the kings of Egypt and of Tyre held captive by a cord.
The ruins unearthed in the course of these excavations disclose to us a walled citadel or acropolis, enclosing several palaces and other buildings, and surrounded upon the plain below by a double wall which marks the limits of the township. There was considerable difference of opinion, it would seem, amongst the excavators themselves as to the dates to be assigned to the various features of the site. It is well then to recognise that the ground for this difference of opinion existed in the insufficiency of dated materials. This is no criticism of the excavators themselves, who admirably conducted their pioneer work without the aid of established local criteria to help in solving the various minor problems which arise daily in the course of an excavation. One criticism which may be made is that no systematic record of the finding of the pottery fragments seems to have been kept, such as might conceivably have helped to establish the relationship of one part of the site to another, and more particularly would have been serviceable in future excavations in the north of Syria, or indeed anywhere in Hittite lands. Such an investigation, however, would have been one demanding great foresight, for the buildings were found to have been destroyed and reconstructed at various times, and to this cause probably must be attributed the fact that this investigation was not made.
The excavators seem to have been in agreement, however, as to the general growth of the site from a group of shepherds’ huts into a walled town. They recognised three different building periods, the first of which may belong to the latter part of the second millennium B.C., when the site of the city was wholly confined to the mound which later became the citadel. In this village the houses were closely packed together, and their outer walls, being continuous and without windows, presented a line of defence around the knoll. The foundations of several houses were partly traced under the sites of the palaces of later times, and though marked as unimportant, these may really be the ruins of the chieftains’ residences during the early Hittite period. The entrance to this citadel was to the south, but the excavators believed it had not yet assumed its final plan, nor had it yet been decorated with the sculptures that later rendered it so remarkable.
The next great period is not clearly separated from the first, from which it may have been derived in our judgment by natural growth: it is characterised by the laying out of the whole city and township on much the same lines as it preserved through the succeeding centuries. During this phase there sprang up a wall surrounding the whole township, an outer and inner defensive wall to the citadel, a cross-wall which seemed to have marked some period of renovation, as well as the foundations of an older palace and several other minor features of rearrangement. The buildings of this time are characterised by rows of timber with stone layers between. This phase must be dated in the opinion of the excavators to twelfth century B.C.; and it is noticeable that the Assyrian king, Tiglath-Pileser I., is found to have copied the plan of a Hittite palace (called Hilâni),[640] which corresponds exactly with the plans of the palaces built upon the citadel during the next period.