Notes upon late Anatolian Art

Abstract

Phrygia is remarkable for the variety (and number) of its funeral monuments: in one place the sarcophagus, in another the altar, in a third the stele. The last named was fashionable in the land of the Praipenissians, whose ancient centre was Soa in the neighbourhood of Altyn Tash. The Phrygian stele was often of considerable size, six feet or more in height, and fixed upright in the ground or in a socket by a wedge-like tongue, which still remains in some cases.The central field is filled sometimes by figures of the deceased, often more than life-size, never by ridiculous little dolls such as are found further east. The place of the figures is sometimes taken by a door: in this case the busts of the departed are occasionally sculptured in an arch-shaped pediment above (cf. Texier, Description de I'Asie Mineure, Pls. 38, 51). Otherwise the pediment is filled by various symbolic or decorative subjects—two lions with a prostrate bull or merely its head between them, an eagle with wings “displayed,” dolphins with small fishes in their mouths, and in one case Herakles and Cerberus.