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A Study of Phrygian Art.–I
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
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A brief introductory statement of the historical views to which I have been led by a study of the Phrygian monuments will make the following pages clearer, and will enable the reader to criticise the whole with greater advantage. I can hardly hope to have reached the truth in regard to this difficult subject; but it is so closely connected with many disputed points in early Greek history that I have thought it best to carry out my view to its logical conclusions and state the whole in brief and precise terms. This will place the reader on his guard from the beginning, and if it leads him to exercise unsparing criticism, I shall have attained my object.
1. The Phrygians are a European race, who entered Asia Minor across the Hellespont: the unanimous Greek tradition to this effect (which at one time I regarded as probably a reversal of the truth) is confirmed by longer study of the country and the monuments.
2. The Phrygians and the Carians were two very closely kindred tribes, nearly related to some of the Greek races, who established themselves in the countries which bear their name as a conquering and ruling caste amid a more numerous alien population: they were mail clad warriors whose armour gave them great advantage over opponents equipped in the slighter oriental fashion. Greek tradition associated various improvements in the style of armour with the Carians, and a relief published below (fig. 9) shows two Phrygian warriors armed quite in the Carian style.
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References
page 350 note 1 Eine vorgriech. Inschrift aus Lemnos.
page 351 note 1 Another name of this god is Bennis or Benneus. Benneus, from the Thraco-Illyrian word Benna, a car, means the god who stands in a chariot, as Benfey used, orally at least, to explain Jupiter Stator: Deecke, v., Rhein. Mus., vol. 37, p. 385.Google Scholar In J. H. S. 1887, p. 512, I have by a slip of memory explained Soa in the name Bennisoa by ‘treasure.’ Stephanus explains it as meaning ‘tomb.’ But the word Bennisoa has to be dismissed as a fiction of editors, who have united Βεννεῖ Σοηνῶν in an inscription into one word. The people are in another inscription, and in this one when rightly understood, called Σοηνοί.
page 351 note 2 Damodike, daughter of Agamemnon of Cyme, married to Midas. The legendary expression of this intercourse appears in the relations between Priam and Phrygia, and in the suggestion of the goddess to Anchises to send a messenger to the King of Phrygia.
page 352 note 1 See for example Texier's plate of the Tomb of Tantalus, and Perrot's forthcoming volume on Asia Minor Art.
page 353 note 1 Consisting of Mr. A. C. Blunt, sent at the expense of a special fund raised by the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, myself as Travelling Student of Oxford, and Mrs. Ramsay.
page 353 note 2 I have profited by the criticisms and suggestions of Mrs. Ramsay and Mr. Hogarth in numerous points, which it would be tedious to mention in detail.
page 353 note 3 A similar concealed staircase in the rock still exists in the small Phrygian acropoleis at Yapuldak and Pishmish Kalessi. Concealed entrances beneath the city walls are a remarkable feature at Pteria. Sir C. Wilson and I observed one nearly destroyed, one almost perfect, resembling in appearance the galleries at Tiryns.
page 353 note 4 An older and less perfect sketch, but still sufficiently clear to make the situation intelligible, has been, I think, reproduced for MM. Perrot and Chipiez's Hist. de l'Art, vol. V., which may be expected in December, 1889.
page 356 note 1 The actual condition is shown in a photograph, which will be reproduced in M. Perrot's vol. V.; See also Mr. Blunt's drawing, J. H. S. Pl. xviii.
page 359 note 1 Compare the ‘proto-ionic’ column from Chiqri in the Troad, and the excellent paper by Mr.Clarke, J. T. which accompanies it, in the American Journal of Archaeology, 1886, p. 1ff.Google Scholar
page 360 note 1 I made an erroneous statement, J. H. S. 1882, p. 21, ‘no teeth are indicated in the upper jaw’: closer examination showed that the present surface is not original but broken. Otherwise the description on pp. 20–1 is correct and may be used to supplement the following remarks.
page 360 note 2 See my paper on the Basrelief of Ibriz in the Archäolog. Zeitung, 1885, p. 203.
page 362 note 1 See for example the lions and the sphinxes on the archaic cuirass published by Mr.Stillman, , Bull. de Corr. Hell. 1883, pl. i.–iii.Google Scholar
page 362 note 2 In Phrygia the chambers are indeed usually oblong, with the door in one of the shorter sides, just as in this case; but there is not much difference in length between the long and the short sides.
page 362 note 3 It is necessary to crawl under the rock, which is slightly tilted against another mass, and look up at the sculpture with one's face almost touching the surface.
page 363 note 1 See below, p. 372.
page 363 note 2 The lines indicated on the cuirass are uncertain; as the rock lies, the sculpture is turned downwards, and the spectator, lying on his back, has to look up at it, with his eyes only about two inches from the surface of the relief.
page 364 note 1 See J. H. S. 1884, p. 245.
page 364 note 2 The drawing of this monument, which I visited in 1886, will, I hope, shortly be published in the Mittheil. Athen.
page 364 note 3 Furtwängler, , Broncefund von Olympia, p. 47, 51, &c.Google Scholar: Milchhöfer, , Arch. Ztg. 1881, p. 289.Google Scholar
page 365 note 1 Schol. Thucyd. I. 8: (error for
)
Strab. XIV. p. 661,
Cp. also Herod, I. 171, who agrees with Strabo. There is no ἐπίσημον on the Phrygian shield, but ἐπίσημα were not universally used, and may have been invented later than ὔχανα and λόφοι.
page 366 note 1 It was suggested jokingly at the time we were studying the relief that the King of Phrygia must have employed negro guards.
page 366 note 2 In place of trying to modify our sketches in accordance with my recollection, I thought it best to leave Mr. McCann to imitate the conventional Greek type which our imperfect sketches showed. No pupil is indicated in the eyes of the warriors of Fig. 9. The woodcut does not make the eye nearly so Assyrian in type as it really is. So also in the eyes of the lions (fig. 8) no pupil is indicated.
page 366 note 3 See my drawing, Arch. Ztg. 1885.
page 367 note 1 See J. H. S., 1884, pp. 256–8, 1887, p. 512.
page 368 note 1 The difference in position of this band from that on the head of the Broken Lion (fig. 8) should be noticed.
page 368 note 2 Some details are clear in one animal and barely distinguishable in the other.
page 368 note 3 The absence of mane also shows that the animals are female. Those at Mycenae are female likewise.
page 368 note 4 The door then is in the altar: in later monuments the word θύρα is inscribed on the altar (J. H. S., 1884, p. 254).
page 369 note 1 See the examples in this Journal, 1882, pp. 57, 58; also ‘Sepulchral Customs in Ancient Phrygia’ (J.H.S. 1884): cp. Iliad II. 865; XX. 382.
page 369 note 2 It occurs in a large number of examples in all ages of Phrygian art, ‘in this earliest known time, in monuments showing the strong influence of Greek art, and in the latest Roman Imperial period’ (J.H.S. 1884, p. 250).
page 370 note 1 They would belong to the race which inhabited Caria before it was conquered by the mail-clad tribe akin to the Phrygians.
page 370 note 2 See Hehn, , Kulturpflanzen, &c, ed. 4, pp. 137, and 141, 142.Google Scholar
page 370 note 3 Studniczka, , making the strength of his language proportionate to the difficulty of the subject, says, die Dorer wird kein Archäolog ernstlich in Betracht zu ziehen vermögen, Mittheil. Athen. 1887, p. 8.Google ScholarMr.Murray, A. S. however has advanced the same opinion as I hold, and Monsieur Reinach, S. has expressed his adhesion to my view, which was published in one of his Chroniques d' Orient, 1887.Google Scholar See Wilam, . in Hermes, xxi. p. 111Google Scholar, n. 1, and Isyllos, p. 162, n. 1; Niese, , Entwickl. d. homer. Poesie, p. 213, n. 1Google Scholar; Busolt advanced a similar view in vol. i. of his Gesch. and retracted it in vol. ii. Mr. Murray stated his view in a lecture at Edinburgh in 1887. Reinach, M. says in one of his recent Chroniques, ‘ce fait vient à l'appui de la date proposée par M. Ramsay et qui me semble à peu prês exacte’ (1888).Google Scholar
page 371 note 1 The last two letters are here added to the text as published in the above-quoted article (Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, 1883). Is it an invocation to Mother Cybele and Father —?
page 373 note 1 It will be published in M. Perrot's fifth volume.
page 373 note 2 ‘Cities and Bishoprics,’ § XXXVII.— XXXIX.
page 376 note 1 A portion of the stone of the Midas-tomb was submitted to Prof. Alleync Nicholson of Aberdeen; he writes that it ‘is a volcanic ash. It is apparently a submarine ash, and is in many respects very similar to the peculiar ash which occurs so largely in parts of the Rhine valley, and which is locally known as trass. As it is very friable, and as its external characters seem to be quite sufficient for identification, I did not prepare a slide of it for the microscope.’
page 379 note 1 My friend Mr. Neil suggested to me the opinion, which seems to be correct, that Lavaltas is the Phrygian form of Laertes.
page 381 note 1 The verb cdacs appears to me to be an aorist of the root dha, the medial aspirates becoming media in Phrygia. Deecke prefers to derive it from da, but appears to take from it the same meaning as I advocated in Journ. Asiat. Soc. 1883.
page 381 note 2 I published these in Zft. f. verglcich. Sprachf. 1887, p. 381–400. See Deecke, 's papers on Lycian and Messapian in Bezzcnb. Beitr. and Rhein. Mus.Google Scholar
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