forty-one figures behind the male deity consists mainly of men-priests, kings, warriors, and citizens-the southern approaching the goddess, of seventeen females. In other bas-reliefs strange lion-headed figures occur at this shrine, and a few emblems in the national script define the civilisation to which these early sculptures belong. The Assyrians were fond of representing their gods standing erect on lions in similar manner (as at Samalla, Bavian, &c); but these representations are in a much later style, and accompanied by cuneiform texts. The excavations of M. Chantre at this site produced only rude fragments of pottery, and bones of domestic animals; but these probably represent ancient sacrifices at this early temple.

At Eyuk, a little further north, our explorer examined a temple of peculiar interest, and proved, by the recovery of a few Hittite' signs, that it belonged-as has always been supposed to the same class of antiquities. The temple gate is flanked by two colossal sphinxes, somewhat Egyptian in character-but it must be remembered that the sphinx is also found in Babylonia-and on the side of one of these the two-headed eagle is again carved. The bas-reliefs on the walls represent again a procession approaching an altar, and bringing sheep and goats for sacrifice. Here, and elsewhere in similar pictures, the priest holds a lituus like that of the Roman augurs, while kings are distinguished by a sort of club sceptre, which is noticed among the Hittites in both Egyptian and Assyrian accounts of wars in Syria.

M. Chantre also added a new instance of this class of design, in the sculpture found at Fraktin, west of Comana, in southern Cappadocia. In this case-as at Pterium—a small temple is represented behind, or above, the figures. Fraktin M. Chantre identifies with the Dastarkon of Strabo; and the name may mean the pass of Mt. Arge,' the site being on the river Sarus, S.E. of that remarkable extinct volcano. A seated king or god. is here represented, with a cup in his hand, and before him is an altar, on which an eagle perches. A priest faces this figure, and stands pouring a libation; behind him are other figures of warriors, and seven 'Hittite' emblems form a short text above. The eagle resembles a bird on the rude bas-relief of Merȧsh, in Syria, which represents the mother goddess and her child. In this instance it is perched on what looks like a harp-but might even be a cage-and the altar again occurs, while the deity holds a club sceptre. Jupiter, it

would thus seem, was by no means the first deity to be accompanied by this royal bird, which also occurs on bronze ex votos found by M. Chantre. The great goddess of Cappadocia was still known by her old name, Ma, down to Roman times; Comana (the place of Ma') and Mazaca ('Ma's shrine') were the old names of Shar and Cæsarea in this region.

Evidence of the early appearance of Babylonian traders in Cappadocia had already been collected, by the discovery of tablets relating to commercial transactions; and to this collection M. Chantre adds sixteen new instances. They are all written in the Semitic language of Babylonia, and in cuneiform characters, which must have been penned about 2000 B.C. They are not as early as the linear forms of Chaldea in 2800 B.C., and they are older than those in use about 1000 B.C. These letters have for the most part been roughly translated by Scheil; and an earlier example was shown, by Mr. T. G. Pinches, to refer to the purchase by Babylonians of horses and mules, for which Armenia has always been celebrated. Altogether some fifty examples of this remarkable correspondence are now known, and Mr. Pinches believes that this region was known as Cusa or Cush,* which again connects the native race with the Cushites of Babylonia. † Even the name of the father of the earliest Chaldean King of Ur, found in a text at Nippur by the American explorers, may likewise be rendered Cush; and, if it were advisable to give a new title to this Mongol race, they might well be called Cushites.

These tablets relate to the loan of silver, at the rate of about 20 per cent. per annum, and to the purchase of native products, including cloths or robes (such as the Assyrian kings specially mention in their Syrian and Cappadocian spoil lists), leather (galid), silver (from the Taurus mines), and tin (though some read lead); the cloths were in some instances dyed blue, in others they appear to have been hand-worked' in embroidery, such as is represented on royal robes in some of the Hittite sculptures. The patterns have even survived to the present day among the Turkish peasantry of Asia Minor, whose carpet-making is as famous as in the days of St. Paul. Colonel Conder has given, in the Times,' a translation of one of the longest of these letters, written by a Semitic trader, who inquires whether he is likely to be well treated by the native race, and to

*Gen. ii. 13. Akkadian Cu-sa, 'the west.'

+ Gen. x. 7.

make profits by trade, in spite of the cost of obtaining permission to enter the country. This represents much earlier conditions than those of the period when, as above explained, the Kati were struggling against the encroachments of Assyria. Probably also fresh light on ancient measures of weight may be gained from these tablets, and in one case the Manah of the West' seems to be noticed as being a fifth more than the Babylonian. Both in Babylonia and in Syria there was a double system of weights, one being half the other; and the Hebrew shekel was a fifth heavier (in both standards) than the Babylonian. The Phoenician weights preserved this difference in the sixth century B.C., but it is now shown to have distinguished East and West as early as 2000 B.C.

Among other remains M. Chantre collected pottery and ex voto figures of bronze, and in one case of gold. It is always difficult to determine the date of any pottery not marked by inscriptions within very wide limits. Ancient methods long survived, and the rough work intended for the poor is often quite as recent as the more costly and better wrought. Some of the pottery found is probably of Kati origin, some appears to be Greek. It often closely resembles that found by Schliemann at Troy and Mycenae, and may in these cases have been purchased by the illiterate Aryans from the East. The art of Mycenae generally is distinctively Asiatic, and the actual objects of gold found by the celebrated discoverer of Troy tally most closely with the descriptions given in Dusratta's lists of the jewellery and other treasures sent from Armenia as the dower of his daughter when she married Amenophis IV. in the fifteenth century B.C. But in time the Greeks greatly improved on the models furnished by the art of Asia Minor, and their pottery became highly prized. Some of the pottery in Cyprus, which has been described as Phoenician, and which resembles that of Cappadocia, is now known to be Greek from the inscriptions, which have been read.

*One of M. Chantre's tablets is written in a character closely approaching Cypriotic, and apparently representing the latest known 'Hittite.' Some sixty emblems are repeated, and the text is thirtynine lines long. This is the first known instance of a Hittite tablet in native characters on brick, and it is probably at least as old as 2000 B.C. It appears to record conquests in this region by Tarkontimme, of Gozan, a king already known from a cuneiform text, found on a rock sculpture near Cæsarea in Cappadocia, representing his victory. See Times,' October 24, 1899.

† See Amarna letters, Nos. 25 and 26, Berlin Collection.

The custom of suspending small metal figures in the temples as ex votos, or of burying figures of the gods under the foundations of temples and palaces, or of placing thein in tombs as amulets, is of remote antiquity and common to many races. But most of the figures found by M. Chantre are distinguished by the peculiar costume worn by the Hittites, Kati, and other tribes of the same race, and though not inscribed they may safely be classed as of Mongol origin. Most of the human male figures are beardless. Some wear the horned headdress found on Hittite as well as on Assyrian representations of gods. The female figures recall those of Etruria and Cyprus, as well as of Babylonia. One of the most remarkable represents a man riding what looks like a mule and holding a hawk, but horses are clearly represented in other cases, as is also the falcon used (as it still is by Arabs) to hunt gazelles or deer in conjunction with hounds. The bird is shown perched on the deer's head, and is still trained thus to hinder its flight from the dogs. One remarkable design, perhaps the top of a standard, shows a man struggling with what M. Chantre supposes to be a horse, but which perhaps (on account of the paws and tail) is, in spite of its long neck, meant to be a lion, recalling the common group of the hero and lion, which is found in Babylonia centuries before Greek representations of the Nemean victory.

It has long been known that the Egyptians, after their conquest of Syria about 1600 B.C., extended their influence to Cilicia. The land of Alasiya or Elishah, noticed in the Amarna letters, appears to have been near Tarsus. It was reached in ships from Egypt in the fifteenth century B.C., and copper was thence imported. The cartouche of Rameses II. is said to have been cut on the famous statue of Ma at Mount Sipylos, far west in Lydia (though this is disputed), and M. Chantre has found in Cappadocia two Egyptian scarabæi and two small figures which in attitude and dress are distinctively Egyptian. He also found a signet on which is represented a woman (whom he calls an Eve) seated by a tree with a serpent behind it, recalling a famous Babylonian design which represents both a man and a woman (or a god and goddess) plucking the fruit of the palm with a serpent rising behind the woman. In this and many other instances it seems clear that Babylonian legends were of Mongol rather than of Semitic origin.

The existence of three civilisations, native, Babylonian, and Egyptian, in Cappadocia before 1000 B.C. has thus been

*

proved, but the Aryans do not as yet appear on the scene. That the native race was the same to which the Hittites of Syria belonged may be considered as now generally acknowledged by scholars. That they were of the same Mongol race found in Chaldea there is every reason to believe. Their language was certainly not Semitic, nor does it appear to have been Aryan. All the best established words found in personal names or otherwise recognised are of Mongol, and even more particularly of Turkish type, and show no resemblance to the Aryan vocabularies; and it is evident that if Hittite inscriptions in a known character (the cuneiform) can be read so as to make sense in the Akkadian or Kassite language, they cannot be Aryan, for the whole genius and idiom, the grammar and phonology of these dialects, are entirely irreconcileable with the features of Aryan inflected speech. Dr. Sayce has therefore been right in connecting the new Kati texts with the language of Mitanni (Matiene), of which we have an example in Dusratta's great letter of 500 lines, and in calling the Hittites Mongols, though he has not translated their texts. Sir H. Rawlinson devotes several valuable notes, in the standard edition of Herodotus, to the nationalities of Western Asia. He shows the Medes and Scythians on the one hand, the Lydians and Phrygians on the other, to have been Aryans; but he classes the early inhabitants of Asia Minor and Armenia, Cappadocians, Moschi, Tablai, Alarodians, &c., as Turanians, that is to say, Mongols, with the Akkadians, Sumerians, and Kassites. Recent discovery has confirmed his conclusions, which have been accepted by all those who have given special study to the question. He states that the Etruscans, who emigrated early from Lydia,† were not Aryans, and Dr. Isaac Taylor has shown in a special work, by study of their numerals and of other known Etruscan words, that they too in Italy belonged to the same race with the Kati, who survived until finally overthrown by Croesus and by the Scythian invaders soon after the Mongols of Eastern Armenia had been destroyed by the Assyrians and superseded by the Medes.

The earliest evidence of the existence of the Western Aryans in Asia Minor is found in the so-called Phrygian inscriptions, of which there are very few. M. Chantre has

* Amarna tablets, No. 27, Berlin Collection.

† Herod. i. 94.