Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/54

24 Architecture of Asia Minor. These various races are famous for the strangle tombs they erected, — each people having adopted a different form of sepulchral monument. The most ancient appear to be those of Lydia, which are of the primitive tumulus form, and often of colossal proportions. The largest of all is the tumulus of Tantalus, 200 feet in diameter, situ- ated on the northern shore of the Gulf of Smyrna. Similar tumuli are to be seen in the neighbourhood of the old royal city of Sardis, and are supposed to be the tombs of the ancient rulers of the land. The sepulchral monuments of Phrygia are of a different character. It was customary with some ancient peoples to raise mounds over the resting-places of their leaders, but with others to use the natural rock for the structure of a tomb. The Phrygians followed the latter custom; they excavated their tombs in the living rock, and adorned them with skilfully-sculptured facades. These facades were entirely covered with linear patterns painted in various colours, and preserving the peculiar style probably suggested by the Eastern textile fabrics, to which we have already alluded. The so-called grave of Midas, at Doganlu (Fig. 14), is a remarkable specimen of this class. It is 40 feet high, cut from the living rock, and terminates in a pediment with two scrolls. The Lycian monuments are of a form totally distinct from those of Lydia and Phrygia. The inhabitants of the romantic mountain districts of Asia Minor adopted two different descriptions of sepulchre, — one being structural or detached, the other cut in the rock ; but both were imitations of the wooden houses everywhere common amongst mountaineers, with sometimes the addition of some features which recall the construction of a ship. The