Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/407

SCULPTURE. 391 The glyptic art of Lycia, like that of Phrygia, is as yet an unknown quantity. To my knowledge no cylinders, cones, or intaglios of any kind have been published with inscriptions in Lycian characters incised upon them. They alone could give us the clue by which to distinguish gems engraved for and by the Lycian people. We cannot suppose for a moment that they were without seals ; these instances of their activity, however, are confounded in our collections with Oriental and Greek intaglios. Lycian numismatics do not enter into our scheme, at least in this history, because recent investigations tend to prove that the oldest coins of Lycia, those struck in Xanthus with a hollow square and a wild boar (see tailpiece, chapter i.), are not older than the seventh century B.C. 1 a period when the administrative and commercial relations established by Persia between the subjects of her vast empire began to penetrate Lycia, whose borders, whether towards the sea or land, had hitherto been closed against alien influences. The specie she issued about this time was of Lydian weight, but as she found it ; that is, much reduced from its weight standard by long circulation. Lydian coiners had certainly drawn their inspirations from the staters of the great Ionian cities, but they also created distinct and useful types of their own ; contrary to Lycia, whose coins are destitute of originality as to size, workmanship, or the types figured upon them. The device of many of her coins is the "triskelis," or so-called " triquetra," 2 a name derived from three serpents' heads which usually figure in the field, much after the fashion of those supporting the famous tripod at Delphi, consecrated by the Greeks to Apollo after the battle of Plataea. The number of heads is not constant ; some coins having as many as four " tetraskelis," whilst others have but two " diskelis." The Greeks connected the symbol with the cult of Apollo, which they represented as very popular, and of hoary antiquity in Lycia. 1 Six, Monnaies lyciennes, p. 6. 2 Literally, three-cornered, triangular, triceps. The number of heads may have been regulated by the different size of the coins in question, probably answering to different values. TRS.