Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/220

202 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud^a. Phrygian kings,^ which rank as the most successful efforts of Phrygo-Hellenic art, and so distinct that nobody could think for a moment that the two sets of monuments had emanated from the same people. We feel that in the Kalaba lion the artist was very near his Assyrian models ; notably the modelling of the head and limbs. The work is at once original and striking, albeit it lacks the elaborate finish which long practice had taught the Ninevite sculptor to bestow on the minutest detail. If opinion may be divided in respect to this specimen of old art, it will not apply to a monument which we discovered in the district of Haimaneh, some nine hours on the south-west of Angora, hard by a village called Hoiajah, which rises on the site of the ruins known to the natives as Ghiaour-Kalessi, the fortress of the infidels." ^ Ghiaour-Kalessi occupies the summit of a truncated hill, which overhangs a narrow gorge with a copious stream, along which runs a path, probably the old road which in former days connected Ancyra with Pessinus, calling at Gordium. The highest portion of the hillock forms a fort or dungeon, rectangular in shape, i6 m. by 34 m. It is partly surrounded by a wall of rude masonry. The stones are laid together without cement and in irregular courses ; but where the escarp of the rock is almost perpendicular, this mode of defence was not resorted to. The thickness of this and other walls about the hill averages one metre. The rest of the area describes an isosceles triangle about 125 m. long. The wall seems to have been constructed with regular rather than polygonal masonry; for its upper surface, now level with the ground, is perfectly horizontal. On the west side are remains of structures with no greater salience than the surrounding wall, which may have been towers. Similar in character was another outer wall, traces of which are visible In places. It extended in front of the fortress, but its relief was greater than that of the upper rampart, and distant from it 10 m. to 30 m. The stones, though massive, one measuring i m. 98 c, and another i m. 20 c, are smaller than those of many city walls in Greece, Tiryns, and even Mycenae and Samicon for example. The blocks had been thoroughly prepared, but joints as well as courses are irregular (Fig. 352). Taken by themselves, these ramparts have no better claim to our consideration than scores of like description. The interest which attaches to them is due to the twin figures carved upon the 1 Perrot, loc, cit.^ Plate VIII. ^ Ibid., loc. cit, Itin^raires, Sheet F.