FIRST MILLENNIUM B.C.
The empire of Boghaz Keui had been destroyed by the Sea peoples, but its artistic traditions were carried by the Mushki people, perhaps akin to the Phrygians, occupying the territory of which Boghaz Keui was the centre, then by the Phrygians, whose kingdom corresponded to the country situated to the west of the area occupied by the Hittites of Boghaz Keui, by the Lydians, the Carians and the Lycians.
At the beginning of this period Hittite influ ence is still dominant. Art, however, displayed a decadence, which showed itself in a grossness of shape and a general clumsi ness, as in a certain number of the sculptures at Uyiik, the bas reliefs on rocks at Bor and Ivziz (north of the Taurus), repre senting a local king before his god. These sculptures typify the transition from those of Anatolia under the Hittite empire to those of Syria of the 1st millennium B.C.
The most important Phrygian monu ments are funerary and fall into two principal groups. The first is in the neighbourhood of the town of Ayazinn, the second to the north of it. To the first group belongs the tomb, called the tomb of Midas, in which the façade hewn out of the rock itself is a great flat surface, divided in the form of a cross into equal parts, surrounded by regular scrolls in relief. The façade is surmounted by a triangular pediment slightly raised, crowned by a double scroll. In the lower part of the façade a false door is carved. This arrangement appears also in a monument in the valley of Thyndakos, called the Delikli-tash (the pierced stone). The real entrance to such tombs was in the upper part. They consisted, therefore, of shafts sunk in the rock itself, the external face of which was ornamented. Sometimes these monuments were purely commemorative and consisted of the single facade sculptured from the rock, in the style of the monument of Midas. The group of tombs situated near Ayazinn are not distinguished from the first group; they have the same façades with geometric ornamen tation in relief, with or without a false door, and surmounted by a triangular pediment more or less raised. In certain cases the scheme of shafts has not been adopted, and the door, in that case a real one, gives access to the tomb. Besides the geometrical type of decoration, a naturalistic and very effective one exists. Thus in the necropolis of Ayazinn a rock-face shows half way up the door of a tomb. On either side gigantic lions, cut out of the living rock, stand erect, facing each other, their forepaws resting on the top of the door. This motive of lions guarding the tomb is found on other monuments of the necropolis. Quite a different type of tomb (at Ayazinn, at Yapuldak, at Gherdek-kaIa-si) shows Greek influence in its façades, columns and decorative ornaments; these are the most recent of all the series, which belong, without doubt, to the period between the 8th and 4th centuries B.C.
In Sipyle, near Smyrna, another kind of tomb is to be found, a tumulus; the most celebrated is the so-called tomb of Tantalus, easily comparable to those in Lydia, where very few specimens remain except of funerary architecture. The type of tumulus tomb is due to Thracian influence. The finest monument of this kind is the tomb of Alyattes, the father of Croesus, near Sardis. It consists of a funerary chamber sunk into a circular base made of stones and earth, and surmounted by a cone of worked earth. A pillar with an expanded base should adorn the summit. This type of tumulus tomb occurs frequently in this area, most of them dating perhaps from the beginning of the 6th century B.C. The coins, however, and the jewels found in Lydia, at Tralles, for example, display also Eastern influences, chiefly Assyrian, with occasional use of Egyptian designs. Decorative Lydian art manifests individual taste, but situated like that of Phoenicia, was similarly subject to varied influences at that epoch.
Lyeia.—In funerary architecture, Lycia draws its inspiration chiefly from Phrygia in the arrangement of the tomb ; carved out of a rock wall itself. But the style is quite different ent ; gener ally the artist reproduces the front of a wooden house with pro jecting beams, in which the jutting ends have been intentionally preserved. This scheme is found in the tombs of Kenibachi, Hoiran, A-Myra and Antiphellos; the façade is surmounted by a triangular pediment in the second case, arched in the first ; a scheme which is found in the so-called Lycian sarcophagus in the royal necropolis of Saida.
