Three or
four ruined fortresses, a few votive stelae, and a dozen bas-reliefs cut
on the faces of cliffs in a style which at first recalls the Hittite and
Asianic carvings of the preceding age, and afterwards, as we come down
to later times, betrays the influence of early Greek art. In the midst
of one of their cemeteries we come upon a monument resembling the facade
of a house or temple cut out of the virgin rock; it consists of a low
triangular pediment, surmounted by a double scroll, then a rectangle
of greater length than height, framed between two pilasters and a
horizontal string-course, the centre being decorated with a geometrical
design of crosses in a way which suggests the pattern of a carpet; a
recess is hollowed out on a level with the ground, and filled by a blind
door with rebated doorposts. Is it a tomb? The inscription carefully
engraved above one side of the pediment contains the name of Midas, and
seems to show that we have before us a commemorative monument, piously
dedicated by a certain Ates in honour of the Phrygian hero.

[Illustration: 096.jpg A PHRYGIAN GOD]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Ramsay.

Elsewhere we come upon the outlines of a draped female form, sometimes
alone, sometimes accompanied by two lions, or of a man clothed in a
short tunic, holding a sort of straight sceptre in his hand, and we
fancy that we have the image of a god before our eyes, though we cannot
say which of the deities handed down by tradition it may represent.
The religion of the Phrygians is shrouded in the same mystery as their
civilisation and their art, and presents a curious mixture of European
and Asianic elements. The old aboriginal races had worshipped from time
immemorial a certain mother-goddess, Ma, or Amma, the black earth,
which brings forth without ceasing, and nourishes all living things. Her
central place of worship seems, originally, to have been in the region
of the Anti-taurus, and it was there that her sacred cities--Tyana,
Venasa, and the Cappadocian Comana--were to be found as late as Roman
times; in these towns her priests were regarded as kings, and thousands
of her priestesses spent lives of prostitution in her service; but her
sanctuaries, with their special rites and regulations, were scattered
over the whole peninsula. She was sometimes worshipped under the form
of a meteoric stone, or betyle similar to those found in Canaan;* more
frequently she was represented in femal