Next to these in point of age and style comes a curious group of rock-cut monuments, found in the centre of the land at Doganlu. They are placed on the rocky side of a narrow valley, and are unconnected apparently with any great city or centre of population. Generally they are called tombs, but there are no chambers nor anything about them to indicate a funereal purpose, and the inscriptions which accompany them are not on the monuments themselves, nor do they refer to such a destination. Altogether they are certainly among the most mysterious remains of antiquity, and, beyond a certain similarity to the rock-cut tombs around Persepolis, present no features that afford even a remote analogy to other monuments which might guide us in our conjectures as to the purpose for which they were designed. They are of a style of art clearly indicating a wooden origin, and consist of a square frontispiece, either carved into certain geometric shapes, or apparently prepared for painting; at each side is a flat pilaster, and above a pediment terminating in two scrolls. Some—apparently the more modern— have pillars of a rude Doric order, and all indeed are much more singular than beautiful. When more of the same class are discovered, they may help us to some historic data: all that we can now advance is, that, judging from the inscriptions on them and the traditions in Herodotus, they would appear to belong to some race from Thessaly, or thereabouts, who at some remote period crossed the Hellespont and settled in their neighbourhood; they may be dated as far back as 1000, and most probably 700 years at least before the Christian Era. [Illustration: 116. Rock-cut Frontispiece at Doganlu. (From Texier’s ‘Asie Mineure.’)] There are other rock-cut sculptures farther east, at Pterium and elsewhere; but all these are figure sculptures, without architectural form or details, and therefore hardly coming within the limits of this work. The only remaining important architectural group in Asia Minor is that of Lycia, made known in this country since the year 1838, by the investigations of Sir Charles Fellows and others. Interesting though they certainly are, they are extremely disheartening to any one looking for earlier remains in this land,—inasmuch as all of them, and more especially the older ones, indicate distinctly a wooden origin—more strongly perhaps than any architectural remains in the Western world. The oldest of them cannot well be carried farther back than the Persian conquest of Cyrus and Harpagus. In other words, it seems perfectly evident that up to that period the Lycians used only wood for their buildings, and that it was only at that time, and probably from the Greeks or Egyptians, that they, like the Persians themselves, first learnt to substitute for their frail and perishable structures others of a more durable material. [Illustration: 117. Lycian Tomb. (From British Museum.)]