The Hittites : $b The story of a forgotten empireSayce, A. H. (Archibald Henry)
History
The Hittites : $b The story of a forgotten empire
Sayce, A. H. (Archibald Henry)
Hittites
Boghaz Keui and Eyuk are situated in the district known as Pteria to the
Greeks. At Eyuk there are remains of a vast palace, which stood on an
artificial platform of earth, like the palaces of Assyria and Babylon.
The walls of the palace, formed of huge blocks of cut stone, can still
be traced in many places. It was approached by an avenue of sculptured
slabs, on which lions were represented, some of them in the act of
devouring a ram. The head and attitude of one that is preserved remind
us of the avenue of ram-headed sphinxes which led to the temple of
Karnak at Thebes. The entrance of the palace was flanked on either side
by two enormous monoliths of granite, on the external faces of which
were carved in relief the images of a sphinx. But though the artist had
clearly gone to Egypt for his model, it is also clear that he had
modified the forms he imitated in accordance with national ideas. The
head-dress, like the feet, of the sphinxes is non-Egyptian, the necklace
passes under the chin instead of falling across the breast, and the
sphinx itself is erect, not recumbent, as in Egypt. On the right hand
the same block of stone which bears the figure of the sphinx bears also,
on the inner side, the figure of a double-headed eagle, with an animal
which Professor Perrot believes to be a hare in either talon, and a man
standing upon its twofold head. The same double-headed eagle, supporting
the figure of a man or a god, is met with at Boghaz Keui, and must be
regarded as one of the peculiarities of Hittite symbolism and art. The
symbol was adopted in later days by the Turkoman princes, who had
perhaps first seen it on the Hittite monuments of Kappodokia; and the
Crusaders brought it to Europe with them in the 14th century. Here it
became the emblem of the German Emperors, who have passed it on to the
modern kingdoms of Russia and Austria. It is not the only heirloom of
Hittite art which has descended to us of to-day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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