KARA DAGH, EMIR-GHAZI, TYANA (BOR, NIGDEH, ANDAVAL), BULGHAR-MADÊN, IVRÎZ. We turn in fine to the south-eastern corner of the tableland, now a desert tract fringed by the northern slopes and outlying ridges of the Taurus mountains. Our comparatively intimate knowledge of the monuments and historical geography of this region is due almost entirely to the consistent researches of Professor Sir Wm. Ramsay and his school. We come firstly to the Kara Dagh (Black Mountain), an outlying ridge of Taurus,[413] which rises three or four thousand feet above the plain, to a height of seven thousand feet above the sea. At the foot of the mountain, on the north, the little village of Maden-Shehr marks the classical site of BARATA, better known, perhaps, as _Bin Bir Kilisse_, ‘the thousand and one churches.’ Professor Ramsay tells[414] of the great changes that time has wrought in this locality. Here there ‘must have been in ancient time the summer sanatorium of the Lycaonian plain. The soil is very fertile, and being volcanic, is specially suitable for vines. Many kinds of fruit trees also were cultivated. Water is not plentiful, but there are several springs of remarkably good water. The needs of agriculture and viticulture were met by a wonderfully elaborate system of storing the rain and the melted snows of winter.’ But now ‘the site of this ancient city is the most inhospitable in the whole of Lycaonia. There is no water except filthy half-poisonous puddles stored in the ancient cisterns. The vines have almost entirely disappeared, the orchards remain only in a few trees run wild. There is hardly any cultivation. The water runs rapidly off the steep slopes of the mountain, and is of no benefit to agriculture except in the lowest parts of the little sheltered valley where the city was built.’ That the life, and possibly the sanctity, of the place dates back to remote antiquity is shown by the discovery[415] of two Hittite inscriptions on the summit of the mountain. The spot called _Mahalich_ is marked by a Byzantine Church, which seems to preserve the ancient sanctity of a high place of older times.[416] The church is supported on the north side by rocks in which a passage can now be traced, though it would seem to have been partly hidden at least by the Byzantine walls. This passage was to some extent artificial, and on its rock-walls are two inscriptions, a short one in relief upon the north, and a longer one incised on the south. The shorter inscription consists of four groups of signs only, translated by Professor Sayce[417] to mean ‘Tarkyanas, the supreme king.’ The other inscription is longer, comprising twelve groups of signs in a row, in addition to the same royal name, which in the middle recurs with little variation in its hieroglyphic form, though surmounted in this case by a winged emblem. There appears in this inscription[418] a hieroglyphic sign otherwise unknown, resembling a horned altar.