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//
CARCHEMISH
REPORT ON THE EXCAVAIIONS AT JERABLUS ON BEHALF OF THE BRITISH MUSEUAf
CONDUCTED BY
D. G. HOGARTH, R. CAMPBELL THOMPSON
AND C. LEONARD WOOLLEY
WITH
T. E. LAWRENCE, P. L. O. GUY, and H. REITLINGER
PART III
THE EXCAVATIONS IN THE INNER TOWN
BY
SIR LEONARD WOOLLEY
AND
THE HITTITE INSCRIPTIONS
BY
R. D. BARNETT
PUBLISHED BY
THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM
LONDON
1952
Sold at
THE BRITISH MUSEUM
and by
H.M. STATIONERY OFFICE, York House, Khigstvay, London, W.C. z
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 200 Euston Road, London, N.W. 1
BERNARD QUARITCH, LTD., ii Grafton Street, London, W. i
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER AND CO.
43 Great Russell Street, London, W.C. 1
682541
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, OXFORD
BY CHARLES BATEY, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
PREFACE
This volume must be introduced by an apolog)-, both for the long delay in its publication and for its imperfections.
The British Museum's work at Carchemish in 191 1 was frankly experimental, but in 1912 a policy of long-term excavation had been established and we set to work on a systematic programme which did not aim at immediate results but at the orderly clearing of the main areas of the city. Then war interrupted our work. In 1919 the Expedition was authorized by the French High Com- missioner, General Gouraud, to make a fresh start, and again we looked forward to a long succes- sion of seasons, but in 1920 hostilities between the French occupying forces and the Turks made a renewal impossible, and with the capture of Jerablus by the Turkish National Army the whole situation was changed. The onlv piece of work that had been completed, that on the town's defences, was then published, but anything more than that was postponed in the hope that we might yet be able to go back and finish what we had begun. This, for military reasons — Jerablus is a strategic point on the Turkish frontier — we were never able to do, and in the meantime excavations in another field engrossed my attention, and when at last it was decided that I should take in hand the publica- tion of such material as was available, another war forced me to lay the project aside. This much for the delav. But some at least of the shortcomings of this volume are due to the same causes. Twice, in 1 9 14 and again in 1920, we left Carchemish at the end of a season expecting to return in a few months' time, and the antiquities and a good part of our working material remained under guard in the Expedition house, and twice war wrought havoc with our work. Thus, in June 1914 the cata- logue had been brought up to date and of inscribed stone fragments alone more than two thousand had been recorded, and complete type-lists of all Early Bronze Age pottery had been drawn up; during the war the catalogue and the type-sheets were destroyed and nearly all the objects them- selves were scattered or broken. In 1920 the same thing happened and my notes on the Acropolis graves were lost, together with some of the plans which, being unfinished, had not been photo- graphed so as to provide duplicate copies. There are, therefore, unavoidable omissions for which I can only express my regret.
I had already, with the consent of the Trustees, published (in the Liverpool Annals) accounts of the Tell Halaf potter)^ and of the Iron Age graves of the Yunus cemetery; I refer to those articles but do not repeat them in this volume. The Roman remains, buildings, and inscriptions, which would be out of place here seeing that there was no historical continuity bet^veen the Hittite and the Roman periods at Carchemish, are also omitted and will be published separately. But, so far as circumstances allow, I have included all the information that we obtained about Hittite Carchemish.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER VIII. THE LOWER PALACE AREA
(a) The Great Staircase .
(b) The Temple of the Storm-god
CHAPTER IX. THE 'HILAXI' . CHAPTER X. THE HERALD'S WALL CHAPTER XI. THE KING'S GATE
CHAPTER XII. THE ACROPOLIS MOUND
(a) The Stratification of the SE. Mound .
(b) The Kubaba Temple on the NW. Mound
(c) The Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Graves
CHAPTER XIII. THE POTTERY SEQUENCE
|
• 157 |
|
. 167 |
|
176 |
|
. . . 185 |
|
.192 |
205
210 214
227
CHAPTER XIV. THE SCULPTURE
CHAPTER XV. SMALL OBJECTS
(a) 'The Gold Tomb' . . . ,
{b) Terra-cottas . . . . ,
CHAPTER XVI. THE INSCRIPTIONS
LIST OF PLATES . . . .
INDEX ......
238
250
257
259 269
287
CHAPTER VIII THE LOWER PALACE AREA
(a) THE GREAT STAIRCASE
When Hogarth in 191 1 started the excavations at Carchcmish he could scarcely do other than begin on the Eower Palace area; as he reported to the Trustees of the British Museum, 'since it was at the foot of the Ac-opolis mound that important monuments and part of a broad stone stainvav were found during Henderson's excavation of 1876-9, and at least one large sculptured slab could be seen actually in situ, I determined" to make the first trials there'. On March 13, therefore, he set his men to work on Henderson's trench, in less than a week had opened up much of the staircase, and subsequently extended his operations by pits and trenches to the east, south, and west.
The great Lion relief, B. 33, and the Naked Goddess relief, B. 40, were already showing above- ground and Hogarth set to work at once to clear them. The Lion relief was finished on the first dav and on the second day the main fragment of the Goddess relief was exposed ; the work of clearance had been carried across the stairs; 'we got the centre of the stairs clear up to and beyond the plat- form and began to get the plinth on the right (East) side and two or three blocks of wall on plinth, one (B. 35«) with relief of two nude feet (basalt). This apparently in situ was accidentally shifted a little with crowbar in lunch interval.' The lower part of the big basalt relief B. 38a at the end of the Long Wall of Sculpture was also found on that dav in position. On and close to the stairs were found several fragments of basalt sculpture which had been overlooked by Henderson, amongst them the head B. 6jc. On March 15 the finds included the fragments of a colossal basalt statue, B. 63, and the relief B. 386. In front of B. 38a 'more steps began to appear late in afternoon, not square with the relief or with the wall in limestone which continues this northward. Steps broader and better laid and squared than higher up and some of them in basalt, not Hmestone.' (X.B., these lower treads had not been exposed bv Henderson's work.) 'Basalt insertions appear also in lower steps on E. part of stair (all restoration ?)'. On March 18 the fine head B. 390 was found loose in the soil close to the stair foot and, almost in position but slipped from the top of the wall on which it originally stood, the lower right-hand corner of the Naked Goddess slab (B. 40) with the guilloche border and the feet completing the figure. On March 20 the first of the chariotslabs began to appear, and also the left-hand half of the Naked Goddess slab giving the head and upper part of the seated priestess. The great inscription, A. la (B. 436) was found on April 4, upside down in front of the wall from which it had fallen, and the foot-soldier reliefs followed on the 1 8th of the month when the main work had long been transferred to the top of the Citadel mound.
Although he had, in this relatively short space of time, discovered the fallen reliefs of the Long Wall of Sculpture and a certain number of other important fragments, Hogarth was disappointed with his results. There was ample evidence to show that the fall of Hittite Carchemish was sig- nalized by the wanton and systematic destruction of many of its monuments. It is true that during the following centuries, when the site lay deserted, the debris washed down from the ruined build- ings on the top and side of the Acropolis buried the foot of the staircase and the lower parts of the walls adjoining it; but the upper flights remained exposed to destruction by weather, and the crumbling terraces no longer supported the buildings on them. Settlers in the Hellenistic period
158 CARCHEMISH
plundered the old ruins for building-stone. The Romans of the second to third century, embarking on an ambitious scheme of construction, not only sank the concrete foundations of their public buildings deep into the Hittite levels, but scarped the side of the Acropolis mound and simply swept away the whole of the staircase that was not already buried beneath the talus of fallen rubbish and the whole of the Upper Palace to which the stairs led. Henderson, and his ignorant deputy Shallum, had in the nineteenth-century excavations wrought havoc with much of the lower part of the staircase that was still preserved. Lastly, both before Henderson's time and after it, this area, where basalt construction was more in evidence than on other parts of the site, had been a happy hunting-ground for the villagers who wanted, not building-stones, for their huts were of mud brick, but millstones and mortars; to such economic use quite a number of Hittite sculptures had been sacrificed.
The sai^e series of accidents had resulted in the complete confusion of the archaeological strata in the area of the stairs, so much so that Hogarth after weeks of work was still inclined to suspect that the "whole existing staircase was a Hellenistic reconstruction. He very rightly decided that conditions did not justify, in a preliminary and exploratory season, further work on the slope of the mound above stair-head; the purpose of the Trustees would be better served by testing farther afield from the foot of the stairs, by probing generally the area within the city walls and by excava- tion on the summit of the Acropolis. After Hogarth's departure, therefore, relatively little work was done by Campbell Thompson on the Lower Palace site, though one trench driven south-east from the stairs produced two sculptures (B. 14a and b) belonging to the Herald's Wall and the curious 'bolster' stone base on that wall line.' It was not till igi2 that a svstematic clearing of the Lower Palace area was undertaken. -
There is no point in following closely the course of the excavations as detailed in the daily log- book, nor is it necessary to discuss the (generally unsatisfactory) chronological evidence that puzzled the excavators at the time; we now know so much more about Hittite archaeology that we can safely deal with the buildings as excavated and draw our evidence more from subsequent experience than from the confused data recorded in the early days, most of which data we recognized as unlikely to lead to any real conclusion.
General Description
The Lower Palace bordered the broad road that led to the Water-Gate and the Euphrates bank. " Its facade, looking approximately, south, faced on but was not quite parallel with the Herald's Wall and its prolongation past the 'Hilani' to the Water-Gate, so that at the western end the distance from the Palace front to the Herald's Wall was a little more than 63 metres, a wide open space which we may imagine to have been the ceremonial centre of the town. The Palace, or the part of it which concerns us, was built in terraces up the slope of the Acropolis mound ;^ but just before the Herald's Wall turned to make the King's Gate, a great wing of the Palace (the Temple) ran out over the flat ground at the mound's foot leaving between it and the Herald's Wall a roadway 15 metres wide. Against this wing the lower terrace wall of the Palace was broken by a monumental staircase Avhich led up the slope to the building on the top of the Acropolis.
Of the eastern part of the building practically nothing remains. Even the lowest terrace wall has
See Ch. X, p. 187. way could be procured.
- One reason for this was that the area was encumbered with ^ The main part, the Upper Palace, now totally destroyed,
spoil-heaps whose removal was impossible until a light rail- presumably stood upon the mound's summit.
THE LOWER PALACE AREA 159
fallen away, and its foundations could be traced only for some 15 metres from theedge of the stair- case; there were disconnected remains of a similar wall discernible along the mound's foot as far as the inner side of the Water-Gatc, but whether these isolated fragments of rubble foundation belonged to the Palace or not it was impossible to say. The terrace wall must have been, properly speaking, from a constructional point of view the exterior wall of the Palace, but towards the stairs certainly and possibly for most of its length it was masked by a building whose relatively thin walls of mud brick would imply that it was t]uite low — in fact it may have been only a court open' to the sky.' Seen from the roadway this wall (if it really was continuous) would have looked like the Palace fa9ade, the lowest s*ep in the series of rising terraces, and it is possible that it was decorated with reliefs carrying on the line of the great Lion slab on the east of the staircase. Certainly there were found here, between the stairs and the Water-Gate, numerous fragments of sculpture; most of them were in the 'Water-Gate' style or in that of the Herald's Wall, so that the passage from the river to the Palace stairs may well have been adorned on either side with reliefs of the Middle Hittite period. Amongst the (very few) objects other than sculptured or inscribed fragments found here were a stone mace-head bearing the cartouche of one of the Ramessids, probably Ramses H (PI. 71c) and part of a terra-cotta cone or cylinder inscribed in Hittite hieroglyphics (fig. 62); both would probably have come from a palace or official building.
The staircase projected 7 metres in front of the line of the terrace wall, but it was flanked by stone piers with a
further projection of 4 metres ; these were built with plain sides made of polished limestone slabs and their flat tops were flush with the ninth tread of the stairs. The western pier was built up against the wall of the great Temple wing; the eastern pier stood free, but against it on the side away from the stairs there was a stepped base made of heavy basalt blocks on which was a plain 'table of offerings' — a basalt square, flat-topped but with projections at the front corners — in front of the magnificent relief of two gods standing on the back of a coiichant lion (B. 33). Next to this slab there had been, in a wall running eastward from it, a doorw^ay leading into a gravel-floored room or court against the back wall of which (the lowest terrace wall) we found /// situ a basalt statue- base in the form of two bulls (B. 34).
The stairs, which rose at an easy gradient of 31! degrees, were originally constructed 'in white limestone, but the treads were well worn and many had been mended with slabs of basalt. Parts of three flights remained, with landings between them. The lowest flight was the best preserved ; it consisted of seventeen steps, of which the lower seven ended against the sides of the piers, beyond which the flight widened out to the side walls proper. In the western of these walls, just beyond the end of the pier, there was a doorway leading into a room or passage that lay in front of the terrace wall ; there may have been a corresponding doorway on the east side, but there the destruction of the building had been too thorough for any certain evidence to survive (see below, p. 171). The passage, to the west had a cobbled floor; on it lay quantities of charred wood and numerous fragments of
' For a masking wall of the sort we have a parallel on the opposite side of the road where the 'Hilani' lies back behind low-built annexe chambers.
Fig. 62.
i6o CARCHEMISH
glazed bricks with patterns in blue, black, yellow, and white which evidently had fallen from the
terrace wall (PI. 33). The wood seemed to be from roofing-beams.
Beyond the side door or doors the stairway narrowed down to pass through a gateway in the terrace wall, the ends of which formed the retaining-wall of the stairs and the first reveals of the gateway. The plinth or base-course of the gateway angles was of dressed limestone, its top level with the pavement of the landing which, 2 metres back from the terrace-wall face, interrupted the steps; at the actual corner, therefore, it was standing half a metre high. On the line of the top step there was a slight (o-io m.) oflFset and an apparent return of rather rough foundations which, being virtually flush with the pavement, could not be traced to the back corners of what were clearly massive buttresses or jambs much heavier in construction than the terrace wall of which they formed the ends.
Beyond, these buttresses there was on either side a deep recess, unpaved, lined with small plain basalt orthostats, most of them still in position. In the eastern recess, well below floor level, we found a large hinge-stone in situ half-way between the back wall of the recess and the edge of the passage pavement on the line of the first rise of a second flight of five steps which ended between a second pair of buttresses alined with the first. The recesses must have contained heavy doors, each 3-75 m. wide and hinged not at the ends but 1-20 m. from the end, the part beyond the hinge serving as a counterpoise to the door proper and also closing the gap between the hinge and the back wall of the recess.'
At the top of the fiye steps starting between the buttresses there was a second landing measuring from front to back 2-50 m. and then the next flight of steps. There were remains of six treads, much destroyed by Henderson's trench, and thereafter everything came to an end. The staircase here widened out, but the treads seemed to end 0-90 m. from the containing-walls, on the line of the back walls of the door-recesses between the buttresses, and on the west side at any rate there was between the wall and the ends of the treads a mass of rough stone filling, while on the east side two basalt wall blocks standing /// situ proved that the back line gave the true wall-face. It is possible that there was in front of the wall a platform like that in the Water-Gate. Between the buttresses and the stair foot there were remains of paving on the east side and cobble-stones on the west ; this may be due merely to late patching.
The Reconstruction of the Staircase. (See PI. 29)
In spite of the ruinous condition of the staircase there are sufficient data to make its reconstruc- tion— or at least the reconstruction of the lower part of it — a fairly simple matter.
Henderson sent back to the British Museum the Katuwas inscription A. 23 ; he did not indicate precisely where it was found, apart from saying that it came from the staircase area. It is of course a door-jamb. Old men of Jerablus who had worked for Henderson and Shallum were quite certain that it was found on or very near to the end of the inner buttress on the east side of the stairs — not knowing of course that it was a door-jamb. Hogarth in 191 1 found a fragment belonging to it high
' We should certainly have expected the door to be against wards and would therefore have been inadequate for defence ;
one or other of the buttresses, inner or outer, and not between also there were no bolt-holes in the flagstones of the passage
the two. Given the existing plan of the staircase there could not and no hinge-stone (indeed, no possibility of a hinge-stone)
have been a door between the inner jambs because the rise of against the corner of the jamb. The measurements seem to
the stairs both inside and outside the jambs makes that im- make the restoration suggested in the text certain. We are of
possible. The only possible position is against the inner face course dealing only with the latest phase of the Palace, and the
of the outer buttresses, but such a door would have opened in- original design may have been different.
THE LOWER PALACE AREA . i6i
up on the stairs, a fact w hich goes far to confirm the accuracy of the workmen's memor}'. Accord- ingly we can restore A. 23 as the eastern jamb of the inner doorway and may assume that there was on the west side a corresponding jamb also inscribed. A. 20a mav be part of this.
Henderson sent to the Trustees of the British Museum the sketch reproduced on PI. A. 21c which shows the two reliefs now in the British Museum, Nos. 125009 and 125003, as contiguous slabs standing upright and obviously in situ ; that they were thus in their original position is hinted bv a letter from Henderson to the Trustees in which he says : 'The stones with these inscriptions line the two sides of a spacious stair. The greater part of the lining is missing or has been destroyed, but a verv' large sto.ic covered with similar characters is lying on its face, which I can have lifted' (Feb. 5, 1879). Unfortunately neither authority gives any hint as to where that original position was,' and as both were removed by Henderson, or rather by his deputy Shallum, for dispatch to London it might be supposed that all evidence on the question would have disappeared. This, however, is not the case. It will be noticed that the fragments in the British Museum (A. 21a, b) have suffered a great deal since they were sketched by Boscawen and, in particular, that 125009 (A. 2i«) no longer has the feet, which in 1880 were intact. Incredible as it may seem, Shallum's methods of removing archaeological treasures for the jNIuseum were such that not only did he break off parts of the in- scribed surface of 125003 (A. 21b) and leave them on the stairs for Hogarth to find, but also, having in front of him 125009 complete from waist to feet, he simply smashed off the upper part for trans- port and left the feet still in situ. Here Hogarth found them in 191 1 (B. 35rt). The fragment, which Hogarth recognized as belonging to the Museum relief, stood on the limestone plinth at the eastern end of the step immediately below the first landing; he judged it to be in position when found, though afterwards, in the luncheon interval, it was inadvertently shifted a little out of place with a crow- bar; that it was in position is proved by the fact that at the left-hand side of the slab, behind the figure, there is a projection of the plinth which corresponds to a lo-centimetre projection in the wall foundations on which the fragment stood. The feet, therefore, are in situ, and as they are the feet of
A. 210, that relief was the hindermost of the procession. Boscawen's sketch, which is reproduced on PI. A. 21 c, confirms the statement in the letter from Henderson to the effect that A. 2i«and A. 21b were found standing in direct contact with one another; we therefore have two figures whose position is certain ; they are facing right, advancing out of the Palace, and between them they occupy just about two-thirds of the available wall space ; there is room for a third figure between that of the King (A. 2ih) and the corner of the buttress.
On the east side of the staircase, at the edge of the steps but not in situ, Hogarth found the lower part of the a basalt orthostat showing the sandalled feet of a figure wearing a long dress (B. 356 which would seem to correspond exactly to A. 216. A fragment, A. 22f, sent by Henderson to the British Museum, gives the middle part of just such a figure, and although it does not actually join on to the feet, it can fairly be assigned to them. Hogarth found also, on the west side of the stairs, two fragments making up part of a figure of an offrant which was set against an inscribed background,
B. 35c; it is a close parallel to A. 2i«, and I should have no hesitation in restoring it as the figure following behind the King (A. 22f). The fragment B. 3 5 Jwas sent home by Henderson ; unquestionably
' It is not marked on Boscawen's plan — which, not un- and though traces of the eastern remain it was so covered with
naturally, considering the manner in which the excavations massive blocks of stone — among which were huge blocks of
were carried out, is altogether without value. Boscawen's basalt with inscriptions rudely effaced, that 1 could not
written description would, if taken seriously, be positively mis- follow it', leading. He says : 'the west wall of the corridor only is perfect,
i62 CARCHEMISH
from the same series of sculptures — though the background is not inscribed — it should be the human offrant who walks in front of the King. On the west side therefore we have three figures who between them occupy, so far as we can judge, approximately the whole of the available wall space ; of them, the two rear figures were accompanied by hieroglyphic inscriptions, like those on the east side, but the leading figure was uninscribed.
Again, on the west side of the stairs but not in situ Hogarth found only half of a basalt relief, B. 36^, discovered first by Sterrett,' on the same scale as those already described and representing an offrant not indeed identical with, but of the same general type as the offrant on A. 21a. The slab is uninscribed and the rather wide expanse of plain background contrasts somewhat markedly with the all-over decoration of the majority of the slabs, but it is difficult to dissociate it from them; influenced partly by these considerations and also by the measurements of the stone, which agreed well with the gap between the corner of the buttress and the return towards the door on the stair- case leading to the west passage and the Temple court, we arbitrarily restored it here on the south face of th,e buttress (v. PI. 3i«). Support for the view that the procession did thus continue round the buttress is given by the fragment A. 26/ sent by Henderson to the British Museum; in scale and character it agrees with the staircase slabs A. 2 la; it is a corner block; on one face come the ends of lines of inscription, on the other, inscription and remains of a male (?) figure facing right. If it does belong to the staircase, and goes with the other figures, the only place for it is at the corner of the east buttress; in that case the third figure on the inner face of the buttress (now missing) had the same background of inscription as the other two, and the leading figure on the south face of the buttress also was inscribed. Against this it can be urged that the stone foundations against the south face of the eastern buttress, whether they were part of a door-jamb or supported a superstructure (v. below, p. 171), imply that the buttress was hidden and therefore would not be carved; and if that objection be overruled on the ground that the stones in question are certainly very late, we may hesitate to restore the uninscribed figure B. 36^ as a pendant to the inscribed figure A. 26/. Perfect symmetry, however, is not characteristic of Hittite art (cf. the two lions of the gateway higher up the stairs), and from the angles of the buttresses southwards the two sides of the staircase were structurally unsymmetrical so that a difference in their ornament would be excusable. And, as I shall show later,- the uninscribed slab B. 36a may have been part of an older scheme of decoration re-used. In any case we have on either side of the stairs a group of three or four figures, a human personage, probably King Asadaruwas, whose name appears in the inscription, led by one or two offrants, apparently also human, and followed by another offrant who, being winged, must rank as divine. All these come out from the Palace to receive the gods who are shown on the Long Wall of Sculpture returning to the temple from which they had been exiled (v. p. 243). The short stretch of containing-wall between the 'buttress and the passage door on the west side of the stair- case seems to have been plain — a plain basalt orthostat was found here, not indeed in position, but only just behind the plinth on which it may well have stood — and makes the logical separation between the incoming procession and the king who welcomes it.
There remain the outer buttresses. It has been pointed out that the offset on B.35« corresponds to a feature in the buttress foundation ; 10 centimetres inside the line of the plinth on which stood the reliefs B.M. 125003, 125009 (A. 21a, b), a definite line is given by rough wall-foundations rising just above pavement level ; it could be traced to about half-way through the thickness of the buttress.
' American jfour)ial of Archaeology, vol. iv. - Pp. 163 (note) and 242.
THE LOWER PALACE AREA 163
Inside this line are set large flat slabs which we at first took to be part of the pavement of the land- ing. It will be seen, however, that on either side of the landing there is incorporated (apparently) in the paving an unusually large (limestone) block 1-85 m. long laid in the opposite sense to all the other pavement slabs — i.e. these two lie at right angles to the treads instead of being parallel to them — they take up the full width of the buttresses as given by the door recesses, and they are virtually alined with but overlap by a few centimetres the faces of the inner buttresses. It is obvious that they are the foundations of the buttresses, and that they were planned to carry an unusual weight. The line of slightly raised foundations already described must mark the point at which the normal foundations for the core of the wall ended against the facing-stone ;' that stone must in this case have been a block (or blocks) measuring over all i-8o m. by 0-90 m. Even were no other evidence available, it would be natural to assume that the entrance here had been flanked by figures of lions, according to a familiar Hittite convention; but there is further evidence of this. When we excavated the Water-Gate we found fragments of two large lion sculptures (PI. i^a, ^ ; cf. PI. B. 3 ic) ; the fragments, which were numerous, lav all close together, outside the line of the River Wall, some in the modern irrigation-ditch w hich skirts the site, some in the loose filling of a trench dug across that ditch by Shallum. According to Henderson's report they were found when the trench was being dug from the staircase to the river bank (it was intended to facilitate the removal of large sculptures, especially B. 33), but he does not say where; according to our old workmen who had been employed bv Henderson they came from the staircase area, had been removed by Shallum for shipment, but had been left behind and subsequently broken up by villagers who wanted basalt for querns or millstones. I was quite convinced that the lions did not belong to the Water-Gate,- though I was at a loss as to where to put them ; the difficulty is increased by the fact that they are not strictly speaking a pair, A. 14^ bearing an inscription of King Luhas and the other (A. 14^) an inscription of Luhas's son Asatuwatimais, and, judging by the shoulders which alone supply a standard of comparison, the scale is not exactly the same and the style is very different. On the other hand, we have two lion figures both forming buttress ends, found in the same area and therefore probably coming from places not far apart (stones of this size are not likely to have been shifted very far), facing in opposite directions and therefore suited to two corresponding buttresses, and lying not far from where there are two buttresses which require lion figures of the sort. I attempted (Pl£3if) a reconstruction of the Luhas lion, of which more fragments could be identified, and its measurements came to i-8o m. xo-go m., exactly the size demanded by the foundations. In view of the constant aherations and adaptations of the Carchemish buildings by successive kings,-' it is not impossible that the t\vo confronting jambs of the stairway entrance were the work of different kings, and I think that on the whole we are justified in attributing the Luhas lion to the western and the Asatuwatimais lion the eastern of the outer buttresses ; certainly one or other, if not both, would be in place here.-* Judging by the inscription on B. 406 the decoration of the Long Wall of Sculpture was due to Luhas and a Luhas lion on the buttress would therefore be quite consistent.^
' We commonly find such a line of raised rubble core where culty already noted, the difference between the inscribed slabs
the orthostats of a wall have been removed. on A. 21 and the uninscribed slab B. 36a. The latter might be
^ Vol. ii, p. 105. part of the original decoration put up by Luhas, a scene exactly
^ Compare the analysis of the King's Gate sculptures, like that which we have now ; but .^sadaruwas may have sub- '
pp. 202 flf. stituted for the original slabs bearing the portrait and (?)
■* Evenif only one of these attributions be accepted, we have inscription of Luhas similar shabs in his own honour, while
tvvo dates for the staircase sculptures, since the reliefs on A. 21 re-employing the uninscribed relief, are by Asadaruwas. This might be the explanation of a diffi- ' .A further argument for restoring a lion-sculpture at the
i64 CARCHEMISH
Many fragments of lions, mostly small, were found on or at the foot of the stairs, e.g. B. ']ob, a foot which by scale might well belong to A. 146, the Asatuwatimais lion ; other fragments were found on the stairs above the level of the first landing and so must have come from door-jambs higher up. About those there is nothing to be said.
At the foot of the stairs Hogarth found part of a great basalt lintel carved in relief with a winged disk (B. 36f) ; on the under surface there was a reveal allowing for a wooden frame or support. The spread of the wings of the disk covered a length of about 2 metres and it is likely, though of course not certain, that the design occupied the centre of the slab only, leaving the ends plain ; in that case the total length of the stone would have been not less than 3 metres. The space between the jambs of the entry is 2-80 m., so that a stone of a little more than 3 metres would span it easily.'
The gate-tower in which was set this monumental doorway with its lion-supported jambs and carved liutel is shown by the massive thickness of its walls to have risen high above the line of the the wall along the lower terrace edge; its fa9ade- was decorated with coloured and glazed bricks. The specimens of these found on the lower stair-flight and at the foot of the wall in the western passage were too fragmentary (PI. 33) to give any idea of the pattern-scheme as a whole. Numerous though the pieces were, they did not represent bricks enough to cover a very large area, and it is quite possible that the coloured decoration was confined to one or more horizontal bands set in a wall built for the rest of mud bricks, probably whitewashed.
That is as far as restoration can wisely go ; the position of the many other sculptured fragments found in the staircase area must remain unknown. It is tempting to suggest that the gazelle (B. 6ib), said to have been found by Henderson high up the mound in the neighbourhood of the third flight of stairs, came from the wall-face behind the 'platform' in that unusually wide section of the approach, in which case one would suspect an 'episodic' decoration such as we have in the inner court of the King's Gate (v. PI. B. 57«); but there is no authority for any such suggestion.
" The Long Wall of Sculpture
It has already been stated that the west pier of the staircase abuts on the Long Wall of Sculpture. That wall is the eastern containing-wall of the Temple wing which here projects from the line of the lower terrace over the flat ground in front of the King's Gate (see the plan, PI. 29). It was so named by us because it had been adorned with a continuous series of reliefs starting at the doorway on the west side of the stairs and continuing round the south-east corner of the Temple wing, a total length of at least 37 metres. In accordance with a common Hittite convention the stones on which the reliefs (or most of them) were carved were of limestone and basalt alternately, giving
buttress end is afforded by B. 35a. It will be remarked that the eastern pier of the South Gate measured 2-70 m. x i -65 m. offset in the pHnth has no corresponding offset on the upper The width of the entry made me at first suspect a central part of the slab, behind the figure, but the surface of that upper column, but there was no sign of such — in fact, the evidence part is carefully smoothed as if it were meant to be seen, al- was definitely against it. The risk of so long a stone breaking though ex hypothesi the offset of the plinth implies a return under the stress of its own weight and that of the facade which of the wall. If the wall were merely a wall the shaping of the it supported was minimized if it rested on a wooden cross- block would be actually detrimental ; but if the adjacent block beam, as it did, and as did a similar but much smaller lintel was carved in the form of a lion with the head and fore-legs mentioned on p. 174, no. {b).
in the round, then the smoothed face of the slab B. 35a is - The glazed brick fragments were found for a little way
essential because it would be visible as the background behind only along the western passage and on the stairs themselves,
the head and shoiilders of the lion seen in profile. but here in smaller numbers, and in the neighbourhood of the
' The Hittite builders would not have fought shy of using bull base on the eastern side; they do not seem, therefore, to
a stone of such a size; the orthostat at the end of the first have belonged to the terrace wall.
THE LOWER PALACE AREA . 165
a black-and-white effect; a departure from the usual custom, however, was that in this case the rehefs stood not at ground level but on a plain base 1-35 m. high built of three courses of massive limestone masonry.
Only the lower part of the front slab was found actually /// siUi on its plinth; all the rest that survived had fallen or slipped from their places on the wall, but they lay at its foot more or less as they had fallen' and could therefore bo replaced without any great margin of error; Init many were missing. Plate B. 37 shows the wall restored as far as possible; all the reliefs found were set up and the gaps between them filled with mud brick; only one piece of doubtful restoration was attempted, namely the placing on the top of the wall of the curious round-crocketed limestone blocks found alongside the wall which I took to be decorative battlements.
From end to end of the wall the whole series of sculptures is consistent in subject : it is a pro- cession with deities in front and human warriors in the rear which advances towards the staircase obviously in celebration of a victory won in war.^ At the head of the procession,, for a space corres- ponding almost exactly to the length of the staircase pier, come the gods. On the first slab, which is of basalt, there are two figures. A male god, identifiable as Teshup, leads the way; he holds an axe and what is probably a lituus. Behind him is a goddess carrying a pomegranate and a sistrum or ears of corn ; her head is now missing but was still existing when George Smith discovered the relief — a sketch of it by him is reproduced from his note-book on PI. 38. The lower part only of the next slab was found, fallen at the foot of the wall ; it is of basalt^ and gives us the legs of a god carry- ing a spear point downwards at the slope B. 396.
There is then a gap in the row of sculptures whose exact width it is impossible to state, seeing that the Naked Goddess slab on the far side of it has been replaced ; but since the slab had merely slipped forward from its position on the wall, the error in its replacement cannot be of more than about 10 centimetres, and according to this the gap should be filled by a single figure carved on a slab of the same size as the fragmentary one of the god carrying the spear.' Presumably it was of basak. In view of the fact that the front slab has a divine pair, god and goddess, it is tempting to assign to this place the fine goddess's head B. 390, so as to make a pair with the spear-bearing god ; it was found near the stair-foot (but not close to the Long Wall of Sculpture), so could quite well belong to the series, and the scale is correct ; the only objection is that it is accompanied by an inscription, which is not the case with the other three deities, but that need not be taken very seriously. There must have been a fourth figure here and it should have been a goddess, on the analogy of the 'Storm-god' pair; this head suits in every way and there has been found no other monument with which on grounds of scale or style it could possibly be associated.
Fortunately there is no doubt regarding the next slab, found almost in situ leaning against the footing of the wall from which it had slipped.
This is the great limestone relief of the Naked Goddess and the seated woman, B. 40a and b. The stone had been broken into several fragments, two of which, giving the upper part of both figures, had been found by Henderson ; two more fragments giving the feet were found by Hogarth,
' But some fragments were found (B. 456) in the foundations the enemy by whom the gods had been evicted, of the Roman wall immediately above the Temple area. ' This departure from the normal alternation of colours wag
- Mr. Barnett notes on this: 'More exactly, I think, they presumably intended to emphasize the unity of the group of
[the gods] are returning to their temple from w hich they had leading deities ; the contrast btgins with the Naked (Joddess,
been evicted. This seems to be inference from the inscription who, standing rigidly and full-face, is no more part of the pro-
A. ifl.' But the return is manifestly the result of a victory over cession than is the seated priestess next to her.
C ■
i66 CARCHEMISH
but the stone is still imperfect.' The winged goddess holding her breasts and with the veil hanging down behind her and framing her naked body is of course a familiar type in Cappadocian, Meso- potamian, and Syro-Hittite art.- The other figure presents certain difficulties. Hogarth described it as 'a draped male figure', ^ and Hrozny-* also calls it 'I'effigie en relief d'un prince (.'')'. This seems to irre impossible, for the dress is definitely female, identical with that of the priestesses of the Processional Entry (B. 19, 20, 21), a close-fitting short-sleeved tunic above which is a shawl or veil covering the head and falling to the feet, while the front edges are brought together across the body on the line of the waist ; even the bracelet worn upon the left wrist is a distinctive part of a woman's dress. What is peculiar is rather the fact that a personage taking part in this assembly of the gods has herself no obvious symbol of divinity. The goddess of the Processional Entry (B. 19^) has the same dress and wears no horned crown of divinity, but she is at least enthroned on a lion, whereas here we see a simple chair such as would suit a human being. On the evidence of the inscription Mr. Barnett concludes that the figure is presumably a priestess and certainly a mortal and a member of the royal family of King Luhas (v. p. 260).
The next slab is missing; it may have been a chariot-slab like those that follow, or it may have completed the array of divinities or, if the seated figure is a human woman, of the divinities and their worshippers. Immediately adjoining it, judging by the evidence of the position of the fallen stones, came the limestone chariot-slab B. ^la, and then there had been a row of six more similar slabs of which we found one in basalt and two in limestone complete or nearly complete and one fragment (B. 41^; B.42rt, b; B/43fl) ; these lay in a row along the wall except for the last, which was at a little distance from the wall's face and associated with a fragment of a 'demon' slab (B. 52A) which did not belong to the Wall series.
Beyond the fourth complete chariot lay the great limestone slab covered with a hieroglyphic inscription A. la and B. 436. According to Hroznys the stone gives only the latter part of the text and there must have been another stone on the right of this containing the first part. Coming in the middle of the scenes of battle -the inscription must record the victory of the king of Carchemish over his enemies — Campbell Thompson remarked that one of the wounded enemies trampled by the chariot-horses is almost certainly an Assyrian and seems to be circumcised — 'it is', wrote Hogarth, 'the first obviously historical Hittite text which has been found accompanying illustrative reliefs'.*' .
All the other slabs found (B. 44-6) were of one and the same type, showing foot-soldiers bringing in prisoners or with captives crouched before them. The series was very far from complete, only four orthostats being found, all of limestone and one of them a mere fragment f all were in poor condition with much of the surface flaked away. The last orthostat, B.-46, had a single figure carved on its narrow edge (B. 466), which suggests that the military procession was continued for a certain distance at least along the south wall of the wing of the Palace.
' In our attempted restoration, PI. B. 4.0b, insufficient space ^ Hrozny's attempted translation does not carrj' conviction
has been left between the two pieces of the seated figure, so any more than does his explanation of the severed hands as
that the distance from the knees to the front of the body, and pointing to a 'tomb' and the severed heads as those of the
the depth of the throne, have been unduly reduced. 'dieux -vizirs' referred to in his text.
- v. G. Contenau, La De'esse nue babylonieniie, Paris, 1914. ' There must have been eight originally, to fill the whole
' Probably taking the extraordinarily square outline of the wall-length from the great inscription to the corner. It is fairly
jaw as a side whisker. safe to assume that the missing four were of basalt and have
■* Les Inscriptions hittites hie'roglyphiques, p. 236. disappeared for that reason, having been carried off for re-use
5 Op. cit., p. 195. owing to the value of the stone.
THE LOWER PALACE AREA 167
A curious detail was that against the corner of the wall there was let into the cobbled floor of the court a half-ovoid block of basalt about o-6o m. high intended to protect the angle of the masonry from damage by the wheels of vehicles; precisely similar 'guards' can be seen in London to-day.
Of the south wall of the wing very little was left. Only at the south-east corner was there more than a single course of masonry and for about half its length only the foundations remained virtually at floor-level. Fortunately a stone threshold with the lowest block of a door-jamb at its western end gave us the entrance. In front of it was a low step considerably longer than the door openifig (see plan, PI. 29); this extension might have served as the base for a relief flanking the doorway, just as the great Lion slab B. 33 comes immediately against the door-jamb of the entrance to the little room (i) on the east of the staircase.
(b) THE TEMPLE OF THE S'I'ORM-GOD
Entering this doorway one passed into a large courtyard (2) neatly floored with ct)bbles — varie- gated pebbles collected from the bed of the Euphrates — laid over gravel,' On the east was the boun- dary wall, very much destroyed, of a set of rooms lying behind the Long Wall of Sculpture;- the foundations could be traced up to a definite corner beyond which \yas the entrance to a cobbled passage which seems to have led, between two walls of which little more survived than the thresholds of two doors, to the small door at the end of the Long Wall of Sculpture opening on to the staircase. In the first of these rooms (3) was found the inscribed basalt altar A. 4c.
The north wall of the courtyard was preserved only for its western half, where it stood two courses high, of good ashlar masonry ; here it abutted on a very finely built wall of hmestone orthostats, the eastern wall of the Temple shrine. In the angle there stood undisturbed the baSalt stela A. 46 bearing a winged disk and an incised inscription which mentions the 'Great King' ; it should there- fore go back to the time of the Later Empire of the Bogazkoy Hittites. In the court was found also a semicircular basalt block, possibly a base for a statue, with three lines of linear inscription, A. 4<7.
From the north-west angle of the Temple court to the south-east corner of the shrine was only 2-50 m., but beyond that the line of the east wall of the shrine was continued by two stone steps dividing the courtyard (2) from an inner court (9) whose cobbled floor lay about 30 centimetres higher. This inner court was bounded on the north by the Temple fa9ade, which extended across its whole width, and on the west by a wall of plain limestone orthostats ; in the south-east corner, against the south wall, there was a raised platform measuring 4 metres by 3 with an edging of rough stones and clay, two or three courses high, and a filling of earth mixed with ashes and showing signs of heavy burning. It was certainly an altar. In the loose soil in front of it were found broken bones of birds and small animals and numerous fragments of ivory which proved to be seven panels for inlay, probably from a piece of furniture, cut in a tree design, of which the best preserved is shown on PI. 71/. Between the altar and the west wall of the court there was a small separate hearth. In the outer court there was a line of stones which continued that of the north edge of the 'altar', but at a lower level ; it might have been a wall foundation, and that it was such is made more likely by the fact that it returns to abut on the west jamb of the entrance-door and that this section is certainly.
' The plan shows the preservation of the cobbled surface, .As a result the buildings on it were much more exposed to
the dotted areas being those from which the pebbles were destruction. In the Roman foundations immediately above we
missing and the gravel exposed. found ven,- many good facing-stones which being of the same
^ The floor-level here was about a metre above the level of size and character as the few still in position at the west end of
the courtyard outside the Long Wall of Sculpture, which the north wall of the courtyard, where it abutted on the shrine,
served as a retaining wall for what was really a raised platform. probably came from these ruined chamber walls.
i68 CARCHEMISH
a wall foundation. In the enclosure there was no burnt earth and no ash. The structure should be restored as a room (8) whose west wall rested on the higher rubble that limits the altar on the line of the steps dividing the two courts.
Close to the ruined north wall of this enclosure there were found fragments (the head is missing) of a-basalt relief of a winged griffin (B. ^8a) of the same type as B. 28b, and outside the south wall small fragments of a basalt relief identical in subject and style with B. 12. These are by their style considerably earlier than the reliefs of the Long Wall of Sculpture and contemporary with those of the Herald's Wall ; that they belonged originally to the Temple court is likely, but there is no means of deciding whether thev were part of the decoration of its outer wall or of its interior ; in favour of the latter view it might be urged that the processional scene of the Long Wall of Sculpture continued, as is proved by the corner slab, along the southern facade.
Close to the Temple door the cobbled floor of the inner court had been patched with flat paving- stones. Near the south-west corner there was a basalt impost-stone let into the floor. Immediately in front" of the Temple door and 6-50 m. from it there was a raised base which had been of, or had been edged with, cut stones ; only the north edge and part of the east edge remained, but the original dimensions could be determined by the gravel floor-foundation, which ended in a straight line where the stones had been removed, as 2-70 m. ■: i .40 m. By (but not on) this base was found part of the great basalt group of two bulls, B. 470, b — it was the hind part of the left-hand bull — of which other fragments were found scattered over the Temple court area.' The breaking up and dispersal of this very massive block must have been deliberate and was so thoroughly done that its original site cannot be fixed with certainty. But there are few places that seem adapted to a monu- ment of this size ; the legs, the parts least likely to be moved far, were found in the inner court, and the measurements of the bull group agree remarkably well with the raised base in front of the shrine; it was accordingly restored by us in that position (see Pll. 356 and 36).
The bull group is a solid block of basalt having in its upper surface a rectangular depression surrounded by a slightly raised border. Except for its unusual dimensions (it is 2-40 m. long and I -10 m. high) it is just like the group found behind the Lion slab east of the staircase, and closely resembles the double lion groups which support the statues in the King's Gate, and it would be reasonable to assume that it also is a base for a statue. So indeed it may be; but there was one argument against this obvious assumption, namely that the edges of the depression, which would have been covered had this been a mortise-hole with a statue standing on the base and tongued into it, were rounded and smooth, iA places even polished as if by constant friction. The worn surface extended only just over the edge and a very little way down into the depression, the bottom of which was not well finished, being chiselled out and not ground out. We came to the conclusion that there had been some kind of shallow pan or basin, probably of metal, let into the depression, that it had held water for ceremonial purposes, ablutions, &c., and that the stone had been worn and the edges polished by the hands of people reaching over it to get at the water. In this case it would correspond to the 'brazen sea' supported by oxen in the Temple of Solomon.
It is further possible that both explanations are true. The sculpture is an early one, approximating in style to those of the Water-Gate.- It may have been designed and used as a statue-base and
' The front part was found between the Temple court and of the Temple court, the King's Gate, well above the Hittite floor-level, in the Hel- - The use of inlay for the eyes is in the archaic tradition but
lenistic stratum ; part of the back of one bull was in room 7 ; survives into the latest periods, the shoulder of the left-hand bull was just outside the west wall
THE LOWER PALACE AREA 169
later, when the Temple court took its present form, have been turned to a different use as a laver. The fact that the hind-quarters of the bulls are not carried round to the back of the stone (which is plain) as are the hind-quarters of the lions supporting the column-base B. 32, which was intended to be seen from all sides, may mean that the bull group was designed to stand against a wall and not in the open as it does if replaced in the Temple court. The reasons for regarding it as a statue- base are indeed strong ; but since the unmistakable wearing of the stone is inconsistent with such use, the compromise that I have suggested seems the most satisfactory explanation of the con- flicting evidence.
The Temple itself was built with 'bellied' limestone orthostats of unusuallv fine qualitv. Of the superstructure that rested on the orthostats nothing remained in situ, bu,t on the floor in front were found numerous bricks covered with a pale blue glaze on which in slight relief were rosettes with white petals and yellow centres. These must have come from the facade.
The doorway had a raised limestone threshold and the orthostats of the two jambs were of basalt covered with inscriptions in relief (A. 2 and A. 3) by King Katuwas, the same king as was respon- sible for the earlier version of the King's Gate. On the inside of the doorway the hinge-stone of the door, a basalt tripod-bowl re-used for the purpose, was found /// situ against the west jamb and against the east jamb was a flat stone with a square hole for the bolt. The doorway had narrowly escaped destruction, for the heavy rubble and concrete foundations of a Roman wall crossed the court diagonally from south-west to north-east, resting on the Hittite floor, and hit the Temple wall in the eastern angle of the door recess, almost touching the eastern basalt jamb ; it then jumped the wall and continued across the Temple (PI. 35«).
The inner faces of the south and east walls were virtually intact (one orthostat was missing from the latter) and were precisely like the outer faces, the stones, limestone, having the 'bellied' and polished surface which seems to be characteristic of early work, being commonly found, for example, in the Water-Gate and in the River Wall. From the western wall all the orthostats had been removed. The north wall was different. A line of foundation-blocks, rising above ground-level, abutted on the face of the last orthostat of the eastern wall (PI. 350), partly concealing it, and a second line of foun- dation-blocks set back from the first and at a higher level came up to the corner of the same orthostat and would therefore seem to give the true wall-line, though the character of it is very different. The lower line is probably a raised bench, originally covered with stucco or with wood, the upper should be the wall proper (the blocks plastered and the orthostats, now missing, resting on them), though its change of level implies a different character in the wall. That there was a difference is obvious. The eastern wall is i-6o m. thick, the north wall (not including the 'bench') is y8^ m. thick; the analogy of the 'Hilani' (v. p. 181) would appear to warrant the conclusion that it was a double wall enclosing a staircase which led to an upper chamber. We detected no material evidence of such a staircase.
The floor of the Temple had been paved with limestone flags, most of which had been pulled up. A large square block with a hole in the centre of its worked face (visible in the corner of the room in PL 35rt) was found above floor-level; it was of the soft limestone normally used by Roman builders and probably does not belong to the temple. A basalt block, originally an orthostat but with a hole (secondary) in each corner of its worked face, was found lying flat with its base sunk below floor-level at a point immediately in front of the door where the paving had been destroyed ; this should belong. A large basalt column-base, plain, was also at floor-level but tossed on one side and
I70 CARCHEMISH
lying on its edge; in the photograph, PI. 356, it is seen as placed by us on the square basalt block, but it has no real connexion with that stone. Part of a basalt 'table of offerings' (cf. vol. ii, fig. 27, p. 94) was found in the Temple at floor-level.
It is clear from the ground-plan that the Temple complex as we have it is the result of wholesale remodelling ; the abutting of the south wall of room 7 on the east wall of the Temple and, yet more obviously, the awkward junction of the south-west corner of room 10 with the north-east corner of the Temple, could not have been designed by the original architect ; the masking of its west wall by the west wall of the enceinte is further evidence of secondary construction. The shrine itself must be assigned, on grounds of style, to the same period as the south or River Wall of the Inner City which can on conclusive evidence be attributed to the Later Bronze Age or, as I have termed it in previous publications, the JNIiddle Hittite period;' in other words, it is contemporary with the Hittitc Empire of Bogazkoy. The inscribed stela A. 46 with its reference to the 'Great King' must therefore be part of the furniture of the original building.- The door-jambs of Katuwas are a later addition, dating to the ninth century, and are perhaps (but not necessarily) contemporary with the general remodelling of the area. The inner face of the north wall of the shrine with its bench clum- sily built up against the orthostat of the east wall may be part of the later work. Our first idea was that the thickness of the north wall merely implied great height in the building, but the analogy of 'Hilani' shrines of the Imperial age at Alalakh and of the later 'Hilani' near the Water-Gate (p. 181) more than justify the theory of a staircase leading to an upper floor; but it is possible that here, as at Alalakh,-' the- upper floor was subsequently abandoned and a solid wall substituted for the double wall and staircase,; that might be the explanation of the anomalous character of its inner face.
The Temple complex as we have it is definitely of the Late Hittite ('Syro-Hittite') period. I would emphasize that we set the double bull group on the stone base in the court purely on the archaeological evidence of find-spot and measurement ; only after it was built up from its fragments did we remark the wearing of the edges of the depression in its top and suggest that it was used as a laver rather than as a statue-base, and not till then did we notice the curious resemblance that the complex bears to the Solomonic temple at Jerusalem. Here, too, we have an outer and an inner court, the former perhaps decorated with reliefs, amongst them the confronted pairs of eagle- headed-' cherubim' whose wings are spread one in front of and one behind the body.* In the inner court (of the same width as the sanctuary) we have the altar of burnt offerings in front of the sanctuary, and bet'sveen it and the sanctuary door' the laver supported by oxen. The sanctuary is a small, virtually square building,^ its coloured brickwork taking the place of the embroidered hang- ings of the Hebrew temple. If our temple was true to the 'Hilani' pattern, the entrance should have been flanked by columns standing in the door recess ; nothing of the sort was found in situ, but there was a basalt column-base loose inside the building whose dimensions would agree with the depth of the recess. There is no analogy for the use of a single column or columns inside a room of this sort. Considering the state of the ruins neither the displacement of one column-base nor the disappearance of the other is at all unlikely .^ Were there two columns at the entrance, the parallel
Vol. ii, p. 48. ^ B. 12. Cf. 2 Chronicles iii. 7 and 10 to 13.
Itisnot.of course, in its original position because the north = Exodus xl. 7; 2 Chronicles iv. 3.
wall of the angle in which it stands was ex hypothesi not built ^ It measures 8-oo m. x 7-10 m. The Holy of Holies was
when the stela was dedicated. 20 cubits square, possibly as little as 820 m.
' Alalakh, pp. s6, zj. ' The Roman wall-foundations (see PI. 34(7) came precisely
THE LOWER PALACE AREA . 171
would be carried yet a stage closer to the Hebrew temple where 'lie reared up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand and the other on the left'.' The Phoenician architect commissioned by King Solomon to design a temple for a people whose god had never before been housed in more than a tent would necessarily be thrown back a good deal on his own professional experience ; and if there was in normal use a temple type which adapted itself reasonably well to the prejudices of his clients and did not make too marked a departure from the tent of their tradition he would naturally avail himself of it ; if without shocking the priesthood he could flatter the king with the assurance that the new building was altogether a la mode in the capitals of the north he would be certain of approval.
DETAILS
Room I
Directly against the edge of the great Lion slab a basalt impost, 1-25 m. xo-qo m., with mortise-hole 0-45 m. sq. X 0-14 m. deep, beside which a much- worn hinge-hole; it was in position. Just below it, loose, a broken slab of hard conglomerate, the top much worn, and two fragments of similar slabs, one i -30 m. X 0-25 m., one 1-90 m. xo-28 m., both with surface worn; they were apparently treads of a flight of steps. In front of them in the court area, fragments of a basalt lintel with a winged disk carved on the front ; length from hinge- hole to hinge-hole 1-22 m. There was no sign of the other door-jamb. Only at the west end of the room was the pavement preserved; it was a mixture of cobble- stones and broken slabs ; in level it was about flush with the tenth step of the stairs. Farther west the pavement failed and the walls were denuded away; some mud- brick foundations of the east wall remained with beyond them a cobbled floor 0-85 m. lower than that of the room. The north wall was roughly built and merely abutted on the stair buttress ; but that need not imply a difl^erence of date since the buttress would almost certainly be built first and the terrace wall brought up against it. About the western wall there was much uncertainty. The two stones shown against the corner of the buttress were a late addition, for the packing between them con- tained chips of inscribed basalt; also they did not agree with anything on the other side of the staircase. A plain basalt orthostat was found standing against the end of the ninth stair (see PI. 3irt), but this was immediately opposite the door opening on the other side of the stairs, and the flat stone on which it stood showed signs of wear implying that it was a pavement slab. At the same
time a wall with a door corresponding to that on the other side of the stairs is unlikely because that would mean that the bull base stood right in a corner, whereas it is intended to be seen from both sides. In fact, there has been so much remodelling of the staircase, and so much destruction, that any attempt at detailed recon- struction here is hazardous, Quite possibly the whole end of the room was open.
On the Hittite floor-level outside the south wall of room I many glazed bricks were found, but they did not extend much beyond the south-east corner of the room ; . they must therefore have come either from the room itself or from the lower buttress of the stairs, above, the basalt reliefs ; they were of the same types as occurred inside the doorway on the other «ide of the stairs.
Not far from the south-east corner of room i there was found a fragment of a baked clay cone or cylinder inscribed with Hittite linear characters, fig. 62, p. 159. Farther to the east was part of a brick inscribed in cuneiform with the name of Sargon; the levels here were disturbed by a Roman catch-pit and it could not be said whether the fragment belonged to the destruction level or had come into it from above, as seemed more probable. Still farther to the east, well down in the clean water-laid (?) soil that normally occurs under the Hittite road-level in this area, was a human skull with a few other bones, two pierced shells, and a fragment of a stone bead, certainly of the Early Bronze Age.
The Stairs
A trial pit dug S-oo m. from the foot of the stairs showed a second cobbled floor only 0-25 m. below the first, and virgin soil but little lower down. A pit at the
where an eastern base would have stood, and the ground in the between columns, western half of the recess was disturbed. The patching of the ' 2 Chronicles iii. 17.
floor in front of the doorway rather suggests a paved approach
172
CARCHEMISH
foot of the stairs showed a mass of cobbled flooring 0-75-1 -GO m. thick, a tliin hme-Hne in the middle of which might mean an upper and a lower floor; then soil containing early pottery and an Early Bronze Age burial, and virgin soil at 2-io m.
A pit on the second landing found clean gravel o-6o m. thick and just below that a fragment of Early Bronze Age pottery (rim of 'champagne-cup' with incised decoration) and the lower courses of a wall of rough stones. A pit above the highest remaining steps pro- duced sandy gravel which was clearly the bedding for the stone steps. It follows that (i) there are no earlier TTittite buildings under the staircase; (2) the staircase was dug back into the slope of the prehistoric mound which was scarped and terraced by the Palace builders ; and (3) the original staircase, however much it may have been modified and rebuilt in later days, probably goes back to an early phase in the history of Hittite Carche- mish.
The last (tentative) conclusion is supported by the fact that the stairs have been much mended and patched, so much so that Hogarth queried whether they were not all a late restoration; that the courtyard at the stairs' foot has been repaved only once, the two cobbled sur- faces being separated by only o- 1 8 m., and that two road- levels only are traceable right down to the Water-Gate (where they are rather farther apart, v. on the 'Hilani' pit, p. 176), both of which are shown by pottery frag- ments to have been used in the Late Hittite period, and below them there are no Hittite remains ; and that these same cobbled surfaces are contemporary both with the Herald's Wall and with the Water-Gate. In this part of the site, therefore, levels remained virtually unchanged from the Aliddle Hittite period until the destruction of the city at the end of the seventh century B.C., and there is no reason why the stairs in their original form should not be as old as the Temple (a Middle Hittite building) in the adjoining wing of the Palace. In the form in which we have it the staircase is, of course, late ; it was continuously in use and often repaired. Actually we lifted a basalt slab in the eleventh step from the bottom and found under it a fragment of inscribed basalt and a piece of Greek fourth-century black-glazed pottery; so that the upper steps must have been exposed and mended in the Hellenistic period. But patching was just
as common in the lowest steps which lay beneath the debris brought down by weather over the thickly strewn basalt chips and pieces of the destruction level, steps which in the Hellenistic period were certainly buried out of sight.
The two staircase piers, of which only the western was at all well preserved, were built of narrow limestone orthostats i-io m. high standing on a low base-course;' they were filled in solidlv with earth, but there was nothing to show whether they were topped with stone. - Their shape was carefully calculated to mask the change of angle between the stairs and the Long Wall of Sculp- ture. In the base-course of the eastern pier there were some fragments of basalt re-used and coming frorh an older building; there is thus evidence of late construc- tion, but perhaps on the lines of the old.
In each buttress the top of the limestone plinth was flush with the landing; beyond the first stone on the landing it could not be traced, but there must have been a further projection to line up with the inner faces of the buttresses north of the door recesses. The floor of the eastern (the better preserved) recess was flush with the landing, unpaved ; where the steps started again, part of a stone retaining-parapet or combing survived. The hinge-stone was sunk well below floor-level. The walls of the recess had small polished orthostats 0-50 m. high above which were remains of mud brick; the bricks measured 0-38 m. sq.Xo-og m. and some 0-50 m. X 0-38 m. X 0-09 m. As the floor concealed most of the face of the orthostats the level would seem to have been raised in the late period. The walls, especially at the north end, were discoloured and flaked by fire.
The three steps between the buttresses are of very poor patchwork and contrast unfavourably with those below the landing.
The upper buttresses had limestone plinths. A land- ing started half-way across them and beyond them ran the full width of the staircase, cobble-paved on the west where there were found, not in position, a basalt hinge- stone and part of a door-jamb which may have belonged to a doorway in the west wall. The centre of the upper flight of steps had been destroyed by Shallum's work in the seventies ; the ends of the treads of the six steps that remained were very badly built of small and rather rough stones showing less traces of use than do those of the
' Their tops were flush with the eighth tread of the stairs. This is ven,' nearly the level of the north end of the Temple court as entered by the doorway on the stairs. It is also virtually the level of the floor of room i .
^ The only analogy I can suggest is that of the piers flanking the stepped approach to Niqmepa's palace at Alalakh (15th centurj- B.C.), which were solid but not covered in with stone.
THE LOWER PALACE AREA
173
lowest flight ; they must be a reconstruction, perhaps as late as the Hellenistic period. The walls here may also be late; that on the east has two orthostats remaining, of poor quality, resting on a mixed foundation of small stones and mud with mud brick behind. The branch wall to the east is of mvid brick and probably late. The slope above and to each side had been cut about by pits, and Roman debris from the Temple on the top of the Kala'at had fallen into these and lay at a metre's depth below Hittite level. ' On the west side of the staircase the buildings, though \ rather better preserved, did not make much sense. The terrace wall which comes up against the front iiuttress was unmistakably part of the old construction ; behind it the floors had been destroyed but, judging from the foundations of the upper walls, had been o-So m. above the cobble-and-mud floor at the foot of the terrace wall. Two walls run north by south ; the inner has rubble on its east face and a west face of mud brick ; the outer is all of mud brick; these two, together with the mud- brick return from the inner wall to the staircase, are of solid construction and apparently belong to the original plan. The slight skew wall which divides the eastern compartment is probably late, but it was an isolated fragment only, so that real evidence for its connexions is lacking. Apart from this, all trace of Hittite work above the line of the terrace wall had disappeared. An area measuring 20 by 16 metres was cleared by us and produced no wall remains whatsoever ; but loose in the soil there were numerous slabs and long beams of polished basalt bearing evidence to the fact that there had been here — or just above — buildings of consider- able importance.
Of the doorway leading from the stairs to the Temple court the north jamb was found /;/ situ (it was broken and collapsed, but was replaced) and the orthostat ad- joining it was shifted but lay alongside and was replaced by us. The south jamb was in position, though the upper part of it was broken away ; next to it came the first carved orthostat of the Long Wall of Sculpture, B. 38a. Hogarth was of opinion that the orthostat did not belong here but had been taken from its place far- ther along the wall and erected at this point in some very late period of reconstruction, his reason being tiiat it was 'shored up below with a rubble of small roLighiy squared stones and the back has been cut away probably to get material for patching the stair'. We were to learn later that the 'shoring up' of orthostats with small stones is not uncommon in Hittite architecture, and 1 do not
think that there is any valid reason for supposing that the relief in question ever occupied any position other than that in which it was found, or rather in which the lower part of it was found — the upper part had been broken and the head of the "second figure, which was seen bv Henderson, was never found by us.
None the less, there were signs of reconstruction. I'rom the door on the stairs to the south edge of the slab with the Naked (Joddess and the seated priestess (B. 40) the masonry of the podium of the Long Wall was difl^erent in qualitv and even (very slightly) diff"erent in line from the southern section ; it looked rougher and less regular, the stones certainly were more weathered, whereas for the rest of the wall the courses were most regular (v. PI. 37/;) and the stone-dressing showed the use of an entirely different tool. Corresponding to this change of appearance was a change in the thickness of the wall ; the southern section was 1-50 m. thick instead of I 10 m. It was clear that the north section, which was intrinsic to the staircase, was the older, and that the whole of the southern stretch had been tacked on to it, presumably at the time when the sculptures were set up. This would explain the fact which misled Hogarth — the 'Teshup' orthostat was to be erected on an old wall which had not been intended to serve as a base for any- thing of the sort and therefore had to be levelled ag best might be. The god was in his original position at the head of the long procession, but the whole procession was an innovation imposed on an earlier design.
Hogarth's report on the clearing of the approach to the stairs can be quoted here. 'Henderson had not disturbed this approach and indeed had not pushed his trench so far South as to uncover even the two lowest steps of the Stair. But he had sunk a cross trench irregularly across the Stair-foot from a point about three metres North- West to a point about twenty-five metres South- East. At the Western end of this cross trench he.had dis- covered the upper part of the relief in coarse limestone representing a winged nude goddess, which has been more than once published, though never satisfactorily. It was not found in silii. He must have discovered also a large inscribed fragment showing a draped male [sic] figure seated to right, whidh lies immediately to left of the goddess fragmeiU and (as we found) is part of the scene in which she figures; for this fragment also has been puiilished (see Messerschmidt, Corpus Iiiscr. Ilitt. ii, pi. \v). The latter had been reburied, while the god- dess fragment remained exposed in the trench but tilted forward so that no visitor to the site has been able
174
CARCHEMISH
to get a satisfactory photograph. In clearing the approach to the Stairway we found presently another fragment of the scene, the lower part of the goddess figure. ..." The reason why these important fragments were not removed by their discoverers is to be sought in their condition. They are very badly cracked and the surface is rotten. In the disturbed earth at this corner of the Stair foot occurred a small 'pocket' of basalt sculptured fragments, doubtless found but neglected by Hender- son. The only one of any importance showed a relief of a Grifiin's head' from a slab resembling B. 12. 'The con- tinuation of (Henderson's) trench eastwards to right uf the Stairway was probably motived by the existence of the greit slab showing two figures erect on the back of a crouching lion (B. 33), which has been published more than orice. Since the growth of lichen proves that its upper part has been exposed for a very long time it was probably its emergence above the surface which first led to any excavations at all being undertaken on the site. But Mr. Thompson has been the first to notice groups of Hittite symbols, doubtless expressing divine names, in front of the face of each of the standing figures. I had this slab cleared on all sides but did not pursue Henderson's trench farther to the Eastward. One bit of basalt (A. 33«/) inscribed in cuneiform of about Esarhaddon's time was picked up on the old dump heap on the south side of this trench . . . but nothing else of importance came to light. In the rubbish behind the great slab was found a much-defaced basalt bust in the round of Hittite style' (B. 676). •
Clearing in front of the staircase Hogarth found quan- tities of sculptured fragments, including parts of the 'Teshup' slab, the fine head, B. 39a, which should belong to the third figure in the procession, and a large frag- ment of an inscription, apparently from a lion, A. 30a.
At about i8-oo m. from the foot of the stairs there was a mass of stones lying on the Hittite ground-level ; two sides of the mass were fairly straight and at right angles and the other two sides were irregular; the longest side measured 3-14 m., the other straight side rather more than i-oo m. Hogarth wrote that 'the stones seem to have been intentionally packed together, but not to form any structure' ; Thompson considered that there was more to it than this and suggested that it was the (much ruined) base of an altar or something of the sort. While this theorj' cannot quite be ruled out, it is more probable that we have to deal with a square-cut
' I have laboured this point because the presence of an altar in the courtyard— which I was at first prepared to accept —
/
rubbish-pit into which the stones, &c., had been dumped soon after the destruction of the neighbouring buildings ; the shape of the pit would account for the way in which the stones lay. The stones went down below the level of the upper cobbled paving of the court (which v%as here 0-25 m. above the lowest paving), but their tops were flush with or above it, and they would therefore seem to lie too high to have been a foundation for any structure contemporary with that courtyard; moreover, amongst the fragments in the mass were some of which other fragments occurred elsewhere in the destruction stratum ; the monuments, therefore, to which they belonged were intact up to the time of the final sack of Carchemish and parts of them could not have been used in the foundation of a structure antedating the sack.'
In this mass of stones the most important were (a) Two fragments of a seated statue in basalt giving the hand, parts of the richly decorated robe, and part of the throne, B. 646. The feet were found near the Herald's Wall, (i) Limestone fragment with a winged disk.
(c) Parts of a throne with lion-claw feet in basalt.
(d) Lower part of a draped figure in relief, limestone ; B. 68c.
(e) Two large pieces of a long relief inscription in basalt; the two fit together but do not complete the text. A. 24a, 2-3.
(/) One piece of basalt relief inscription on a slightly larger scale.
(g) Several pieces of other relief inscriptions in very various styles, in basalt ; one piece of incised in- scription in green serpentine.
(/?) Large irregularly rounded block of limestone with a much-defaced linear inscription of five lines; the shape, &c., recalls the Mesopotamian kudurni or boundary-stone. A. I'jd.
(i) Long squared limestone block with rounded pro- jection rising from its centre. Hogarth remarks that in shape it exactly recalls the rock altars of the 'Midas City' in Phr\'gia, and compares it with the Hittite hieroglyph f^- A similar stone was found near to the Naked Goddess relief. We sug- gested that they might be decorative architectural pieces, parts of a parapet with merlons, and placed them, tentatively, on the top of the Long Wall of Sculpture (PI. B. 37a).
would be of great archaeological interest. Hogarth at a later time agreed that it was a rubbish-heap.
THE LOWER PALACE AREA
175
Under and between the stones were found various small objects :
(j) A terra-cotta figurine of a couchant lion, PI. 71a; the best terra-cotta found by us, very different from the normal figurines crudely moulded or in 'snow-man' technique.
(k) A figurine of Bes in blue-glazed frit, PI. 7 if.
(/) A blue paste scarab, Egyptian, the design oblite- rated, fairly early type, perhaps XlXth Dynasty.
(w) A quantity of beads ; one in lapis lazuli, several in opaque blue paste, many in glass, some of them large with inlaid eyes in different colours, some striped black and yellow, some with applied circle- and-dot patterns in relief, some of clear glass; some large carnelian spheroids, some pebbles, and pierced murex, cowrie, and cockle-shells. All of them might, of course, have come from a single string.
A few objects were found regarding whose original position nothing could be learned.
I . About half-way between the stairs and the Water- Gate, near the foot of the Acropolis mound, there was a hollow full of Roman and other stones. Amongst them was the very much battered piece of basalt sculpture B. 626. This was aprotome, carved in the round, the chest and front legs of a human-headed winged lion ; the back part of the block was roughly squared and evidently was
intended to be built into a wall. Onfy the lower part of the chest of the lion and the spring of its wings and the beard and one side of the hair of the man remain. A branching channel or gutter came through the head from the back and out through the mouth of the man ; the stone was therefore either a gutter or a gargoyle.
2. A large basalt block, mostly plain, on theupper part of which the beginning of a relief, apparently the tail and some of the hair of a lion, B. 69a. This also was on the surface on the road between the stairs and the Water-Gate.
3. In the same area was a basalt fragment showing the head of a bearded man facing right; he wears a rounded helmet and holds a spear of which only the point remains. B. 68a. In size and scale the relief agrees with B. 66b.
4. Above the top of the stairs were found fragments of a human arm and hand car\ed in basalt, apparently from a statue in the round of unusually large size (B. 636) and part of a horned crown from a statue of a god which may have belonged to the same figure (B. 63a).
5 . In the foundations of one of the Roman walls cross- ing the Lower Palace area was found the broken stela B. 66a, on the back and side of which was the incised inscription A. 176.
6. In the rubbish behind the great Lion slab was found the fragment of the head of a god in basalt, from a statue carved in the round, B, 6j<i.
CHAPTER IX THE 'HILANF
From the foot of the Palace stairs and from tlie Great Wall of Sculpture there extended eastwards as far as the Water-Gate a road surface of very hard, fine gravel set in mud, about 0-25 m. thick. On this roadway were scattered numerous fragments of basalt, many of them carved or inscribed. This was the 'destruction level', and necessarily dates to the destruction of Carchemish, i.e. to 604 B.C. But the road was also contemporary with ih^^ floruit both of the 'Lower Palace' and of the
Water-Gate, at least in their present form, for the founda- tions of the heav}' wall that continues towards the east the line of the south side of the Water-Gate lie only just below the road surface, which is, indeed, brought up against the face of that wall. A trial shaft sunk through the roadway close to the 'Hilani' (fig. 63) gave positive evidence on the point.' From the modern ground surface to a depth of approximately 2-00 m. there was (A) made soil containing quantities of stones, amongst which were large blocks and basalt orthostats from the north wall of the 'Hilani'. Then came a layer (B) about 0-50 m. thick of clean soil, water- laid, at the bottom of which carved and inscribed frag- pjg ^ ments of basalt formed an almost solid deposit ; amongst
them were many pieces from the great stela, A 12, which presumably therefore stood originally not far from here and may have been connected with the 'Hilani' (see p. 187). The fragments lay immediately on the gravel road (C). In the gravel was a good deal of pottery, all of Late Hittite date ; the admixture of potsherds with the gravel may well have resulted from repeated mending and relaying of the gravel, though at the time of excava- tion we detected no direct evidence of this. Below the o-25-m. thick road-metalling (D) came half a metre of fairly clean light water-laid soil containing a few sherds and small stones. Next was a stratum (E), 0-20 m. thick, composed for the most part of fine sharp gravel but with a few larger stones and a good deal of pottei*y ; this seems to have lain open and been used as a floor. A 0-20 m. layer (F) of comparatively clean light soil with a few stones and potsherds came next, resting on a bed (G) of large cobble-stones, very closely set, hard and apparently natural. Below this we did not dig.
The interesting point is that all the pottery, from top to bottom, was of Late Hittite type. In
' The identification of this building as a 'Hilani' may be probable that it stands for hilauas. We first used the name for
considered as open to objection because ver>' different explana- this Carchemish building in 1913. My justification for retain-
tions have been put forward of the precise significance to be ing it is that the building (a) has the columnar fa9ade in antis
attached to the term. At one time it was supposed to mean a which satisfies the old explanation of the word, and (b) had an
building with a portico or that it was an adaptation of the plan upper chamber which must have been lighted by a window or
of a Hittite gateway; the. more modem view is that it means windows, and therefore fulfils the later postulate. The fact
primarily a building with windows (Hebrew halon) with or that I use it between inverted commas will perhaps disarm
without a portico. Mr. Barnett informs me that the hieroglyph criticism. of a gateway building with windows ends in -71ns, and it is ver>-
THE 'HILANI' . 177
stratum E there were the famihar bowl forms B. 2 and B. S' and in the lowest level, F, were the base of a saucer, type B. 13, of fine burnished red ware, and several fragments of cinerary kraters with painted metope designs of the norma! Yunus style.
According to this evidence the buildings which will be discussed in the following sections are strictly contemporary whh the road C, which was in use when Carchemish fell; the clean sand overlying the carved fragments means that there was wilful destruction of the city's monuments followed by a period during which the site was deserted. The building-blocks in the upper soil represent the gradual decay and collapse of the walls of the ruined buildings in succeeding centuries. There is no means of telling how long before the fall of the city the buildings were set up ; if the road (C) really has been mended several times, it may have been a inatter of several centuries. Stratum G, even if it is formed naturally, must have been an exposed surface and probably served as a road. The fact that immediately above it we have Yunus pottery proves that it belongs, as an exposed surface, to the Iron Age; so far as the evidence goes it might be of the twelfth centurv at the earliest. The total accretion of 1-15 m. between G and C, especially if stratum E was also a floor or road surface, is not inconsistent with a period of anything from i :;o up to :;oo vears.
Confirmation of this view is obtained from the evidence of a test-pit dug by Hogarth at the foot of the Palace stairs. The pebble (gravel) floor of the courtyard area had a total thickness of between 0-75 m. and i-oo m., a thickness which would certainly be due to repeated repairs. Below this came soil, and at a depth of i -40 m. below stair-foot, at a distance of 2-00 m. from it and 0-40 m. from the Great Wall of Sculpture, there was found a pot burial of Earlv Bronze Age type (v. p. 234). Virgin soil and rock came at a depth of 2-10 m. It is clear that accretion was very slow, and there may even have been a cutting-down of levels preparatory to the building of the staircase, since otherwise it is difficult to explain the presence of an Early Bronze Age burial only 0-40 m. beneath the bottom of what was the floor in use at the close of the Late Hittite period.
Unfortunately it was impossible to establish the exact connexion between the Water-Gate and the Lower Palace. Where the 'Herald's Wall' broke away bevond the limestone relief of the camel- rider (v. vol. i, PI. B. 9^) a massive wall of the Roman Forum, resting on concrete foundations nearly 2 metres deep, crossed the site to a point east of the great Lion slab at the staircase foot ; it went down to Hittite level and had destroyed everything. East of it the ground had been heavily denuded, and it had in addition been honeycombed by rubbish-pits of Greek, Roman, and Arab date; a deep Greek drain ran across the area against the north-west corner of the 'Hilani', and a Greek tile-lined circular pit had been sunk into the ground a little to the west of it ; and lastly there had been deliberate excavation either for building-stones or for treasure. As a result of all this, we laid bare disconnected fragments of mud-brick walls or the rubble cores of walls whose facing- stones had been carried oft', or had to deduce walls from the patches of pavements or floors that happened to survive. Only one building could be traced in its entirety; this was the 'Hilani', lying about half-way between the Water-Gate and the broken end of the Herald's Wall. As has been said above in connexion with the trial-pit dug for stratification evidence, the road was here in quite good condition ; it lay low, showing a very slight rise from the level of the entry between the Water- Gate buttresses ; but the ' Hilani', though at no great distance to the south of it, was on a very differ- ent level — in fact some of the basalt orthostats of its south wall still in situ showed above ground before we began to dig. It stood upon a raised platform, but the character of the platform could
' References to LjVe»'/)oo/ ^n/ia/j, xxvi, pi. .\.\u I.
lyS CARCHEMISH
not be satisfactorily determined ; the front of it had crumbled away and with it had gone the outer face of the north wall of the 'Hilani'.
As can be seen from the plan (PI. 4irt), a wall ran along the south side of the road westwards, more or less continuing the line of the Water-Gate . It was well built of good mud bricks on a foundation of- small cobbles. Behind it were one or two parallel walls on the same level of which the inner- most, which had fairly heavy foundations of rough pudding-stone, was the actual platform wall. In the intramural space there were chambers formed by cross-walls. It was certain that we had here to deal with buildings of at least two different dates ; there was a slight difference of orientation between the systems, and generally it seemed that the earlier walls had cobble foundations and the later walls foundations of coarse rubble; and there were differences of level also. But the distinction
Fig. 65.
Fig. 64. Fk;. 66.
cobbled. ^pots u B -r ri C3
floor
o o
was never clearly marked, and although there was reason to think that the cross-walls were all late, the ruinous condition of the site was such that no coherent plan could be made out. It is probable, though not proved, that the older buildings had extended southwards at the same level and that later the platform had been constructed over the south part of them to serve as a podium for the 'Hilani', while the strip of space between the north wall and the terrace wall (which may have been part of the old system or may have been built specially as a retaining-wall) was divided into small chambers masking the platform front. Most of the cross-walls seemed to be of late date, but a little to- the east of the 'Hilani' one such was, judging by its depth, of an earlier date re-used in the later period. Here (fig. 64) there was a small room with a cobbled floor on which, in position, were two small column-bases of soft white limestone contemporary with the south and east walls, which had rubble foundations and were certainly late. Under the floor were remains of an older building, into the floor of which were let four large store-jars, and on it was a rectangular hearth or bin of mud. On this lower floor were found two cylinder seals, one of white paste (fig. 65) and one of black steatite (fig. 66) ; both are of Late Hittite date, as was such pottery as was found in the room. Al- together the evidence is conclusive that none of the buildings excavated in this part of the inner town are older than the beginning of the Iron Age, that during the Iron Age there was a fairly wholesale remodelling and rebuilding of the quarter, in which, however, some elements of the old constructions were re-used, and that the 'Hilani' with its raised platform belonged to the later phase ;' what cannot be ascertained from the archaeological evidence is the precise date in the Iron Age at which the new scheme was put into effect.
' The Iron Age pottery let into the floor confirms this; v. below, p. 180.
THE 'HILANT 179
THE 'HILANI' BUILDING (Plan, PI. 38, and Pis. 39-40)
The 'Hilani' was an almost exact square, measuring i8-oo m. either way," lying close to the edge of the terrace ; it contained a single chamber and a staircase and had a wide, columned entrance giving on to a cobbled court contained on the north by the retaining-wall of the platform, which sloped down gently to the level, apparently, of the open space between the Herald's Wall and the foot of the Upper Palace stairs. At 4-00 m. from the 'Hilani' front there had been a mud-brick- wall (it had been almost obliterated by rubbish-pits) which separated the forecourt proper from the sloped approach; behind it, i.e. against its east face, was a mass of rubble ballast which formed the foundation of the cobbled floor of the court and of the 'Hilani' itself. Of the north wall the inner face was preserved with its basalt orthostats in position; the outer face had gone. The retain- ing-wall of the platform had collapsed and only the heavy rough blocks of pudding-stone at the base of it remained, with behind them the rubble ballast filling weathered to a slope, above which came the flat stone foundations of the 'Hilani' wall ; some patches of cobbled surface seemed to show that the 'Hilani' had been set back a metre or so from the edge of the platform. The orthostats, recognizable as being 1-05 m. high, had mostly slipped down to the terrace foot, but two (at the west end), though fallen, still lay on their foundations. The wall was 2-30 m. thick. The south wall was of the same thickness and was well preserved with its orthostats in situ. The whole of the west wall had gone to its foundations. Of the east wall the inner face was in part well preserved; of its outer face the orthostats had gone but the foundations remained.
As can be seen from the photograph, PI. 390, whereas the whole of the superstructure of the north-west and south-west corners of the building had disappeared, leaving only the rough founda- tions or packing, which in the north-west corner rose above floor-level, there remained virtually intact the stone paving of a wide and elaborate entry. The whole of it had originally been of very hard white limestone blocks of which the largest, central to the back of the entry, measured 3-00 m. by 2-00 m., but there had been some late patching with slabs of basalt. It was quite certain that the pavement did not extend across the whole front of the building but had been contained by massive buttress-jambs ; the evidence was (a) the rougher foundations at either end of the front, which were clearly wall-foundations and not pavement edging ; (b) the lumps of pudding-stone wall-core projecting above floor-level; and (c) marks on the paving-slabs themselves where these had been cut and trimmed down to fit a wall-face. Actually it was a simple matter to trace the outline of the two jambs with their rather complicated series of re-entrant angles, and the restoration on the plan is absolutely certain.
Similarly, the position of two column-bases could be safely fixed. At about 075 m. from the front edge of the pavement and towards its south end a circular depression had been made in the top of three adjacent slabs ; it was very slight but well marked, as the surface had been chipped down and roughened so as to bite with the column-base, whereas outside the circle the slabs were worn and polished; the circle can be plainly seen in the photograph on PI. 39^. In a corresponding position towards the north end was a second circle — less obvious because some of the slabs had been pulled up, but w hat was left of it was quite clear — of the same diameter, 095 m. P'^allen down on the low ground outside the north wall we found a basalt column-base whose lower diameter was 0-95 m.,
' The slight discrepancies — the south wall measures 18-50 the destruction of the true outer face and may have been m. and the north wall 1900 m. — are probably exaggerated by corrected in the superstructure.
i8o CARCHEMISH
and since no other base of so great a size was found anywhere else in the town ruins, there can be no doubt that this belongs to the 'Hilani'.
The plan therefore gives us a fafade composed of two remarkably solid piers between which is a deep portico containing two unusually large columns alined on the inner entrance. That inner entrance, the real door of the building, is just over 4-00 m. wide ; in the centre of the opening is the large limestone threshold block (3-00 m.x'2-oo m.xo-66 m. thick) rising well above the normal pavement level ; its front and back edges are worn down towards the middle, and across the middle is a worn depression going from front to back ; at either side is a slightly raised and unworn rec- tangular patch measuring i-20 m. ■ 070 m. (v. sketch, fig. 67); further, there are two small holes close together towards the south end of the back of the slab. Now the whole of the pavement is more or less polished by constant use— the basalt slab in the back row between the big slab just
described and the south jamb was almost lustrous and. the ■^^"—^ threshold slabs were particularly smooth;' the big slab is
hard-grained, but is a curious exception — 'without being in
the least polished it is certainly worn down across the middle ^00 - and in front . . . and the patches are left at a distinctly higher
level; it rather suggests a doorway between two pillars'. As \^,.^''^,<^^r:L-.:=:J^-^^^j^^:-^':^ a 4 metres is an exceptional width for a doorway not having
I ''^^ ^="^^?~-3E=^ — ^ — ^ °J" at least a central column, I felt that the evidence justified
p,g (,^ a reconstruction showing two pillars ; but since the fioor
marks are rectangular and much longer than they are wide, I have suggested a scheme of decorative bases (lions?) which would support relatively slender uprights. As there would be passages on either side of these as well as between them, an actual door seems to be excluded ; the two shallow holes at the back (which on paper look as if they might be hinge- or bolt-holes) I had decided on the spot to be accidental — along the front of the threshold and elsewhere there were similar holes too irregularly placed to be constructional,- and it they are to be disregarded, 3 so, too, can those in the back slab.
The sanctuary room measured 14-00 m.x6-50 m. The floor foundations were of very large lumps of pudding-stone ; its surface had disappeared altogether. Let into the floor and with its rim about on a level with it was a large krater (diam. 0-58 m., inside depth 0-52 m.) of the common Late Hittite type (K. 3) found in the Yunus graves. It contained some animal bones and fragments of Iron Age pottery. The floor-level was satisfactorily given by an ofi^set on the face of the founda- tion-blocks of the east wall (v. PI. 406), 0-20 m. lower than the threshold; it had been dug away, possibly by the builders of a late wall which ran east by west across -the middle of the room between the central opening of the doorway 'and the east wall (PI. ^ob). There was loose earth under the late wall and above the old pudding-stone foundations, and a drum of a classical column of soft lime- stone incorporated in the wall sufficed to show that it was at least as late as the late Hellenistic period; but it went right down into the floor of the 'Hilani', and it seemed that the 'Hilani' walls had been re-used for the post-classical building. To the north of it practically the whole floor had
' A few of the stones, such as those between the front game of mengel). The same occurred on the floor of other
columns, were coarse limestone not of a nature to take a buildings, e.g. the Lower Palace,
polish. ^ My first idea, that they might have been for a light balus-
- There were also on the threshold several sets of shallow trade, was ruled out by the uniform wearing of the threshold, holes in ro\\s which were gaming-boards (cf . the modern Arab
'THE HILANI' . i8i
gone, even the big lumps of pudding-stone having been pulled out, and several late stones were found below floor-level; south of the cross-wall the disturbance was less marked.
In the east wall three orthostats remained in position, in the north wall six; the last of these, in the north-east corner, comes forward to a reveal with a polished face on its return. The adjoining stone, which had fallen forwards but could be replaced in position since its edge had been cut to an angle to fit the standing stone (the joint, as sometimes happens, was not vertical), completed what w-as obviously a door-jamb, for its east side was smooth and polished and its width corresponded to an offset of the foundation-course which thereafter set back again to the line.of the north wall of the chamber. The corresponding jamb in the east wall was missing. The east wall had a total thickness of 7-00 m. Behind the standing orthostats was a filling composed of great lumps of pudding-stone which rose to the full height of the orthostats and continued to within 3-50 m. of the north wall, with lower rubble going on to within i 50 m. of it. The door in the north-east corner, therefore, did not lead into an inner chamber. Just inside the door, close to the north wall, there were a few rough stones forming a level, presumably a floor foundation, and beyond them the wall could not be traced. There can be no doubt that this was a passage from which a flight of steps ran up in the wall thickness — such would normally be carried over a solid filling — and though no actual treads were found their dis- p,,; 53 appearance in a building so ruinous is only to be expected.
The fact that there were stairs to an upper chamber helps to explain the inordinate thickness of the east wall, which, even so, seems excessive. The north and south walls are 2-50 m. thick, amply sufficient for a second floor of so small a building, but the over-all width of the west front is 5 metres. We must certainly assume a pylon entrance of considerable height — perhaps twin towers flanking the portico ; but this does not explain the solidity of the back of the building, and it is tempting to suppose that this also rose up in monumental fashion above the roof of the second floor.
In the rubble filling of the staircase were found two objects: (i) a zoomorph'ic jug of -plain clay, ht. 0-13 m., the spout and one leg missing (v. PL 6gb), and (2) a pendant (.') vertically pierced, of dark blue and very light blue glass, in the form of a bunch of grapes (fig. 68).
Outside the north wall was found a basalt slab with a relief of a bull-legged deity grasping a tree ; he wears the horned crown and a broad belt with hanging tassel but apparently no other garment, and is ithyphallic. The face has been deliberately obliterated (B. 49<'/).
Against the outer face of the south wall, near the south-west corner, lay a headless statue in basalt (height from feet to shoulder o-8o m.). It represented a bearded figure seated on a throne, the hands resting on the knees ; the dress consisted of a cloak over the shoulders and a long under- garment reaching almost to the ankles ; on the front of the latter, from the knees downwards, and on the back, there had been a cuneiform inscription which had been deliberately and effectively defaced; only a few characters remained and the text was quite illegible (B. 48/)).
Close by was a fragment of a lion figure in basalt.
Towards the middle of the same wall was a basalt offering-table, 0-85 m. • 0-50 ni., with a raised edge, having a spout in one corner and two square compartments (fig. 69). These three objects seem to have been thrown here by the Roman builders when they laid the concrete foundations of a wall of the Forum, which ran parallel to the south wall of the 'Hilani' and only 1-45 m. from it; stone fragments of all sorts had been piled here as if for ballast ; but it is none the less probable that they belonged to the 'Hilani'.
E ' .
1 82
CARCHEMISH
The case was quite different for a number of sculptured fragments found under the south-east gate-tower; these lay actually under the Hittite wall and had served as packing for the wall founda- tion. They must therefore be earlier in date than the 'Hilani'. The date of the 'Hilani' cannot be accurately fixed, but both the wearing of the stones of the threshold and the fact that the threshold had had to be patched imply that it was in existence for some considerable time ; it is reasonable also to assume that the monuments from which the sculptures came had stood for some while before they were broken up ; if that be so, the carvings ought to have been executed not later than the middle of the Late Hittite period, i.e. before the ninth century. This is important for the history of the development of Syro-Hittite sculpture.
0-85 nri'
|
mm^ |
|
|
[l^^l |
Fig. 69.
Fig. 70.
Fig. 71.
Fig. 72.
The fragments are a medley, few fitting together or belonging to the same piece.
1 . Thg head of a demon and the top of a palm-tree (fig. 70) from a slab showing two demons with a palm-tree between them, resembling B. 526. Basalt slab, three fragments fitting together; total width 0-50 m. The fragment, further, fitted on to the larger fragment B. 52c, which was found in 191 1 on the top of the Long Wall of Sculpture, behind the (fallen) inscription A. i. I can only suggest that the slab having been broken up in the Late Hittite period some pieces of it were used, as we have seen, in the foundations of the 'Hilani', and other pieces in the walls or foundations of another building which was destroyed after the Late Hittite period and its remains scattered, probably as a result of Roman building operations.
2. Upper part of basalt slab, width 0-44 m., ht. 0-37 m. Male figure facing left, the left hand raised in front of chest. He wears a low conical head-dress or helmet, and a cloak with deep fringe passes over his right shoulder. PI. B. 52^.
3. The front feet of a lion, carved in basalt in the round — probably a protome, not a complete figure; width 0-44 m., ht. 0-40 m., depth 0-30 m. (fig. 71).
4. Fragment from the wing and tail of a lion (fig. 72); basalt, 0-45 m. xo-65 m. The treatment
THE 'HILANI'
183
is in the hard 'geometrical' style of B. 296 and of PI. B 68f . A fragment from the- leg of a lion in flat relief may belong to this.
5. Two fragments from the front legs of a lion in basalt, closely resembling No. 3 in style but on a larger scale.
6. Several fragments from the body of a large basalt lion, the hair treated in scale fashion (fig. 73) ; they might possibly belong to No. 5, but there is no evidence for this.
It should be noted that these fragments show several points of resemblance to Water-Gate sculptures. Besides the linear treatment of wings and tail, like wood-carving, which is common to No. 4 and to B. 29/), the curved claws of the lions recur on B. 29 a and b and on the sphinx of B. 286, where, too, the scale convention for the hair of the breast resembles that of 6. The head ot 2 is unlike any other found on the site, but the drapery comes fairly close to that of a figure on a corner slab (PI. 666) found a little to the north, between the Water-Gate and the Lower Palace.
* ^'^-
FiG. 73.
Fig. 74.
Fig. 75.
Fig. 76.
The Water-Gate area, therefore, has produced a number of pieces to which we may assign a date earlier than the Iron Age.
Two other objects should be mentioned here.
In the (late) filling against the south wall of the 'Hilani' was found a fine cylinder seal of , rock crystal, 0-023 m. long, with a 'presentation' scene (fig. 74).
Outside the north wall of the 'Hilani', in front of the mud-brick buildings which masked it but above the Hittite level, was a broken cylinder seal of black steatite roughly engraved, length 0-023
m- (fig- 75)-
Just west of the 'Hilani', in the ballast filling of the ramp, was a fragment of a conoid seal in white
onyx inscribed in Aramaic; diameter o-oi8 m. (fig. 76). None of them arc necessarily associated
with the building.
The prolongation w^estwards of the north wall of the 'tlilani' could be followed only for 5 or 6 metres, after which it was broken away by a large Syriac rubbish-pit, but enough remained to prove that it was built upon a ramp and was not itself the containing-wall of the ramp. While the cobbled pavement outside the north wall of the 'Hilani' showed that the building stood back from the platform edge, the foundations of this courtyard wall, starting slightly above the level of those of the 'Hilani', were, at 2-50 m. from it, stepped down 1-25 m., that is to the ground level of the area in front of the Herald's Wall ; but these were rough foundations only and had no outer face such as must have existed had this been a retaining-wall (fig. 77). So far as it was possible to see, it definitely linked up the 'Hilani' with the Herald's Wall, for its line, if continued, led directly to a door threshold flanked by scanty remains of walling which lay i -40 m. to the north of the Herald's Wall and 2-30 m. east of the slab with the camel-rider (B. 50^) ; it looked as if that slab had been the last of its series, and after it had come a salient in which was the doorway.
Not only was the wall destroyed but the ramp, too, had been obliterated by other pits (of Greek
i84 CARCHEMISH
date), one of which went down as much as 2-6o m. below 'Hilani' floor-level.' In one of the pits were found two basalt paving-slabs, much worn by use, which might be taken as an argument for a staircase joining the two buildings, but, considering the small amount of rise, a ramp (possibly paved) would seem to meet the case adequately, and certainly the small court at its head, inside the mud- brick cross-wall, was cobble-floored, whereas a stairhead would more likely have been paved.
The small size of the 'Hilani' would be surprising were one compelled to regard it as one of the public buildings of the capital city. This, however, is not necessary. Its position off the road leading up from the Water-Gate, the fact that it was masked by other buildings from that road, and the fact that it was approached from the west by a ramp behind what seems to be the enceinte wall of
Fig. 77.
A, level of floor at threshold in Herald's Wall ; B, rubble foundations
of courtyard wall stepped up on ramp ; C, C, brick earth ; D, mixed
grey soil ; E, ashes ; F, front of 'Hilani' (NW. corner) ; G, broken
foundation; H, gravel of Greek drain.
the building to which the Herald's Wall belongs, i.e. from inside that building, in which we are justified in recognizing a royal palace, puts it into a very different category. The 'Hilani' would seem to be part of the Palace complex ; its modest proportions are understandable if it was intended not for the public but for some rite wherein the King alone took part.
A curious feature of the ruin is that whereas the orthostats are standing along nearly half the walls' length and the pavement of the wide entry is virtually intact, the whole pavement of the interior of the shrine has been pulled up. In the case of the shrine in the Temple court the walls were virtually intact and the whole pavement of the interior had been pulled up. Both buildings are adjuncts to a Palace complex — both are small, both are two-storied with a staircase in the back wall ; they have therefore a certain resemblance one to another, and if both have suffered in the same way at the hands of the spoilers it must be for the same reason. There must have been something below the floor which was worth stealing. It is possible that the buildings were funerary chapels for kings of Carchemish whose ashes were buried beneath the pavement while their statues stood in the shrine in constant adoration of the god to whom the building was consecrated. It is even possible that the big clay krater embedded between the stones of the floor foundation of the 'Hilani' was the cinerary urn — it is of the type normally used in the contemporary cemetery of Yunus, and that a simple clay urn could be used even for the ashes of a king seems less unlikely if we take into consideration the burial in the North Gate described on p. 250.
' For the last 065 m. it was cut into extremely hard clean fig. 63, which we should expect to slope up inland from the gravel, probably the 'level G' of the section given on p. 176, river bank.
CHAPTER X THE HERALD'S WALL
(Pll. B. I, B. 9 a and /;. For individual slabs, Pll. B. lo to B. i6)
This long row of sculptured slabs to which the excavators gave the nickname 'The Herald's Wall'' forms the northern facade of the King's Gate building. It was in very bad Condition. Above these orthostats no trace of the superstructure survived — indeed, the modern surface carne ver\ close to the top of the stones— and many of the slabs were out of position, niartv were broken, and some were missing altogether. The missing stones had been removed by later builders— the concrete foundations of the Roman Forum were responsible for the worst gap — but the curious shifting of some of the slabs from their foundations (and as the wall of which they were thefront must have been very solid there can scarcely have been any lateral pressure from behind) looks as if it had resulted from an earthquake.- No work was done inside the building, so that neither its condition nor its character is known.
As has been stated above (p. i8i), there seems to have
^'^ ^' Fig. 78.
been in the eastward prolongation of the wall a door giving
on the street which leads from the Water-Gate. The actual evidence (fig. 78) was a basalt threshold 1-75 m. wide against the centre of which was a basalt column-base; on either side were the rough stone foundations for the wall, each fragment only about 1-50 m. long; the wall-face would have been 1-40 m. outside the line of the Herald's Wall. In that wall the rough stone foundations ran on for about a metre beyond the last existing orthostat and then. broke away, so that there was nothing left to connect the two walls. But it is obvious that the gateway wall cannot have run on for more than another metre because had it done so it would have masked the Camel- rider's slab B 16b and B 50^, and that the Herald's Wall sculptures cannot have continued beyond the Camel-rider's slab because they would have been behind the existing gateway wall ; therefore the only possible reconstruction of the actual remains is a return-wall to the corner of the Camel- rider's slab. A salient in which there was a small doorway is practically certain, though whether it was plain or ornamented with reliefs there is nothing to show.
The orthostats have an average height of 1-25 m., the slight differences between them. being presumably compensated by varying the height of the foundation-course. In accordance with a regular Hittite principle of ornament the slabs were alternately of white limestone and basalt in the western section of the line, but the four contiguous slabs in the western section (PI. B. gb) are all of limestone. This departure may be due to the reuse of old material and to the fact that there were not enough basalt slabs available to allow of alternative colours along the whole wall length.
As so often happens in Hittite buildings, the subjects represented on the several panels of a con- tinuous frieze seem to have no logical connexion with each other — if there was such it certainly
' The majoriu^ of the reliefs, however different their sub- - Carchcmish lies in the earthtiuake zone, and it is only to an
jects, are alike in composition in that they have two figures earthquake that we can attribute the complete overthrow of heraldically opposed, like the supporters of a coat of arms. the Roman temple on the Acropolis.
i86 CARCHEMISH
escapes us ; but again the explanation may be that old reliefs are here re-used purely as decoration and with no regard for their meaning.' They are as follows :
1. PI. B. i6b. Limestone; top broken; actual ht. i-22 m., width 1-53 m. A rider on a camel, facing right. The surface of the stone has suffered much from flaking, and the stone itself was coarse- grained and badly pitted (see PI. B. 16b) and the details of the composition could only be brought out by mudding (v. PI. B. 50«). The camel" is naturalistically rendered. The harness consists of a breech-strap, a square-cut saddle secured by a broad girth, 'stirrups' consisting of a cord looped from the corners of the saddle, a broad collar and, apparently, a guide-rope attached to the collar. The rider sits astride ;- he is a bearded man with either a helmet or a mass of hair falling down the nape of his neck ; he wears a short tunic reaching to above the knee, and in his left hand he carries a bow; the right hand probably held the halter-rope.
2. Pl B. i6rt. Limestone; broken, but complete except for the god's hand; ht. 1-27 m., width I -44 m. A hero and a god killing a winged bull. The god is a composite figure with human head and body," eagle's wings, lion's feet, and a scorpion's tail. The hero wears a beard, cut square, and whiskers, with the upper lip clean-shaved ; his hair hangs in two long tresses curled up behind his back. The details of the scene are so clear on the photograph that further description is needless, except to remark that above the tail of the god there are marks upon the stone which seem to show that the artist originally designed the right wing in a horizontal position, and later, finding that it interfered with the tail, cut it out and carved a fresh wing at another angle, partly hidden by the arm but corresponding to the left wing and giving better balance to the figure. The relief is flat, virtually on two planes, with the edges between them rounded off; internal details are rendered by incised lines with, generally, one edge sloped back or rounded.
3. PI. B. i:;^. Limestone; ht. 1-24 m., width 1-44 m.; broken by an open crack from top to bottom and a triangular fragment, max. ht. 0-15 m., missing from left lower corner. Surface in fairly good condition. Two men killing a captive. Two men, upright and facing each other, hold, each by one wrist, a third figure standing between them in a semi-kneeling attitude, and plunge daggers into his head. For the sake of the symmetry of his composition the artist has made the left-hand executioner grasp his prisoner with his right hand and hold his weapon with his left. All three figures are similarly dressed and have the same beards and fashion of doing the hair;^ their daggers have lunate handles (unlike that of the god in slab No. 2) and the point of the dagger- sheath is turned up. The figure on the right wears shoes with the toes turned up; it is not clear whether the central figure has or has not the same.
4. PI. B. 15^. Limestone; ht. 1-27 m., width 1-62 m. The top left corner of the stone had been broken away; the major part of it was found a little way in front of- the slab and has been replaced. The stone is coarse-grained and much pitted.
Two rampant sphinxes and a winged monster. The sphinxes are identical in treatment; the hair rises in a forelock in front and falls in three tresses behind, curling tightly on the shoulder ; the tail ends in a tuft in the form of a swan's head ; the lion-like feet have the claws tightly tucked in ;
' Mr.-Barnett objects to this: 'There is a meaning, but its man's left leg was crooked over this with the foot hanging down
interpretation is beyond us. These figures are magical, apotro- in front. The mudding shows the camel's hump (not a pommel)
paic in their object, andwedonot as yet possess the texts which and the rider's left leg hanging down behind that, would explain them. Hence they appear disconnected and ^ Except that that of the victim does not seem to have the
without plan.' triple row of curls ; but the lack may be due to the weathering
^ I origiaally tliought that there was a pommel and that the of the stone's surface.
THE HERALD'S WALL 187
apart from an incised line down the back of the inside of the leg there is no attempt to render muscles. The monster has a long head, a rather rounded ear set low, very stocky hind-quarters— more like those of a bull, and apparently no horns or tail at all.
At this point there comes a gap in the line of sculptures. About half a metre beyond the slab just . described there lay, projecting about o-8o m. outside the wall line, a row of five bolster-shaped basalt drums, length 1-20 m., diam. 0-54 m., neatly alined, touching each other, and rising %vell above ground level, at right angles to the wall ; behind them were the normal rough wall founda- tions. The stones were not a threshold, and in any case the wall ran on unbroken behind them, and since the wall foundations continued westwards they were not, as we first thought, the foundations of a gate pier. I can only suggest that they were the solid base of a massive monument standing here against the wall. In front of the wall and only a short distance away from here was found the great inscribed block, PI. A. 12. It had been deliberately broken up in this area, seeing that fragments of it were found on the road surface near the 'Hilani' ; presumably it had stood somewhere close by. The block in question is a fragment from one of the largest monuments found at Carchemish. As it is, it measures 1-50 m. high by 0-90 m. wide; it is incomplete below, by how much there is no means of telling, and on the upper part of it there was a relief, of which there remains only a human foot of about life size. The complete stone therefore might have been up to 4 metres high ; if the relief showed two figures, as is likely both by analogy and by the position of the remaining foot, it would have been perhaps 2 metres wide. Its back was not worked, so that it must have stood against a wall, and it was inscribed on one and presumably on both sides, so that it must have projected from the wall ; and its great weight would have required a special foundation such as that afforded by the bolster stones. If that was indeed their function, which is possible though, of course, not proved, then, since they went back into the wall instead of being merely laid against its face, the building of the wall must be contemporary with the carving of the stela.
The gap in the sculptured wall continued for nearly 3 metres beyond the bolster-shaped drums, the next slab found in position, or nearly so, being the isolated basalt relief. No. 5, to be described later. The ground was very much disturbed. Above this part of the Hittite site ran two very heavy Roman walls, and between them were the foundations of a small octagonal building whose concrete foundations, like those of the walls, went down almost to Hittite floor-level; in the concrete were numerous Hittite building-blocks and some carved stones, which may have been encountered here by the diggers of the foundation-trenches and in any case are likely to have come from near by. They had best be described here, though the measurements of some show that they did not belong to the Herald's Wall.
(A) PI. B. 506. Limestone ; ht. i 02 m., width 0-64 m. ; lower corners broken. The field is recessed, leaving a broad margin round the stone. The stone is in very bad condition and much of the design is lost. The subject is a female figure facing right with both hands raised in front to the level of the chin; she wears a long garment reaching to the ankles, all the internal detail of which is lost. Her hair falls in a rather small pigtail; she wears an elaborate head-dress consisting of three bands across the base, from which rises a high crown divided by vertical grooves into three uprights, which seem to be joined half-way up by cross-lines — it is the mural head-dress of the goddesses in the large recess at Yazilikaya, to which indeed the figure as a whole bears astriking resemblance. Behind the figure protrudes a staff which may be the end of a reversed lituus held in tlie right hand.
i88 CARCHEMISH
Above the hands is an object too worn to be identified ; I first thought it might be a bird ; but it is equally likely that it is a royal monogram. From the point of view of style and technique should be remarked the peculiar roundness of the relief, contrasting strongly with the flat two-plane style of the Herald's Wall slabs 1-4. In this it resembles the big Water-Gate relief B. 30a, and it is certainly to be associated with another relief found closer to the Water-Gate which is of the same height, has the same sunken field, and the same rounded outlines. The relief in question is:
(B) PI. B. 510. Limestone; ht. 1-02 m., width 0-90 m.; top left corner missing; coarse-grained stone, badly pitted, and the greater part of the surface flaked away. The subject is a figure facing left, wearing a long dress reaching to the ankles ; the right hand is extended and holds a knife ; the figure is apparently beardless and wears a high crown — but all detail is lost. Behind this figure, and occupying half the space of the relief, is an object too damaged to be recognizable.
Close to (A) and stylistically akin to it was :
(C) PI. B 51^. Limestone; fragment from the top left corner of a slab. Actual measurements: ht. o-6i m., \vidth 0-32 m. The carving is in a sunken panel of which the rim has been chipped away; the relief is unusually rounded. Of the subject there remain the completely obliterated head, the right shoulder, and part of the right arm of a male figure presumably facing left. A cloak with a single fringe on the upper edge and a double fringe on the lower passes over the right shoulder, crossing the body diagonally in front and hanging vertically behind; the right hand grasps a spear (?) with a strongly ribbed blade. Below the elbow is an inscription in raised hieroglvphs.
It is highly probable that these three sculptures belonged to the Water-Gate in its early phase ; they agree in style with the older sculptures found there in situ and their height is practically identical with that of the main wall reliefs. They may have come from the north side of the gateway, of which nothing now remains. Much more doubtful is the case of the next stone, also found above the road leading past the Herald's Wall to the Water-Gate, but nearer to the latter.
(D) PI. B. bbb. Basalt; actual ht. (top of stone chipped away) i-oo m., actual width 0-43 m. Frag- ment from the right side of a slab showing a male figure advancing left ; the left hand is held in front of the chest, the right (missing) is extended. The man is beardless; he wears a high crown (the top missing) with two fretted bands below, a chiton, with a broad seam at the neck, which reaches to just above the knee, and a fringed cloak which hangs behind the body, passes over the right shoulder, crosses the body in front diagonally with one corner reaching to the ankle, and has another corner draping the left shoulder and hanging to the waist so as to cover the left arm up to the WTist;' the feet are apparently bare. Behind the man's shoulders are two lines in relief which may be the end of a hieroglyphic inscription in large characters. •
(E) Limestone; ht. 1-25 m., width 1-20 m.; the stone is broken above and almost the whole surface has flaked away. Of the subject all that is visible is the lower half of the figure of a man advancing right; his elbows can be seen one on eachside of his body, the forearms raised. He wears a very short tunic and upturned shoes. It is impossible to judge the stvle of the sculpture, but on the ground of measurements the slab might have belonged to the Herald's Wall.
Returning to the Herald's Wall proper, the first slab after the gap regarding which there could be no doubt was at a distance of nearly 3 metres from the bolster-shaped drums, so that there
' The arrangement is, of course, quite impossible in nature ; it is a schematic formula not properly understood by the artist.
THE HERALD'S WALL 189
must be one slab missing, presumably one of limestone. The basalt relief had been shifted some- what on its base and was not in true alincmcnt.
5. PI. B. 14/). Basalt; ht. 1-29 m., width 1-95 m.; it had been broken into four pieces of which one, a diagonal strip from the middle of the right edge to the base, had disappeared. Subject: two guardian demons with human heads and bodies, lions' tails, and bulls' legs, stand face to face, each grasping an upright spear with both hands ; behind each is a figure with lion's head and human body holding a short club. Except for damage to the faces of the two central demons the sculpture is in good condition.
Between this slab and the bolster-shaped drums, a little outside the wall line and at an angle to it, tipped up in a position into which it could not have fallen had it originidly stood at this point on the wall, was another basalt slab which clearly belonged to the series. Apart from the argument of its position, the fact that it was of basalt was fairly conclusive evidence against its having been next to No. 5, since in this section of the wall all the stones in situ are arranged in alternate colours ; we therefore set it up on the left-hand side of No. 7, choosing that position because its dimensions did not agree with the gap between 7 and 8.
Between slabs 5 and 7 there was a gap of 3 metres, and in it there had been a slight change in the direction of the wall; the angle must have come after the relief which originally stood next to 5. Otherwise there had been a short return, more or less at right angles, which could have come immediately after 5 and then, if 6 is correctly restored by us, a single large limestone slab would have filled the gap.
6. PI. B. 14(7. Basalt; ht. 1-13 m., width 0-98 m. A winged sphinx with two heads, one of a lion, one of a man. The stone is admirably preserved and every detail is clear in the pbotograph. It should be remarked that the style — especially the rendering of the feet with schematic lines, deeply en- graved, representing the tightly incurved claws — is characteristic of a fairly early period, and that the very broad lower margin, which slopes up from right to left, does not accord with- the other sculptures in the fa9ade or with the ground surface; it looks as if the slab had been intended for a position on sloping ground, e.g. on a ramp, and had been re-used in the Herald's Wall.
7. PI. B. \-^b. Limestone; ht. 1-125 "™-' width 1-85 m. Two breaks in the top left corner which do not interfere with the design ; coarse-grained stone a good deal pitted, but the relief is on the whole well preserved. Subject: two bulls charging each other with a sacred palm-ti-ee between them. The treatment of the muscles by incised lines is rather more elaborate than on many of the animals in this series of reliefs.
The stone was not quite in position, half of it resting on the original rubble foundations and half projecting from the line so as to rest on soft earth ; but the line as given by the rubble founda- tions was indisputable and the angle of the stone was corrected accordingly, as shown on the plan.
After this came another gap due to the disappearance of a single (basalt) slab.
8. PI. B. i3«. Limestone; ht. 1-17 m., width 1-93 m. Coarse-grained stone badly pitted. Subject: a lion attacking a bull on whose back stands another animal. See PI. B. 49/).
9. PI. B. 12. Basalt; ht. 1-17 m., width 1-39 m.; intact and in good condition. Subject: two com- posite creatures with human bodies and limbs and eagle heads and wings stand facing each other with both hands uplifted as if supporting the firmament.
10. PI. B. lib. Limestone; fragment only, ht. 1-21 m., actual width iio m.; surface in fair con-
F
190 CARCHEMISH
dition. Part of a lion-hunt. Of the hunter there remains only part of the left arm, the hand grasping the right leg of the lion just above the paw; his lance is seen piercing the lion's chest. The lion rears up in an attitude of attack.'
11. PI. B. ii«. Basalt; ht. iii m., width 1-41 m; broken into three pieces of which one is missing. The stone had fallen but the main fragment was almost in position. Subject : a god and a hero killing a lioness ; the god holds the beast by the right hind leg and is about to strike it with an axe ; the hero grasps its tail and plunges a dagger into its rump ; the lioness has her front legs on the ground with her hindquarters high in the air.
12. PI. B. lob. Limestone; ht. 1-07 m., width 1-52 m.; broken into many fragments of which several are missing. The stone is of good quality, but the surface has flaked somewhat. The main part of the slab with the lion's leg, the cart, and the hind legs of the horse was in situ ; the other fragiri,ents were scattered about in front of the wall. The photograph shows the slab reconstituted as far as was possible and the missing parts made good with mud.
The subject is an attack by a lion on a man driving in a cart drawn by two horses. The vehicle is quite different from the war-chariot shown on the reliefs of the Long Wall of Sculpture ; the high side with its curved top may be made of wicker-work, but nothing else of the body is visible. The double bar of which part can be seen in front of the wicker-work may be reins or a rein and a pole — it is difficult to see by what other method the beasts can have been attached to the cart, for there is no breast-strap. The head-stall is complete and a single rein is represented — it may be a proper rein coming from a bit, but may also be a halter fixed to the side of the nose-strap.
13. PI. B. lOrt. Basalt; ht. i-iy m., width 1-69 m; fairly fine-grained stone, in good condition except for deliberate damage done to the face of the man and to the head and forepart of the lion. The stone had fallen back somewhat into the wall-face, but was virtually in situ. Subject : a hero (Gilgamesh }) kneeling on one knee and facing front, holds with his left hand the horn of a bull and with his right the two hind-legs of a cheetah (?); above his left shoulder is an antlered stag; below the cheetah is a lion apparently attacking the man with both its front paws widely extended, and below that again is crouched a smaller animal, perhaps a bear. The hero appears to be 'a mighty hunter befor^e the Lord', but his mastery of the animals seems hardly consistent with the attitude of the lion (identical with that on the lion-hunt slab from Malatia) which expresses anything rather than sjjbmission.
This slab is the last of its series; beyond it comes the return southwards to what we called 'The King's Gate'. There the line "of sculptured reliefs continues, but with a marked difference. Up to this point the aim of the builder in arranging his sculptures would seem to have been decoration rather than instruction or record.^ Each slab is a self-contained unit and has no apparent connexion with those on either side of it. The subjects are presumably mythological, either illustrating some passage in a religious legend or symbolizing some religious conception; their treatment is con- ventional and the composition is generally based on that highly sophisticated balance which is characteristic of heraldry. Of the majority of the stones at least one can say that the style of the carvings is archaic, not that of the latest phase of art at Carchemish ; either the whole wall was a survival from an earlier period incorporated in the late Palace, or the individual reliefs had been
' The tradition persisted in north Syria up to the latter part of goat's wool as a shield. These details are different from what
of the nineteenth century whereby a would-be hero would is shown on the relief, but the latter may illustrate a similar
challenge a lion to single combat ; the weapon used was the custom in antiquity,
sword, and the man's left hand and arm were wrapped in a mass - But see above, p. 1 86, note i.
THE HERALD'S WALL . 191
taken from an older building and re-used. In the King's Gate, on the contrary, we" have a single scene extending for more than 25 metres' length of sculptured wall. The subject is historical, not mythological; the figures are all human figures treated with varying degrees of realism. There is unmistakable evidence showing that the series is of late date. This being so, it seems better, although the Herald's Wall and the King's Gate are continuous and form part of one and the same building, to treat of them in separate sections and under different headings.
CHAPTER XI THE KING'S GATE
A. GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The King's Gate (see Plan, PI. 43), coming at the west end of the Herald's Wall, is a broad approach between two not parallel but converging walls, at the far end of which is a cross-wall pierced by a wide doorway presumed to be that of the Palace. The doorway is not central but close to the eastern wall of the approach ; by its western jamb was a great seated statue ; in the south-west corner was a small guard-room. The doorway, which had folding doors, leads into a gate-chamber flanked by guai'd-rooms, and through a second door immediately behind the first one passed into an inner court of the Palace.
Between the Herald's Wall and the approach proper the wall makes a deep re-entrant angle, in the corner of which stood a statue. The orthostats of the first member of this re-entrant are of basalt and limestone alternately and are carved in relief with figures of marching soldiers (three on each limestone slab, two on each of basalt) who wear high plumed helmets of the Carian type and short tunics held in by a broad girdle, and carry round shields and spears which are held point down- wards at the slope; they do not wear the up-turned shoe. The other member of the re-entrant is composed of four §maller orthostats, all basalt, together with the edge of the facing-slab of the main wall ; on the four slabs are shown seven army officers with the weapons distinctive of their corps and their badges of rank. The thin stone-edge at the corner is inscribed.
The statue was a basalt figure of rather more than life size standing upright upon a double lion base. It was broken and many fragments were missing.' The figure, a bearded male, wore a long dress — a mere cylindrical sheath with no folds of drapery but with a fringe along the bottom of the skirt, a broad belt from which hung a long tassel, and a sword thrust through the belt; the elbows were held tightly against the sides and the forearms were extended forwards ; he wears no horned crown of divinity (though the lion base is sufficient evidence of godhead) and bears no inscription. The figure (for the head see PI. B. 54a) is a replica of that found at Zinjirli- and might well be the work of. the same sculptor. Its title appears to be 'The Storm-god of the Lions'. (See p. 260.)
Then comes a long stretch of wall, that of the approach proper, which is, however, broken by a recess containing a ffight of st^ps.^ The short stretch of wall (3-60 m.) between the re-entrant and the recess gives the impression of a buttress — an impression heightened by the fact that the recess being no longer occupied by a flight of steps strikes the eye more than it did when the building was intact — and we did in fact give it the name 'The Royal Buttress', which has the merit of easy reference. But, since its front is virtually continuous* with that of the whole wall length as far as the gateway, 'buttress' is really an architectural misnomer. Constructionally the whole thing is a single wall ;5 but the artist responsible for its decoration has taken advantage of the isolation of
' In 1914 we began to restore it and had completed it as far represents the god Hadad, whereas ours is 'Santas', as the waist when our season ended; as we expected to finish ^ Thequestionof these steps is fully discussed below, p. igs.
it in the following autumn no photograph was taken of it at that '* It was actually set back 0-30 m. behind it, partly because
stage. When I returned in 1919 the figure was again in frag- it was slightly askew with it.
ments and a good deal of it had disappeared, including the head -'' The present buttress-face is probably a reconstructed
(B. 536) which is now in the Louvre. version, which would account for its not being in strict aline-
^ Ausgrabungen in Sendschirli, i, pi. vi. The Zinjirli statue ment; see below, p. 202.
THE KING'S GATE 193
this first short stretch ; he has given to it a special character and has emphasized the structural break of the staircase for the benefit of his composition. In the first place, the 'Royal Buttress' is entirely of basalt, whereas along the rest of the wall (the 'Processional Entry') basalt and white limestone orthostats alternate. In the second place, the 'Royal Buttress' (PI. B. Hh) is devoted to the representa- tion of the King of Carchemish and his family, together with the long hieroglyphic text of the King's speech, whereas the Processional Entry is given over to a rather monotonous religious procession (PI. B. lya) of priestesses and temple servants carrying goats for the sacrifice.
In contrast to this, the west wall of the approach seems to have been perfectly plain. On the south wall there were carved slabs in the short space between the guard-room and the great seated statue (PI. B. 25) of a god upon a throne supported by lions which a bird-headed demon keeps in check. The gateway, with its paved sill, slightly inclined, of great basalt slabs grooved for securer foothold, has basalt jambs, one of which is covered with an inscription. The side walls of the gate- chamber are unadorned, but its farther door seems to have been flanked with great, reliefs of crouch- ing lions ; the inner court was decorated with a continuous series of reliefs alternately black and white. Only the north end of this court was excavated, together with the guard-rooms on either side of the gate-chamber; otherwise nothing is known of the interior o: the Palace buildings.
B. CHRONOLOGICAL EVIDENCE
The evidence for the dating of the King's Gate is manifold and consistent.
At first sight it would appear that all the sculptures of the re-entrant, of the Royal Buttress, and of the Processional Entry form a single unit. It is true that the qualitv of the relief varies con- siderably; the principal figures, the King and his family and the captains, are most delicatelv worked ; the modelling is much more rounded and the treatment is much more individual than in the case of the soldiers and the priestesses and kriop/ioroi, but that might well be simplv because the King, his children, and his captains were much more important people ; hiore care was taken with their effigies, and probably the work was entrusted to better artists, whereas the other sculp- tures are stock pieces, stone-masons' work. That the royal figures should be smaller is surprising, but none the less the composition is one, and all the elements of it hang together. Though diff'erent hands were employed, necessarily, in its execution, one's first impression is that the whole series of sculptures was designed by one man and at one time. Actually, however, that is not the case.
As regards the relation between this great set-piece and the Herald's Wall there is evidence of a difference of date which I should consider decisive. At their point of junction (see PI. B. 42/)) the first soldier slab of the King's Gate is simply plastered against the last slab of the Herald's U'all, so that the sculptured line of the latter ends ingloriously with a plain white band, the roughly worked edge of the limestone return. Had the two walls been designed by the same architect this edge would have been sculptured, as we see it at the corner of the Royal Buttress (PI. B. 14), in the case of the Processional Wall by the stair recess (PI. B. iga), and again in the Long Wall of Sculpture (PI. 37ft and B. 46) : looking at it as it is, the conclusion is inescapable that the King's Gate is a later work applied to an already existing building.
It seems to have been a principle of Hittite art that carved orthostats were merely roughed out in the workshop and finished when the block was in situ. Along the King's Gate, and especially in the re-entrant angle, little chips of stone and powdered basalt were found, as the sculptors had left them, lying against the base of the carved blocks. Nothing of the sort was noted along the Herald's
194 CARCHEMISH
Wall. In the corner of the re-entrant the figures of the soldiers behind the Storm-god statue had never been finished, the legs being left in the rough.' The final work on the stones therefore was done when they were in position and when the base of the statue was already in place in front of them, making further work by the sculptor on the lower part of the slab impossible, but the statue itself had not been set up, so that he was able to complete the upper part of the soldiers. The erection of the statue is therefore strictly contemporary with the setting-up of the foot-soldier orthostats.
The statue certainly has an archaic look. The lions of the base, of which the heads had been broken off" (but one was found in a later season (B. 53^)) are identical with those on the base of the seated statue of Atarluhas by the doorway (B. 54Z)) and, like them, are held in leash by a small demon figure, in this case human-headed. But the head of the statue is unlike that of Atarluhas, so much so that our first impression when we found it was that the figure was an early one re-erected when the building was being remodelled. But this archaism must be due simply to religious con- servatism; the analogy of the Zinjirli figure is conclusive for a late date, and the archaeological evidence proves that the statue is contemporary with both the soldier slabs and the Atarluhas statue.
That the whole of the King's Gate was an addition, a redecoration of an older building, finds further support in the evidence for reconstruction in the stairway recess ; this would seem to have been originally a passage at ground level and was only transformed into a staircase when the new fa9ade was built.- If that be the case, the main lines of the older building must have been preserved and only the sculptured decoration was new. The same conclusion may be drawn from the survival in the end wall of. an orthostat (PI. B. zbb) from an older series, and from the conditions of the gateway itself.
A most important piece of dating evidence is the last slab of the Royal Buttress (PI. B. 8). On the lower edge of the stone, left projecting as a base to the design, can be seen part of the hind-leg of a lion whose tightly incurved claws are rendered in the linear-geometrical style characteristic of reliefs in the Herald's Wall, e.g. PI. B. 14a. Some marks on the base of the adjoining stone (PI. B. 76) also seem to come from an older relief. It follows therefore that for the new fa9ade of the Palace old orthostats were trimmed down and carved afresh with new designs. It cannot, of course, be said that the old orthostats were those from the original facade, though that is possible;^ but we have here a good stylistic criterion for the relative dating of the Herald's Wall and the King's Gate.
Up to this point I have treated the King's Gate as a unit and have been concerned only to show that it is, as a whole, to be distinguished from the Herald's Wall in style and period. The next stage is to show that the King's Gate itself betrays signs of diff'erent dates and different authorships ; for this we have to examine the detailed archaeological evidence for reconstruction, the stylistic evidence, and the evidence of inscriptions.
C. DETAILED NOTES
From the foot of the Great Staircase, along the Long has already been remarked, the fronts of the Royal But- Wall of Sculpture, and up to the south-west corner of tress and of the Processional Wall are not in strict aline- the Royal Buttress the ground-level was uniform ; then ment, the south-west corner of the former being set there was a step up, or two steps, and thereafter a gentle back 0-30 m. behind the north-west corner of the latter ; but steady rise to the gateway of the King's Gate. As but this irregularity would seem to be due merely to a
' This does not show so clearly in the plates (PI. B. 3 o and ^ If so, they were taken down and later replaced, for the
6), but is most clear on the stones as now exhibited at Ankara, position of the lion on PI. B. 8a was at right angles to the - For the detailed evidence see below, p. 195. present relief.
THE KING'S GATE
195
fault in the layout, for the line of the Processional Wall produced would hit the north-west corner of the Ihit- tress — the two sections do not run at quite the same angle, probably because the Buttress builders did not remember to allow for the convergence of the two sides of the King's Gate. More important is the fact of the change of level. The top of the first priestess slab is 070 m. higher than that of the Buttress, and, since the orthostats of the Processional Wall are 7 or 8 centi- metres shorter than those of the Buttress, its base is 0-77 m. higher. To some extent this is compensated for by the Processional Wall slabs standing on a rough stone base rising 0-45 m. above ground-level (it seems to have been originally plastered),' but even so there is a difference of ground-level of over 030 m. at the point where the wall is broken by the stair recess.
Roadway r ''/ //^'i
Lower V' "-^y Level \ :<'->;,
Fig. 79.
A, stones projecting into roadway; B,' B^, stones across
recess opening; C, mud-brick cross-wall; D, high-level
threshold; E', E", E', stepped-up stones.
On the north side of the recess, against the uncarv'ed end of B. 8a, stands B. 176, the limestone slab of musi- cians and dancers, the face of which has been trimmed down so that the heads of the two taller figures have been destroyed. The slab stands at a lower level than the buttress slabs but with its top flush with them, and is of the same height as the soldier slabs in the re-entrant (1-17 m.). Beyond it are three roughly dressed stones of different sizes whose tops are flush with that of B. 176, but they are stepped up below and rest on a mere rub- bish filling; the last of them abuts on a mud-brick wall set back 4-00 m. from the front of the Royal Buttress, on which lies, in position, a large limestone threshold stone, well worn. (Fig. 79.)
' The plinth is not seen on PI. B. 17, the photograph having been taken before we had detected that there had been a rise in the level of the floor between the dates of the building of the Processional Way and the refacing of the Royal Buttress. The
On the south side of the recess the angle was formed of the basalt slab carved with the figure of the seated goddess (PI. B. 19a) on its edge and musicians (PI. B. i8i) on the side facing into the recess; the shape of the stone is irregular, and since the top ran flush with that of the Processional Way its base sloped up into the re- cess. Next to it, but 0-17 m. lower, was the limegtone relief of a sphinx (PI. B. i8a), a smaller stone whose base also sloped upwards, and the figure too was small, its feet coming only 0-53 m. from the top of the slab ; the feet of the musicians were at 0-90 m. from the top, so that they were 0-20 m. lower than thoseof the sphinx. On both sides, therefore, there is constructional evidence for a slope, either steps or ramp.
From the south-west comer of the' Royal Buttress two rough stones, set in line, projected into the roadway; another line of rough stones ran from the same corner across the opening of the recess. Behind the two stones there was a platform of rammed earth and cobbles form- ing a step which could not be traced beyond the second stone but may once have run right across the King's Gate; as we found it, it took the form of a low ramp sloping up to the recess, and the purpose of the stones was to prevent the material of the ramp from spreading in front of the Royal Buttress. The second line of stones was the rise of the first step in the recess: it gives a height of 0-30-0-35 m.
015-J B
Fig. 80. B, stones across recess opening; D, high-level threshold.
More evidence cornes from the stratification (PI. 41 a and /)) in the recess itself. From the front edge of the threshold to the back of the line of stones runs a sharply sloping stratum of burnt wood, maximum thickness o-i> m. (fig. 80). Above this comes a stratum of burnt lime (clearly visible in the photograph) 030 m. thick at the top, where it is mixed with burnt brick, and 035 m.
effect of the reliefs is much enhanced by their being raised half a metre above ground-level ; alsoj the fact that they were so raised affords an interesting parallel to the reliefs of the Long Wall of Sculpture.
196
CARCHEMISH
thick in the middle ; above this, close to the threshold, is a mass of fallen rubBle, and from it a talus of broken brick burnt to a deep red colour. The whole of this rested on solid mud brick ; we failed to distinguish any steps in its surface — it had the appearance rather of a ramp — but (a) mud-brick steps might easily be. much worn, and (6) the treads might have been of wood over a brick foundation. Further evidence was given by the burning on the face of the sphinx slab (PI. 416). There is a definite slope across the stone coming to the feet of the sphin.x, but then there is as definite a drop to the level of the feet of the musicians ; in front of the musicians slab there is a level of mud brick.
It le&ults from the evidence that there was a low ramp projecting from the recess into the King's Gate roadway and, on the wall line, a step up, giving a rise of 0-35-40 m. above. its level. At about o-6o m. back the brick seemed to show signs of a second step, 025 m. high, which would agree with the level of the feet of the back musicians, and at i -30 m. the level of the feet of the sphinx was reached ; thence there had to be a rise to the threshold.
The stairs so reconstructed belong to the latest phase of the building. The photograph on PI. 416 shows a mud-brick wall running across the recess which is not required by the stairs and was in fact buried in well-laid mud brickwork both in front of it and behind. It can also be seen that the limestone threshold lies partly upon the top of another mud-brick wall but partly upon a basalt slab set in an opening of that wall — possibly the threshold of an earlier doorway in the same position but on a smaller scale. Lastly there is the erasure of the heads of the taller figures on the musician slab B. lyb. The top of the opposite slab, B. i8b, is, as has been said, 070 m. above that of the Buttress, and the feet of the figures on it are at 0-90 m. below the top edge of the stone. On B. ijb the line of erasure comes at 0-20 m. below the top edge of the stone and therefore corre- sponds exactly with the feet of B. i8i as a datum for fixing the late floor-level between the slabs.
It is curious to find in the same recess two slabs, an old and a new, both with the same subject of musicians. The coincidence would be still more strange were we to suppose that B. ijb was brought from elsewhere and re- used here by the builders of the Royal Buttress. Also, they would scarcely have troubled to bring so large a stone, as the greater part of it was to be below ground- level, and for the continuation of the side of the recess they were content with much smaller stones having no
depth of foundation. It is more likely that the slab was already in position, that it formed part of the original recess, and that it is connected with the Herald's Wall, which it resembles in style; if so, the new reliefs of the Royal Buttress have been plastered against it precisely as the first soldier slab of the King's Gate re-entrant was plastered against the last slab of the Herald's Wall. If the stone is in its original position it is tempting to assume that the whole of the King's Gate as we have it is a late version of an earlier scheme of decoration of very similar character — the fact that in each period there had to be a 'musician' slab in the stair recess surely implies that in the early period as in the later there was a pro- cession and possibly even a 'royal buttress' whose sculp- tures had in after days to be replaced by portraits of a new king.
Most of the sculptures of the King's Gate were illus- trated in Vols. I and II of this series; they have so long been published and have been so much commented upon that detailed description of them is unnecessary here.
The soldier slabs, B. 2 a, h, and B. 3 a, b, call for no particular remark. Attention has been drawn already (p. 194) to the fact that the figures behind the Storm- god statue-base are left unfinished; in the plate B. 36 it can be seen that the feet and back leg of the leading soldier are scarcely suggested. The slabs are i -30 m. high.
The seven captains, B. 4a and ^, B. 5 a and b, were all intact except that the left arm of the last figure but one, together with the double axe which he carried, had been chipped away. The slabs are i-io m. high. The carving of the figures is in the style of the Royal Buttress, not of the soldier slabs, that is, the features are rounded and modelled in a high relief contrasting with the flatness of the drapery, though even that is rounder than in the soldier slabs. The different weapons are presumably those of the different branches of the army, the captain in the centre having the round shield and heavy spear of the hoplites who follow; but the garb seems to be that of peace, not -of war, for none have helmets and all wear a tunic reaching to the ankles which is unsuited for campaigning. The belts are interesting because they are identical with those generally used by young men of Jerablus as late as 1914 — a broad band of thick hand- woven wool, nearly 3 metres long, plain for the greater part of its length but patterned for the last metre, which was uppermost when the belt was wrapped round the body, ending in transverse bars, after which came a tri- angle of open-work, the end of which developed into long cords decorated with gaudy woollen tassels; the
THE KING'S GATE
cords were passed over the belt and tucked through it on the left-hand side of the body so that the tassels dangled against the thigh. It is curious that whereas six of the captains have the same type of slipper— a toed sandal— the leader has the more solid shoe which again survives into modern use. The branch carried by the 'leader is apparently olive. The second captain, carrying three arrows and with his bow slung over his left shoul- der, seems to be wearing the archer's thumb-guard on his left hand. The carving of the last two figures coming behind the lion base is not scamped, as are the soldier slabs.
It is noticeable that the ground of the relief is uneven ; the fifth and sixth captains are stepping down, the three in front are walking up what is represented as a flight of shallow steps. It is possible that there were one or more steps across the King's Gate on the line of the Royal Buttress (v. p. 95) and that the steps on the relief are meant to suggest the Palace entry as the scene of the review of the King's troops.
TheJ^oyal Buttress as found by us was virtually in- tact; only the top corner of the inscription slab was chipped. There had been a little damage to the faces of the two figures on B. "ja, which, like the chipping of the Crown Prince's staff, was probably accidental and due either to heat or to the fall of rubble from the building above.' A (plain) corner of B. ~b was missing. The head of the naked infant and the bird on its staff had been much defaced.
The signs of earlier reliefs on the lower margins of B. "jh and of B. 8rt are discussed above (v. p. 194).
The lute represented in the hands of the first musician on slab B. i-jb is of a type still used by Kurds; the double pipe also survives. The attitude of the dancer is quite characteristic of the Arab pas seiil, though the backward tilt of the head is not sufficiently emphasized. There is a striking difference between this and the later musician slab B. 18b; the complete change in the instru- ments in what seem to be corresponding scenes (v.
' The first serious damage was the breaking-off of the King's head by an Armenian soldier in the I'"rench forces in the winter of 1919. Strong disciplinan.' action was taken by the command- ing officer. Colonel Capitrel, but the head was never recovered. More damage came after 1920, when the heads of the children m the upper row of B. yb suffered.
" The process used is simple. The whole face of the block was thickly covered with finely levigated and fairly water>- mud, which was rubbed well in so as to fill all holes and hollows in the stone. When the mud was dry one of the workmen was em- ployed to rub away the mud with a piece of flat wood, rubbing until he came to the stone and following any contours that he
G
197
supra, p. 196) might reflect the introduction of a new musical mode between the time when the King's Gate- way was first laid out and that when it was remodelled; if so, one would suspect some political bias to have been the motive for the change.
B. 1 8a has suffered badly from the flaking of the stone due to heat. The whole of the back part of the face, behind the sphinx, is very rough and was certainly never carved. The sphinx is of the normal type with two heads, one human and the other that of a lion.
B. 19 i, b*. The pitting,of the limestone has oblite- rated much of the detail of the relief; therefore the stone was 'mudded'- so as to produce the second and clearer photograph.
In front of the steps were found two or three frag- ments of the jaw and claws of a basalt lion in good style, and a large 'core' of basalt that might represent a lion's body hopelessly defaced. On the threshold at the top of the stairs were found a few more small fragments of basalt lion figures. The door there may have been flanked by lions. A white steatite scarab (fig. 81) was found in
Fig. Si.
the soil opposite the Royal Buttress ; it lay fairlv high above ground-level but might of course have fallen with the debris from the upper building, or again it might have no connexion with the Palace at all. Two iron spear- heads and an iron dagger-blade were found together in the burnt rubbish on the ground-level in front of the second priestess slab. A few fragments of terra-cotta flooring-tiles were found in the rubbish in the upper part of the recess ; they certainly did not come from the stairs and must have belonged to some room ^bove. They are of interest in that no flooring-tiles of the sort were found in any ground-floor room and we had no
might detect by the sense of touch — it was better to employ an -Arab workman than to do the work oneself because he, having no ideas about Hittite sculpture, would be faithfully guided by touch and would not be tempted to 'restore' imagi- nary' details. .-After the work w ith the wood was done the final cleaning could be carried out with the ball of the thumb. This method possesses even,- advantage over a 'facsimile' drawing; its value is perhaps best shown by the two photographs of the fragmentan,- slab B. 24. If it is the case that the limestone carvings are only the groundwork of-reliefs meant to be finished in plaster, then the 'mudded' slab gives a more truthful im- pression of the original than does the stone skeleton.
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CARCHEMISH
reason to suspect the use of such, but evidently they were employed in the upper stories.
The general principles of Hittite building construc- tion, well illustrated by the King's Gateway, have been fully described in Chapter VII, in which I drew freely on the evidence afforded by this part of the site ;' here, therefore, only a few notes are required.
The horizontal beam resting immediately upon the orthostats (PL 456) measured 0-21 m. in depth with a vertical thickness of o-i6 m. ; it was set back o-o6 m. from the edge of the stones and was bedded in clay. That the beams were not fixed to the stones was proved bv the lewis-holes in the tops of the latter being filled with locKe sand or lime above which the wood ash ran undisturbed. Upon the horizontal beam rested cross- beams running through the thickness of the wall ; these measured o-n m. :<o- 11-0-13 m. and occurred at inter- vals of about 1-20 m.- The bricks measured 0-37 m. sq. XO-io-o-ii m. thick. ^ Behind the orthostats properly laid brickwork went down apparently to ground-level — a departure from the common practice of having a mixed rubble-and-mud filling up to the level of the top of the orthostats.
Excavations at Atchana and elsewhere have shown that these constructional methods are characteristic of Hittite builders at all periods, and they persisted long after the Hittite time. On PI. 45a I reproduce a photo- graph of the base of the outer wall of a medieval Turkish house inside the citadel of Ankara which, with its ortho- stats set on limestone stretchers; the horizontal beam resting on the top of the orthostats, the transverse beams resting on the latter, and the use of mud brick, is in every respect identical with its Hittite prototype.
In the mass of debris against slabs B. 22 a and h there were charred pieces of poles, round in section, of a light- grained wood resembling poplar; some of them were tilted up against the wall, others lay parallel to it. These must have been roofing-poles. The quantity of burnt wood lying on the ground-level underneath the brick rubble was very great. Amongst it we were able to iden- tify (by its smell under a burning-glass) a regular thin plank of cedar- wood. A plain brick or whitewashed wall would seem inconsistent with the rich decoration of the orthostats, but there was no sign of such glazed bricks
as are found in contemporary buildings in the Lower Palace area ;"• it is therefore reasonable to conclude that the whole wall above the stones was panelled with cedar- wood.
Opposite slab B. 23a was found a piece of curved and hooked iron which was apparently part of the hinge of a door or window.
Between the last slab, B. 24, and the doorway were found numerous remains of a cedar-wood door, two bands of thin bronze, one plain, one slightly decorated with impressed circles, a heavy bronze ring, and a num- ber of strips of iron o-035-o-040 m. w-ide with nails 0-007 ru- long at intervals of about 0-09 m. (PI. 48«). Across the doorway ran a beam c. 0-09 m. sq. and- (as found) 0-52 m. long; at one end was a hea\7 iron bar upright in the soil, at the other end a wooden upright o-o6 m. wide and 0-26 m. high (this was against the inscribed door-jamb), by which was a piece of strip- iron 0-85 m. long, with a second piece touching it (see PI. 486), and a third piece containing a right-angled bend nailed to the corner of a piece of timber ; this was i -85 m. long and 0-04^5 m. wide, with nails at every 8 centi- metres ; all this was clearly the binding of a door built up of panels in a more solid frame.
As the door reveals show (to say nothing of the frag- ments of the door itself), the door was on the outside. But in this case there was a second door on the inside of the door opening. Against the back edge of the stone threshold there stood up the stumps of three wooden uprights, baulks measuring 0-17 m. xo-ii m. ; beyond this was a line of charred wood which resolved itself into the ends of similar baulks, i.e. panels 0-36 m. wide separated by ribs o-ii m. wide and projecting 0-07 m. By them was found a piece of the usual iron binding, T- shaped, 0-60 m. long with the top bit 0-35 m. long. There was therefore an inner as well as an outer door, but for the former there were no reveals in the stone jambs and the whole door-frame must have been of wood. There were two impost-stones let into the floor against the back of the threshold, one by each jamb, and a central stone with a bolt-hole. There was no bolt-hole for the outer doors, which must have been secured by a cross-bar. The west jamb of the doorway had been splin- tered by heat and had fallen in fragments, but many of
'Vol. il, p. 148.
^ Exact observation was difficult; measurements from the corner of the Processional Wall to the marks left in the mud brickwork were (i),.o-55 m., (2) ?, (3) 3-00 m., (4) 410 m., (5) 5'50 m- - -.-.*:,•,. ._
^ One of the bricks was deeply 'frogged' and seemed to contain an unusually high proportion of chopped straw; it resembled in these respects the bricks used in Egypt for build- ing barrel-vaults or domes.
■' V. supra, pp. 164, 170.
THE KING'S GATE
'99
these were in situ and the stone was repaired by us ; it was inscribed (Pi. A. 8 and A. i ui). The threshold sloped up fairly steeply and the large slabs forming it — the outer two in the outer row of basalt, the central one of limestone — and the three limestone slabs behind them were grooved to prevent slipping. The slope was not such as would be dangerous to foot-passengers, but for horses the grooving would be desirable ; marks on the stones were not decisive but did suggest wheeled traffic.
To the west of the gateway, close to the door-jamb, we found in situ the basalt double-lion base B. 25, 26b. It was cracked in half across the middle of the beasts' bodies but was otherwise intact. The total length of the stone was 1-45 m., its height 0-95 m. In front of it were found lying the fragments of the statue which had been upon the base; these, to the number of sixty, were put together by us to form the figure B. 25. It was evident that the statue had been deliberately overthrown and smashed, and as a result some pieces were missing al- together or had been reduced to powder, and we had to make up the deficiencies with cement ; the repairs can be clearly distinguished in the photograph. Part of the inscription round the skirt of the god's tunic is lost, but enough remains to give his name, Atarluhas. The god, seated in a chair (v. PI. 47a and B. 25), holds a mace in his right hand and a double axe in his left, and he wears a low cap with a single pair of bull's horns ; the head is sunk between the shoulders and the whole figure is ren- dered with the minimum of detail. There is no attempt to suggest a body beneath the uncompromising mass of draper)' — on the contrary the artist's intention seems rather to be to avoid suggesting even draperv and to achieve an abstract geometrical pattern of a cube set against an oval-topped stela capped bv a voluted finial; on that stela the beard and hands of the god combine in a pyramidal design in relief w'hich links it with the cube and gives unity to the composition.
Behind the seated statue the wall was plain. Next to the inscribed basalt door-jamb came a limestone ortho- stat and then one of basalt, but after that there was a gap caused by the Roman work. Beyond the gap there still stood in position a limestone orthostat 1-14 m. longx 0-90 m. high on which was a relief of two soldiers pre- cisely like those in the first re-entrant of the King's
' The work of fitting together was still in prOKfcss when we left Carchemish in 19 14, and there was no photographic or other record of the unfinished work. During the war nearly all the fragments disappeared when the expedition house was cleared for militarj' occupation.
- It would perhaps be more true to say that the reliefs are
Gate (B. 26c). The stone was in bad condition with much of the surface flaked away. In the gap, close to the lion base, were two fragments of a basalt relief (B. zbh) which was almost a replica of B. 12 in the 1 Icrald's Wall showing one of two composite figures with eagles' heads (but no wings) facing each other with uplifted hands; the slab was 090 m. high, and if the main fragment was simply tilted forward it stood practically touching the slab with the two soldiers; it was accordingly replaced there.
The south wall of the King's Gate, to which these reliefs belonged, continued to the west, but from it there ran out, next to the soldiers slab, a minor wall parallel with the main west wall of the entn,' ; it had a footing of roughly cut limestone blocks c. o-4om. high over which was mud brickwork standing another 070 m. high but stepped back from the line of the stones sufficiently for facing-stones to have stood on the foundation-blocks. No facing-stones, if such there had ever been, remained in position. In front of the wall there were found nume- rous small fragments of basalt reliefs of chariots; the most important of them gives the heads, in profile, of four men riding in one car (PI. B. 6ia) ; no more of the human figures was left, but we were able to fit together numerous small pieces which gave the reins and part of the body of the car, ' but a very small proportion re- mained of what had been a large slab or, more probably, several large slabs. 'I'he destruction had been deliberate and thorough. In any case, the reliefs had certainlv been finer than any others found at Carchemish, late in date, showing strong Assyrian influence,- astonishingly deli- cate in treatment, comparable only to the fragments B. 64 found below the foot of the Great Staircase. It is tempting to assume that these chariot slabs decorated the wall at whose foot they were found, but the diffi- culties in the way of the assumption are, first, that they seem inconsistent with the very poor foot-soldiers slab next to which thev would have come (not a vital objec- tion in view of anomalies elsewhere); secondly, that the fragments all come from the upper parts of the reliefs, and one would have expected the lower parts to be /'/; situ or at any rate not far away, whereas there was no sign of them; and thirdly, that the relief was certainly not isolated but formed part of a continuous frieze, and
actually .Assyrian, the work of .Assyrian and not of Syro- Hittite artists. The .Assyrians mounted four men in one chariot from the time of .Assurbanipal onwards, not, apparently, before. The fragment B. t>ia is tlierefore an interesting relic of the Assyrian governorship of Carchemish in the latter part of the seventh centur^'.
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CARCHEMISH
the wall against which the fragments were found is not long enough to serve as the base for a frieze. The wall was undisturbed by Roman buildings, and the frag- ments lay on the Hittite ground-level ; if, therefore, they had adorned this wall they must have been pulled out Heliberately when the building was still standing and no rubble had accumulated in front of the wall, and they had been broken in the process and all the pieces ex- cept some inconsiderable fragments carried away ; since some fragments did remain the destruction must have occurred in the last days of Carchemish. Such icono- clasm by a victorious enemy is understandable ; but it is hard to explain why chariot-slabs should have been so systematically eradicated when the Royal Buttress just across the road was left intact. My impression that the reliefs did not belong here was supported by the fact that the wall in question was not the main wall of the King's Gate; it was that of a small guard-chamber in the corner of the Processional Wav. It was rather more than 4-00 m. long and then continued for 2-50 m. as a low bench. Behind it was a little room measuring only I -60 m. X2-50 m. Its back wall (the south wall of the King's Gate) had two courses of heaxy limestone blocks on low stretcher foundations, total height 1-35 m., its west wall was of one course of blocks over a foundation- course, its north wall consisted of two well-worked orthostats with mud brick above; the eastern jamb con- sisted of a single stone 1-20 m. long running through the thickness of the east wall ; in both jambs there were vertical reveals for a wooden door-frame. The mud floor was raised 0-35 m. above the level of the approach, having two steps, of which the outer was of rough stone and the inner (on the line of the door-posts) of stones which had had a wooden threshold resting on them. The prolongation of the east wall beyond the limits of the chamber may have been for a roofed loggia.
The west wall of the King's Gate had no decoration. There were rough rubble foundations on which rested very well-cut and polished basalt orthostats from 0-70 m. to 085 m. long and o-6o m. high, above which came the normal brick-and-timber work. The beam above the stones could be followed for the first 2-50 m., with brick 0-40 m. high above it. The evidence for the non-con- structional nature of the lewis-holes was repeated here. At 5-00 m. from the guard-chamber the masonr}' of the west wall gave out ; the Roman wall overlay it here ; then the foundations only could be traced for another i6-5om. Towards the end of this line there was found loose at
' The negative of
ground-level the important inscription A. 13^. The con- dition of the building being what it was it was impos- sible to say whether the slab belonged to it or not.
Excavation did not continue beyond this point and no return of the west wall of the King's Gate was found.
In the wide space in front of the Royal Buttress there were found two reliefs (B. 60 a and b), one of basalt and one of limestone having the same subject — two men, a driver and an archer, in a chariot drawn by a single horse; they are hunters, and under the horse's belly can be seen the animal, apparently a wild boar, of which they are in chase. The style of the reliefs is exactly that of the warrior charioteers on the Long Wall of Sculpture.
The two slabs were loose in the soil, not in position, and not even on the Hittite courtyard floor but well above it; they had therefore been brought and thrown down where we found them after the destruction of the town and when rubbish had already accumulated on the Hittite floors. Since two lay close together it can be assumed that the original frieze stood not very far away, but no greater precision is possible.
The Gate-Chamber and the Inner Court. (Pi. 30)
The south-west corner of the inner wall of the Roman Forum overlay the west wall of the gate-chamber, its south wall running diagonally across the chamber just behind the threshold, and its west wall just missing the left flank of the left-hand lion of the base of the seated statue (PI. 436). Its foundations, of uncemented stone rubble, went down to Hittite floor-level and in places, e.g. on the line of the Processional Wall, below it ; this accounts for the destruction of the last slab of that wall, B. 24, the fragments of which were found in the Roman masonr}'. In the same foundations but inside the gate- chamber towards its south-west corner was found a great lion relief (v. PI. 47a), which was lying face down- wards in front of the remains of the west jamb of the inner doorway. ' The back edge of the block behind the head had a square reveal to take an upright such as a door-frame ; it was most probable that it had stood flank- ing that door. A second and similar lion relief (PI. B. 55a) was found farther along the Roman wall in the north-east corner of the gate-chamber (v. PL 46a); we restored it in a corresponding position on the east side of the inner door. This sculpture was peculiar. The reUef was cut upon a large slab of rather coarse lime- stone and occupied the entire area of the slab, so that the beast's muzzle and front claws came directly against this relief is lost.
THE KING'S GATE
20 1
the edge of the adjoining basalt door-jamb,' while there was actually no room for the tail ; the tail, therefore, was carved on the next slab, which was of basalt. The effect was very strange, and there could scarcely be stronger evidence for the fact that the reliefs were carved on the orthostats after those were in position in the wall — it is inconceivable that the artist working upon a slab in his workshop should have designed a lion without a tail.
Just behind the threshold of the outer door, in the Roman foundations, were three fragments of a basalt relief of which two more fragments turned up later, rather more to the east and higher up in the soil between the inner and the outer walls of the Forum ; they gave the greater part, less the head, of a sphin.x (PI. B. 56a), which presumably had the two heads, lion and human, of B. 14a. On the line of the east wall of the gate- chamber lay, face downwards, a hea\'y limestone ortho- stat with a relief of a man carrying a gazelle in his right hand and a mace over his left shoulder; the head is missing (PI. B. 566) ; close to it was another limestone relief of a demon with human body and a lioness's (?) head carrying a gazelle head downwards in his right hand and brandishing a knife in his left (PI. B. 55^). Near the corner of the Processional Wall was the lower part of a basalt slab on which were the legs of a demon similar to that on B. 14.
Between the inner and the outer walls of the Roman Forum were found three reliefs which were disturbed but apparently not removed from their position in the wall of the inner court west of the gateway; they had not been used by the Roman builders. The first of them, a basalt relief of a stag (PI. B. 58/)), was standing upright on the line of the wall ; next to it, but fallen down back- wards, yet with its base virtually on the same line, was a Hmestone relief of two griffins heraldically opposed (PI. B. 58a), and in front of this, broken into two pieces, was the basalt relief of a lion pulling down a bull (PI. B. 57^). The Roman diggers of the foundation-trench had des- troyed the core of the wall immediately behind the griffins slab, which collapsed into the trench, and had missed the stag slab by 30 centimetres, leaving it in position; the lion slab must have been thrown down earlier, at the time when the Palace was destroyed and there was not yet any accumulation of debris in front of the wall. As soon as the wall's existence was proved by our finding the threshold of the inner door and the two stone door-jambs fallen on either side of it, there could be no doubt that the three orthostats belonged to it.
Close to the west jamb were lying fragments of a lime- stone slab ofa man shooting a stag (PI. B. 590); it almost certainly came from this part of the courtyard wall, and it would fit perfectly against the stag relief, B. ^Hb.
In the inner court, therefore,we have on the east side of the gate three sculptures which, though they were not in situ, could yet, if the conditions of their rerrioval were duly assayed, be restored with a fair degree of confidence; these are, from the edge of the door-jamb, B. 55/), B. 56a, and B.56/;, giving the normal scheme of alternate limestone and basalt slabs. Oh the west side, from the door-jamb, we have B. 59a, B. 586, B. 58a, and B. 57/;, the first of them highly probable and the other three certain. The fragments of the slab resembling B. 1 4 should, by their position, belong to the east side. All these reliefs are, judging by their style, relatively old, contemporary with the Herald's Wall, and the series shows the same incongruity of subject (the fact holds good even if our order of restoration be disputed) and the same mixture of mythical or symbolic figures with naturalistic themes such as the man shooting a stag or the hunter returning home with his spoils of the chase.
Only this north end of the court was cleared. Excava- tion stopped on the line of the second Roman wall cross- ing the site. Of the gate-chamber, however, and of, the small rooms flanking it something is to be said.
From the inner courtyard a drain, a stone channel roofed with flat stones, ran under the threshold of the inner doorway and across the gate-chamber, under its floor of beaten earth and gravel, under the great stones of the threshold of the outer gate, and for the whole length of the King's Gate, to empty, apparently, in the open space between the King's Gate and the Lower Palace.
The walls of the gate-chamber had suffered severely at the hands of the Roman builders. The north wall was plain, with small polished but undecorated orthostats, as was proved by the section east of the outer door (the western section was ruined), and the side walls were similar; in the photograph on PI. 47rt it can be seen that the stones, though not tall, are unusually thick and solid ; above them was mud brick. The corner of the west wall by the side door was broken away, but part of the door-jamb survived, as did the south jamb — the base remaining ;'/; situ while the upper part, all splintered by fire, lay in fragments before it. Of the corresponding east wall only one facing-stone remained in position, but
This had fallen and was in fragments, but was restored by us as shown on B. 55a.
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CARCHEMISH
that one, worked on two faces, established the existence of a doorway in this wall also. In the western door there was an outside threshold projecting from the wall line into the gate-chamber, a single slab of rather soft white limestone, and two fitted stones projecting on the other "side, with earth only between the faces of the.jambs; probably there was here a raised wooden sill. The posi- tion and width of the south or inner doorway was fixed in the first place by the threshold of six stone slabs and secondly by the door-jambs, fallen, but removed very little from their places. East of the south doorway the whole of the south wall and the south-east corner of the chamber had been razed in Roman times.
The small chamber west of the gate-chamber had walls whose base was of small but solid and well- worked basalt blocks surmounted by mud brickwork. It pre- sented no special features. In its west wall was an open- ing leading into what seemed to be a narrow passage; but our excavations reallv stopped at this point and anything shown on the plan beyond this is based on superficial indications or is guesswork. Similarly, on the east side of the gate-chamber the inner room is little more than a surmise, no true wall-faces having been traced. The long wall running north behind the Pro- cessional Wall was at a higher level and is not neces- sarily part of the Palace, although its relation to the threshold at the top of the stairs by the Royal Buttress gives it a certain probability.
The purely archaeological evidence might be summed up now as follows:
The Herald's Wall is earlier than the King's Gate but was incorporated in the late building. The sculptures of the inner court are contemporary with the Herald's Wall and they also are re-used in the late building. The stair recess shows signs of three distinct building periods; the limestone 'musician' slab belpngs stylistically to the Herald's Wall and is probably in its original position, and is associated with the first of the three building- periods of the stair recess. It would therefore seem that the latest building does not differ greatly from the earliest in ground-plan or, to put it conversely, that in the Herald's Wall period there was a King's Gate and a Processional Entry whose general layout was much the same as that of the existing building, but its decoration was very diff'erent.
Next we must note that in the King's Gate there are orthostats of four different sizes : the soldier slabs of the re-entrant are 1-30 m. high, the slabs of the Royal But- tress are i-io m. high, those of the Processional Entry
are i -co- 1-05 m. high, and the soldier slab of the south wall (B. 2bc) is only 0-82 m. high. Stylistically the soldier slabs, both from the re-entrant and from the south wall, and the whole Processional Entry series — including necessarily the basalt 'musician' slab B. iSh — form a single unit; they present a sharp contrast to the Royal Buttress.
It has been pointed out already (p. 193) that the Storm-god statue and the soldier slabs of the re-entrant are strictly contemporary, the final touches not having been put to the latter in so far as they were hidden by the statue-base. This is not true, however, of the hinder- most captain, though he, too, was scarcely visible. Both by composition and by style the captains are inseparable from the royal family portraits of the front of the But- tress ; but as regards the soldier slabs the whole of the Royal Buttress is on a smaller scale (and this in spite of the captains being so much more important than the common soldiers) and that it is an afterthought is proved by the clumsy way in which the last captain slab is abutted against the first soldier slab (v. PI. B. 36) so as to touch the man's wrist — the brick wall of the buttress rising flush with the captain orthostats would have cut off the left hand of the leading spearman. Just as the series of soldier slabs seems to have been applied to the (possibly truncated) end of the Herald's Wall, so the Royal Buttress has been applied to the soldier series with that insouciance which is curiously typical of Hit- tite innovators.
As regards the authorship of the Royal Buttress we are left in no doubt whatsoever ; he is named both in the long inscription B. 6 and on his portrait on B. ja. The name is Araras ; he was a king of Carchemish who seems to have owed his throne not to royal descent, for he makes no claim to such, but to successes in war, which are duly celebrated in the inscription.
In the gateway at the end of the Processional Entry the western jamb bears a long inscription in hierogly- phic characters in relief (A. 8; v. also PI. 47a) which gives the name of the ruler and builder, Katuwas son of Luhas and grandson of Asatuwatimais, King of Car- chemish. Now the gateway is almost certainly to be associated with the Processional Entry and with the setting up of the seated god statue beside the gate ; we have a strong prima facie case for assigning the older version of the King's Gate to Katuwas. A further dis- covery which we confidently expected to yield yet more precise dating tends on the contrary to confuse the issue. The front of the threshold between the door-jambs was
THE KING'S GATE
203
composed of three large slabs, the outer two of basalt (PI. 47«). ^^^len cleaning these we noticed characters in relief on the edge of one of them, and on lifting them found that the two basalt slabs were old door-jambs, both inscribed (A. 9 and A. 10) ; it seemed safe to assume that thev were the original jambs of this door and, at the time of the remodelHng of the King's Gate, had simply been laid down in front of where they had stood, to serve as a threshold, while new jambs had been substituted for them with an inscription giving due credit to the king responsible for the new work. Unfortunately for this theory the text of the old inscription begins with the same characters as that of the new, and both alike are dedications by King Katuwas. The contents of the two inscriptions as tentatively translated (the pair of old jambs bear one continuous text) are not so different as to make it likely that Katuwas himself substituted the new stones for the old.' The old stones were not thus dishonourably used by an enemy anxious to obliterate the memorials of Katuwas, because the standing door- jamb bearing his dedication was left undisturbed. We must, I think, conclude that the old jambs did not come from this doorway, but belonged to another building which was swept away simply to make room for some- thing new; the fact that they were not separated would imply that their original position had been not far away. It is perhaps worth while to remark that the stairway ne.xt to the Royal Buttress had been remodelled by King Araras and that before his reconstruction it had ended with an important doorway of which part of the basalt threshold remains in situ; the two jambs may have be- longed to this door. It might also be pointed out that some time must have elapsed between Katuwas and Araras, since the threshold of the former's gate — which would almost certainly have been of basalt — stood in need of repair when Araras put up his Royal Buttress.^ There is no doubt that King Katuwas was responsible for a great deal of work in this area. At the north end of the west side of the King's Gate we found the inscrip- tion A. 13^/, also by Katuwas;^ to the same king belong the fragmentary' stela A. 12 found between the Great Staircase and the Herald's Wall, a door-jamb from the
' This involved a major building operation. The ortho- stats were not merely applied to the wail-face, as were the .Assyrian alabaster relief-slabs (v. Vol. II, p. 153), but were constructionally a part of the wall. The substitution of new door-jambs meant the dismantling and rebuilding of the whole gateway.
^ Mr. Bamett makes the inter^'al about a century, v. p. 240.
^ The text is incomplete, the whole of the left side being
Great Staircase itself,* and the two door-jambs of the Lower Palace Shrine. We have therefore seven impor- tant inscriptions by Katuwas, and they include the dedications of four different doorways (i.e. different buildings) in the Palace area; it- is evident that he must have been the author of an extensive rebuilding scheme. The re-use of one and probably of two of his monuments shows that he did not belong to the latest phase of Hit- tite building at Carchemish.
Fortunately one of the Katuwas inscriptions, A. i3</, has its initial sign, the human figure, enlarged to the full height of the orthostat, and therein we have a valuable criterion for style. The figure is markedly different from that of .Araras on the Royal Buttress and from those of the seven captains on the side of the same buttress. In the quality of its relief it comes much more close to the soldier slabs in the re-entrant of the King's Gate and in the south wall behind the seated god statue, and it resembles, too, the kriophoroi of the Processional Entr\-; on the other hand, it shows an art somewhat more sophisticated than the Herald's Wall. While it is perhaps hazardous to compare a relief with sculptures in the round, one cannot but recognize that in the treat- ment of the face and hair the Katuwas figure of the in- scription has a certain similarity to the Storm-god statue in the re-entrant and even to the seated god B. 25. All these facts corroborate the prima facie evidence of the standing door-jamb in the King.'s Gate for the part played by Katuwas in the remodelling of the Palace facade.
It would appear, therefore, that the King's Gate in its
present form is the result of successive building-periods
whose contributions may be resolved as follows:
Period I. The general layout was much the same. Of
the decoration there remain the Herald's Wall, the
musicians slab B. 176, the inner court, possibly the
sphinx, B. i8fl, and probably the fragmentary slab
B. 26/). The two lion reliefs Hanking the inner door
of the gate-chamber probably belong to this period ;
the treatment of claws and leg muscles is not quite
that of the Herald's Wall, but is not far removed
from it ; certainly it is more archaic than we see on
missing. It may have continued on an adjacent orthostat (as llrozny supposes to have been the case with the long inscrip- tion .\. \a), but it is equally likely that the block has been cut down for re-use in a later building, i.e. that it was treated in much the same way as the door-jambs in the threshold.
* Now in the British Museum. Messcrschmidt, Corpus I. [I. ix. (here PI. .■\. 23).
204
CARCHEMISH
the Water-Gate lion B. 31c which is the work of Luhas, Katuvvas's father. On archaeological grounds it can be argued that as the lions are con- structionally part of a not very thick wall they must be contemporary with the other face of that wall,
' and therefore with the Period I reliefs which adorn it on the inner court side.
Period II. King Katuwas refaces the whole of the entry and sets up statues in it, leaving undisturbed the Herald's Wall and the inner court. He added the soldier slabs of the re-entrant, presumably a 'royal buttress' now disappeared, and the Processional Entry series of reliefs, including the musicians slab B. 186. The Storm-god statue and the seated god statue are his, and of course the outer door- jambs. In the south wall the soldier slab B. 26c is
his, and he seems to have re-used B. 266, taken from the old building.
Period III. Araras was responsible only for the Royal Buttress, i.e. for the seven captains and for the por- traits of himself and his family. In order to do this his workmen had to demolish the greater part of the old buttress and in reconstructing it (isolated as it was by the stair recess) they failed to aline the front with the long wall of the Processional Entry.
Period IV. None of the standing buildings are later than the time of Araras ; but if the fragments of fine sculpture B. 6ia come from this area, i.e. from a building on the west side of the King's Gate, then there must have been some monument added after Araras's time, for the fragments in question must belong to the final phase of art at Carchemish.
CHAPTER XII THE ACROPOLIS MOUXD
KALA'AT TOP
The Kala'at or Acropolis mound of Carchemish is a long mound divided by a shallow col into two peaks, the south-east and the north-west ; the north-east face of the mound rises almost precipitously from the River Euphrates (fig. 82). Even before excavation began it was- obvious that
Kivor
Euphrates
^
'^%^i^iii
Fig. 82. Sketch-plan of Acropolis Mound, after Campbell Thompson. A, North-west Trench; B, N'orth-east Trench; C, Summit Pit; D-F, .Abandoned Trenches.
the two separate peaks would be characterized, if indeed they had not been created, bv separate buildings with an open space between them, and excavation soon showed that this superficial appearance corresponded to facts, at least so far as the historical levels were concerned. The citadel mound therefore formed tw'o distinct sites, and the work done on them must be described in distinct sections. Since the more important results were obtained from the south-eastern I shall deal first with it.
The South-eastern Mound
The Great Staircase lies at the foot of the south-eastern mound and climbs up its slope ; obviously it was the approach to an 'Upper Palace' crowning the mound's summit. Naturally, therefore.
2o6 CARCHEMISH
Hogarth in 191 1 decided to test the site. In his report to the Trustees of the British Museum he describes his operations.
'Since on general grounds it was extremely desirable to know of what a typical Syrian mound is composed, and on particular grounds it appeared probable that, if there exist any fairly well-preserved remains of a Hittite Palace at jCTablus they are hidden in this Mound, I determined to try to penetrate it. To effect this end, I made both head- ings in the flanks and sinkings in the summit. An attempt to drive a heading into the South flank, just East of the line of the stairway and at contour level 18-30, was abandoned, after two weeks' work, because of the too great num- ber and size of the fallen blocks and pieces of concrete Roman foundations met with. As the NE. flank appeared less encumbered, a second heading was begun from that side about at the middle of the south-eastern part of the Mound, and this was carried by parties working at diflFerent levels from contour 17-50 right up to the summit (contour 33).' It was not hindered by blocks, for the Roman buildings which once stood on the Mound top seem to have fallen down the other face ; but we were prevented from penetrating below contour 26 by solid adobe brickwork, which seems to constitute the core of this part of the Mound. On the lowest level of the heading (below contour 18) were found several prehistoric objects as soon as we had penetrated through the mere superficial talus on the face, which was naturally full of late things. These objects were numerous flakes and cores of obsidian — the semi-transparent Caucasian variety — worked flints, sherds of black pebble-polished ware sometimes decorated with whitened in- cisions, sherds of primitive painted wares, e.g. buif with black or brown cross-hatching, red linear ornament on lighter red &c., rude stone implements, crystal beads and some finely-worked buttons or reels in variegated marble and steatite. It seems that a thick bed of early debris lies on the rock under the Great Mound, and that the latter has been built up in late historic times over all, or part of,