Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

3go The Ram and the Sun in Phrygia

A single wall faced with limestone blocks is in situ. But a lintel
decorated with the winged solar disk and a few lengths of dentils
suffice to prove that here stood a Graeco-Egyptian temple. An
adjacent mound yielded Greek sherds and copper coins, while away
to the east stretch the relics of a once flourishing Greek community.

Lastly1, at a distance of hours to the south-west of Siwah,
on the edge of the oasis and the sand dunes, Rohlfs discovered a
mound 12 ft square on which are sundry limestone blocks. The
name Bab el medina, ' the Town-gate/ suggests that here once
stood a triumphal arch. A marble ram (fig. 295)2 obtained from

Fig. 295.

this remote spot was brought back in triumph to the Berlin
Museum.

ii. The Ram and the Sun in Phrygia. Zeus Sabazios.

Another cult in which the ram played an important part was
that of the Phrygian Zeus Sctbdzios.

The extant representations of this deity have been carefully
collected and discussed first by C. Blinkenberg and subsequently
by Eisele. The latter concludes that, though they may all belong
to the Roman imperial age, yet in most cases they imply an older
Phrygian type, probably that of some famous cult-image3. The

1 The ruins of Bled el rum in the extreme west of the oasis, regarded by W. G. Browne
as a Doric temple (!) and first recognised by Bayle St John as a copy of the temple at
Umma beida, are described by G. Rohlfs Von Tripolis nach Alexandrien2 ii. 92 f. and by
G. Steindorff Durch die Libysche Wiiste zur Amonsoase p. 126 f. with figs. 79, 80, 81.

3 G. Rohlfs Von Tripolis nach Alexandrien1 i. Frontisp. and ii. 137, cp. 106.

3 Eisele in Roscher Lex. Myth. iv. 242 ff.