Fellows, Charles: Travels and researches in Asia Minor, more particularly in the province of Lycia (London, 1852)

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LYCTA.

the writer of the memorandum. "We then wrote something
in English, which was copied in facsimile, well and quickly
executed. The remarks were natural expressions of wonder,
but all showing reflection. The washing, the prayer, the
dinner, and the reading aloud the firman, were subjects for
an artist. Our sketch-books were a great source of asto-
nishment to all; some looked at them the wrong way up-
wards, but all said " Allah, Allah!" They recognized in the
sketches the mosques, camels, birds, and a frog, with the
greatest expressions of delight.

April 8th.—Our attraction to this place was the report
that ruins existed in the neighbourhood. We therefore
started at eight o'clock this morning to ascend the mountain
to the south. Scarcely beyond the south-east end of the
village, and in less than ten minutes, we found among the
bushes a tomb of the most usual kind cut in the rocks,
resembling our Elizabethan domestic architecture. This
tomb has been much shaken to pieces, apparently by an
earthquake, but the detail of its execution we found to be
of the highest interest. I do not hesitate in placing this
fragment in the finest age of Greek work ; it shows by
the simplest effects the full expression of the history and
ideas of the sculptured figures. Had they been all perfect,
its value in a museum, either for the philologist, antiquarian
or artist, would be inestimable. We made drawings of a
portion, and sketches in outline of the whole, which I think
will bear out this opinion of them as works of art, and may
afford an idea of some of its bas-reliefs #.

Great additional interest is given to these groups by the
circumstance of several of the figures having over them
their names, after the manner of the Etruscan; these in-
scriptions are in the Lycian language, and some bilingual
with the Greek ; this, I trust, will materially assist in throw-
ing light upon our ignorance as to the Lycian language, and

* These may be seen in the frontispiece and plates of my former work.

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