DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4377#0142
472 ANCIENT ROAD.
may be considered as the Hieron round the tomb.
The masonry is sometimes isodomous, but much of it
is polygonal.0 The walls are very solidly and neatly
built, but large blocks are not much used among
these tombs. Numbers of sepulchral tippi are lying
about. They are almost always circular, and have
stood on square 'plinths. They are generally orna-
mented with a snake coiled round. Sometimes the
usual ornament of festoons suspended from bulls'
skulls is used. So far as I have been able to ascer-
tain, all these tombs have been broken open and
plundered, as is generally the case with architectural
tombs in Asia Minor. It is probable that most
of them are of the Roman period. At tbe
distance of about half an hour from the city, the
tombs form a regular street on each side of the an-
cient road, which, after skirting the steep side of a
mountain-spur, may be easily traced under the
brushwood as far as the edge of a deep ravine,
indicated in Plate L. by the course of a rivulet
which flows through it. In this part, between the
mountain-spur and the ravine, I discovered under a
bush a limestone block, on which was an inscription
in elegiac verse. (Plate XC, No. 29.)
In this inscription, the traveller, before entering
the ancient city, is invited to turn a little out of
his road to visit the temenos of the hero Antigonos,
whom we may suppose to have been some distin-
guished mythical or historical personage who was
honoured with a sacred precinct round his tomb.
c Specimens of the masonry are given, Texier, Asie Mineure,
III., PL 163.
may be considered as the Hieron round the tomb.
The masonry is sometimes isodomous, but much of it
is polygonal.0 The walls are very solidly and neatly
built, but large blocks are not much used among
these tombs. Numbers of sepulchral tippi are lying
about. They are almost always circular, and have
stood on square 'plinths. They are generally orna-
mented with a snake coiled round. Sometimes the
usual ornament of festoons suspended from bulls'
skulls is used. So far as I have been able to ascer-
tain, all these tombs have been broken open and
plundered, as is generally the case with architectural
tombs in Asia Minor. It is probable that most
of them are of the Roman period. At tbe
distance of about half an hour from the city, the
tombs form a regular street on each side of the an-
cient road, which, after skirting the steep side of a
mountain-spur, may be easily traced under the
brushwood as far as the edge of a deep ravine,
indicated in Plate L. by the course of a rivulet
which flows through it. In this part, between the
mountain-spur and the ravine, I discovered under a
bush a limestone block, on which was an inscription
in elegiac verse. (Plate XC, No. 29.)
In this inscription, the traveller, before entering
the ancient city, is invited to turn a little out of
his road to visit the temenos of the hero Antigonos,
whom we may suppose to have been some distin-
guished mythical or historical personage who was
honoured with a sacred precinct round his tomb.
c Specimens of the masonry are given, Texier, Asie Mineure,
III., PL 163.