Page 144 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

ASIA MINOR AND THE HITTITES

Figure 45. Design on engraved vase, from Maikop (cf. Plate 124)

that they constituted the advance guard of the Hittitcs. The latter point would be of
considerable interest, since it was only during the Hittite empire than an original, in­
digenous school of art flourished in Anatolia. And the Hittitcs had certainly entered
Anatolia from outside.
Now a discovery to the north-cast, beyond the Caucasus and at the eastern end of the
Black Sea, may throw light on the origin of the people buried at Ala<;a Hiiyiik. At Mai­
kop in the Kuban valley a chieftain’s tomb was discovered which consisted of a timbered
chamber buried under a barrow. The body had been laid out in the chamber under a
baldachin, and was equipped with arms and many vessels of gold and silver. Some of the
weapons resembled Mesopotamian examples; of the vessels this can only be said with
some reserve. The herring-bone pattern edging the frieze in figure 46 and the animal
frieze itself, with its alternation of carnivores and ruminants, is thoroughly Mesopotam­
ian. This is also true of the profile of the bulls, which display a single horn, and even the
bear, standing underneath a tree on its hind legs and licking a paw (Figure 45, top), can
be matched on an Early Dynastic vase (Plate iib). Yet the scenery of this vase (Plate 124;
Figure 45) is without parallel. One hardly dares to accept the suggestion which has been
made by the discoverer9 that the rugged peaks on the neck indicated the Caucasus and
the sea without an outlet into which two rivers flow the Caspian - or even the Black Sea.
But the Przewalski horse which die Hons stalk belongs certainly to the local fauna.10

Figure 46. Shoulder design on a vase, from Maikop

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