Part 8 (2/2)

Other late fabrics have smooth ill-glazed surfaces, of various red, brown, or chocolate tints, over hard-baked dull-fractured paste not unlike modern earthenware, but usually dark-coloured. These wares begin in the h.e.l.lenistic period, and go on into the Roman and early Byzantine Ages. They have sometimes a little ornament in a hard white or cream 'slip' which stands up above the surface of the vase. These fabrics are all for table use, or for tomb-furniture, and are usually of small size.

H.

Pottery with vitreous glaze like modern earthenware only appears on Byzantine and Turkish sites. There a few late Greek and Roman fabrics of glazed ware, mostly of dark brown and olive-green tints; but they are rare, and usually found in tombs. The earlier glazes are applied directly to the clay; later a white or coloured slip is applied first, and a clear siliceous glaze over this.

3. Inscriptions and Monuments.

A. Hitt.i.te Civilization. (See figures, Ill.u.s.tration VI: Hitt.i.te Inscriptions, etc.)

(1) From 2000 B.C. onwards baked clay tablets with cuneiform (or wedge-shaped) writing (Ill.u.s.tration VI, Fig. 1) to be found anywhere in Eastern Asia Minor, within the Halys bend and south of it, in Southern Cappadocia, in Cilicia, and in North Syria up to the Euphrates.

(2) 1000-700 B.C. probably: inscriptions generally cut on stone, dark and hard (black basalt), or on the living rock, in hieroglyphic writing. The hieroglyphs are either cut in relief (VI, Fig. 4) or incised (VI, Fig. 2). Found in the same region and sporadically west of the Halys.

(3) From 1400 B.C. and 900 B.C. onwards monuments and sculpture.

Human figures are short and thick, generally wearing boots with toes turned up (VI, Fig. 3.) Found in the same regions as the inscriptions and also west of the Halys to the sea.

B. Lydian inscriptions.

From about 500 B.C. Letters mostly like Greek capitals (sometimes reversed); (Ill.u.s.tration IV, at bottom).

C. Lycian inscriptions and monuments.

From about 500 B.C. inscriptions, sometimes with a Greek translation.

(IV, at bottom.)

Monuments, mostly with inscriptions, are generally tombs in stone, built to imitate wood, with the ends of beams projecting or showing.

D. Greek antiquities.

(1) Early period to 323 B.C. the great Greek colonies on the seaboard and in the coast valleys really formed an outlying part of Greece, and for them the section on Greece should be consulted.

(2) Periods of Seleucid and Pergamene rule, 323-130 B.C.

Inscriptions of these periods to be found mostly in the coastal region, rarely on the plateau. Chiefly royal ordinances, thank offerings, munic.i.p.al honorary inscriptions, decrees, covenants, and the like.

(3) Graeco-Roman period, 130 B.C.-A.D. 400.

Language of inscriptions remains normally Greek, though the lettering gradually a.s.sumes a different character from century to century, steadily deteriorating. The Phrygian language, written in Greek letters, survives for several centuries in epitaphs, part of the inscription often being in Greek.

Latin inscriptions are not common except in Roman colonies during the earlier centuries of their existence. Elsewhere they are chiefly official doc.u.ments of various kinds (e.g. imperial ordinances, milestones usually of columnar shape with the Emperor's t.i.tles, boundary stones, &c.), or expressions of homage to Emperors, honorary inscriptions to governors and other officials, dedications, epitaphs, &c. Sometimes a Greek version is added.

Latin inscriptions of the Republican period (recording decrees of the Senate) are extremely rare.

[ILl.u.s.tRATION VI: HITt.i.tE INSCRIPTIONS, ETC.]

CHAPTER IV

CYPRUS

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