64 Dr. Kennepy Batwie’s Researches amongst the inscribed Monuments 
purer sense than perhaps its ancient inhabitants felt conscious of, their metropolis 
well merited the name which they bestowed. 
Here, as in many other sites, I am persuaded that judicious excavations 
would amply reward the traveller who possesses the rare union of wealth and taste, 
and has time at his command. Scarcely a day elapses, during the season of field- 
labour, without some relic of antiquity being disinterred by the villagers of 
Gheyerah. Then, there exist, as I have mentioned, considerable remains of the 
city wall, into which have been inserted many precious monuments of the pagan 
inhabitants of Aphrodisias, their friezes, their statue-pedestals, their sepulchral 
monuments, many of them beautifully chiselled and sculptured. 
I recollect one series of these, in particular, which attracted my attention as I 
was making the circuit of the ramparts. It lay on the face of the wall towards 
the south ; a group of sculptures in low relief, on what appeared to have been a 
frieze of a temple surmounted by a highly ornamented cornice. These sculptures 
still possess traces of elaborate execution, not perhaps in the very loftiest style of 
art, but by no means unworthy of an artist’s notice. The grouping and the 
action are highly spirited, and very probably were intended to carry out some 
mythological idea. 
Combats with wild animals form the general subject. In one a figure is re- 
presented which had apparently been prostrated by his savage antagonist: another 
is in the act of raising him from the ground, whilst a third is engaged in fierce 
conflict with the beast, to all appearance, a panther. The issue of this encounter 
is told in the next sculpture ; the animal has been transfixed with two hunting 
spears, through the neck, and the victor is represented as in pursuit. Here are 
introduced two additional figures, a huntsman accompanied by a hound, who join 
in attacking the fugitive. The next carries us on a stage farther in the action ; 
both the pursuers are engaged with the panther, and the hound prepares himself 
to spring upon the wounded animal. 
The series now appears to be mterrupted ; at least I have not been able to 
make out the connexion between the two sculptures next in order, and those 
which I have described. Sea-deities are now introduced into the series, apparently 
Tritons, with whom warriors are engaged in mortal strife. This portion of the 
sculptures, extending over two consecutive divisions, I conceive to represent 
some myth of the Carians, or, which is the same thing, of the Cretans. I thought, 
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