1866.] Assyro-Pseudo-Sesostris. 89 



spondence made mc more urgent to get it correctly reproduced, and it 

 is satisfactory that at length it can be examined by all interested in 

 the subject, instead of the very few who could reach Ninfi. 



It is reasonably to be doubted whether Herodotus ever saw this 

 monument, because he has not described it with absolute accuracy. 



The monument is quite off the road or any liigh road, and is a very 

 unlikely place for a public monument of Sesostris. It is on a friable 

 rock, and it is a miracle it has been preserved so many centuries. It 

 was perhaps attached to the country palace of some king or satrap, 

 or it may commemorate a battle fought in the glen. It does not bear 

 the appearance of having been an object of adoration. 



Its class is not distinctly Assyrian, for it wants the sharp touch 

 of those workmen, and it must always have been of rude appearance. 



It is allied to the Assyrian, and is the production of some people of 

 Assyrian character. 



The question arises, whether this monument and the neighbouring 

 Niobe, and the other rock-cut pictures, are the works of settled inhabi- 

 tants, or of an invading or conquering race. The latter seems to be 

 the preferable hypothesis, because in this district, even in the time of 

 Herodotus, there cannot have been more than three, and there are few 

 scattered over the country. Those in this district most probably 

 belonged to some petty kingdom. 



With regard to their epoch, they are certainly as old as the Egyp- 

 tian cities in their neighbourhood. These cities there form a close 

 group, Smyrna, Tantalus, Sipylus and Nymphseum, attesting at one 

 time a population of large and strong cities and a relative civilization. 



These cities, as well from identity of remains with those in the 

 South of Europe, as well from the identity of names with those of the 

 Iberian nations, as well as from the fact of their population having 

 endured beyond the Hellenic invasion, I place as anterior to that 

 epoch, and as Iberian in character. This subject I have treated at 

 length in a detailed memoir read before the Academy of Anatolia, the 

 Ethnological Society, and the British Association. 



The rock-cut monuments must, to some extent, have preceded the 

 Iberian occupation, or may have been the result of an invasion during 

 that period, proceeding from Cilicia and the south east, that is, from 

 the Semitic district. 



