On the other hand, a special mode of burial was retained among the priests of the Phrygian land, evidently the old priestly usage. They were placed upright on a rock,|/ whereas in the rock-graves that
* See the following footnote. _t On this point and on the whole subject, see a fuller discus- sion in Histor. Com. on Galatians, pp. 66f., 86 ff., 131 ff. t Iliad, iii. 184-190 : see above, § VIIT (3). § Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1882, p. 123 ; 1887, p. 511 f. || Nic. Damase. in Dindorf, Hist. Greece. Min. i. p- 152: pre- sumably the corpse was put in a pit in the rock,
remain in the country of the Phrygian kings this custom was evidently not followed.
In these two cases we have types of what must have occurred in the many conquests of parts of the country by immigrant races. There was no attempt to exterminate or expatriate the old people and religion. The conquerors took part of the land—sometimes one-third was recognized as the proper proportion—and shared in the estab- lished religion along with the ancient worshippers ; but they afiected the cultus more or less, and im- parted to it some part of their own nature. _
(2) Local dwersity im Anatolian Religion. — While we have necessarily directed attention mainly to the common character of religion over the whole of Asia Minor, it must be clearly under- stood that this community of character was not complete, but that there were great local diversi- ties, which cannot here be properly estimated. For example, the East Anatolian religion of the warlike goddess at Komana, who was identified by the Romans with Bellona, shows a marked diversity from the true Anatolian type; but this is probably to be attributed to racial difference. More warlike and barbarous tribes pressed in from the east of the Euphrates (see § I (3), above), and superinduced a new stratum of religious ideas and rites which belonged to their own tribal character. Similarly, in southern Thrace the Orphie ritual shows a character approximating on one side to the Phrygian, but also revealing clearly a differ- ent racial character, viz. that of more barbarous tribes accustomed to eat raw flesh, and giving to this custom a place and a consecration in their religion. This, however, is a large subject.
(3) Chronology.—As to the age to which we are carried back before we reach the primitive Anatolian worship in its uncontaminated form, it is not possible to make any positive estimate. The earliest stage in its development that is attested by external evidence is probably found in the subjects portrayed in the rock-sculptures of Boghaz- Keui, which are commonly dated some- where in the second millennium before Christ. But there we are already face to face with a stage of contamination with the religion and cultus of a people from the east or north-east (perhaps in some degree also from the south-east)—a people who superimpose a new and incongruous stratum of religious, social, and governing ideas on the primitive forms.
Nor is it certain by any means that the Boghaz- Keui stratum was the first stage superimposed on the primitive religious foundation. Those sculp- tures are of such a highly complex character that they have as yet resisted all attempts at a com- plete solution; and none of the attempts at a partial explanation has commanded general appro- bation among scholars. or practical purposes the sculptures are still a mere riddle; and hence we have been unable in this study to make any use, except in a few superficial details, of these earliest and most elaborate religious records of Anatolia. But the very fact that they are so complicated and obscure furnishes probably a sufficient proof that they are not the records of a simple cultus, but of one which had already passed through a com- plex process of development and contamination.
Thus we are reduced to the study of the de- velopment from the inside—a method always unsatisfactory, because subjective and liable to become fanciful, but specially unsatisfactory on the chronological side, for only contact with ex- ternal facts gives any marks of time. In the
development we are struck with the tenacity with which primitive characteristics were retained, readily distinguishable from the added elements ; and the primitive character seems autochthonous,
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springing from the land, stimulated by its atmo- sphere, and imposing its character in some degree, more or less, on every new people or religion that entered the land.
The character of the plateau marks it out as an early home of human culture. The soil is fertile, the country is level and little exposed to danger- ous animals, and in certain districts, where water is naturally abundant, cereals are naturally pro- duced in sufficient quantity to furnish regular food to an early race of men. The art of agriculture was there taught almost by Nature herself, who thus revealed herself as mother and teacher of her people. The art of irrigation was also taught there by the same kindly mother : in some places it is so easy that the life-giving stream, flowing from a great heaven-sent spring (§ IV (3)), seems to invite men to divert and distribute its waters. The art, when once begun, was readily extended, and a country, which is now almost entirely un- cultivated, and part of which is loosely indicated on. Kiepert’s map as désert salé, is shown by the remains to have supported many towns and cities in early times.* Step by step, and precept upon precept, the Goddess-Mother, the Thesmophoros of the Beotian plain and the Athenian plain (see B, § Il), educated her people; and showed them how to make the best of the useful animals, swine, ox, sheep, and goat, and later also of the horse, by proper nurture and careful treatment and breeding. The history of the education which she gave remains for us in that Anatolian religion of which some faint outline has been traced in the preceding pages.