§ 2. Architecture.
It is difficult completely to account for the lack of monumental art. No doubt it existed to some extent, but nothing like what there must have been in most Asiatic Greek towns. Had there been many great buildings adorned with sculpture they could not have perished entirely, troublous though the history of Panticapaeum and Olbia may have been.
So the general results have in this respect been disappointing throughout the whole coast, but the new systematic excavations at Olbia give us hope. The Hellenistic house and Prytaneum (?) (pp. 455—457) do present considerable interest, and there is a good Hellenistic anta capital[582]: also one or two fragments, e.g. a marble cyma[583], date from quite early times. The city walls too are reported to be of impressive solidity, but city walls are rather engineering than architecture. So too the great tombs, whether ancient as the Royal Barrow[584] and others near Kerch, or of the Roman period like those at Olbia (inf. pp. 417—420, ff. 308, 309), are also rather engineering works, though some of them have architectural embellishments, e.g. the first tomb in the Great Bliznitsa near Taman had an elegant cornice, but painted only (v. p. 423, ff. 312, 313)......Chersonese stands on a different footing. As a Dorian city it has singularly little in common with the other Scythian colonies. Also the greater part of its site having rock just under the surface, buildings were more likely
vivals in their disposition and the real place they take in the history of architecture, v. R. Durm in Jahreshefte der k. Arch. Instituts zu Wien, X. (1907), p. 230. He seems to put them too early, vi.—V. B.c., but Ku! Oba cannot be so old.
y i 3] Sculpture. Artists Signatures 295
to be cleared away and their materials worked up into new ones. The first attempt at a' city wall is well preserved because it was treated as a mere retaining wall to support a road across a piece of swampy ground, and accordingly earthed up in Roman times.
Now that it is uncovered it produces quite an imposing effect. Of strictly architectural work we have but fragments, a few bits of cornice (one in painted terra-cotta)[585] and architrave, an Ionic capital and some late poor pillars built into Uvarov’s basilica[586]. The Byzantine remains are another matter, and because of their definite interest will be treated briefly in their place (inf. p. 508). The cave churches at Inkerman and other sites in the Crimea are beyond my scope[587].From Panticapaeum we have a few pieces in the Hermitage, and some bits lying about Mount Mithridates or stored in Melek Chesme barrow[588]. Ashik figures a few more, now lost[589] [590]. The temple of Artemis Agrotera[591] has left no trace ; the building in which the inscription was found at Akhtanizovka cannot have been a temple[592]. So too with the other temples of whose existence we know. At Anapa a coffer with a Medusa-head from the ceiling of a large building has been dug up8. Baths have been excavated at Panticapaeum (v. inf. p. 566, f. 345) and Chersonese (v. inf. p. 506).