Bk. II. Ch. VII. ASIA MINOR, 221 we can look for monuments of importance. The defect in the physical geography of the country is that it has no great river running through it — no vast central plain capable of supporting a population sufficiently great to overjiower the rest and to give unity to the whole. So far as our researches yet reach, it would seem that the oldest remains still found in Asia Minor are the Tumuli of Tantalais, on the northern shore of the Gulf of Smyrna. They seem as if left there most opportunely to authenticate the tradition of the Etruscans having sailed from this port for Italy. One of these is represented in Wood- cuts Nos. Ill and 112, Though these tumuli are built wholly of stone, 111. Elevation of Tumulus at Tantalais. (From Texiers " Asie Miueure.") 10(/ft. to 1 iu. 112. Plan ami Section of Cham- ber ill Tumulus at Tantalais. no one familiar with architectural resemblances can fail to see in them a common origin with those of Etruria. The stylobate, the sloping sides, the inner chamber, with its pointed roof, all the arrangements, indeed, arc the same, and the whole character of the necropolis at Tantalais uould be as appropriate at Tarquinii or Caerse as at Smyrna. Another tumulus of equal interest historically is that of Alyattes, near Sardis, described with such care by Herodotus,^ and which has ^_ 'M m 113. Section of Tomb of Alyattes. (From Spiegelthal.) No scale. recently been explored by Sjiiegelthal, the Prussian consul at Smyrna.^ According to the measurements of Herodotus, it was either 3800 or 1 Herodotus, i. 93. ^ Lydischen Konigsgriiber, I. F. M. Olfers, Berlin, 1859.
