262 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. nevertheless Strabo errs in placing Colose so close to Sardes. 1 The only lake near the town is the Mermereh Gheul ; the artificial knolls, called Bin Tepe, some of colossal size, are situate on the southern bank of the stream. Seen at a distance, from Sardes for example, they might be taken for low hills closely packed together ; when near them, however, they appear in regular rows which follow the undula- tions of the ground until they are lost to sight. Their symmetrical ar- rangement is so conspicuous as to have struck every traveller who has visited them, so that no doubt is left in their mind that they were artificially made. 2 From the fact that there is little or no diffi- culty in exploring them, it might have been expected that they would have been searched long ago. From some unexplained cause, however, these masses were left untouched until the consul-general of Germany, Spiegelthal, had the happy idea of sounding their depths. His first attempts were made around the smaller tumuli, but he presently gave up the undertaking and attacked the mound, which for all the world looks like a low hill, and whose exceptional dimensions singled it out as the tomb of Alyattes. 3 1 The real distance is but some twelve kilometres ; the discrepancy is probably- due to some confusion in the figures which crept into the text. It should be remarked that the suburb of Sardes, in the time of Strabo, may have stretched far away to the northward, across the plain. 2 CHANDLER, Travels, p. 263 ; HAMILTON, Researches, torn. i. pp. 145, 146 ; TEXIER, Asie Mineure, 8vo, pp. 258, 259; PROKESCH VON OSTEN, Erinnerungen, iii. p. 162. 8 Monatsblatt der k. P. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1854, pp. FIG. 159. Plan of tomb of Alyattes. Von Olfers, Plate III.
