Harpy Tomb
Built in the Persian Achaemenid Empire,[1] and dating to approximately 480–470 BC, the chamber topped a tall pillar and was decorated with marble panels carved in bas-relief.
The identities of the carved figures and the meaning of the scenes depicted are uncertain, but it is generally now agreed that the winged creatures are not Harpies.
After obtaining permission from the Turkish authorities to remove stone artefacts from the region, Fellows collected a large amount of material from Xanthos under commission from the British Museum in London, where the reliefs are now on display.
Several groups speaking Hittite-related languages continued to exist in Asia Minor for many centuries after the Hittite Empire had passed into history.
Kybernis, for whom the Harpy Tomb is thought to have been built, may have died as a consequence of wounds he received in the defeat of Xerxes, either at Plataea or the naval battle of Salamis.
After Alexander the Great's conquest of the country rapid Hellenisation took place in Lycia, and its culture became subsumed in the Greek.
[22] The tomb was built in Xanthos in the Persian Achaemenid Empire (present-day Antalya Province, Turkey), for an Iranian prince or governor of the city.
[1][2] The Harpy Tomb is in the Acropolis of Xanthos to the north of where the Roman theatre now stands and on its west side.
Fellows noted that the backs of the reliefs still bore the remains of the hermit's religious paintings and monograms.
It was originally set upon a large oblong stone pedestal, 17 feet (5.2 m) high, making it an example of a pillar tomb.
In fact, the capstone is one single piece, weighing 15 to 20 tons, carved to give the appearance of three layers.
If the dating is accurate (480–470 BC)[n 2] the Archaic style continued in Lycia for some time after it had become unfashionable in Greece.
At the left and right edges on the north and south sides[n 1] are winged female creatures with bird bodies (the "Harpies").
[27] Between the winged creatures on the north side is a seated figure receiving a helmet from a standing warrior; under the chair is a bear.
Between the winged creatures on the south side is a seated figure of uncertain sex receiving a dove from a standing female.
At the time of Fellows' discovery of the monument, the remains of blue paint were found in the backgrounds of the reliefs.
[2] Leo Raditsa, in the Cambridge History of Iran adds; Instead of a miniaturized official before the Great King as at Persepolis, a boy offers a cock and a rhyton of wine to the enthroned governor.
These portrayals of Persia on a small scale reflect in their physical dispositions the spiritual idea of maintaining promises of obedience to superiors; everyone expected from those below him what the granted those above him.
Among the possible identities for the seated figures on the north and south sides are Harpagus, the Median general who became the founder of the Lycian dynasty, and Kybernis, a later king of Lycia.
Not just in Lycia, but throughout Asia Minor, the Greek world, and Palestine, the pomegranate was widely recognised as a symbol of fructification and procreation.
[26][27] The sculpted reliefs were taken to England by Charles Fellows, who had been commissioned by the British Museum to bring back artefacts after they learned of his 1838 exploration of the region.
[26][27] Fellows received permission in October 1841 from the Ottoman Sultan to remove stone artefacts from the region.
A Royal Navy ship, HMS Beacon commanded by Captain Graves, was tasked with recovering and transporting the items identified by Fellows.
[35] The ship sailed from Malta on 30 October but did not arrive on site until 26 December, delayed largely by unanticipated and protracted negotiations with the Turkish authorities.
Fellows' documents did not give him the permissions he thought they did (he had not had them translated), and some of the British Government's requests were seen as unreasonable, such as removing stones from the walls of operational military fortresses.
Fellows, who had left the sailors to carry out this task in their own way, remarked "but the sculptured parts did not receive more injury than they probably would have done from a more scientific operation".
The sculptures of another monument at Xanthos, the Horse Tomb,[n 5] were left in situ because they were so large that they could only be handled if first sawn into pieces.
This Fellows would have done, but the stone-sawyers arrived from Malta with Graves so late in the season that they immediately succumbed to malaria and the task was abandoned.
