Phrygian Rock-Cut Shrines: Structure, Function, and Cult-Practice.

• Author: Baughan, Elizabeth P.
• Position: Book review

Phrygian Rock-Cut Shrines: Structure, Function, and Cult-Practice. By SUSANNE BERNDT-ERSOZ. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East, vol. 25. Leiden: BRILL, 2006. Pp.xxiv + 410, illus. $236.

In this welcome sequel to C. H. E. Haspels, The Highlands of Phrygia: Sites and Monuments (Princeton. 1971), the mysterious rock-cut monuments of Phrygia (excluding tombs) are scrutinized from all angles, with neither romantic bias nor the specter of a presumed Kimmerian invasion ca. 700 B.C. The result is not a total demystification, however, as interwoven within this dense and often technical text are several bold theories that challenge traditional interpretations of Phrygian religion and society. Berndt-Ersoz fastidiously presents the topographical settings and formal features of all facades, niches, step monuments, and idols hereto published (112 in all), and then uses these details to probe questions of chronology and cult function. The book is comprised of three long chapters (on structure/form, chronology, and cult significance), plus a short introduction, concluding summary (which culminates in a theoretical outline of Phrygian religious history), detailed catalogue, and bibliography. This organization makes the book more appropriate for the devoted enthusiast than the general reader, as there is only a brief description of the monuments before the hard facts are presented as statistics and lengthy tables (some more comprehensible than others). The arguments are also some what disjoined, with related points textually distant.

Problems are mitigated, however, by a precise table of contents, frequent cross-referencing, and thorough indices. The illustrations (mainly line drawings, plus some black-and-white photographs and detailed maps) are also helpful, and hypothetical drawings extending the geometric designs of several facades beyond the limits of their own frames are particularly useful for understanding their underlying patterns. The work revises the author's 2003 dissertation but incorporates new evidence, including material recently excavated at Kerkenes Dagi, and builds upon her own recent and forthcoming publications.

The title of the monograph omits what may be its most important contribution--the establishment of a chronology for the rock-cut monuments of Phrygia that is founded on careful analysis of architectural and decorative parallels as well as epigraphic and archaeological evidence, and is integrated with the new Gordion...