The influence of Assyrian and Persian methods is evident even to the west of the river Halys, the border of the Mesopotamian dominion before Cyrus; but upon its farther banks, in Eastern Phrygia, Oriental art is universally prevalent. At Eyuk there are remains, supposed to be those of a temple, with a portal flanked by monsters like the cherubim of Nineveh and Persepolis. At Boghaz-Kieui, besides rock-cut reliefs entirely similar to those of Persia, there are the foundations of a terrace with the ruins of a palace, built upon the plan of the royal dwellings of Persepolis.
Lydia, the last of the three independent countries of Asia Minor, was so near to the Ionic cities of the coast, and so exposed to the influence of their civilization, that but few national peculiarities were preserved in the historical period. The tumulus was there, as in early Greece, the customary form of the monumental tomb. In Lydia, as in Etruria, numbers of these mounds stood in an extended necropolis. The conical tumulus is as characteristic a form for the extreme west of Asia Minor, for the Troad, as the strictly geometrical pyramid is for Egypt, or its terraced variation for Mesopotamia. The mound of earth was at times reveted with a masonry of large polygonal blocks, or placed upon a low cylindrical drum of such Cyclopean walls; the only architectural ornaments were simple base and cornice mouldings. The best-preserved, though not the most important, monument of this kind is the so-called Grave of Tantalos upon Mount Sipylos, near Smyrna, one of a group of twelve. (_Fig._ 119.) The rectangular chamber in its centre, 3.5 m. long and almost 3 m. high, is roofed by a false vault, the horizontal, gradually projecting stones being cut within to the outline of a pointed arch. The entrance to this tumulus, like the shafts of the Egyptian pyramids, was hidden by the casing of exterior masonry. The fragments of a stone pier near by, somewhat like the Meghazil monument of Amrith, probably belonged to the ornament upon the summit of the cone, which, with a diameter of plan equal to 33.6 m., attained a height of 27.6 m. Of greater grandeur, though in an entire state of destruction, are the royal graves of the Lydian capital. The world-renowned name of Sardis has been preserved in the appellation of the squalid village Sarabat now standing upon its site. In its vicinity are the remains of more than one hundred tumuli. The most important of these, with a cylindrical drum 257 m. in diameter and 18.5 m. high, still rises to an elevation of 61.5 m. It is with some probability identified with that monument of Alyattes described by Herodotos, who exaggerates its dimensions to a diameter of 400 m. The cone of rammed earth was apparently not reveted with stone. Upon its apex there was a pier of five blocks, which bore a hemispherical termination; of this various fragments have been found.