Note 47.1 — Chapter III · The Morphology of the Compared Religions.

In fact, apart from the literary evidence, the Hittite monuments would be proof sufficient of the high development of personal religion in these regions. A relief with Hittite inscriptions, found near Ibriz, the old Kybistra, near the Cilician gates north of Tauros, shows us a deity with corn and grapes, and a priest adoring;47.1 he is evidently conceived, like Baal by the Semites of Canaan, as a local god of the earth and of vegetation. But the most striking of all the Hittite monuments, and one that is all-sufficient in itself for our present purpose, is the great series of reliefs on the rock at Boghaz-Keui in Cappadocia, not far from the site of the ancient Pteria.47.2 Here is revealed a great and probably mystic pageant of an advanced polytheism with an elaborate ritual and a clear faith in high gods and goddesses: the whole procession seems to be passing along the narrowing gorge towards a Holy of Holies, the inner cave-shrine of the Mystery.