With reference to the controversy as to whether the rock-cut figure known as the Buyuk Tash (or Surat Tash) on Mount Sipylus is to be identified with the statue of the Mother of the Gods, or the weeping stone Niobe which are mentioned by Pausanias, I think the following might be worth recording.

Mons. M. G. Weber in his Le Sipylus et Les Monuments (1880, p. 117) has remarked that the statement of Pausanias (viii. 2.), that it was asserted that the Niobe wept in Summer, furnishes an argument against the identification of the Niobe with the Tash Souret, since in summer there is no water on that part of the mountain, and even in winter the figure ‘ne reçoit que les eaux immédiates de la pluie. Il faut décidément chercher Niobe dans l'intérieur du massif qui cache certainement encore plus ďun monument préhistorique.’