Part 4 (2/2)

The two ruined tabernacles lie at no great distance from the complete one, which has just been described. One of them is so injured that its plan is irrecoverable; but M. Renan carefully collected and measured the fragments of the other, and thus obtained sufficient data for its restoration.[619] It was, he believes, a monolithic chamber, with a roof slightly vaulted, like that of the _Maabed_, having a length of eight feet, a breadth of five, and a height of about ten feet, and ornamented externally with a very peculiar cornice. This consisted of a series of carvings, representing the fore part of an uraeus or basilisk serpent, uprearing itself against the wall of the shrine, which were continued along the entire front of the chamber. There was also an internal ornamentation of the roof, consisting of a winged circle of an Egyptian character--a favourite subject with the Phoenician artists[620]--the circle having an uraeus erect on either side of it, and also of another winged figure which appeared to represent an eagle.[621] The monolithic chamber was emplaced upon a block of stone, ten feet in length and breadth, and six feet in height, which itself stood upon a much smaller stone, and overhung it on all sides. A flight of six steps, cut in the upper block at either side, gave access to the chamber, which, however, as it stood in a pool of water, must have been approached by a boat.

The entire height of the shrine above the water must have been about eighteen feet.

Some other ruined shrines have been found in the more distant of the Phoenician settlements, and representations of them are common upon the _stelae_, set up in temples as votive offerings. On these last the uraeus cornice is frequently repeated, and the figure of a G.o.ddess sometimes appears, standing between the pillars which support the front of the shrine.[622] There is a decided resemblance between the Phoenician shrines and the small Egyptian temples, which have been called _mammeisi_, the chief difference being that the latter are for the most part peristylar.[623] M. Renan says of the _Maabed_, or main shrine at Amrith:--”L'aspect general de l'edifice est Egyptian, mais avec une certaine part d'originalite. Le bandeau et la corniche sur les quatre cotes de la stalle superiere en sont le seul ornement. Cette simplicite, cette severite de style, jointes a l'idee de force et de puissance qu'eveillent les dimensions enormes des materiaux employes, sont des caracteres que nous avons deja signales dans les monumens funeraires d'Amrith.”[624]

From the shrines of the Phoenicians we may now pa.s.s to their temples, of which, however, the remains are, unfortunately, exceedingly scanty.

Of real temples, as distinct from shrines, Phoenicia Proper does not present to us so much as a single specimen. To obtain any idea of them, we must quit the mother country, and betake ourselves to the colonies, especially to those island colonies which have been less subjected than the mainland to the destructive ravages of barbarous conquerors, and the iconoclasm of fanatical populations. It is especially in Cyprus that we meet with extensive remains, which, if not so instructive as might have been wished, yet give us some important and interesting information.

The temple of Paphos, according to the measurements of General Di Cesnola,[625] was a rectangular building, 221 feet long by 167 feet wide, built along its lower corners of large blocks of stone, but probably continued above in an inferior material, either wood or unbaked brick.[626] The four corner-stones are still standing in their proper places, and give the dimensions without a possibility of mistake.

Nothing is known of the internal arrangements, unless we attach credit to the views of the savant Gerhard, who, in the early years of the present century, constructed a plan from the reports of travellers, in which he divided the building into a nave and two aisles, with an ante-chapel in front, and a sacrarium at the further extremity.[627] M.

Gerhard also added, beyond the sacrarium, an apse, of which General Di Cesnola found no traces, but which may possibly have disappeared in the course of the sixty years which separated the observations of M.

Gerhard's informants from the researches of the later traveller.

The arrangement into a nave and two aisles is, to a certain extent, confirmed by some of the later Cyprian coins, which certainly represent Cyprian temples, and probably the temple of Paphos.[628] The floor of the temple was, in part at any rate, covered with mosaic.[629]

This large building, which extended over an area of 36,800 square feet, was emplaced within a sacred court, surrounded by a _peribolus_, or wall of enclosure, built of even larger blocks than the temple itself, and entered by at least one huge doorway. The width of this entrance, situated near a corner of the western wall, was nearly eighteen feet.[630] On one side of it were found still fixed in the wall the sockets for the bolts on which the door swung, in length six inches, and of proportionate width and depth. The peribolus was rectangular, like the temple, and was built in lines parallel to it. The longer sides measured 690 and the shorter 530 feet. One block, which was of blue granite and must have come either from Asia Minor or from Egypt, measured fifteen feet ten inches in length, with a width of seven feet eleven inches, and a depth of two feet five inches.[631] It is thought that the court was probably surrounded by a colonnade or cloister,[632]

though no traces have been at present observed either of the pillars which must have supported such a cloister or of the rafters which must have formed its roof. Ponds,[633] fountains, shrubberies, gardens, groves of trees, probably covered the open s.p.a.ce between the cloister and the temple, while well-shaded walks led across it from the gates of the enclosure to those of the sanctuary.

If we allow ourselves to indulge our fancy for a brief s.p.a.ce, and to complete the temple according to the idea which the coins above represented naturally suggest, we may suppose that it did, in fact, consist of a nave, two aisles, and a cell, or ”holy of holies,” the nave being of superior height to the aisles, and rising in front into a handsome facade, like the western end of a cathedral flanked by towers.

Through the open doorway between the towers might be seen dimly the sacred cone or pillar which was emblematic of deity; on either side the eye caught the ends of the aisles, not more than half the height of the towers, and each crowned with a strongly projecting cornice, perhaps ornamented with a row of uraei. In front of the two aisles, standing by themselves, were twin columns, like Jachin and Boaz before the Temple of Solomon. The aisles were certainly roofed: whether the nave also was covered in, or whether, like the Greek hypaethral temples, it lay open to the blue vault of heaven, is perhaps doubtful. The walls of the buildings, after a few courses of hewn stone, were probably of wood, perhaps of cedar, enriched with the precious metals, and the pavement was adorned with a mosaic of many colours, ”white, yellow, red, brown, and rose.”[634] Outside the temple was a ma.s.s of verdure. ”In the sacred precinct, and in its dependencies, all breathed of voluptuousness, all spoke to the senses. The air of the place was full of perfumes, full of soft and caressing sounds. There was the murmur of rills which flowed over a carpet of flowers; there was, in the foliage above, the song of the nightingale, and the prolonged and tender cooing of the dove; there were, in the groves around, the tones of the flute, the instrument which sounds the call to pleasure, and summons to the banquet chamber the festive procession and the bridal train. Beneath the shelter of tents, or of light booths with walls formed by the skilful interlacing of a green ma.s.s of boughs, through which the myrtle and the laurel spread their odours, dwelt the fair slaves of the G.o.ddess, those whom Pindar called, in the drinking-song which he composed for Theoxenus of Corinth, 'the handmaids of persuasion.'”[635] Here and there in the precincts, sacred processions took their prescribed way; ablutions were performed; victims led up to the temple; votive offerings hung on the trees; festal dances, it may be, performed; while in the cloister which skirted the peribolus, dealers in shrines and images chaffered with their customers, erotic poets sang their lays, lovers whispered, fortune-tellers plied their trade, and a throng of pilgrims walked lazily along, or sat on the ground, breathing in the soft, moist air, feasting their eyes upon the beauty of upspringing fountain and flowering shrub, and lofty tree, while their ears drank in the cadences of the falling waters, the song of the birds, and the gay music which floated lightly on the summer breeze.

Phoenician temples had sometimes adjuncts, as cathedrals have their chapter-houses and muniment rooms, which were at once interesting and important. There has been discovered at Athienau in Cyprus--the supposed site of Golgi--a ruined edifice, which some have taken for a temple,[636] but which appears to have been rather a repository for votive offerings, a sort of ecclesiastical museum. A picture of the edifice, as he conceives it to have stood in its original condition, has been drawn by one of its earliest visitants. ”The building,” he says,[637] ”was constructed of sun-dried bricks, forming four walls, the base of which rested upon a substruction of solid stone-work. The walls were covered, as are the houses of the Cypriot peasants of to-day, with a stucco which was either white or coloured, and which was impenetrable by rain. Wooden pillars with stone capitals supported internally a pointed roof, which sloped at a low angle. It formed thus a sort of terrace, like the roofs that we see in Cyprus at the present day. This roof was composed of a number of wooden rafters placed very near each other, above which was spread a layer of rushes and coa.r.s.e mats, covered with a thick bed of earth well pressed together, equally effective against the entrance of moisture and against the sun's rays. Externally the building must have presented a very simple appearance. In the interior, which received no light except from the wide doorways in the walls, an immovable and silent crowd of figures in stone, with features and garments made more striking by the employment of paint, surrounded, as with a perpetual wors.h.i.+p, the mystic cone. Stone lamps, shaped like diminutive temples, illumined in the corners the grinning _ex-votos_ which hung upon the walls, and the curious pictures with which they were accompanied. Grotesque bas-reliefs adorned the circuit of the edifice, where the slanting light was reflected from the white and polished pavement-stones.”[638] In length and breadth the chamber measured sixty feet by thirty; the thickness of the bas.e.m.e.nt wall was three feet.[639]

Midway between the side walls stood three rows of large square pedestals--regularly s.p.a.ced, and dividing the interior into four vistas or avenues, which some critics regard as bases for statues, and some as supports for the pillars which sustained the roof.[640] Two stone capitals of pillars were found within the area of the chamber; and it is conjectured that the entire disappearance of the shafts may be accounted for by their having been of wood,[641] the employment of wooden shafts with stone bases and capitals being common in Cyprus at the present time.[642] Against each of the four walls was a row of pedestals touching each other, which had certainly been bases for statues, since the statues were found lying, mostly broken, in front of them. The figures varied greatly in size, some being colossal, others mere statuettes. Most probably all were votive offerings, presented by those who imagined that they had been helped by the G.o.d of the temple to which the chamber belonged, as an indication of their grat.i.tude. The number of pedestals found along one of the walls was seventy-two,[643] and the original number must have been at least three times as great.

Another Cyprian temple, situated at Curium, not far from Paphos, contained a very remarkable crypt, which appears to have been used as a treasure-house.[644] It was entered by means of a flight of steps which conducted to a low and narrow pa.s.sage cut in the rock, and giving access to a set of three similar semi-circular chambers, excavated side by side, and separated one from another by doors. Beyond the third of these, and at right angles to it, was a fourth somewhat smaller chamber, which gave upon a second pa.s.sage that it was found impossible to explore.[645] The three princ.i.p.al chambers were fourteen feet six inches in height, twenty-three feet long, and twenty-one feet broad. The fourth was a little smaller,[646] and shaped somewhat irregularly. All contained plate and jewels of extraordinary richness, and often of rare workmans.h.i.+p. ”The treasure found,” says M. Perrot, ”surpa.s.sed all expectation, and even all hope. Never had such a discovery been made of such a collection of precious articles, where the material was of the richest, and the specimens of different styles most curious. There were many bracelets of ma.s.sive gold, and among them two which weighed a pound apiece, and several others of a weight not much short of this. Gold was met with in profusion under all manner of forms--finger-rings, ear-rings, amulets, flasks, small bottles, hair-pins, heavy necklaces.

Silver was found in even greater abundance, both in ornaments and in vessels; besides which there were articles in electrum, which is an amalgam of silver with gold. Among the stones met with were rock-crystals, carnelians, onyxes, agates, and other hard stones of every variety; and further there were paste jewels, cylinders in soft stone, statuettes in burnt clay, earthen vases, and also many objects in bronze, as lamps, tripods, candelabra, chairs, vases, arms, &c. &c. A certain amount of order reigned in the repository. The precious objects in gold were collected together princ.i.p.ally in the first chamber. The second contained the silver vessels, which were arranged along a sort of shelf cut in the rock, at the height of about eight inches above the floor. Unfortunately the oxydation of these vessels had proceeded to such lengths, that only a very small number could be extracted from the ma.s.s, which for the most part crumbled into dust at the touch of a finger. The third chamber held lamps and fibulae in bronze, vases in alabaster, and, above all, the groups and vessels modelled in clay; while the fourth was the repository of the utensils in bronze, and of a certain number which were either in copper or in iron. In the further pa.s.sage, which was not completely explored, there were nevertheless found seven kettles in bronze.”[647]

In the construction of the walls of their towns, especially of those which were the most ancient, the feature which is most striking at first sight is that on which some remarks have already been made, the attachment of the lower portion of the wall to the soil from which the wall springs. At Sidon, at Aradus, and at Semar-Gebeil, the _enceinte_ which protected the town consisted, up to the height of ten or twelve feet, of native rock, cut to a perpendicular face, upon which were emplaced several courses of hewn stone. The principle adopted was to utilise the rock as far as possible, and then to supplement what was wanting by a superstructure of masonry. Large blocks of stone, shaped to fit the upper surface of the rock, were laid upon it, generally endways, that is, with their smallest surface outwards, their length forming the thickness of the wall, which was sometimes as much as fifteen or twenty feet.[648] The ma.s.sive blocks, once placed, were almost immovable, and it was considered enough to lay them side by side, without clamps or mortar, since their own weight kept them in place. It was not thought of much consequence whether the joints of the courses coincided or not; though care was taken that, if a coincidence occurred in two courses, it should not be repeated in the third.[649] The elevation of walls does not seem to have often exceeded from thirty to forty feet, though Diodorus makes the walls of Carthage sixty feet high,[650] and Arrian gives to the wall of Tyre which faced the continent the extraordinary height of a hundred and fifty feet.[651]

If we may generalise from the most perfect specimens of Phoenician town-walls that are still fairly traceable, as those of Eryx and Lixus,[652] we may lay it down, that such walls were usually flanked, at irregular intervals, by square or rectangular towers, which projected considerably beyond the line of the curtain. The towers were of a more ma.s.sive construction than the wall itself, especially in the lower portion, where vast blocks were common. The wall was also broken at intervals by gates, some of which were posterns, either arched or covered in by flat stones,[653] while others were of larger dimensions, and were protected, on one side or on both, by bastions. The sites of towns were commonly eminences, and the line of the walls followed the irregularities of the ground, crowning the slopes where they were steepest. Sometimes, as at Carthage and Thapsus, where the wall had to be carried across a flat s.p.a.ce, the wall of defence was doubled, or even tripled. The restorations of Daux[654] contain, no doubt, a good deal that is fanciful; but they give, probably, a fair idea of the general character of the so-called ”triple wall” of certain Phoenician cities.

The outer line, or {proteikhisma}, was little more than an earthwork, consisting of a ditch, with the earth from it thrown up inwards, crowned perhaps at top with a breastwork of masonry. The second line was far more elaborate. There was first a ditch deeper than the outer one, while behind this rose a perpendicular battlemented wall to the height, from the bottom of the ditch, of nearly forty feet. In the thickness of the wall, which was not much less than the height, were chambers for magazines and cisterns, while along the top, behind the parapet, ran a platform, from which the defenders discharged their arrows and other missiles against the enemy. Further back, at the distance of about thirty yards, came the main line of defence, which in general character resembled the second, but was loftier and stronger. There was, first, a third ditch (or moat, if water could be introduced), and behind it a wall thirty-five feet thick and sixty feet high, pierced by two rows of embrasures from which arrows could be discharged, and having a triple platform for the defenders. This wall was kept entirely clear of the houses of the town, and the different storeys could be reached by sloping ascents or internal staircases. It was flanked at intervals by square towers, somewhat higher than the walls, which projected sufficiently for the defenders to enfilade the a.s.sailants when they approached the base of the curtain.

The tombs of the Phoenicians were, most usually, underground constructions, either simple excavations in the rock, or subterranean chambers, built of hewn stone, at the bottom of sloping pa.s.sages, or perpendicular shafts, which gave access to them. The simpler kinds bear a close resemblance to the sepulchres of the Jews. A chamber is opened in the rock, in the sides of which are hollowed out, horizontally, a number of caverns or _loculi_, each one intended to receive a corpse.[655] If more s.p.a.ce is needed, a pa.s.sage is made from one of the sides of the chamber to a certain distance, and then a second chamber is excavated, and more _loculi_ are formed; and the process is repeated as often as necessary. But chambers thus excavated were apt to collapse, especially if the rock was of the soft and friable nature so common in Phoenicia Proper and in Cyprus; on which account, in such soils, the second kind of tomb was preferred, sepulchural chambers being solidly built,[656] either singly or in groups, each made to hold a certain number of sarcophagi. The most remarkable tombs of this cla.s.s are those found at Amathus, on the south coast of Cyprus, by General Di Cesnola.

They lie at the depth of from forty to fifty-five feet below the surface of the soil,[657] and are square chambers, built of huge stones, carefully squared, some of them twenty feet in length, nine in breadth, and three in thickness, and even averaging a length of fourteen feet.[658] Two shapes occur. Some of the tombs are almost perfect cubes, the upright walls rising to a height of twelve or fifteen feet, and being then covered in by three or four long slabs of stone. Others resemble huts, having a gable at either end, and a sloping roof formed of slabs which meet and support each other. A squared doorway, from five to six feet in height, gives entrance to the tombs at one end, and has for ornament a fourfold fillet, which surrounds it on three sides.

Otherwise, ornamentation is absent, the stonework of both walls and roofs being absolutely plain and bare. Internally the chambers present the same naked appearance, walls and roofs being equally plain, and the floor paved with oblong slabs of stone, about a foot and a half in length.

The grouped chambers are of several kinds. Sometimes there are two chambers only, one opening directly into the other, and not always similarly roofed. Occasionally, groups of three are found, and there are examples of groups of four. In these instances, the exact symmetry is remarkable. A single doorway of the usual character gives entrance to a nearly square chamber, the exact dimensions of which are thirteen feet four inches by twelve feet two inches. Midway in the side and opposite walls are three other doorways, each of them three foot six inches in width, which lead into exactly similar square chambers, having a length of twelve feet two inches, and a width of ten feet nine.[659]

Chambers of the character here described contain in almost every instance stone sarcophagi. These are ranged along the walls, at a little distance from them. The chambers commonly contain two or three; but sometimes one sarcophagus is superimposed upon another, and in this way the number occasionally reaches to six.[660] Mostly, the sarcophagi are plain, or nearly so, but are covered over with a sloping lid. Sometimes, however, they are elaborately carved, and const.i.tute works of art, which are of the highest value. An account will be given of the most remarkable of these objects in the chapter on Phoenician aesthetic Art.

Another distinct type of Phoenician tomb is that which is peculiar to Nea-Paphos, and which is thought by some to have been employed exclusively by the High Priests of the great temple there.[661] The peculiarity of these burial-places is, that the sepulchral chambers are adjuncts of a quadrangular court open to the sky, and surrounded by a colonnade supported on pillars.[662] The court, the colonnade, the pillars, the entablature, and the chambers, with their niches for the dead, are all equally cut out of the rock, as well as the pa.s.sage by which the court is entered, at one corner of the quadrangle. The columns are either square or rounded, the rounded ones having capitals resembling those of the Doric order; and the entablature is also a rough imitation of the Doric triglyphs, and guttae. The entrances to the sepulchral chambers are under the colonnade, behind the pillars;[663]

and the chambers contain, beside niches, a certain number of bases for sarcophagi, but no sarcophagi have been found in them. The quadrangle is of a small size, not more than about eighteen feet each way.

Thus far we have described that portion of the sepulchral architecture of the Phoenicians which is most hidden from sight, lying, as it does, beneath the surface of the soil. With tombs of this quiet character the Phoenicians were ordinarily contented. They were not, however, wholly devoid of those feelings with respect to their dead which have caused the erection, in most parts of the world, of sepulchral monuments intended to attract the eye, and to hand on to later ages the memory of the departed. Well acquainted with Egypt, they could not but have been aware from the earliest times of those ma.s.sive piles which the vanity of Egyptian monarchs had raised up for their own glorification on the western side of the valley of the Nile; nor in later days could such monuments have escaped their notice as the Mausoleum of Halicarna.s.sus[664] or the Tomb of the Maccabees.[665] Accordingly, we find them, at a very remote period, not merely anxious to inter their dead decently and carefully in rock tombs or subterranean chambers of ma.s.sive stone, but also wishful upon occasions to attract attention to the last resting-places of their great men, by constructions which showed themselves above the ground, and had some architectural pretensions. One of these, situated near Amrith, the ancient Marathus, is a very curious and peculiar structure. It is known at the present day as the Burdj-el-Bezzak,[666] and was evidently constructed to be, like the pyramids, at once a monument and a tomb. It is an edifice, built of large blocks of stone, and rising to a height of thirty-two feet above the plain at its base, so contrived as to contain two sepulchral chambers, the one over the other. Externally, the monument is plain almost to rudeness, being little more than a cubic ma.s.s, broken only by two doorways, and having for its sole ornament a projecting cornice in front. Internally, there is more art and contrivance. The chambers are very carefully constructed, and contain a number of niches intended to receive sarcophagi, the lower having accommodation for three and the upper for twelve bodies.[667] It is thought that originally the cubic ma.s.s, which is all that now remains, was surmounted by a pyramidical roof, many stones from which were found by M. Renan among the debris that were scattered around. The height of the monument was thus increased by perhaps one-half, and did not fall much short of sixty-five feet.[668] The cornice, which is now seen on one side only, and which is there imperfect, originally, no doubt, encircled the entire edifice.

The other constructions erected by the Phoenicians to mark the resting-places of their dead are simple monuments erected near, and generally over, the tombs in which the bodies are interred. The best known is probably that in the vicinity of Tyre, which the natives call the Kabr-Hiram, or ”Tomb of Hiram.”[669] No great importance can be attached to this name, which appears to be a purely modern one;[670] but the monument is undoubtedly ancient, perhaps as ancient as any other in Phoenicia.[671] It is composed of eight courses of huge stones superimposed one upon another,[672] the blocks having in some cases a length of eleven or twelve feet, with a breadth of seven or eight, and a depth of three feet. The courses retreat slightly, with the exception of the fifth, which projects considerably beyond the line of the fourth and still more beyond that of the sixth. The whole effect is less that of a pyramid than of a stele or pillar, the width at top being not very much smaller than that at the base. The monument is a solid ma.s.s, and is not a square but a rectangular oblong, the broader sides measuring fourteen feet and the narrower about eight feet six inches. Two out of the eight courses are of the nature of substructions, being supplemental to the rock, which supplies their place in part; and it is only recently that they have been brought to light by means of excavation. Hence the earlier travellers speak of the monument as having no more than six courses. The present height above the soil is a little short of twenty-five feet. A flight of steps cut in the rock leads down from the monument to a sepulchral chamber, which, however, contains neither sepulchral niche nor sarcophagus.

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