History of Phoenicia

G >> George Rawlinson >> History of Phoenicia


One very complete and two ruined shrines have been found in Phoenicia
Proper, in positions and of a character which, in the judgment of the
best antiquaries, mark them as the work of the ancient people. All
these are situated on the mainland, near the site of Marathus, which lay
nearly opposite the island of Ruad, the ancient Aradus. The shrine
which is complete, or almost complete, bears the name of "the Maabed" or
"Temple." Its central position, in the middle of an excavated court,
and its mixed construction, partly of native rock and partly of quarried
stone, have been already described. It remains to give an account of the
shrine or tabernacle itself.[615] This is emplaced upon the mass of rock
left to receive it midway in the court, and is a sort of cell, closed
in on three sides by walls, and open on one side, towards the north.
The cell is formed of four quarried blocks, which are laid one over the
other. These are nearly of the same size, and similarly shaped, each of
them enclosing the cell on three sides, towards the east, the south,
and the west. The fourth, which is larger than any of the others,
constitutes the roof. It is a massive stone, carefully cut, which
projects considerably in front of the rest of the building, and is
ornamented towards the top with a cornice and string-course, extending
along the four sides.[616] Internally the roof is scooped into a sort of
shallow vault. The height of the shrine proper is about seventeen feet,
and the elevation of the entire structure above the court in which it
stands appears to be about twenty-seven feet. M. Renan conjectures that
the projecting portion of the roof had originally the support of two
pillars, which may have been either of wood, of stone, or of metal, and
notes that there are two holes in the basement stone, into which the
bottoms of the pillars were probably inserted.[617] He imagines that the
court was once enclosed completely by the construction of a wall at its
northern end, and that the water from a spring, which still rises within
the enclosure, was allowed to overflow the entire space, so that the
shrine looked down upon a basin or shallow lake and glassed itself in
the waters.[618] An image of a deity may have stood in the cell under
the roof, dimly visible to the worshipper between the two porch pillars.

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 goddess 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 pass 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 space 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 space, 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 mass 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 mass of boughs, through which the myrtle and the laurel spread
their odours, dwelt the fair slaves of the goddess, 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 coarse 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 worship, 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 basement wall was three feet.[639]
Midway between the side walls stood three rows of large square
pedestals--regularly spaced, 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 god of the temple to which
the chamber belonged, as an indication of their gratitude. 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 passage 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 passage that it was found impossible to
explore.[645] The three principal 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 workmanship. "The treasure found," says M. Perrot, "surpassed 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 massive 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 principally 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 mass, 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
passage, 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 massive 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
massive 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 space, 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 assailants 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 passages, 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 space is needed, a passage 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 class 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 constitute 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.