THE primitive tradition which makes the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris the centre of the most advanced culture of the earth is illustrated by the extraordinary expanse of Mesopotamian influence in both time and space. Extending eastwards even to the Ganges, in a westerly direction passing beyond the Adriatic, bounded on the north only by inhospitable Scythia (Siberia), and on the south by the Indian Ocean, its roots, long after the advent of the Christian era, sent forth fresh shoots into Western Asia, recognizable in the monuments of the SassanidÆ and in the works of the world-conquering Arabians. The spring of native civilization was not entirely exhausted, although, after the fall of the Persian empire and the foundation of a Greek Asiatic monarchy by Alexander the Great, Hellenism had expanded itself over Western Asia for five centuries,—first among the luxurious SeleucidÆ, who had attached to themselves the Asiatic half of the Macedonian empire, and in later times under the strict military power of the imperial Roman period. Nor could the barbarism of the Parthians wholly obliterate from the land the reminiscences of ancient Persian and Mesopotamian culture. These influences appear again when the Persian Ardshir—boasting a direct descent from the AchÆmenidÆ, and therefore called Artaxerxes by the Byzantine Greeks—shook off the yoke of the barbaric Parthians in the year 226 after Christ, as his forefather Cyrus, eight centuries previously, had founded his empire upon that of the Medes. Ardshir was the first ruler of a new national Persian dynasty, named after his father, Sassan,—a race under whose sway the land east of the Tigris was raised to a glory and importance which made itself felt even in distant and powerful Rome. One Roman emperor, the unhappy Valerian, was even forced to languish during the last ten years of his life in a Persian prison, the Romans not venturing to free him from the despicable slavery of the Sassanian Shahpur I., who meanwhile took care to hand down to posterity that world-renowned result of Persian bravery and cunning by numerous monuments and rock-carved reliefs, which testify, as a leaf of authentic history, to an event so humiliating to Rome.

The Palace of Ctesiphon,—the Sassanian representative of the Hellenic Seleucia upon the Tigris, a city of the Diadochi which had itself taken the place of the ChaldÆan Babylon on the Euphrates,—the dwellings of Sarbistan and Firuz-Abad, with many other buildings and monuments sculptured upon the face of cliffs, give evidence of the artistic ability of the new Persian kingdom, which continued to flourish until the foundation of the Mohammedan power in Mesopotamia, 641 A.D. Much was certainly lost, and the artistic ornamentation of architecture, as illustrated by the columns and pilasters of Sarbistan, which are without capital or base, sank again to the rudeness of the ancient monuments of ChaldÆa; but, on the other hand, the constructive gain was not inconsiderable, notably in the greater development of gateways, windows, and niches, as well as in the appearance of immense arches, cylindrical vaults, and cupolas, which received peculiar forms of parabolic lines, though not excluding the round arch. The later Persians had marked influence upon the conquering Arabs, who, with few native traditions, were readily receptive: this is illustrated by the horse-shoe arch, so characteristic of Moorish architecture, which may be traced in the works of the SassanidÆ from the Palace of Ctesiphon to the Monument of Tak-i-Gero. Chronological considerations and the increasing influence of Greek and Roman elements seem, however, to forbid the treatment of Sassanian architecture in this sequence. Indian art is omitted chiefly upon the ground that the best work of the Farther East does not appertain to a history of antiquity at all; the remains antedating the Christian era, such as the columns of Asoka, are too undeveloped and wanting in independence to deserve separate consideration. This would be even less the place for a review of Sassanian sculpture, because in this, in spite of the recurrence of ancient Mesopotamian figures and details, and notwithstanding the national peculiarities observable in the modelling of muscles and draperies, the Hellenic and Roman influences are too great to allow of a proper treatment of the subject apart from the artistic development of Greece and Italy. Sassanian and Indian art, though standing in a certain relation to the civilization of antiquity, may receive a more just historical treatment if considered immediately before the advent of Mohammedan methods of building,—upon the threshold of the Middle Ages.

The chief currents of culture and intellectual development have ever flowed steadily towards the West: such was the course of the wide-spreading artistic influence of Mesopotamia. The valley of the Euphrates and Tigris is divided from the shores of the Mediterranean by desert tracts which did not allow Assyrian traditions, though directed and furthered by the important trade-roads, to take immediate and undisputed possession of the strip of Phoenician coast. Egypt lay too near for this; its influence could not remain unfelt by the seafaring inhabitants of the Syrian lands. Indefinite theories have been prevalent for some time concerning the meeting and blending of the peculiar civilizations of the lands of the Nile and the Tigris, but until recently Phoenicia was the least-known country of the ancient world. The Syrian expedition of the French under the auspices of Napoleon III., like the Egyptian under Napoleon I., presented the possibility of a thorough and systematic exploration of Phoenician remains. The difficulties of prosecuting the investigations were not less than they had been in ChaldÆa. “The land,” says Renan, who was commissioned to conduct the explorations, “is now completely deserted. The destruction of the forests has everywhere done its evil work; the soil, year after year carried off by the inhabitants of the villages or washed away by the torrents of winter rain, has disappeared from the native rock; the flow of water from the springs, more and more exhausted, has become too weak to find its way to the sea against the many hinderances; hemmed in by dunes and alluvial formations, it fills the plain with the poisonous exhalations of swamps, so that the once blooming and populous land has become a pestilent desert, where for miles there is scarcely a hut to be seen.”

The remaining monuments are chiefly grouped around the five principal trading towns of the coast,—Ruad (Aradus), Amrith (Marathus), Jebeil (Byblus), Saida (Sidon), and Sur (Tyre),—which follow one another from north to south in the given succession. Still farther to the south are isolated ruins near Gabr-Hiram and Um-el-Auamid. Beyrout, now the most important city of all the original Phoenician territory, has the fewest remains of antiquity; the greater number are at the totally deserted site of Marathus, where the neighboring brook, Nahr-el-Amrith, alone retains a trace of the city’s anciently celebrated name. The city Aradus, frequently mentioned in the Mosaic Scriptures, founded Marathus, its most important colony, as well as Paltus, Balaneia, Carnek, and Enhydra. Of Aradus itself little exists beyond a few enormous blocks of hewn stone; the fanaticism of the present inhabitants of Ruad prevented an adequate examination of the site. All these cities lost their importance in the Roman period, with the ascendency of Antaradus, the mediÆval Tortosa.

Fig. 94.—Temple Cella (El-Maabed) of Amrith.
Fig. 94.—Temple Cella (El-Maabed) of Amrith.

The remains at Amrith are barely sufficient to give a conception of the temple buildings and monumental tombs of the Phoenicians. One fane, in an exceptionally good state of preservation, is still called by the inhabitants El-Maabed (the temple). It consists of a rectangular area, the temenos, 48 m. broad and 55 m. long, sunk into the native rock, so that three of its sides are formed by the perpendicular cut, and reach the height of 5 m. Upon the north, the entrance, the enclosure was completed by a wall, which was also continued around the other three sides, and there heightened the boundary. Two piers, in the southeastern and southwestern corners, standing 3.5 m. from the edge of the rock, and numerous sockets for the ends of the beams, plainly visible in the walls, lead to the supposition that a gallery was carried partially or entirely around the space. The whole sunken area formed the court of a temple, perhaps a sacred lake, as many traces of paved springs in the interior seem to indicate. The small cella, which rises exactly in the centre of the quadrangle, thus became an unapproachable sanctuary. (Fig. 94.) It is formed of only five stones. The socle is hewn from the solid rock, 3 m. high and 5.5 m. square, with traces of a stairway upon the right side. The three-walled cella, open to the north, is 5 m. high; its ceiling is monolithic, while the walls consist of three superposed blocks cut to the plan of the chamber. The roof, chiselled within to the form of a flat-arched vault, juts forward over the opening; its projection may have been supported by light columns of metal, the probable form of which will be considered in connection with the rock-cut reliefs of Mashnaka. Upon the side-walls, which stand 2.34 m. apart, there are two low benches, leaving a ground-space of only 0.8 m. between them. The architectural decoration of this shrine is limited to a cornice of scotia and roundlet; though this appears also in Assyria and Persia, it still gives an Egyptian character to the cella exterior, which in plan and general disposition is very similar to the Mesopotamian chapels represented upon Assyrian reliefs (Figs. 35 and 57), and to such structures as appear to have existed upon the terraced pyramids of ChaldÆa. In this cella we possess the oldest and the only Semitic temple known, still in admirable preservation, although the downfall of the crumbling mass is predicted by the authorities who accompanied the Phoenician expedition. Of two similar structures, which stood near the city of Marathus, Renan could discover only overthrown blocks buried in the swamp of Ain-el-Hayat (fountain of the serpents) and hidden by oleander-bushes. They stood at a distance of 10 m., their open sides turned towards each other. The remains of the better-preserved cella show it to have been entirely monolithic. It stood upon a double substructure, of which, strange to say, the lower part is considerably smaller than the upper. It betrays still closer relationship with Egyptian works of the kind by rows of urÆos-serpents over the cornice scotia and the winged disk upon the inner ceiling. From their plan, they appear to have had no columnar supports, and resemble, in the careful restoration made by Mr. Thobois, the monolithic cellas of PhilÆ preserved in Leyden and in the Louvre. Traces of three other sanctuaries, or at least of their temenos enclosure, which is partly cut in the rock and partly built, exist in the vicinity of the Stadion of Amrith, now known as El-Meklaa (the quarry), and designated by Renan, upon insufficient grounds, as itself ancient Phoenician.

Fig. 95.—The Monuments El-Meghazil of Amrith.
Fig. 95.—The Monuments El-Meghazil of Amrith.

The monumental tombs of Amrith are not less important than these places of worship; the ruins known under the name El-Auamid-el-Meghazil (the spindle-columns) are truly majestic. (Fig. 95.) The first rises in three cylindrical steps upon a square platform little elevated above the ground. The lower part, 2.5 m. in height and 5.15 m. in diameter, built of two stones, is ornamented over the corners of the platform with engaged lions, which are among the most prominent works of Phoenician sculpture known, and will be considered at greater length below. Upon this first cylindrical step rests a block 7 m. high, ornamented at the base with delicately curved moulding, and at the summit with dentils and battlements. These latter are found also upon fragments from Jebeil in conjunction with squares and rosettes and a particularly characteristic frieze of straight-lined laurel branches; they show great similarity to Mesopotamian remains. In the circular plan of the structure there is no reminiscence of Egyptian methods of art; an hemispherical termination lends to the whole so marked an individuality that, although its form seems not to have been universal, or even the most common, upon the Syrian coasts, there yet may be recognized in this monument a truly original Phoenician type. In the development of memorial stones a cultured people generally expresses its fundamental artistic conceptions, as is the case with the pyramidal termination of Egyptian obelisks, and with the Assyrian piers terminated by a stepped terrace, in both of which are embodied the lines predominant in the architecture of those nations. A stairway hewn in the rock leads to the subterranean burial chambers; its entrance is at some little distance from the monument, as shown in the section Fig. 95. Only 6 m. removed from this rises a second pile, which, from a certain parallelism of position, seems to belong with it. It is simpler than the first, consisting of a cube measuring 3 m. upon the side, so roughly hewn that it appears a block taken just as it was quarried; upon it is a monolithic cylinder 4 m. high and 3.7 m. in diameter, terminated by a five-sided pyramid of steep inclination. Somewhat removed from these are two similar monuments, of which the better preserved stands upon steps and rises in two cubes, separated by a cornice of wavy outline, the upper block terminating in a four-sided pyramid, now almost entirely overthrown. It is remarkable for the monolithic horizontal covering of the entrance to the grave chambers, which is again a little distant from the base. Of the pyramidal termination of its neighbor, only traces remain. All these monuments were in part cut from the native rock and in part composed of enormous monoliths; a fifth, of considerably greater dimensions, was built of quarried stones. Of this latter, the commanding mausoleum known under the name of Burdj-el-Bezzak (Tower of the Snails), little remains beyond the platform, which measures 11 m. in height and 9 m. in the square plan. The four-sided pyramid, of obtuse inclination, placed upon this elevation, is now entirely overthrown. The blocks, 5 m. long, are hewn only upon the joints, and left with a rough face. A cornice of curved profile ran around the platform; within it are two chambers, each lighted by a small window, the existence of which rendered the otherwise customary grotto beneath the pile superfluous.

Grotto tombs, with a decorated entrance cut upon the rock wall, seem to have been most generally employed in Central Phoenicia. They are exemplified by the numerous remains of this kind at Saida (Sidon) and Jebeil (Byblus). A tomb at the latter place shows a simple but interesting faÇade; its ornamentation, by the heavy gable and ring-formed acroterium, is strikingly similar to forms occurring in Central Asia Minor (Phrygia). (Fig. 96.) Its flat border and plain five-leaved rosette in the tympanon triangle give no evidence of Hellenic influence. The interior of these tombs is generally a large room, with curved ceiling and niches upon three of its sides, sunk into the rock, one above another, like those of the Catacombs, to hold the rows of coffins. The finest of the sarcophagi of Jebeil is decorated with festoons, wreaths, single leaves and branches, in a naÏve style of ornament betraying no knowledge of Greek sculpture. In Southern Phoenicia a monumental development of the sarcophagus seems to have been chiefly favored. The tomb known as that of Hiram (Gabr-hiram), south of Sur (Tyre), is an immense coffer, 3 m. high, with a heavy arched cover, raised upon a plinth built of hewn blocks 4.24 m. long, 2.64 m. broad, and 3 m. high, the upper part of which is formed by a monolithic slab almost one meter in thickness. Not far from this site, at Um-el-Auamid, is a large sarcophagus, 2.40 m. long and 1.24 m. broad, with a gable-shaped lid decorated by clumsy corner acroterias. Against one of its sides stands a small altar, remarkable for the corners of its battlemented termination, which must be similar to the horns of the altar which stood in the tabernacle of Solomon’s Temple.

Of the domestic architecture of Phoenicia can be mentioned only an entirely unornamented house, hewn from the rock, in Amrith, and a portal at Um-el-Auamid, where the middle block of the triple lintel is decorated with the Egyptian disk and urÆos-serpents upon either side. The materials employed by the Phoenician architects seem generally to have been the cedars of Lebanon and the various metals of transmarine commerce; it is on this account that the preserved monuments are so few, and their remains so bare of carved decoration.

This explains also the lack of examples illustrating the sculpture and extended industrial art of the country. The Homeric epics constantly point to the Syrian coast as the home of all contemporary skill in metal-work, pottery, and weaving. Stone statues were rare; metal was the favorite material of Phoenician sculpture, although it was but seldom, as in the columns before the Temple of Jerusalem, employed for casting. The usual proceeding of the artificer was to make a core of wood for the work, whether this were to be in relief or in the full round; upon it sheets of metal were secured, and these finally beaten with the hammer to the modelling of the carved wood beneath, thus forming a so-called sphyrelaton. The sculptures of Solomon’s Temple illustrate this process, and, according to the Biblical account, may unhesitatingly be ascribed to Phoenician artists. In some instances the beaten metal was gold, this being the case with the Temple of Jerusalem and with a small temple at Carthage, which contained an image similarly overlaid. Silver was more rarely thus employed, though it is known that from the earliest times the Spanish silver-mines were worked by the Phoenicians. The metal was perhaps more frequently devoted to utensils like the twelve silver vessels discovered upon Cyprus, of which those now in the Louvre show a workmanship nearly akin to that of the before-mentioned Assyrian bronzes. It has been remarked in the section upon Assyria that this style was neither purely Mesopotamian nor Egyptian, but rather a mixture of both, the latter predominating. This points to the Phoenician origin of such works, and these silver vessels of Cyprus lend a striking confirmation to the supposition. The beaten metal was usually a bronze, the copper in its composition being derived from the Phoenician island Cyprus, the tin an article of commerce brought from England. It is natural that the Phoenicians, to whom alone these metals were accessible, should be regarded as the inventors of that amalgamation of ten parts of copper with one of tin known as bronze, of so great importance in casting. Homer’s mention of vessels and utensils from Sidon, and the discovery of Phoenician bronzes in the ruins of Nineveh, prove a most ancient and extended trade in objects formed of that metal.

The carved wooden form covered with sheets of metal, the sphyrelaton, is a peculiarly Phoenician product. Such beaten reliefs were generally of copper, pure, or with a small percentage of tin; gold, silver, and even tin were, however, similarly employed, in conjunction with mosaics of precious stones, ivory, and notably with amber, a substance greatly prized in early antiquity, and brought by the enterprising Phoenicians from the coasts of the North Sea. A certain effect of color was thus obtained. In the decoration of weapons, a ground of metal served instead of the wood as a foundation. This inlaid work was known to the Greeks of the Homeric age. It stood in the same relation to primitive monumental painting as the mosaic of the Byzantines did to the decline of the art, its greatest height of development being reached by the so-called chryselephantine sculpture, where a combination of carving and inlaying was effected with gold and ivory upon a wooden kernel. The throne of Solomon was an example of this, the lions carved upon its arms rendering it the work rather of a sculptor than of an artisan. Carvings entirely of ivory are mentioned by Hezekiah as frequently existing in the sanctuaries of Tyre, and in Nineveh there have been found many fragments, apparently Egyptian, which may, without doubt, be attributed to the Phoenicians. The Biblical prophets speak of great works in Tyre composed of precious stones, and Theophrastos mentions an entire obelisk of emerald as existing in the Temple of Melkarth of that city, which is explained to have been of a colored glass (plasma di smeraldo). Glass itself, assumed to have been invented by the Phoenicians, but common in Egypt before the fifteenth century B.C., appears to have been made only in colored, and generally opaque, masses. The most ancient piece of white transparent glass known is described by Layard as a cup whereupon is cut the name of King Sargon in cuneiform characters—consequently an Assyrian work from the end of the seventh century B.C.

Fig. 97.—From a Relief of Saida.
Fig. 97.—From a Relief of Saida. Fig. 98.—From the Monument El-Meghazil of Amrith.

Phoenician sculpture is almost exclusively represented by metal-work, and, as this was mostly beaten, it is natural that it should assume that peculiar style of conventionalization which, even in works of stone, reminds us of empaistic prototypes,—that is to say, of the characteristic forms and modes of conception originally decided by the properties of beaten metal. This style is shown by the Phoenician leaved ornaments upon architectural details, and is especially striking in the representations of animal forms. Upon a frieze at Saida (Fig. 97), for example, is a remarkable illustration of the Phoenician sphyrelaton, which enables us to understand the form of the bulls upon the brazen laver in the Temple of Jerusalem. The half-lions upon the monument of Amrith, also, although carelessly carved and much weathered, are still more interesting in this regard. (Figs. 95 and 98.) Besides their peculiarities as imitations of empaistic work, especially recognizable in the primitive legs, they show some reminiscences of Egyptian granite forms and of a Mesopotamian conception of animal nature, marked also upon the bull’s-head by the strap-like formation of the sinews. Less direct insight can be gained from other Phoenician sculptures because of their more advanced state of destruction. The rock-cut reliefs of Gineh and of Mashnaka, however, well deserve to be mentioned. The first shows upon one side an animal, apparently a bear, leaping upon a man, while at the right, in a sunken rectangular frame, is an enthroned figure, and in another a man in front view, with two dogs, which are scarcely recognizable. Enough is still preserved to show that the work is not of Egyptian origin, but may more justly be compared to Assyrian sculptures, though without the stiff character of courtly ceremonial peculiar to the works of Nineveh. The two rock-cut reliefs of a mountain-pass near Mashnaka (Fig. 99) are more important to the history of the architecture than to that of the sculpture of Western Asia, because of the remarkable forms of the capitals represented upon them; they will be considered in connection with Solomon’s Temple. The smaller, movable sculptures found in Phoenicia, which were possibly not the work of the country, are of less interest; they usually exhibit decided Egyptian influence. Numerous marble sarcophagi found in Saida are characterized by the confusion of style peculiar to Phoenicia. The covers are imitated from the swathed human forms represented upon the lids of Egyptian mummy-coffins; the heads betray in some measure the influence of Greece, and render it probable that they were executed in the time of the SeleucidÆ.

Fig. 99.—Rock-cut Relief of Mashnaka.
Fig. 99.—Rock-cut Relief of Mashnaka.

As might be expected from the position of the country, lying between Egypt and ChaldÆa, and from the national commerce and manufactures, which attracted the products of both countries, the artistic style of Phoenicia was a mixture of Egyptian and Mesopotamian elements. This was, of course, also the case with that of the Jews, who, in their architecture and sculpture, were as dependent upon the Phoenicians as were the primitive Romans upon the Etruscans. The influence of Egypt was felt in Palestine in a greater degree than in Phoenicia, because the Israelites had grown to a people upon the banks of the Nile, and without doubt transplanted many artistic conceptions, as well as methods and details, to the Promised Land. This is noticeable in the tabernacle and in the temple, the latter, as is well known, receiving its general disposition from its relation to that former encampment. The tabernacle (Fig. 100) is in fundamental character a repetition in movable tents of the triple Egyptian temple system of court, hall, and cella. At the time of the emigration of the Jews from their long sojourn in Goshen, they could have been familiar only with Egyptian forms; we cannot mistake if we suppose them, before their intercourse with the Phoenicians, to have supplied all their artistic needs from Egyptian precedents.

Fig. 100.—The Mosaic Tabernacle.
Fig. 100.—The Mosaic Tabernacle.

The simple enclosure of the tabernacle formed a court, with a front of fifty cubits, and twice as long as it was broad. There were twenty-one columns, like tent-poles, upon the sides, and eleven upon the front; those of the corners being counted twice. These supports were five cubits high, ornamented with silver capitals, and standing in sockets of bronze; they must have been entirely similar to the shafts represented upon Egyptian wall-paintings. They appear not to have been joined by cross-bars. White immovable hangings were fastened between them, beneath their capitals, with the exception of the four central intercolumniations of the eastern front, where hung movable curtains of blue, purple, and scarlet linen. The tabernacle itself, b, did not stand in the centre of this enclosure, but nearer the western end, probably so that a square of fifty cubits was left before its entrance, in which space there stood the altar, c, of earth and wooden sheathing for burnt-offerings, five cubits square and three cubits high, and the laver of brass, d. There thus remained upon the three other sides a space of twenty cubits between the tabernacle and the enclosure. This disposition is not expressly affirmed, but may naturally be assumed from the indications presented by the dimensions of the tabernacle, which was thirty cubits long and ten broad. Except in the front, e, where were five columns, it was formed of forty-eight boards overlaid with sheet-gold. These boards, like the poles of the enclosure, were not rammed into the earth, but stood upon double sockets of silver; they were fastened together by tenons and by bars, which were pushed through projecting golden rings. The arrangement of the five columns of the front, also overlaid with gold, is not certain. It is hardly possible that they were placed in antis; for, although the shafts were but thin poles, the six intercolumniations thus formed would have had a width of only one and a half cubits each—too narrow for passage. The two outermost columns may, from this consideration, be assumed to have stood before the ends of the boarded wall, in prostyle arrangement, or close upon this, as indicated in the plan at e; a method of avoiding the narrowing of the space by the two exterior intercolumniations which was adopted in much later times upon the so-called tombs of Absalom and Zachariah, to be considered below, where the forms may have been in some measure decided by reminiscences of these primitive constructions. If the ten cubits of the tabernacle front were divided into four parts instead of six, passage would have been easy.

There is no information concerning the appearance of these shafts. Their sockets of bronze may have been similar to the high bases of Moorish columns, and to those which support the canopy-poles of our churches. If the shafts were neither connected by cross-braces nor rammed into the earth, they must have been provided with a footing even broader than that of either of the instances mentioned, and have resembled the wide-spreading plinths of Egyptian lotos columns. That the columns were disproportionately slim is evident from the consideration that five shafts of normal Egyptian, or Greek Doric, proportions, ten cubits high, would have entirely occupied the narrow front of the tabernacle, and have left no space for the intercolumniations. Mere tent-poles would have been sufficient, as the building was provided with no fixed roof, but was covered, like the tents of Bedouins, with colored linen, cloths of goat-hair, and the skins of rams and seals. As this covering received its chief support from the side walls, a light epistyle of wood was sufficient to unite the summits of the front columns. It cannot be said that there was any entablature, in the proper sense of the word.

The proportions of the tabernacle, three times as long as it was broad, were like those of the Egyptian temple. It was divided into two unequal compartments, the front, f, being twice the depth of the innermost holy of holies, g. The altar for incense, h, one cubit square in plan and two cubits high, probably stood in the centre of the first space; it was of acacia-wood, covered with beaten gold. Like the altar for burnt-sacrifices, its corners were ornamented with “horns,” the nature of which has been variously explained, but which could have been nothing else than corner acroteria, like those upon the monuments, sarcophagi, etc., of Asia Minor, and those of the small altar found at Um-el-Auamid, in Phoenicia. Such acroteria—which do, indeed, somewhat resemble upright horns—were not merely for ornament, but served to hold the golden lattice-work (zer) surrounding the top of the altar, to prevent the scattering of coals. Next to the northern side-wall stood the table for shew-bread, i; in the southwestern corner of the space the seven-armed candlestick, k, was so obliquely placed that, to a person entering, its flames were in a line. The form of the candlestick is known from the representation upon the Arch of Titus, which, though possibly not copied from the original—as Josephus relates that only an imitation was paraded during the triumph of Titus—yet agrees with the main points of the Biblical description. The seven arms consisted of three concentrical semicircles and a vertical staff, all of which ended at the same height. The base was polygonal, and ornamented with sculptures, the support decorated with leaves, the arms represented branches with buds and blossoms, ending in the open calyxes of the flowers which bore the lamps. Its importance, as was the case with all the appurtenances of Jewish worship, was considerably greater in material than in artistic respects; the candlestick was without doubt solid, and was made of a talent of gold—worth more than four hundred pounds sterling. A relief of Thabarieh, probably older than the Christian era, shows its general form; it is given in Fig. 101 as further illustrative of the peculiar metallic style of the Phoenician-Israelitic art of stone-cutting.

The holy of holies, a cubical space of ten cubits on the side, was separated from the larger antechamber by four columns, l, which were also covered with gold, and stood upon silver sockets; they bore a second curtain of four colors. This cella contained the palladium of the people, the ark of the covenant, m, a coffer of acacia-wood, two cubits and a half long and a cubit and a half high, borne upon poles fixed in golden rings. Upon the lid, the so-called mercy-seat, were the figures of two cherubim, monstrous combinations of bulls, lions, eagles, and human bodies; or, at least, of three of these—the body of either the lion or the bull being adopted. Though De Saulcy and Layard do not doubt that these cherubim were perfectly similar to the symbolical monsters before the portals of the palaces of Nineveh, it must not be forgotten that the Jews were, at this period of their wanderings, so completely influenced by Egyptian conceptions of art that peculiarly Assyrian forms could not have existed in the tabernacle. The cherubim must rather have been Egyptian—entirely similar to the sphinxes, which, as has been seen, frequently presented this same combination of human head and breast, with the body of a lion. Neumann considers the cherubim to resemble the animals upon an Assyrian ornament, with sunken head and bent fore-legs; but it is more probable that they were crouched like a sphinx, or were, perhaps, sitting upon their hinder quarters, like the figures of a Phoenician throne of rather later period published by Renan. They were carved in wood and overlaid with thin sheets of gold, as was also the golden calf with which the Israelites in the desert sought to imitate the Egyptian idolatry of animals. This is all that can be said of the Jewish sculpture of the period; the Second Commandment entirely prevented any independent development of art.

The form and arrangement of the tabernacle are in the main clear. This is not the case with the monumental temple which Solomon, according to the plan of his great predecessor, erected to take its place, after King David had recovered, and brought to the plateau of Moriah (at present known as Haram-el-Sherif) the ark of the covenant, which had for some time been held as booty in the hands of enemies. The Biblical accounts enlarge, after the well-known manner of the Jews, principally upon the great cost of the materials, and are thus rather archÆological notices than artistic descriptions. As might be expected from writers ignorant of art, the statements are, for the greater part, vague and confused. The conditions of Jewish architecture and sculpture appear radically changed since the time of Moses. Immediately after the exodus, Egyptian conceptions and manners of work were dominant; but, as time advanced without further direct communication between the two countries, these became more and more outgrown, and at last completely changed to a dependency upon the civilization and art of Phoenicia. The Egyptian element, however, by no means disappears, for, as has been seen, it existed in Phoenicia itself, as might be expected from its geographical position between Mesopotamia and Egypt: The Jews were not so far developed from a nomadic people as to be able themselves to create imposing architectural works. These call for centuries of practice in the art of building. The construction of their temple was given over to their northern neighbors, the more readily as Solomon was in friendly alliance with Hiram, King of Tyre. The Tyrian architect Hiram was sent with a great number of assistants to Jerusalem. Stone-cutters of Byblos worked, with the aid of Jews, in the quarries of Jerusalem; the necessary timber was hewn in the Phoenician forests of Lebanon; and upon the Jordan, in the vicinity of Scythopolis, a metal-foundry for the temple ornaments was built under Phoenician direction. An understanding of the activity among these artisans during the time of building may be obtained from a consideration of the number of workmen employed: eighty thousand stone-cutters were assisted by seventy thousand bearers of burdens. This multitude of laborers would not have needed one year to complete the temple, far less the seven years actually employed (1014 to 1007 B.C.), had it not been for the imposing substructure of the rocky plateau,—a mass of masonry which may almost be compared to the Egyptian pyramids; surpassing the remains at Ruad, if not in the colossal size of the blocks, at least in the exactitude of their workmanship. From the numbers said to have labored in Jerusalem at one time, it appears probable that by far the greater part of the immense foundations was built under Solomon, though the supporting vaults of the southeastern corner are known to date from the time of Herod, if not even later. The erection of enormous terraced foundations plays a prominent, and at times even the most important, part in the architecture of all the people of Western Asia.

The temple itself occupied but a very small part of the oblong area, more than 1500 m. in circumference, which was gained by this artificial extension of the rocky plateau. This space was provided with gates upon all four sides, to some of which access was had by arched bridges; it was surrounded by thick walls and double ranges of columns, asserted by Josephus to have been monolithic. This outer court, accessible to all, contained a smaller interior enclosure formed by other colonnades, and probably also by several large halls; four gateways with gilded bronze doors led to the interior, to which every worthy Jew had access. Infidels were debarred from farther advance by a grating almost 1.5 m. high, which enclosed the space corresponding to the outer court of the Mosaic tabernacle. The altar for burnt-offerings had been increased in plan to a square of twenty cubits, and to a height of ten cubits; an inclined ascent of considerable size was necessary to reach the summit. It is believed that the kernel of this altar is the holy rock in the present Mosque of Omar.

The brazen laver (the kijor) had developed into the so-called molten sea,—a basin of ten cubits in diameter, cast in bronze, and supported at a height of five cubits upon the backs of twelve bronze oxen. It may be conceived as very similar to the fountain of the Court of the Lions in the Alhambra. The oxen were so divided in groups of three that they faced the cardinal points of the compass, “and all their hinder parts were inward.” These figures, so purely Phoenician, must have been far more similar to the productions of Assyria than could have been the case with the Mosaic cherubim. Their heads probably resembled that shown above (Fig. 97) upon the relief of Saida, their legs those of the primitive animals upon the monument of Amrith (Fig. 98), or of the lions in the court of the Alhambra. The altar and the molten sea were situated before the front of the temple, the axis of which was turned east and west, at right angles to the general direction of the outer court, which ran north and south.

The entrance to the temple was ornamented by two bronze columns, known as Jachin and Boaz; their height is given in different passages as 18 and 35 cubits, and here begins the confusion caused by the Biblical contradictions which make it so difficult to obtain a reliable understanding of the nature of Solomon’s building. It cannot even be decided whether these columns were in the entrance, as architectural supports, or stood before the gates, without a function,—they being spoken of as in, upon, and before the portico. If they stood in the entrance itself, as supports of its lintel (as assumed by Baehr), it is probable that they did not divide its width into three equal intercolumniations. The diameter of the shafts was four cubits, and such an arrangement would so have occupied the total opening of the portal, only fourteen cubits, that but two cubits would have remained for each of the three passages. It is more probable that they were placed next to the jambs in the manner assumed for the front of the tabernacle. If the columns be supposed to have stood before the portico, without any function of support, like obelisks, all difficulty is avoided. In either case it would be important, for an understanding of the style of Solomon’s Temple and of Phoenician workmanship, to comprehend the long description given of their capitals. It is only clear that these were four or five cubits high, and had the general form of lilies, probably that of a calyx, as if derived from the floral capitals of Egypt. A column discovered in the foundation vaults of the temple exhibits a peculiarly heavy capital of this kind, which is, however, though evidently of primitive outline and proportions, characterized by the acanthus-like carving as a work influenced by the later art of Greece. It is to be observed that the normal Egyptian-bell calyx, without additions, could not be spoken of as having the form of a lily, by which name the curled ends of leaves were usually designated in the Orient. The volutes thus especially referred to must have been similar to those upon the Assyrian capital, and notably to those of the rock-cut relief in the Pass of Mashnaka (Fig. 99), which, situated upon Phoenician territory, offer the most striking analogy. An illustration of the extensive ornamental employment of the helix termination is offered by the decoration of a vase recently discovered in Cyprus (Fig. 102), and by pilaster capitals in the Cesnola collection. (Fig. 107.) It is an anachronism to bring the columns, because of their channelled shafts and some minor peculiarities, into connection with the forms of Persian architecture, which could not have been developed so long before the time of Cyrus. The additions—wreaths of chains, nets of checker-work, hanging pomegranates, etc.—of which the Scriptures render a chaotic account, cannot, in detail, be understood or explained. If the shafts are supposed to have been united by a lattice-work of metal, it is more natural to seek a parallel in the free-standing columns of an Assyrian relief than in the canopies of Persian thrones suggested by Julius Braun. That the chains, net-work, and the pomegranates did not hang upon the capitals themselves has been argued by VoguÉ, from the analogy of an ancient capital of the Mosque of Haram, and is made evident by Braun’s question, how, indeed, it would be possible to count two hundred pomegranates strung around a capital at such a height above the ground.

Fig. 103.—Hypothetical Plan and Section of Solomon’s Temple.
Fig. 103.—Hypothetical Plan and Section of Solomon’s Temple.

An important portal stood before the halls of the temple. With a plan of 10 cubits deep and 20 cubits broad, the astonishing height of 120 cubits is attributed to this tower, a number appearing in the Chronicles, and repeated in the Septuagint and by Josephus, so that it cannot be regarded as the mistake of a transcriber. But even if the first measures are arbitrarily assumed to refer only to a small interior space enclosed by walls of enormous thickness, the constructive impracticability of erecting a tower of such height is evident; it appears impossible that the temple could have been preceded by a pile twice as high as the principal building was long, and six times as high as this was broad! We would not venture to present a restoration with such proportions, and must agree with Hirt, Streber, De Saulcy, De VoguÉ, and others, that the account is a Scriptural exaggeration, passed on from hand to hand. It is hardly to be explained by the suggestions of De Saulcy and Streber. The first of these authorities wishes to reduce the elevation by the supposition that one half of the entire height existed under the earth as a foundation, so that only 60 cubits remained visible above. This is ludicrous; the solid rock beneath the temple rendered such remarkable foundations useless and impossible to execute. Streber, also seeking to uphold the Biblical authority, would have it that the 120 cubits was obtained by adding together the heights of two pylons. But this is no less inadmissible, apart from the extreme improbability of heights having been given in so unwonted a manner; the portal appears, from its narrow width, to have been a single tower, and not divided, like those of Egypt, into two separate pylons. It is at least probable, however, that the structure rose above the main building; like the pylons of Egypt, it must have had a marked talus, and without doubt a cornice of scotia and roundlet, as these forms appear upon the monumental tombs of Siloam (Fig. 104)—the oldest of Palestine—and as this cornice was common in Phoenicia, and appears also in Assyria, upon the temple terrace of Kisr Sargon, and in Persia, over door and window openings. The entrance, 14 cubits broad, was probably diminished as its walls ascended, sloping like the outer angle of the elevation, so that the construction of the lintel presents little difficulty, especially when we consider the enormous stones employed in the restoration of the building by Herod, some of which Josephus relates to have been 5 and 6 cubits broad and thick, and 45 (!) cubits long. Above the lintel the same principle of a relieving triangle seems to have been practised, as may be observed in various parts of Egypt and in MykenÆ: the blocks over the door did not lie directly upon the lintel, but gradually approached from both sides above the jambs, leaving between them a gable-shaped opening, which was closed, in order to spare the beam beneath, by only a slab of marble, as at MykenÆ, or by light, thin masonry. This method of construction is indicated by the mention that a golden candlestick, dedicated by Queen Helena, was so placed over the temple entrance as to be shone upon by the sun; and especially by the reference to a triangle existing over the door which opened into the holy of holies. The first gate had jambs of olive-wood and movable doors of cypress, both overlaid with gold. It led to the larger hall, 20 cubits broad, 40 cubits long, and 30 cubits high; to which adjoined the holy of holies, a cubical space of 20 cubits side. The access to this, permitted in rare instances, was through a richly carved door, overlaid with gold and draped with a magnificent curtain. The separating wall was of gilded cedar. These two halls were surrounded upon all sides, with the exception of the front, by a large number of small chambers, in three stories, lighted from without by three rows of windows. These secondary sacristies were each 5 cubits in height within, and, with their ceilings, must have attained an altitude of 20 cubits. The holy of holies was consequently entirely surrounded, and must have been without windows, and dark. The larger space still rose 10 cubits above this side structure, and in this clerestory its windows, which are especially mentioned, must have found place. The flat roof, or, rather, the terraces upon different heights of which it was composed, mounted from the holy of holies to the portal tower in steps somewhat more than 20, 30, and perhaps 60 cubits high. According to Eupolemo (Eusebius), the covering was of copper sheathing.

The temple bore an upper story, explicitly described by Josephus, as it appeared after Herod’s reconstruction of the building, but which is only once mentioned before his time, with the remark that these upper chambers were overlaid with gold (2 Chron. iii. 9). The height of this second story is evident from Josephus, who gives 60 cubits as the total elevation of the building, while the space beneath it had but 30 cubits in this dimension. In regard to the extent of its plan, it must be assumed that it was not built above the lateral chambers or the holy of holies, as the height of the principal hall was far greater than that of the chambers; this would have made the upper story on entirely different levels, and have required staircases large enough to occupy the whole of the space above the 20 square cubits of the holy of holies; and the height of this chamber would, upon the exterior, have become thrice that of its length and breadth—namely, 60 cubits. Such deformities, impracticable of execution, without purpose, and offending all sense of fitness and beauty, may be rejected when the authorities for them are indefinite and contradictory, or, as is the case with Maimonides (1190 A.D.), are assuredly unauthentic. It is probable that the upper story was built only upon the ceiling of the larger hall; and that it was not formed of the massive materials employed for the walls of the lower temple, but, as is indicated by the statement that these upper chambers were overlaid with gold, was built lightly of wood. Such a manner of construction would have permitted a passage to be left around it in the width of the hall ceiling, thus uniting the suitability and the Æsthetic advantages of a terraced form, and agreeing with Mesopotamian and Persian analogies. The suggestion may even be ventured that it was by a misunderstanding connected with these upper chambers that the fabulous height of 120 cubits was originally assigned to the portal tower, which, perhaps, was regarded as twice the height of the principal hall; if the elevation of the lower hall and the upper-story had been taken together, if 60 cubits had been doubled in the place of 30, this would account for the 120 cubits taking the place of the more probable 60.

The lower walls of the temple were built of hewn blocks of white marble. The remarkable statement that a layer of cypress or cedar beams always followed upon one of stone cannot be explained otherwise than as a reference to the interior revetment of the masonry with wood. The wall of the court, where the beams are said to have followed three courses of stone, must be considered as of triple thickness, its quarried blocks being hidden by a sheathing, like that of the temple. The statement that the ceiling joists of the smaller surrounding chambers were not sunk into the stone wall itself, but were borne upon the beams, now becomes intelligible; they rested upon the studding of the wooden revetment. The entire interior of the temple, exclusive of the passage through the portico, is particularly asserted to have been provided with this sheathing. The partition between the holy of holies and the principal hall was probably altogether of wood, as here only the two revetments were visible. Upon these walls were sculptured ornaments overlaid with beaten gold. This wood-carving, with its surface of sheet-metal, here took the place of the sculptured and painted decoration upon the walls of Nineveh; it is in this point that the chief difference between the mural treatment of Upper Mesopotamia and Phoenicia appears to have consisted. Quarries of alabaster were common in Assyria; Mount Lebanon, on the other hand, provided the most beautiful wood for carving, and Phoenician commerce procured the metals for the characteristic beaten work—the sphyrelaton.

The few notices preserved concerning the decorations of Solomon’s Temple prove them to have been similar, in both subject and design, to those of Nineveh; they represented cherubim, palms (the so-called tree of life), and floral wreaths. It was only in the cherubim and in the oxen bearing the molten sea that the exercise of sculpture in the full round was at all permitted, and these subjects did not greatly encourage the artistic study of nature. The cherubim stood in the holy of holies as guardians of the ark of the covenant. They were independent colossal figures, carved of olive-wood and overlaid with beaten gold. They were no longer, as in the Mosaic tabernacle, upon the lid of the ark—the mercy-seat—in a recumbent or sitting position, but stood at either side of the holy coffer, and were without doubt greatly different in style from their predecessors. In the consideration of the cherubim of the tabernacle, the similarity of these works to Assyrian parallels was denied, for the Israelites, immediately after the exodus, were naturally acquainted alone with the artistic traditions of Egypt; but this was by no means the case in the time of Solomon, when we have to deal with Phoenician styles,—that is to say, with a combination of various manners of artistic conception and expression. The cherubim of Solomon may fairly be assumed to have in the main resembled the monstrous guardians of Assyrian palaces; the chief deviation from the cherubim of Nineveh was that their wings were not folded closely, but were outstretched as if for flight, so that the tips of their feathers touched together over the ark of the sanctuary, and extended to the side walls of the holy of holies, measuring ten cubits in entire span. The ark of the covenant itself and the other vessels of the temple were either overlaid with gold or were of the solid metal. The altar of incense, the shew-bread table, and the seven-armed candlestick remained as they had been in the tabernacle; to them were added, besides many less important utensils, ten further lamp-holders of gold. As the beaten metal not only extended over all the carved walls of wooden sheathing, but even covered the horizontal ceiling, the eye saw nothing but gold—a decoration which the many-flamed candlesticks must have rendered particularly brilliant, but which was eminently barbaric, as the metal was probably not enlivened by colored enamels. It is in questionable taste, even in the most prominent members of an architectural composition, to outbid the artistic expression of a work by employing for it a material of too striking intrinsic value; but it is wholly condemnable to paralyze the concentrating effect, which is always attained by the moderate use of a very bright and valuable material, by its universal employment, and thus to lose the precious character of the centre through the attempted magnificence of the whole.

As is well known, Solomon’s Temple was destroyed at the command of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, in 587 B.C. The attempt to rebuild it was not entirely successful until Cyrus ended the Babylonian exile, and not only permitted the building to proceed, but even returned the sacred utensils, which had been carried off as booty, and kept in the Temple of Bel. This reconstruction, named, after the ruler, Zerubbabel, was not completed until after forty-six years, when, under Darius, all the difficulties in the way of its prosecution were overcome. There is reason for supposing that the influence of Persia made itself felt upon the style of the new work, but nothing of importance to the history of art is directly known concerning it. The magnificent restoration of Herod, commenced in 16 or 15 B.C., was executed in ten years, to be destroyed within a century by Titus, so that, literally, not one stone remained upon the other. The remodelled temple is not important to the history of Phoenician-Israelitic art; though the original plan and arrangement were in the main preserved, its style became a debasement of the Greek and Roman orders. The gigantic platform, the site of the building with which so many remarkable events are connected, will always continue to be of peculiar interest in the history of the world’s development.

The description of Solomon’s palace given by the Scriptures is too vague to convey any adequate conception of it. It was a building extended by columns and provided with an upper story: the shafts were of cedar-wood; their form is not mentioned. The walls were of stone, hewn rectangularly, as might be expected from the similar masonry of the temple. The cedar beams of the ceiling must be supposed, agreeably to Solomon’s preference for costly materials, to have been overlaid with gold. There is nothing in these descriptions to suggest Persian arrangement or details, which did not develop from Assyrian methods of building until four centuries later. As the Phoenician architecture of this epoch can be compared to that of no younger land than Mesopotamia, and as the plans of the known Assyrian palaces are provided with no halls of columns, it is natural to seek for the origin of the hypostyle disposition in Egyptian elements, which, in other respects, take so important a place in the development of Israelitic art. Buildings of wood overlaid with metal are, on the other hand, peculiarly characteristic of the Syrian coast.

All this magnificence has totally disappeared, and it would be natural to expect that, as in other parts of Western Asia, the rock-cut tombs in the vicinity of Jerusalem, preserved by their indestructibility, would give the most direct and trustworthy information concerning the Phoenician-Israelitic style. But the more ancient of these monuments—those erected before the time of the SeleucidÆ—are of such extreme simplicity that, from lack of detail, they convey no understanding of Phoenician columns and entablatures, nor, indeed, of any characteristic architectural forms. A simple stairway leads to the smaller grotto graves, which, excavated in the cliff, were once closed by slabs of stones. Their plan is generally square, the ceiling cut to the form of a flat barrel-vault. In the larger family sepulchres the burial-chambers are grouped around an antechamber, the bodies in them being placed upon stone benches or pushed into coffin-like niches. When the entrance is at all architecturally characterized upon the exterior, which is of comparatively rare occurrence, it displays the heavy Egyptian scotia and roundlet (Fig. 104), or a simple framing with a gable and a ridge acroterium of double volutes, like the rock-cut tombs of Phrygia. (Fig. 105.) Where there is carved foliage in the gables and friezes, as upon the so-called tombs of the judges and kings, these are the conventional traces of a later period, though these ornaments frequently retain in design and execution the peculiar dry angularity characteristic of the imitation of beaten metal which is so universal in Phoenicia.

Fig. 104.—Rock-cut Tomb of Siloam.
Fig. 104.—Rock-cut Tomb of Siloam. Fig. 105.—Rock-cut Tomb of Hinnom.

The influence of Greece and Rome is distinctly betrayed in the so-called Tomb of Jacob, the pretended sepulchres of the kings, and the tombs attributed, without reason, to Absalom and Zachariah. These monuments, some of which have been cut entirely from the native rock, are ornamented by Doric friezes with Roman disks in the metopes, and by Doric and Ionic columns and engaged shafts, which reproduced the debased forms which characterize the treatment of Greek architecture under the Romans. Yet in all this there are still traces of national peculiarities. At times vegetable ornaments, grapes and grape-leaves, pomegranates, ivy, laurel, and acorns fill the tympanon and the frieze, interrupted by the triglyphs. The general form of the two last-named tombs is peculiar. That of Zachariah is a cube of a little over 5 m. on the side; that of Absalom of almost 7 m. They are ornamented by pilasters and debased Ionic engaged shafts, and have heavy cornices of the Egyptian roundlet and scotia, to which is added, upon the Tomb of Absalom, a late Doric frieze. The former is concluded by a pyramid, 3.6 m. high, cut also from the native rock, a termination which gives to the general form a certain similarity to the Tomb of Amrith known as the Snail-tower. The latter supports upon the cube a smaller and much lower mass of masonry, built of quarried stones, and bearing upon a doubly stepped cylindrical base a cone of concave outline, which terminates, at a height of 13.5 m. above the ground, in a clumsy, tulip-like flower. The entrance to the burial-chamber cut in the rock substructure of Absalom’s tomb has been broken in above the scotia cornice; the traces of nails upon the walls of the small space point to the customary sheathing of metal. Notwithstanding such isolated reminiscences of indigenous—that is to say, Phoenician—manners of building, it is impossible to agree with several noted authorities in recognizing, in the Doric and Ionic details which appear combined with them, predecessors and models of the Hellenic development of these styles. Such prototypes should least be sought among a people who, possessing no art of their own, did but borrow from their neighbors. And, moreover, these forms appear by no means to be primitive attempts, but clearly exhibit the lifelessness and debasement of the latest period of Greek architectural history. These monuments may safely be ascribed to the last two centuries B.C. Although the Corinthian order almost entirely superseded the older styles in Italy during the time of the CÆsars, these provincial Doric and Ionic forms may still be assumed to date rather from the later than from the earlier half of this period.

Fig. 106.—Tomb at Paphos in Cyprus.
Fig. 106.—Tomb at Paphos in Cyprus.

Palestine, in the history of art, may be regarded as a domain of Phoenicia, and the same thing may be said of Cyprus and of Carthage. All the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, lying as it did between the great powers of civilization in the valley of the Nile and the plain of the Euphrates and Tigris, seemed destined by nature, as we have seen, to combine the artistic peculiarities of Egypt and Assyria. Cyprus, in a somewhat similar position, shared the Phoenician civilization and was also exposed to the influence of the Greeks, especially to that of the Dorians, who had founded colonies upon the southern islands of the Ægean, and who early possessed a stronghold in Crete. It is therefore not surprising that upon the rock-cut tombs of Cyprus the Doric style of architecture was not restricted to the late and debased forms found upon the tombs near Jerusalem, but may occasionally be met with in a very primitive state of development. An instance of this is offered by a tomb near Paphos. (Fig. 106.) In general, the position of the island exposed it more to the influence of Egypt than of Mesopotamia; it is not evident in how marked a degree this was felt. Of the chief Phoenician sanctuary upon Cyprus—the Temple of Astarte at Paphos—there exist only insufficient representations upon coins and upon an engraved gem of the Museo Pio-Clementino. These prove no more than that, within a circular enclosure of lattice-work, there stood a tall structure towering above low side-buildings, which were supported, like porticos, upon columns. Two Egyptian shafts appear to have been placed before the entrance, without function as supports, and, like Jachin and Boaz, without strictly architectural purpose. Still less is known of the temples of Amathus and Golgoi. It is hardly probable that the remains of a building discovered by General Cesnola in the village of Atienu, near the present port of Larnaka (the Biblical Chitim and Greek Kition) are those of the world-famed Temple of Aphrodite at Golgoi. The structure seems rather to have been a treasure-house, in some way connected with the great temple, which once contained, with the votive statues there discovered, other objects belonging to the temenos. The oblong plan with irregular entrances, the bareness of its walls, and especially the carelessly arranged pedestals which filled the space within, seem to point to its original destination as that of a magazine. The only objects of architectural interest discovered in these remains are the columns which flank the doors, in a position corresponding to that of the columns of the Mosaic tabernacle. The bases, found in position, are channelled like those of Persia. The shafts and capitals are not preserved. The form of the latter may perhaps be surmised from a comparison of fragments in the Cesnola collection (Fig. 107), analogous to the capitals of Mashnaka, to the double spirals of Assyrian architecture, and to the descriptions given of the lily-capitals of Solomon’s Temple.

Fig. 107.—Cyprian Pilaster Capitals.
Fig. 107.—Cyprian Pilaster Capitals.

Cesnola’s discoveries upon Cyprus are more important in sculptural than in architectural respects, and are worthy to rank with those of Botta, Layard, and Schliemann. The chief works are limestone statues of various sizes. To these are added, from the investigations of other ruins, doubtless of tombs, a great number of minor articles: terra-cotta figures, vases and lamps, and various objects of glass, metal, etc. These works are easily divided into two great groups, each of peculiar style, with which the inscriptions that have been discovered agree in general character and in relative number. Among the eighty-five inscriptions found up to 1870, thirty-three are Greek, twenty Phoenician, and thirty-two Cyprian. The styles of Phoenician and Cyprian sculpture resemble each other far more closely than did the languages of those countries, so that in the comparative rarity of examples it is difficult to distinguish the origin of these works. They show a kind of compromise between Egyptian, Syrian (Assyrian), and early Greek methods—a combination agreeing with the geographical position of the island, and with the descent and history of its inhabitants. All Cyprian sculpture shows, in so far as it is not influenced by a reflection of the later Greek and Roman forms, the Phoenician style which has been described as developed from beaten metal-work; this is evident even in the stone carvings. (Figs. 108 and 109.)

The destruction of Carthage is as famous for its completeness as that of Jerusalem, which, indeed, it resembled in other respects, and it is natural that but few traces of this magnificent Queen of the Sea should have been preserved. Recent French and English investigations under Bente and Davis describe the considerable remains of the fortification walls of the Byrsa, built of colossal blocks of tufa. Their great thickness, 10 m., permitted the formation of semicircular chambers in three superposed stories, which, being accessible from within, served as casemates and magazines. The numerous rock-cut tombs are, as in Phoenicia, provided with steps from above, and form an oblong crypt, about which the deep niches for the reception of bodies are grouped.

The remains of barbaric temples upon Malta and the neighboring islands are of subordinate importance, if indeed they are to be mentioned at all, in the consideration of Phoenician art. The double temple upon Gozo is the most important of them. It consists of two adjoining spaces, each concluded by a semicircular apse, having upon both sides similar niches, so that the entire enclosure appears as a combination of apses around an oblong. The pavement is partly of rectangular blocks, so stepped as to show an interior division; but the Cyclopean masonry of the walls is so rough that, in its entire lack of ornamental treatment, the structure has but little interest for the history of art, and permits no conclusions concerning Phoenician architecture, which elsewhere produced such incomparable masonry of hewn stones.

The funeral monuments of the remaining Punic lands, of the Balearic Isles, and notably of Sardinia, though of greater artistic value, are fully as uncertain in their origin. Their form is at times like that of the monuments of Amrith; yet they may very possibly be of Etruscan derivation, for, apart from their resemblance to the tombs of Etruria, they are almost exclusively upon the eastern coast of Sardinia, the side turned towards Italy, while the Phoenicians would more naturally have come in contact with the western part of the island.

The most advanced outpost of the extended civilization of Phoenicia was Asia Minor. Under the dominion of the SeleucidÆ and of the Romans, the influence of Greek art was so felt upon the Syrian coast, and even as far as the banks of the Tigris, that purely national works of architecture and sculpture are comparatively rare. But this influence was doubly great in the land of which, from the earliest times, the Ionians had possessed the seaboard, and where they had founded a number of flourishing cities which had attained to a degree of prosperity and culture not less than that of their relatives upon the peninsula of the Peloponnesos. Yet, although Ionian art bore some of its finest fruit upon Asiatic soil, and from roots which may partly be traced back to Mesopotamia, this can be historically treated only in connection with the civilization of Greece and its common origin and development. Hellenic Asia Minor and the countries under its influence—that is to say, the coasts and islands of the Ægean, Propontis and Pontus—cannot be separately considered. All the sculpture of these regions must therefore be reserved for a later page; but there are a few architectural monuments of the southern coast and of the interior which require our present attention as being peculiarly national. Yet even in these territories, divided according to their ancient population into Lycia, Phrygia, and Lydia, all the monumental architecture was greatly affected by the long Asiatic sway of the Diadochi, and by the military power of Rome. The temples and public edifices gave up their national peculiarities for manners of building characteristic of Greece and Rome. It was only in the tombs that original conceptions retained a stubborn hold. These, when cut in the rock, became imitations of the dwellings of the country. Types of house construction were represented which had been determined by the climatic necessities and by different building materials of each province. By their massive simplicity and by the popular consideration that a changeless dwelling best suited the quiet repose of the dead, the rock-cut tombs retained their primitive peculiarities without sensible alteration, being exposed only to unimportant modifications. Little reference was made in them to the advance of artistic or constructional methods from age to age. Though we have to deal exclusively with the tombs of the country, they allow us to draw conclusions concerning the appearance of other buildings, whether temples or dwellings, which they had taken as their models.

Fig. 112.—Rock-cut Tomb at Myra.
Fig. 112.—Rock-cut Tomb at Myra.

Next to the Phoenician coast, and opposite Phoenician Cyprus, lies Lycia, embracing the greater part of the southern sea-line of Asia Minor. It calls for chief consideration because of its almost numberless tombs, some of which are admirably preserved, and because of their instructive variety. Entire cliffs, like the Necropolis of Myra, shown in Fig. 93 at the head of this section, are literally covered with such monumental faÇades, picturesquely grouped according to the natural configuration of the rock. The greater number are excavated grottoes, the fronts of which are careful imitations of timbered houses. They might be called log-house tombs if other than the roof beams were of unsquared trunks. The interstices between the framing, when not remaining open as an entrance, are closed by panels. The individuality of these monuments is as marked as could have been possible among the dwellings of Lycian mountaineers, whose wealth was not great, and whose architectural demands did not much vary. An exact imitation of the ingenious carpentry is cut in the rock down to the smallest detail: the stiles of the panelling, the round unhewn timbers of the roof, the clamping and dovetailing of the beams, and the primitive tree-nails with which these are secured are shown with the greatest distinctness. The appearance of the whole, when intact, must have resembled a petrified village. These groups of tombs are among the most curious and striking remains of antiquity. The attempt was made by several races of early civilization to prepare a funeral-chamber which should resemble as closely as possible the dwellings inhabited during life; but this intention was not elsewhere so thoroughly carried out, and never resulted in so piquant a contradiction to the material in which it was executed. The native rock was made completely to deny its nature, and to present the image of a distinctively wooden construction. Upon abrupt cliffs this was usually restricted to a faÇade, which at times was very simple, but quite characteristic, as in a tomb at Antiphellos (Fig. 110), where the wooden framing underneath the flat projecting roof forms two windows, left open as entrances to the cavern. A somewhat more complicated example is shown by another tomb of this site (Fig. 111), which is especially remarkable on account of the carefully imitated coping of the cross-beams. In this case only one of the door and window panels is open, and a gabled roof appears, which seems to have been customary in Asia Minor, and to some degree in Phoenicia. The framing of an interior or of side walls is also shown by the stone imitation, as in the case of a fine example at Myra (Fig. 112), which seems to illustrate the utmost limit of the style. But here the contradiction between the form and the material is so glaring that the curious elegance of the result does not redeem it. The repeating of wooden constructions in stone without any modification—which is at first sight, and in less extent, pleasing and piquant—has here become disagreeably obtrusive. This is still more striking upon the rarer monumental sarcophagi at Phellos and Myra, where the block-house is carved in the full round from the native rock. These works represent the wooden model upon all four sides, so completely and conscientiously that it would be possible, by their aid, to reconstruct the dwelling-house of a Lycian mountaineer in wood—to repeat from such a petrified copy the original, though its frail materials perished more than twenty centuries ago. It is curious how greatly the present huts of the country resemble their antique predecessors.

Near these tombs, in some instances even connected with them, though usually independent, stand upright monuments of the nature of obelisks, but with an upper member characteristic of Lycia. In place of the pyramidal point of Egypt, or of the hemispherical or stepped termination of Phoenicia and Assyria, there is here a cornice of projecting slabs, upon which rests a small but comparatively high block. The most important example is that known as the Monument of the Harpies (Fig. 113), now in considerable part transported to the Lycian Hall of the British Museum. It consisted of a gigantic monolith bearing a small burial-chamber, the enclosing slabs of which were ornamented by the famous reliefs, so important in the history of Greek sculpture.

The third group of Lycian sepulchral monuments, the smaller sarcophagi, is the most numerous, forming at times an extended necropolis. Though the majority are not free from Hellenic influences, they yet generally maintain the peculiar national characteristics, being imitations of wooden constructions somewhat similar to the rock-cut tombs. The lid in some instances appears to be of slat-work, and, instead of the semicircular gable common in Phoenicia, presents a pointed arch. The cornice dentils distinctly betray their derivation from the projecting ceiling beams, which, upon the block-house tombs, had still preserved the round form of unhewn timbers. A tomb at Antiphellos (Fig. 114) has a channel cut upon the summit of the lid, probably to serve as a socket for the ridge-crestings. The heads of lions and other projecting ornaments upon the sides enrich the architectural treatment. The monument cannot be spoken of as a sarcophagus, in the true sense of the word, for its lid was not movable, the body being introduced from the front, where window-like openings were provided for the purpose.

A fourth class of Lycian rock-cut tombs, those with a faÇade resembling a small temple-front, is of particular interest to the history of architecture. Many among these display the influence of a late Hellenic period, yet some preserve such primitive forms as to make it certain that Lycia took a prominent part in the development of the Ionic style—that the southern coast of Asia Minor was an important station, marking the advance of artistic culture from Mesopotamia to the Ægean Sea. These tombs generally represent the front of a temple in antis—that is to say, of a portico with two columns between the advanced side walls. The predominant Ionic forms are singularly primitive in the capital and entablature, the greater number of the examples showing no trace of the decline of the style, or of the Roman type, so easily recognizable by the formal character of the details. These differ greatly, and seem to show the experiments of an early period of development, which may still have been contemporaneous with a far higher advance of the style upon the more northern coasts of the Ægean Sea and Sporades, being influenced in a different degree by the same Western Asiatic motives. The important combination which characterizes the perfection of Ionic architecture—the conjunction of the volute with the Doric echinos beneath it—does not appear upon these capitals; the spiral has not a graceful curve, and the contraction of the side rolls of the volute is lacking; the abacus is badly profiled, and the shafts are often joined without a curve to the clumsy bases. (Compare Fig. 116.) As was always the case among the Orientals, who knew of no independent gable and roof formation above the ceiling, the entablature consisted of only two members,—the epistyle, uniting the columns, and the terminating cornice. The triple division of the entablature, of so marked importance in the perfected style, was not known; even the two members here occurring were not sharply defined, and the dentils of the cornice were fully developed at a time when their original constructive significance had not yet been forgotten in their decorative application. The gable acroteria are clumsy knops, similar to the circular ridge ornaments and the horn-like corner pieces of Phoenician monuments. In short, we may trace in the rock-cut tombs of Lycia, if not a Proto-Ionic style, yet a distinct parallel development of the most primitive Ionic forms. These did not exclude the influence of Greece, after the full perfection of the style had been attained, but rather prepared its way. An example of such later semi-Hellenic work may be observed in the magnificent monument of Xanthos, built in the middle of the fourth century B.C. as a trophy after the capture of Telmissos by the Xanthians. This also has been in part transported to the British Museum. This structure was not cut from the solid rock, but was built of quarried stones. It shows the full development of Ionic forms. Upon a comparatively high substructure there stood a cella surrounded by columns—of a peripteral arrangement rare in Lycia, where all the tombs which represent temples seem to show that the national places of worship, like those of Assyria and Phoenicia, were restricted to a portico in antis, the evolution of the peripteros being an improvement of the Greeks. The naÏve originality observable in the Ionic does not exist in the more isolated Doric forms, although a few very archaic monuments of the latter style are known. Their existence is explained by the vicinity of Crete, that southern outpost of early Doric culture, as well as by the neighboring Doric colonies which flourished upon the southwestern extremity of Asia Minor.

Fig. 116.—Details of Columns from Telmissos, Myra, and Antiphellos.
Fig. 116.—Details of Columns from Telmissos, Myra, and Antiphellos.

Fig. 117.—So-called Tomb of Midas.
Fig. 117.—So-called Tomb of Midas.

Lycia appears to have had but little influence upon the other countries of the seaboard, which were almost entirely Hellenized; nor did its influence penetrate as far into the interior country as Phrygia, where the civilization of the Greeks was introduced only by way of the Ægean and Pontic coasts. There were neither frequented ports nor navigable streams to open the way. The tracklessness of wooded mountains restricted the commercial and intellectual horizon of the Phrygians, who, as a nomadic people, were contented with the slightest artistic exertion. In the same way as the Lycian carved his wooden hut upon the face of the cliff, that he might retain after his death the beloved dwelling of his life, the Phrygian ornamented the front of his grotto graves by a representation of his movable house, the nomadic tent. Only the cloth of the tent, with its woven pattern, was shown; its constructive ribs, not visible upon the exterior of the original, were omitted from the imitation. The most important of these tomb frontispieces, between Kiutahija and Sivrihissar upon the Saquaria, which are attributed to Phrygian kings, is called by the Turks Yasili-Kaia (the inscribed stone). (Fig. 117.) It is known as the Tomb of Midas from the one legible word, Midai, occurring in an unintelligible inscription. Upon the face of the cliff there is cut a square surface, 11 m. broad and about 9 m. high, terminated above by a low gable, which, with the acroterium, adds 3 m. to the height of the whole. The triangle is framed by a light lattice-work in low relief, and crowned with two volutes, similar to the circular ridge decorations of Phoenician tombs. The tympanon is not carved, but probably, with the entire front, was painted. The extensive rectangular surface beneath is covered with a complicated meander ornament in relief—a play of lines evidently taken from a woven pattern and resembling the decorations of Moorish walls, where the fundamental motive was also the tent-cloth. The border of this surface represents, without conventionalization, an edging set with precious stones, such as may have been customary upon costly Syrian stuffs. The small interior chamber was only large enough for the reception of a sarcophagus. The entrance to it was not marked by any architectural features—even as the tent itself was not provided with a door—but the passage was originally closed by a slab, upon the face of which the woven pattern was without doubt continued. A second tomb of the vicinity, also marked by an undecipherable inscription, is of similar character. (Fig. 118.) The gable represents a wooden construction, somewhat like the framing of Lycian sarcophagi; its double acroterium is decorated with three rosettes. The principal surface, the square below, is without carving, and had probably a painted pattern. A third frontispiece of this type shows a floral frieze of alternate palmettoes and buds, resembling an Assyrian motive, but inverted, perhaps because its direct model was the border of a carpet. It recalls the hanging rows of pomegranates upon the columns Jachin and Boaz of Solomon’s Temple. The cliffs of Phrygia are honey-combed by such rock-cut tombs. Especially in the district north of Seid-el-Ar are there numberless small grottoes, the entrances to which are either perfectly plain or provided only with a simple triangular gable—all giving proof of the rarity of artistic effort among these idyllic mountains.

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.

Fig. 119.—The So-called Grave of Tantalos.
Fig. 119.—The So-called Grave of Tantalos.

These tumuli approach in dimensions closely to the pyramids of Egypt. The elevation of the cone upon a cylindrical base was a certain advance, but its execution was such as to allow of no comparison between the monuments of the two countries. The pyramids of Egypt were built; the tumuli of Lydia were merely heaped up of earth. The former demanded great technical ability and the assistance of a commanding and calculating mind; the latter were the works of an enslaved people alone. But, on the other hand, the Lydian cones more closely resembled the natural form of a funeral mound than did the pyramids of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and on this account were capable of greater development. Such tumuli are to be met with from Asia to Etruria, and were adopted even by the great architects of Greece: the highest artistic civilization always gives preference to the simplest solution of a problem.

Fig. 120.—View of the Athenian PropylÆa. Restoration.
Fig. 120.—View of the Athenian PropylÆa. Restoration.