Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/171

THE PHOENICIAN TOMB. There is one particular form of cippus which may be quoted in support of this idea, as it does, no doubt, bear a certain resemblance to a phallus ; but, on the other hand, some tombs are surmounted by a pyramid (see Fig. 6), a motive which can hardly have had the significance imputed to the cone. On the whole, perhaps, it would be better to put aside all such explanations of these forms and to look upon them as dictated purely by architectonic notions. 1 The only complete tombs yet found in Phoenicia are those which stand in that plain of Amrit, in which the Arvadites buried their dead. Our plan of a portion of that necropolis will show how the tombs were arranged in relation to each other (Fig. 88) ; but the largest and best preserved sepulchres, those to which FlG. 88. Part of the Cemetery of Amrit. From Rennn. our attention will be devoted in the first place, are situated outside this map. 2 Taking it as a whole, we find in this necropolis the characteristics of the sincerest and the most remote antiquity. In every way, therefore, it deserves to be studied first. The tomb chambers at Amrit are higher, more spacious, and better cut than any others in Phoenicia. They are reached some- times by a vertical well, as in Egypt, sometimes by a staircase. According to the explorers, the older tombs have a well ; in a few it seems to have been replaced at a later period by steps, 3 but 1 .M. Renan will have nothing to say to Herr Gerhard's theory, which, he says, is suggested by the want of accuracy in the drawings upon which it was based. 2 See the general map of Amrit in plate vii. of Kenan's atlas. 3 RENAN, Mission, p. 76.