Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/187

THE PHOENICIAN TOMK. 167 while a ledge (F), some three feet eight inches from the top, sup- ported, no doubt, a heavy lid, an arrangement often encountered in the necropolis of Sidon. In most of the tombs in the neigh- bourhood, however, the graves opened into rock-cut sepulchral chambers, while that of Esmounazar, excavated at the extreme edge of a rocky mass, was not subterranean, and before it could have arrangements like those of the hypogea about it, it had to be completed by external constructions. In order to provide a sure foundation for these, the rock was levelled at the top and all its salient parts cut into convenient shapes. The shape to which the rock was thus reduced maybe seen in our wood-cut (Fig. 111). The lower blocks of the upper building rested on these step-like surfaces ; they have now all disappeared, with the exception of three in the an^le on the left marked V, v. One of these stones FIG. III. Tomb of Esmounazar. Section through chamber and structures adjoining. From D<j Yo^ue. is bevelled (v), and in this it corresponds with the rock at the opposite angle. This suggests that from these two sloping surfaces an arch sprang originally and made the small chamber a kind of artificial hypogeum. At s there is a groove in the rock like the threshold of a small door, the architrave of which must have been built into the neighbouring hollow. " To sum up, the body reposed in a sarcophagus, which again was inclosed in a grave covered by a small vaulted apartment ; the whole was prefaced by a court excavated in the rock. It is probable that a pavilion of some kind rose above the tomb, but no trace of it can now be found." l After carefully examining all the material evidence, M. de 1 DE VOGUE, Note sur la Forme du Tombeau d 1 Echmounazar. M. GAILLARDOT also believes in the existence of a pavilion (Mission, p. 342).