Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/194

174 lli>T(i<v OK ART IN PIHKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. the town to which they belonged. The Giblite sepulchres are mainly distinguished from those of Arvad and Sidon by having their openings in the vertical faces or slopes of the rocks in which they are cut ; they are not very deep, and, being without either well or pit, are entered on the level. 1 The doorway is sometimes ornamented, but always very simply. Thus one example which is believed to be very ancient, has above its entrance a smal) triangular pediment with a sculptured rosette in the middle (Fig. n 5 ). 2 Some of these tombs have a character of grand and primitive simplicity. In their interiors neither ornaments nor mouldings, but spacious recesses cut symmetrically in the living rock, are to be found (Fig. 1 1 6). In one or two cases they are even natural grottoes, in the floor of which huge troughs have been excavated, and afterwards closed by thick slabs. These slabs are prisms of stone, triangular sometimes, but as a rule quadrangular ; they are always roughly blocked out, and without inscription or device of any kind. The troughs are filled with water that creeps through the pores of wall and ceiling. " I know nothing more impressive," says M. Renan, " than these solitary grottoes where the sound of falling drops of water alone breaks in upon the silence, and where the slow industry of the stalactites obscures the ruin of the centuries. I recommend a visit to these grottoes to painters of sacred history who go to the East for inspiration. Few places are more picturesque. These tombs are fit for heroes, for the heroes of Homer or the giants of early Hebrew legend." It is chiefly in the necropolis of Gebal that a feature is to be noticed which we encounter elsewhere in the cemeteries of Phoenicia, but more rarely. 4 If we enter one of the chambers of which we have been speaking, we shall find almost always that the ceiling is pierced with a number of round holes. Sometimes these holes are so close together that they make the ceiling look like a sieve. They are air holes, drilled through the whole thickness of the rock. The inner face of these little shafts is either smooth or marked with horizontal scratches. The perforation has been carried out with the auger. The average diameter of these shafts is ten inches. They widen out into a trumpet mouth as they approach the outer air. At first it was thought that they really 1 RENAN, Mission, p. 206. ~ Ibid. p. 205. 3 Ibid. p. 204. 4 Ibid. pp. 194-198.