Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/79

SlPYLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. the fortress), whose waters reflected the ruinous walls of the antique city. To the people who preceded the first Greek colonists on Hermus (founders of Magnesia) should likewise be attributed a funereal monument, met with about four hundred yards east of the ravine (Fig. 34). It is known in the country as the tomb of St. Charalambe, and is entirely scooped out of the living rock, in a talus which dips to the south-west at an angle of forty- five degrees. In this ledge of rocks was first sunk a broad staircase open to the sky, whose lower steps are hidden under accumulated earth. It led to a platform, in the centre of which a two-stepped land- ing has been reserved. The topmost step is level with a passage which gives access to a first chamber, followed by another corridor and a smaller c h a m b e r (Figs. 36). 35. 10 Ml> FIG. 36. Tomb near Magnesia. Longitudinal section. HUMANN, Ausflug, Fig. 2. The ceiling of both apartments is slightly arched, its height diminishing from front to back, and the result is a somewhat oven- like aspect (Fig. 37). The two doorways are not on the same axis ; that of the inner is a little to the west as regards the exterior opening. There are no signs of troughs or stone couches, but along the western wall, a little above the ground, runs a double ledge, upon which rested the heads of the corpses laid out on the 136-138, Figs. 11-15) agree in all essentials with M. Humann's illustrations. See also RAMSAY, Sipylos and Cybele, p. 37.