Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/262

 230 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. Part I. exceptional in the present state of our knowledge, that it is difficult to assign them their proper place anywhere. The principal monument represented in Woodcut No. 120 is 31 ft. 8 in. in lieight, composed of very large blocks of stone and situated over a sepulchral cavern. There is no inscription or indi- cation to enable us to fix its date with certainty. The details of its nrchitecture might be called Assyrian ; but we know of nothing in tiiat country that at all resembles it. On the other hand there is a moulding on its base, which, if correctly drawn, would appear to be of Roman origin ; and there is a look about the lions that would lead us to suspect they were carved under Greek iniluence — after the age of Alexander at least. The interest consists in its being almost the only perfect survivor of a class of monuments at one time probably very common ; but which we are led to believe from the style of ornamentation were generally in brick. It is also suggestive, from its close resemblance to the Buddhist topes in Afghanistan and India ; the tall form of those, especially in the first-named country, and their universally domical outline, point unmistakeably to some such original as this : and lastly, were I asked to point out the building in the old world which most resembled the stele which Herod erected over the Tombs of the Kings at Jerusalem, in expiation of his desecration of their sanctity,^ this is the monument to which I should unhesitatingly refer. , ^ Josephus, Ant. xvi. 7, § 1.