Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/126

 io6 HISTORY OK ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. square and ten high. Upon this cubical mass, which is one with the actual floor of the temple, has been built a small tabernacle which we shall have to examine in detail in our chapter on religious architecture (F"ig. 40). A similar mingling of the two processes is to be found in the remains of the formidable ramparts with which the island of Arvad was surrounded. The built part of the wall rests upon a rock-cut plinth some twelve or fourteen feet high (Fig. 7) ; the same arrangement may be traced in the debris of the Phoenician walls at Sidon (Fig. 41). Like the temple court at Marath the ditch is cut in the rock. Another example of this is to be seen at Semar-Gcbeyl, where a castle built in the middle ages has profited by the gigantic works undertaken for the guarding of an old Giblite fortress against a sudden assault. 1 Finally, at Arvad and many other places we find cisterns, silos and the containers of Fir.. 41. Remains of the walls of Sidon. From Rcnan. wine-presses hollowed in the soft rock, the surface of which was rendered fit for its purpose by a coat of stucco. 2 We may here quote a text from an old historian which proves that these habits of the Phoenicians excited remark even from their contemporaries : " When the Phoenicians began to settle in great numbers on those rocky shores to which they were attracted by the richness of the purple dye, they built houses for themselves and surrounded them with ditches ; as they cut the rock for this latter purpose, they used the material removed for the walls of their towns, and so protected their ports and jetties."' 1 RENAN, Mission, p. 244, and plate xxxvii. - Ibid. p. 40, and plate iii. 3 CLAUDIUS IOLAUS, quoted by Stephen of Byzantium, s.v. Aw/>a. This method of extracting the wall, so to speak, from its own ditch, was used at Arvad, at Tortosa, at Anefe', and at Semar-Gebeyl.