Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/170

 150 HISTORY 01 ART IN PH<I:ICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. the sign ; meanwhile, a mound, the trunk of a tree, an upright stone as high and heavy as possible, served the purpose. In Genesis we find these words : " And Rachel died and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave : that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day." Thus when Jacob wished to do honour to his favourite wife he was obliged to be content with raising a mass of rock on her tomb. As civilisation gradually spread over Syria from the powerful nations in her vicinity, this part of the tomb, far from disappearing, must have become of much greater importance. More exposed to destruction than the subterranean chamber, it has left> but feeble Kiu. 87. --Section of the Bunlj-el-Htvzak. From Kenan. traces, but still we have grounds for believing in its almost universal existence. Whether the tomb chamber was excavated, as it was in most cases, in the depths of the soil, or whether it occupied the interior of a block of masonry, a sort of artificial rock, it was as a rule accompanied by an external and salient feature of some kind.-' It has been suggested that this salience had an emblematic significance of a nature which to us may appear gross, but which, nevertheless, was admitted and held sacred by every antique religion as a symbol of living nature and its inexhaustible fertility.'* 1 Genesis xxxv. 19. 20. The Greek text has o-n'jXrjr im-rjac. 8 RENAX, Mission, p. 75. 3 GERHARD. Ufber die Kitnst der Phfcnizier. p. 4 and note 18 (in the Gesammelte dkademischc Abhandlungen, No. xi.).