Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/182

 162 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKI.NH IA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. soil and represented the primitive cippus. Saida has never ceased to be a town with several thousands of inhabitants ; and by them the stones of the visible monuments have been carried off and used for their own purposes. 1 The necropolis of Sidon was cut in a bed of calcareous rocks, which stand but slightly above the plane.' The arrangement of its tombs was like that of Amrit, according to Gaillardot, who spent several years in exploring this cemetery. The features by which the most ancient sepulchres may be distinguished from those of the Greek and Roman period are these : by vertical wells, rectangular on plan, cut in the living rock ; at the bottom of these 'i. 102. Section of a tomb at Sulun, From Rcnan. wells one of the short sides, and sometimes both, is pierced by a square doorway giving access to the tomb chamber (Fig. 102). :i This doorway was kept walled up, and was opened only for burials. The wells themselves were closed sometimes by slabs placed athwart the opening below the layer of vegetable earth with which the rock was covered (Fig. 103), sometimes lower down, 1 The summit of the mass of rock which incloses the great chamber called Mu^haret-Abloun^ is carefully planed, as if to receive a pyramidal structure (RENAN, Mission, p. 477). ' 2 See plate Ixii. of M. Rerun's work. It gives a detailed plan of this cemetery. 3 REN AN, .]fissi(>n. p. 481.