Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/251

 THE PIICENICIAN TOMB AWAY FROM PIKENICIA. 271 and Semitic character down to the last days of paganism. These monuments have attracted the attention of travellers ever since the beginning of the century. 1 The tombs are hollowed in the flank of a rocky hill which rises in the centre of the plain and is crowned by a plateau. Some of them have a series of chambers FIG. 159. Plan of a tomb at Nea-Paphos, From Ross. in the sides of which are cut niches for bodies (Fig. 159). These are perhaps the oldest. In some more important tombs we find a very curious arrangement (Figs. 160 and 161). Each group of chambers is connected with a rectangular court, open to the sky and surrounded by square shafts and circular columns. FIG. 160. Plan of a tomb at Nea-Paphos. From Ross. The court, the surrounding colonnade, the chambers attached, and the corridor by which the court is reached, are all cut in the 1 Ross, Reisen nach Cypern, pp. 187-189. Archaologische Zeitung, 1851, plate xxviii. figs. 3 and 4. POTTIER, Les Hypogees doriques de Nea-Paphos dans Vile de Cypre {Bulletin de Correspondance h'elleniqne, 1880, pp. 497-505).