Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/254

 234 HISTORY or ART IN PIKKNKTA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. among the very ancient tombs found by Salzmann in the island of Rhodes, at Camirus and lalysus, there were any of certain Phoenician origin ; and yet some of these sepulchres reminded their finder of the tombs of Egypt. " They are composed," he tells us, "of a square well, from one side of which opens the doorway into the coffin chamber itself." In this arrangement they resemble the oldest of the tombs we have noticed on the Syrian coast. In any case, the Greeks never colonized Malta or Gozo, so that in their case we are in no danger of mistaking archaic Greek sepulchres for Phoenician burial-places. 1 The tombs of Malta and Gozo have never yet been studied as they deserve to be, but an inscription has come down to us which proves that there were Phoenician tombs in Malta.- It was found in a hypogeum with walls whitened with chalk. The slab on which it appears was set in the rock ; it is now in the Cabinet des Medailles, at Paris. We thus have fair grounds for ascribing a Phoenician origin to the many anepigraphic tombs which have been found in other parts of the island. 3 No vessel or trinket of certain provenance has been found in them to which we might turn for the date ; but their general arrangement agrees with what we have learnt as to the sepulchres of Phoenicia. In one, however, the chamber to which the well gives access is not rectangular, as it usually is in Cyprus and Phoenicia, but round, a form we have not hitherto encountered (Figs. 162, 163, and 164). Nothing could be simpler or less varied than the tombs of which the vast necropolis of Carthage is composed ; they are all subter- ranean, and are carved in the soft limestone of the Djcbel kawi. The main tomb consists of a rectangular chamber, varying in size according to the wealth of its proprietor or the number of his family, but always arranged on the principle shown in our Figs. 1 The manuscript journal of Salzmann's explorations is preserved in the British Museum, but the information it contains is very summary and vague, if we may judge from the fragment which has been published in the Bulletin archeo- logique du Musee Parent (Xo. i, October 1867, folio, the only number of that publication which ever saw the light). Unfortunately Salzmann's paper, entitled Une Ville homerique (Rente archeologique, 2nd series, vol. iv. p. 467), has no illustrations. It is from this article (p. 468) that we quote above. 2 Corpus. Jnscr. Semit. pars i. No. 124. The eponymous magistrate was no doubt a local suffete. 3 Description of Ancient Rock Tombs at Gha'in TiffiJia and Tal Horr, Malta, by Captain JOHX S. SWANN (Archceologia, vol. xl. pp. 483-487).