Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/278

 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. that in this arrangement a souvenir of those lakes which were so conspicuous in the temples of the Nile valley is to be traced ?* The most interesting rites and religious buildings in Phoenicia were those of Byblos.- Byblos was a holy city, a city of pilgrimage rather than a mercantile centre/' She came under the influence of Egypt more than any other town in PhaMiicia, and her rites had at once a singular resemblance to the rites of the Hebrews and to those practised in the Nile valley. They involved, for instance, the use of a portable temple, or ark, dragged by oxen, which seems to have been quite similar to that of the Jews, 4 while it reminds us not a little of the portable shrines of the Egyptians/' The temples of Byblos must have been among those which, towards the end of the second century of our era, seemed to the author of the treatise, On the Syrian Goddess, to have a very ancient look. 6 The most important of them all was that in which those mystic and sensual rites of Adonis were celebrated which became so popular in the East under the successors of Alexander ; unfortunately we only know its plan from medals of the Roman epoch, but a few figures of animals, fragmentary reliefs, and decorative details have survived to our time (Fig. ig). 7 The building as shown on these medals is composed of two distinct parts. On the left there is a cella surmounted by a triangular pediment, the whole differing in no way from what Vitruvius calls a temple /;/ ant is ; on the right there is a vast courtyard surrounded by a portico. In the centre of this court rises the conical stone, in which the god is symbolized ; it is sur- rounded by a protecting balustrade. The area of the courtyard, which is higher than the surrounding country is reached by a wide 1 See Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. X. p. 348 and 438. 2 We make use of the two forms Gebal and Byblos indifferently. Bi'/3Ao? results from an alteration in the Greek period, by which y was changed into (3 (ft^t^apor = yXcopovp.fvov ei' &OIVIKTJ. PHILO of BYRLOS, p. 20 of Orelli's edition. 5 Art in Ancient JZgpt, Vol. I. p. 352, Figs. 209, 210. r> The writer in question quotes, in fact, the temple of Aphrodite at Byblos as appearing almost as old as the Egyptian temples ( 2-9). 7 Lions seem to have been numerous at Byblos. See in Corpus Inscriptionum Sewiticantm, pars i. p. 2, those found with the stele of Jehaw-Melek.