Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/280

 260 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKMNICIA AM> ITS DKI'KNDENCIES. be as old as those of Fgypt, the Pseudo-Lucian also counts those of Astarte at Siclon and Melkart at Tyre, the latter the temple admired by Herodotus; ' but nothing now remains of either one or the other, and archaeologists are not even agreed as to where they stood. And here we must find space to mention a ruin which is to be found in the immediate neighbourhood of Sidon (Fig. 190), near the village of Roumeli. Part of it the villagers have turned into a stable for cattle:, by filling up the space under a wide lintel and between two curiously-carved piers with a rough stone wall. The forms of these piers and of the lintel are shown in our woodcut. The lintel is about fifteen feet long. The sculptured objects which stand in the niches are too worn and broken to permit any conjecture as to what they originally represented. From FIG. 190. Ruin in the neighbourhood of Sidon. From Rcnan. certain appearances it is clear that the present arrangement of these objects is not of any great antiquity. Most likely the two piers and the lintel originally belonged to some temple now- destroyed, and, if we may accept that hypothesis, they afford another proof of the influence of Egyptian examples. We know very little of the internal arrangement and furnishing of the Phoenician temple. In the fifteen-line inscription on the stele of Jehaw-Melek, king of Byblos (Fig. 23), the works he undertook in the temple of the " mistress of Gebal," for the purpose of conciliating her favour, are mentioned apparently ; - but unhappily the text has suffered greatly, and most of the suggested restorations are open to grave doubt. Three things alone appear to be certain. In the first place there was, either in 1 HKRODOTUS, ii. 44. 2 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticanun, pars i. No. i.