Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/302

 280 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. given would do very well for a large courtyard with an idol in the middle and a portico about it. Ye should, then, be inclined to guess the temple at Paphos to have been something like this : in the centre the conical stone, surrounded by a balustrade, and perhaps raised on a pedestal ; around it a double Trept/SoXr/, as the Greeks called it. The smaller and more richly decorated of these inclosed a court into which, so far as we can gather, the faithful were only allowed to penetrate under the guidance of a priest, after having paid certain fees and accomplished certain rites. On the other hand the external court, with its wide doorways, was open to every coiner. In both courts, but especially in the inner one, would be ranged those votive monuments whose richness and variety made such an impression on Tacitus. We know that votive statues were not wanting, although they have nearly all been consumed in the limekiln, for both Hammer and Cesnola found numerous pedestals, on some of which inscriptions were still traceable. 1 On lower ground and nearer the sea, Cesnola found the remains of a smaller rectangular temple, which may, as he suggests, have been raised to mark the spot where the goddess first set foot on the island ; in that case it would have been the first station for the pilgrims who came to Cyprus to visit the greater sanctuary. The only remains of the building are two pyramidal monoliths of a brown granite which is nowhere to be found on the island. Their bases are very deeply sunk, and their total height is about nineteen feet. They are each pierced about half way up with a hole of considerable diameter. 2 In presence of these monoliths, we are struck by a resemblance between them and certain objects on the money struck by the union of Cyprian towns. The building represented on the coins in question is simpler than the one we have described above. It is nothing but a pair of uprights supporting a roof or architrave, beneath which stands the betyle with a dove on its summit. On each side of the doorway, and on the same stylobate, stands a conical stone (Fig. 202). May not the monoliths which now stand on the sea-shore at Paphos have afforded a model for these 1 HAMMER, Topographische Ansichten, pp. 179-183. CESXOLA, Cyprus, p. 212. 2 CESNOLA, Cyprus, p. 214. See also p. 189, where some more cippi of the same form are mentioned. It is curious that even among the modern peasants there subsist certain superstitious beliefs as to the power of these ancient stones.