Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/310

 HISTORY 01 ART IN PIICKNKTA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. most powerful ot the Greek cities in the island. The first-named is known as the Panaghia Phancromcni and is used as an oratory ; the latter is called St. Catherine s Prison. The first travellers who mention these buildings thought they were tombs, 1 but that idea has been discredited by the results of excavations at the Panaghia Phancromcni ;- the floor of the little building has been completely cleared, and in our Figs. 209 and 210 we give a plan and per- spective of it as it is now. It consists of a vestibule (v) and a covered chamber (11). In the vestible the huge blocks used in the rest of the structure (M) are replaced by smaller stones (T). It is impossible to say whether the building was originally underground, I-'iu. 209. --The I'anujliin I'lumeromeni. Plan. or whether the earth about it is the result of later accumulations (c). The covered chamber had a door to it, for the grooves into which it fitted are still to be clearly traced. The roof was formed of two huge masses of rock whose lower surfaces were cut into a flat arch. In all this there was nothing to militate against the idea of a tomb, but on clearing the floor of the chamber from the masses of earth and stone with which it was encumbered a circular basin appeared in the middle, in which a spring of water began to rise as soon as the beaten mass which held it down was removed. Now, what could a spring have to do in a tomb ? Where is such a 1 Ross, Reise auf den Griechischen Inseln., vol. iv. p. 119. CESNOLA, Cyprus, p. 49- - MAX OHNEFALSCH RICHTER, Ein altes Bauwerk bei Larnaca (Archaologische Zeitung, 1881), p. 311 and plate 18.