Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/326

 304 HISTORY OK ART IN I'IKKMCIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. Arvad, of the Haram-ech-Cherif, at Jerusalem, or before the famous trilithon of Baalbek. Another mania that possessed these same workmen was for applying to dressed stone the processes with which they attacked the living rock. From a single stone they would cut an entire column or even doorway, things which else- where would be made up of various different members ; J now, we could hardly name a more remarkable instance of this tendency than the doorway leading into a hall in one of the temples of Malta. It has neither jamb nor lintel. It has been cut with the chisel through a huge slab of limestone kept in place by a pair of tall uprights (Fig. 220). If we examine the general arrangements of these temples at Gozo and Malta, we find in them none of the features which dis- tinguish the religious buildings raised by the Greeks and Romans ; the whole spirit of their construction is Phoenician. Of this our readers may judge from the plans, sections, and details we are about to give of the two best preserved of these monuments : the Giganteia of Gozo and the Hagiar Kim, or "stones of adoration," which are to be found at Malta, near the village of Casal Crendi. The Giganteia comprises two temples close together, but without any direct communication from one to the other. Their doorways face westwards and open through a long wall which binds them to each other, forming a facade for both (Fig. 221) ; the axes of the two buildings are parallel and their plans are almost identical, but their dimensions are by no means the same. The more northern building is much the larger; we may guess that it was dedicated to the more powerful of the two deities here worshipped. Each temple consists of two halls communicating by a narrow passage; their shape is an elongated ellipse. In line with the outer door and with the passage between the two halls the building ends in each case in a small apse, or hemicycle, the floor of which is raised slightly above that of the chamber from which it opens. In each of the lateral apses there is a similar dais, giving to the whole a certain resemblance to the choir and side chapels of a modern Roman Catholic church (Fig. 222). It is probable that a barrier formerly separated these raised platforms from the public part of the hall. The right apse in the first hall was reached by a flight of semicircular steps, projecting out into the body of the chamber. 1 See above, p. 109.