Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/394

 37-1 HISTORY OF ART IN PIIEXICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. as their own work, and the only builders who preceded them in the countries in question were the Phoenicians. The popular tradition was the right one. In Spain the name of Hannibal was attached to some of these erections, in which the people saw posts of observation (speculee) raised by the famous captain on the summits of the hills. The evidence of Pliny is very precise ; there is only room for doubt on one point. Can we believe that buildings which had outlasted the centuries were of earth shaped in a mould ? Must they not rather have been of concrete, or rubble, that is to say of a material in which a cement of lime and sand were the chief constituents ? It is certain that even on the Syrian coast the Phoenicians made use of cement to hold together the embank- ments with which they increased the narrow sites of their towns. At Tyre especially banks were raised, which, we are told, resemble the mole of Algiers in hardness. 1 In Africa MM. Daux and Tissot ascribe to the same epoch the rubble vaults in the fortress of Bulla Regia, in the valley of the Bagrada, and the military fort at Utica ; 2 but this attribution may be, and, as a fact, it has been, contested. A recent discovery, however, has brought to light a structure in which this method of building is combined with signs of a Phoenician origin which cannot be disputed. In the report of Captain Vincent addressed to the Academic dcs Inscriptions on the 26th September, 1883,* we read : " Upon the mamelon known as Bon-amba, situated at a distance of about 2,000 yards from the town of Beja, a mass of red concrete crops up here and there through the soil. It is very hard, and full of large blocks of stone ; it extends for a considerable distance right and left of the Place d'Annes. In March, 1883, som e workmen were digging a channel to carry off the rain-water, when they brought to light a vaulted chamber with some human bones, a lamp and a funerary urn in it." This discovery gave the hint, and more excavations were undertaken, with the result that a hundred and twenty tombs were 1 REXAN, Mission, p. 560. 2 CH. TISSOT, Le Bassin du Bagrada et ia rote romaine de Carthage a Hippone par Jl nl la fiegia, p. 37 (Memoires prcsentes par divers savants al Academie des Inscriptions, 1 88 1, 4to) ; DAUX, Rccherches sttr les emporla pheniciens, Etude sitr la ville d' Utiqite et st'S environs. 3 The report is dated from Badja, a small town situated to the west of Tunis, on the site of the ancient Vaja, where Captain Vincent commanded a small French garrison.