Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/404

 382 HISTORY OK ART IN PIHF.VICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCES. modern builders are content with hastily planed boards and pine trunk beams, their ancestors would have employed cypress and cedar, would have added a fine polish and perhaps ivory or metal ornaments. " Thy builders have perfected thy beauty," says Ezekiel in speaking of Tyre ; " they have made all thy boards of fir-trees of Senir ; they have taken cedars from Lebanon to make masts for thee. Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars ; the company of the Ashurites have made thy benches of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittim." FIG. 261. View of ancient house at Malta. From Ilouel. In our examination of tombs and temples we have found the imitation of Egyptian types prevailing all over Phoenicia ; the same tendency must have made itself felt in the arrangement and de- coration of private dwellings. We find direct proof that it was so in the remains of a small building at Malta, in which a traveller of the last century, Houel, thought he had found the ruins of a Greek house. We give a plan and perspective of this curious fragment (Figs. 260 and 261). The best preserved thing about it is a square tower (c ) carried on a base which is now almost entirely buried (a). 1 EZEKIEI,, xxvii. 4-6.