Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/297

 ( 26 7 ) CHAPTER V. ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS. The religious architecture of the Hebrews, is not represented by the temple alone. Before and after its advent there were other places of worship whose general characteristics it behoves us to define. Needless to say that these varied according to the age or degree of power of their creator ; that in them the masterpieces of sculpture were not to be seen, but that such simple decoration as is common to all nations as soon as they emerge from utter savagery was doubtless resorted to in order to add to their beauty. § i. Sepulchral Architecture. The countless caves distributed all over Syria were the first dwellings or shelters of her rude inhabitants. Multitudinous instances might be adduced of grottoes — such as Nahr-el-Kelb, near Beyrout — in which flint implements, the bones of deer, the bear, bison, and Syrian tiger, have been discovered in a con- glomerate, formed by slow infiltration of the rock and accumulated rubbish, sometimes more than a yard deep. But when man migrated to the tent and the house, the natural cavern became the resting-place of the dead. In time, however, its size was increased, and when this no longer sufficed, chambers were scooped out of the rock alongside it. Some care was exercised to make their shape regular, whilst a huge stone, removable at will, secured them against the incursions of roaming animals. In all probability Abraham's cavern of Machpelah was a natural excavation. 1 But this must remain in doubt so long as it is in the 1 The term Machpelah is rendered by " reduplication," from kapal, " double," " twice over ; " hence the grotto may have been possessed of two chambers.