Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/317

 Sepulchral Architecture. 287 arrangement of her sepulchre from Phoenicia ; but none of her examples have the characteristic stela in front of the façade, such as exist in abundance towards the Syrian coast, notably opposite Aradus. 1 If possessed of ornament, it could not well be other than that seen on the Siloam monolith. The mediocrity of the Israelitish memorial may perhaps be explained by the veto put upon ancestral worship by the priests and the prophets — a worship that was common to the Hebrews along with all the nations of antiquity, 2 and was at the root of most early creeds. Whatever be the truth, it is certain that the Hebrew tomb never assumed Fig. 193.— Tomb in the Valley of Hinnom. De Saulcy, Voyage. Atlas, Plate XLI1I. the monumental character of the Punic model, itself but a reflex of the grander Egyptian type ; and that, unlike these, it was undis- tinguished by a shaft sunk down from the top of the rock, covering it with a slab, an arrangement that had been suggested at Gazeh, Sakkarâh, and the Syrian littoral, by the nature of the soil. 3 So far as we know, nothing of the kind has been found in Palestine, where the mode of access is a vestibule or short passage, and a ramp or a flight of steps, when the chamber is below the outward level. If tombs, therefore, with sunken shafts were excavated around Jerusalem, they must be sought among those of David and of his descendants, which have hitherto baffled the most strenuous efforts to discover them. For how otherwise can we explain the disappearance of monuments which must have been known down 1 Hist, of Art, torn. iii. pp. 150-155, Figs. 94, 95, 98, 99. 2 Ibid., torn. i. pp. 170, 186, 187. 3 Ibid., torn. iii. pp. 147, 157, 158.