Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/338

 308 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud.i:a. with no pretensions to architectural beauty. The walls and the roof were extremely thick, with a view to securing an even tem- perature in the interior throughout the year. The roofs were flat, and in summer became the common parlour and sleeping apart- ment of the family. We learn incidentally, from what would now be called a municipal regulation, that all such terraces had to be provided with a parapet, for the greater safety of the population ; ' that the general plan of the building consisted of one tier of rooms ranged round an open court, but here and there the more important had two tiers, whilst the windows of the harem were doubtless trellised, as in the present day. With the exception of the domed roof, it is the modern Syrian house. 2 We have stated in a former chapter that hamlets, whether open or enclosed, were as a rule built on rising ground, and that the strength of the walled cities of the Canaanites at first caused the Hebrews to lose heart, but that, once in possession, they preserved ramparts which had given them so much trouble, and that the enclosures met with in Peraea and Galilee, with every appearance of remote antiquity, are in all likelihood remains of those cyclopsean structures. 3 The annexed woodcut will serve to illustrate this class of monument ; it is taken from De Saulcy, who was the first discoverer of the great ' tell," or mound, on which stands a frag- ment of this ancient wall in Upper Galilee, not far from the lake Samakonitis. The place is called Bahr-el-Huleh, identified by him with the capital of Jabin overthrown by Joshua (xi. 10) (Fig. 208). The semi-barbarous tribes, amongst whom the Jews secured a place, were unacquainted with the art of the military engineer, which consists in selecting the best and most appropriate materials for the object he has in view. This the illiterate Canaanite was unable to do, but he succeeded nevertheless in obtaining the effect he wished to produce by mass and weight of material. Later, under Punic and Assyrian influence, buildings, even beyond Jordan, ceased to be quite as rude and bare as in former times, and plain 1 1 Sam. ix. 25, 26; 2 Sam. xi. 2; Deut. xxii. 8. 2 Josh. ii. 15 ; 1 Sam. xix. 22 ; 2 Kings 1. 2; Song of Solomon . 9. The Hebrew word chalakkim or sebâkkah has exactly the same meaning as the Arabic shabakah, to denote a net, lattice, trellis. 3 Sundry strongholds will occur to the reader : thus Joab laid a long siege before Rabbah, chief town of the Ammonites, whilst Mesa boasts of having " built the wall of the forests and the wall of . . . her gates and her towers, the palace of the king, and the prisons of ... in the centre of the city."