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Two of them, known as the Meghazil, form a group which is very remarkable, and which, if we may trust the restoration of M. Thobois, must have had considerable architectural merit. Situated very near each other, on the culminating point of a great plateau of rock, they dominate the country far and wide, and attract the eye from a long distance.
Both the Meghazil are superimposed upon subterranean chambers, containing niches for bodies, and reached by a flight of steps cut in the rock, the entrance to which is at some little distance from the monuments. But there is nothing at all striking or peculiar in the chambers, which are without ornament of any kind.
The external ornamentation of buildings was chiefly by cornices of various kinds, by basement mouldings, by carvings about doorways, by hemispherical or pyramidical roofs, and by the use of bevelled stones in the walls. The employment of animal forms in external decoration was exceedingly rare; and the half lions of the circular Meghazil of Amrith are almost unique.
Another tomb, in the vicinity of the Meghazil, is remarkable chiefly for the care taken to shelter and protect the entrance to the set of chambers which it covers. The monument is a simple one. A square monolith, crowned by a strong cornice, stands upon a base consisting of two steps. Above the cornice is another monolith, the lower part squared and the upper shaped into a pyramid.
Origin of the architecture in rock dwellings Second style, a combination of the native rock with the ordinary wall Later on, the use of the native rock, discarded Employment of huge blocks of stone in the early walls Absence of cement Bevelling Occurrence of Cyclopian walls Several architectural members comprised in one block Phoenician shrines The Maabed and other shrines at Amrith Phoenician temples Temple of Paphos Adjuncts to temples Museum of Golgi Treasure chambers of Curium Walls of Phoenician towns Phoenician tombs Excavated chambers Chambers built of masonry Groups of chambers Colonnaded tomb Sepulchral monuments The Burdj-el-Bezzak The Kabr Hiram The two Meghazil Tomb with protected entrance Phoenician ornamentation Pillars and their capitals Cornices and mouldings Pavements in mosaic and alabaster False arches Summary.
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