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Its name recalls the "Brathu" of Philo-Byblius and the "Martu" of the early Babylonian inscriptions, which was used as a general term by some of the primitive monarchs almost in the sense of "Syria." The word is still preserved in the modern "M'rith" or "Amrith," a name attached to some extensive ruins in the plain south-east of Aradus, which have been carefully examined by M. Renan.
Water abounds throughout the region, which is the parent of numerous streams, as the northern Nahr-el-Kebir, which flows into the sea by Latakia, the Nahr-el-Melk, the Nahr Amrith, the Nahr Kuble, the Nahr-el-Abrath, and many others. From the conformation of the land they have of necessity short courses; but each and all of them spread along their banks a rich verdure and an uncommon fertility.
Native talent has contributed little or nothing to the ornamentation of buildings, if we except the modification of the types which have been derived from foreign sources. Finally, there is a want of combination and general plan in the Phoenician constructions where they fall into groups. "This is sensibly felt," according to M. Renan, "at Amrith, at Kabr-Hiram, and at Um-el-Awamid.
One of these, situated near Amrith, the ancient Marathus, is a very curious and peculiar structure. It is known at the present day as the Burdj-el-Bezzak, and was evidently constructed to be, like the pyramids, at once a monument and a tomb.
They could not at once, however, divest themselves of their acquired habits, and consequently, their earliest buildings continued to have, in part, the character of rock dwellings, while in part they were constructions of the more ordinary and regular type. The remains of a dwelling-house at Amrith, the ancient Marathus, offer a remarkable example of this intermixture of styles.
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.
It is as if the Phoenician builders could not break themselves of an inveterate habit, and rather than disuse it entirely submitted to an intermixture which was not without a certain amount of awkwardness. Another striking example of the mixed system is found at a little distance from Amrith, in the case of a building which appears to have been a shrine, tabernacle, or sanctuary.
M. Renan says of the Maabed, or main shrine at Amrith: "L'aspect general de l'edifice est Egyptian, mais avec une certaine part d'originalite. Le bandeau et la corniche sur les quatre cotes de la stalle superiere en sont le seul ornement.
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.
Other Hittite-Aramaean and Phoenician monuments, as yet undocumented with literary records, exhibit a strange but not unpleasing mixture of foreign motifs, such as we see on the stele from Amrith in the inland district of Arvad. But perhaps the most remarkable example of Syrian art we possess is the king's gate recently discovered at Carchemish.
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