§ III Tombs
The most important of the monuments discovered in Phœnicia are the tombs. Nearly all are hewn in the rock, and are, as in Judæa and Arabia, great caves in which the sarcophagi of an entire family were deposited. The necropolis of Marath (Amrith), explored by M. Renan, furnished specimens of tombs which seem to be the most ancient, the most spacious, and hewn with the greatest skill. The descent into them is by a shaft, as in Egypt, and notches are cut in the wall of the rock into which the hands and feet must be inserted; but in the more recent tombs a flight of steps is substituted for the shaft. At the bottom a low door is found on two sides, leading into a larger or smaller number of rectangular chambers. These rooms communicate with one another by means of passages in which a few steps are generally found, so that the most distant chambers are at a lower level than the others. Sometimes there are even two stories of chambers; in the partition of rock which forms the intermediate ceiling a shaft is pierced by which they are entered from above. The sarcophagi are ranged round the walls, or placed in niches or cavities for coffins, hollowed out on the sides: once filled, these niches were closed by a large slab, on which an inscription might be written in honour of the dead. The necropoles of Tyre and Adlun present the same types of sepulchral caves.
Now, may we ask, what was the outer aspect of a Phœnician necropolis in which the tombs were thus hidden under the ground? Often, especially when the tombs were those of rich men, a stela or cippus of small size appeared above them, and marked the position of the cave and the opening of the shaft. Tombstones of this kind, either monoliths or constructed of masonry, are scattered over the plain of Amrith; they are called on the spot meghazil (in the singular, mighzal); one of them (fig. 198) is described by M. Renan as “a master-piece of proportion, elegance, and majesty”: it is 32½ ft. high, and consists of a base from which four lions project, two cylindrical drums placed one above the other and decorated with denticulated sculpture, and, finally, a small hemispherical dome carved in the block.
A sepulchral monument at Amrith, the Burj el-Bezzâk, is entirely distinguished from caves and structures of the form which we have just described; it rises above the ground, like an ordinary house, and is built, without mortar, of regular masonry, with blocks 16 ft. long. It terminated formerly in a pyramidal roof, and its full height was 52½ ft. In the interior, there are only two chambers one above the other, each communicating with the outside by a narrow aperture. Round the walls of these chambers there were numerous niches for coffins, separated one from another by partitions.
The necropolis of Sidon, which is more considerable than that of Amrith, presents the same peculiarities: the caves are constructed in the same manner; only at the present day no meghazil are any longer to be seen near the orifice of the shaft. In the poorest caves the corpses were laid upon the ground or deposited in graves; in other sepulchres cavities for coffins are hewn out all round the chambers; in the richest, finally, the bodies were placed in sarcophagi buried in the floor of the chamber. The hypogæa of Gebal differ from the type observed at Sidon, Tyre, and Amrith, by the peculiarity that the descent into them is neither by a shaft nor by a staircase; the aperture is formed in the vertical side of the mountain, and is sometimes surmounted by a pediment and a few decorative mouldings (fig. 203).
Of all the sarcophagi found in the Phœnician necropoles, perhaps not one can be attributed to an earlier date than the reign of Cyrus. The simplest are large monolithic troughs, provided with a convex or triangular lid. Some of them are decorated with garlands, foliage, and chaplets; the corners of the lid are sometimes provided with acroteria. The only ones which have a real artistic interest are the sarcophagi in the form of human figures, or rather of mummy-cases, the head of the dead person, and sometimes the arms also, being carved in relief on the lid. These sepulchral urns were coloured in imitation of the wooden sarcophagi of the Egyptians, which they copy in their form; while the carved work of the faces shows us that Assyrian influence was dominant in Phœnicia long after the disappearance of Nineveh. The sarcophagi of Tabnit and Eshmunazar, which only date from the year B.C. 350, disclose to us a remarkable peculiarity in the means adopted by the Phœnicians, merchants and navigators before all things, in order to furnish the tombs of their dead with stone coffins. These peculiar monuments, of black amphibolite, issue from the Egyptian quarries of Hammamat near Cosseir, and they originally contained Egyptian mummies. Phœnician sailors stole them or bought them for money; the ashes which they contained were thrown to the four winds, the hieroglyphic inscriptions and the Egyptian scenes, carved or painted upon the plaster which covered the stone, were entirely or partly removed and replaced by the epitaphs of Tabnit and Eshmunazar. A considerable number of Phœnician sarcophagi are thus borrowed coffins, and by no means the work of indigenous artists.
Sarcophagi in the form of the human figure have been discovered in nearly all the countries in which the Phœnicians established their factories, in Cyprus, Sicily, and Malta, and they everywhere present the same characteristics: only the head of the dead man is in relief. At Saïda, a sarcophagus was found in which the arms are carved beside the body; the sleeve of the garment ends above the elbow, and the left hand holds an alabastron. In the museum at Palermo a sarcophagus is preserved which came from Solus, the lid of which has the form of a true reclining statue like a mediæval tomb: it is a woman clothed in a long peplos over a short tunic, the sleeves of which end at the shoulder; the left hand also holds a vase for perfume.91 Besides stone sarcophagi, leaden and terra-cotta troughs have been found in the necropoles of the Syrian coast, and also coffins of cedar-wood, decorated with metal ornaments, generally bronze lions’ heads.
The sepulchral chambers of Phœnicia contain mortuary furniture not without interest. It consists of alabastra of glass, terra-cotta and alabaster, standing against the wall; and of idols in terra-cotta, representing Baal-Hammon sitting between two rams, the god Bes, of Egyptian origin, the god Pygmæus, Astarte sitting or standing with a dove in her hand, and, lastly, terra-cotta chariots holding one or two figures, with two or four horses harnessed to them. Besides these objects of Phœnician manufacture, amulets and statuettes, imported from Egypt, are found. The body of the deceased was enveloped in bands; the mouth and eyes were often covered with gold leaf, and rich men often placed a complete mask, formed of gold leaf, in which all the features of the face are marked: it is thus seen to what an extent Egyptian habits were implanted in Phœnicia. Lamps, amphoræ, amulets and ornaments are also found in the tombs of the Syrian coast. Women were buried with their necklaces, their rings, their bracelets, their ear-rings, their metal mirror, their pyxes for cosmetics and perfumes, and their toilet articles. Rings, provided with engraved stones which served as seals, are also found; nowhere, except in Cyprus, have weapons been discovered in the tombs of this nation of merchants.
In the Cypriote necropolis at Dali (Idalion) there are often at the side of the corpses pieces of pottery with geometrical decorations, bronze weapons, gold ornaments, metal dishes with figures engraved on the inner side, statuettes of Astarte, of warriors, of chariots and of riders similar to those on the Phœnician coast.
Among the tombs at Amathus which are Phœnician and date from the fourth century, there are some constructed of fine regular masonry, with a door framed in a fillet, and a flat roof, or one with a double slope like those of our houses. These tombs sometimes contain several chambers, along the walls of which the sarcophagi were set in a row, sometimes in the human form, sometimes with a triangular lid.
The Phoenician tombs found in Malta, in Sicily and in Sardinia, present the same arrangement as those on the coasts of Syria and Cyprus: the descent into the cave is by a sunken shaft or by a flight of steps, and the chambers resemble those that we have described. At Caralis and at Tharras pyramidal cippi have been found in situ, above ground, which marked the position of the burial-places, as we have already seen in Phœnicia: in these tombs the furniture is imported from Egypt, Etruria and Asia.
The necropolis of Mehdia, on the eastern coast of Tunis, contains tombs, the descent into which is by shafts as at Aradus. The tombs of Thina (Thenæ) near Sfax, those of Carthage on the hill near the town called Jebel Kawi, have all been violated in antiquity or by the Arabs. Constructed on an uniform plan, they consist of a rectangular chamber, the descent into which is by a flight of steps. All round this room, the orifices of the coffin-niches are seen like the mouths of ovens. The staircase may have as many as ten steps; the chamber is 6½ ft. high, from 19½ ft. to 21 ft. long, and 9½ ft. broad. The walls are coated with a white stucco which sometimes was adorned with figures in relief; the fragmentary subjects which I was able to detect seemed to me to be Greek and perhaps Roman in style.
To sum up, the Phœnician tomb represented only two types: the erect tomb above ground, and the subterranean tomb. The first was monolithic, or built like a house; the second was either on a level with its entrance in the side of the rock, or else it was reached from above by means of a shaft or a staircase. Both contained a greater or smaller number of chambers according to the number of corpses to be buried in it. These bodies were, save in rare exceptions, placed in sarcophagi sometimes deposited in cavities contrived in the wall of the chamber, sometimes in ditches hewn out in the floor, sometimes simply deposited along the walls. The mortuary furniture varied according to the wealth of the families; it included, together with amulets and figures of deities, all the toilet articles and ornaments used by the deceased during his earthly existence.