=10. The Temple to Augustus at Samaria.=--The excavations at Samaria[212] have brought to light the foundation of the temple erected by Herod the Great in honor of Augustus.[213] This was a temple of a very different type. It was patterned on Græco-Roman models and everything was done to make it architecturally impressive. Unfortunately, the results of the Harvard expedition have not yet been given to the public in detail, but from the imposing stairway, discovered during the first season of the excavation, together with the partial plan of the building as then uncovered, and the outlines of its walls as a later season’s work disclosed them, one can form some idea of the imposing appearance of this structure. A massive stairway led up to a large platform surrounded by large pillars. This formed the portico. Back of this stretched the walls of the temple. The general form of the building seems to have been similar to that of the large temple at Jerash, which will be described in Chapter XIV.[214] At the foot of the stairway leading up to the temple was found a large altar, and near this a fallen statue of Augustus. For outlines of the temple, see Figs. 216 and 221. These ancient places of worship which archæology has brought to light are eloquent witnesses of the pathetic way the men of Palestine “felt after God, if haply they might find him” (Acts 17:27), and the pathos is not lessened by the fact that they thus continued to grope, even after the clearer light was shining about them. CHAPTER XII THE TOMBS OF PALESTINE BURNING THE DEAD. CAVE BURIALS. CISTERN BURIAL. BURIAL UNDER MENHIRS. EARTH-GRAVES. ROCK-HEWN SHAFT TOMBS. DOORWAY TOMBS. TOMBS WITH A ROLLING-STONE. =1. Burning the Dead.=--As noted in a previous chapter,[215] the cave-dwellers of Gezer burned their dead. The Semitic inhabitants of Palestine did not follow this custom, but buried theirs. At Gezer the caves that had formed the dwellings of the first inhabitants were put by the Semites to various uses. Sometimes they, too, lived in them; sometimes they made cisterns of them; and sometimes they utilized them as places of burial for their dead.