A similar method of construction is found to have prevailed at Tyre,
at Sidon, at Aradus, at Byblus, at Leptis Major, at Eryx, at Motya, at
Gaulos, and at Lixus on the West African coast. The blocks employed do
not reach the size of the largest discovered at Jerusalem, but still are
of dimensions greatly exceeding those of most builders, varying, as they
do, from six feet to twenty feet in length, and being often as much as
seven or eight feet in breadth and height. As the building rises, the
stones diminish in size, and the upper courses are often in no way
remarkable. Stones of various sizes are used, and often the courses are
not regular, but one runs into another. A tower in the wall of Eryx is a
good specimen of this kind of construction.[68]
Where the stones are small, mortar has been employed by the builders,
but where they are of a large size, they are merely laid side by side
in rows or courses, without mortar or cement of any kind, and remain
in place through their own mass and weight. In the earliest style of
building the blocks are simply squared,[69] and the wall composed of
them presents a flat and level surface, or one only broken by small and
casual irregularities; but, when their ideas became more advanced, the
Phoenicians preferred that style of masonry which is commonly regarded
as peculiarly, if not exclusively, theirs[610]--the employment of large
blocks with deeply bevelled edges. The bevel is a depression round the
entire side of the stone, which faces outwards, and may be effected
either by a sloping cut which removes the right-angle from the edge, or
by two cuts, one perpendicular and the other horizontal, which take out
from the edge a rectangular bar or plinth. The Phoenician bevelling
is of this latter kind, and is generally accompanied by an artificial
roughening of the surface inside the bevel, which offers a strong
contrast to the smooth and even surface of the bevel itself.[611] The
style is highly ornamental and effective, particularly where a large
space of wall has to be presented to the eye, unbroken by door or
window.[612]
Occasionally, but very rarely, and only (so far as appears) in their
remoter dependencies, the Phoenicians constructed their buildings in
the rude and irregular way, which has been called Cyclopian, employing
unhewn polygonal blocks of various sizes, and fitting them roughly
together. The temples discovered in Malta and Gozzo have masonry of this
description.[613]
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