Phoenician temples had sometimes adjuncts, as cathedrals have their
chapter-houses and muniment rooms, which were at once interesting and
important. There has been discovered at Athiénau in Cyprus--the
supposed site of Golgi--a ruined edifice, which some have taken for
a temple,[636] but which appears to have been rather a repository for
votive offerings, a sort of ecclesiastical museum. A picture of the
edifice, as he conceives it to have stood in its original condition,
has been drawn by one of its earliest visitants. “The building,” he
says,[637] “was constructed of sun-dried bricks, forming four walls, the
base of which rested upon a substruction of solid stone-work. The walls
were covered, as are the houses of the Cypriot peasants of to-day, with
a stucco which was either white or coloured, and which was impenetrable
by rain. Wooden pillars with stone capitals supported internally a
pointed roof, which sloped at a low angle. It formed thus a sort of
terrace, like the roofs that we see in Cyprus at the present day. This
roof was composed of a number of wooden rafters placed very near each
other, above which was spread a layer of rushes and coarse mats, covered
with a thick bed of earth well pressed together, equally effective
against the entrance of moisture and against the sun’s rays. Externally
the building must have presented a very simple appearance. In the
interior, which received no light except from the wide doorways in the
walls, an immovable and silent crowd of figures in stone, with features
and garments made more striking by the employment of paint, surrounded,
as with a perpetual worship, the mystic cone. Stone lamps, shaped like
diminutive temples, illumined in the corners the grinning _ex-votos_
which hung upon the walls, and the curious pictures with which they were
accompanied. Grotesque bas-reliefs adorned the circuit of the edifice,
where the slanting light was reflected from the white and polished
pavement-stones.”[638] In length and breadth the chamber measured sixty
feet by thirty; the thickness of the basement wall was three feet.[639]
Midway between the side walls stood three rows of large square
pedestals--regularly spaced, and dividing the interior into four vistas
or avenues, which some critics regard as bases for statues, and some
as supports for the pillars which sustained the roof.[640] Two stone
capitals of pillars were found within the area of the chamber; and it is
conjectured that the entire disappearance of the shafts may be accounted
for by their having been of wood,[641] the employment of wooden shafts
with stone bases and capitals being common in Cyprus at the present
time.[642] Against each of the four walls was a row of pedestals
touching each other, which had certainly been bases for statues, since
the statues were found lying, mostly broken, in front of them. The
figures varied greatly in size, some being colossal, others mere
statuettes. Most probably all were votive offerings, presented by those
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account