In the temple of Curium, Cesnola ascertained the existence of a crypt to which a staircase gave access; it was composed of four subterranean chambers cut in the form of apses in the rock and communicating with one another by doors and a passage. These chambers are about 22½ ft. long on each side, and 13 ft. high; it was here that the famous treasure of Curium was found, consisting of the plate of the temple, and of votive offerings made to the deity. The recent excavations which we have shortly described, though they have scarcely brought more than substructures to light, yet enable us to describe the Cypriote temples with some exactness. While those of Phœnicia are built on heights, reminding us of the primitive high-places, the sanctuaries of Cyprus are generally in the plain, in the midst of fertile fields, like the temples of Egypt. The shrine of the deity was under the open sky like the Greek temples; around, and at a greater or less distance, rose a gallery covered with a roof supported within by colonnades forming a portico, and without resting upon the wall of enclosure. A Phœnician inscription of the fourth century before Christ relates the erection of several temples to various deities, notably to the god Sadambaal and to the goddess Astarte in the island of Gaulos (Gozo). The remains of these sanctuaries are still in existence: they are called the _Giganteja_, or “Giant’s dwelling,” and consist of two neighbouring enclosures not communicating with one another. Constructed of irregular masonry, formed of enormous blocks, they are parallel, and their gates open on the same façade; though one is larger than the other they both follow the same interior arrangement. Each is composed of two oval or elliptical chambers next to one another, and communicating by a narrow passage; the farther chamber contains also a semicircular apse. The great temple is 119 feet long from the entrance to the bottom of the apse; its greatest breadth is 75 feet. The area is uncovered; in one of these enclosures a conical stone has been discovered analogous to those in the temples of Phœnicia and Cyprus. [Illustration: Fig. 190.--Plan of the Giganteja. (_Nouv. Annales de l’Institut arch. de Rome_, 1832, pl. ii.)] At Malta, ruins of temples have been discovered constructed on the same principles as the Giganteja of Gozo. The _Hagiar Kim_, “stones of adoration,” near the village of Casat Crendi, presents identical architectural features, with the enormous blocks of its irregular masonry. The plan, however, is a little more complicated: it is a series of seven ellipsoid chambers built next to one another. Not a single stone is left above ground of the temples raised by the Phœnicians in Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, [Illustration: Fig. 191.--Roman wall at Byrsa (Boulé, _Fouilles à Carthage_).]