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. [Illustration: Fig. 199.--The Burj el-Bezzâk. Section (after Renan).] [Illustration: Fig. 200.--Chamber of the Burj el-Bezzâk (after Renan).] 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. [Illustration: Fig. 201.--The Burj el-Bezzâk. Restoration. (Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_.)] 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). [Illustration: Fig. 202.--Section of a tomb at Saïda (after Renan).] [Illustration: Fig. 203.--Entrance of a tomb at Gebal (after Renan).] 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 [Illustration: Fig. 204.--The sarcophagus of Eshmunazar. (Louvre.)]