to the south of Aradus, and in the neighbourhood of Byblus.[505] The bases of the walls which enclose the courts and water-basins of the temple of Marathus can still be traced, as well as the huge stones which formed the three cellæ, the innermost shrines of this temple. On either side of a back wall formed of similar materials heavy blocks protrude, and are roofed over, together with this wall, by a great monolith, which protected the sacred stone or the image of the deity.[506] This heavy style of the city walls, dams, temples, and royal castles did not prevent the Phenicians, any more than the Egyptians, from building the upper stories of the dwelling-houses of their cities in light wood-work. By far the most important remains of ancient Phoenicia are the rock-tombs, which are found in great numbers and extent opposite to the islands of Tyre and Aradus, as well as at Sidon, Byblus, and among the ruins of the other cities on the spurs of Lebanon; and which at Tyre especially spread out into wide burial-places, and several stories of tombs, one upon the other. In the same style we find to the west of the ruins of Carthage long walls of rocks hollowed out into thousands of tombs, and furnished with arched niches for the reception of the dead.[507] In the oldest period the Phenicians must have placed their dead in natural cavities of rock, and perhaps they erected a stone before them as a memorial. In Genesis Abraham buries Sarah in the cave of Machpelah, and Jacob sets up a stone on the grave of Rachel.[508] Afterwards the natural hollows were extended, and whole cavities dug out artificially for tombs. The tomb of David and the tombs of his successors were hewn in the rocks of the gorge which separated the city from the height of Zion (p. 177). The oldest of the artificial tombs in Phoenicia are doubtless those which consist of cubical chambers with horizontal hewn roofs. Round one or two large chambers lower oblong depressions are driven further in the rocks to receive the corpses. The entrance into these ancient chambers are formed by downward perpendicular shafts, at the bottom of which on two sides are openings into the chambers secured by slabs of stone laid before them. Shafts of this kind must be meant when the Hebrews say in a figure of the dead, "The mouth of the well has eaten him up." Later than the tombs of this description are those the entrance to which is on the level ground (which was then closed by a stone), which have roofs hewn in low arches, and side niches for the corpses. The arched chambers approached by steps leading downward, the walls of which are decorated after Grecian patterns on the stone, or on stucco, must originate from the time of the predominance of Greek art, _i.e._ of the days of Hellenism. The oldest style of burial was the placing of the corpse in the cavity, the grave-chamber, and afterwards in the depression at the side of this. At a later time apparently the enclosure of the corpse in a narrow coffin