84

REMARKABLE FORM OF ROOF.

increased dilapidation it has suffered since his day, has fully disclosed such to have been used. This fact should not, however, detract from the age of the building, as some of the oldest specimens of architecture in the world have mortar in their walls. On entering, we found a circular arch occupying one half the thickness of the wall on three of the sides; in the remaining side, which faces the mountains, the entrance is placed. This doorway extended to the roof, and its enormous lintel is still in situ. The roof of this building demands attention; it was formed of stone, and when standing, must have been a very splendid piece of architecture, being domed with vast stones put together so as to represent a piece of mail-work in the interior. It was thus constructed at each corner was placed a large slab that rested on the angle of the side walls, and projected inward, the inner edge being a segment of a circle, with the convexity toward the centre, and this edge was also grooved. Four similar stones placed over the arches filled up the spaces between these corner ones. Eight slabs of a like form, but somewhat smaller, were placed over these which they overlapped, their joinings meeting in the centre of the lower ones. Another course was placed above this, and so on till they approached at the top, when one stone closed the aperture. All these gradually decreased in size to the centre. The four lower corner stones, besides resting on the walls, were supported underneath by a portion

of the mason-work that projected inward, in the same manner as that found in the modern mosques, at the point from whence the dome springs. Although, somewhat different in style and finish, I found a similar form of dome in the pyramid of Sackara, formed by one stone projecting within another; and it has a similarity to the beehive dome of the Tomb of Agamemnon at Mycenae,* where the type is preserved, though it exhibits a different appearance; this being by far the most rich and elegant of that kind. Here we find it in connection with the arch, although it is said to have been of a different era. There were no means of admitting light to the interior of this building, which the learned antiquary, from whom I have already quoted, considers to have been a sepulchre. That it was such I will not deny; but I am inclined to think that it had a religious use also, and was a temple of very ancient date; temple-tombs being now generally acknowledged to be among the most ancient places of worship.

This extended inquiry into the character of tombs in general, and the description of those of Telmessus, may, to many of my readers, appear a

*The similarity in the construction of a rude dome, formed upon the principle of that at Mycenae, has been pointed out by my esteemed friend Mr. George Petrie, at New Grange, Co. Meath, Ireland. Several such forms of domes and arches are also found in both the military and ecclesiastical architecture of that country,

86

REFLECTIONS ON TOMBS.

dry and uninteresting subject; but have they never beguiled an hour in Westminster Abbey, or St. Paul's, or alone and unobserved, stole into the country church-yard at twilight's close, and sat amidst its grassy mounds and modest unpretending gravestones, or if they have not, let them read Gray and Hervey. The antiquary, the historian, the philosopher, and the naturalist, will find in tombs relics of the past ages, exhibiting obscure customs and mysterious classic allusions, and traces of extinct races of mankind, and ceremonies connected with the religion of the age and country, in which such races lived. Similarity of modes of sepulture also affords proof of identity of origin. No effort of man's

hand has survived so long as the trophy raised to the King of Terrors; and our immortal dramatist has truly said, that the gravedigger's houses are the most durable, for "those he builds last till doomsday." But far distant though the day since crowned by the garland of the Grecian maid, and distant though the day till woke by the cry "Resurge," there is still a warning voice to all that bids us

Pass with melancholy state,

By all these solemn heaps of fate,
And think, as soft and sad I tread
Above the memorable dead;

'Time was, like me, they life possessed,

And time shall be when I shall rest.'

A castle and fort whose walls are still in very tolerable preservation, occupy the summit of an

eminence, lying about half a mile to the S. E. of the present village. Seen at some distance it strongly

reminded me of the old Moorish castle at Cintra. It consists of an outer wall at some distance down the hill and a citadel at top, flanked by several square and octagon towers still standing; on the land side the rock is perfectly inaccessible. Two distinct eras are marked in the walls of this place, the lower part of which is of ancient mason-work, and built with enormous stones. The upper part is of more recent date, and was probably built by the Venetians or Crusaders ; the other was certainly built at a much earlier period, but there is no date or inscription to determine the exact time.

As we neared the shore upon the west, our attention was arrested by a pile that bore a great resemblance to the druidical remains of Stonehenge, but which, on examination, we discovered to be the enormous portals of the prosceneum that fronts the coilon of a theatre, which, though not quite so extensive as some such other Grecian edifices, it is in point of site and surrounding scenery inferior to none. This theatre was partly built, and partly hewn out of the rock in a sloping hollow of the mountain, which here partakes of an amphitheatrical form. It is divided by a stone flat or corridor, nine feet in width, into two sets of seats, having thirteen rows in each. The two lower seats have been covered up within the last thirty years. Each

888

CYCLOPEAN PROSCENEUM.

of these seats were twenty-two inches broad, and twenty high, and the face was curved so as to form about one half of a Norman arch, in all probability constructed, on the principle of acoustics, so as to render the voice of the actor more audible throughout the coilon. We know that the seats of many other theatres were so constructed; and that vases or hollow vessels (Hxea) were also placed under them to produce this effect.

This edifice is in a state of wonderful preservation, and measures in front of the proscenium one hundred and thirty-one feet, to which is to be added the breadth of the seats at the widest part. The stage can still be traced, with the scene behind it formed of that cyclopean work before alluded to; the enormous portals of whose doors excited our highest admiration. In most Greek theatres this scene represented the front of some palace or stately edifice; and in some instances, as at Herculaneum, a villa, or country seat. In them the central doorway, only entered by the principal actor, was called basileon by the Greeks, and by the Latins valva regia; the smaller one upon the right hand side, being appropriated to the second actor, and that to the left by those who took the minor parts. This basileon measures sixteen feet by seven, and is formed of five stones, two for each post, and one at top, which is ten feet long. The intervening wall between these doors no longer existing, adds very much to the effect. Two other and still smaller