A Grand Flight Of Steps, Twelve Paces Broad,
With A Column Three Feet And A Half In Diameter At Each End Of The Lower
Step, Formed The Approach To A Spacious Pronaos, In Which Are Remains Of
Columns:
Here a door six paces in width opens into the cella, the fallen
roof of which now covers the floor, and the side walls to half their
original height only remain.
This chamber is thirty-five paces in length
by fifteen in breadth. On each of the side walls stood six pilasters of
a bad Ionic order. At the extremity of the chamber are steps leading to
a platform, where the statue of the deity may, perhaps, have stood: the
whole space is here filled up with fragments of columns and walls. The
square stones used in the construction of the walls are in general about
four or five cubic feet each, but I saw some twelve feet long, four feet
high, and four feet in breadth. On the right side of the entrance door
is a staircase in the wall, leading to the top of the building, and much
resembling in its mode of construction the staircase in the principal
temple of Baalbec. The remains of the capitals of columns betray a very
corrupt taste, being badly sculptured, and without any elegance either
in design or execution; and the temple seems to have been built in the
latest times of paganism, and was perhaps subsequently repaired, and
converted into a church.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 65 of 870
Words from 17682 to 17931
of 236498