Древнее убежище

Дальше, в том же районе, в том месте, где все еще видна старая дорога с глубокими колеями от колес колесниц, находится очень большое собрание погребальных камер, называемых арабами Кениссич, или церковь. Здесь сохранились остатки большого переднего двора из каменной кладки, от которого сохранились только части стен; но, хотя он очень просторный, превосходящий по размерам любые другие раскопки в Кирене, на нем нет ни надписей, ни эмблем. Ничто в нем не указывает на то, что он когда-либо использовался ни для религиозных обрядов, ни для погребения христиан, как предполагают некоторые путешественники, исходя из его названия.

It must be remembered that names such as this have no origin in traditions of the country, as its present inhabitants ascribe all that they see to the Christians (the Roum); they have no idea that any race of men occupied the country before them. To this is to be ascribed their excessive jealousy of antiquarian travellers, whom they believe to come furnished with information which will enable them to remove the treasures left by their ancestors, according to Arab belief, in secret places. I should conjecture that this vast series of chambers must have been appropriated to some civic or religious corporation, as its extent is far too great to have been intended for a single family.

This line of sepulchres, with its terrace, connected by flights of steps, extends in unbroken succession for[71] about a mile and a half, till it reaches a beautifully-wooded hill, where the tombs become rarer. Amongst the immense heaps of stones fallen from the fa;ades of the larger, are often seen fragments of marble, and excavations have uncovered many portrait-statues in every part of the Necropolis.

Turning back to the old theatre, there is found immediately beneath it the most splendid tomb which the ruins of Cyrene present, both from its gigantic dimensions and the excellent style of its architecture. It is entirely excavated, without any additions of masonry, presenting a large portico, supported by five square pillars, which forms a stately entrance to a very large chamber, succeeded by a smaller one. The centre pillars, with the rock which they supported, have fallen, and lie in one huge mass in front of the cave. It is now the habitation of a Bedawy, who one day very pressingly invited me to enter, to see his marble boxes, the fragments of two very elegantly-carved sarcophagi. Beneath this are the arches which I have already mentioned as belonging to a temple; and in the face of the hill, still further down, are some very large tombs, now devoid of all appearance of decoration.

In whatever direction one leaves the city, the tombs extend in long lines along the principal roads, they are found cut in the rocks of the most secluded valley,[72] or built in groups on the summit of rising grounds. Of these the most interesting, beside the northern Necropolis, are those which flank the old road leading to Baria, and the long terraces on the western side of the Wady Bil Ghadir. I did not see the former till after I had been some time in Grennah, other objects having engaged all my attention; but, even when accustomed to the variety and vastness of its northern Necropolis, this struck me with astonishment. It was a lovely summer evening when I first came upon this long street of tombs, which is called by the Arabs the Market-place (El-suk), and passed for such with one of the earliest European travellers in this country—Lemaire. The long, deep shadows, with the glowing yellow of the sinking sun, concealed the ravages of time, and gave to the scene an air of solemn mystery which impressed the imagination and the eye. At every step some picturesque group of sarcophagi, or some large mausoleum, arrested the attention, and the sun had long set before I turned homewards. I often revisited this scene, and each time with renewed enjoyment. To reach it, one leaves the city by the gate near to what is supposed to have been the market-place of later times, when the traces of the old road soon show themselves. It is flanked on the left by a rock, artificially smoothed, and covered in a long row with niches square or oblong, and about one-third of[73] their length in depth. Some have a square hole at the bottom, about three inches deep, which, though sometimes in the centre, is more often on one side. Such niches I have met with in other places, but here they are more numerous, and in a continuous line for some distance, interrupted once or twice by the door of a sepulchre. Their object it is difficult to determine; they could not have contained urns, for they are too small, as well as too exposed, being not more than three feet above the level of the road. They might have been regarded as receptacles for exvotos, had they been placed at a greater height. In this line of tombs are some remarkable structures, peculiar, I believe, to the Cyrenaica—circles of five or six feet high, surrounding a sarcophagus of the usual form. Most of them are in a very dilapidated condition, but there is one still nearly entire. It is formed of three layers of good masonry, making a square platform, on which the sarcophagus is placed, with a circle inscribed in the square of the base, formed by a ring of stones placed endwise in juxtaposition, no cement remaining between them; their dimensions are about five feet by three.

At the end of this street of tombs, turning to the left, and riding between low hills, where excavations and remains of buildings are rare, one comes to a quarter of the Necropolis unique in its ensemble, but[74] not in its individual parts. I have already mentioned the sarcophagi hewn out from the solid rock, which are found so frequently mixed with tombs of other forms; here they occur in large groups, rising one above the other, on the tops of the low hills out of which they are cut. The four sides of some of these sarcophagi stand clear of the rock, which is levelled all round; in others, only three sides or two are thus freed; many are in connected groups, three or four in a line, with no other external separation than a small space between their lids, and a narrow watercourse, to drain off the rains falling from their sloping roofs.

Continuing to make a wide circuit of the city, one comes upon the ruins of two forts, in one of which is a large cistern; thence, keeping to the left, the monuments are more scattered, but they assume larger proportions, and date, probably, from the times of the greatest prosperity. Some are circular towers on a square base, like the tomb of Cecilia Metella, near Rome; others have the form of a double cube, with roofs sloping at the sides, and terminated at the ends with triangular frontons. A partition, running the length of the building, generally separates these into two chambers, having a further division in height, so as to form two stories. The greater number of tombs in this direction present vestiges of former enrichment[75] with statues or marble, and their sides are invariably decorated with flat pilasters. Most of these monuments are erected over excavated caves, which gives the idea of their being connected; the monument may have been added to the original cave-tomb, or the former destined for the master, and the latter for his slaves or freedmen. No part of the ruins of Cyrene offers so good a chance of profitable excavations as the tombs in this direction, but I am not sanguine in the hopes of the discovery of any objects in the highest style of art. Not a trace of an inscription is to be found on any of these monuments.