MAONiriCFNT HUINS OF PALMYRA. 50Q 



pulchrcs, which are square lowers, four or live stories high, stand- 

 ing on each side of a hollow way, towards the north end of the city. 

 They extend a mile, and may anciently have extended farther. 

 At a distance they look like the steeples of decayed^hurches, or 

 the bastions of a ruined fortification. Many of them, though 

 built of marble, have sunk under the weight of years, or submitted 

 to the malice of violent hands. They are all of one form, but of 

 different size, in proportion to the fortune of the founder. In the 

 ruins of one of them, that was entirely marble, were found pieces 

 of two statues, the one of a man, the other of a woman, in a 

 sitting, or rather leaning posture. By these it is discovered, that 

 their habit was very noble, rather agreeing with the European, than 

 the present eastern fashions ; whence they are conjectured to have 

 been Romans. Of all these sepulchres, there are two which seem 

 to be more intire than the rest. They are square towers, five 

 stories high, their outsides of common stone, but their partitions 

 and floors within, of marble. They are beautified with very lively 

 carvings and paintings, and figures both of men and women, as far 

 as the breast and shoulders, but miserably defaced. Under them, 

 or on one side, are Palmyrenian characters, which are thought to 

 be the names of the persons there deposited. To judge of the con. 

 struction of the rest of these sepulchres, by what is observed in one 

 of them ; they had a walk quite across from north to south, exactly 

 in the middle, by which they entered. The vault below was di. 

 vided in the sane manner, and the division on each hand subdivided 

 by thick walls into six, or more or less, partitions, each big enough 

 to receive the largest corpse, and deep enough to contain at least 

 six or seven one upon another. In the lowest, second, and third 

 stories, these partitions were the same, excepting that the second 

 had a partition, answering to the main entrance, for the convenience 

 of a stair. case. Higher up this method was discontinued ; because 

 the building, growing narrower towards the top, could no longer 

 admit of it. - In the two uppermost rooms it is likely that no bodies 

 were deposited, except that of the founder himself, whose statue, 

 wrapt up in funeral apparal, and in a lying posture, is placed in a 

 nich, or rather window, in the front of the monument, so as to be 

 visible both within and without. Here is a Greek epitaph. 



Such were once the magnificent abodes, and such the noble se- 

 pulchres of the Palmyreuians. From what we have said of both, 

 we may well conclude, that the world never saw a more glorious 



