Another striking example of the mixed system is found at a little distance from Amrith, in the case of a building which appears to have been a shrine, tabernacle, or sanctuary.  The site is a rocky platform, about a mile from the shore.  Here the rock has been cut away to a depth varying from three to six yards, and a rectangular court has been formed, 180 feet long by 156 feet wide, in the centre of which has been left a single block of the stone, still of one piece with the court, which rises to a height of ten feet, and forms the basis or pedestal of the shrine itself.[64] The shrine is built of a certain number of large blocks, which have been quarried and brought to the spot; it has a stone roof with an entablature, and attains an elevation above the court of not less than twenty-seven feet.  The dimensions of the shrine are small, not much exceeding seventeen feet each way.[65]

From constructions of this mixed character the transition was easy to buildings composed entirely of detached stones put together in the ordinary manner.  Here, what is chiefly remarkable in the Phoenician architecture is the tendency to employ, especially for the foundations and lower courses of buildings, enormous blocks.  When the immovable native rock is no longer available, the resource is to make use of vast masses of stone, as nearly immovable as possible.  The most noted example is that of the substructions which supported the platform whereon stood the Temple of Jerusalem, which was the work of the Phoenician builders whom Hiram lent to Solomon.[66] These substructions, laid bare at their base by the excavations of the Palestine Exploration Fund, are found to consist of blocks measuring from fifteen to twenty-five feet in length, and from ten to twelve feet in height.  The width of the blocks at the angles of the wall, where alone it can be measured, is from twelve to eighteen feet.  At the south-west angle no fewer than thirty-one courses of this massive character have been counted by the recent explorers, who estimate the weight of the largest block at something above a hundred tons![67]

A similar method of construction is found to have prevailed at Tyre, at Sidon, at Aradus, at Byblus, at Leptis Major, at Eryx, at Motya, at Gaulos, and at Lixus on the West African coast.  The blocks employed do not reach the size of the largest discovered at Jerusalem, but still are of dimensions greatly exceeding those of most builders, varying, as they do, from six feet to twenty feet in length, and being often as much as seven or eight feet in breadth and height.  As the building rises, the stones diminish in size, and the upper courses are often in no way remarkable.  Stones of various sizes are used, and often the courses are not regular, but one runs into another.  A tower in the wall of Eryx is a good specimen of this kind of construction.[68]