On the whole the architecture must be pronounced wanting in originality and in a refined taste.  What M. Renan says of Phoenician art in general[684] is especially true of Phoenician architecture.  “Phoenician art, which issued, as it would seem, originally from mere troglodytism, was, from the time when it arrived at the need of ornament, essentially an art of imitation.  That art was, above all, industrial; that art never raised itself for its great public monuments to a style that was at once elegant and durable.  The origin of Phoenician architecture was the excavated rock, not the column, as was the case with the Greeks.  The wall replaced the excavated rock after a time, but without wholly losing its character.  There is nothing that leads us to believe that the Phoenicians knew how to construct a keyed vault.  The monolithic principle which dominated the Phoenician and Syrian art, even after it had taken Greek art for its model, is the exact contrary of the Hellenic style.  Greek architecture starts from the principle of employing small stones, and proclaims the principal loudly.  At no time did the Greeks extract from Pentelicus blocks at all comparable for size with those of Baalbek or of Egypt; they saw no use in doing so; on the contrary, with masses of such enormity, which it is desired to use in their entirety, the architect is himself dominated; the material, instead of being subordinate to the design of the edifice, runs counter to the design and contradicts it.  The monuments on the Acropolis of Athens would be impossible with blocks of the size usual in Syria."[685] Thus there is always something heavy, rude, and coarse in the Phoenician buildings, which betray their troglodyte origin by an over-massive and unfinished appearance.

There is also a want of originality, more especially in the ornamentation.  Egypt, Assyria, and Greece have furnished the “motives” which lie at the root of almost all the decorative art that is to be met with, either in the mother country or in the colonies.  Winged disks, uraei, scarabs, sphinxes, have been adopted from Egypt; Assyria has furnished gradines, lotus blossoms, rosettes, the palm-tree ornament, the ribbon ornament, and the form of the lion; Greece has supplied pillars, pediments, festoons, and chimaeras.  Native talent has contributed little or nothing to the ornamentation of buildings, if we except the modification of the types which have been derived from foreign sources.

Finally, there is a want of combination and general plan in the Phoenician constructions where they fall into groups.  “This is sensibly felt,” according to M. Renan, “at Amrith, at Kabr-Hiram, and at Um-el-Awamid.  In the remains still visible in these localities there are many fine ideas, many beautiful details; but they do not fall under any general dominant plan, as do the buildings on the Acropolis of Athens.  One seems to see a set of people who are fond of working in stone for its own sake, but