near Amrith, the ancient Marathus, is a very curious and peculiar structure.  It is known at the present day as the Burdj-el-Bezzak,[666] and was evidently constructed to be, like the pyramids, at once a monument and a tomb.  It is an edifice, built of large blocks of stone, and rising to a height of thirty-two feet above the plain at its base, so contrived as to contain two sepulchral chambers, the one over the other.  Externally, the monument is plain almost to rudeness, being little more than a cubic mass, broken only by two doorways, and having for its sole ornament a projecting cornice in front.  Internally, there is more art and contrivance.  The chambers are very carefully constructed, and contain a number of niches intended to receive sarcophagi, the lower having accommodation for three and the upper for twelve bodies.[667] It is thought that originally the cubic mass, which is all that now remains, was surmounted by a pyramidical roof, many stones from which were found by M. Renan among the debris that were scattered around.  The height of the monument was thus increased by perhaps one-half, and did not fall much short of sixty-five feet.[668] The cornice, which is now seen on one side only, and which is there imperfect, originally, no doubt, encircled the entire edifice.

The other constructions erected by the Phoenicians to mark the resting-places of their dead are simple monuments erected near, and generally over, the tombs in which the bodies are interred.  The best known is probably that in the vicinity of Tyre, which the natives call the Kabr-Hiram, or “Tomb of Hiram."[669] No great importance can be attached to this name, which appears to be a purely modern one;[670] but the monument is undoubtedly ancient, perhaps as ancient as any other in Phoenicia.[671] It is composed of eight courses of huge stones superimposed one upon another,[672] the blocks having in some cases a length of eleven or twelve feet, with a breadth of seven or eight, and a depth of three feet.  The courses retreat slightly, with the exception of the fifth, which projects considerably beyond the line of the fourth and still more beyond that of the sixth.  The whole effect is less that of a pyramid than of a stele or pillar, the width at top being not very much smaller than that at the base.  The monument is a solid mass, and is not a square but a rectangular oblong, the broader sides measuring fourteen feet and the narrower about eight feet six inches.  Two out of the eight courses are of the nature of substructions, being supplemental to the rock, which supplies their place in part; and it is only recently that they have been brought to light by means of excavation.  Hence the earlier travellers speak of the monument as having no more than six courses.  The present height above the soil is a little short of twenty-five feet.  A flight of steps cut in the rock leads down from the monument to a sepulchral chamber, which, however, contains neither sepulchral niche nor sarcophagus.