Time has not left us any perfect structural tombs in all these places, though there can be little doubt but they were once numerous. Almost the only tomb of this class constructed in masonry known to exist, and which in many respects is perhaps the most interesting of all, is found in Asia Minor, at Mylassa in Caria. In form it is something like the free-standing rock-cut examples at Jerusalem. As shown in the woodcut (No. [242]), it consists of a square base, which supports twelve columns, of which the eight inner ones support a dome, the outer four merely completing the square. The dome itself is constructed in the same manner as all the Jaina domes are in India (as will be explained hereafter when describing that style), and, though ornamented with Roman details, is so unlike anything else ever built by that people, and is so completely and perfectly what we find reappearing ten centuries afterwards in the far East, that we are forced to conclude that it belongs to a style once prevalent and long fixed in these lands, though this one now stands as the sole remaining representative of its class.
242. Tomb at Mylassa. (From ‘Antiquities of Ionia,’ published by the Dilettanti Society.)
Another example, somewhat similar in style, though remotely distant in locality, is found at Dugga, near Tunis, in Africa. This, too, consists of a square base, taller than in the last example, surmounted by twelve Ionic columns, which are here merely used as ornaments. There were probably square pilasters at the angles, like that at Jerusalem (Woodcuts Nos. [238], [239]), while the Egyptian form of the cornice is similar to that found in these examples, though with the omission of the Doric frieze.
It apparently originally terminated in a pyramid of steps like the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, and a large number of structural tombs which copied that celebrated model. Nothing of this now remains but the four corner-stones, which were architecturally most essential to accentuate the weak lines of a sloping pyramid in such a situation. Taken altogether, perhaps no more graceful monument of its class has come down to our days than this must have been when complete.
243. Tomb of Dugga. (From a drawing by F. Catherwood.)
Besides these there are in Algeria two tombs of very great interest, both from their size and the peculiarity of their forms. The best known is that on the coast a short distance from Algiers to the westward. It is generally known as the Kubr Roumeïa, or Tomb of the Christian Virgin—a name it acquired from its having four false doors, each of a single stone divided into four panels, and the stile between them forming a cross, which has consequently been assumed to be the Christian symbol. The building itself, which is circular, and as nearly as may be 200 ft. in diameter, stands on a square platform measuring 210 ft. The perpendicular part is ornamented by 60 engaged columns of the Ionic order, and by the four false doors just mentioned; above this rose a cone—apparently in 40 steps—making the total height about 130 ft. It is, however, so ruined that it is very difficult to feel sure about its exact dimensions or form.
244. Plan of the Kubr Roumeïa. (From Berbrugger.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.