DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18096#0062
intervals in the walls of the gallery to receive lamps, and
in the central chamber are two niches for similar purposes or for
cinerary vases. Outside and about 10 feet in front of the entrance
are indications of a raised stone platform, where the ceremony
of cremation was probably performed, and where the funeral
urn or cinerarium was deposited. The external masonry of the
monument is of coarse hard limestone, but the interior filling is
of tufa, solidly constructed. The courses of stone are laid with
great regularity, breaking bond from top to bottom. They were
put together with metal cramps which have long since dis-
appeared, though the mortices in the blocks to receive them are
very conspicuous. The masonry of the gallery and the cham-
bers is still in good preservation, having been constructed with
large blocks of squared and dressed limestone, and finely
jointed. Mortar, if used at all, must have been very thin, and
the gallery was apparently faced with thin plaster. The
dilapidated condition of the monument externally is attributable
to numerous unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the interior in
search of treasure, more than once with the aid of artillery. So
solid is the construction that, even in its exposed situation, it
might have resisted the wear of nineteen centuries and remained
fairly perfect to the present day if the destructive Arab had
never passed over the land.
During a long period succeeding the Roman occupation of
North Africa, when the country was overrun successively by
Vandals, Byzantines, and Arabs, the traditions associated with
this gigantic tomb and the purposes of its erection seem to have
been forgotten. So recently as the time of Shaw it was known
by the Arab name of Maltapasi, or Treasure of the Sugarloaf.
How it came to receive the absurd appellation by which it is
now universally known, ' Le Tombeau de la Chretienne,' is not
difficult to explain. Hear what Dr. Judas, a learned Orientalist,
says on the subject. The term Kubr-er-Roumiah of the Arabs
is the ancient Phoenician designation which, taken in its original
sense, means ' Tombeau Royal' The natives, instead of trans-
lating this foreign word Roumiah, as they ought to have done,
have given it the same meaning as a similarly sounding word
in their own language, Roumi, viz. ' Strangers of Christian
origin,' the feminine being Roumiah. And the French mis-
translation originated in a misinterpretation of a feature in the
in the central chamber are two niches for similar purposes or for
cinerary vases. Outside and about 10 feet in front of the entrance
are indications of a raised stone platform, where the ceremony
of cremation was probably performed, and where the funeral
urn or cinerarium was deposited. The external masonry of the
monument is of coarse hard limestone, but the interior filling is
of tufa, solidly constructed. The courses of stone are laid with
great regularity, breaking bond from top to bottom. They were
put together with metal cramps which have long since dis-
appeared, though the mortices in the blocks to receive them are
very conspicuous. The masonry of the gallery and the cham-
bers is still in good preservation, having been constructed with
large blocks of squared and dressed limestone, and finely
jointed. Mortar, if used at all, must have been very thin, and
the gallery was apparently faced with thin plaster. The
dilapidated condition of the monument externally is attributable
to numerous unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the interior in
search of treasure, more than once with the aid of artillery. So
solid is the construction that, even in its exposed situation, it
might have resisted the wear of nineteen centuries and remained
fairly perfect to the present day if the destructive Arab had
never passed over the land.
During a long period succeeding the Roman occupation of
North Africa, when the country was overrun successively by
Vandals, Byzantines, and Arabs, the traditions associated with
this gigantic tomb and the purposes of its erection seem to have
been forgotten. So recently as the time of Shaw it was known
by the Arab name of Maltapasi, or Treasure of the Sugarloaf.
How it came to receive the absurd appellation by which it is
now universally known, ' Le Tombeau de la Chretienne,' is not
difficult to explain. Hear what Dr. Judas, a learned Orientalist,
says on the subject. The term Kubr-er-Roumiah of the Arabs
is the ancient Phoenician designation which, taken in its original
sense, means ' Tombeau Royal' The natives, instead of trans-
lating this foreign word Roumiah, as they ought to have done,
have given it the same meaning as a similarly sounding word
in their own language, Roumi, viz. ' Strangers of Christian
origin,' the feminine being Roumiah. And the French mis-
translation originated in a misinterpretation of a feature in the