There was also an internal ornamentation of the roof, consisting of a winged circle of an Egyptian character--a favourite subject with the Phoenician artists[620]--the circle having an uraeus erect on either side of it, and also of another winged figure which appeared to represent an eagle.[621] The monolithic chamber was emplaced upon a block of stone, ten feet in length and breadth, and six feet in height, which itself stood upon a much smaller stone, and overhung it on all sides.

A flight of six steps, cut in the upper block at either side, gave access to the chamber, which, however, as it stood in a pool of water, must have been approached by a boat.
The entire height of the shrine above the water must have been about eighteen feet.
Some other ruined shrines have been found in the more distant of the Phoenician settlements, and representations of them are common upon the _stelae_, set up in temples as votive offerings.

On these last the uraeus cornice is frequently repeated, and the figure of a goddess sometimes appears, standing between the pillars which support the front of the shrine.[622] There is a decided resemblance between the Phoenician shrines and the small Egyptian temples, which have been called _mammeisi_, the chief difference being that the latter are for the most part peristylar.[623] M.Renan says of the _Maabed_, or main shrine at Amrith:--"L'aspect general de l'edifice est Egyptian, mais avec une certaine part d'originalite.

Le bandeau et la corniche sur les quatre cotes de la stalle superiere en sont le seul ornement.

Cette simplicite, cette severite de style, jointes a l'idee de force et de puissance qu'eveillent les dimensions enormes des materiaux employes, sont des caracteres que nous avons deja signales dans les monumens funeraires d'Amrith."[624] From the shrines of the Phoenicians we may now pass to their temples, of which, however, the remains are, unfortunately, exceedingly scanty.
Of real temples, as distinct from shrines, Phoenicia Proper does not present to us so much as a single specimen.