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CHAP. XXIV.

TOWERS IN SYRIA, IN MAN, IN IRELAND, IN CENTRAL SANCTUARIES IN ROCKS AND CROMLECHS.

ASIA.

SINCE then it has been shown that a close resemblance existed between the Celts and the Phoenicians in their consecration of pillars, and crescents, and oaks, to the purposes of religion, we may expect to find a similar correspondence with respect to another variety of the same Arkite monuments, where the pillar is hollow instead of solid; and therefore combines the two great features of the system, and, like the vaulted mound, is a type of the Ark, as well as of the mountain. Thus near the well of Samaria, several round towers stand on the hills on each side of an unknown date1; and at Tartoura 2 there is a ruined building on a peninsula, which the Franks call "The Accursed Tower," perhaps, because an idolatrous reverence adhered to it after the establishment of Christianity. I know not that there is much evidence to prove its original appropriation, except its site, and the fact that in the same neighbourhood, small low caves have been ob

1 Buckingham's Travels in Palestine, i. 461.

2 Tartoura is the Dora of Josephus, and the Dor of Joshua, xvii. 11. And since Dor signifies water in several languages, Tartoura may be interpreted, the Tower of the Waters.

served, probably sanctuaries, with benches of stone and cisterns of water near them. But at Hierapolis, in the propylæum of Deucalion's temple, two hollow towers stood in Lucian's time, of which he gives this remarkable account: - they were apparently 300 feet in height, and on the top of one of them a man resided twice a year seven days; which was just the length of the true Deucalion's continuance in the Ark, on the top of Ararat, after he discovered that the waters had abated from off the earth. But for what purpose were they built? It is a question of great importance to our inquiry; and this is the answer some say to facilitate converse with the gods on account of their height; others, to commemorate the period when men climbed into the highest trees and mountains, to escape from the rising deluge. authority of Lucian for asserting it to be an old and common opinion in Syria, that the round towers were Arkite monuments. And the truth of the opinion is corroborated by other circumstances: for not far off is a lake, in the middle of which stood an altar of stone, which seemed to float upon the water. "To me," says he, "it looks like a great pillar bearing an altar. Many swim there every day to pray; and great assemblies are held, which are called descents into the lake, because then all the Hiera are carried down to the lake for immersion."3 Towers exactly corresponding with the description of those in Phoenicia, except in

Thus we have the

Buckingham's Travels in Palestine, i. 192. 2 Genesis, viii. 12.

3 Lucian, De Deâ Syrià.

point of altitude, are still to be seen in the British Islands; not indeed in England, where the solid pillar was more in favour, and quite excluded the other form, but in the Isle of Man, one of those ecclesiastical towers remains, which are described by an ancient historian as narrow, round, and lofty.' It is nearly fifty-five feet high, and has four windows at the top, and remains of joists are visible in the walls so far its object might be ambiguous; but its situation marks its character. It is placed in the Holm, a small rocky island, not far from the ancient church of St. Patrick; and, like those in Ireland, the only access to it is several feet above the ground. The island is distinguished by many other Arkite features, besides its name. It contains many tall pillars and mounds, and one in particular, usually considered Druidical, is called Tinwald3, or the altar hill; and a large cairn is surmounted by three perpendicular stones, and encircled at the base by an arrangement of smaller ones. In Ireland as many as ninety-seven of these towers are said to be still standing; and the object of their construction has been a never-ending theme of controversy. They have sometimes been called Penitential Towers; and it has been contended, on the authority of ancient Irish manuscripts, that they

1 Turres ecclesiasticæ, quæ more patrio arctæ sunt, et altæ, necnon et rotundæ. Giraldus Cambrensis.

2 Tin seems to have signified a sacred place for sacrifice, a kind of high altar-the same as Tan in the East.

An. M., i. 94.

3 Gentleman's Magazine, January, 1829.

Bryant's Anal. of

4 Of these two mentioned by Mr. Collinson are near cathedrals

at Kerry and Downpatrick

two are near the ruins of churches,

at Rattoo and Kinnith; two were 'near churches at Cork and at Brigonne, but no longer remain. Archæol. vol. ii.

were used for imprisoning penitents, who were first placed in the uppermost story to do penance for a limited time; after which they were permitted to descend to the next floor, and so on by degrees, till they came to the door, which always faced the entrance of the church: hence they were called Inclusoria, and arcti inclusorii Ergastula.' But unfortunately for this theory, there is no evidence to prove that such successive stages ever existed; on the contrary, some of them are perfectly smooth withinside, and almost polished, not exhibiting a vestige of any footing for a floor." Mr. Brereton, therefore, who had seen seven of them, very justly remarks upon the improbability of such lofty towers, some of them being as much as 130 feet in height, being built for the single purpose of having one room only, and that not five feet in diameter, for penitents, especially since the expense of building them must have been immense. For in general the stones must have been brought from a very great distance, and probably the builders too-the workmanship is so good. But it did not occur to him how much greater is the improbability of so much labour and expence being bestowed on a mere belfrey (for he supposes they were only used to summon the worshippers, as in mosques), while the churches themselves, to which they must have been only an appendage, have wholly disap

1 Archæologia, i. 305.

2 In like manner the Asiatic tower, called Goom Buz Ecaoos, near Astrabad, which on the outside has ten salient and recentring angles, has no break in the inside, no floor, no vestige of stairs, and only one window at the top. - Miss Beaufort's Essay on the Antiquities of Ireland, pp. 117. and 613.

3 Archæologia, ii. 82.

peared. For universally the ecclesiastical edifices are of a much more recent date, and their contiguity arises from the places where they are built having been sacred before. But Miss Beaufort has given such good reasons for her opinion, that these towers could not have been intended for belfries, or beacons, or asylums, or hermitages, or sepulchral Stelæ, that it is unnecessary to go over that ground again. Her own solution of the difficulty is not much more tenable; for if the sacred fire was kept in them, why was a low firehouse built by the side of one of them, which is ninety-nine feet high, at Kells, in the county of Meath? And why at Kildare, where one of the loftiest among them stands, was it preserved, not in the tower, but by the Nuns of St. Bridget there? So deeply was this superstition rooted in the affections of the natives, that, although it was suppressed by the Archbishop of Dublin, in 1220, yet afterwards the fire was re-kindled, and continued to burn till the suppression of the Monastery itself, by Henry VIII. The firehouse is described by Holinshed as a vault', a form much better adapted to the purpose than that of a tower. Indeed it is difficult to imagine anything more inconvenient and unsuitable than those buildings must have been, so very narrow as some of them were in the interior, and

This vault was called St. Columb's house; but the tower was also called Radhaire, or the house of the Priest, from Rad, a building, and Daire, a priest; and accordingly the vault and the tower were sometimes combined, as at Londonderry; where the latter stands upon an excavated mound, vaulted, and lined with stone. St. Columb was the Arkite saint of Icolmkill, that is, the island of the Cell of Columb it is also called Iona, and both Columba and Iona signify a dove. Miss Beaufort's Essay on the Antiq. of Ir. p. 128.