Where the stones are small, mortar has been employed by the builders,
but where they are of a large size, they are merely laid side by side
in rows or courses, without mortar or cement of any kind, and remain
in place through their own mass and weight. In the earliest style of
building the blocks are simply squared,[69] and the wall composed of
them presents a flat and level surface, or one only broken by small and
casual irregularities; but, when their ideas became more advanced, the
Phoenicians preferred that style of masonry which is commonly regarded
as peculiarly, if not exclusively, theirs[610]--the employment of large
blocks with deeply bevelled edges. The bevel is a depression round the
entire side of the stone, which faces outwards, and may be effected
either by a sloping cut which removes the right-angle from the edge, or
by two cuts, one perpendicular and the other horizontal, which take out
from the edge a rectangular bar or plinth. The Phoenician bevelling
is of this latter kind, and is generally accompanied by an artificial
roughening of the surface inside the bevel, which offers a strong
contrast to the smooth and even surface of the bevel itself.[611] The
style is highly ornamental and effective, particularly where a large
space of wall has to be presented to the eye, unbroken by door or
window.[612]

Occasionally, but very rarely, and only (so far as appears) in their
remoter dependencies, the Phoenicians constructed their buildings in
the rude and irregular way, which has been called Cyclopian, employing
unhewn polygonal blocks of various sizes, and fitting them roughly
together. The temples discovered in Malta and Gozzo have masonry of this
description.[613]

A peculiarity in Phoenician architecture, connected with the preference
for enormous blocks over stones of a moderate size, is the frequent