Cyprian temples, and probably the temple of Paphos.[628] The floor of
the temple was, in part at any rate, covered with mosaic.[629]

This large building, which extended over an area of 36,800 square feet,
was emplaced within a sacred court, surrounded by a _peribolus_, or wall
of enclosure, built of even larger blocks than the temple itself,
and entered by at least one huge doorway. The width of this entrance,
situated near a corner of the western wall, was nearly eighteen
feet.[630] On one side of it were found still fixed in the wall the
sockets for the bolts on which the door swung, in length six inches, and
of proportionate width and depth. The peribolus was rectangular, like
the temple, and was built in lines parallel to it. The longer sides
measured 690 and the shorter 530 feet. One block, which was of blue
granite and must have come either from Asia Minor or from Egypt,
measured fifteen feet ten inches in length, with a width of seven feet
eleven inches, and a depth of two feet five inches.[631] It is thought
that the court was probably surrounded by a colonnade or cloister,[632]
though no traces have been at present observed either of the pillars
which must have supported such a cloister or of the rafters which must
have formed its roof. Ponds,[633] fountains, shrubberies, gardens,
groves of trees, probably covered the open space between the cloister
and the temple, while well-shaded walks led across it from the gates of
the enclosure to those of the sanctuary.

If we allow ourselves to indulge our fancy for a brief space, and
to complete the temple according to the idea which the coins above
represented naturally suggest, we may suppose that it did, in fact,
consist of a nave, two aisles, and a cell, or "holy of holies," the
nave being of superior height to the aisles, and rising in front into a
handsome façade, like the western end of a cathedral flanked by towers.