and garments made more striking by the employment of paint, surrounded,
as with a perpetual worship, the mystic cone. Stone lamps, shaped like
diminutive temples, illumined in the corners the grinning _ex-votos_
which hung upon the walls, and the curious pictures with which they were
accompanied. Grotesque bas-reliefs adorned the circuit of the edifice,
where the slanting light was reflected from the white and polished
pavement-stones."[638] In length and breadth the chamber measured sixty
feet by thirty; the thickness of the basement wall was three feet.[639]
Midway between the side walls stood three rows of large square
pedestals--regularly spaced, and dividing the interior into four vistas
or avenues, which some critics regard as bases for statues, and some
as supports for the pillars which sustained the roof.[640] Two stone
capitals of pillars were found within the area of the chamber; and it is
conjectured that the entire disappearance of the shafts may be accounted
for by their having been of wood,[641] the employment of wooden shafts
with stone bases and capitals being common in Cyprus at the present
time.[642] Against each of the four walls was a row of pedestals
touching each other, which had certainly been bases for statues, since
the statues were found lying, mostly broken, in front of them. The
figures varied greatly in size, some being colossal, others mere
statuettes. Most probably all were votive offerings, presented by those
who imagined that they had been helped by the god of the temple to which
the chamber belonged, as an indication of their gratitude. The number
of pedestals found along one of the walls was seventy-two,[643] and the
original number must have been at least three times as great.

Another Cyprian temple, situated at Curium, not far from Paphos,
contained a very remarkable crypt, which appears to have been used as a
treasure-house.[644] It was entered by means of a flight of steps which
conducted to a low and narrow passage cut in the rock, and giving access