Cyrene: A Survey of Certain Rock-Cut Features to the South of the Sanctuary of Apollo
Basic Structure: A broad flight of twenty-one steps leads up from the south-west angle of the Temple of Apollo to a partially paved court immediately in front of the lower face of the scarp. This is given a quadrilateral delimitation by the angular revetment of an irregularity in the scarp to the west, and by the monumental water tank to the east of the entrance to the grotto. The entrance was hewn in the cliff face in the form of three arches (now much destroyed), and was revetted with large well-draughted limestone blocks. Of these, only the lower two courses are now in situ, but individual blocks of the upper courses have been collected and amongst them are those with crowning mouldings and one bearing the fragment of a Greek inscription (height:of letters, 25 cm. approximately).The interior of the grotto consists basically of a central oblong depression, paved and cemented, surrounded on the two sides and the back by a raised staging—thus giving rise to the term of reference ‘TRICLINIUM’—while between the staging and the walls are the tanks and channels: associated with the water supply and drainage.Considered longitudinally, the interior may be divided into three entities. The first extends from the entrance to a pair of rock-hewn columns bearing rude inscriptions. Immediately above this compartment lay the terrace of an ancient rock-cut path and its collapse has breached the path and totally unroofed this section of the grotto.