Rooftops in the Old City of Saida. I had been led to believe that these were set up as dovecots, however, it would appear that there is another explanation. In his Travels of Lady Hester Stanhope, Vol. III, p. 234, Charles Meryon, in a discussion of the prevalence of shards of pottery amongst ruins paraphrases Burckhardt thus, "He supposes (I quote from memory) the ancient Egyptians to have built their walls of those cylindrical pots (like English chimneypots) which, placed horizontally one upon another, are still very generally used throughout Syria for the parapets of terraces of houses ; whereby air is admitted, the view excluded, and little weight added to the subjacent walls." With a smaller hole in one end and completely open in the other, it would be a more plausible explanation of the function of this form of wall, which nevertheless, does not preclude birds using them as nesting boxes if left sufficiently undisturbed.