Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/244

 212 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. Part L correctness, but it would hardly be worth while to attempt this except in a work especially devoted to Jewish art. For the present it must suffice to know that the affinities of the architecture of Solomon's age were certainly Assyrian ; and from our knowledge of the one we may pretty accurately realize the form of the other. Temple of Jerusalem. Although not one stone remains upon another of the celebrated Temple of Jerusalem, still the descriptions in the Bible and Josephus are so precise, that now that we are able to interj^ret them by the light of other buildings, its history can be written with very tolerable certainty. The earliest temple of the Jews was the Tabernacle, the plan of which they always considered as divinely revealed to them through Moses in the desert of Sinai, and from which they consequently never depart- ed in any subsequent erections. Its dimen- sions were for the cella, or Holy of Holies, 10 cubits, or 15 ft. cube; for the outer temple, two such cubes or 15 ft. by 30. These were covered by the sloping roofs of the tent, which extended 5 cubits in every direction beyond the temple itself, making the whole 40 cubits or 60 ft. in length by 20 cubits or 30 ft. in width. These stood within an en- closure 100 cubits long by 50 cubits Avide.i When Solomon (b. c. 1015) built the ]05. The Tabernacle showing one Temple, lie did uot alter the disposition in lialt ground plan and one ^ ' i tidns*^^ covered by the cur- ^jiy manner, but adopted it literally, only doubling every dimension. Tlius the Holy of Holies became a cube of 20 cubits ; tlie Holy place, 20 by 40 ; the porch and the chambers which surrounded it 10 cul)its each, making a total of 80 cubits or 120 ft. by 40 cubits or 60 ft., with a height of 30 as com]>ared with 15, which was the height of the ridge of the Tabernacle, and it Avas surrounded l)y a court the dimensions of which were 200 cubits in length by 100 in width. Even with these increased dimensions the Temple was a very insig- nificant building in size : the truth being that, like the temples of 1 The details of this restoration ai-e | work entitled "The Holy Sepulchre given in the '' Dietionary of the liible," and the Temple at Jenisaiem." Mur- 8ub voce " Temple," and repeated in my ray, 1865.