Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/197

 Materials used in the Wall of the Enclosure. i 79 The design and wealth of ornamentation, which we read of as having been lavished upon the temple, imply long experience in the art of putting together pieces of wood, be it as large timber for roofing, or the more complicated inner arrangement, such as ceilings, wall lining, door and window frames. Before going further, it should be noticed that the blocks used by Solomon, notably those that were to serve as foundation stones, were of enormous size, some, as we said, may still be in situ, and if so, may be identified with those we have already described. Such an hypothesis is in accord with the opinion vehemently maintained by De Saulcy, 1 and coincides with what we know of the constructions of Solomon, as well as of the methods of the Phoenician builders. 2 As for the changes that were made upon Moriah, to widen the space for the structures that were raised upon it by the son of David, we refer the reader to a former chapter ; whilst the foot- note will tell him where to look for a circumstantial description of the same. 3 The Chaldees did not destroy the foundations of the House of the Forest of Lebanon ; for, as we have seen, they had been partly covered with detritus at the time of their erection, which the new ruins only increased. The second edifice, respecting which we have so meagre an account in Esdras, was speedily built upon the old site, and the altar raised for the morning and evening sacrifice; some old men, who still remembered the first temple, directing and pointing out to the workers the lines of demarcation. 4 As of yore, the builders were from Phoenicia ; and the forests of Lebanon furnished the woodwork. As to its dimensions, they may or may not have fallen greatly short of the former edifice ; for they are not clearly made out in the biblical narrative. But supposing them to have been the same as those of Solomon's house, the ornamentation and details throughout were, doubtless, as simple 1 Hist, de V Art Judaïque, 8°, 1858. See also, Mémoire sur les divers appareils de maçonnerie employés dans l 'enceinte du Haram-ech-Chérif de Jérusalem (Mèm. Académie des Inscrips., tom. xxvi. I e p.). 2 See Hist, of Art, torn, iii. pp. 108, 109, Fig. 6. 3 1 Kings v. 17 ; vii. 9, 12. Josephus, Ant.Jud.,XV. 3 ; XVII. xi. 3 ; XX. ix. 7. Both De Saulcy and De Stade think that the Jews borrowed their " cubit " from Egypt through the Phoenicians— that the cubit mentioned in Kings was the "imperial or government cubit," estimated to have measured 525 c. 4 Esdras iii. 3, 7, 12.