Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/204

 î 86 A History of Art in Sardinia and Juu.ka. marks, possessing none of the characteristics by which they could be identified with any dated, well-defined Semitic alphabet. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that some of the marks bear a distant resemblance to Aramaic letters, and that the dialect which these letters represent was diffused in those regions during the centuries preceding our era. Nor can more importance be attached to the blurred aspect exhibited in a red-painted block at the north-east angle. It is clear that the colour was put on at the quarry, perhaps to mark the place it was to occupy in the wall ; for similar drops, doubtless caused by accident, were found in the quarries from which these stones were taken. Hence it may be deduced that all the great stone blocks, with or without paint, with sunken face, which we have described under the appellative of "first method" belong to the structures erected by Herod. By this we do not mean to imply that there may not still exist traces of the coursed work which formed part of the first temple. All we maintain is, that the places where these precious relics might be sought with some chance of success, for obvious reasons, were not explored. It is not on the plateau that they may be looked for ; here the rock was too near the surface to allow founda- tions to be of any great depth. But it is not unlikely that the primitive stones were used in subsequent constructions ; that to suit them to the place or style of architecture they were intended for, they were cut and reçut several times. It may be asked, therefore, if in the substructures of the haram there where the line of the second wall was found to coincide with that of Solomon, we are not confronted by primitive stones, notably near the Place of Wailing. The fact that these blocks are identical with those on the portions of undoubted Herodian origin is not, of necessity, a proof against their priority of date. We may well suppose that Herod's builders were "practised hands," who aimed at securing uniform aspect to their structures, and that they found no difficulty in imitating the methods of their Phcenician pre- decessors. This very fascinating theory is, however, indirectly contradicted by authoritative texts : " The old foundations," writes the Jewish historian, "were torn up and replaced by others." A statement he reiterates lower down in reference to the south wall. 1 Connect- ing links in masonry would have been inadequate, as means of 1 Ant.Jud., V. xi. 3; XV. xi. 5 ; Bell. Jud., I. xxi. 1.