Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/264

 240 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud.ka. which leads into the passage running into the central walk divid- ing the chambers on either side is shown in Plate V., somewhat in front of the pylon of the temple. Behind the parbar, to the west, are a series of buildings, the possible use of which, under the kings of Judah, we have specified in another place. On the pre- sumption that this block of masonry, secluded from all the rest, had a particular destination, we have assigned thereto an entrance of its own, with a chamber for a doorkeeper to watch the in and outflow of the multitude. We entered the sanctuary by the Eastern Gate, and worked our way to the west portal ; and tried during our passage to do for the reader what the prophet did for his countrymen. Unlike him, however, we could not expect to be understood by references of the barest kind. But verbal description would have been inadequate, had we not had the immense advantage of plates and diagrams to help our meaning in a way that explanations, however minute, could never have accomplished. It is our firm conviction that the presentment in plan and eleva- tion which we offer to the public is nearer to reality than any that have been essayed, not excepting those of late years. As for similar attempts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they were but the reflex of the time to which they belonged. During the former, Roman and Italian Renaissance style of architecture obtained ; instanced in the restoration of Willapand ; ' whilst in the latter that of the late Renaissance reigned supreme. 2 It was reserved for a better informed judgment to perceive that not in Vetruvius, nor among his followers were to be found the elements and forms of a monument erected in distant Judaea two thousand years ago. The deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs in the first decades of this century, revealed a new world to Western scholars ; when with pardonable enthusiasm the origin of everything in heaven and earth was ascribed to the land of the mysterious sphinx ; just as it had been to Greece and Rome before. Assyrian tablets and Assyrian palaces, displaced Egypt from her elevated 1 In Ezechidchen Explanatioties and Apparatus urbis ac Templi Hierosolomytani, torn. ii. Rome, 1 596-1 608. 2 Père B. Lami, De Tabernaculo fœderis, de sanda Civit. Jerusalem et de Templo ejus. Paris, 1720. Lightfoot (2 vols., Anvers, 1699) heads his work with an excellent plan. Hirt only restored the last temple, where he could with propriety introduce Doric and Ionic orders of architecture; whilst Dom Calmet's plan and view of the temple are on so reduced a scale as to render them valueless.