Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/268

 242 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud^.a. the threshold of the sacred edifice. The change it has undergone helps not a little to invest Punic monuments with a physiognomy distinct from every other in the range of ancient architecture. If by a touch of the magic wand a man not wholly unacquainted with the architecture of the Nile were suddenly to awake on the beautiful steps headed by the temple we have restored, with its due accompaniment of majestic portals and tall colonnades, he would fancy himself still wandering amidst Theban or Memphian pylons. Ere long, however, he would detect elements that had not met his gaze before ; and he would arrive at the conclusion that if the place was not in the delta, it could not be far removed from it, albeit a cunning hand had been at work here, which by subtle touches had modified their original character. We shall have attained our goal, and shall not regret the long hours spent in the company of the prophet amidst the precincts of the sanctuary, if those competent to decide upon the merits of our restoration, shall recognize in it a special building erected by- Punic genius and adaptiveness, to a God who hated images and forbade statuary in his House. § 3. Character of the Ftirniture and Ornament about the Temple. We specified some of the difficulties that we should have encountered had we been obliged in respect to the elevations to keep, on the one hand, to the meagre account of Ezekiel, and on the other, had we not confined ourselves to defining broad archi- tectural masses, such as would be read at a short distance. Yet these, however great, would have been mere trifles as compared with the portentous task of restoring the interior and the whole of the furniture, with no other than the fitful, feeble light yielded by the text, wherein the extent, the nature and materials to be used in adorning and furnishing the sacred edifice are not even named. Why this reticence on the part of the prophet ? Did he judge — probably from his own feelings — that to protract a long minute nomenclature would but weary his readers, and turn them from listening patiently to his stringent religious precepts upon which he set greater store than about a few ornaments ? Or was he satisfied with having traced the design of a monumental frame, which by the amplitude of its contour would yield commodious divisions wherein the celebration of public worship could con-