Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/271

 Furniture and Ornament about the Temple. 245 be it in the paintings of mediaeval or in the artistic productions of our own days. 1 If all is conjectural in regard to the physiognomy of kerûbs, there is no uncertainty as to the part they played and the position they occupied in the adytum, where they formed a kind of dais, one wing being horizontally stretched towards the lateral wall, whilst the other overshadowed the ark, a felicitous arrangement resulting in charming effect, suggested no doubt by the winged figures of Isis or Nephtis seen on Egyptian sarcophagi. Here and there kerubs, like scarabs, or the solar disc, are flanked by urœi ; 2 the right wing of one kerûb being inclined to the ground, whilst the other is raised heavenward. The order is of necessity reversed for the second kerub (Fig. 153). 3 This we may assume was the disposition of the Hebrew kerubs, whose necks were slightly bent so as to face the entrance and be easily distinguished by all. 4 Nor was their presence limited to the debir ; they reap- peared embroidered on the curtain which divided the two halls of the temple, on the panels of the walls and the leaves of the doors, where the skill and inventive faculty of the artist had no doubt introduced variety in detail and arrangement. For here he was no longer bound by the restrictions imposed upon him, by having to model his figures in the round. Their treatment being almost flat, admitted of greater freedom in general outline and richer colouring. As in Assyria and Phoenicia, these figures faced each other, a palm intervening between them to ensure diversity of 1 The etymology of the word kerub is uncertain. Hebrew scholars generally derive it from the verbal root kârâb, " digging," " making a rut." In that case it may with equal propriety be applied to a bird dividing the air, or the slow bullock ploughing the ground; whilst others assign it an Arian origin from the Sanscrit gribh, Greek ypvirs, German grief er — " seize," " grapple " — which the Jews borrowed from Chaldsea during or even before the Captivity, where Iranian elements may have been introduced at a remote period. 2 Hist, of Art, torn. i. p. 812, Figs. 542, 543. 8 Ibid., pp. 800, 801, Figs. 531, 532. Fig. 153.— Egyptian Naos in sacred Boat. De Vogué, Le Temple, p. 33.
 * 2 Chron. iii. 13: " They stood on their feet looking inward," i.e. towards the