Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/279

 Furniture and Ornament about the Temple. 25 the same time of the exigencies imposed upon him by the material in the selection of the form and the ornament to be applied. Not to weary the reader with the somewhat prolix description of Iakin and Boaz, we refer him to 1 Kings viii., where it is stated that " the brass of the two columns, the sea, and the twelve bulls, which Solomon had put in the temple, could not be weighed. 1 Finally, we read in Jeremiah that "the pillars were 18 cubits, compassed by a fillet of 12 cubits, the thickness thereof being four fingers, and hollow {jfer. hi. 21-23), surmounted by a capital five cubits high, with network and pomegranates round about, all of brass. The round pillar also, and the pomegranates, says the author of Kings, were like unto these ; and there were 96 pomegranates on the face, and all the pome- granates round about were 100" (2 Kings xxv. 15, 17; 1 Kings vii. 15, 22, 45; 2 Kings xxv. 1 7 ; Jer. iii. Î 7S3'> 2 Chron.m. 15, 17). The evidence yielded by the texts goes to prove that the pillars were cir- cular in shape, 18 cubits high, with a capital of five cubits, and a bronze plating about three inches thick, making the tube's diameter three cubits, 9/1 1. The capital was in two unequal parts, of one and four cubits respectively ; the latter might be sub- divided into three cubits for the salient and one for the retreating section. The principal and more impressive mass of the capital is globe-shaped, spreading towards the top into a flower-cup, a lily, or, as some translate, a water-lily, whose broad petals are eminently appropriate to architectural ornament, their deep indentations 1 It may be observed that the words placed between inverted commas or brackets (1 Kings viii.) seem to be marginal notes, which did not belong to the primitive MS. Moreover, as the parallel passages mention but two fillets in all, one for each column, the s'b'h, " seven," should be read, sbkh, " one." (Reuss's note). -Capital of Bronze Column. De Vogué, Le Icmple.