Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/288

 ;8 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud.f.a. Next in size and importance is the brazen sea, which we were able to restore entirely from the minute and graphic description of the text (Fig. i p). 1 It was of a type common to all Semitic temples, and which we know from a similar piece found at Amathuntis ; 2 but Hiram's vessel, in point of material and size, was vastly superior to the rock-hewn Cypriote monument. It measured five cubits in height by ten in width from brim to brim, and thirty in circum- ference ; it was wrought towards the lip as a gigantic convolvulus widely open, edged with a row of coloquinta (dwarf gourds). A second row served to mark off the frieze from the body of the vessel. They were cast in one jet with the recipient ; the bronze fe Fig. 172. — Brazen Sea. Restored by Mangeant. plating being a palm or one-sixth of a cubit thick, like that of the columns. Twelve oxen of the same metal were grouped in sets of three at either side of the extremities facing the cardinal points, their rumps disappearing under the basin which they sustained, whilst their heads, instinct with life and vigour, looked abroad. To support a vessel five cubits high, capable of containing 400 1 Our presentment of the brazen sea, the rollers or under frame, and the sacri- ficial altar (Figs. 172-174), were composed by the gifted Mangeant; who had under- taken the whole restoration of the temple of Solomon. Our ideas respecting it did not coincide with his ; but these fragments of his interesting work strike us as so conformable to the spirit and the nature of the Punic style, that with the kind permission of his widow and of his son, himself a distinguished artist, we have reproduced them. Mangeant acted as architect to the Phoenician Mission, and had thus ample opportunity for acquiring a practical knowledge of Syrian art. 2 Hist, of Art, torn. iii. pp. 280, 281, Fig. 211.