Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/294

 i6 4 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud/ea. r set on wheels, which the light hand of a slave caused to travel from one apartment to another, wherever the whim or fancy of the fair spinner directed ; ' whilst among the countless fragments of bronze unearthed at Altis and Olympia, were wheels which, owing to their diminutive size, can only have belonged to similar pieces of furniture. 2 Finally, at Caere, in Etruria, in the tomb called Regulini-Galeassi, from the name of the discoverers, have been found (Figs. 175, 1 76) 3 incense burners, moving lightly on wheels, the lotus and animal forms be- traying Eastern influence ; whilst Veii and Praeneste have yielded monuments imbued with the same characteristics. 4 From all these examples, therefore, it may be de- duced that the forms reproduced in the Solomonian temple were current in the workshops of Tyre and Sidon. We have evidence that thecèntre of the court was occupied by the sacrificial altar — a block of masonry, bronze plated, measuring twenty cubits in width, thirty in length, and ten in height. It is specified in Chronicles among the objects wrought by Hiram (2 Chron. iv. 1), whilst, singularly enough, it is omitted in the first part of Kings (vii.), but mentioned later as the "brazen altar" in front of the temple. 5 It is not easy to explain 1 Iliad., iv. 131, 132. 2 Furtwangler, Die Bronzefunde, etc., p. 40, 1880. 8 Grifï, Monumenti di Cere antica, Plate III. fig. 3 ; Museo Gregoriano, Plate XV. figs. 5 and 6. Our illustration was obtained from these two representations. i See Garucci's paper entitled " Sepulchral Remains at Veii and Praeneste," Archeologia Britannica, torn. xli. pp. 197, 286, Plate IV. fig. 2, 1867. 6 1 Kings viii. 64.