Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/332

 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud.ka. vestments of the high priest, cannot be sustained. Had this been the case, when settled in the Land of Promise, in the full enjoyment of a peaceful life, they would have erected a temple to Jehovah on the pattern of those which their sojourn in Egypt had made them familiar with. But we have satisfactorily established that the Jews had no religious architecture worthy of the name until Solomon. A complete knowledge of Semitic creeds as translated in the forms they left upon their monuments will not be obtained until these are known ; involving a thorough exploration of Idumaea and the whole Arabian peninsula. The tribes which inhabited this vast region at the beginning of our era were bound by a common language, or at least it was sufficiently understood by them, since Aramaic inscriptions have been found all over the country, to the very frontiers of Hejaz. In the present state of our knowledge, however, when so few monuments in the peninsula are known, and those inadequately described, it would be pre- mature to attempt analyzing them and arguing from evidence, of necessity scant and incomplete, about the influences that were at work among these populations when they erected these monuments. Those inhabiting the Persian Gulf were naturally brought in contact with Chaldaea ; between the Sabaeans and the Phoenicians there was a constant commercial interchange ; whilst the trading caravans of the northerners connected the Israelites, Moabites, and Ammonites one with the other. The imposing ruins left everywhere by the Greeks and the Romans do not enter into our programme. Nevertheless, it would be well to remember that before the diffusion of Hellenism, the better-known Arab tribes did not differ in manners and customs from those established on the banks of Jordan ; and although their gods were dissimilar, the manner of propitiating them was ap- preciably the same ; whilst the buildings erected to them were conceived on the same principle. Menhirs are known to exist in Arabia ; Palgrave noticed a considerable number in the district of Nedj and on the borders of Hejaz, where he met with specimens altogether on a grander scale than any in Moab ; for they are sometimes over five metres in height, formed by lintels with horizontal slabs. 1 Next to these, north of Medineh is a curious group of rock-cut 1 Narrative of a Year's Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia, vol. i. pp. 258, 259, 1865.