Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/340

 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud.d.a. forth the expressed admiration of contemporaries and have been echoed by the chronicler ; whereas reference to the palace is, so to speak, squeezed in between the temple and its art-objects. Nor is there any allusion to a somewhat long distance having inter- vened between the two buildings (i Kings vii. 1-12). This, taken by itself, implies that the temple and the palace were close to each other, but we are not left to mere conjecture, for the words of the prophet form- ally state that only a partition wall stood be- twixt them {Ezek. xliii. 8). If the two edifices were conterminous, we have shown in another place that their juxta- position could not be from east to west, as a glance at Figs 106 and 109 will sufficiently indicate. There is another difficulty in placing the house of Solomon on the site occupied by the Baris or Antonia Tower, namely, that it would have been too far removed from the water-supply found in abun- dance towards Ophel, and this would have been a great incon- venience to a large establishment such as he is stated to have possessed. It is more natural, therefore, to locate the palace south of the temple, overlooking the houses which rose on the southern slopes of Moriah, near the fountain, where gardens could be laid out beyond the Pool of Siloam, with plenty of water to irrigate them. Sundry passages in the Old Testament allude to the relative posi- tion of the two buildings. Thus we read in Jeremiah (xxvi. 10) ' that 1 Likewise Joash (2 Kings xi. 19) "goes down " from the temple to the palace of the king, whilst the Lord says to Jeremiah (xxii. 1), who is supposed to be about the sanctuary, "Go down "... Similarly Michaiah, after having heard the reading of the book in the temple, "goes down " to the palace (Jer. xxxvi. 10, n). Fig. 209. — Stone Door-frame at Rabbath (Moab).