“And forasmuch as it is long time past that there was no general passage or voyage over the sea, and many men desiring to hear speak of the Holy Land and have thereof great solace and comfort, ... I shall devise you some part of things that are there, when time shall be as it shall best come to my mind; ... for I have oftentimes passed and ridden the way with good company of many gentles. God be thanked!”
APPENDICES.
I.
NOTE ON THE RESULTS OF EXCAVATION.
THE most celebrated of the controversies connected with Palestine refer to the site of the Temple of Herod and to that of the Holy Sepulchre. I have given an estimate of the results of exploration as affecting both subjects in various works, but since their publication other writers (not the majority) have in some cases reverted to the views which were held before exploration commenced, and which were deduced from literary researches.
The latest work on the subject (Professor Hayter Lewis’ “The Holy Places of Jerusalem,” Murray, 1888), very fully supports the views which I have advocated for the last ten years.
As regards these questions, it is clear that we are now in a position to study them from monumental evidence, which is safer and more convincing than any argument drawn from literary studies. The views now more generally adopted depend almost entirely on the consideration of such monumental evidence, and on study of the rock rather than on the vague and brief accounts of ancient writers.
As regards the Temple, the excavations have proved to us that a great building exists on the site having masonry of the same general character on its east, west, and south walls. The difference in finish of the ancient stones in some parts may most probably be supposed not to indicate any difference of date, but to be due to the work being in some places intended to be seen and in other cases hidden under earth. There is no evidence that any of this masonry is as old as Solomon. It resembles the work at Arak el Emir (second century B.C.), and the Greek style of the Acropolis (sixth century B.C.), and the Roman masonry of Baalbek (second century A.D.). The masons’ marks found by Sir C. Warren, and resembling Phœnician or Aramean letters, do not necessitate the idea that these stones are of Solomon’s age. The old alphabet was still but little changed in Herod’s days.