History of Ancient Art

by Franz von Reber

The proportions of the tabernacle, three times as long as it was broad, were like those of the Egyptian temple. It was divided into two unequal compartments, the front, f, being twice the depth of the innermost holy of holies, g. The altar for incense, h, one cubit square in plan and two cubits high, probably stood in the centre of the first space; it was of acacia-wood, covered with beaten gold. Like the altar for burnt-sacrifices, its corners were ornamented with “horns,” the nature of which has been variously explained, but which could have been nothing else than corner acroteria, like those upon the monuments, sarcophagi, etc., of Asia Minor, and those of the small altar found at Um-el-Auamid, in Phœnicia. Such acroteria—which do, indeed, somewhat resemble upright horns—were not merely for ornament, but served to hold the golden lattice-work (zer) surrounding the top of the altar, to prevent the scattering of coals. Next to the northern side-wall stood the table for shew-bread, i; in the southwestern corner of the space the seven-armed candlestick, k, was so obliquely placed that, to a person entering, its flames were in a line. The form of the candlestick is known from the representation upon the Arch of Titus, which, though possibly not copied from the original—as Josephus relates that only an imitation was paraded during the triumph of Titus—yet agrees with the main points of the Biblical description. The seven arms consisted of three concentrical semicircles and a vertical staff, all of which ended at the same height. The base was polygonal, and ornamented with sculptures, the support decorated with leaves, the arms represented branches with buds and blossoms, ending in the open calyxes of the flowers which bore the lamps. Its importance, as was the case with all the appurtenances of Jewish worship, was considerably greater in material than in artistic respects; the candlestick was without doubt solid, and was made of a talent of gold—worth more than four hundred pounds sterling. A relief of Thabarieh, probably older than the Christian era, shows its general form; it is given in Fig. 101 as further illustrative of the peculiar metallic style of the Phœnician-Israelitic art of stone-cutting.

The holy of holies, a cubical space of ten cubits on the side, was separated from the larger antechamber by four columns, l, which were also covered with gold, and stood upon silver sockets; they bore a second curtain of four colors. This cella contained the palladium of the people, the ark of the covenant, m, a coffer of acacia-wood, two cubits and a half long and a cubit and a half high, borne upon poles fixed in golden rings. Upon the lid, the so-called mercy-seat, were the figures of two cherubim, monstrous combinations of bulls, lions, eagles, and human bodies; or, at least, of three of these—the body of either the lion or the bull being adopted. Though De Saulcy and Layard do not doubt that these cherubim were perfectly similar to the symbolical monsters before the portals of the palaces of Nineveh, it must not be forgotten that the Jews were, at this period of their wanderings, so completely influenced by Egyptian conceptions of art that peculiarly Assyrian forms could not have existed in the tabernacle. The cherubim must rather have been Egyptian—entirely similar to the sphinxes, which, as has been seen, frequently presented this same combination of human head and breast, with the body of a lion. Neumann considers the cherubim to resemble the animals upon an Assyrian ornament, with sunken head and bent fore-legs; but it is more probable that they were crouched like a sphinx, or were, perhaps, sitting upon their hinder quarters, like the figures of a Phœnician throne of rather later period published by Renan. They were carved in wood and overlaid with thin sheets of gold, as was also the golden calf with which the Israelites in the desert sought to imitate the Egyptian idolatry of animals. This is all that can be said of the Jewish sculpture of the period; the Second Commandment entirely prevented any independent development of art.

The form and arrangement of the tabernacle are in the main clear. This is not the case with the monumental temple which Solomon, according to the plan of his great predecessor, erected to take its place, after King David had recovered, and brought to the plateau of Moriah (at present known as Haram-el-Sherif) the ark of the covenant, which had for some time been held as booty in the hands of enemies. The Biblical accounts enlarge, after the well-known manner of the Jews, principally upon the great cost of the materials, and are thus rather archæological notices than artistic descriptions. As might be expected from writers ignorant of art, the statements are, for the greater part, vague and confused. The conditions of Jewish architecture and sculpture appear radically changed since the time of Moses. Immediately after the exodus, Egyptian conceptions and manners of work were dominant; but, as time advanced without further direct communication between the two countries, these became more and more outgrown, and at last completely changed to a dependency upon the civilization and art of Phœnicia. The Egyptian element, however, by no means disappears, for, as has been seen, it existed in Phœnicia itself, as might be expected from its geographical position between Mesopotamia and Egypt: The Jews were not so far developed from a nomadic people as to be able themselves to create imposing architectural works. These call for centuries of practice in the art of building. The construction of their temple was given over to their northern neighbors, the more readily as Solomon was in friendly alliance with Hiram, King of Tyre. The Tyrian architect Hiram was sent with a great number of assistants to Jerusalem. Stone-cutters of Byblos worked, with the aid of Jews, in the quarries of Jerusalem; the necessary timber was hewn in the Phœnician forests of Lebanon; and upon the Jordan, in the vicinity of Scythopolis, a metal-foundry for the temple ornaments was built under Phœnician direction. An understanding of the activity among these artisans during the time of building may be obtained from a consideration of the number of workmen employed: eighty thousand stone-cutters were assisted by seventy thousand bearers of burdens. This multitude of laborers would not have needed one year to complete the temple, far less the seven years actually employed (1014 to 1007 B.C.), had it not been for the imposing substructure of the rocky plateau,—a mass of masonry which may almost be compared to the Egyptian pyramids; surpassing the remains at Ruad, if not in the colossal size of the blocks, at least in the exactitude of their workmanship. From the numbers said to have labored in Jerusalem at one time, it appears probable that by far the greater part of the immense foundations was built under Solomon, though the supporting vaults of the southeastern corner are known to date from the time of Herod, if not even later. The erection of enormous terraced foundations plays a prominent, and at times even the most important, part in the architecture of all the people of Western Asia.

The temple itself occupied but a very small part of the oblong area, more than 1500 m. in circumference, which was gained by this artificial extension of the rocky plateau. This space was provided with gates upon all four sides, to some of which access was had by arched bridges; it was surrounded by thick walls and double ranges of columns, asserted by Josephus to have been monolithic. This outer court, accessible to all, contained a smaller interior enclosure formed by other colonnades, and probably also by several large halls; four gateways with gilded bronze doors led to the interior, to which every worthy Jew had access. Infidels were debarred from farther advance by a grating almost 1.5 m. high, which enclosed the space corresponding to the outer court of the Mosaic tabernacle. The altar for burnt-offerings had been increased in plan to a square of twenty cubits, and to a height of ten cubits; an inclined ascent of considerable size was necessary to reach the summit. It is believed that the kernel of this altar is the holy rock in the present Mosque of Omar.

The brazen laver (the kijor) had developed into the so-called molten sea,—a basin of ten cubits in diameter, cast in bronze, and supported at a height of five cubits upon the backs of twelve bronze oxen. It may be conceived as very similar to the fountain of the Court of the Lions in the Alhambra. The oxen were so divided in groups of three that they faced the cardinal points of the compass, “and all their hinder parts were inward.” These figures, so purely Phœnician, must have been far more similar to the productions of Assyria than could have been the case with the Mosaic cherubim. Their heads probably resembled that shown above (Fig. 97) upon the relief of Saida, their legs those of the primitive animals upon the monument of Amrith (Fig. 98), or of the lions in the court of the Alhambra. The altar and the molten sea were situated before the front of the temple, the axis of which was turned east and west, at right angles to the general direction of the outer court, which ran north and south.

The entrance to the temple was ornamented by two bronze columns, known as Jachin and Boaz; their height is given in different passages as 18 and 35 cubits, and here begins the confusion caused by the Biblical contradictions which make it so difficult to obtain a reliable understanding of the nature of Solomon’s building. It cannot even be decided whether these columns were in the entrance, as architectural supports, or stood before the gates, without a function,—they being spoken of as in, upon, and before the portico. If they stood in the entrance itself, as supports of its lintel (as assumed by Baehr), it is probable that they did not divide its width into three equal intercolumniations. The diameter of the shafts was four cubits, and such an arrangement would so have occupied the total opening of the portal, only fourteen cubits, that but two cubits would have remained for each of the three passages. It is more probable that they were placed next to the jambs in the manner assumed for the front of the tabernacle. If the columns be supposed to have stood before the portico, without any function of support, like obelisks, all difficulty is avoided. In either case it would be important, for an understanding of the style of Solomon’s Temple and of Phœnician workmanship, to comprehend the long description given of their capitals. It is only clear that these were four or five cubits high, and had the general form of lilies, probably that of a calyx, as if derived from the floral capitals of Egypt. A column discovered in the foundation vaults of the temple exhibits a peculiarly heavy capital of this kind, which is, however, though evidently of primitive outline and proportions, characterized by the acanthus-like carving as a work influenced by the later art of Greece. It is to be observed that the normal Egyptian-bell calyx, without additions, could not be spoken of as having the form of a lily, by which name the curled ends of leaves were usually designated in the Orient. The volutes thus especially referred to must have been similar to those upon the Assyrian capital, and notably to those of the rock-cut relief in the Pass of Mashnaka (Fig. 99), which, situated upon Phœnician territory, offer the most striking analogy. An illustration of the extensive ornamental employment of the helix termination is offered by the decoration of a vase recently discovered in Cyprus (Fig. 102), and by pilaster capitals in the Cesnola collection. (Fig. 107.) It is an anachronism to bring the columns, because of their channelled shafts and some minor peculiarities, into connection with the forms of Persian architecture, which could not have been developed so long before the time of Cyrus. The additions—wreaths of chains, nets of checker-work, hanging pomegranates, etc.—of which the Scriptures render a chaotic account, cannot, in detail, be understood or explained. If the shafts are supposed to have been united by a lattice-work of metal, it is more natural to seek a parallel in the free-standing columns of an Assyrian relief than in the canopies of Persian thrones suggested by Julius Braun. That the chains, net-work, and the pomegranates did not hang upon the capitals themselves has been argued by Vogué, from the analogy of an ancient capital of the Mosque of Haram, and is made evident by Braun’s question, how, indeed, it would be possible to count two hundred pomegranates strung around a capital at such a height above the ground.