An important portal stood before the halls of the temple. With a plan of 10 cubits deep and 20 cubits broad, the astonishing height of 120 cubits is attributed to this tower, a number appearing in the Chronicles, and repeated in the Septuagint and by Josephus, so that it cannot be regarded as the mistake of a transcriber. But even if the first measures are arbitrarily assumed to refer only to a small interior space enclosed by walls of enormous thickness, the constructive impracticability of erecting a tower of such height is evident; it appears impossible that the temple could have been preceded by a pile twice as high as the principal building was long, and six times as high as this was broad! We would not venture to present a restoration with such proportions, and must agree with Hirt, Streber, De Saulcy, De Vogué, and others, that the account is a Scriptural exaggeration, passed on from hand to hand. It is hardly to be explained by the suggestions of De Saulcy and Streber. The first of these authorities wishes to reduce the elevation by the supposition that one half of the entire height existed under the earth as a foundation, so that only 60 cubits remained visible above. This is ludicrous; the solid rock beneath the temple rendered such remarkable foundations useless and impossible to execute. Streber, also seeking to uphold the Biblical authority, would have it that the 120 cubits was obtained by adding together the heights of two pylons. But this is no less inadmissible, apart from the extreme improbability of heights having been given in so unwonted a manner; the portal appears, from its narrow width, to have been a single tower, and not divided, like those of Egypt, into two separate pylons. It is at least probable, however, that the structure rose above the main building; like the pylons of Egypt, it must have had a marked talus, and without doubt a cornice of scotia and roundlet, as these forms appear upon the monumental tombs of Siloam (Fig. 104)—the oldest of Palestine—and as this cornice was common in Phœnicia, and appears also in Assyria, upon the temple terrace of Kisr Sargon, and in Persia, over door and window openings. The entrance, 14 cubits broad, was probably diminished as its walls ascended, sloping like the outer angle of the elevation, so that the construction of the lintel presents little difficulty, especially when we consider the enormous stones employed in the restoration of the building by Herod, some of which Josephus relates to have been 5 and 6 cubits broad and thick, and 45 (!) cubits long. Above the lintel the same principle of a relieving triangle seems to have been practised, as may be observed in various parts of Egypt and in Mykenæ: the blocks over the door did not lie directly upon the lintel, but gradually approached from both sides above the jambs, leaving between them a gable-shaped opening, which was closed, in order to spare the beam beneath, by only a slab of marble, as at Mykenæ, or by light, thin masonry. This method of construction is indicated by the mention that a golden candlestick, dedicated by Queen Helena, was so placed over the temple entrance as to be shone upon by the sun; and especially by the reference to a triangle existing over the door which opened into the holy of holies. The first gate had jambs of olive-wood and movable doors of cypress, both overlaid with gold. It led to the larger hall, 20 cubits broad, 40 cubits long, and 30 cubits high; to which adjoined the holy of holies, a cubical space of 20 cubits side. The access to this, permitted in rare instances, was through a richly carved door, overlaid with gold and draped with a magnificent curtain. The separating wall was of gilded cedar. These two halls were surrounded upon all sides, with the exception of the front, by a large number of small chambers, in three stories, lighted from without by three rows of windows. These secondary sacristies were each 5 cubits in height within, and, with their ceilings, must have attained an altitude of 20 cubits. The holy of holies was consequently entirely surrounded, and must have been without windows, and dark. The larger space still rose 10 cubits above this side structure, and in this clerestory its windows, which are especially mentioned, must have found place. The flat roof, or, rather, the terraces upon different heights of which it was composed, mounted from the holy of holies to the portal tower in steps somewhat more than 20, 30, and perhaps 60 cubits high. According to Eupolemo (Eusebius), the covering was of copper sheathing.
The temple bore an upper story, explicitly described by Josephus, as it appeared after Herod’s reconstruction of the building, but which is only once mentioned before his time, with the remark that these upper chambers were overlaid with gold (2 Chron. iii. 9). The height of this second story is evident from Josephus, who gives 60 cubits as the total elevation of the building, while the space beneath it had but 30 cubits in this dimension. In regard to the extent of its plan, it must be assumed that it was not built above the lateral chambers or the holy of holies, as the height of the principal hall was far greater than that of the chambers; this would have made the upper story on entirely different levels, and have required staircases large enough to occupy the whole of the space above the 20 square cubits of the holy of holies; and the height of this chamber would, upon the exterior, have become thrice that of its length and breadth—namely, 60 cubits. Such deformities, impracticable of execution, without purpose, and offending all sense of fitness and beauty, may be rejected when the authorities for them are indefinite and contradictory, or, as is the case with Maimonides (1190 A.D.), are assuredly unauthentic. It is probable that the upper story was built only upon the ceiling of the larger hall; and that it was not formed of the massive materials employed for the walls of the lower temple, but, as is indicated by the statement that these upper chambers were overlaid with gold, was built lightly of wood. Such a manner of construction would have permitted a passage to be left around it in the width of the hall ceiling, thus uniting the suitability and the æsthetic advantages of a terraced form, and agreeing with Mesopotamian and Persian analogies. The suggestion may even be ventured that it was by a misunderstanding connected with these upper chambers that the fabulous height of 120 cubits was originally assigned to the portal tower, which, perhaps, was regarded as twice the height of the principal hall; if the elevation of the lower hall and the upper-story had been taken together, if 60 cubits had been doubled in the place of 30, this would account for the 120 cubits taking the place of the more probable 60.
The lower walls of the temple were built of hewn blocks of white marble. The remarkable statement that a layer of cypress or cedar beams always followed upon one of stone cannot be explained otherwise than as a reference to the interior revetment of the masonry with wood. The wall of the court, where the beams are said to have followed three courses of stone, must be considered as of triple thickness, its quarried blocks being hidden by a sheathing, like that of the temple. The statement that the ceiling joists of the smaller surrounding chambers were not sunk into the stone wall itself, but were borne upon the beams, now becomes intelligible; they rested upon the studding of the wooden revetment. The entire interior of the temple, exclusive of the passage through the portico, is particularly asserted to have been provided with this sheathing. The partition between the holy of holies and the principal hall was probably altogether of wood, as here only the two revetments were visible. Upon these walls were sculptured ornaments overlaid with beaten gold. This wood-carving, with its surface of sheet-metal, here took the place of the sculptured and painted decoration upon the walls of Nineveh; it is in this point that the chief difference between the mural treatment of Upper Mesopotamia and Phœnicia appears to have consisted. Quarries of alabaster were common in Assyria; Mount Lebanon, on the other hand, provided the most beautiful wood for carving, and Phœnician commerce procured the metals for the characteristic beaten work—the sphyrelaton.
The few notices preserved concerning the decorations of Solomon’s Temple prove them to have been similar, in both subject and design, to those of Nineveh; they represented cherubim, palms (the so-called tree of life), and floral wreaths. It was only in the cherubim and in the oxen bearing the molten sea that the exercise of sculpture in the full round was at all permitted, and these subjects did not greatly encourage the artistic study of nature. The cherubim stood in the holy of holies as guardians of the ark of the covenant. They were independent colossal figures, carved of olive-wood and overlaid with beaten gold. They were no longer, as in the Mosaic tabernacle, upon the lid of the ark—the mercy-seat—in a recumbent or sitting position, but stood at either side of the holy coffer, and were without doubt greatly different in style from their predecessors. In the consideration of the cherubim of the tabernacle, the similarity of these works to Assyrian parallels was denied, for the Israelites, immediately after the exodus, were naturally acquainted alone with the artistic traditions of Egypt; but this was by no means the case in the time of Solomon, when we have to deal with Phœnician styles,—that is to say, with a combination of various manners of artistic conception and expression. The cherubim of Solomon may fairly be assumed to have in the main resembled the monstrous guardians of Assyrian palaces; the chief deviation from the cherubim of Nineveh was that their wings were not folded closely, but were outstretched as if for flight, so that the tips of their feathers touched together over the ark of the sanctuary, and extended to the side walls of the holy of holies, measuring ten cubits in entire span. The ark of the covenant itself and the other vessels of the temple were either overlaid with gold or were of the solid metal. The altar of incense, the shew-bread table, and the seven-armed candlestick remained as they had been in the tabernacle; to them were added, besides many less important utensils, ten further lamp-holders of gold. As the beaten metal not only extended over all the carved walls of wooden sheathing, but even covered the horizontal ceiling, the eye saw nothing but gold—a decoration which the many-flamed candlesticks must have rendered particularly brilliant, but which was eminently barbaric, as the metal was probably not enlivened by colored enamels. It is in questionable taste, even in the most prominent members of an architectural composition, to outbid the artistic expression of a work by employing for it a material of too striking intrinsic value; but it is wholly condemnable to paralyze the concentrating effect, which is always attained by the moderate use of a very bright and valuable material, by its universal employment, and thus to lose the precious character of the centre through the attempted magnificence of the whole.
As is well known, Solomon’s Temple was destroyed at the command of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, in 587 B.C. The attempt to rebuild it was not entirely successful until Cyrus ended the Babylonian exile, and not only permitted the building to proceed, but even returned the sacred utensils, which had been carried off as booty, and kept in the Temple of Bel. This reconstruction, named, after the ruler, Zerubbabel, was not completed until after forty-six years, when, under Darius, all the difficulties in the way of its prosecution were overcome. There is reason for supposing that the influence of Persia made itself felt upon the style of the new work, but nothing of importance to the history of art is directly known concerning it. The magnificent restoration of Herod, commenced in 16 or 15 B.C., was executed in ten years, to be destroyed within a century by Titus, so that, literally, not one stone remained upon the other. The remodelled temple is not important to the history of Phœnician-Israelitic art; though the original plan and arrangement were in the main preserved, its style became a debasement of the Greek and Roman orders. The gigantic platform, the site of the building with which so many remarkable events are connected, will always continue to be of peculiar interest in the history of the world’s development.
The description of Solomon’s palace given by the Scriptures is too vague to convey any adequate conception of it. It was a building extended by columns and provided with an upper story: the shafts were of cedar-wood; their form is not mentioned. The walls were of stone, hewn rectangularly, as might be expected from the similar masonry of the temple. The cedar beams of the ceiling must be supposed, agreeably to Solomon’s preference for costly materials, to have been overlaid with gold. There is nothing in these descriptions to suggest Persian arrangement or details, which did not develop from Assyrian methods of building until four centuries later. As the Phœnician architecture of this epoch can be compared to that of no younger land than Mesopotamia, and as the plans of the known Assyrian palaces are provided with no halls of columns, it is natural to seek for the origin of the hypostyle disposition in Egyptian elements, which, in other respects, take so important a place in the development of Israelitic art. Buildings of wood overlaid with metal are, on the other hand, peculiarly characteristic of the Syrian coast.
All this magnificence has totally disappeared, and it would be natural to expect that, as in other parts of Western Asia, the rock-cut tombs in the vicinity of Jerusalem, preserved by their indestructibility, would give the most direct and trustworthy information concerning the Phœnician-Israelitic style. But the more ancient of these monuments—those erected before the time of the Seleucidæ—are of such extreme simplicity that, from lack of detail, they convey no understanding of Phœnician columns and entablatures, nor, indeed, of any characteristic architectural forms. A simple stairway leads to the smaller grotto graves, which, excavated in the cliff, were once closed by slabs of stones. Their plan is generally square, the ceiling cut to the form of a flat barrel-vault. In the larger family sepulchres the burial-chambers are grouped around an antechamber, the bodies in them being placed upon stone benches or pushed into coffin-like niches. When the entrance is at all architecturally characterized upon the exterior, which is of comparatively rare occurrence, it displays the heavy Egyptian scotia and roundlet (Fig. 104), or a simple framing with a gable and a ridge acroterium of double volutes, like the rock-cut tombs of Phrygia. (Fig. 105.) Where there is carved foliage in the gables and friezes, as upon the so-called tombs of the judges and kings, these are the conventional traces of a later period, though these ornaments frequently retain in design and execution the peculiar dry angularity characteristic of the imitation of beaten metal which is so universal in Phœnicia.