Archibald Robert Stirling Kennedy and Richard Phené Spiers

“ Egyptian Temples.—In the architectural sense the earliest temples in Egypt probably consisted only of a small cella, or sanctuary, with a portico, such as are represented in the models of soul-houses found in 1907 by Flinders Petrie at Rifeh; in front of these various additions were made, so that eventually the temple assumed far greater importance than was at first contemplated. ”

“ If one cubit is allowed for the partition wall corresponding to the space in Herod's temple, where a curtain took the place of the wall, we obtain a total of 73 cubits for the length of the naos and of 32 for the outside width, or 107 ft. by 47. If 3 cubits—equal to the thickness of the wall of the naos above the side-chambers—be allowed for the outer wall of the latter, the extreme width of the temple works out at 48 cubits, or 701⁄2 ft. Adopting Ezekiel's thickness of 5 cubits for the front wall of the porch, we reach a total of 96 cubits or 141 ft. ”

“ In Roman temples the posticum is rarely found; the portico, on the other hand, was increased in importance, being frequently the depth of three bays or columniations. In most of the early Greek temples the cellas were comparatively narrow, owing to the difficulty of roofing them over, as the Greeks do not seem to have been acquainted with the principle of the trussed beam. When therefore more than the usual width was required it became necessary to introduce columns on each side within the cella to carry the ceiling and roof, the earliest example of which existed in the Heraeum at Olympia. ”

“ The Site of the Temple.—On this important point our earliest authority is silent. It is now universally acknowledged, however, that the whole complex of buildings erected by Solomon stood along the crest of the eastern hill, crowned by the temple at the highest point, as Josephus expressly testifies (Bell. Jud.; V. v. 1, with which compare the letter of (Pseudo) Aristeas, sect. 84) . This at once brings the site of the temple into proximity to the world-famous sacred rock, the sakhra, over which now stands the building known as the Mosque of Omar, and, more correctly, as the Dome of the Rock. ”

“ To a certain extent the same conservative principle seems to have governed the design of all other temples, and even the temple at Edfû, which was set out on a plan conceived from the first, has the appearance of having been added to at various periods, the fronts of the inner halls showing inside those built in front. It is not only in the plan that the close resemblance of one building to another is shown ”

“ As the pillars doubtless stood on plinths, the total height of each will have been at least 35 ft. Such free-standing pillars were a feature of temple architecture in Phoenicia and elsewhere in western Asia, as later reproductions on local coins attest, and would appear to Solomon's Phoenician architects as a natural adjunct of his temple Jachin and Boaz, therefore, may be regarded as conventional symbols of the Deity for whose worship the temple was designed. ”

“ The area of the platform on which Solomon's temple stood probably measured 100 cubits by 60, as in the plan annexed.
As regards the height of the various parts even fewer data are available. Our primary source gives the height of “the house” as 30 cubits (1 Kings vi. 2) . By the great majority of previous students this has been understood to mean that a single flat roof, at this height from the floor, covered the three parts—porch, hêkāl and dĕbîr—leaving an empty space of 10 cubits above the last of these. ”

“ Thus the general disposition of the temple with its walled court, porch or vestibule and naos has been shown by modern excavation, and by later representations on coins, to be characteristic of Phoenician and North Syrian temple architecture. Here, however, we have an adaptation of the earlier temple architecture of Egypt. Egyptian influence is most clearly seen in the gradual decrease in the illumination of the several parts. In the temple court, as in its Egyptian counterpart, men worshipped under the bright eastern sky ”

“ On the other hand, a characteristic feature of the contemporary Egyptian temples is the, gradual diminution in the height of their component parts from front to back (Maspero, L'Archéologie égyptienne (1907) , p. 77; Erman, Handbk. of Egyptn. Religion, 41; cf. the restoration of a typical temple in Perrot and Chipiez, Anct. Egypt. Art. i. 373, and in Erman, Life in Anct. Egypt, 280) .
In this respect the present writer believes that Solomon's temple followed the Egyptian model, the height decreasing as one proceeded from the porch to the hêkāl, dĕbîr and side-chambers respectively. ”

“ The next in date would be the sepulchral temple built by Mentuhotep (2832-2796) adjoining Deir el Bahri at Thebes; then follows the sanctuary of Karnak, built by Senwosri (Usertesen) I. (2758-2714) , which formed the nucleus of that immense temple, which covered an area of 400,000 sq. ft. This temple may be taken as an extreme type of the accumulation which is found in nearly all the Egyptian temples, owing to the additions made to the original structure by successive monarchs, instead of rebuilding, as was the general custom in all other styles. ”

“ In front of the naos or cella of the Greek temple there was always a pronaos, viz. a vestibule with two or more columns in antis, and in the rear a similar feature known as the opisthodomus or treasury; in a few cases, as in the Parthenon, this formed a separate chamber, which was entered through a similar vestibule to that in front of the naos; this same vestibule in the absence of the separate chamber was sometimes enclosed with bronze grilles and used as Fig. 18. the opisthodomus ”

“ A third site, still within the present Haram area, but towards its south-west angle, favoured by Fergusson (The Temples of the Jews) , Robertson Smith (Ency. Brit., 9th ed., art. “Temple”) and others is open to even more serious objection, and has no prominent advocate at the present day.
(b) The Temple Building.—In the fourth year of his reign Solomon “began to build the house of the Lord” with the laying of a massive foundation of “great stones,” as required by the rapid fall of the ground to the west of the sakhra. ”

“ While the prototype of the temple itself is to be sought, as has been said, in Egypt, Babylonian influence is clearly traceable in the symbolical “brazen sea,” the apsu of contemporary Babylonian, and doubtless also Phoenician, temples. The bronze lavers, finally, have been found to be dependent, both in their construction and in the motifs and execution of their reliefs, on the art of the Aegean. From Crete and Cyprus they passed through Phoenician intermediaries to Syria and Palestine. ”

“ Adjoining the hêkāl on the west lay the dĕbîr or sanctuary, later termed “the most holy place” (lit. “holy of holies”) . The inside space formed a perfect cube of 20 cubits, say 30 ft., in length, breadth and height (vi. 20) , symbolizing the perfection of the Deity, for whose abode this part of the naos was specially designed. The dĕbîr, as has been said, was separated from the hêkāl by a transverse wall, whose existence we are left to infer from the obscure description of the door between the two compartments (vi. 31, see next section) . [2]
Fig. 1.—Ground Plan of Solomon's Temple. ”

“ One such factor came into play when men began to represent the deity by means of an image, or even when some object, whether natural, like the black stone of Mecca, or manufactured, like the ark of the Hebrews, came to be regarded as specially sacred from its association with the deity. ”

“ The figures given are naturally those of the two extremes, which were not to be exceeded, viz. 60 cubits for the extreme height, that of the porch, and the same figure for the extreme width, that of the raised platform. ↑ The overlaying of the floor with gold (1 Kings vi. 30) is a later interpolation; the same is probably true of the gilding of the sculptures on the walls, which may have been added at a later date (cf. Ezek. xli. 18) . ↑ This partition wall, it will be remembered, had to support the back wall of the hêkāl according to the view of the temple architecture advocated above. ”

“ There is every reason for assuming that the massive foundation courses of the earlier temple were still in situ, and available for the new building. [13] The latter's inferiority, attested by Hag. 3, was rather in respect of its decoration and equipment, as compared with the magnificence of the first temple, than as regards the size of the building. The dimensions given in the royal decree (Ezra vi. 3) —60 cubits for height and the same for breadth—probably refer, as was pointed out in a previous section, to the extremes of height and breadth applicable to the porch and platform respectively. ”

“ A more modest height of 60 cubits (88 ft.) , equal to the extreme width, gives at least an element of proportion to the edifice which is altogether wanting in the traditional figures (compare the accompanying cross section, fig. 4) .
The open entrance to the porch now measured 40 cubits by 20, equal to the section of the holy place. The “great door of the house,” 20 cubits high and 10 wide, was covered with gold; in front was suspended a richly embroidered Babylonian veil, while above the lintel was fixed a huge golden vine.
(e) The Temple Furniture.—This remained as before. ”

“ This custom is at variance with that which takes place in the development of other architectural styles, Fig. 5.—Plan of Mammeisi Temple, Philae. where the older buildings are constantly taken down and rebuilt in accordance with the increased knowledge acquired in construction and design. It follows from this that although the Egyptian temples vary in their dimensions and extent, as a rule they present the same disposition of plan. ”

“ Here our only clue is furnished by the figures for the correspond in walls of Ezekiel's temple, but the necessary caution has not hitherto been observed in a plying them to the proportions of the actual temple of Solomon. ”

“ The total area covered by the sanctuary, including the terrace or khĕl, is entered as 315 cubits (462 ft.) across the rock from west to east, and 250 cubits (367 ft.) from north to south (for the detailed measurements see Exp. Times, xx. 181 ff., 271 ff.) . The upper court shows an area of 170 cubits by 160, the lower court has a free space between the colonnades of 135 cubits (the Mishnah figure) by an average width of 110 cubits.
(c) The Altar of Burnt-offering.—Herod's great altar (D on the plan) was formed of unhewn stones, like that which preceded it. ”

“ The second change was that made in the capitals of the columns, which are of wonderful diversity of design, even in the same hall, including every variety of river plant, in addition to the papyrus and lotus flowers; in the later temples also the columns are more slender in their proportions and not set so closely one to the other. ”

“ For the statements and measurements in this and the following sections differing from those of previous writers, reference may be made to the series of preliminary studies entitled “Some Problems of Herod's Temple,” by the present writer, which appeared in The Expository Times, vol. xx (1908-1909) , pp. 24 ff., 66 ff., 181 ff., 270 ff. ↑ One such gigantic monolith was discovered a few years ago in a disused quarry (see Exp. Times, xx. 69) . ↑ For this triple identification see Schürer's essay, Zeits. f. neutest. Wiss. ”