£k. II. Ch. VI JEWISH AliCIUTECTURE. 209 CHAPTER VI. JITDEA. CHRONOLOGICAL IVIEZMORANDA CONNECTED WITH ARCHITECTURE. DATES. Moses B. r. 1312 Solomou 1013 Ezekiel 513 DATES. Zerubhabel B. o. 520 Herod 20 Titus A. D. 70 T HE Jews, like the other Semitic races, were not a building people, and never aspired to monumental magnificence as a mode of per- ]>etuating the memory of their greatness. The palace of Solomon was wholly of cedar wood, and must have perished of natural decay in a few centuries, if it escaped fire and other accidents incident to such temporary structures. Their first temple was a tent, their second depended almost entirely on its metallic ornaments for its splendor, and it M^as not till the Greeks and Romans taught them how to ai)ply stone and stone carving for tliis jturpose, that we have anything that can be called architecture, in the true sense of the term. This deficiency of monuments is however by no means peculiar to the .Jewish people. As before observed, we should know hardly any- thing of the architecture of Assyria but for the existence of the wainscot slabs of their palaces, though they were nearly a purely Semitic peo]ile, but their art rested on a Turanian basis. Neither Tyre nor Sidon have left us a single monument ; nor Utiea nor Car- thage one vestige that dates anterior to the Roman period. What is found at .Jerusalem, at Baalbec, at Palmyra, or Petra, even in the countries beyond the Jordan, is all Roman. What little traces of Phoenician art are picked up in the countries l)ordering on the Medi- terranean are copies, with Egyptian or Grecian details, badly and unintelligently copied, and showing a Avant of appreciation of the first ))rinci]>les of art that is remarkal>le in that age. It is therefore an immense gain if by our knowledge of Assyrian art we are enabled, even in a moderate degree, to realize the form of buildings which have long ceased to exist, and are only known to us from verbal descriptions. The most celebrated secular building of the Jews was the palace which Solomon was occupied in building during the thirteen years VOL. I. — 14
