Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/281

THE TKMPLK IN PIKKXICIA. 261 the temple itself or its precinct, a bronze altar. 1 Secondly, gold was largely employed in the decoration of the building ; - thirdly, it had a portico and columns/' As for whether Jehaw-Melek boasts of having raised these supports or only of their embellish- ment we cannot say. All that we can clearly deduce from this much injured inscription agrees perfectly well with what we have learnt elsewhere as to the religious architecture of Phoenicia. The o bronze altar reminds us of all those works in the same metal which were carried out for Solomon by the Tyrian founders under the direction of Hiram, and particularly of the " brazen sea ; " the temple at Jerusalem shone with gold in mass and in thin leaves laid upon ornaments and panels ; and even at Tyre itself, did not Herodotus find his admiration stirred by a great stele of pure gold on the threshold of the temple of Melkart ? 4 and accord- FIG. 191. Stone altar. From Kenan. ing to all appearances the portico to which Jehaw-Melek alludes in his inscription is identical with the structure represented on the imperial coins of Byblos (Fig. 58). Jehaw-Melek says nothing about the form of his bronze altar, but perhaps we may be permitted to guess that it was the proto- type of an altar of peculiar form of which many examples have been encountered at Gebal and in its neighbourhood (Fig. iQi). 5 In the same district altars have been found with an ornament round their summits which recalls the crenellations of Assyria (Fig. 78) ; as for the columns which rose in pairs, like the Egyptian obelisks, at the doors of the Phoenician temples, it is easy to understand why they have left no traces. Even when of stone they were fragile and defenceless, while when they were 1 Line 4. 2 Lines 4 and 5. 3 Line 6. 4 HERODOTUS, ii. 44. 5 REN AN, Mission, p. 229.