DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29898#0104
68
IIISTORY OF ARCHITEGTURE.
Paet II.
of names ancl titles, but a chronicle of events, and witli tbe moral
generally elicited. The story and the rhapsody take their places side
by sicle, the preaching and the parable are used to convey their lessons
to the world. If they had not the Epos and the Drama, they had
lyric poetry of a beauty and a pathos which has hardly ever been
surpassed.
It was this possession of an alphabet, conjoined with the sublimity
of their monotheistic creed, that gave these races the only superiority
to which they have attained. It is this. which has enabled them to
keep themselves pure and undefiled in all the catastrophes to which
they have heen exposed, and that still enables their literature and
their creed to exert an influence over almost all the nations of the
earth, even in times when the people themselves have been held in
most supreme contempt.
Arts.
It may have been partly in consequence of their love of phonetic
literature, and partly in order to keep themselves distinct from those
great builders the Turanians, that the Semitic races never erected
a building worthy of the name; neither at Jerusalem, nor at Tyre or
Sidon, nor at Carthage, is there any vestige of Semitic Architectural
Art. Not that these have perished, but because they never existed.
When Solomon proposed to build a temple at Jerusalem, though plain
externally, and hardly so large as an ordinary parish church, he was
forced to have recourse to some Turanian people to do it for him, and
by a display of gold and silver and brass ornaments to make up for
the architectural forms he knew not how to apply.
In Assyria we have palaces of dynasties more or less purely Semitic,
splendid enough, but of wood and sunburnt bricks, and only preserved
to our knowledge from the accident of their having been so clumsily
built as to bury themselves and their wainscot slabs in their own ruins.
Though half the people were probably of Turanian origin, their temples
seem to have been external and unimportant till Sennacherib and
others learnt the art of using stone from the Egyptians, as the Syrians
did afterwards from the Romans. During the domination of the last-
named people, we have the temples of Palmyra-and Baalbec, of Jeru-
salem and Petra : everywhere an art of the utmost splendour, but
with no trace of Semitic feeling or Semitic taste in any part, or in any
detail.
The Jewish worship being neither ancestral, nor the bodies of their
dead being held in special reverence, they had no tombs worthy of the
name. They buried the bodies of their patriarchs and kings with care,
and knew where they were laid ; but not until after the return from
the Babylonish captivity did they either worship there, or mark tlie
IIISTORY OF ARCHITEGTURE.
Paet II.
of names ancl titles, but a chronicle of events, and witli tbe moral
generally elicited. The story and the rhapsody take their places side
by sicle, the preaching and the parable are used to convey their lessons
to the world. If they had not the Epos and the Drama, they had
lyric poetry of a beauty and a pathos which has hardly ever been
surpassed.
It was this possession of an alphabet, conjoined with the sublimity
of their monotheistic creed, that gave these races the only superiority
to which they have attained. It is this. which has enabled them to
keep themselves pure and undefiled in all the catastrophes to which
they have heen exposed, and that still enables their literature and
their creed to exert an influence over almost all the nations of the
earth, even in times when the people themselves have been held in
most supreme contempt.
Arts.
It may have been partly in consequence of their love of phonetic
literature, and partly in order to keep themselves distinct from those
great builders the Turanians, that the Semitic races never erected
a building worthy of the name; neither at Jerusalem, nor at Tyre or
Sidon, nor at Carthage, is there any vestige of Semitic Architectural
Art. Not that these have perished, but because they never existed.
When Solomon proposed to build a temple at Jerusalem, though plain
externally, and hardly so large as an ordinary parish church, he was
forced to have recourse to some Turanian people to do it for him, and
by a display of gold and silver and brass ornaments to make up for
the architectural forms he knew not how to apply.
In Assyria we have palaces of dynasties more or less purely Semitic,
splendid enough, but of wood and sunburnt bricks, and only preserved
to our knowledge from the accident of their having been so clumsily
built as to bury themselves and their wainscot slabs in their own ruins.
Though half the people were probably of Turanian origin, their temples
seem to have been external and unimportant till Sennacherib and
others learnt the art of using stone from the Egyptians, as the Syrians
did afterwards from the Romans. During the domination of the last-
named people, we have the temples of Palmyra-and Baalbec, of Jeru-
salem and Petra : everywhere an art of the utmost splendour, but
with no trace of Semitic feeling or Semitic taste in any part, or in any
detail.
The Jewish worship being neither ancestral, nor the bodies of their
dead being held in special reverence, they had no tombs worthy of the
name. They buried the bodies of their patriarchs and kings with care,
and knew where they were laid ; but not until after the return from
the Babylonish captivity did they either worship there, or mark tlie