Symbols and Art: Assyrians, Persians, Phoenicians and Hebrews

In previous articles we evoked Babylon and the Tower of Babel. The Assyrians who followed after the ancient Kingdom of Babylon, had built an even bigger town surrounded by a 12-kilometer brick rampart. That was Nineveh, this city existed 2,000 years BC. Then came Ecbatana under Cyrus and Persepolis under Darius. Here again, we find the tumuli of Nimrod: one of them is a step pyramid housing the tombs of Sardanapale and Ninus. These monuments are colossal. If we examine the rests of a palace in Persepolis, we again find the menhir that became a column and the dolmens or lichavens that became porticoes.

The Phoenicians, that flourished 1,000 years BC have left several monuments, not only in Tyre and Sidon but mainly in their colonies of Carthage, Malta, Sardinia, Cyprus and the Balearic Islands. The shape of these edifices is a cone containing elliptical yards and altars. It is to the Phoenicians that we owe the materials and adornments of Salomon’s Temple, on the Moriah mountain. King Hiram of Tyre had sent the Hebrews, his neighbors, the architect and elements of this temple whose dimensions were huge. The temple was framed by a portico with three storeys. Its walls were blocks of stone, lined inside with precious wood and gold ornaments representing cherubims, palms and flowers. In the Holy of Holies was found the Ark of the Covenant with the Tablets of Stone upon which the Ten Commandments were inscribed, and on both sides, two colossal figures of gold plated wooden cherubims. In front of the temple one could see two brazen columns built upon order of King Hiram of Tyre and a large basin supported by twelve brazen bulls. Salomon also had a palace constructed in the same style, with a throne made of gold and ivory.

Phoenician Art showed all its efflorescence in Carthage, amongst others in the Temple of Apollo and the harbor surrounded with a portico consisting of Ionic columns. Gustave Flaubert in his Salammbo magnificently described the architecture of this fascinating city.

Adad Gate, Nineveh, Iraq.

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Tachara Palace of Darius I, Persepolis, Iran.

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Columns of the palaestra, site of Al Mina, Tyre, Lebanon.

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Temple of Salomon, reconstruction by modern scholars.

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The Ark of the Covenant carried into the Temple in “Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry” XIVth century, France. 

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