The metal castings of the Phoenicians, according to the accounts which historians give of them, were of a very magnificent and extraordinary character. The Hiram employed by Solomon in the ornamentation of the Temple at Jerusalem, who was a native of Tyre,[739] designed and executed by his master’s orders a number of works in metal, which seem to have been veritable masterpieces. The strangest of all were the two pillars of bronze, which bore the names of “Jachin” and “Boaz,”[740] and stood in front of the Temple porch, or possibly under it.[741] These pillars, with their capitals, were between thirty-four and thirty-five feet high, and had a diameter of six feet.[742] They were cast hollow, the bronze whereof they were composed having a uniform thickness of three inches,[743] or thereabouts. Their ornamentation was elaborate. A sort of chain-work covered the “belly” or lower part of the capitals,[744] while above and below were representations of pomegranates in two rows, probably at the top and bottom of the “belly,” the number of the pomegranates upon each pillar being two hundred.[745] At the summit of the whole was a sort of “lily-work”[746] or imitation of the lotus blossom, a “motive” adopted from Egypt. Various representations of the pillars have been attempted in works upon Phoenician art, the most remarkable being those designed by M. Chipiez, and published in the “Histoire de l’Art dans l’Antiquité.”[747] Perhaps, however, there is more to be said in favour of M. de Vogüé’s view, as enunciated in his work on the Jewish Temple. The third great work of metallurgy which Hiram constructed for Solomon was “the molten sea.”[748] This was an enormous bronze basin, fifteen feet in diameter, supported on the backs of twelve oxen, grouped in sets of three.[749] The basin stood fourteen or fifteen feet above the level of the Temple Court,[750] and was a vast reservoir, always kept full of water, for the ablutions of the priests. There was an ornamentation of “knops” or “gourds,” in two rows, about the “brim” of the reservoir; and it must have been supplied in its lower part with a set of stopcocks, by means of which the water could be drawn off when needed. Representations of the “molten sea” have been given by Mangeant, De Vogüé, Thenius, and others; but all of them are, necessarily, conjectural. The design of Mangeant is reproduced in the preceding representation. It is concluded that the oxen must have been of colossal size in order to bear a proper proportion to the basin, and not present the appearance of being crushed under an enormous weight.[751]