Except in regard to Yahveh, the Hebraic Law appears to have received beneficial influence from Egypt and Assyria; at every moment that beautiful chapter cxxv of _The Book of the Dead_ seemed to be remembered, where the soul justifying itself before Osiris, after stating that the precepts of charity had been fulfilled, dares to add “I have not made tears flow.”[c] HEBREW ART, ARCHITECTURE: THE TEMPLE, TOMBS, ETC. During the last three centuries, many scholars have devoted themselves especially to the art of this nation that has played such an extraordinary rôle in the history of the world. These researches have been directed almost entirely upon the temple at Jerusalem and its furniture; for here, where the national life was concentrated, was in fact all the art that the country produced. Moreover, while the remains are no longer in our hands or under our eyes, there is not a single edifice in all oriental or classical antiquity concerning which we possess such numerous and circumstantial records. The city of Jerusalem occupies to-day the northern extremity of a plateau which is bounded on the east by the valley of the Kidron, and on the south and west by the valley of Hinnom. This plateau is divided from north to south by a ravine called the valley of the Tyropœon (“the cheesemakers”) in such a manner as to form two hills. The eastern hill is Mount Moriah, whose southern extremity, now called Ophel, was Zion, the “city of David.” When Solomon ascended the throne, Jerusalem occupied only Zion, and did not begin to extend to the western and larger hill until under the kings of Judea. Mount Moriah, on the north, was given up to husbandry, and a rich man of Jerusalem, Araunah, owned there a field with a threshing-floor, where camels and oxen trod out the grain at harvest-time. David had bought the field of Araunah as a site for the temple of the true God, and had erected an altar on the threshing-floor. The work began in the fourth year of the reign of Solomon. The materials had already been in great part fitted. Architects, workmen, and artists were engaged in Tyre by the aid of King Hiram, and the work progressed rapidly. The summit of Moriah was first levelled, and then around the remaining hillock was constructed an immense retaining wall of extraordinary solidity, extending up to the level of the summit. It was built of enormous blocks held together by cramp-irons, and was supported on the outside by embankments. All the space between the interior face of this wall and the rock was filled in with rubble in such a way as to form a square platform. [Illustration: MOVABLE VESSEL OF THE TEMPLE (After Mangeant)]