Lecture IX. The Ritual Of The Temple. 421
the houses of the priests and other ministers of the temple, the
library and school, shops for the manufacture and sale of votive
objects, even the stalls wherein the animals were kept that were
intended for sacrifice. In the centre of the court stood an altar
of sacrifice, with large vases for the purposes of ablution by the
side of it, as well as a“sea,”or basin of water, which derived its
name from the fact that it was a symbol of the primeval“deep.”
The basin was of bronze or stone, and was at times supported on
the backs of twelve oxen, as we learn from an old hymn which
describes the construction of one of them.^355 At other times, as
at Lagas, the basin was decorated with a frieze of female figures,
who pour water from the vases in their outstretched hands.^356
The purifying effects of the water of the“deep”were transferred
to that of the mimic“sea,”and the worshipper who entered the
temple after washing in it became ceremonially pure.
The great court, with its two isolated columns in front of the
entrance, led into a second, from the floor of which rose the
ziggurator tower. The second court formed the approach to
the temple proper, which again consisted of an outer sanctuary
and an inner shrine. Whether the laity were admitted into its
inner recesses is doubtful. No one, indeed, could appear before
the god except through the mediation of a priest; and on the
seal-cylinders a frequent representation is that of a worshipper [459]
whom the priest is leading by the hand and presenting to the
image of a deity. But it is not certain that the image represented
on them was that which stood in the Holy of Holies, or innermost
shrine; it may have been a second image, erected in another part
of the temple. On the other hand, the numerous chapels of the
secondary gods who formed the court of the chief deity of a city,
can hardly have been furnished with more than one statue, and
it is even questionable whether they consisted of more than one
chamber. Perhaps it was only from the topmost room of the
(^355) WAI.iv. 23, No. 1, translated in my Hibbert Lectures, p. 495.
(^356) De Sarzec,Découvertes en Chaldée, pp. 216, 217.