THE MOUNTAIN OF SEPULCHRES. 
519 
to the breast. Opposite to him, rises another pedestal of three 
steps ; this is surmounted by an altar, evidently charged with 
the sacred fire, a large flame of it appearing at the top ; high 
over it, to the right, we see a globular shape, doubtless intended 
for the sun, of which the fire below was the offspring and the 
emblem. These altars always stood towards the East, that the 
worshipper might face the point whence the great source of light 
ascended; and we here find the orb in the same direction. 
Another figure floats aloft in the air, between the altar and the 
Archimagus or High Priest, (for such, it is probable, we may 
regard the man in the robe,) appearing as if it had issued from 
the sun; it approaches the man from that point. This aerial 
personage, or rather, perhaps, divine intelligence, seems sup¬ 
ported by something like a collection of sun-beams, thickly 
carved in waving horizontal and perpendicular lines, interspersed 
with several divisions of narrow cloud-shaped masses of stone. 
The radiation is not circular, but forms three distinct collections 
of rays, pointing east and west, and downwards ; they diverge 
from a ring or halo, out of the midst of which rises the figure; 
it being entirely above this “ beamy chariot,” from the waist 
upwards. It is habited in a robe similar to that of the man on 
the pedestal, with the hair and beard in the same fashion ; but 
the head is covered with a fluted crown ; the left hand holds a 
large and massy ring; the right is elevated and open, as if in 
the act of admonition ; a couple of bands, apparently the ends of 
his girdle, flow down through the circle and beams in which the 
figure appears ; thus proving the aerial texture of the seeming 
vehicle. But when we compare its forms, and the workmanship 
of its details, and its position with regard to its occupier, with 
the wings and finely wrought feathers of the bas-relief at 
