CHAPTER XXXIV
part III - Freemasonry, Religion and Civilisation
THE SQUARE AND COMPASSES
W.
M. Don Falconer PM, PDGDC
Archaeology brings ancient cultures to life.
The earliest recorded instance of
a search for antiquities probably is that relating to Khaemwaset,
known as the Egyptologist Prince, a
son of the Pharaoh Rameses II of Egypt. In about 1250 BCE he
instituted a systematic campaign to clear and restore the ancient
buildings and monuments of Egypt, from as early as the step pyramid
of Zoser that was completed in about 2600 BCE. Khaemwaset
emphasised that "the accurate recording of the
date and architect was important for posterity". There also
are examples of ancient kings, from Babylon to China, who collected
antiquities and even dug up ancient sites to obtain artifacts. Early
archaeology primarily concentrated on the acquisition and study of
artifacts from selected sites, with little regard to their
underlying history. The ancient Greeks, such as Herodotus in about
500 BCE, were the forerunners of modern archaeology, because
they were the first to study all the observable remains of a
society. However, they did not use the information gained to prepare
a systematic anthropology and ethnology of the ancient world, which
would have been of immense value to modern archaeologists. Moreover,
as most of their original data has been lost, it may never become
available from other sources.
The Arab historian Ibn Khaldun
(1337-1406) is regarded as a greater historian than all of the
ancients who preceded him. He carried out penetrating analyses of
social structures, which led him to stress the importance of
environment and climate on the development of society. Khaldun
hypothesised that change and decline in a society is primarily the
result of its own internal organisation, not of external factors.
Unfortunately Khaldun had no immediate followers, so his theories
lay dormant until taken up again by the scientific archaeologists of
this century. The period 1550-1750 was important because it became
the prelude to modern archaeology. It was the era when the
fundamentals of archaeology were first practised to a limited extent
and being written about by several British antiquarians, especially
William Camden (1551-1623), John Aubrey (1626-1697) and William
Stukeley (1687-1765). The word archaeology is derived
from the Greek arkhaiologia through the
Late Latin archaeologia. It was
introduced into the English language as archiology in 1607, when
it was used with only the narrow meaning of the "study of inscriptions on
monuments", which persisted into the eighteenth
century.
Archaeology, as we understand it
today, only began to emerge in about 1770 when Danish and Norwegian
scholars initiated the formulation of a standardised system of
classification, laying a foundation for prehistoric research that
soon became firmly established. This system proved to be invaluable
when recording the prodigious feats of archaeological excavation in
Italy, Greece, the eastern Mediterranean, the near East and Egypt,
which have been under way almost continuously since the second half
of the eighteenth century. The first 150 years or so of that period
are often referred to as the "pioneering" or "heroic" age of
archaeology. Modern scientific archaeologists now study the material
remains of the past within the broad context of social, economic and
cultural affairs. This enables them to establish remarkably complete
pictures of the origins, evolution and culture of vanished towns,
cities and even empires and show how their inhabitants lived and
died. Archaeology is now a living science that focuses on human
social activities as well as on objects.
The development and practice of
operative freemasonry reflects the evolution of the human race from
the most primitive hominids to modern intellectual mankind. The
remanent stone and other structures from bygone ages provide us with
an authentic record of human endeavour, linking bygone ages of
unwritten history with the present era. The prehistoric builders,
like their modern counterparts, reflected the on-going advances in
human knowledge and culture. Modern speculative freemasonry arose
from the operative freemasonry, directly and indirectly. It was
initiated by men of learning with a religious background, who
perceived the advantages of bringing men of all social standings
together on a common footing, not only to fulfil a desire to
perpetuate important moral aspects of an operative mason's training,
but also to provide a suitable forum in which to engage in
progressive thought and discussion. The aim was for members to
philosophise socially for their mutual improvement, fostering the
development of better community attitudes and conditions.
The most ancient records prove
that stonemasons, the forerunners of modern freemasons, were
constructing buildings long before the advent of writing. Written
records reveal that archaeology in its crudest form is almost 4,000
years old and confirm that speculative freemasonry and modern
scientific archaeology are contemporaneous. Sir Mortimer Wheeler
(1890-1976), the notable British archaeologist who introduced the
method of stratigraphical excavation, published a book in 1954
entitled Archaeology from the
Earth. He summed up modern scientific archaeology by saying:
"The archaeological excavator is
not digging up things, he is digging up people . . . the life of the
past and the present are diverse but indivisible." Remnants
of the stonemasons' work, down through the ages from ancient times,
are vital elements in archaeological chains of evidence that stretch
back for at least 14,000 years, far longer than the mere 6,000 years
of recorded history.
Thus there is a long-standing and
living relationship between freemasonry and archaeology that
illustrates one objective they have in common, which is to
understand the past and unite it with the present for the
improvement and advancement of mankind. That the medieval freemasons
made an immeasurable contribution to society, in both its spiritual
and its social aspects, is beyond doubt. Their involvement is
clearly evidenced by the abundance of cathedrals and public
buildings that they constructed in medieval Britain and Europe,
which are still in use. The input of the stonemasons to the
civilisations of Greece and Rome during the classical period is
almost as well understood, because much of their prodigious work
typified by the Parthenon in Athens, the Colosseum in Rome and the
enormous temple ruins at Baalbek in Lebanon, are well known and can
still be seen and appreciated even though in a state of ruin.
The work of the stonemasons in
the ancient Egyptian civilisation, some of which is more than 5,000
years old, confirms the importance of freemasonry in the community
from ancient times. The stonemasons contribution is illustrated by
such imposing relics as the temple complex at Abu Simbel, the
necropolis and sanctuary complex in the Valley of the Kings at
Thebes and the mighty pyramids at Giza. The temples and monuments of
India, Indonesia and Cambodia and also of Central and South America,
many of which are about 1,000 years old and some even older, also
bear witness to the important part played by stonemasons in the
evolution of mankind. In addition there are many less obvious relics
of the masonic art that have been discovered, which yield invaluable
evidence for the archaeologists when deciphering the history of
humanity's progress from the days of the primitive savage to the
advent of civilisation. A few interesting examples will be reviewed
to illustrate how the work of the stonemason has augmented the
interpretation of history.
A turning point in the history of
the world occurred as the direct result of a natural phenomenon,
which was the warming of the climate towards the end of the last
great Ice Age, between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago. This
allowed wild cereals and legumes to grow and to spread throughout
the semi-arid temperate zone of the Near East known as the "fertile crescent". As
the climate became warmer, the hunter-gatherers in the Near East
progressively learnt the art of cultivation, which began in that
region as dry farming about 10,000
years ago. This development can be understood in the global context
when seen in relation to developments elsewhere that are summarised
later this chapter. When farmers in the Near East found that their
crops needed watering in their semi-arid climate, they began to
develop simple forms of irrigation, which in Mesopotamia began about
8,000 years ago. With the advent of irrigation, the methods of
cultivation improved significantly in the Near East, after which
farming spread rapidly throughout the moister eastern Mediterranean
region. Small settlements soon began to take shape, which were
followed by increasingly more substantial villages during the next
3,000 years or so.
The earliest known house in the
Near East was built perhaps 14,000 years ago at Ein Guev, which is
on the Jordan River to the east of Mount Carmel. It consisted of a
round pit about 4.5 metres across, dug into the side of
a hill and covered with lightweight materials, thus reflecting the
origins of architecture. Tiny hamlets developed in the region over
the next 2,000 years, with some buildings as large as 9 metres
across, grouped together in an area of several hundred square
metres. The next important development in the Near East took place
about 10,000 years ago at Mureybet, on the Euphrates River at the
northern limit of the "fertile crescent".
Moulded and compacted earth, dry packed stone and timber were used
to raise the walls above the ground. The buildings were subdivided
into rooms, revealing the first signs of communal enterprise.
Construction of the ancient city of Jericho, with its walls of rough
stone and a circular stone tower, probably began at about the same
time.
A new kind of village, some 15
hectares in area, was built about 8,000 years ago at Çatal Hüyük in
the Taurus Mountains of Turkey in southern Asia Minor. This is
believed to have been the first village where rectangular houses
were erected close together in terraces. The houses had many common
walls, but they had no doors at ground level, presumably to provide
protection from animals and intruders, because the external access
ladders appear to have been removable. The houses had flat roofs
with canopied openings, which permitted access and allowed smoke to
escape from fires. Inside each house was a hearth, an oven, benches
along the walls and an access stairway to the opening in the roof.
The materials of construction were mainly timber and mud brick, but
the workmanship was very good.
A few hundred years later the
village of Sawwan was built in mud brick on the banks of the Tigris
River, about 300 kilometres east of Çatal Hüyük. It had a
surrounding security wall and consisted of rectangular farmhouses
each of which was up to 200 square metres in area and had ten or
more rooms. Most of the houses had some upper floor space that was
reached by an external staircase. About 6,000 years ago the
development of early village life in the Near East reached maturity,
when the village of Abbadeh was constructed in the mountains of
Zagros, some 200 kilometres east of Sawwan. These houses contained
several rooms arranged around a central hall. All had upper floors
that were reached by an internal staircase and were of similar
construction to the houses in Sawwan. The village of Abbadeh has the
earliest known public buildings that characterise a township in the
Near East.
Until comparatively recently, on
the basis of the evidence then available, it was believed that the
earliest developments in agriculture, irrigation and urbanisation
took place in the Near East, whence they spread progressively
through Asia to the Far East and thence ultimately into the
Americas. However, the wide-ranging archaeological investigations
that have been carried out since the 1950s and especially during the
1990s in China and the archipelago north of Australia that was part
of the huge Sunda shelf during the last great Ice Age, suggest a
contrary view. The latest evidence reveals that the advances in
agriculture, irrigation and urbanisation that took place in the Far
East were either concurrently with those taking place in the Near
East or preceded them. Neolithic remains that date from about
9500 BCE have been discovered at many sites in China, even
though some regions in China were still living under Neolithic
conditions as recently as 2000 BCE. It has been found that
millet was being grown and that pigs, cattle and sheep were being
domesticated in the northern Chinese provinces of Shanxi, Henan and
Hebei at least 7,000 years ago, but probably even earlier. It also
has been found that rice was already being cultivated in the
southern Chinese provinces of Jiangsu, Anhui and Zhejiang almost
7,000 years ago.
These agricultural pursuits were
accompanied by the development of pottery and the construction of
dwellings and communal buildings. The first pottery in Japan
appeared about 12,500 years ago, followed in China and South East
Asia about 11,000 years ago, predating pottery in the Near East by
about 3,000 years. An early example of urbanisation in the Far East
is the Banpo village in the Shanxi province, which dates from about
5000 BCE. The largest structure found in the centre of the
Banpo village probably was a communal building, pyramidal in shape
and covering an area of 10 metres by 11 metres. The roof, which also
served as the walls, was continuous from apex to ground level and
was made of clay and straw, supported by heavy wooden columns on
stone foundations. This evidence is supported by the discovery of
artefacts and other items in the archipelago, including stone adzes,
pottery and charred rice that were left in the Sakai cave in
southern Thailand, near the Malaysian border, about 9,000 years ago.
Furthermore, it has also been established that the native
inhabitants in the highlands of New Guinea were draining swamps to
grow taro about 9,000 years ago. Stephen Oppenheimer provides a
wealth of evidence that substantiates these early developments in
the Far East in his book entitled Eden in the East,
subtitled The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia. His
book also correlates events in the Near East with the inundation of
the Sunda shelf, which occurred as a consequence of the three great
floods associated with the last great Ice Age.
The ability to shape stone was
influenced by the availability of suitable implements, which in turn
depended upon the production of tough metals that could be tempered
and sharpened. Crude local copper was first used in beaten form for
small implements and jewellery between 9,000 and 8,000 years ago, in
various sites in the mountainous arc from Turkey through Assyria to
the Zagros plateau in Iran, but it could not be used to cut and
shape hard stone. The earliest known examples of copper smelting and
casting have been found on the Iranian plateau and date from about
7,000 years ago. This process was well developed in Mesopotamia and
the eastern Mediterranean about 6,500 years ago, even though the ore
was not available locally.
Another Mesopotamian invention
about 6,000 years ago was the synthesising of glass and copper,
using the faience process that is
still used in the production of glazed coloured earthenware. The
casting of bronze by the lost wax method, which was used when
fabricating the two pillars at the porch of King Solomon's Temple,
was developed simultaneously about 5,200 years ago in Mesopotamia
and in the kingdom of Elam between Babylon and Sumeria, when all of
the copper was being imported from the mountains of Oman. Cutting
tools made of cast copper were hardened by beating and sharpened by
grinding with stones, but they were of limited use for cutting and
dressing hard stone. The earliest experiments in the Near East to
alloy copper and tin, thus producing a tougher material, were
carried out in Mesopotamia and the eastern Mediterranean more than
5,000 years ago, but effective bronze metallurgy was not fully
developed there until about 4,600 years ago in Mesopotamia. Even
then copper tools still predominated, although building stones were
beginning to be shaped and dressed with reasonable accuracy, but
with difficulty. The oldest genuine bronze objects discovered in
China so far are at least 6,000 years old. They were found in the
Hebei and Shandong provinces and have been carbon dated to about
4100 BCE.
The next important development in
the Near East occurred about 4,000 years ago, when the Hittite
smiths in Anatolia devised methods for the extraction of iron from
the crude ores then available. However, the technique of carbonising
was not perfected there until about 3,500 years ago, when the
Hittites first produced iron implements of equal or superior quality
to those of bronze. From then bronze tools were effectively replaced
by iron tools in Mesopotamia and the eastern Mediterranean, but
another 500 years elapsed before iron tools were in general use in
Egypt, Europe and India, when the use of stone masonry began to
proliferate. In China the casting of iron was developed directly
from the methods they used for the casting of bronze. As bronze
tools were expensive, iron tools had virtually replaced them by
about 600 BCE. Archaeological investigations that reveal the
development of the stonemason's craft thus far are of considerable
interest and they will be summarised briefly.
As village life began to evolve,
stones in their naturally occurring shapes were carefully selected
and used for building whenever available. The oldest known examples
are the walls and circular tower of Jericho, which were constructed
in stone about 10,000 years ago. The next important step was the
provision of paved areas for the houses at Mureybet, in Mesopotamia,
about 300 years after Jericho was built. Next were the circular
foundations and walls of the remarkable "beehive" houses, built
at Khirokitia in Cyprus, about 8,000 years ago. They were
constructed of stone set in a strong mortar of mud and were
surmounted by good quality corbelled domes constructed in mud brick.
This was an important advancement in building. The earliest known
monumental buildings are the communal tombs in Brittany and the
passage graves in Portugal that are about 6,500 years old, which
were built from large naturally occurring stones using orthostat and
lintel construction. Their use spread rapidly to Britain, Ireland
and even the remote Hebrides and Orkneys, sometimes having dry-stone
walls and corbelled stone roofs.
The fortified village of Dimini,
in Greece, built almost 6,000 years ago, is enclosed within an
elaborate maze of stone walls. The open firing of earthenware gave
way to the use of low domed mud brick kilns in Mesopotamia, followed
soon after by tall circular kilns in Mesopotamia and Egypt. About
5,500 years ago the production of kiln-fired bricks began in
Mesopotamia, providing the appropriate materials and impetus needed
to initiate the building of huge temples in Mesopotamia and mastabah tombs in Egypt.
Thereafter similar building programs spread rapidly throughout the
Near East and the eastern Mediterranean. However it was the
introduction of iron tools, which allowed hard stones to be shaped
and finished accurately, that provided the greatest stimulus to
masonry. This fostered the development of the elegant monumental
architecture that began in Egypt about 4,700 years ago and is
typified by remarkable temples and the large tombs that supplanted
the earlier mud brick mastabah tombs. Probably
the most famous examples of early masonry are the Great Pyramids of
Giza, in the valley of the Nile, which were completed about 4,500
years ago.
History in
stone
The growth of masonry over the
11,000 years spanning from the earliest known house built at Ein
Guev about 14,000 years ago,
until carbonised iron tools were developed and masonry could be
carried out with precision
from about 3,000 years ago, is a fascinating story.
The history of these events has been unfolded by the painstaking efforts of
archaeologists in
association with anthropologists, architects, astronomers,
engineers, historians, mathematicians and scientists in all
disciplines. It might be
supposed that the fairly general use of writing, that has prevailed
since about 1000 BCE, would have ensured that there would be
adequate records of the important buildings erected since then, but
such is not the case. Written records of building work carried out
1,500 years or more ago are virtually non-existent, with the rare exception of the
biblical description of the temple built by King Solomon at Jerusalem.
For many reasons very few records
exist in relation to the vast array of abbeys, cathedrals and other
substantial public buildings erected in medieval times. Any records
that have survived have only been discovered by the most diligent
research. However, thanks to the information published by
researchers, mostly since the 1950s, we can now read detailed
accounts of the temples of Egypt; the classical buildings of the
Greek, Roman and Byzantium empires; the remarkable
city-temple complexes of Asia, Central America and South America;
and the beautiful works of medieval construction in Britain and
Europe, much of which continues in use today. To illustrate the
effort and diligence required to unravel the histories recorded in
these ancient stone structures, a brief outline will be given of
recent archaeological investigations that have established the true
antecedents of King Solomon's temple.
Because of the important role
Egypt played in the history of the Hebrew people, the strong
intellectual and cultural influence of the pharaonic civilisation
throughout the Mediterranean region and the close links then
existing between the two peoples, it was believed for centuries that
Egypt had provided the model for King Solomon's temple in Jerusalem,
even though it did not resemble any temple in Egypt. The temple of
Solomon was completed about 950 BCE. It was constructed of
accurately dressed blocks of stone that were assembled without
mortar. The temple had olive wood doors and was lined with cedar
wood, ornately carved and inlaid with gold.
Although it was smaller than any
Egyptian temple, the temple of Solomon, which was the first in
Jerusalem, was a magnificent edifice that surpassed any that had
preceded it. The temple of Solomon was noted for the lavish beauty
of its detail and the opulence of its furnishings. Archaeological
excavations in northern Syria in the 1930s were the first to throw
doubt on the long-held belief of an Egyptian heritage. Excavations
at Hazor in northern Palestine, during the 1950s, reinforced these
doubts. However, it was the salvage excavations carried out from
1970 to 1976 in a bend of the Euphrates River, on the site of what
is now Lake el-Assad, that confirmed beyond doubt that King
Solomons temple was built according to a Phoenician pattern, in the
direct line of tradition of a religious system that was at least
2,000 years old when the temple was built in Jerusalem.
The traditions developed in the
countries of the "fertile crescent" and
the adjoining eastern Mediterranean, were bringing about significant
changes in human attitudes to the divinity as long ago as 5,000
years. These attitudes were reflected in the designs of temples that
became the pattern for those constructed by the Phoenicians who,
from about 3,200 years ago, were the greatest developers and
builders around the Mediterranean, until the conquest of the region
by Alexander the Great in 333 BCE. These temples were elongated
about 3:1 in plan, had a single entrance at the narrower eastern end
and were subdivided into compartments that provided a progressive
transition from the profane outside world to the inner and most holy
sanctuary. Although the many temples that have been excavated are
not identical in design, they are sufficiently alike to prove beyond
doubt that they had a common religious theme. This arrangement was
typified in the temple of Solomon, which had a porch or entranceway
called the ulam at the eastern end,
which was flanked by two great pillars named Jachin and Boaz. The
porch opened into the main hall of worship called the hekal, which had a table
of offering and other furnishings and was the place for the priests
to hold divine service and perform their rituals. At the western end
of the temple was the Holy of Holies, called the debir, where the Ark of
the Covenant was kept. It was known as the place "where God dwelt" and
was accessible only to the priesthood on special occasions.
The oldest known temples or
sanctuaries of this type were the three found at Tell Chouera on the
eastern branch of the headwaters of the Euphrates River in the
foothills of northern Syria. In comparison with the temple of
Solomon, they range from about the size of its Holy of Holies to a
little larger than its overall size including the storage chambers
surrounding it on the northern, western and southern sides. They are
about 4,500 years old and probably were built sequentially over
several generations. A Canaanite temple that was discovered while
excavating the ancient lower city of Hazor, in northern Palestine,
is of the same general description and is about 4,000 years old.
Hazor was only occupied for about 500 years, when it was
destroyed and burnt, but was never reoccupied. Another temple has
been excavated at Ebla, some 300 kilometres to the southwest of Tell
Chouera. It was built about 3,800 years ago and is almost identical
in size to the temple of Solomon, although the Holy of Holies is
significantly shorter. In the temple of Solomon the Holy of Holies
was on a podium, but at Ebla it was augmented by a substantial niche
in the western wall. This allowed a small room to be placed between
the porch and the main hall of worship at Ebla, which is about the
same size as it was in the temple of Solomon.
The greatest volume of evidence
comes from the salvage excavations on the site of Lake el-Assad,
where seven temples were unearthed. Four of them are at Emar,
ranging in size from about half to two-thirds that of the temple of
Solomon. They are from 3,400 to 3,200 years old, which corresponds
with the brief period during which a Hittite city existed there. The
two larger temples at Emar are built parallel and close together to
form a double sanctuary, with a road between them giving access to a
common terrace for sacrificial offering located behind them, instead
of in front as at Jerusalem. A similar temple excavated at
Moumbaqat, roughly midway between Emar and Ebla and intermediate in
age, is even larger than the largest at Tell Chouera. The first
Syrian temple discovered, which is that at Tell Ta'Yinat, is almost
identical in size to the temple of Solomon and probably was
constructed a little later. Some of the Syrian excavations also show
evidence of stub walls near the western ends of the temples, which
are thought to have been the locations of internal timber walls,
similar to the one that screened the Holy of Holies in the temple of
Solomon.
The panorama of archaeology
Anyone interested in the broad
spectrum of archaeological investigations around the world would
find The World Atlas of
Archaeology, which is the English version of the French Le Grand Atlas de
l'archéologie with a foreword by Michael Wood, a fascinating
book that puts the vast scope of the science in remarkable
perspective. All aspects from the rise of civilisation, through the
invention of writing, the development of religion and the progress
of mankind through the ages are covered in graphic detail. One of
the more recent books is the Atlas of Archaeology by
Mick Aston and Tim Taylor. It includes a comprehensive gazetteer and
provides a definitive guide to the location, history and
significance of the world's most important archaeological sites and
their discoveries. Many other informative books, including The Atlas of Early Man
by Jacquetta Hawkes, the Larousse Encyclopedia of
Archaeology edited by Gilbert Charles-Picard, The Encyclopedia of Ancient
Civilizations edited by Arthur Cotterell and The Atlas of Archaeology
edited by Professor K. Branigan, are all pleasant reading and
provide a fascinating insight to the subject. Another recent book,
by Robert Ingpen and Philip Wilkinson, covers a broad spectrum of
archaeological sites and is entitled Encyclopedia of
Mysterious Places, with the descriptive subtitle of
the life and legends of ancient sites around the
world. It is written in a less formal manner than is usual
for a book of this type, but provides a wealth of interesting
information.
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