le area at Nippur, Peters[1343] and Haynes unearthed
a court of considerable size, lined with brick columns. The court was
open to the sky, but the columns supported a roof which was apparently
of wood. Similar courts have been found elsewhere, so that we are
justified in regarding the Nippur structure as characteristic of the
architecture of Babylonia. The court was attached to an edifice of
considerable size, which contained among other things rooms in which the
temple records were kept. The entrance to the court was by a large
gateway, supported on each side by a brick column, double the diameter
of those that surrounded the court. While the nature of the building is
not perfectly clear, still the presence of the temple archives and the
gateway make it probable that the structure was used in connection with
the cult of some deity worshipped at Nippur. Lending weight to this
supposition are the points of resemblance between this structure and the
sacred edifices of the ancient Hebrews and Arabs. A court of sixty
columns--made of wood, quadrangular in shape, with the supports and tops
of metal--was the characteristic feature of the tabernacle.[1344] Within
this court, open to the sky, the people gathered for worship. The altar
and the basin for ablutions stood in the court, while the holy tent
containing the ark was set up near the eastern end of the place.
Similarly at Mecca,[1345] the Kaaba, the pulpit, and the sacred fountain
are grouped within a space enclosed on all sides by colonnades. Again,
surrounding the Solomonic temple on three sides was a spacious court.
This court was enclosed with colonnades.[1346] It may well be,
therefore, that the edifice around or near the fine court of columns at
Nippur was a sacred structure, erected in honor of some deity. The two
large brick columns at the entrance to the Nippur court are paralleled
in the case of the Solomonic temple by the two large columns, known as
Yakhin and Boaz, that stood at the gateway. These names are as yet
unexplained. Their symbolic character, apart from other evidence, may be
concluded from the circumstance that, as Schick has shown,[1347] the
columns stood free, and did not serve as a support for any part of the
gateway.[1348] There is no need, therefore, for any hesitation in
comparing these two columns, whose presence in the Solomonic structure
is certainly due to foreign influence, to those found at Nippur.[1349]

That the columns at Nippur were