Palace and Temple: A Study of Architectural and Verbal Icons

This study does not compare like with like, nor does it have any intention to do so. Taking the palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh and Solomon's Temple at Jerusalem as case studies, McCormick applies built environment analysis to these two buildings. Whilst the former dates from the 8th-7th century BC and is the product of the Neo-Assyrian empire, the second dates from the 6th-5th century BC and was part of the Judahite culture. McCormick uses archaeological and textual evidence to assess their function as economic centers and places of worship, to what extent they were icons of divine presence, relationships between people and deities, and in the case of Solomon's Temple where no archaeological evidence survives, the building's function as a verbal icon recreated in a later period.