The fall
of the Jewish Kingdom hastened the decay of Hebrew as a spoken
language--not that the captives forgot their own language, as is
generally assumed, but after the return to Judea the Jews found
themselves, a people few in number, among a large number of
surrounding populations using the Aramaic tongue. When the latest
books of the Old Testament were written, Hebrew, though still the
language of literature, had been supplanted by Aramaic as the language
of common life. From that time on the former tongue was the exclusive
property of scholars, and has no history save that of a merely
literary language.
HOW ANCIENT TEMPLES AND PYRAMIDS WERE BUILT.--This is beyond modern
conjecture, so imperfect is our understanding of the extent of the
mechanical knowledge of the ancients. Their appliances are believed
to have been of the simplest order, and their implements exceedingly
crude, and yet they were able to convey these enormous blocks of
stones for vast distances, over routes most difficult, and having
accomplished this, to raise them to great height, and fit them in
place without the aid of either cement or mortar to cover up the
errors of the stonecutter. How all this was done is one of the enigmas
of modern science. It has been generally believed that inclined planes
of earth were used to enable the workmen to raise the huge stones
to their places, the earth being cleared away afterward. But it is
possible that the ancients had a more extended knowledge of mechanical
powers than we usually give them credit for, and that they made use
of machinery very like that employed by moderns for lifting great
weights.
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