Ceiling
CEILING
The ancients took great pains to ornament the ceilings of their best apartments; making them sometimes of a sort of wainscoting, in squares or complicated figures; and sometimes of a fine plaster with beautiful moldings, tinted and relieved by gilding, small mirrors, etc., 1Ki 6:15 2Ch 3:5 Jer 22:14 .
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Ceiling
There are three Hebrews words employed in the Old Test. which our translators have rendered “ceiled” or “ceiling.”
1. (chaphah, to cover or overlay, as it is elsewhere rendered) occurs 2Ch 3:5, where it is said, “He ceiled the greater house with fir- tree.”
2. (saphan, to wainscot or plank; elsewhere rendered “cover,” once “seat,” Deu 33:21) occurs Jer 22:14 : ” It is ceiled with cedar, and painted with vermilion.” Houses finished in this manner were called “ceiled houses” (Hag 1:4). The “ceiling” of the walls itself is likewise spoken of (, sippun, 1Ki 6:15). In Eze 41:16, the word rendered “ceiled” is (shachiph, from being hewed thin), a board simply, used for that purpose. These ceilings were adorned with ornaments in stucco, with gold, silver, gems, and ivory. Oriental houses appear to have been the reverse of such as we inhabit, the ceiling being of wood richly ornamented and painted, and the floor plaster or stucco, the walls being generally wainscoted. The Egyptian monuments, still exhibit elegant specimens of painted ceilings, no doubt greatly resembling those mentioned in the above texts (Wilkinson’s Anc. Egypt. 2:125). According to Mr. Layard, in the ancient Assyrian houses also “the ceilings overhead were divided into square compartments, painted with flowers or with the figures of animals. Some were inlaid with ivory, each compartment being surrounded by elegant borders and mouldings” (Nineveh, 2:208). The following remarks are from Smith’s Dict. s.v.: The descriptions of Scripture (1Ki 6:9; 1Ki 6:15; 1Ki 7:3; 2Ch 3:5; 2Ch 3:9; Jer 22:14; Hag 1:4) and of Josephus (Ant. 8:3, 2-9; 15:11, 5) show that the ceilings of the Temple and the palaces of the Jewish kings were formed of clear planks applied to the beams or joints crossing from wall to wall, probably with sunk panels (), edged and ornamented with gold, and carved with incised or other patterns ( ), sometimes painted (Jer 22:14). It is probable that both Egyptian and Assyrian models were in this, as in other branches of architectural construction, followed before the Roman period. SEE ARCHITECTURE.
The construction and designs of Assyrian ceilings in the more important buildings can only be conjectured (Layard, Nineveh, 2:265, 289), but the proportions in the walls themselves answer in a great degree to those mentioned in Scripture (Nin. and Bab. p. 642; Fergusson, Hand-book of Architecture, 1:201). Examples, however, are extant of Egyptian ceilings in stucco painted with devices of a date much earlier than that of Solomon’s Temple. Of these devices, the principal are the guilloche, the chevron, and the scroll. Some are painted in blue, with stars, and others bear representations of birds and other emblems (Wilkinson, Anc. Egypt. 2:290). The excessive use of vermilion and other glaring colors in Roman house-painting, of which Vitruvius at a later date complains (7:5), may have been introduced from Egypt, whence also came, in all probability, the taste for vermilion painting shown in Jehoiakim’s palace (Jer 22:14; Amo 3:15; Wilkinson, 1:19). See also the descriptions given by Athenaeus (5:196) of the tent of Ptolemy Philadelphus and the ship of Philopator (ib. 206), and of the so-called sepulchres of the kings of Syria, near Tyre, by Hasselquist (p. 165). The panel-work in ceilings which has been described is found in Oriental and North African dwellings of late and modern time. Shaw describes the ceilings of Moorish houses in Barbary as of wainscot, either “very artfully painted, or else thrown into a variety of panels, with gilded mouldings and scrolls of the Koran intermixed” (Trav. p. 208). Mr. Porter describes the ceilings of houses at Damascus as delicately painted, and in the more ancient houses with “arabesques” encompassing panels of blue, on which are inscribed verses and chapters of the Koran in Arabic; also a tomb at Palmyra, with a stone ceiling beautifully panelled and painted (Damascus, 1:34, 37, 57, 60, 232; comp. Deu 6:9; see also Lane’s Mod. Egypt. 1:37, 38; Thomson, Land and Book, 2:571). Many of the rooms in the Palace of the Moors at the Alhambra were ceiled and ornamented with the richest geometrical patterns. The ancient Egyptians used colored tiles in their buildings (Athen. 5:206; Wilkinson, 2:287). The like taste is observed by Chardin to have prevailed in Persia, and he mentions beautiful specimens of mosaic, arabesque, and inlaid wood-work in ceilings at Ispahan, at Koom in the mosque of Fatima, and at Ardevil. These ceilings were constructed on the ground, and hoisted to their position by machinery (Chardin, Voyage, 2:434; 4:126; 7:387; 8:40, plate 39; Olearius, p. 241). SEE HOUSE.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Ceiling
the covering (1 Kings 7:3, 7) of the inside roof and walls of a house with planks of wood (2 Chr. 3:5; Jer. 22:14). Ceilings were sometimes adorned with various ornaments in stucco, gold, silver, gems, and ivory. The ceilings of the temple and of Solomon’s palace are described 1 Kings 6:9, 15; 7:3; 2 Chr. 3:5, 9.
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Ceiling
Fig. 121Ceilings
The Orientals bestow much attention upon the ceilings of their principal rooms. Where wood is not scarce, they are usually composed of one curious piece of joinery, framed entire, and then raised and nailed to the joists. These ceilings are often divided into small square compartments; but are sometimes of more complicated patterns. Wood of a naturally dark color is commonly chosen, and it is never painted. In places where wood is scarce, and sometimes where it is not particularly so, the ceilings are formed of fihe plaster, with tasteful moldings and ornaments, colored and relieved with gilding, and with pieces of mirror inserted in the hollows formed by the involutions of the raised moldings of the arabesques, which enclose them as in a frame. The antiquity of this taste can be clearly traced by actual examples up to the times of the Old Testament, through the Egyptian monuments, which display ceilings painted with rich colors in such patterns as are shown in the annexed cut. The explanation thus obtained satisfactorily illustrates the peculiar emphasis with which ‘ceiled houses’ and ‘ceiled chambers’ are mentioned by Jeremiah (Jer 22:14) and Haggai (Hag 1:4).
Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature
Ceiling
Ceiling. The descriptions of Scripture, 1Ki 6:9; 1Ki 6:15; 1Ki 7:3; 2Ch 3:5; 2Ch 3:9; Jer 22:14; Hag 1:4, and of Josephus, show that the ceilings of the Temple and the palaces of the Jewish kings were formed of cedar planks applied to the beams or joists crossing from wall to wall. “Oriental houses seem to have been the reverse of ours, the ceiling being of wood, richly ornamented, and the floor of plaster or tiles.”