[Avodah] Are there any chemists on Avodah?

[Hankman]

RZS wrote:
The mizbeach was not solid stone. It was four stone walls surrounding
a hollow that was filled in with earth.  So the work would have been
tedious, but less so than you imagined.

CM responds:

Not according to my understanding.
What is your source that there were stones walls filled with earth rather than a stone mortar-matrix thoughout the entire volume of the mizbeach. The Tani Levi I mentioned in my original post that describes the construction of the mizbeach makes no mention of any earth fill. The only shitos that I can recall, speak of 1) wood walls clad in copper with earth fill (Mishkan, and according to some Shilo etc), 2) copper over stone fill [not sure if there was also a mortar in the stone fill, though I tend to assume so] (Shilo according to some), 3) and to my understanding entirely of a stone-mortar matrix (Bayis 1 and 2 and Shilo according to some [if I recall correctly]).

Kol tuv

Chaim Manaster
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20110111/713b691c/attachment-0002.htm>