[Avodah] Are there any chemists on Avodah?

[Hankman]

Rn'TK wrote:
Was it "literally built from soil"?  I thought it was a hollow copper  (or 
maybe brass) block with a copper mesh covering, and that when they  camped, 
they filled the hollow copper block with soil.  

CM responds:
I believe that the copper was more in the form of some sort of sheet metal or cladding over wood, rather than mesh that to me means a surface with holes in it and permeable, which would leave the adama exposed to the surface (actually the wood [that you did not mention] between the adama and the copper that would be exposed to the surface). (See more below on the construction of the miszbeach).

Also I recall seeing a medrash that there was a machlokes Tanaim how the mizbeach was transported. One held as you did, that it was emptied for the transport and then refilled, but the other held that it was transported full and not emptied and refilled. They also differed whether the aish on the mizbeach remained burning during transport or not.

In an earlier post RZS [wrote, but not about the one in the Mishkan] and I wrote the following about the interior of the mizbeach:

  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 throughout 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

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