gravitybow

The four marble friezes inside the Supreme Court chamber (one each at the top of the north, south, east, and west walls) were designed by sculptor Adolph Weinman. Weinman is better known for designing the mercury dime.

Moses appears with nine other lawgivers on the south frieze from left to right in this order: Menes, Hammurabi, Moses, Solomon, Lycurgus, Solon, Draco, Confucius, Octavian. Moses is holding two tablets; the edge of one can be seen behind the other. The one that is visible has Hebrew writing on it showing parts of the last five commandments. Moses is the same size as all the other lawgivers and is presented in the order in which he appears historically. Weinman is showing a succession of lawgivers throughout history, not making a statement about the Ten Commandments as a basis of American law, as many folks have suggested.

I've seen some websites cut away the rest of the frieze to isolate Moses holding the tablets, and then crow about the "proof" this provides! I like to direct those idiotic revisionists to the north frieze, where the lawgivers continue in historical order from right to left: Justinian, Muhammad, Charlemagne, King John, Louis IX, Hugo Grotius, Sir William Blackstone, John Marshall, Napoleon. Now, here's the kicker: Muhammad is holding the ENTIRE Koran in his hands. What conclusion is one suppose to draw from that?

The two wooden doors that swing open into the Supreme Court chamber each have a carving on the lower portion of a representation of the Ten Commandments, simple tablets with Roman numerals on them. The tablets are low enough that I found it easier to lie on the floor to photograph them (until a guide came over and told me I couldn’t lie on the floor of the US Supreme Court. Imagine that!) In the scheme of the building’s architecture, these tablets are modest adornments, and the simple iconography the tablets provide makes them ideally suited for the narrow doors. It’s silly to read more into them than that.

On the exterior of the building, over the east pediment, is a very striking frieze by sculptor Hermon MacNeil of Moses sitting and holding a blank tablet in each hand. He is flanked by the standing figures of Confucius and Solon. These figures were chosen to represent “three great civilizations” (MacNeil’s words) of the East. They were not chosen to claim the US as a Christian nation. By the way, the east side of the building is the rear. The day I walked around there, the only folks back there where me and a four-man road crew.

Bottom line: These are the only three representations of the Ten Commandments at the Supreme Court. The Ten Commandments are not written out anywhere. Anyone who says otherwise is misled, mistaken, or lying. Anyone who says they were created to prove this is a Christian nation whose laws are based on the Ten Commandments is misled, mistaken, or lying.