ABSTRACT
Their temples are laid out in an east-west direction, and on the north side they build an alcove which projects rather like a choir; or sometimes, if the building is square, they partition off an alcove inside, in the middle of the north side, corresponding to the choir. 3 Here they place a coffer which is as long and broad as a table, and behind the coffer, facing south, is placed the chief idol. The one I saw at Caracorum was the size of a representation of St Christopher;4 and I was told by a Nestorian priest who had come from Cataia that the country contains an idol so large that it is visible at two days' distance.5 The rest of the idols are placed around in a circle, all most beautifully inlaid with gold. On top of the coffer, which serves as a table, they put the lamps and the offerings. All the temple doors open onto the south, the opposite way to the Saracens. Similarly they have large bells like us: this, I assume, is why the eastern Christians have been unwilling to adopt them, though they are used by the Russians and by the Greeks in Gazaria. 6
1 Rockhill (Rubruck, p. 143 n.3) pointed out that there is no special orientation and that the hands are not clasped but held together with the palms flat.
