Where Is It?

COURTESY PHOTO BY THE US SUPREME COURT

1. Athens, Greece
2. The Hague, Netherlands
3. Oxford, United Kingdom
4. Washington, DC
5. Rome, Italy

Answer: (4) Washington, DC

The outside of the United States Supreme Court building is lavishly adorned with elaborate reliefs that pertain to bedrock American legal principles. Over the main entrance on the west side of the building, an inscription reads, “Equal Justice Under Law.” The West Pediment is decorated with reliefs that depict the great lawgivers of the past, such as Hammurabi, Demosthenes, and Cicero, as well as human figures personifying the authority of law and other fundamental concepts.

Perhaps less familiar, however, are the reliefs on the opposite side of the building. Centered atop the East Pediment, over the inscription “Justice the Guardian of Liberty,” sits Moses, the great lawgiver of the Hebrew Bible. The figures flanking him are particularly intriguing: On his right stands Confucius (d. 479 BCE), the paragon of Chinese philosophy; and on his left is Solon (d. 560 BCE), renowned lawmaker and philosopher of ancient Athens.

The East Pediment sculptures were designed by Hermon A. MacNeil and built between 1932 and 1934. Writing to the Supreme Court Building Commission, MacNeil described his choice of the pediment’s central figures as appropriately “derived from the East,” identifying Moses, Confucius, and Solon as representatives of the fundamental laws and precepts of three great eastern civilizations.