Ahkman rewinds a bit and recounts the construction of their temple, which followed blueprints found in the Great Scroll (and similar to those found in the Ezekiel selection). His people built it with the best materials they could acquire and decorated it with bamboo, narra ("Philippine mahogany", the national tree), gold, silver, and beautiful stones.
They started with the Most Holy Place and built the Holy Place east of it. On the doors between these two rooms were engraved two trees (similar to Solomon's temple), symbolizing the Edenic Trees of Life and the Knowledge of Good and Evil. There was also a gated antechamber east of the Most Holy Place (a liminal space between levels) protected by a sword-wielding guard (representing the cherubim guarding the Garden of Eden and Tree of Life). (From the description, it's not 100% clear if the guarded antechamber is between the two rooms or to the east of them both. It sounds like the guard was for the Most Holy Place, but Solomon's temple had a similar walled porch or court to the east of the Holy Place.) This entire complex, the House, was a single building.
To the east of the House was built two pillars (again similar to Solomon's temple), one of bronze, the other of brick on which were written the most important parts of the law. There's too much discussion by Jewish scholars on the significance and symbolism of Solomon's pillars to post here (you can Google it and explore for yourself ; ), but preserving the law in writing upon the pillars is intriguing. There are Jewish and Masonic traditions about antediluvian descendants of Adam's son, Seth, who, knowing the world would be destroyed by fire or water, recorded principles of their learning and knowledge on two pillars of brick and stone, hoping at least one would survive the catastrophe.
To the east of the House were two walled courts, one containing the bronze basin (or laver in KJV speak) for ritual washing, the other housed the altar of sacrifice made from unhewn stone in the ancient tradition. As with Solomon's temple, it's unclear their position relative to each other. Depictions of Solomon's temple have the altar and basin side by side on a N-S line, aligned E-W between the gate and the temple, or the altar centered along that E-W line and the basin offset.
Round about the House and two walled courts was the upper court, and around that was the lower court, which were finished in an identical manner. Within the walls of these two courts were two "pedestals", one each on the east and west ends. I'm not sure what these pedestals could be. Maybe they were to hold sacred objects, or they could simply be referring to stairways between the courts. There were also chambers along the north and south walls of the courts (we'll see uses of these later), and to the east of the lower court was a gated vestibule (another liminal space).
Using my exceptional Excel skills, here's one possible depiction of the plan of Ahkman's temple complex:
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