All that remains of the old adobe tabernacle on Temple Square is a fragile wooden sunburst once labeled a broken remnant.

Recent examination by conservators at the Museum of Church History and Art now confirms that the historic image is complete. It was never intended to be a full-circled sunstone like those on the Nauvoo Temple, they say. Rather, the carved face represents the top part of a rising sun, peeking over the horizon.An unidentified pioneer woodcarver created the intriguing face, with two large eyes under bushy eyebrows. Reaching out from the face are 18 tapered wooden rays (one is missing).

Though gray with age, the fragile piece once glowed with bright paint, according to conservator James L. Raines, who cleaned and consolidated the wooden artifact for the new Church history exhibit. Originally, the sun's face was yellow, he said. Traces of white paint appear between the rays, blending outward into yellow and then orange.

"This was quite a colorful thing in its day," said Raines. "Whoever it was that made it wanted to create the hues of a real sun."

The wooden sunburst, 36 inches across, was probably a decorative piece on the south gable of the old tabernacle on Temple Square, dedicated by Willard Richards on April 6, 1852, on the site now occupied by the Assembly Hall.

From its position on the building, the sunburst peered out over South Temple until 1877, when the building was demolished.

Curators suppose the sunburst may have symbolized the restoration of the gospel, a theme expressed in hymns such as "The Day Dawn Is Breaking," "The Morning Breaks, the Shadows Flee," and "Hail to the Brightness of Zion's Glad Morning!"

If so, it was an appropriate image for a building used for weekly Sunday preaching meetings and for general conference sessons.

Built under the supervision of Henry Grow and William Folsom, the old tabernacle had short adobe walls topped with a large sloping roof covered with white pine shingles. It was 126 feet long and 64 feet wide and seated about 2,500 people.

The structure had an acoustical sound shell in the north end - a concept repeated in expanded form in the building which replaced it.

The idea for a tabernacle in which to preach originated in Nauvoo. In April 1844, Joseph Smith directed the Twelve to collect funds for a canvas tabernacle to be erected adjacent to the Nauvoo Temple on the west.

They eventually purchased 4,000 yards of canvas for an elliptical tabernacle approximately 250 feet long - a size and shape imitated by the second tabernacle built on Temple Square. The Nauvoo tabernacle was never built, but the canvas probably found use as wagon covers for the exodus.

Raines said that although the wooden sunburst is aged and dry, it is generally well preserved. The image is fastened with square nails to a backing made of a double layer of planks. Moisture in the outer layer caused some dry rot, which Raines gently cleaned and filled with beeswax to stabilize it.

He cleaned the entire surface with conservators' soap and de-ionized water using small cotton swabs. It was while cleaning the wood that he discovered tiny fragments of the original paint.

A poster for the new exhibit, scheduled for a May 19 public opening, features the old sunburst, resplendent with the bright yellow-orange colors that once identified it for visitors to Temple Square.