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The imagery is too complex for a 700AD culture, especially when for centuries it had been a two curved lined fish. I don't buy the story.

Perhaps you meant BC (before Christ), not AD (anno Domini, year of our Lord)?

In both cases, you would be very wrong, as our own scriptures make clear—the level of building engineering and decorative arts were very high more than 1,000 years before the birth of Christ.

In the Book of First Chronicles, starting with chapter 28, King David gives detailed instructions for the building of the Temple in Jerusalem. This is approximately 950 years before the time of Christ.

11 Then David gave his son Solomon the plans for the portico of the temple, its buildings, its storerooms, its upper parts, its inner rooms and the place of atonement. 12 He gave him the plans of all that the Spirit had put in his mind for the courts of the temple of the Lord and all the surrounding rooms, for the treasuries of the temple of God and for the treasuries for the dedicated things. 13 He gave him instructions for the divisions of the priests and Levites, and for all the work of serving in the temple of the Lord, as well as for all the articles to be used in its service. 14 He designated the weight of gold for all the gold articles to be used in various kinds of service, and the weight of silver for all the silver articles to be used in various kinds of service: 15 the weight of gold for the gold lampstands and their lamps, with the weight for each lampstand and its lamps; and the weight of silver for each silver lampstand and its lamps, according to the use of each lampstand; 16 the weight of gold for each table for consecrated bread; the weight of silver for the silver tables; 17 the weight of pure gold for the forks, sprinkling bowls and pitchers; the weight of gold for each gold dish; the weight of silver for each silver dish; 18 and the weight of the refined gold for the altar of incense. He also gave him the plan for the chariot, that is, the cherubim of gold that spread their wings and overshadow the ark of the covenant of the Lord.
19 “All this,” David said, “I have in writing as a result of the Lord’s hand on me, and he enabled me to understand all the details of the plan.”
20 David also said to Solomon his son, “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the Lord is finished. 21 The divisions of the priests and Levites are ready for all the work on the temple of God, and every willing person skilled in any craft will help you in all the work. The officials and all the people will obey your every command.”

Next, in 1 Chron 29:1-5, King David continues:

Then King David said to the whole assembly: “My son Solomon, the one whom God has chosen, is young and inexperienced. The task is great, because this palatial structure is not for man but for the Lord God. With all my resources I have provided for the temple of my God—gold for the gold work, silver for the silver, bronze for the bronze, iron for the iron and wood for the wood, as well as onyx for the settings, turquoise, stones of various colors, and all kinds of fine stone and marble—all of these in large quantities. Besides, in my devotion to the temple of my God I now give my personal treasures of gold and silver for the temple of my God, over and above everything I have provided for this holy temple: three thousand talents[b] of gold (gold of Ophir) and seven thousand talents of refined silver, for the overlaying of the walls of the buildings, for the gold work and the silver work, and for all the work to be done by the craftsmen. Now, who is willing to consecrate themselves to the Lord today?”

Then David dies, and his son Solomon becomes King, and is tasked with carrying out these grand plans for the Temple of the Lord. In 2 Chronicles, starting with chapter 2, you can read the enormous labor of skilled craftsmen, timbermen who harvested cedar and juniper logs, stonecutters who hewed out the rectangular solid stones for the walls of the Temple, and in verses 13-14, Hiram the King of Tyre wrote to Solomon,

“I am sending you Huram-Abi, a man of great skill... He is trained to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, stone and wood, and with purple and blue and crimson yarn and fine linen. He is experienced in all kinds of engraving and can execute any design given to him. He will work with your skilled workers and with those of my lord, David your father.

I heartily recommend that you read 2 Chronicles Chapters 3 and 4, in which the very detailed description of the decorative elements of the interior of the Temple are described, including cedar and juniper paneling for the interior walls, a cast bronze altar built to specifications as well as a cast bronze "sea" or great basin standing on the floor to hold a swimming pool's worth of water, with figures of bulls surrounding its base and a rim "like a lily blossom." There were many other additional basins, gold lampstands and other equipment specified, as well as pillars with "two sets of network decorating the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars [and] four hundred pomegranates for the two sets of network (two rows of pomegranates for each network." The lampstands were fashioned from solid gold, as were the candlewick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, dishes and incense pots, and the doors to the Inner Sanctum inside the Temple.

All this work was completed 966 years before the birth of Christ.

In subsequent books of the Old Testament, the looting of all these treasures by the conquering Babylonians who took the Jews into exile is described in detail, as well as the efforts almost a century later by the Jews to recover many of those bowls, cups, and precious metal objects from the Babylonian treasury upon their return to Jerusalem.