Chapter IV: The Sacred Architecture of Egypt (3)

The Ramesseum was formerly surrounded by brick structures of a peculiar character, some of which are yet to be found in good preservation at about 50 metres from the north face of the building. They consist of a double range of vaults closely abutting on each other, numbering from ten to twelve in each range, and surmounted by a platform. If it be true that a library was included in the building, these curious structures, which are situated within the outer bounding wall of the temple, may have contained rooms for lodging and instructing students, as well as chambers for the priests. In that case Rameses would deserve the credit of having founded, like the Mussulman sovereigns, a _médressé_, or sort of university, by the side of his _turbeh_ and _mosque_. Additional probability is given to this conjecture both by certain discoveries which have been made in tombs near the Ramesseum and by the evidence of several papyri.[336] But for these texts we should be inclined to believe that these remains are the ruins of storehouses.

[336] EBERS, _Ægypten_, vol. ii. p. 312.

About a thousand yards south-west of the Ramesseum rises the group of buildings which is known by the name of the modern village of Medinet-Abou. It was not until the second half of the present century had commenced that they were cleared from the _débris_ and modern huts which concealed many of their parts. The group is composed of three distinct buildings in one enclosure. The oldest is a temple built by Thothmes II. and Thothmes III. and afterwards enlarged by the Ptolemies and the Roman Emperors (A on plan). The other two date from the time of Rameses III., the founder of the twentieth dynasty. They both lie upon the same axis, they are connected by a sphinx avenue, and they must certainly be considered as two parts of one whole. The first of the three which we encounter in approaching the group from the river is known as the Royal Pavilion or Pavilion of Rameses III. (B). Ninety yards farther to the north we come upon the great temple, the funerary character of which we have already explained (C). It is a second _Ramesseum_, and to avoid confusion it is generally known as the _Great Temple of Medinet-Abou_. We shall return to the Royal Pavilion presently, and, as for the Temple of Thothmes, which was consecrated to Amen, its really ancient portion is of too little importance to detain us long. It consists merely of an isolated secos surrounded on three sides by an open gallery upheld by square piers and, upon the fourth, by a block containing six small chambers (Fig. 222).

The great temple, however, whose picturesque ruins attract every visitor to Thebes, deserves to be carefully considered even in our summary review.[337] It bears a striking resemblance to the Ramesseum. Their dimensions are nearly the same. The first pylon at Medinet-Abou is 210 feet wide. The two courts which follow and isolate the second pylon are severally 113 feet by 140, and 126 feet by 136. The plan of Medinet-Abou does not differ (223) in any very important points from that of the Ramesseum. Upon two of its sides only, those which are at right angles to the face of the pylon, the first quadrangle has colonnades. One of these colonnades, that on the right of a visitor entering the temple, consists of a row of pillars faced with caryatides of Osiris. These Osiride piers are repeated in the second court, where a double colonnade, five steps above the pavement, leads to the pronaos. The latter seems too small for the two peristyles. It has only twenty-four supporting columns, in four rows of six each, counting from front to back of the building. These columns are smaller in section than those of the peristyles, and the eight which constitute the central nave do not differ from their companions.[338] This hypostyle hall lacks, therefore, some of the distinguishing characteristics of its rivals elsewhere. Its unambitious appearance is all the more surprising after the noble proportions and rich decorations of the two external courts. The effect of the hall is still farther lessened by the fact that it does not occupy the whole width of the building. Ranges of apartments are introduced between it and the external walls of the temple.

[337] The plan in the _Description de l'Égypte_ (_Antiquités_,
vol. ii. pl. 4) does not go beyond the back wall of the second
court. That of Lepsius goes to the back of the hypostyle hall.
(_Denkmæler_, part i. pl. 92.) Ours is much more
comprehensive--it goes three stages farther back; it was
communicated to us by M. Brune, who measured the building in
1866.

[338] Here M. Perrot is in error, as may be seen by reference to
his own plan. The columns of the central passage of the
hypostyle hall are similar in section to those of the two
peristyles, except that their bases are flattened laterally in a
somewhat unusual fashion.--ED.

Was there a sanctuary behind this hypostyle hall? It would seem rather, according to the recent investigations of Mariette, that upon the major axis of the temple there were two small halls, each supported by eight columns, like those in the Ramesseum; around these many small chambers would be grouped in the fashion which is almost universal in this part of an Egyptian religious building. The little that can be discovered as to this point has its importance in establishing a comparison between the temple of Rameses II. and that of Rameses III., because it might prove that the similarity, which we have mentioned as existing between the more public parts of the two edifices, extended to the sanctuary and its dependencies in the rear. The last of the great Theban Pharaohs certainly drew much of his inspiration from the work of his illustrious predecessors. In their present state of mutilation it is impossible to decide which was the finer of the two in their complete state. To the fine hypostyle hall of the Ramesseum, Medinet-Abou could oppose the Royal Pavilion which rose in front of the temple and grouped itself so happily with the first pylon, affording one of the most effective compositions in the whole range of Egyptian architecture.

The rest of the temples in this neighbourhood and within the enclosures at Karnak are all more or less intimately allied to the type we have established, and need not be noticed in detail.[339]

[339] A few of these buildings--that, for instance, on the right
of the great lake--seem to have been very peculiar in
arrangement, but their remains are in such a state of confusion
that it is at present impossible to describe their plans.

We have good reason to believe that the type of temple which we have described was a common one in other parts of Egypt than Thebes. The temples of Memphis, of Heliopolis and of the Delta cities, have perished and, practically, left no trace behind; but the great buildings constructed by the Theban conquerors outside the limits of Egypt proper, in Nubia, are in comparatively good preservation. One of these, the Temple of _Soleb_, built by Thothmes III. and reconstructed by Amenophis III., must have borne a strong resemblance to the Ramesseum, so far as can be judged through the discrepancies in the available plans of the first-named building. Cailliaud only allows it one peristylar court, while Hoskins and Lepsius give it two. According to Cailliaud, its hypostyle hall, which must have been a very beautiful one, contained forty-eight columns. After it came another hall, with a roof supported by twelve columns. This was surrounded by small chambers, the remains of which are very confused. In the plan given by Lepsius there are two hypostyle halls with a wall between them, an arrangement which is also found at Abydos. The outer one must have had twenty-four columns, the largest in the building, and the second forty, of rather less diameter; the remainder of the temple has disappeared.[340]

[340] CAILLIAUD, _Voyage à Méroé_, plates, vol. ii. pl. 9-14.
LEPSIUS, _Denkmæler_, part i. pl. 116, 117. HOSKINS, _Travels in
Ethiopia_, plates 40, 41, and 42. The plan given by Hoskins
agrees more with that of Lepsius than with Cailliaud, but it
only shows the beginning of the first hypostyle hall and nothing
of the second. These divergences are easily understood when it
is remembered that nothing but some ten columns of two different
types remain _in situ_, and that the mounds of _débris_ are high
and wide. In order to obtain a really trustworthy plan, this
accumulation would have to be cleared away over the whole area
of the temple. All the plans show a kind of gallery, formed of
six columns, in front of the first pylon; it reminds us in some
degree of the great corridor at Luxor; by its general form,
however, rather than its situation.

We find analogous arrangements in the great temple of Napata (_Gebel-Barkal_). Built by Amenophis III. when Napata was the seat of an Egyptian pro-consul, and repaired by Tahraka when Ethiopia became supreme over Egypt, this temple resembles the Theban buildings in its plan. From a peristylar court enclosed between two pylons, we pass into a hypostylar hall containing forty-six columns; behind this hall comes the sanctuary, in its usual position, with its _entourage_ of small chambers. We may call this the _classic type_ of Egypt.

The temples which we have hitherto examined are chiefly remarkable for the simplicity of their plan. A single sanctuary forms the centre and, so to speak, the heart of the whole composition. Pylons, peristylar courts and hypostylar halls, are but anterooms and vestibules to this all important chamber; while the small apartments which surround it afford the necessary accommodation for the material adjuncts of Egyptian worship. In the great temple at Karnak, the anterior and posterior dependencies are developed to an extraordinary extent, but this development is always in the direction of the length, or to speak more accurately, of the depth of the building. The smaller faces of the whole rectangle are continually carried farther from each other by the additions of fresh chambers and architectural features, which are distributed, with more or less regular alternation, on the right and left of the major axis which always passes through the centre of the _secos_. The building, therefore, in spite of many successive additions always contrives to preserve the unity of its organic constitution.

But all the great buildings in Egypt which were constructed for the service of religion were not so simply designed. A good instance of a more complex arrangement is to be found in the great temple at Abydos (Fig. 224). It was begun by Seti I. and finished by Rameses II. Mariette freed it from the _débris_ and modern hovels which encumbered it, and, thanks to his efforts, there are now few monuments in Egypt whose inner arrangements can be more clearly and certainly perceived.

Its general shape is singular. The courts and the pronaos compose a narrow and elongated rectangle, with which the parts corresponding to the sanctuary and its dependent chambers form a right angle (see Fig. 224). This salient wing has no corresponding excrescence on the other side. We might consider the building unfinished, but that there is no sign whatever that the architect meant to complete it with another wing at the opposite angle. The Egyptians were never greatly enamoured of that exact symmetry which has become one of the first artistic necessities of our time.

Still more surprising than the eccentricity of its plan, are the peculiar arrangements which are to be found in the interior of this temple. As at Medinet-Abou and the Ramesseum, there are two courts, each preceded by a pylon. After these comes the pronaos. The courts differ from those at Thebes in having no peristyles or colonnades. The only thing of the kind is a row of square pillars standing before the inner wall of the second court (see plan). This is a poor equivalent for the majestic colonnades and files of caryatides which we have hitherto encountered.

The suppression of the portico has a great effect upon the appearance of these two courts. It deprives them of the rich shadows cast by the long colonnades and their roofs of the Theban temples, and the long walls must have seemed rather cold and monotonous in spite of the bas-reliefs and paintings which covered them. Their absence, however, is not allowed to affect the general lines of the plan.

We have given neither an elevation nor a section of the temple at Abydos, because neither the one nor the other was to be had. The building was hardly known until Mariette freed it from the _débris_ with which it was engulphed. He, too, studied rather as an egyptologist than as an architect, and was content with making known its internal arrangements by a plan. This plan does not appear to be minutely exact. A little farther on we shall have to speak of a peculiarity which exists at Abydos, but which is not hinted at in the adjoining plan; some of the columns are coupled in the first hypostyle hall. We take this fact from the _Description_, where the measurements are given in a fashion which forbids all doubt of their fidelity.

It is when we arrive at the pronaos that we fail to recognize the disposition to which we have grown accustomed. There is no central nave, with its columns of extra size and more careful design, leading to the closed door of the sanctuary. There are two hypostyle halls, the first supported by twenty-four, the second by thirty-six columns. They are separated by a wall pierced with seven doorways, each doorway corresponding to one of the aisles between the columns. In the farther wall of the second of these halls, there are seven more doorways, corresponding to the last named, and opening upon seven oblong vaulted saloons, all of one size and completely isolated one from another.

By their situation on the plan, by their form, and by the decoration of their walls, these vaulted chambers declare themselves to be so many sanctuaries. Each one of them is dedicated to some particular deity, whose name and image appear in the decorations of the chamber itself and also upon the lintel of the door outside. These names and images are again repeated upon all the surfaces presented by the aisle which leads up to the door.

The seven deities thus honoured, beginning at the right, are Horus, Isis, Osiris, Amen, Harmachis, Ptah, and Seti himself, whom we thus find assimilated with the greatest of the Egyptian gods. Each chamber contains a collection of thirty-six pictures, which are repeated from one to another with no changes beyond those rendered necessary by the substitution of one god for another. These pictures deal with the rites which would be celebrated by the king in each of the seven sanctuaries.

Behind this septuple sanctuary there is a secondary hypostyle hall, just as we find it behind the single _secos_ of the ordinary temple. Its roof was supported by ten columns, and access to it was obtained through the third sanctuary, that of Osiris. This part of the temple is in a very fragmentary condition. Very little is left of the bounding walls, but it has been ascertained that several of these chambers were dedicated to one or other of the deities between whom the naos was apportioned. Thus one of the chambers referred to was placed under the protection of Osiris, another under that of Horus, and a third under that of Isis.

The decoration of the southern wing of the temple seems never to have been completed. It contains a long corridor, a rectangular court with an unfinished peristyle, several small chambers with columns, and a flight of steps leading up on to the flat roof. A dark apartment or crypt, divided into two stories by a floor of large stone slabs, may have been used as a storehouse.

These farthest apartments seem to have been arranged in no sort of order. We shall not here enter into such matters as the construction of the seven parallel vaults in the naos; for that a future opportunity will be found;[341] at present our business is to make the differences between the temple at Abydos and that of Khons and its congeners, clearly understood. The distinction lies in the seven longitudinal subdivisions, beginning with the seven doors in the façade of the hypostyle hall, and ending in the vaulted chambers which form the same number of sanctuaries. Seen from outside, the temple would not betray its want of unity; it was surrounded by a single wall, the complex naos was prefaced by courts and pylons in the same fashion as in the temples of Thebes which we have already noticed, and it would not be until the building was entered and explored that the fact would become evident that it was seven shrines in one, seven independent temples under one roof.[342]

[341] Full particulars of the more obscure parts of the temple
at Abydos will be found in Mariette's first volume.

[342] Upon the funerary character of the great temple at Abydos,
see EBERS, _Ægypten_, vol. ii. pp. 234, 235.

At Thebes also we find a temple which, by its internal arrangements, resembles that of Abydos. It is called sometimes the _Palace_ and sometimes the _Temple of Gournah_; in the inscriptions it is called the _House of Seti_. Two propylons, one about fifty yards in front of the other, form an outwork to the main building, with which they are connected by an avenue of sphinxes. It is probable that they were originally the doorways through brick walls, now demolished, which formed successive enclosures round the temple. The dromos led up to the pronaos, which was reached by a few steps. The front of the naos is a portico of simple design, consisting of ten columns between two square pilasters, the whole being 166 feet long by 10 feet deep. Eight of these line columns are still erect. The wall at the back of the portico is pierced by three doorways, to which three distinct compartments or divisions of the interior correspond (see plan, Fig. 226).

The only feature in which these compartments resemble one another is their independence. They are isolated from one another by walls which run from front to back of the naos. The most important and elaborate of the three compartments is the middle one. Its entrance doorway opens directly upon a hall which is the largest in the whole temple. It is eighteen metres long, its roof is supported by six columns similar to those of the portico already mentioned, and ranged around it are nine small chambers, the pictures in which illustrate the apotheosis of Seti, who, often indued with the attributes of Osiris, is sometimes shown doing homage to the Theban triad of gods, and more especially to Amen-Ra, sometimes as himself the object of worship. The central one of these chambers opens upon a hall where the roof is supported by four square pillars, and upon this hall again four small apartments open. These can hardly be mere storehouses, but they have suffered so greatly that no certain opinion can be formed as to their real purposes.

The right-hand compartment is in a very bad state, but enough of it remains to show that its arrangements were quite different from those of its neighbour and much less complex. So far as we can judge, the larger part of it was taken up with a peristylar court or hall seventy-six feet long and forty-six wide. Behind this the site of three rectangular chambers may be distinguished. Every wall which is still standing bears representations of Rameses II. paying his devotions to the Theban gods.

The left compartment is in better preservation than the right, and its arrangements are more like those of the central part of the naos. It is not so large, however, and it contains no hypostyle hall. It has six chambers placed in two sets of three, the one set behind the other. Here we find Rameses I., the founder of the dynasty, honoured by his son Seti I. and his grandson Rameses II.

The great temples of Abydos and Gournah were built by the same sovereigns, Seti I. and Rameses II. Perhaps, too, their plans were traced by the same architect. The resemblance between them is so great that they may be looked upon as variants of one type, of a type which is distinguished by the juxtaposition of similar parts grouped laterally one by the side of the other. Each of the chapels which we have described was self-contained, the subsidiary chambers which were required for the routine of worship were grouped round it, either on one side, as at Abydos, or in the angles of the sanctuary itself, as at Gournah. With such slight differences of detail as this, the two buildings were built upon the same principle. At Gournah the division is tripartite, and the three compartments vary in their arrangements; at Abydos they are seven in number, and exactly similar in design. A temple thus cut into three parts, or seven, reminds us of the seed-pods of certain plants, in which the fertilizing grain is divided between several cells. But whether these are numerous or few, the naos never has any great depth. It seems as if the absence of a true organic centre arrested the development of the building; we find no signs of an edifice which, like the temple of Amen at Karnak, might be developed almost to infinity without losing its unity.

On the other hand, there were a few temples in which a severe and extreme unity was the distinguishing characteristic. In Upper Egypt and Nubia a few examples of the class are still to be seen. As a rule they date from the eighteenth dynasty, but there were a few temples of the same kind erected under the Ptolemies.[343] It seems probable, therefore, that they were common to all the periods of Egyptian history, and to the conquered provinces, as well as to Egypt proper. They were erected within, and in the neighbourhood of, those cities whose importance was not sufficient to demand such great monumental works as the temples of Thebes or Abydos, of Memphis or Sais. We might call them chapels, raised either to the honour of the local deities, or for the purpose of commemorating the passage of some conquering prince and the homage paid by him to the deity to whom he looked for protection and victory.

[343] We may cite as a peripteral temple of the Ptolemaic epoch
the building at Edfou, called, in the _Description_, the _Little
Temple_ (_Antiquités_, vol. i. plates 62-65). It differs from
the Pharaonic temples of the same class in having square piers
only at the angles, the rest of the portico being supported by
columns.

In these chapels there are neither internal peristyles nor hypostyles; there are none of those subsidiary chambers among which it is sometimes so easy to lose our way. There is, in fact, nothing but a rectangular chamber and a portico about it, and, in most cases, it would appear that a short dromos, consisting of a few pairs of sphinxes, lent dignity to the approach.

The best proportioned and perhaps the most interesting building of this class is the little sandstone temple built by Amenophis III. at Elephantiné, upon the southern frontier of Egypt. It was discovered at the end of the last century by the draughtsmen of the French Expedition, and named by them the _Temple of the South_.[344] This little building no longer exists. It was destroyed in 1822 by the Turkish Governor of Assouan, who had a mania for building. Happily the plans and drawings, which we reproduce, seem to have been made with great care.

[344] _Description de l'Égypte, Antiquités_, vol. i. plates
34-38.

The total area of the temple, at the floor level of the cella, was 40 feet by 31. It was raised upon a well-built rectangular base of almost the same lateral dimensions,[345] and 7 feet 6 inches high to the pavement of the portico. From the earth level to the top of the cornice the temple was 21 feet 6 inches in height. A flight of steps, enclosed between two walls of the same height as the stylobate, led up to the portico. The portico itself was composed of square piers and round columns. Two of the latter were introduced in the centre of each of the smaller faces of the building, while the side galleries were enclosed by seven square piers, inclusive of those at the angles. A dwarf wall about three feet in height bounded the gallery on the outside, and afforded a base for the piers; the circular columns on each side of the entrance alone stood directly upon the pavement of the gallery, and were thus higher by about three feet than either the piers or the columns in the corresponding façade at the rear. The oblong chamber enclosed by this portico had two entrances, one at the top of the steps, the other at the back.[346] The first named was indicated as the true entrance to the building by the slight salience of its jambs and lintel, by the increased size of the columns in front of it, and by its position with regard to the steps.

[345] This base contained a crypt, no doubt for the sake of
economising the material. There seems to have been no means of
access to it, either from without or within.

[346] Our plan, etc. shows the temple as it must have left the
hands of the architect, according to the authors of the
_Description de l'Égypte_. Jomard (pl. 35, Fig. 1) has imported
a small chamber into his plan, placing it behind the large hall
as a sort of _opisthodomos_; but he bids us remark that it was
constructed of different materials, and in a different _bond_,
from the rest of the temple. It showed no trace of the
sculptured decoration which covered all the rest of the temple.
This chamber was therefore a later addition, and one only
obtained at the expense of the continuous portico, the back part
of which was enclosed with a wall in which the columns became
engaged. According to Jomard, this alteration dates from the
Roman period, but however that may be, in our examination of the
temple we may disregard an addition which appears to have been
so awkwardly managed.

One more peculiarity must be noticed. Neither in piers nor in walls do we find that inward slope which is almost universal in Egyptian exteriors. The lines are vertical and horizontal. This is not the effect of caprice; the architect had a good reason for neglecting the traditions of his profession. By avoiding the usual inclination towards the centre, he gave to his small creation a dignity which it would otherwise have missed, and, in some degree, concealed its diminutive size.

In spite of its modest dimensions, this temple was without neither beauty nor grandeur. Its stylobate raised it well above the plain, while the steps in front gave meaning and accent to its elevation. The wide spacing of the columns in front allowed the richly decorated doorway to be seen in effective grouping with the long perspectives of the side galleries. The piers on the flanks were more closely spaced than the columns of the _façade_, and the contrast was heightened by the simplicity of their form. The dignity of the entablature and the bold projection of the cornice added to the effect of the whole, and emphasized the well-balanced nature of the composition. The Egyptian architects never produced a building better calculated to please modern tastes. Its symmetry and just proportion appeal directly to those whose artistic ideas are founded upon the creations of the Greeks and Romans.

This sympathy was conspicuously felt by those who discovered the little monument. "The arrangement," says Jomard, "is a model of simplicity and purity.... The Temple of Elephantiné is pleasing as a whole, and commands our attention." But the purity and harmony of its lines are not its only claims to our admiration. The pleasure which it causes us to feel is partly the result of its resemblance to a well-known and much admired type, that of the Greek temple. In all essentials the arrangements are the same, a cella raised upon an important base and surrounded by a colonnade.

The general arrangement of the Elephantiné structure has even its name in the technical language of the Greek architects, they would call it a _peripteral_ temple, because the colonnade goes completely round it. Nowhere else do we find such a striking resemblance between Greece and Egypt. But for the mouldings, the sculptured decorations, and the inscribed texts, we should be tempted to see in it a building of the Ptolemaic period, Greek in conception and plan, but decorated in the Egyptian taste. Such a mistake would, however, be impossible in these days, and even at the end of the last century. The French _savants_ knew enough to prevent them falling into such an error. They were unable to read the hieroglyphics, but the general physiognomy of the building told them that it could boast of a venerable antiquity. In coming to this conclusion they were right, but they should have stopped there instead of attempting to establish a direct connection, as cause and effect, between the Egyptian building and the temples of Greece. We shall not here discuss the delicate question of the indebtedness of Greek artists to those of Egypt, but we may allow ourselves to make two observations. In the first place, the temples built upon this plan were very small, and must have attracted very little notice indeed from strangers dazzled by the wonders of Sais, Memphis, and Thebes; and the buildings in those great cities did not offer the peculiar characteristics which, we are asked to believe, inspired the early Greek architects. In the second place, if there had been any direct imitation of an Egyptian model, we should have found in the copy at least some passing trace of those square piers which were so continually and successfully used by the Egyptian architects; but in the Greek peripteral temples the external colonnades are always made up exclusively of circular columns. The Greek architect hardly ever made use of the square pier, except in the form of a pilaster, to give strength to the extremities of a wall.

Would it not be much simpler to admit that we have here one of those coincidences which are so frequent in the history of the arts? Human nature is pretty much the same all over the world. When human skill has been employed at different times and in different countries, in supplying similar wants and solving almost identical problems, it has been led to results which vary only in the minor details. These variations are more or less marked according to race characteristics or material surroundings. When examined closely the circumstances of mankind are never found unchanged from one period or one race to another, but a superficial resemblance is enough to ensure that their artistic creations shall have many important points in common. In no pursuit does the human mind turn in a narrower circle than in architecture. The purpose of the building on the one hand, and the qualities of the material on the other, exercise a great influence upon form. But the purposes for which important buildings are erected are very few, neither are the materials at the command of the architect very many. The possible combinations are therefore far from numerous. Take two races placed in conditions of climate and civilization which may fairly be called analogous; put the same materials in the hands of their architects and give them the same programme to carry out; is it not almost certain that they would produce works with many features in common, and that without any knowledge of each other's work? From this point of view only, as it seems to us, should the type of building just described be regarded. If the temple at Elephantiné had possessed no other interest but that belonging to it as an example of Egyptian temple building, we might have omitted all mention of it, or at least devoted but a few words to it. And yet such types are scarce. The French explorers found a second temple of the same class not far from the first; now, however, it exists only in their drawings.[347] A third has been discovered in Nubia, which must resemble the two at Elephantiné very strongly; we mean the temple constructed by Thothmes III. on the left bank of the river, at Semneh. Although it has suffered greatly, traces of a portico are to be found about the cella, and it has been ascertained that this portico consisted both of square piers and columns.[348] Finally, at El-kab (Eilithya), in Upper Egypt, there is a temple constructed upon the same plan; it differs from that at Elephantiné in having only two circular columns, those upon the façade; all the rest of the peristyle consists of square piers.[349] The oldest part of the temple built by Thothmes II. and Thothmes III. at Medinet-Abou presents an analogous arrangement. The sanctuary is there surrounded on three sides by a portico of square piers (Fig. 222).

[347] In the _Description de l'Égypte_ it is called _The
Northern Temple_ (see vol. i. pl. 38, Figs. 2 and 3). The only
difference noted by Jomard was in the ornamentation of the
capitals.

[348] LEPSIUS _Denkmæler_, part i. pl. 113.

[349] _Description, Antiquités_, vol. i. pl. 71, Figs. 1, 2, 3,
4; letterpress, vol. i. ch. vi. This temple is 50 feet long, 31
wide, and 15 feet 8 inches high.

There is nothing to forbid the supposition that these temples were once much more numerous in the valley of the Nile, but it appears certain that they were always of small dimensions. If like those of Sais and Memphis, the temples of Thebes had vanished and left no trace behind, we might have been led to believe that some of the great religious buildings of the Egyptians had been in this form; but we have Luxor and Karnak, Medinet-Abou and the Ramesseum, Gournah and Abydos; we have several important temples built in Ethiopia by Egyptian conquerors, and others erected by the Ethiopian sovereigns in imitation of Egyptian architecture.[350] When we compare these remains with one another and call to mind the words of Strabo and of other ancient travellers as to the monuments which have been destroyed, we are forced to this general conclusion, that it was within the high external walls of their buildings, around courts open to the sky or as supports for wide and lofty halls, that the Egyptians loved to group their mighty piers and columns. When the portico was outside it was so placed because there was no room for it within. When the temple was reduced to a single narrow chamber, so small that there was no room for columns and that the walls could support the roof without help, the colonnade was relegated to the exterior, where it served to give importance to the cella, and to clothe and beautify it.

[350] See LEPSIUS for plans of these buildings; _Denkmæler_,
part i. plates 125, 127, and 128.

The peripteral arrangement, which is a constant principle in Greek architecture, is no more than a rare accident in that of Egypt. But in spite of this difference the similarity, which might be called a chance likeness, if the word chance had any place in history, is full of interest for the historian of art.

The following facts are sufficient to prove that it was the small size of these peripteral temples that first suggested the external situation of their colonnades. As long as the cella was large enough to admit supports of the ordinary diameter without encumbering the space or destroying its proportions, we find the columns inside. Of this the temple of Amenophis III. at Eilithyia, a plan and section of which we take from Lepsius (Figs. 232 and 233),[351] is an instance. It is prefaced by a chamber, very ruinous, and wider than it is deep. It is now difficult to say whether this was an uncovered court or a hypostyle hall.[352] Immediately abutting upon it comes the naos, a rectangular chamber measuring internally 28 feet by 22 feet 6 inches. The roof might very possibly have been supported by the four columns, as their bases were 4 feet in diameter. A niche contrived in the further wall of the naos acted the part of a _secos_.

[351] _Denkmæler_, part i. pl. 100.

[352] The internal measurements of this chamber were 26 feet by
33. Lepsius gives it four columns, but at present there are only
the remains of one to be found. Almost the same arrangements are
to be found in the Temple of _Sedeinga_. (LEPSIUS, _Denkmæler_,
part i. pl. 115.)

Here too we find a very simple form of temple, but the naos being large enough to admit, and even to demand, the use of internal columns, it never entered the architect's head to surround it with a portico externally. Thus arranged, the chapel, as we have called these buildings, was nothing more than an epitome of the temple, and there is no need for insistance upon the variations which it presents upon a single theme, upon a first principle which sometimes was developed into a colossal structure like that at Karnak, sometimes reduced until it resulted in buildings where a few paces carry the visitor from one extremity to the other.

We may say the same of those subterranean temples which are called _speos_ or _hemi-speos_, _grotto_, or _half-grotto_, according to whether they are entirely rock cut, or prefaced by architectural constructions. They are chiefly found in Lower Nubia, a fact which has sometimes been explained by the natural configuration of the soil. In that portion of the Nile Valley the river is embraced so closely by the rocks between which it flows that it would, we are told, have been difficult to find a site for a constructed temple. In this, however, there is some exaggeration. If we examine a map of Nubia we shall find many places where either one or the other of the two chains of hills fall back from the river far enough to allow a considerable intervening fringe of level ground. This is cropped and tilled by little groups of natives, who live, as a rule, at the mouth of those _wadis_, or dry torrent beds, which intersect the mountains. These strips of arable land are always either level or of a very gentle slope. It would, therefore, not be very difficult to obtain a site for such little oratories as were required for the scanty population, for the soldiers in the nearest military post, for the engineers and workmen in some neighbouring quarry. Even supposing that it pleased the king to choose some deserted site in a conquered province for the erection of some durable memorial of his prowess, no very large building would be required. Great temples were reserved for populous cities, in which the king, the military commanders, and the priest resided, in which the popular ceremonies of religion were performed.

The Egyptian architect did not hesitate to cut away part of the side of a mountain when it was the only means open to him of obtaining a level site for building. In this fashion Seti obtained a site for his great temple at Abydos. The same thing might have been done, at much less cost, for these little Nubian temples. It would always have been easy with pick and chisel to adapt some ridge or cornice of the cliffs for their reception, or to cut a sort of courtyard in the slope of the hill, in which a small temple might have been erected. We must not seek, then, for a reason for the multiplication of these rock temples in the Nubian section of the Nile Valley either in natural conditions or in the want of architectural resource. Even in Egypt proper there are chapels cut in the flanks of the hills; near Beni-Hassan there is the _Speos Artemidos_, and near Assouan, close to the quarries of Gebel Silsilis,[353] there is another. Below the first cataract, however, these grottos are as rare as they are numerous on the other side of the frontier, where, indeed, they sometimes rise to a magnificence of which nothing else in Egypt, unless it be the finest of the sepulchral excavations at Thebes, can give an idea. How are we to account for this difference, or rather contrast?

[353] See, for Gebel Silsilis, LEPSIUS, _Denkmæler_, part i. pl.
102.

This question is more easily asked than answered. The following explanation seems to us, however, the most probable.

Ethiopia was not Egypt. Although they were closely connected as early as the sixth dynasty, the former never lost its character of a conquered province. In Ethiopia men did not feel so sure of the morrow as in Egypt proper. Between the sixth and the eleventh dynasty the hold of Egypt upon Ethiopia had been lost at least once. Reconquered by the kings of the first Theban period, it regained its independence during the domination of the Hyksos; the eighteenth dynasty had, therefore, to begin the work of subjugation all over again, and it did its work more thoroughly than any of its predecessors. Then, when the Egyptian sceptre ruled as far south as Napata and the great bend of the Nile, the governors of the southern provinces must have been continually employed in repelling the incursions of the negroes from Upper Ethiopia, and in suppressing the warlike tribes who lived within the conquered frontier. At such times the king himself must often have been compelled to take the field and lead his armies in person. A constructed temple, especially when of small size, would be in great risk of destruction in a country exposed to the repeated incursions of savage tribes; columns and piers would soon be overturned by their ruthless arms. But chambers cut in the living rock would offer a much stouter resistance; the decorations might be scraped down or daubed over, but the time and patience required for any serious attack upon the limestone or granite sides and piers would not be forthcoming. Such damage as could be done in a short time and by the weapons of the invaders could readily be repaired when the raid was over.

We think it probable, therefore, that subterranean architecture was preferred throughout this region because the political condition of the province was always more or less precarious, rather than because the configuration of the country required it. Where security was assured by the presence of a strong and permanent garrison, as at Semneh and Kumneh, we find constructed temples just as we do in Egypt. They are found, too, in those localities--Soleb and Napata for instance--where there was a large urban population, and therefore fortifications and troops for their defence. Everywhere else it was found more convenient to confide the temple to the guardianship of its own materials, the living rock, and to bury it in faces of the cliffs. This kind of work, moreover, was perfectly easy to Egyptian workmen. For many centuries they had been accustomed, as we have seen, to hollow out the flanks of their mountains, and to decorate the chambers thus obtained, for the last resting-places of their dead. In the execution of such works they must have arrived at a degree of practised skill which made it as easy for them to cut a speos like the great temple at Ipsamboul, as to build one of the same size. This fact probably had its weight in leading the conquerors of Nubia to fill it with underground temples. Such a method of construction was at once expeditious and durable, a double advantage, which would be greatly appreciated in the early years of the occupation of the province. When security was established, the same process continued to be used from love for the art itself. When Rameses II. cut those two caves in the rock at Ipsamboul, whose façades, with their gigantic figures, have such an effect upon the travellers of to-day, it was neither because he was pressed for time, nor because he was doubtful of the tenure of his power. The military supremacy of Egypt and the security of her conquests seemed to be assured. The Egyptian monarch carved the cliffs of Ipsamboul into gigantic images of himself because he wished to astonish his contemporaries and their posterity with the boldness and novelty of the enterprise. At Thebes he had built, on the right hand of the river, the hall of Karnak and the pylons of Luxor; on the left bank, the _Temple of Seti_ and the Ramesseum. For these he could have imagined no pendant more original or more imposing than the great temple carved from a natural hill, in front of which statues of the sovereign, higher than any of those which adorned the courtyards at Thebes, would see countless generations of Egyptians pass before their feet in their journeys up and down the Nile. The hypostyle hall at Karnak was a marvel of constructed architecture, the great temple at Ipsamboul was the masterpiece of that art which had been so popular with the Egyptians from the earliest periods of their civilization, the art which imitated the forms of a stone building by excavations in the living rock.

Subterranean architecture had, of course, to go through a regular course of development before it was capable of such works as the tomb of Seti, at Thebes, and the temples of Ipsamboul. In the necropolis of Memphis, and in that of the First Theban Empire, its ambition was more easily satisfied. So, too, the first rock-cut temples were of very modest dimensions. They date from the eighteenth dynasty. Two of them are to be found in the neighbourhood of Ipsamboul but on the other side of the river, one near the castle of Addeh, the other at Feraïg. The latter was cut by the king Harmhabi (or Armaïs). It is composed--as also is that of Addeh--of a hall supported by four columns, two lateral chambers, and a sanctuary. There is an equally small _speos_ in Egypt which dates from the same period; it is the grotto at Beni-Hassan, which, ever since antique times, has been known as the _Speos Artemidos_. The goddess Sekhet, to which it was consecrated, had been identified with the Greek Artemis. It was begun by Thothmes III., carried on by Seti I., and seems never to have been finished. The temple proper is prefaced by a kind of portico of square pillars cut, with the roof which they support, from the limestone rock. A narrow passage about nine feet deep leads to the naos, which is a quadrangular chamber about thirteen feet square, with a niche in the further wall in which an image of the lion-headed goddess probably stood.[354] The most important of the rock-cut chapels of Silsilis was also inaugurated by Harmhabi and restored and embellished by Rameses II.[355] The hemispeos at Redesieh, in the same district, is a work of Seti I.[356]

[354] _Description de l'Égypte, Antiquités_, vol. iv. pl. 65,
Fig. 1. The French draughtsmen thought this building was a
disused quarry, and give nothing but a picturesque view of the
façade.

[355] LEPSIUS, _Denkmæler_, part i. pl. 102; ROSELLINI (vol.
iii. pl. 32, Fig. 3) gives a view of the interior of the
Silsilis chapel.

[356] LEPSIUS, _Denkmæler_, part i. pl. 101.

Only one subterranean temple later than the nineteenth dynasty is known to us, namely, that which is cut in the flanks of the Gebel-Barkal at Napata.[357] It is called the _Typhonium_, on account of the grimacing figures which stand before the piers. It dates from the time of Tahrak, and was one of the works with which the famous Ethiopian decorated his capital in the hope that it might become a formidable rival to those great Egyptian cities which he had taken and occupied.[358] All the other rock-cut temples were the work of Rameses II.; they are, as we ascend the Nile, Beit-el-Wali, near Kalabcheh (Figs. 236 and 237); Gherf-Hossein, or Gircheh, Wadi-Seboua, Dayr, and Ipsamboul.

[357] LEPSIUS, _Denkmæler_, part i. pl. 127.

[358] There are also a hemispeos or two of the Ptolemaic period.
That, for instance, of which the plans are given in plate 101 of
Lepsius's first part, was begun by Ptolemy Euergetes II.

We may give Gherf-Hossein as a good example of the hemispeos (Figs. 238 and 239). It was approached from the river by a broad flight of steps, decorated with statues and sphinxes, of which but a few fragments now remain. A pylon gave access to a rectangular court, on the right and left sides of which stood five piers faced with colossal statues of Rameses II. These statues were about twenty-six feet high. Next, and at a slightly higher level, came a hypostyle hall; its roof was supported by twelve square piers, those forming the central avenue being of caryatid form and higher than the others. The subterranean part of the temple begins with a passage cut in the rock on the further side of this hall. This passage leads to a long transverse vestibule, from which open two lateral chambers, and three from its further side. The furthest chamber on the major axis of the whole building was the sanctuary. This is proved by its position, its shape, and the niche which is cut in its further wall. Four deities are sculptured in this niche, and in spite of the ill-usage to which they have been subjected, one of them can still be identified as Ptah, the chief god of the temple.[359]

[359] This description has been mainly taken from the plate
given by PRISSE (_Histoire de l'Art Égyptien_, vol. i.). There
are discrepancies, however, between it and both the inscription
of Isambert and the plan of HOREAU (_Panorama d'Égypte et
Nubie_), discrepancies which may probably be referred to the bad
condition of the structural part of the building. According to
Prisse's measurements the dromos, from its commencement to the
foot of the first pylon, was about fifty-five yards long, and
the rest of the temple, to the back of the niche, was about as
much again. The rock-cut part was only about ten yards deep.

We find almost the same arrangements in the hemispeos of Wadi-Asseboua.[360] That of Derri (Figs. 240 and 241) is more simple. There are neither dromos nor pylon, properly speaking, and only four caryatid pillars; but there is an open court with a hypostyle hall and a sanctuary cut in the rock. At the back of the sanctuary there is a stone bench upon which three statues were seated.

[360] The resemblance between Prisse's plan of Gherf-Hossein and
Horeau's plan of Wadi-Asseboua is so great as to suggest that
one of the two writers may have made a mistake.

The two temples of Ipsamboul are so well known and have been so often illustrated and described, that they need not detain us long. The chief thing to be noticed here is that they are without any external and constructed part, and that from their position, high above the river and close to it, it was impossible that they could have any dromos; and yet between the doorway of the speos and the river bank there were steps which are now either worn away by the action of the floods or hidden by the _débris_ from the cliffs. The façades of these temples were, however, as richly decorated and as monumental in their way as those of the most sumptuous buildings in Thebes.

The prototype of these façades is the Theban pylon. They have the same trapeziform surfaces covered with figures and inscriptions, circumscribed by a moulding and crowned by a cornice in bold relief; they are inclined from the perpendicular, and they afford a background to the statues of the king who caused them to be made. The chief difference is in the situation of these statues. In the case of a built temple they are monoliths, brought from a distance and erected in front of the pylon. But space was wanting for such an arrangement at Ipsamboul; besides which it was better, for many reasons, that the whole edifice should be homogeneous, and that the statues should be carved in the rock from which its chambers were to be cut. The way to do this was obvious. The colossi had but to recede a pace or two so as to be incorporated in the substance of the pylon itself.