' By the Rev. J: L. Ross. 155 
form of the more ancient temples in Egypt. ‘The arrange- 
ment of the parts of an Egyptian temple is as follows: in a 
line with the entrance into the sacred enclosure, is a paved road 
or avenue about a hundred feet in breadth, or sometimes less, and 
in length from three to four hundred feet or even more. This is 
called the dromos. Through the whole length of this dromos, and 
on each side of it, sphinxes are placed, at the distance of thirty 
feet from one another, or somewhat more, forming a double row, 
one oneach side. After the sphinxes you come to a large propylon 
and as you advance you come to another, and to a third after that; 
for no definite number either of propyla or sphinxes is required in 
the plan, but they vary in different temples as to their number, as 
well as to the length and breadth of the drome. After the propyla 
we come to the temple itself, which has always a large and hand- 
some pronaos or portico, and a sekos or cell of only moderate dimen- 
sions, with no image in it, at least not one of human shape, but 
some representation of a brute animal. On each side of the pronaos, 
and in front of it, are what they call wings. These are two walls 
of equal height (with the temple ?), but their width at the base is 
somewhat more than the breadth of the temple measured along its 
basement line. The width of the wings, however, gradually di- 
minishes from the bottom to the top, owing to the sides leaning 
inward towards one another, up to the height of seventy-five or 
ninety feet.”! 
Referring to the ancient City of Thebes in Egypt with its hun- 
dred gates, celebrated by Homer, Denon remarks that there are 
two temples on its eastern and western side, on the site of which 
the modern villages of Karnac and Luxor are built. The avenue 
from Karnac to Luxor, a space of nearly half a league in extent, 
contains a constant succession of sphinxes and. other chimerical 
figures to the right and left, together with fragments of stone walls, 
small columns, and statues. 
The avenues here described, and the wings of the temples men- 
tioned-by Strabo discover a striking affinity to some of the Druidical 
een ee eee eee 
_ * Kitto’s Illustrated Bible, vol. i. pt. 2. p. 166, on the Egyptian temple at Edfou. 
