ARCHAEOLOGY. (EGYPTIAN.) 



This altered the situation in the minds of the 

 French ministers, for it was now a question of 

 risking the position already attained or of tight- 

 ening their grasp. They accordingly gave their 

 chosen general entire discretion, when he pro- 

 posed to dethrone King Tu Due, who had es- 

 caped with the recalcitrant mandarins. The 

 Prince Chaul Mong, adopted son of Tu Due, a 

 young man of twenty-three years, was selected 

 to wear the crown. On the 14th of Septem- 

 ber, " in compliance with the repeatedly ex- 

 pressed wish of the royal family and the Gov- 

 erning Council," he was formally installed as 

 King of Annam. French and Annamite troops 

 lined the route of the procession, and the French 

 and Annamite flags waved over the Miradores 

 Palace. The coronation took place with pomp- 

 ous ceremonies on the 19th. The reconsti- 

 tuted Government began its regular functions. 

 The new King assumed the name of Douck 

 Hanh, signifying the " union of two nations." 

 He was the fourth King, u devoted to the inter- 

 ests of France," placed upon the throne by the 

 French within three years. This act raised 

 anew the question of Chinese suzerainty, which 

 has never been abandoned by China, and which 

 was left untouched in the treaty. 



ARCHEOLOGY. (Egyptian.) The Great Temple 

 of Luxor. The great Temple of Luxor, stand- 

 ing almost immediately on the banks of the 

 Nile, and surrounded by the public offices and 

 the hotel, is the most accessible and most fa- 

 miliar of the six temples on either side of the 

 river that constitute the more prominent ob- 

 jects of the ruins of Thebes. The oldest part 

 of this temple was built, so far as has been as- 

 certained, in the reign of Amenhotep III, the 

 ninth Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty, at 

 about (according to Manetho's and Mariette's 

 chronology) 1530 B. c. It was added to 

 and maintained by succeeding sovereigns, 

 particularly by Horemhebi and Rameses 

 II, down to the time of Ptolemy Lagus, 

 312 B. o. When perfect it was about eight 

 hundred feet long. For several centuries it 

 has been the site of a native village, under 

 whose accumulated rubbish it has been 

 buried to a depth of from forty to fifty 

 feet, the latter having been, in 1884, the 

 height of the surface within the building 

 above the original pavement. The roof 

 of the portico is still nearly perfect, and 

 so solid that it has borne for a hundred 

 years the weight of the large house called 

 the " Maison de France." After about two 

 years of effort, M. Maspero succeeded in 

 obtaining permission from the Egyptian 

 Government to buy out the properties of 

 those persons whose homes and estates were 

 situated upon the temple, with a view to 

 excavating the ruins, and securing their pres- 

 ervation from further destruction, and orders 

 were given in July, 1884, to begin operations. 

 These orders could not, however, be carried 

 into effect, on account of the difficulty of re- 

 moving the population, till Jan. 5, 1885, from 



which time a force of an average of 150 la- 

 borers was employed till the 26th of Febru- 

 ary, when M. Maspero made his report of prog- 

 ress. He had then completely cleared the 

 great roofed sanctuary of Amenhotep III, and 

 exposed the columns of the central colonnade 

 for two thirds of their height; discovered a 

 small portico, hitherto unknown, of the time 

 of Rameses II ; found several colossi, some 

 prostrate and some still erect on their pedes- 

 tals ; and brought to light some remains of a 

 great quay, inscribed with the names and titles 

 of Amenhotep III. In the course of another 

 month, during which M. Maspero continued 

 the excavations, he cleared the columns of the 

 court of Amenhotep to their bases, partly laid 

 bare the ancient pavement, and opened "a 

 magnificent vista " from the portico at the 

 southern end to the great entrance pylon at 

 the north. The design of the columns of 

 Amenhotep III is described as "one of the 

 most beautiful among the orders of Egyptian 

 architecture. It conventionally represents a 

 bundle of lotus-plants, stalks and buds; the 

 stalks bound together at the top by a ligature, 

 and the cluster of buds forming the capital. 

 Upon the abacus of each capital is sculptured, 

 in hieroglyphic characters, the name of Amen- 

 hotep III (popularly known as Amenophis), 

 inclosed in a royal oval." The excavation of 

 the great colonnade of Horemhebi, the only 

 part of the temple that was visible from the 

 dahabeeyahs on the Nile until the present 

 operations were executed, is still prevented by 

 the refusal of the British consul to surrender 

 his premises. This structure consists of four- 

 teen sandstone columns, standing two deep, 

 which, if excavated to their bases, would meas- 

 ure about fifty-seven feet in the shaft. M. 



COLONNADE OF HOREMHEBI. 



Maspero has ascertained that the temple, when 

 first constructed, was not separated, as now, 

 from the Nile by the extensive space of the 

 shore-slope, but rose direct from the water's 

 edge, like the covered gallery at Phila3. And 

 he affirms, in his report of Feb. 26, "that 

 Luxor, freed from the modern excrescences by 

 which it has hitherto been disfigured, is, for 

 grandeur of design and beauty of proportion, 



