SCIOPTICON MANUAL. 115 



OBELISK AND PROPYLON LUXOR. Part of the ruins 

 of Thebes shows the arrangements that the Egyptians 

 adopted in their temples. The entrance by a doorway 

 between two immense moles of stonework, termed pylse. 

 The victories of Barneses are sculptured on the face of 

 the pylon; but his colossi, solid figures of granite, which 

 sit on either side of the entrance, have been much de- 

 faced. The lonely obelisk, seen a little in advance to 

 the left, is more perfect than its mate, which now stands 

 in the Place de la Concorde, at Paris. 



COLOSSAL STATUE REMESES. The mutilated statue in 

 this view was the largest monolithic figure transported 

 by the Egyptians from the place where it was quarried. 

 Its weight when entire was nearly nine hundred tons, 

 and this statue now lies in enormous fragments around 

 its pedestal. The statue in its sitting position must have 

 been nearly sixty feet in height, and is the largest in 

 the world; one of its toes is a yard in length. The Turks 

 and Arabs have cut several mill-stones out of its head 

 without any apparent diminution of its size. 



APPROACH TO THE TEMPLE AT KARNAK. From the 

 entrance of the temple at Luxor to the pylon at Karnak, 

 a distance of a mile and a half, an avenue of colossal 

 sphinxes once existed. The sphinxes have disappeared 

 and an Arab road leads over the site. On reaching the 

 vicinity of Karnak the camel path drops into a broad 

 excavated avenue, lined with- fragments of sphinxes. 

 As you advance the sphinxes are better preserved and 

 remain seated on their pedestals, but they have all been 

 decapitated. Though of colossal proportions, they are 

 seated so close to each other that it must have required 

 nearly two thousand to form the double row to Luxor. 

 The avenue finally reaches a single pylon, of majestic 



