THEBES— LUXOR— KAENAK. 381 



edifice has been laid bare. At the northern end, that is to say, in the first great 

 courtyard approached through the double pylons, a partial clearance has also 

 been effected, revealing the existence of a small portico and several colossi, some 

 prostrate, some still erect on their pedestals. The portico dates from Ramses II., 

 and it now appears that the temple, when first constructed, was not separated as 

 it now is from the Nile by an extensive space of rising ground ; but that all the 

 southern end of the building behind the sanctuary, and part of the western side, 

 rose, as it were, direct from the water's edge, like the western gallery at Philœ. 

 Some remains of a great quay, inscribed with the names and titles of Amen- 

 hotep III., have also been brought to light. M. Maspero is able now to assert 

 that Luxor, freed from the modern excrescences by which it has hitherto been 

 disfigured, is for grandeur of design and beauty of proportions almost equal to 

 Karnak. The sculptures with which the chambers and columns are decorated are 

 of the finest and most delicate execution ; while some of the wall subjects would 

 not suffer in the comparison if placed side by side with the choicest bas-reliefs of 

 Abydos.* 



For a period of three thousand years, from the twelfth dynasty to the last of 

 the Ptolemies, temple after temple was erected at Karnak. Everywhere the eye 

 lights on miracles of workmanship ; but the glorj^ of this architectural museum is 

 the chamber of colonnades, or " hypostyle," constructed in the reign of Seti I. It 

 is the largest work of the kind in Egypt, one of those stupendous monuments 

 which the memory instinctively conjures up when the mind passes in survey the 

 great masterpieces of human genius. The ceiling of this chamber, which is no 

 less than 76 feet high in the central nave, is supported by 134 columns, of which 

 those in the middle row have a circumference of no less than 32 feet. All are 

 covered with paintings and sculptures in intaglio, as are also the walls, and 

 amongst the bas-reliefs there are some of the greatest historical importance, repre- 

 senting the victories of the Pharaohs over the Arabs, Syrians, and Hittites. In 

 the " great temple " near this place is the famous " wall of numbers," a chapter of 

 the national records, a portion of which was deposited by Champollion in the 

 Louvre, and all of which are now known, thanks to the researches of Mariette. 



To the same explorer is due the discovery of a geographical list of six hundred 

 and twenty-eight names of peoples and places inscribed on gateways. Amongst 

 the tribes enumerated, Egyptologists have succeeded in identifying several from 

 Phœnicia and Palestine, from Assyria and other remote Asiatic lands, from 

 Ethiopia and the region of aromatic herbs stretching along the African seaboard 

 south of the Ped Sea. Certain names have also been deciphered which have been 

 referred to the distant region of the great equatorial lakes in our days again for 

 the second or third time discovered by Speke, Grant, Baker and other explorers. 

 According to Hartmann, the Funj type may be recognised in the clearest manner 

 amongst the figures of Ethiopian captives, f 



* Amelia B. Edwards, "Academy," March 21, 1885. 

 t "Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie," vol. i., 1869. 



