EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 



441 



remarkable for their vastness and the massiveness of 

 the stone used in their construction. This does not 

 seem to have been aimed at by the American builders. 

 Among all these ruins we did not see a stone worthy 

 of being laid on the walls of an Egyptian temple. The 

 largest single blocks were the " idols" or " obelisks,' 7 

 as they have been called, of Copan and Quirigua ; but in 

 Egypt stones large as these are raised to a height of twen- 

 ty or thirty feet and laid in the walls, while the obelisks 

 which stand as ornaments at the doors, towering, a sin- 

 gle stone, to the height of ninety feet, so overpower them 

 by their grandeur, that, if imitations, they are the fee- 

 blest ever attempted by aspiring men. 



Again: columns are a distinguishing feature of Egyp- 

 tian architecture, grand and massive, and at this day 

 towering above the sands, startling the wondering trav- 

 eller in that mysterious country. There is not a temple 

 on the Nile without them ; and the reader will bear in 

 mind, that among the whole of these ruins not one col- 

 umn has been found. If this architecture had been 

 derived from the Egyptian, so striking and important a 

 feature would never have been thrown aside. The 

 dromos, pronaos, and adytum, all equally characteristic 

 of Egyptian temples, are also here entirely wanting. 



Next, as to sculpture. The idea of resemblance in 

 this particular has been so often and so confidently ex- 

 pressed, and the drawings in these pages have so often 

 given the same impression, that I almost hesitate to de- 

 clare the total want of similarity. What the differences 

 are I will not attempt to point out ; but, that the reader 

 may have the whole subject before him at once, I have 

 introduced a plate of Egyptian sculpture taken from 

 Mr. Catherwood's portfolio. The subject on the right 

 is from the side of the great monument at Thebes known 



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