DESCRIPTIONS OF EGYPT. 
167 
from the river, two immense obelisks appear in the 
front, and between these and the edifice, two co- 
lossal statues of black granite, about thirty-eight 
feet in height. Of the palace, various magnificent 
colonnades still exist, but some of the wings are 
greatly dilapidated, so that it is difficult to trace the 
form of the building. It is at Carnac, however, 
that the finest ruin exists. Four avenues, three of 
which are formed by rows of sphinxes, lead to four 
magnificent porticos. The middle consists of a 
grand saloon, formed by ranges of columns of pro- 
digious magnitude. The ruins of this edifice are 
surrounded with the remains of sphinxes, obelisks, 
statues, and mutilated columns, all of which are 
sculptured with hieroglyphical figures. The Libyan 
mountain, on the west of Thebes, contains nume- 
rous excavations, which occupy nearly three-fourths 
of its elevation, but the entrances of many of which 
are now filled up with sand. The most spacious 
and most ornamented of these caverns are those 
which are lowest on the mountain ; those which 
are formed in the more elevated parts, though si- 
milar in plan, are more rude in construction as well 
as execution. A passage of considerable length, 
cut in the freestone, leads to the anterior chamber, 
from which another passage, winding abruptly to 
the right, leads to the great sepulchral chamber, 
in the middle of which is placed a sarcophagus of 
