CHAP. II.—SAH UA’DEB THE EMPIEB. 
13 
the pylon is the foundation of a limestone 
wall (Plan, 6); this is three courses high, and 
seems to have belonged to a structure now 
destroyed. It may be either the foundation of 
the pylon of Eamessu, or some work in front of 
the pylon of Sheshonk, or the foundation for one 
of the colossi of E,amessu ; on the whole it seems 
most likely to be a fragment of the pylon of 
Eamessu, the more so as two limestone slabs 
near it are of that period. There is no other 
trace visible that can be attributed to what we 
may be sure was a grand piece of work, the pylon 
placed by Eamessu IL before the great temple; 
though we can guess its magnificence by com¬ 
paring the granite colossi (Plan, 7, 9) which 
stood before it, with those of the Theban pylons. 
These colossi when perfect were monoliths 
twenty-two feet high, representing the king 
standing in the conventional attitude.* They 
doubtless were placed in front of the pylon of 
Eamessu, and were set up again in a slightly 
different position before the pylon of Sheshonk. 
What causes led to the entire removal of the 
pylon of Eamessu II. we cannot now say ; certain 
it is that, except the few blocks of limestone 
mentioned above, there does not remain a frag¬ 
ment of the work, as the very foundation stones 
of the present pylon are the ruins of far different 
works of Eamessu, utilized by Sheshonk III. Most 
probably the first pylon was built of limestone; 
and during the troubled times between the fall of 
the Eamessides and the rise of the Bubastites 
it had been destroyed for the sake of building 
materials, and removed to other places.! 
* The reason for the left leg being always advanced may 
perhaps be found in the fact that Egyptians always read 
from right to left, unless symmetry required a reversal; 
thus the left legs, as being the further legs, of all the figures 
of bas-reliefs require to be advanced, and hence the left leg 
forward might become the traditional attitude, even apart 
from the left being the side of honour. 
f To this day San is the quarry of all the neighbourhood; 
every time stone is wanted for a mosque, or tomb, or a house, 
the Arabs wander over the ruins, hammer in hand ; and 
thus all fragments of statues and every block of cleavable 
Somewhere in the neighbourhood of the pylon 
stood the great colossus of the second founder of 
the city, Eamessu II.; where it was placed can 
only be guessed by the position of the fragments ; 
but as no pieces of it are found in the hall or 
the temple, and sixteen blocks at least can be 
identified as having been cut from it for the con¬ 
struction of the later pylon, it seems certain that 
it was near the entrance. How a single statue 
of such immense size could be placed, without 
destroying the symmetry of the buildings, is not 
clear; the colossi of Amenhotep III. at Thebes 
are a pair, as are those at the pylons of Karnak ; 
the colossus of Eamessu at the Eamesseum was 
seated, and did not therefore present the same 
difficulty, as it was placed in a court of the 
building and thus would form a centre of itself, 
and turn the axis of arrangement round to the 
side rather than the ends of the court. But here 
we have to deal with a statue between eighty and 
a hundred feet high, which had only a very thin 
pedestal included in the block, and would require 
a built pedestal in addition beneath it. How 
this could be disposed of in the arrangement of a 
building which does not seem to have exceeded 
half this height J: is not settled by any existing 
oases; the statue must have stood up with its 
whole body above the surrounding buildings, 
defying all attempts at symmetry; for no one, 
I suppose, will risk the theory of there having 
been a pair of such figures. A Eoman would 
doubtless have put such a statue on the top of 
the pylon; but we cannot suppose an Egyptian 
placing it either thus, or in the middle of the 
roadway. Perhaps it had a separate enclosure in 
a court on one side of the pylon ; and if the lime¬ 
stone foundation mentioned before were part of 
the Eamesside pylon, then the inner side of it 
may have been a hundred feet from the beginning 
stone is carried off "by tlie "boat-load. This explains how in 
all the Delta temples nothing but granite is now to be found. 
J The monolithic columns of the hall are 36 feet high, and 
with the architraves would not have been as high as the 
obelisks, the tallest of which is 49 feet. 
