OBLIQUE VIEW OF THE HALL OF COLUMNS, KARNAK. 
As the Temple of Karnak is the grandest of all the works that remain to us of the 
Pharaohs, so this stupendous Hall of Columns is the most wonderful part of this 
celebrated Temple. Views have been given, not only through the central avenue 
of the loftiest of these columns, but across the hall intersecting this forest of pillars; 
when among them, however, and it is only then that their vastness is most impressive, 
it is impossible to see their entire height at once, for they subtend under vertical 
angles so large that they can only be commanded by a considerable motion of the 
head. In a transverse view, also contained in this work, the angle, formed by the 
nearer but much lower columns, those which were surmounted with square stone 
framework, to form openings like lanthorn-lights to a roof, through which only light 
was admitted into the Hall, is still too great, for these, even in their ruin, concealed 
the real height of the central and two nearest avenues of columns, which were 
covered in by enormous blocks of stone that rested flat upon them, and formed at 
once the roof and the ceiling; the lower ranges were also roofed by the same gigantic 
means, and all was enclosed against light except at the entrances and from the openings 
above into the centre avenues. The solemn gloom of such an immense chamber, 
with so little light, may be imagined, but of its appearance it is very difficult for 
the artist to convey an idea. Their immensity, their proximity, and the confusion 
into which some have fallen, led Mr. Roberts to attempt this oblique view also, in 
the conviction that he ought not to omit to make his subject clear, if possible; and 
in this he has shown part of the two central rows of columns, seventy-two feet 
high, and with their capitals of the flowering lotus, twenty-two feet wide: on either 
side is a row of shorter columns, with the budding lotus capitals, forty-three feet 
high, surmounted by the square stone framing for the admission of light. The top 
of this is level with the capitals of the central columns, and supported the central 
roof, and on either side of these are the numerous ranges of columns upon which 
the lower roof rests. The Artist’s object in selecting these different views of Karnak 
has been to convey to the untravelled in Egypt some idea of those stupendous 
woi’ks, which have left an undying fame to her Pharaohs. 
