Volume I Part 32 (1/2)

Mariette freed it from the _debris_ and modern hovels which encumbered it, and, thanks to his efforts, there are no eeneral shape is singular The courts and the pronaos cole, hich the parts corresponding to the sanctuary and its dependent cha

224) This salient wing has no corresponding excrescence on the other side Weunfinished, but that there is no sign whatever that the architect le The Egyptians were never greatly enamoured of that exact symmetry which has become one of the first artistic necessities of our ti than the eccentricity of its plan, are the peculiar arrangements which are to be found in the interior of this temple As at Medinet-Abou and the Ramesseum, there are two courts, each preceded by a pylon After these comes the pronaos The courts differ fro no peristyles or colonnades The only thing of the kind is a row of square pillars standing before the inner wall of the second court (see plan) This is a poor equivalent for the majestic colonnades and files of caryatides which we have hitherto encountered

The suppression of the portico has a great effect upon the appearance of these two courts It deprives the colonnades and their roofs of the Theban te walls must have seemed rather cold and s which covered theeneral lines of the plan

[Illustration: FIG 224--Plan of the Teiven neither an elevation nor a section of the temple at Abydos, because neither the one nor the other was to be had The building was hardly known until Mariette freed it froulphed He, too, studied rather as an egyptologist than as an architect, and was content with ements by a plan This plan does not appear to be minutely exact A little farther on we shall have to speak of a peculiarity which exists at Abydos, but which is not hinted at in the adjoining plan; some of the columns are coupled in the first hypostyle hall We take this fact froiven in a fashi+on which forbids all doubt of their fidelity

It is e arrive at the pronaos that we fail to recognize the disposition to which we have grown accustomed There is no central nave, with its colu to the closed door of the sanctuary There are two hypostyle halls, the first supported by twenty-four, the second by thirty-six columns

They are separated by a wall pierced with seven doorways, each doorway corresponding to one of the aisles between the columns In the farther wall of the second of these halls, there are sevenupon seven oblong vaulted saloons, all of one size and completely isolated one from another

By their situation on the plan, by their form, and by the decoration of their walls, these vaulted chambers declare themselves to be so many sanctuaries Each one of thee appear in the decorations of the chamber itself and also upon the lintel of the door outside These naain repeated upon all the surfaces presented by the aisle which leads up to the door

The seven deities thus honoured, beginning at the right, are Horus, Isis, Osiris, Amen, Harmachis, Ptah, and Seti hireatest of the Egyptian Gods Each chamber contains a collection of thirty-six pictures, which are repeated froes beyond those rendered necessary by the substitution of one God for another These pictures deal with the rites which would be celebrated by the king in each of the seven sanctuaries

Behind this septuple sanctuary there is a secondary hypostyle hall, just as we find it behind the single _secos_ of the ordinary temple

Its roof was supported by ten coluh the third sanctuary, that of Osiris This part of the te walls, but it has been ascertained that several of these chambers were dedicated to one or other of the deities bethom the naos was apportioned Thus one of the chambers referred to was placed under the protection of Osiris, another under that of Horus, and a third under that of Isis

The decoration of the southern wing of the te corridor, a rectangular court with an unfinished peristyle, several s up on to the flat roof A dark aparte stone slabs, may have been used as a storehouse

[Illustration: FIG 225--Seti, with the attributes of Osiris, between Ae, and Chnoued in no sort of order We shall not here enter into such matters as the construction of the seven parallel vaults in the naos; for that a future opportunity will be found;[341] at present our business is to make the differences between the teeners, clearly understood The distinction lies in the seven longitudinal subdivisions, beginning with the seven doors in the facade of the hypostyle hall, and ending in the vaulted chambers which form the same number of sanctuaries Seen from outside, the temple would not betray its want of unity; it was surrounded by a single wall, the complex naos was prefaced by courts and pylons in the same fashi+on as in the temples of Thebes which we have already noticed, and it would not be until the building was entered and explored that the fact would become evident that it was seven shrines in one, seven independent temples under one roof[342]

[341] Full particulars of the more obscure parts of the temple at Abydos will be found in Mariette's first volureat teypten_, vol ii pp 234, 235

At Thebes also we find a teements, resembles that of Abydos It is called sometimes the _Palace_ and sometimes the _Temple of Gournah_; in the inscriptions it is called the _House of Seti_ Two propylons, one about fifty yards in front of the other, for, hich they are connected by an avenue of sphinxes It is probable that they were originally the doorways through brick walls, now demolished, which formed successive enclosures round the temple The dromos led up to the pronaos, which was reached by a few steps The front of the naos is a portico of si of ten colu 166 feet long by 10 feet deep Eight of these line columns are still erect The wall at the back of the portico is pierced by three doorways, to which three distinct compart

226)

The only feature in which these compartments resemble one another is their independence They are isolated from one another by walls which run from front to back of the naos The most important and elaborate of the three compartments is the middle one Its entrance doorway opens directly upon a hall which is the largest in the whole te, its roof is supported by six columns sied around it are nine small chambers, the pictures in which illustrate the apotheosis of Seti, who, often indued with the attributes of Osiris, is soe to the Theban triad of Gods, and more especially to Amen-Ra, sometimes as himself the object of worshi+p The central one of these chambers opens upon a hall where the roof is supported by four square pillars, and upon this hall again four small apartments open These can hardly be reatly that no certain opinion can be forht-hand coh of it reehbour and er part of it was taken up with a peristylar court or hall seventy-six feet long and forty-six wide Behind this the site of three rectangular cha bears representations of Ra his devotions to the Theban Gods

[Illustration: FIG 226--Plan of the Temple of Gournah]

The left coht, and its arrangements are more like those of the central part of the naos It is not so large, however, and it contains no hypostyle hall It has six chambers placed in two sets of three, the one set behind the other Here we find Rameses I, the founder of the dynasty, honoured by his son Seti I and his grandson Rameses II

[Illustration: FIG 227--Facade of the _naos_ of the Teypte_, _Antiquites_, vol ii

pl 42)]

[Illustration: FIG 228--Longitudinal section of the Temple of Gournah, from the portico of the _naos_ to the back wall (froreat tens, Seti I and Rameses II Perhaps, too, their plans were traced by the sareat that they may be looked upon as variants of one type, of a type which is distinguished by the juxtaposition of sirouped laterally one by the side of the other Each of the chapels which we have described was self-contained, the subsidiary chambers which were required for the routine of worshi+p were grouped round it, either on one side, as at Abydos, or in the angles of the sanctuary itself, as at Gournah With such slight differences of detail as this, the two buildings were built upon the same principle At Gournah the division is tripartite, and the three coements; at Abydos they are seven in nun A temple thus cut into three parts, or seven, reminds us of the seed-pods of certain plants, in which the fertilizing grain is divided between several cells But whether these are nureat depth It seeanic centre arrested the developns of an edifice which, like the teht be developed al its unity

On the other hand, there were a few teuishi+ng characteristic In Upper Egypt and Nubia a few examples of the class are still to be seen As a rule they date frohteenth dynasty, but there were a few temples of the same kind erected under the Ptolemies[343] It seems probable, therefore, that they were coyptian history, and to the conquered provinces, as well as to Egypt proper