Volume I Part 34 (1/2)
Besides the halls which forht lateral cha, others falling upon it obliquely Several of these do not seem to have been finished There are indications that they were utilized as depositories for the objects worshi+pped in the teitudinal section of the Great Temple; from horeau]
We have now briefly noticed the principal rock-cut teypt and Nubia Neither in plan nor in decoration do they htare the saed in the same order--an avenue of sphinxes when there is room for it, colossi before the entrance, a colonnaded court, a hypostyle hall acting as a _pronaos_, a _naos_ with its _secos_, or sanctuary; but sometimes one, so rock Sometimes only the sanctuary is subterranean, sometimes the hypostyle hall is included, and at Ipsamboul the whole temple is in the enerally form the preface to the pylon of the constructed temple
Except in the case of the peristylar court, the interior of the rock-cut temple did not differ so ht at first be ihted was the interior of the Egyptian teed in alht which was involved in their being excavated in the heart of a e from the obscurity caused by the thick walls and heavy roofs of the edifices in the plain In the case of a hemi-speos the internal effect ious building In the great teht does not penetrate beyond the second hall; frouish objects, but the Egyptians were so thoroughly accustoious light,” in their temples, that the darkness of the speos would seem no drawback in their eyes
The column occurs very seldom in these subterranean temples[361] Even those chambers which correspond to the hypostyle hall by their places in the excavation and the general characteristics of their forular piers in use in the early ages of the monarchy; but these piers are often clothed with an elaborate decoration which is unknown in the works of the primitive architects This preference for the pier is easily to be explained by the necessity for having supports of sufficient strength and solidity to bear the weight of the superincuonal colu those at Beni-Hassan in the s 237)
Another and round temples, is the existence in them of one or more seated statues carved from masses of rock expressly left in the furthest recesses of the excavation
These statues, which represent the presiding deity of the place and his acolytes, do not occur in the constructed temples In the latter the tabernacle which stood in the _secos_ was too ser than a statuette or euessed At the time these rock temples were cut, the Pharaohs to whoned a priest or priests to each But their position, sometimes in desert solitudes, as in the case of the _Speos Artemidos_, sometimes in places only inhabited for an intermittent period, in the quarries at Silsilis for instance, or in provinces which had been conquered by Egypt and ain, rendered it iuarded in the ah in the temples of Meested that, instead of a shrine containing soure or eht or ten feet high, should be employed, and that they should be actually chiselled in the living rock itself and left attached to it by the whole of their posterior surfaces By their size and by their incorporation with the rock out of which both they and their surroundings were cut, such statues would defend theainst all attee several of these statues caood state of preservation to allow Chanize with certainty the divine personages who the last fifty years they have suffered as norant and stupid tourists as they did in the whole of thewhich they were exposed to all the vicissitudes of Egyptian history[362]
[362] For _Beit-el-Wali_ and _Gircheh_, see plates 13, 30 and 31 in GAU, _Antiquites de la Nubie_ It seems that the statues, when they were drawn by hiood state
[Illustration: FIG 250--Dayr-el-Bahari; according to M Brune]
Our study of the Egyptian temple would not be cos called _Dayr-el-Bahari_[363] By their extent, their picturesqueness, and the peculiar nature of their situation, these ruins have always had a great effect upon foreign visitors Those who know Thebes will, perhaps, be surprised at our having said so little about them hitherto, especially as they are older than s over which we have been occupied We have not yet described theories which we have been treating; they foreypt, and therefore we have reserved them to the last
[363] These words mean _Convent of the North_ The name is derived fro the ruins of the ancient building
The building in question is situated at the foot of the Libyan chain, in a deep amphitheatre hollowed out by nature in the yellow limestone rocks which rise on the north-west of the necropolis On two sides, on the right and at the back, it rests against perpendicular walls of rock cut by the pickaxe and do over the built part of the temple On the left this natural wall is absent and is replaced by an inclosure of bricks (Figs 250 and 251)
Under such conditions we need feel no surprise at finding part of the teainst the mountains in this fashi+on the architect must have been partly impelled by a desire to make use of the facilities which it afforded The mausoleum of Hatasu, unlike the other funerary chapels at Thebes, is, then, a triple hemispeos At a point immediately opposite to the door in the external pylon, but at the other extre, a chamber about sixty-five feet deep was excavated in the rock This ht and left of it, and at a shorter distance froroups of rock-cut apartement may be compared to the system of three apsidal chapels which is so common at the east end of European cathedrals
In approaching this temple from the river bank, a dromos of sphinxes had to be traversed of which very scanty traces are now to be found, but in the tiypte_ there were still two hundred of the shown in the restoration figured upon the opposite page (Fig 251) At the end of the dro walls still remain, we have placed a pylon with a couple of obelisks in front of it We have done so not only because nearly all the important temples had such a preface, but also because Sir Gardner Wilkinson says that he saw the foundations of two obelisks and of a doorway
After passing the pylon, a first courtyard was entered, which co aleinality of Dayr-el-Bahari began The whole interior of the temple, between the pylon and the co in terraces one above another like the steps of a gigantic staircase The walls upon which these inclined planes and terraces were constructed are still to be traced in places
In order to furnish the vast courts, we have supposed the the inner faces of their walls; in such matters of decorative detail a little conjecture may perhaps be allowed[365] As for the portico which ornamented the further side of the second court, its remains were visible even before the excavations of Mariette[366]
[364] This wide inclined plane agrees better, as it seems to us, with the indications in M Brune's plan of the actual reiven in his restoration; the effect, too, is better, more ample and majestic
[365] The same idea caused M Brune to place sphinxes upon the steps between the courts; he thought that some small heaps of _debris_ at the ends of the steps indicated their situation; but M Maspero, who recently investigated the matter, informs us that he found no trace of any such sphinxes
[366] We must refer those ish to study the remains of this temple in detail to the work devoted to it by M Mariette The plan which forms plate 1 in the said as drawn, in 1866, by an architect, M Brune, who is now a professor at the ecole des Beaux Arts M Brune succeeded, by intelligent and conscientious exa the ave us for the first ti ypt Plate 2 contains a restored plan; plate 3 a view in perspective of the three highest terraces and of the hill which forive an idea of the building as a whole Our view is taken from a more distant point than that of M Brune, but except in soreatly differ from his
[Illustration: FIG 251--Restoration in perspective of Dayr-el-Bahari, by Ch Chipiez]
Those excavations have since 1858 led to the discovery of the porticos of the third court There seems to have been only a plain wall on the left of this court, while on the right there was a long colonnade which masked a number of cha the entrance to the court there was also a colonnade which was cut in two by the steps leading to the fourth and highest terrace In theto the principal speos was raised While all the rest of the teranite, a distinction which is to be explained by its central situation, facing the gateway in the pylon though far above it, and for succession of terraces and inclined planes The attention of the visitor to the te position of this doorhich, ested the secos hidden in the flanks of the mountains, to which all the courts were but the prelude
These terraced courts have surprised all visitors to the cenotaph of Hatasu ”No one will deny,” says Mariette, ”that the tee construction, and that it reseyptian ten influence was to be traced in its arrangements ”Are we to consider it an accident, asks Ebers, that the stepped building at Dayr-el-Bahari was built shortly after an Egyptian army had, under Thothmes, trodden the soil of Mesopotas constructed in terraces in its great cities? Why did the Egyptians, who as a rule were so fond of repeating the new for elsewhere, unless it was because its forn enemies and therefore seemed to be worthy of condemnation?”[368]
[367] MARIETTE, _Dayr-el-Bahari_, letterpress, p 10
[368] EBERS, _aegypten_, p 285
We are content with asking the question and with calling attention to its interest The estion of Professor Ebers is probable enough Twelve or thirteen centuries later the Persians, after their conquest of Egypt, carried back with theave to the buildings of Persepolis so different an aspect froh the decorative details were all borrowed froyptians, in spite of the pride which they felt in their ancient civilization, may have been unable to control their admiration when they found themselves, in the wide plains of Persia, before those lofty toith their successive terraces, to which access was obtained by hts of steps It seems by no means unlikely that one of their architects should have attempted to acclimatize an artistic conception which was so well calculated to iinations of the people; and none of the sovereigns of Egypt was better fitted to preside over such an atte Hatasu, the queen who reared two obelisks in the tehest that has remained erect; who made the first recorded attempt at acclimatization;[369]