Volume II Part 11 (2/2)

The Egyptian architect, like his Greek successor, ave a salience to the extren and afforded structural ular pillars, which were combined in various ith coluht prolongation of a wall beyond the point where it121); so hich appears to have been broken off to give place to a row of coluement is to be found on the facade of the temple at Gournah Sometimes, as at Medinet-Abou, it is a reinforce for colossal Osiride statues (Fig 123), sole, as in the Great Hall at Karnak (Fig 124) At the Temple of Khons the terminations of the ts of columns which form the portico are126), while the hich incloses the pronaos is without any projection except the jaeht close up to the pylon their outlines would not combine happily with its inclined walls At the other extre perpendicular, there was no necessity for such an arrange 126 will make this readily understood At Medinet-Abou the portico is ter to the row of columns, the other to the row of caryatid piers In another court of the same temple the antae on either side vary in depth, at one end of the portico there is a bold pilaster, at the other one which projects very slightly indeed (Fig

128) This is another instance of the curious want of syularity which is one of the yptian architecture

[123] The arrangement in question is capable of another and, perhaps, more simple explanation The ts of columns of which the portico in question is composed, run in an unbroken line round the court with the exception of the side which is filled by the pylon It was natural enough, therefore, that they should each be stopped against an anta, even if there had not been an additional reason in the inclination of the pylon The ordonnance as a wholeportico, like that in the second court of the teles--ED

[Illustration: FIG 121--Anta, Luxor; second court _Description_, iii 5]

[Illustration: FIG 122--Anta, Gournah From Gailhabaud]

[Illustration: FIG 123--Anta, Medinet-Abou]

[Illustration: FIG 124--Anta in the Great Hall of Karnak]

[Illustration: FIG 125--Antae, Temple of Khons _Description_, iii

54]

[Illustration: FIG 126--Anta and base of pylon, Temple of Khons

_Description_, iii 55]

The anta is often without a capital, as, for instance, in the te 126) Elsewhere the architect see it into s, and accordingly he gives it a capital, as at Medinet-Abou, but a capital totally unlike those proper to the colue or cornice which crowns nearly every Egyptian wall Considering that the anta was really no ation or e 129)

[124] In this the Greek architects took the saypt

[Illustration: FIG 127--Antae, Medinet-Abou]

[Illustration: FIG 128--Antae, Medinet-Abou]

The width of the intercolumniations also varied between one court or hall and another, and, at least in the present state of the Egyptian re the uided We yptian constructor, especially in the tie di to wide His tendency to crowd his coluht of the superstructure which they had to support, partly by the national taste for a reat columns in the hypostyle hall of Karnak, measured between the points of junction between the bases and the shafts, is slightly less than two diameters The spaces between the smaller columns on each side are hardly inal character of these ordonnances athered froe (Pl

VIII) than to any plan to which we could refer the reader It represents that part of the colonnade, in the second court of the temple at Medinet-Abou, which veils the wall of the pronaos, and it sho little space the Egyptian architects thought necessary for the purposes of circulation The spaces between the columns and the wall on the one hand and the osiride piers on the other, are not quite equal to the diameter of the bases of those columns, which have, however, been expressly kept se as some that we could point out, there would have been no rooyptians ever employ isolated columns, not as structural units, but for decorative purposes, for the support of a group or a statue? Are there any examples of pillars like those which the Phnicians raised before their temples, or the triumphal columns of the Romans, or those reared for commemorative purposes in Paris and other cities of Modern Europe? It is iive a confident answer to this question The rereat colonnade which existed in the first court at Karnak, of which a single coluest, perhaps, that such yptians These columns display the ovals of Tahraka, of Psemethek, and of Ptole froreat, about fifty-five feet, that it is difficult to believe that it could ever have been covered with a roof

Even ood it would have been no easy yptians--to cover such a void We have, ood reason to believe that they never used wood and stone together in their teested, but there is nothing either in the Egyptian texts or in their wall paintings to hint at their use of such a covering

It would have been quite possible to connect the suthwise The architraves would have had less than twenty feet to bridge over But not the slightest relic of such a structure has been found, and it is difficult to see what good purpose it could have served had it existed

The authors of the _Description_ came to the conclusion that there had been no roof of any kind to the avenue formed by the columns, that they merely formed a kind of monumental approach to the hypostyle hall[125] Mariette also discards the idea of architraves, which would have to be unusually long, but he cannot accept the notion that the colu the approach to the sanctuary He supposes the centre of the courtyard to have contained a sures upon his plan, but neither he himself, by his own confession, nor any one else has ever found the slightest trace of it in reality[126] In the excavations e even of the two columns which he inserts upon each of the two short sides of the rectangle These coluement, similar to that which exists in the hypaethral temples at Philae and in Nubia The closest study of the site has brought to light nothing beyond the twelve colu 214, E, Vol I)

[125] _Description, Antiquites_, vol v pp 120, 121 In their _Description Generale de Thebes_ (ch ix section 8, -- 2), the same writers add: ”We are confirmed in our opinion by the discovery on a bas-relief of four lotus stems with their flowers surmounted by hawks and statues, and placed exactly in the same fashi+on as the columns which we have just described They are votive columns We are also confirs like the those amulets which reproduce the various objects in the teured in the third volu 1

[126] MARIETTE, _Karnak_, p 19, pl 4 _Voyage dans la Haute-egypte_, pp 13, 21, 22

[Illustration: Ch Chipiez del Hibon sc

THEBES