Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/407

 The Tomb under the New Emtire. 17 higher types for the national gods, when polytheism came to be superimposed upon fetishism, the hour arrived for the temple to take its proper place in the national life, for majestic colonnades and massive pylons to be erected on the banks of the life-giving river. The temple was later than the tomb, but it followed closely upon its footsteps, and the two were, in a fashion, united by those erections on the left bank of the Nile, under the Theban necropolis, which partook of the character of both. The temple is the highest outcome of the native genius during those centuries which saw Egypt supreme over all the races of the East, supreme partly by force of arms, but mainly by the superiority of her civilization.