Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/413

 The Temple under the Ancient Empire. 323 he calls " second editions." But in some cases they were third or even fourth editions. But in spite of all these rearrangements and restorations, a few sacred buildings of the early period were still in existence during the Roman occupation of the country, and were then shown as curiosities. This we may gather from a passage in Strabo. After having described, with much precision, the disposition of certain buildings which are easily recognized as temples built under the princes of the New Empire, he adds : " At Heliopolis, however, there is a certain buildino^ with several ranees of columns, which recalls, by its arrangement, the barbarous style ; because, apart from the great size of the columns, their number and their position in several long rows, there is nothing graceful in the building, nothing that shows any power of artistic design ; effort, and impotent effort, is its most striking characteristic." ^ Lucian, too, was thinking of the same building in his treatise upon the Syrian goddess, when he said that the Egyptians had, in ancient times, temples without sculptured decorations.- One of these ' barbarous ' temples, as Strabo calls them, is supposed to have been discovered in the small building disinterred by Mariette in 1853, at about 50 yards distance from the right foot of the Sphinx in a south-easterly direction. Mariette cleared the whole of the interior, and by means of a flight of steps well protected from the sand, he provided easy access to it. But he left the external walls buried as he found them, and so they still remain. The entrance is by a passage about 66 feet long and 7 wide, which runs almost in an easterly direction through the massive masonry which constitutes the external wall. About midway along this passage two small galleries branch off; that on the right leads to a small chamber, that on the left to a staircase giving access to the terrace above. At the end of the passage we find ourselves at one of the angles of a hall, running north and south, and about 83 feet long by 23 wide. The roof is sup- ported by six quadrangular piers. These are monoliths 16 time of Thothmes III. The same thing occurred at Edfou and at Esneh. We except Philae, because there is good reason to believe that in the time of the Ancient Empire that island did not exist, and that the cataract was then at Silsilis. ^ Strabo, xvii. 128 : OvSev 4'xet x°^P'-^^ "^^^ ypacfiLKov, etc. 2 Lucian, § 3 : 'A^odvot vtjol, etc.