Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/428

 T,T,S A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. Their summits, with their crenellated parapets, must have afforded a continuous platform connected with the flat tops of the pylons by flights of steps. " These inclosing walls served more than one purpose. They marked the external limits of the temple. They protected it against injury from without. When their height was considerable, as at Denderah, Sais, and other places, they acted as an impenetrable curtain between the profane curiosity of the external crowd and the mysteries performed within ; and when they had to serve their last named purpose they were constructed in such a fashion that those without could neither hear nor see anything that passed. "It is probable that the walls of Karnak served all three purposes. There are four of them, connected one with another by avenues of sphinxes, and all the sacred parts of the building, except a few chapels, are In one of the four inclosures. . . . Their height was at least sufficient to prevent any part of the inside from being overlooked from any quarter of the city, so that the cere- monies In the halls, under the colonnades, or upon the lakes could be proceeded with in strict isolation from the outer world. ^ We may therefore perceive that, on certain occasions, these inclosures would afford a sanctuary which could not easily be violated, while they would keep all those who had not been completely initiated at a respectful distance from the holy places within."^ These walls were pierced In places by stone doorways, embedded in the masses of crude brick, whose highest parts always rose more or less above the battlements of the wall (Fig. 206). At those points where the sphinx avenues terminated, generally at the principal entrance of the temple but sometimes at secondary gateways, these portals expanded Into those towering masses which by their form as well as their size, so greatly impress the traveller who visits the ruins of ancient Egypt. These masses have by ^ The wall of the principal inclosure at Denderah, that on the north, is not less than 33 feet high, and between 30 and 40 thick at the base. Its surface is perfectly smooth and naked, without ornament of any kind, or even rough-cast. (Mariette, Denderah, p. 27.) At Karnak the bounding walls are in a much worse state of preservation ; they are ten or twelve centuries older than those of Denderah, and those centuries have had their effect upon the masses of crude brick. Our only means of estimating their original height is by comparing, in the representations furnished to us by certain bas-reliefs, the height of walls with that of the pylons on which they abut. 2 Mariette, Karnak, pp. 5, 6.