Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/442

 352 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. inferior rank awaited the appearance of the deity in the hypostyle hall, in which the cortege was marshalled before emerging into the courts. The second division of the temple, for Strabo, was the sanc- tuary, or (TriKos. In this Temple of Khons it was a rectangular chamber, separated by a wide corridor running round its four sides from two smaller chambers, which filled the spaces between the corridor and the external walls. In this hall fragments of a Fig. 209 — The ban, ov sacred boat ; from the temple of Elephantine. granite pedestal have been discovered, upon which either the dan or sacred boat, which is so often figured upon the bas-reliefs (Fig. 209), or some other receptacle containing the peculiar emblem of the local divinity, must have been placed. Strabo was no doubt correct in saying that the ai-jKos differed froni the cella of the Greek temple in that it contained no statue of the divinity, but nevertheless it must have had something to distinguish it from the less sacred parts of the building. This something was a kind of little chapel, tabernacle, or shrine, closed by a folding