Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/466

 1^2 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. is supported by twelve columns. There is another, much wider and deeper, in front of the naos ; it has thirty-two of those lofty columns of which we have already spoken. By its design, situation, and the spacing of its columns, it reminds us of the hypostyle hall of Karnak. It differs from it in being open, without any external wall towards the court ; so that it may be called a portico with four ranges of columns. Moreover, again unlike the Karnak hall, it is by no means the most imposing feature of the whole edifice. The greatest elevation and the most imposing proportions, so far as the interior of the building is concerned, are to be found in the great gallery which leads from the first to the second court, from the second to the third pylon. This gallery is in effect a hypostyle hall, but it differs profoundly from the superb edifice which bears that name at Karnak. It is lon^ and narrow and looks more like a mere covered corridor than an ample hall in which the eager crowd could find elbow-room. The place occupied by this hall in the whole composition is equally singular. It has been ascertained that the first pylon and the peristylar courtyard behind it date from the time of Rameses II., while all the rest of the building, from what is at present the second pylon inwards, was built by Amenophis III. The doorway in the second pylon leads immediately into the grand gallery, some 1 76 feet long, of which we have been speaking. We can hardly tell, therefore, where to look for the true pronaos at Luxor. In that part of the ground plan where it is generally found there is nothing but an open portico, which is considerably lower than the highest parts of the building. The great colonnade, again, is separated from the naos by an open court, so that it ought, perhaps, to be classified as what the Greeks called a propylseum ; but yet it is a hall, inclosed and covered, of great size and height, and richly decorated, like the hypostyle halls which we have already described and others which we have yet to notice.^ ' In presence of this double range of superb columns one is tempted to look upon them as the beginning of a hypostyle hall which was never finished, to suppose that a great central nave was constructed, and that, by force of circumstances unknown, the aisles were never begun, and that the builders contented themselves by inclosing and preserving their work as far as it had gone.