Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/485

 The Temple under the New Empire. 389 It is when we arrive at the pronaos that we fail to recognize the disposition to which we have grown accustomed. There is no central nave, with its columns of extra size and more careful desio-n, leading to the closed door of the sanctuary. There are two hypostyle halls, the first supported by twenty-four, the second by thirty-six columns. They are separated by a wall pierced with seven doorways, each doorw^ay corresponding to one of the aisles between the columns. In the farther wall of the second of these halls, there are seven more doorways, corresponding to the last named, and opening upon seven oblong vaulted saloons, all of one size and completely isolated one from another. By their situation on the plan, by their form, and by the decoration of their walls, these vaulted chambers declare themselves to be so many sanctuaries. Each one of them is dedicated to some particular deity, whose name and image appear in the decorations of the chamber itself and also upon the lintel of the door outside. These names and images are again repeated upon all the surfaces presented by the aisle which leads up to the door. The seven deities thus honoured, beginning at the right, are Horus, Isis, Osiris, Amen, Harmachis, Ptah, and Seti himself, whom we thus find assimilated with the greatest of the Egyptian gods. Each chamber contains a collection of thirty-six pictures, which are repeated from one to another with no changes beyond those rendered necessary by the substitution of one god for another. These pictures deal with the rites which would be celebrated by the king in each of the seven sanctuaries. Behind this septuple sanctuary there is a secondary hypostyle hall, just as we find it behind the single sccos of the ordinary temple. Its roof was supported by ten columns, and access to it was obtained through the third sanctuary, that of Osiris. This part of the temple is in a very fragmentary condition. Very little is left of the boundinof walls, but it has been ascertained that several of these chambers were dedicated to one or other of the deities between whom the naos was apportioned. Thus one of the chambers referred to was placed under the protection of Osiris, another under that of Horus, and a third under that of Isis. The decoration of the southern wing of the temple seems never to have been completed. It contains a long corridor, a rectangular court with an unfinished peristyle, several small