Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/492

 o 96 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. the homage paid by him to the deity to whom he looked for protection and victory. In these chapels there are neither internal peristyles nor hypo- styles ; there are none of those subsidiary chambers among which it is sometimes so easy to lose our way. There is, in fact, nothing but a rectangular chamber and a portico about it, and, in most cases, it would appear that a short dromos, consisting of a few pairs of sphinxes, lent dignity to the approach. The best proportioned and perhaps the most interesting building of this class is the little sandstone temple built by Amenophis III. at Elephantine, upon the southern frontier of Egypt. It was dis- covered at the end of the last century by the draughtsmen of the French Expedition, and named by them the Temple of the Sotith} This little building no longer exists. It was destroyed in 1822 by the Turkish Governor of Assouan, who had a mania for building. Happily the plans and drawings, which we reproduce, seem to have been made with great care. The total area of the temple, at the floor level of the cella, was 40 feet by 31. It was raised upon a well-built rectangular base of almost the same lateral dimensions,- and 7 feet 6 inches high to the pavement of the portico. From the earth level to the top of the cornice the temple was 21 feet 6 inches in height. A flight of steps, enclosed between two walls of the same height as the stylobate, led up to the portico. The portico itself was composed of square piers and round columns. Two of the latter were introduced in the centre of each of the smaller faces of the building, while the side galleries were enclosed by seven square piers, inclusive of those at the angles. A dwarf wall about three feet in height bounded the gallery on the outside, and afforded a base for the piers ; the circular columns on each side of the entrance alone stood direcdy upon the pavement of the gallery, and were thus higher by about three feet than either the piers or the columns in the corresponding facade at the rear. The oblong chamber enclosed by this portico had two entrances, one at 1 Description de fEgypte, Antiqiiites, vol. i. plates 34-38- 2 This base contained a crypt, no doubt for the sake of economising the material. There seems to have been no means of access to it, either from without or within. Fig. 229. — Plan of the Templeof Elephantine. {DcscnptioH deVEgypte, i- 35-)