Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/497

 The Temple under the New Empire. 401 appears certain that they were always of small dimensions. If like those of Sais and Memphis, the temples of Thebes had vanished and left no trace behind, we might have been led to believe that some of the great religious buildings of the Egyptians had been in this form ; but we have Luxor and Karnak, Medinet-Abou and the Ramesseum, Gournah and Abydos ; we have several important temples built in Ethiopia by Egyptian conquerors, and others erected by the Ethiopian sovereigns in imitation of Egyptian architecture.^ When we compare these remains with one another and call to mind the words of Strabo and of other ancient travellers as to the monuments which have been destroyed, we are forced to this general conclusion, that it was within the high external walls of their buildings, around courts open to the sky or as supports for wide and lofty halls, that the Egyptians loved to group their mighty piers and columns. When the portico was outside it was so placed because there was no room for it within. When the temple was reduced to a single narrow chamber, so small that there was no room for columns and that the walls could support the roof without help, the colonnade was relegfated to the ex- terior, where it served to give im- portance to the cella, and to clothe and beautify it. The peripteral arrangement, which is a constant principle in Greek architecture, is no more than a rare accident in that of Egypt. But in spite of this difference the similarity, which might be called a chance likeness, if the word chance had any place in history, is full of interest for the historian of art. The following facts are sufficient to prove that it was the small size of these peripteral temples that first suggested the external situation of their colonnades. As lone as the cella was laro-e enough to admit supports of the ordinary diameter without encum- bering the space or destroying its proportions, we find the columns Fig. 232. — Temple of Amenophis III. at Eilithyia ; from Lepsius. ^ See Lepsius for plans of these buildings; Denkma^ler. part i. plates 125, 127, and 128. VOL. I. 3 F