Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/536

 440 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. In virtue of the sanctuary which was its nucleus, the temple was the dwelling of the god, the terrestrial resting-place to which the king, his son and the nursling of the goddesses, came to offer him thanks and to do homage in return for the protection and support which he received. The temple was also, in virtue of those numerous chambers which surrounded the sanctuary, a place for the preparation, consecration, and preservation of holy objects ; a huge sacristy to which access was forbidden to all but those who were specially attached to the service of the god and charged with the custody of the sacred furniture. Such being the origin and purpose of the temple, we need feel no surprise at the triple fortification behind which it was en- trenched. This fortification consisted, in the first place, of the brick wall which formed the outermost inclosure ; secondly, of the wall of masonry which embraced the temple proper, leaving a narrow passage only wide enough for the walk of a sentry ; thirdly, of the wall which divided the really secret parts of the building from the pronaos. Now that the line of the external wall is only indi- cated by a gentle swell of the ground, now that the best preserved of the inner walls are broken down in many places, and now that all the roofs and ceilinofs have fallen and encumbered the floors, it is difficult enough to form a true idea of the former ap- pearance of the Egyptian temples. Could we see them as they left their architects' hands, we should be struck by the jealous severity of their isolation, by the austere monotony of the screen of stone which was interposed between the eyes of the people and the internal splendours of the building. In this we should find the chief point of distinction between the temples of Egypt and those great religious edifices of our own times with which we half involuntarily compare all other works of the kind. But the Greek temple was no more a church than its Egyptian rival. It was not a place of assembly for public praise or religious teaching. Its cella was an inclosed chamber, illuminated only by the door and by a few openings contrived in the roof, and reserved for the god who inhabited it. The two architects in fact, Egyptian and Greek, had the same points of departure ; the problems which they had to solve strongly resembled each other, and yet they created types which differed very greatly. The