Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/193

 The Obelisks. 169 show private houses with their windows. Some of those houses had windows formed of stone claustra. The window copied by ChampolHon^ from the walls of a small chamber in the Temple of Thothmes at Medinet-Abou (Fig. 163), shows this, as well as an Fig. 164. — Window of a house in the form of claustra. I"iG. 165. — Window closed by a mat. opening in the house illustrated in Fig. 19, which we here reproduce upon a larger scale (Fig. 164). We do the same for a window belono-ino^ to the buildinof shown in Fio-. i. It is closed by a mat which was raised, no doubt, by means of a roller and cords (Fig. 165). § 10. The Obelisks, We cannot bring our analysis of the forms and motives of Eg)'ptian architecture to an end without mentioning a monumental type which is peculiar to Eg}-pt, that of the obelisks. These are granite monoliths - of great height, square on plan, dressed on all four faces, and slightly tapering from base to summit. They usually terminate in a small pyramid, whose rapidly sloping sides contrast strongly with the gentle inclination of the main block beneath. This small pyramid is called the pyramidion. The tall and slender shapes of these monoliths and their pointed summits have led to their being compared, in popular language, with needles and spindles.'^ The first Greeks who ^ Xotices Desifiptives. p. 332, fig. 2. - In front of the sphinxes which stand before the great pylon at Kamak there are two small obelisks of sandstone. ^ The Italians call them guglie, needles, and the Arabs micellet Faraoun, Pharaoh's needles. The obelisks now in London and New York respectively, which were taken by the Romans from the ruins of Heliopolis, in order to be erected in front of the Caesareum at Alexandria, were kno^^Tl as Cleopatra's Needles. Herodotus VOL. IL 3