Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/28

 8 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. mixture of conscience and carelessness, artlessness and skill, by their simultaneous employment of methods which are contradictory in principle. In the end, however, we arrive at a complete under- standing with the Egyptian draughtsman, and we are enabled to transcribe into our own language that which he has painfully written with the limited means at his command. In the two restorations of an Egyptian house which we have attempted, there is no arrangement of any importance that is not to be found in the original plan. § 2. The Palace. Their tombs and temples give us a great idea of the taste and wealth of the Egyptian monarchs. We are tempted to believe that their palaces, by their extent and the luxury of their decora- tion, must have been worthy of the tombs which they prepared for their own occupation, and the temples which they erected in honour of the gods to whom, as they believed, they owed their glory and prosperity. The imagination places the great sovereigns who constructed the pyramids, the rock tombs of Thebes, the temples of Luxor and Karnak, in splendid palaces constructed of the finest materials which their country afforded. Impelled by this idea, the earlier visitors to Egypt saw palaces everywhere. They called everything which was imposing in size a palace, except the pyramids and the subterranean excavations. The authors of the Description de f E^^ypte thought that Karnak and Luxor, Medinet-Abou, and Gournah, were royal dwellings. Such titles as the Palace of Menephtah, applied to the temple of Seti, at Gournah, have been handed down to our day, and are to be found in works of quite recent date, such as Fergusson's History of A rch itecttire. ^ Since the time of Champollion, a more attentive study of the existing remains, and especially of the inscriptions which they bear, has dissipated that error ; egyptologists are now in accord as to the religious character of the (jreat Theban building^s on o o o either bank of the river. But while admitting this, there are some archaeologists who have not been able to clear their minds ^ Fkrgusson (in vol. i. p. ii8, of his History of ArcJiitedure in all Countries, etc.) proposes that Karnak should be called ?. Palace-Temple, or Teniple-Paiace.