Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/36

 1 6 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. Perhaps the king accomplished some of the rehgious ceremonies which were among his duties at this point. In order to arrive at the altar from without, three successive gates and boundary walls had to be passed, so that the safety of the sovereign was well guarded. Upon the Egyptian plan, which forms a basis for these remarks, there is, on the right of the nest of buildings just described, another of more simple arrangement but of still larger extent. There is no apparent communication between the two ; they are, indeed, separated by a grove of trees. In front of this second assemblage of buildings there is the same rectangular structure of doubtful purpose, and the same quasi-pylon that we find before the first. Behind the pylon there is a court surrounded on three sides by a double row of apartments, some of which communicate directly with the court, others through an intervening portico. Doubtless, this court was the harem in which the king lived with his wives and children. Ranged round courts in its rear are storehouses, stables, cattle-stables, and other offices, with gardens again beyond them. The finest garden lies immediately behind the block of buildings first described, and is shown in our restoration (Fig. 5). Here and there rise light pavilions, whose wooden structure may be divined from the details given by the draughtsman. Colon- nades, under which the crowds of servants and underlings could find shelter at night, pervade the whole building. The domestic offices are partly shown in our figure. As to the reception halls (the part of the building which would now be called the divan), we find nothing that can be identified with them in any of the plans which we have inspected. But it must be remembered that the repre- sentations in question are greatly mutilated, and that hitherto they have only been reproduced and published in fragmentary fashion. We have now sketched the Egyptian palace as it must have been according to all historic probability, and according to the graphic representations left to us by the people themselves. Those of our readers who have followed our arguments atten- tively, will readily understand that we altogether refuse to see the remains of a palace, properly speaking, in the ruin which has been so often drawn and photographed as the Royal Pavilion of Mccii- net-Aboic, or the Pavilion of Rameses HI.' It would be difficult ^ In this we are supported by the opinions ot Mariette {Itincraire, p. 213) and Erkrs {L I''.i;ypf( dii Cairc a Phihr. p. 317).