Page:EB1911 - Volume 08.djvu/33

 rectangular enclosure of crude bricks, measuring about 900 ✕ 850 ft., contains the sacred buildings: it was entered by two stone gateways, in the north and the east sides, built by Domitian. Another smaller enclosure lies to the east with a gateway also of the Roman period.

The plan of the temple may be supposed to have included a colonnaded court in front of the present façade, and pylon towers at the entrance; but these were never built, probably for lack of funds. The building, which is of sandstone, measures about 300 ft. from front to back, and consists of two oblong rectangles; the foremost, placed transversely to the other, is the great hypostyle hall or pronaos, the broadest and loftiest part of the temple, measuring 135 ft. in width, and comprising about one-third of the whole structure; the façade has six columns with heads of Hathor, and the ceiling is supported by eighteen great columns. The second rectangle contains a small hypostyle hall with six columns, and the sanctuary, with their subsidiary chambers. The sanctuary is surrounded by a corridor into which the chambers open: on the west side is an apartment forming a court and kiosk for the celebration of the feast of the New Year, the principal festival of Dendera. On the roof of the temple, reached by two staircases, are a pavilion and several chambers dedicated to the worship of Osiris. Inside and out, the whole of the temple is covered with scenes and inscriptions in crowded characters, of ceremonial and religious import; the decoration is even carried into a remarkable series of hidden passages and chambers or crypts made in the solid walls for the reception of its most valuable treasures. The architectural style is dignified and pleasing in design and proportions. The interior of the building has been completely cleared: from the outside, however, its imposing effect is quite lost, owing to the mounds of rubbish amongst which it is sunk. North-east of the entrance is a “Birth House” for the cult of the child Harsemteu, and behind the temple a small temple of Isis, dating from the reign of Augustus. The original foundation of the temple must date back to a remote time: the work of some of the early builders is in fact referred to in the inscriptions on the present structure. Petrie’s excavation of the cemetery behind the temple enclosures revealed burials dating from the fourth dynasty onwards, the most important being mastables of the period from the sixth to the eleventh dynasties; many of these exhibited a peculiar degradation of the contemporary style of sculpture.

The zodiacs of the temple of Dendera gave rise to a considerable literature before their late origin was established by Champollion in 1822: one of them, from a chamber on the roof, was removed in 1820 to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Figures of the celebrated Cleopatra VI. occur amongst the sculptures on the exterior of the temple, but they are purely conventional, without a trace of portraiture. Horus of Edfu, the enemy of the crocodiles and hippopotami of Set, appears sometimes as the consort of Hathor of Dendera. The skill displayed by the Tentyrites in capturing the crocodile is referred to by Strabo and other Greek writers. Juvenal, in his seventeenth satire, takes as his text a religious riot between the Tentyrites and the neighbouring Ombites, in the course of which an unlucky Ombite was torn to pieces and devoured by the opposite party. The Ombos in question is not the distant Ombos south of Edfu, where the crocodile was worshipped; Petrie has shown that opposite Coptos, only about 15 m. from Tentyra, there was another Ombos, venerating the hippopotamus sacred to Set.

 DENDROCOMETES (so named by F. Stein), a genus of suctorian Infusoria, characterized by the repeatedly branched attached body; each of the lobes of the body gives off a few retractile tentacles. It is parasitic on the gills of the so-called freshwater shrimp Gammarus pulex.

 DENE-HOLES, the name given to certain caves or excavations in England, which have been popularly supposed to be due to the Danes or some other of the early northern invaders of the country. The common spelling “Dane hole” is adduced as evidence of this, and individual names, such as Vortigern’s Caves at Margate, and Canute’s Gold Mine near Bexley, naturally follow the same theory. The word, however, is probably derived from the Anglo-Saxon den, a hole or valley. There are many underground excavations in the south of the country, also found to some extent in the midlands and the north, but true dene-holes are found chiefly in those parts of Kent and Essex along the lower banks of the Thames. With one exception there are no recorded specimens farther east than those of the Grays Thurrock district, situated in Hangman’s Wood, on the north, and one near Rochester on the south side of the river.

The general outline of the formation of these caves is invariably the same. The entrance is a vertical shaft some 3 ft. in diameter falling, on an average, to a depth of 60 ft. The depth is regulated, obviously, by the depth of the chalk from the surface, but, although chalk could have been obtained close at hand within a few feet, or even inches, from the surface, a depth of from 45 to 80 ft., or more, is a characteristic feature. It is believed that dene-holes were also excavated in sand, but as these would be of a perishable nature there are no available data of any value. The shaft, when the chalk is reached, widens out into a domed chamber with a roof of chalk some 3 ft. thick. The walls frequently contract somewhat as they near the floor. As a rule there is only one chamber, from 16 to 18 ft. in height, beneath each shaft. From this excessive height it has been inferred that the caves were not primarily intended for habitations or even hiding-places. In some cases the chamber is extended, the roof being supported by pillars of chalk left standing. A rare specimen of a twin-chamber was discovered at Gravesend. In this case the one entrance served for both caves, although a separate aperture connected them on the floor level. Where galleries are found connecting the chambers, forming a bewildering labyrinth, a careful scrutiny of the walls usually reveals evidence that they are the work of a people of a much later period than that of the chambers, or, as they become in these cases, the halls of the galleries.

Isolated specimens have been discovered in various parts of Kent and Essex, but the most important groups have been found at Grays Thurrock, in the districts of Woolwich, Abbey Wood and Bexley, and at Gravesend. Those at Bexley and Grays Thurrock are the most valuable still existing.

It is generally found that the tool work on the roof or ceiling is rougher than that on the walls, where an upright position could be maintained. Casts taken of some of the pick-holes near the roof show that, in all probability, they were made by bone or horn picks. And numerous bone picks have been discovered in Essex and Kent. These pick-holes are amongst the most valuable data for the study of dene-holes, and have assisted in fixing the date of their formation to pre-Roman times. Very few relics of antiquarian value have been discovered in any of the known dene-holes which have assisted in fixing the date or determining the uses of these prehistoric excavations. Pliny mentions pits sunk to a depth of a hundred feet, “where they branched out like the veins of mines.” This has been used in support of the theory that dene-holes were wells sunk for the extraction of chalk; but no known dene-hole branches out in this way. Chrétien de Troyes has a passage on underground caves in Britain which may have reference to dene-holes, and tradition of the 14th century treated the dene-holes of Grays as the fabled gold mines of Cunobeline (or Cymbeline) of the 1st century.

Vortigern’s Caves at Margate are possibly dene-holes which have been adapted by later peoples to other purposes; and excellent examples of various pick-holes may be seen on different parts of the walls.

Local tradition in some cases traces the use of these caves to the smugglers, and, when it is remembered that illicit traffic was common not only on the coast but in the Thames as far up the river as Barking Creek, the theory is at least tenable that these ready-made hiding-places, difficult of approach and dangerous to descend, were so utilized. 