| Transcript |
446 PICTURESQUE PALESTINE.
realise that the hospitable abode of Mustafa Agha, the British vice-consul, with its flags, its
French carpet, its chair and divans, its photographs and cheap prints, is actually built among
the enormous columns of the grand colonnade which connected the first peristyle hall of
Rameses II. with the temple of Amenoph III. ; that the French consulate is built over the
most sacred parts of this temple ; and that the whole line of buildings that fringe the bank are
interwoven into the ruins of one of the most splendid monuments of Egypt.
Part of the chief pylon of this double temple is seen in the cut on page 443, with the
remaining obelisk and one of the colossi, buried almost up to his shoulders. A column of
the great peristyle court of Rameses II. is seen beyond, and some of the mud hovels which
(together with the mosque shown on page 442, and in the steel engraving facing page 445)
encumber the building. Behind this court is the anomalous colonnade, peristyle court, and
sanctuary and surrounding chambers of the original structure built by Amenoph III., as may
be seen in the steel engraving, where the great colonnade is above the large sail of the
boat in the foreground, and the peristyle hall of Amenoph III. over the dahabiyeh which is
moored to the bank, while to the left is seen the minaret of the mosque which stands upon
the peristyle court of Rameses IL, and still further the pylon and the widowed obelisk which
also appear in the woodcut. The temple of Luxor is the work of only two monarchs,
Amenoph III. and Rameses IL, and is therefore comparatively simple. When the mud
huts are cleared away, an excellent work which M. Maspero is now attempting, the whole
plan will appear coherent and complete. . The curious bend in the axis of the temple, however,
and the unexplained colonnade, will still form subjects for speculation, while the wall-pictures
at present hidden by the village may be expected to furnish a mass of important historical
material.
A long dromos or paved causeway, bordered by an avenue of sphinxes, leads from the great
pylon of Luxor to Karnak. It is two thousand two hundred yards long, and seventy-six feet
broad, and there must have been five hundred sphinxes on each side of it. Most of them are
now destroyed, but enough remains to show that for part of the w7ay there were woman-headed
sphinxes, and that the rest were rams. This causeway leads up to the beautiful gate of
Ptolemy Euergetes, which forms the propylon to the temple of Khons, the pylon of which is
seen through it in the cut (page 448). The temple of Khons, however, built by Rameses III.,
and that of Euergetes beside it, are only two of the eleven temples included in the Karnak
group; and the great temple, in the erection of which so many kings united, is some
distance further north, and looks in a different direction. The first view of Karnak is
rendered all the more confused and perplexing by the circumstance that most of the temples
face different points of the compass. The great temple, indeed, faces the west, i.e. the
Nile, as it should, and as most other temples do. But the subsidiary temple of Khons faces
south, while the temple of Mout looks to the north. There is, however, a reason for these
positions. The temple of Khons looks towards the south because that is the direction ot
Luxor, with which it is connected by the long avenue of sphinxes. The temple of Mout, |
