Fig. 110.—Portico in the Temple of Khons.
Fig. 111.—Luxor, portico of the first court.
In the hypostyle halls we find columns of different sizes and orders. Six of the great columns which form the central avenue at Karnak cover as much ground, measuring from the first to the sixth, as nine of the smaller pillars. Between supports so arranged and proportioned no constant relation could be established (Fig. 114). The transverse lines passing through the centres of each pair of great columns correspond to the centres neither of the smaller shafts nor of the spaces which divide them. The central aisle and the two lateral groves of stone might have been the creations of separate architects, working without communication with one another and without any desire to make their proportions seem the result of one coherent idea.
In the inner hypostyle hall at Abydos the intercolumniations which lead respectively to the seven sanctuaries vary in width (Fig. 115). This variation is not shown by Mariette, from whose work our plan of the temple as a whole was taken, but it is clearly seen in the plan given in the Description. These are not the only instances in which those early explorers of Egypt excelled their successors in minute accuracy.
Fig. 112.—Part of the portico of the first court, Luxor. From the Description, iii. 5.
Fig. 113.—Portico in front of the façade of the temple of Gournah. From the Description, ii. 41.
Here and there we find the spaces in a single row of columns increasing progressively from the two ends to the centre (Fig. 105).
Fig. 114.—Part of the Hypostyle Hall in the Great Temple at Karnak.
The combination of quadrangular with Osiride piers and of the latter with columns proper was also productive of great variety. In the speos of Gherf-Hossein six Osiride piers are inclosed by six of quadrangular section (Fig. 116). In the first court at Medinet-Abou a row of Osiride piers faces a row of columns (Fig. 117), while in the second court there is a much more complicated arrangement. The lateral walls of the court are prefaced each by a row of columns. The wall next the entrance has a row of Osiride piers before it; while that through which the pronaos is gained has a portico supported by, first, a row of Osiride piers, and, behind them, by a row of columns (Fig. 118).
Fig. 115.—Second Hypostyle Hall in the temple of Abydos. Description, iv. 36.
Fig. 116.—Hall in the speos of Gherf-Hossein (from Prisse).
Fig. 117.—Medinet-Abou; first court.
Fig. 118.—Medinet-Abou; second court.
In the temple of Khons the peristyle is continued past the doorway in the pylon (Fig. 119), and the inclosure is reached through one of the intercolumniations.[122] At Luxor, on the other hand, the portico was brought to an abrupt termination against the salient jambs of the doorway (Fig. 120).
Fig. 119.—Portico of the Temple of Khons, looking towards pronaos.
Fig. 120.—Portico of first court at Luxor.
The Egyptian architect, like his Greek successor, made frequent use of the anta, that is, he gave a salience to the extremities of his walls which strengthened his design and afforded structural members, akin to pilasters or quadrangular pillars, which were combined in various ways with columns and piers. Sometimes the anta is nothing but a slight prolongation of a wall beyond the point where it meets another (Fig. 121); sometimes it is the commencement of a returning wall which appears to have been broken off to give place to a row of columns (Fig. 122); a good instance of the latter arrangement is to be found on the façade of the temple at Gournah. Sometimes, as at Medinet-Abou, it is a reinforcement to the extremity of a wall, and serves to form a backing for colossal Osiride statues (Fig. 123), sometimes it gives accent and strength to an angle, as in the Great Hall at Karnak (Fig. 124). At the Temple of Khons the terminations of the two rows of columns which form the portico are marked by antæ on the inner face of the pylon (Fig. 126), while the wall which incloses the pronaos is without any projection except the jambs of the door. This arrangement has an obvious raison d'être; if the columns were brought close up to the pylon their outlines would not combine happily with its inclined walls. At the other extremity of the court, the wall being perpendicular, there was no necessity for such an arrangement.[123] A glance at Fig. 126 will make this readily understood. At Medinet-Abou the portico is terminated laterally by two antæ, one corresponding to the row of columns, the other to the row of caryatid piers. In another court of the same temple the antæ on either side vary in depth, at one end of the portico there is a bold pilaster, at the other one which projects very slightly indeed (Fig. 128). This is another instance of the curious want of symmetry and regularity which is one of the most constant characteristics of Egyptian architecture.
Fig. 121.—Anta, Luxor; second court. Description, iii. 5.
Fig. 122.—Anta, Gournah. From Gailhabaud.
Fig. 123.—Anta, Medinet-Abou.
Fig. 124.—Anta in the Great Hall of Karnak.
Fig. 125.—Antæ, Temple of Khons. Description, iii. 54.
Fig. 126.—Anta and base of pylon, Temple of Khons. Description, iii. 55.
The anta is often without a capital, as, for instance, in the temple of Khons (Fig. 126). Elsewhere the architect seems to have wished to bring it into more complete harmony with the magnificence of its surroundings, and accordingly he gives it a capital, as at Medinet-Abou, but a capital totally unlike those proper to the column.[124] It was identical in form with that gorge or cornice which crowns nearly every Egyptian wall. Considering that the anta was really no more than a prolongation or momentary salience of the wall, such an arrangement was judicious in every way (Fig. 129).
Fig. 127.—Antæ, Medinet-Abou.
Fig. 128.—Antæ, Medinet-Abou.
The width of the intercolumniations also varied between one court or hall and another, and, at least in the present state of the Egyptian remains, we are unable to discover any rule governing the matter, such as those by which Greek architects were guided. We may affirm generally that the Egyptian constructor, especially in the time of the New Empire and when using columns of large dimensions, preferred close spacing to wide. His tendency to crowd his columns is to be explained, partly by the great weight of the superstructure which they had to support, partly by the national taste for a massive and close architecture. The spaces between the great columns in the hypostyle hall of Karnak, measured between the points of junction between the bases and the shafts, is slightly less than two diameters. The spaces between the smaller columns on each side are hardly more than one diameter.
A better idea of the original character of these ordonnances may perhaps be gathered from the plate which faces the next page (Pl. VIII) than to any plan to which we could refer the reader. It represents that part of the colonnade, in the second court of the temple at Medinet-Abou, which veils the wall of the pronaos, and it shows how little space the Egyptian architects thought necessary for the purposes of circulation. The spaces between the columns and the wall on the one hand and the osiride piers on the other, are not quite equal to the diameter of the bases of those columns, which have, however, been expressly kept smaller than was usual in Egypt. If they had been as large as some that we could point out, there would have been no room to pass between them and the wall.
Did the Egyptians ever employ isolated columns, not as structural units, but for decorative purposes, for the support of a group or a statue? Are there any examples of pillars like those which the Phœnicians raised before their temples, or the triumphal columns of the Romans, or those reared for commemorative purposes in Paris and other cities of Modern Europe? It is impossible to give a confident answer to this question. The remains of the great colonnade which existed in the first court at Karnak, of which a single column with bell-shaped capital is still upright (Fig. 130), suggest, perhaps, that such monumental pillars were not unknown to the Egyptians. These columns display the ovals of Tahraka, of Psemethek, and of Ptolemy Philopator. The width of the avenue between them, measuring from centre to centre, is so great, about fifty-five feet, that it is difficult to believe that it could ever have been covered with a roof. Even with wood it would have been no easy matter—for the Egyptians—to cover such a void. We have, moreover, good reason to believe that they never used wood and stone together in their temples. A velarium has been suggested, but there is nothing either in the Egyptian texts or in their wall paintings to hint at their use of such a covering.
It would have been quite possible to connect the summits of these columns together lengthwise. The architraves would have had less than twenty feet to bridge over. But not the slightest relic of such a structure has been found, and it is difficult to see what good purpose it could have served had it existed.
The authors of the Description came to the conclusion that there had been no roof of any kind to the avenue formed by the columns, that they merely formed a kind of monumental approach to the hypostyle hall.[125] Mariette also discards the idea of architraves, which would have to be unusually long, but he cannot accept the notion that the columns were merely colossal venetian masts bordering the approach to the sanctuary. He supposes the centre of the courtyard to have contained a small hypæthral temple built by Tahraka. This temple figures upon his plan, but neither he himself, by his own confession, nor any one else has ever found the slightest trace of it in reality.[126] In the excavations made by him in 1859, he did not find a vestige even of the two columns which he inserts upon each of the two short sides of the rectangle. These columns were necessary in order to complete a peripteral arrangement, similar to that which exists in the hypæthral temples at Philæ and in Nubia. The closest study of the site has brought to light nothing beyond the twelve columns shown in our plan (Fig. 214, E, Vol. I.).
Ch. Chipiez del Hibon sc.
THEBES
PORTICO IN THE TEMPLE OF MEDINET-ABOU (SECOND COURT)
Restored by Ch. Chipiez.
Imp. Ch. Chardon
Fig. 129.—Anta and column at Medinet-Abou.
Fig. 130.—Column in the court of the Bubastides, at Karnak.
The most probable explanation is that which we have hinted at above.[127] These great columns were erected to give majesty to the approach to the hypostyle hall, and to border the path followed by the great religious processions as they issued from the hall and made for the great doorway in the pylon. They must always have been isolated, and it is possible that formerly each carried upon the cubic die which still surmounts the capital, groups of bronze similar to those which, to all appearance, crowned those stele-like piers which we described in speaking of the work of Thothmes in the same temple (page 94). This was also the opinion of Prisse d'Avennes, who studied the monuments of Egypt, both as an artist and as an archæologist, more closely, perhaps, than any one else.[128] It has been objected that the columns would hide each other, and that the symbolic animals perched upon their summits could not have been seen; but this would only be the case with those who looked at them from certain disadvantageous positions—from between the columns, or exactly on their alignment. From the middle of the avenue, or from one side of it, they would be clearly visible, and the vivid colours of their enamels would produce their full effect.
The question might be decided in a very simple fashion. The summit of the column which is still upright might be examined, or the abacus of one of those which have fallen might be discovered; in either case traces of the objects which they supported would be found, supposing our hypothesis to be correct. More than one doubtful question of this kind would long ago have been solved had the Egyptian monuments been studied on the spot by archæologists and artists instead of being left almost entirely to the narrower experience of engineers and egyptologists.
In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we shall, then, look upon it as probable that the Egyptians sometimes raised columns, like other people, not for the support of roofs and architraves, but as gigantic pedestals, as self-contained decorative forms, with independent parts of their own to play. Such a proceeding was doubtless an innovation in Egyptian art—one of those fresh departures which date from the latter years of the Monarchy. Even in Egypt motives grew stale with repetition at last, and she cried out for something new.
We have seen that the proportions, the entasis, the shape, and the decoration of the Egyptian column, were changed more than once and in many ways. The Egyptian artist, by his fertility of resource and continual striving after improvement, showed that he was by no means actuated by that blind respect for tradition which has been too often attributed to him. Besides, the remains which we possess are but a small part of Egyptian architecture. The buildings of Memphis and of the Delta have perished. Had they been preserved we should doubtless have found among them forms and details which do not exist in the ruins of Abydos, of Thebes, or in the Nubian hypogea; we should have been able to describe arrangements and motives which do not occur in the works of the three great Theban dynasties.
Fig. 131.—Stereobate, Luxor.
Fig. 132.—Stereobate with double plinth, Luxor.
On the other hand, the mouldings and other details of the same kind are monotonous in the extreme. Their want of variety is not to be explained, like that of Assyria, by the nature of the materials. Brick, granite, limestone, and sandstone constituted a series of materials in which a varied play of light and shade, such as that which characterized Greek architecture, should have been easy. The real cause of the poverty of Egyptian design in this particular is to be found in their habit of covering nearly every surface with a carved and painted decoration. More elaborate or bolder mouldings might have interfered with the succession of row upon row of pictures from the bottom to the top of a wall. The eye was satisfied with the rich polychromatic decoration, and did not require it to be supplemented by architectural ornament.
When the slope of a wall was ornamented with projections in the shape of mouldings it was because the wall was bare. At Luxor, for example, in the external face of the wall which incloses the back of the temple, the lowest course projects beyond the others, forming a step, and a few courses above it there is a hollow moulding similar in section to the cornice at the top; the lower part of the wall is thus formed into a stereobate (Fig. 131). At another point in the circumference of this temple there is a stereobate of a more complicated description. It is terminated above by a cornice-shaped moulding like that just described, but it rests upon two steps instead of one (Fig. 132). By this it appears that the Egyptian architects understood how to add to apparent solidity of their buildings by expanding them at their junction with the ground. This became a true continuous stylobate, carrying piers, in peripteral temples like that at Elephantiné (Fig. 230, Vol. I.). In the latter building its form is identical with that which we have just described.
We have now to describe an arrangement which, though rare in the Pharaonic period, was afterwards common enough. The portico which stretches across the back of the second court in the Ramesseum is closed to about a third of its height by a kind of pluteus (Fig. 133).[129] This barrier formed a sort of tablet, surrounded by a fillet, and crowned by a cornice of the usual type, between each pair of Osiride piers. In the Ptolemaic temples the lower part of the portico was always closed in this fashion. It constitutes the only inclosure in front of the fine hypostyle hall at Denderah.
We have now studied buildings in sufficient number to become familiar with the Egyptian Gorge. As early as the Ancient Empire the architects of Egypt had invented this form of cornice, and used it happily upon their massive structures. It is composed of three elements, which are always arranged in the same order. In the first place there is the circular moulding or torus with a carved ribbon twisting about it. This moulding occurs at the edge where two faces meet in most Egyptian buildings. It serves to give firmness and accent to the angles and, when used at the top of the wall, to mark the point where the wall ends and the cornice begins. Above this there is a hollow curve with perpendicular grooves, which, again, is surmounted by a plain fillet which makes a sharp line against the sky. In all this there is a skilful opposition of hollows to flat surfaces, of deep shadow to brilliant and unbroken sunlight, which marks the upward determination of the great masses upon which it is used in the most effective manner.
Fig. 133.—Pluteus in the intercolumniations of the portico in the second court of the Ramesseum.
Although the Egyptian architect repeated this cornice continually, he contrived to give it variety of effect by modifying its proportions, and by introducing different kinds of ornaments. In the pylons, for instance, we often find that the cornice of the doorway was both deeper and of bolder projection than those upon the two masses of the pylon itself (Fig. 134). It was generally ornamented with the winged globe, an emblem which was afterwards appropriated by the nations which became connected with Egypt.
Fig. 134.—Doorway, Luxor. Description, iii. 6.
This emblem in its full development was formed of the solar disk supported on each side by the uræus, the serpent which meant royalty. The sun was thus designated as the greatest of kings, the king who mounted up into space, enlightening and vivifying the upper and lower country at one and the same time. The disk and its supporters were flanked by the two wide stretching wings with rounded, fan-shaped extremities, which symbolized the untiring activity of the sun in making its daily journey from one extremity of the firmament to the other. Egyptologists tell us that the group as a whole signifies the triumph of right over wrong, the victory of Horus over Set. An inscription at Edfou tells us that, after the victory, Thoth ordered that this emblem should be carved over every doorway in Egypt, and, in fact, there are very few lintels without it.[130] It first appears at about the time of the twelfth dynasty, according to Mariette, but its form was at first more simple. There were no uræi, and the wings were shorter, and pendent instead of outstretched.[131] Towards the eighteenth dynasty it took the shape in which it is figured in our illustrations, and became thenceforward the Egyptian symbol par excellence.
Fig. 135.—Cornice of the Ramesseum. Description, ii. 30.
Fig. 136.—Cornice of a wooden pavilion; from Prisse.
In the more richly decorated buildings, such as the Ramesseum, we sometimes find cartouches introduced between the vertical grooves of the cornice (Fig. 135). In the representations of architecture on the painted walls the upper member of the cornice as usually constituted, is often surmounted by an ornament composed of the uræus and the solar disk, the latter being upon the head of the former (Fig. 136). This addition gives a richer and more ample cornice, which the Ptolemaic architects carried out in stone. It is not to be found thus perpetuated in any Pharaonic building, but the same motive occurs at Thebes, below the cornice, and its existence in the bas-reliefs shows that even in early times it was sometimes used. Perhaps it was confined to those light structures in which complicated forms were easily carried out.
This cornice seemed to the Egyptians to be so entirely the proper termination for their rising surfaces, that they placed it at the top of their stylobates (Figs. 131 and 132) and their pedestals (Fig. 137). They also used it within their buildings at the top of the walls behind their colonnades, as, for instance, in the peripteral temple at Elephantiné (Fig. 138).
The number of buildings in which this cornice was not used is very small. The Royal Pavilion at Medinet-Abou is surrounded, at the top, by a line of round-headed battlements; in the Temple of Semneh, built by Thothmes I.,[132] and in the pronaos of the Temple of Amada, the usual form gives place to a square cornice which is quite primitive in its simplicity.
Fig. 137.—Pedestal of a Sphinx at Karnak. Description, iii. 29.
Fig. 138.—Cornice under the portico, Elephantiné.
Traces of other mouldings, such as those which we call the cyma, and the cyma reversa, may be found in Egyptian temples, but they occur so rarely that we need not dwell upon them here or figure them.[133]
Besides these mouldings, which were used but very rarely, we need only mention one more detail of the kind, namely, those vertical and horizontal grooves which occur upon the masonry walls and were derived from the structures in wood. They were chiefly used for the ornamentation of the great surfaces afforded by the brick walls (Fig. 261, Vol. I.), but they are also to be found upon stone buildings. We give, as an example, a fragment found at Alexandria, which is supposed to belong to the lower part of a sarcophagus. A curious variation of the same ornament exists in one of the royal tombs at Thebes (Fig. 140), in which each panel is separated from its neighbours by the figures of headless men with their hands tied behind their backs. They represent, no doubt, prisoners of war who have been beheaded, and the decorator has wished, by the use of a somewhat barbarous though graceful motive, to suggest the exploits of him for whom the sepulchre was destined.
Fig. 139.—Fragment of a sarcophagus. Description, v. 47.
Not much variety was to be obtained from the use of these grooves, but yet they disguised the nudity of great wall spaces, they prevented monotony from becoming too monotonous, while they afforded linear combinations which had some power to please the eye. The Assyrians made use of hardly any other mode of breaking up the uniformity of their brick walls.
Fig. 140.—Fragment of decoration from a royal tomb at Thebes. Description, ii. 86.
It has been asserted that the first signs of that egg-moulding which played so great a part in Greek architecture are to be found in Egypt. Nestor L'Hôte thought that he recognised it in the entablature, under the architrave, of some pavilions figured in decorations at Tell-el-Amarna and at Abydos.[134] He was certainly mistaken. The outline of the ornament to which he referred has a distant resemblance to the moulding in question, but the place which it occupies gives it an entirely different character; it seems to be suspended in the air under the entablature. In other painted pavilions the same place is occupied by flowers, bunches of grapes, and fruits resembling dates or acorns, suspended in the same fashion.[135] If such forms must be explained otherwise than by the mere fancy of the ornamentist, we should be inclined to see in them metal weights hung round the edges of the awnings, which supplied the place of a roof in many wooden pavilions.
The same remarks may be applied to those objects, or rather appearances, to which the triglyphs of the Doric order have been referred. It is true that in the figured architecture of the bas-reliefs many of the architraves seem to show vertical incisions arranged in groups of three, each group being separated from the next by a square space which recalls the Greek metope (Figs. 62-64). But sometimes these stripes follow each other at regular intervals, sometimes they are in pairs, and sometimes they are altogether absent, the architrave being either plain or decorated with figures and inscriptions. Where the stripes are present they represent sometimes applied ornaments, sometimes the ends of transverse joists appearing between the beams of the architrave. Similar ornaments surround the paintings in the tombs, and are to be found upon the articles of furniture, such as chairs, which form part of most Egyptian museums. Neither these so-called triglyphs and metopes, which do slightly resemble the details so named of the Doric order, nor the egg moulding, which is a pure delusion, ever received that established form and elemental character which alone gives such things importance. Architecture—stone architecture—made no use of them, and the analogies which some have endeavoured to establish are misleading. The apparent coincidence resulted from the nature of the material and from the limited number of combinations which it allowed.
So far we have been concerned with the structure and shape of Egyptian buildings; we have now to describe the openings pierced in their substance for the admission of light, for the circulation of their inhabitants and for the entrance of visitors from without. The doors and windows of the Egyptians were peculiar in many ways and deserve to be carefully described.
The plans of Egyptian doorways do not always show the same arrangements. The embrasure of which we moderns make use is seldom met with. It occurs in the peripteral temple at Elephantiné, but that is quite an exception (Fig. 141). The doorways of the temples were generally planned as in Fig. 142, and in the passage which traverses the thickness of the pylons, there is in the middle an enlargement forming a kind of chamber into which, no doubt, double doors fell back on either side (Fig. 143).
In their elevations doorways show still greater variety.
Let us consider in the first place those by which access was gained to the temenos, or outer inclosure, of the temple. They may be divided into three classes.
First of all comes the pylon proper, with its great doorway flanked on either side by a tower which greatly exceeds it in height (Fig. 207, Vol. I.). Champollion has pointed out that even in the Egyptian texts themselves a distinction is made between the pylon and that which he calls the propylon. The latter consists of a door opening through the centre of a single pyramidoid mass, and instead of forming a façade to the temple itself, it is used for the entrances to the outer inclosure. Figs. 144 and 145 show the different hieroglyphs which represent it.[136]
These propylons, to adopt Champollion's term, seem to have included two different types which are now known to us only through the Ptolemaic buildings and the monumental paintings, as the boundary walls of the Pharaonic period have almost entirely disappeared and their gateways with them.
Fig. 141.—Plan of doorway, Temple of Elephantiné.
Fig. 142.—Plan of doorway, Temple of Khons.
We have illustrated the first type in our restoration, page 339, Vol. I. (Fig. 206). The doorway itself is very high, in which it resembles many propylons of the Greek period which still exist at Karnak and Denderah.[137] The thickness of the whole mass and its double cornice, between which the covered way on the top of the walls could be carried, are features which we also encounter in the propylon of Denderah and in that of the temple at Daybod in Nubia.[138] We have added nothing but the wall, and a gateway, in Egypt, implies a wall; for there is no reason to suppose that the Egyptians had anything analogous to the triumphal arches of the Romans. The temple was a closed building, to which all access was forbidden to the crowd. The doors may well have been numerous, but, if they were to be of any use at all, they must have been connected by a continuous barrier which should force the traffic to pass through them.
Fig. 143.—Plan of doorway in the pylon, Temple of Khons. Description, iii. 54.
Figs. 144, 145.—The pylon and propylon of the hieroglyphs.
In our restorations this doorway rises above the walls on each side and stands out from them, on plan, both within and without. We may fairly conjecture that it was so. The architect would hardly have wasted rich decoration and a well designed cornice upon a mass which was to be almost buried in the erections on each side of it. It must have been conspicuous from a distance, and this double relief would make it so. There are, moreover, a few instances in which these secondary entrances have been preserved together with the walls through which they provided openings, and they fully confirm our conjectures. One of these is the gateway to the outer court of the Temple of Thothmes at Medinet-Abou (Fig. 146). This gateway certainly belongs to the Ptolemaic part of the building, but we have no reason to suppose that the architects of the Macedonian period deserted the ancient forms.
Fig. 146.—Gateway to the court-yard of the small Temple at Medinet-Abou. Description, ii. 4.
Fig. 147.—A propylon with its masts.
The propylons were decorated with masts like the pylons, as we see by a figure in a painting in one of the royal tombs at Thebes, which was reproduced by Champollion[139] (Fig. 147). Judging from the scenes and inscriptions which accompany it, Champollion thought this represented a propylon at the Ramesseum. That the artist should, as usual, have omitted the wall, need not surprise us when we remember how monotonous and free from incident those great brick inclosures must have been.
The second type of propylon differs from the first in having a very much smaller doorway in comparison with its total mass. In the former the door reaches almost to the cornice, in the latter it occupies but a very small part of the front. This is seen in Fig. 147, and, still more conspicuously, in Fig. 148, which was also copied by Champollion from a tomb at Thebes.[140] In one of these examples the walls are nearly vertical, in another they have a considerable slope, but the arrangement is the same and the proportions of the openings to the towers themselves do not greatly differ. Our Fig. 149, which was composed by the help of those representations, is meant to give an idea of the general composition of which the door with its carved jambs and architrave, and the tower with its masts and banners, are the elements. The two types only differ from one another in the relative dimensions of their important parts, and the transition between them may have been almost imperceptible. It would seem that in the Ptolemaic epoch the wide and lofty doors were the chief objects of admiration, while under the Pharaohs, the towers through which they were pierced were thought of more importance.
Fig. 148.—A propylon.
If we examine the doorways of the temples themselves we shall there also find great variety in the manner in which they are combined architecturally with the walls in which they occur.
Fig. 149.—Gateway in the inclosing wall of a Temple. Restored by Ch. Chipiez.
In the Temple of Khons the jambs of the door are one, architecturally, with the wall. The courses are continuous. The lintel alone, being monolithic, has a certain independence (Fig. 150). In the Temple of Gournah, on the other hand, the doorway forms a separate and self-contained composition. The jambs are monoliths as well as the lintel, and the latter, notwithstanding the great additional weight which it has to carry, does not exceed the former in section. At Abydos, on the other hand, the capital part which this stone has to play is indicated by the great size of the sandstone block of which it is composed (Fig. 154).