4

Egypt Exploration Fund.

that the previous diagnosis of the great walls as being of Middle Empire
work was correct.

The work was pushed soutli with energy. Next day a second column
appeared, bearing the name of Nebkherura, and before sunset a third,
with the Mentuhetep cartouche, had shown its head among the rubbish.
Simultaneously, companion pillars appeared a few feet east. It was
evident that we had a colonnade of square pillars, with the cartouches
Mentuhetep and Nebkherura alternating on them, of the same type as the
colonnades of the great temple of Hatshepsu., but on a smaller scale. The
facing-wall of the colonnade, masking the rock-platform, had also the same
batter or slope as the colonnade facing-walls in the great temple. Further,
it was sculptured in the same way. Large blocks with portions of a relief
depicting a procession of boats were found in situ.

Meanwhile, the clearing of the top of the platform had resulted in the
discovery of round column-bases. A pillared hall had evidently been
reached. Then the lower portions of pillars in situ came to light. They
were octagonal, and clearly of the " proto-Doric" type known under
the Old and Middle Empires and in the temple of Hatshepsu, where, how-
ever, they are sixteen-sided. This was another point of resemblance to-
the large temple to the north ; and it now seemed in the highest degree
probable that the great temple had been largely imitated from the
older building of Nebkherura, and that we should find in the latter
the same arrangement of temple platform approached by an inclined
plane or ramp, with a colonnade at either side on the lower level. The-
ramp was duly reached but not cleared. The colonnade on the other side
of it remains, if it still exists, to be discovered in the season of 1904-5.

The northern colonnade originally consisted of two rows each of thirteen*
columns (Hatshepsu's colonnades have in eacb row eleven). The row
nearest the platform is complete but for column No. 1, at the N. entrance-
of the colonnade, of which only the base-slab remains. The pillars are
broken off short at a height of from 4 ft. to 7 ft. above the ground. They
were originally 11 ft. or 12 ft. only in height, and are a little over 2 ft.
square. Both these and the octagonal pillars of the hall above, which are
on an equally small scale, were made not of the fine white limestone
which was used for the facing walls and sculptured blocks of the temple,
and for the similar columns of Hatshepsu, but of a grey-brown sandstone-
which seems to have been specially affected by Mentuhetep Nebkherura:
Professor Petrie found it used in work of this king at Abydos. At
Deir el-Bahari these sandstone columns are covered with a white colour-
* On the plan only twelve bases in each row are shown. There should be thirteen..