DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18826#0210
LECT. I.] ARCHITECTURE. 9
the Gods on Olympus, or whether to provide against
errors in their votaries, who might, by mistake,
worship a wrong God of the assortment, I will not
determine.
I could wish to communicate to my auditors
some idea of the extreme magnitude of that scale
on which some places of worship among the an-
cients were composed: and therefore shall select, a
few instances of the most famous and the raoft re-
markable.
The general distribution of the Egyptian tem-
ples we learn from Strabo, who thus describes it.
" This is the disposition of the building of their
temples. At the entrance of the sacred place is a
pavement of stone, its breadth an hundred feet, or
perhaps something lefs, but its length three or four
hundred, and in fome places more: this is called
the court, or approach.
" Along the whole length from thence, on each
side of its breadth, are placed stone sphinxes, twenty
cubits, or fomewhat more, distant from each other,
so that there is one row of sphinxes on the right,
and another on the left. After the sphinxes there
is a great vestibule; as you advance farther there is
another vestibule, and likewife a third, for the num-
ber is not limited, either of the vestibules or of the
fphinxes, but is various in different temples, ac-
cording to the lengths and breadth of the courts.
After the vestibules is the temple, having a great
anti-temple, or nave, worthy of admiration.
" The sanctuary was of a moderate size; there
was no carved images of the human form, but only of
Vol. III. Edit. 7. O some
the Gods on Olympus, or whether to provide against
errors in their votaries, who might, by mistake,
worship a wrong God of the assortment, I will not
determine.
I could wish to communicate to my auditors
some idea of the extreme magnitude of that scale
on which some places of worship among the an-
cients were composed: and therefore shall select, a
few instances of the most famous and the raoft re-
markable.
The general distribution of the Egyptian tem-
ples we learn from Strabo, who thus describes it.
" This is the disposition of the building of their
temples. At the entrance of the sacred place is a
pavement of stone, its breadth an hundred feet, or
perhaps something lefs, but its length three or four
hundred, and in fome places more: this is called
the court, or approach.
" Along the whole length from thence, on each
side of its breadth, are placed stone sphinxes, twenty
cubits, or fomewhat more, distant from each other,
so that there is one row of sphinxes on the right,
and another on the left. After the sphinxes there
is a great vestibule; as you advance farther there is
another vestibule, and likewife a third, for the num-
ber is not limited, either of the vestibules or of the
fphinxes, but is various in different temples, ac-
cording to the lengths and breadth of the courts.
After the vestibules is the temple, having a great
anti-temple, or nave, worthy of admiration.
" The sanctuary was of a moderate size; there
was no carved images of the human form, but only of
Vol. III. Edit. 7. O some