Benson, Margaret; Gourlay, Janet: The temple of Mut in Asher: an account of the excavation of the temple and of the religious representations and objects found therein, as illustrating the history of Egypt and the main religious ideas of the Egyptians (London, 1899)

CHAP. V.]

ASPECT OF THE TEMPLE.

77

but nothing nearly resembling him could be found.
What came nearest was the profile of a Philistine
soldier on a wall at Medinet Habu, whose face
might, with old age and worry, have grown to
such an one as this old man's.

The last two or three days of our time we spent
in trying to put the temple in order and to remove
or reduce the disfigurement caused by deep digging
and the accumulation of large masses of broken
stone. The surface of the courts and chambers was
brought to pavement level by filling up or cutting
down irregularities, and cleared of the rubbish which
concealed their proportions. This was only neces-
sary in the first two courts, where the pavement had
entirely disappeared. In almost all the inner part
of the temple the paving blocks are all in place.
With the help of M. Legrain's reis from Karnak,
many of the lion-headed statues were mended, and
restored to their former dignity of appearance and
position.

Nearly one hundred of these—about half that
number being whole—sit round the wide empty
space of the first court. In the second court there
remain the bases of the columns which formed a
passage up the middle ; on either side is open space,
and round the walls are the square bases of the
cloister columns, supporting here and there the
Hathor-headed capital of the vanished pillars.

Between and behind these sit lion-headed statues
closely ranged, and on either side of the gateway