74

THE TEMPLE OF MUT.

[part ii.

steps led up to a little hypostyle hall (C) ; this hall
and all the further part of the temple had once been
roofed over, so that the heavy masses of the roofing
blocks were added to those fallen from the walls.
No doubt the temple had long been used as a quarry .
by any neighbouring Arabs who wanted stone, but
there was plenty left to make the work of clearing
very laborious.

The hypostyle hall contains four pairs of pillars,
and here again we note discrepancies between
Mariette's map and the real plan. Mariette makes
the hall the whole breadth of the temple and marks
six pairs of pillars, whereas in the hall itself there
are but four pairs and on each side is a small
chamber with a single column in the middle. Even
these chambers are not symmetrical, as may be seen
by the plan of the temple.

The columns of the hall are not uniform, but in
two or three varying styles—one pair being lotiform,
another smoothly circular, and so forth. This
variety was common in later times. The breadth
of the temple from this point onwards is slightly
diminished, and on the east side, at the corner of
the projection thus formed, is the well-known
Taharqa Chamber (a).

A corridor on the axis of the temple, having a
gate at either end, leads out of the hypostyle hall to
the sanctuary (f). The chambers on either side of
this corridor by no means correspond to one an-
other, though Mariette has made his plan almost