Wilkinson, John Gardner: Topographie of Thebes, and general view of Egypt: being a short account of the principal objects worthy of notice in the valley of the Nile, to the second cataracte and Wadi Samneh, with the Fyoom, Oases and eastern desert, from Sooez to Bertenice (London, 1835)

4 TOPOGRAPHY OF THEBES. [Chap. I.

through a Pylone, or Pylon, bearing, in addition
to the name of the founder, that of Remeses III.,
beyond which is a dromos of one hundred and
twenty-eight feet, whose mutilated sphinxes* are
scarcely traceable amidst the mounds and ruins of
Arab hovels. A second Pylon terminates this, and
commences a second dromos of nearly similar
length, extending to the colonnade, or corridor, in
front of the temple, whose columns, of one of the
oldest Egyptian orders, are crowned by an abacus,
which appears to unite the stalks of water-plants
that compose the shaft and capital, f

Of the intercolumniations of these ten columns
three only agree in breadth, and a similar discre-
pancy is observed in the doorways which form the
three entrances to the building. The temple itself
presents a central hall, about fifty-seven feet in
length, supported by six columns, having on either
side three small chambers, one of which leads to a
lateral hall, and the opposite one to a passage and
open court on the east side. Upon the upper end
of the hall open five other chambers, the centre one
of which leads to a large room, supported by four

* They are also of Osirei. The sphinx represents the king
himself. They are consequently never female, but always male;
and have either the head of a man or of a ram, with the body of
a lion.

f These, by lowering the abacus little more than two-thirds of
its height, may have been the origin of the Doric column, whose
simple shaft is still more easily traced in those of the grottos at
Beni Has'an, the work of a still more remote period.