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)

Chap. I.] PECULIAR STYLE OF ARCHES. 95

immediately below it, till the uppermost two meet
in the centre; the interior angles being afterwards
rounded off to form the vault. The Egyptians
were not, however, ignorant of the principle or
use of the arch, as I have had occasion to
observe; * and the reason of their preferring
one of this construction probably arose from
their calculating the difficulty of repairing an in-
jured vault, and the consequences attending the
decay of a single block; nor can any one doubt,
from the great superincumbent weight applied to
the haunches, that this style of building is devoid
of strength, or of the usual durability of an
Egyptian fabric,f or pronounce it to be ill-suited
to the purpose for which it was erected, the sup-
port of the friable rock of the mountain, within
whose excavated base it stood, and which threatened
to let fall its crumbling masses on its summit.

Within the second granite door is one of these
vaulted chambers, about thirty feet by twelve, orna-
mented with sculptures which throw great light on
the names of some of the members of the Thothmes
family. Here Thothmes I. and his queen Ames,
accompanied by their young daughter, but all
" deceased" at the time of its construction, receive
the adoration and offerings of Amunneitgori, and of

* Also in the Materia Hier. pp. 77, 79, 80, and Appendix, No.
I, p. 1.

t Having been erected about 1500 B.C., and remaining entire
except where human violence has injured it.