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)

130 LARGEST TOMB IN THEBES. [Chap. III.

feet by seventy-six, with a flight of steps descend-
ing to its centre from the entrance, which lies
between two massive crude brick walls, once sup-
porting an arched gateway. The inner door, cut
like the rest of the tomb in the limestone rock, leads
to a second court, fifty-three feet by sixty-seven,*
with a peristyle of pillars on either side, behind
which are two closed corridors; that on the west
containing a pit and one small square room, the
opposite one having a similar chamber, which leads
to a narrow passage, once closed in two places by
masonry, and evidently used for a sepulchral pur-
pose.

Continuing through the second area you arrive
at a porch, whose arched summit, hollowed out of
the rock, has the light form of a small segment of a
circle, and from the surface of the inner wall are
relieved the cornice and mouldings of an elegant
doorway.

This opens on the first hall, fifty-three feet by
thirty-seven, once supported by a double line of
four pillars, dividing the nave (if I may so call it)
from the aisles, with half pillars as usual attached
to the end walls. Another ornamented doorway
leads to the second hall, thirty-two feet square,
with two pillars in each row, disposed as in the
former. Passing through another door you arrive at
a small chamber, twenty-one feet by twelve, at

* As usual, the breadth of the court or area exceeds its length.