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)

176 TOTAL LENGTH OF THE TEMPLE. [Chap. IV.

out adding to the beauty or increasing the strength
of the building. A series of smaller halls and
chambers terminates the extremity of the tempi e*
one of which * is remarkable as containing the
names of the early predecessors of Thothmes III.*
their founder. In the western lateral adytum f are
the vestiges of a colossal hawk seated on a raised
pedestal; the sculptures within and without con-
taining the name of Alexander, by whose order this
was repaired and sculptured.

The total dimensions of this part of the temple,
behind the inner propyla of the grand hall, are six
hundred feet, by about half that in breadth, making
the total length, from the front propyla to the
extremity of the wall of circuit, inclusive, one
thousand one hundred and eighty feet. The ad-
ditions made at different periods, by which the
distant portions of this extensive mass of buildings
were united, will be more readily understood from
an examination of the survey itself than from any
description, however detailed, I could offer to the
reader; and from this it will appear that Diodorus
is fully justified in the following statement: £ that
" the circuit of the most ancient of the four temples
at Thebes measured thirteen stadia," or about one

more light was thereby admitted from the windows of the upper
part.

* Marked 14. f Number 17.

J Diod. lib. i. s. 46. Indeed it will be found to surpass the"
measurement of the historian by at least two or three stadia.