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. IV.] KARNAK THE OLDEST TEMPLE. 177

mile and: two-thirds English; the thickness of the
walls, "of twenty-five feet," owing to the great
variety in their dimensions, is too vague to be
noticed; but the altitude of the building, to which
he allows only forty-five cubits, falls far short of
the real height of the grand hall, which, from the
pavement to the summit of the roof, inclusive, is
not less than eighty feet. *

We next proceed to examine the comparative
antiquity of the component parts of the grand pile
of Karnak, and to trace the gradual extent of the
oldest of the four great temples of Diospolis, and
the epoch of the subsequent additionsf which
tended to its aggrandizement, and ultimately
entitled it to a pre-eminent rank among the most
extensive and stupendous monuments in the world.

No part, in my opinion, remains of its earliest
foundation; but the name of Osirtesen \ suffices
to support its claim to an antiquity surpass-
ing that of every other building in Thebes by
at least one hundred years. The original sanc-
tuary, which may have been of sandstone, must

* The propyla are of course considerably higher. Diodorus
alludes to the temple itself.

t As I must refer the reader to the Survey, I shall indicate each
by the letter attached to it.

t Many names of Egyptian monarchs anterior to Osirtesen I.
appear in the sculptures of Thebes, but no monument remains
erected by them. I have found in the Assaseef a broken block,
the fragment of an ancient building, having that of his immediate
successor.

N