Wilkinson, John Gardner; Birch, Samuel [Contr.]: The Egyptians in the time of the pharaohs: being a companion to the Crystal Palace Egyptian collections (London, 1857)

EARLIEST EGYPTIAN TEMPLES.

141

(\v. 106.)

Confederation; another at Pompeii, and at Zindan, and at
Ephesus; and future discoveries will doubtless prove that it
was employed in the East before
its adoption by the Saracens.

The arch seems to have been
considered, by the Egyptians, par-
ticularly appropriate for the tomb ;
even the ceilings of many hewn
in the rock were cut in imitation of
it, as at Beni Hassan ; and some
of the oldest sepulchral chambers
in the Great Pyramid had that peculiar mode of construction,
which was the precursor of the arch in Egypt and other
countries, —a pointed or pent roof formed by two sets of stones
inclined towards each other.

The Egyptian temple was at first merely a small quadrangular
chamber—a sanctuary with one entrance in front; and the
same continued to be its form, however much the size
of the sacred building increased. Hence a hiero-
glyphic, of the same form as its plan, was made to
signify "temple," or "house."

Within this sanctuary was the statue of the god,
and the altar for sacrifice or for libation; and to it the
priests alone had access ; the people, treated as the profane
laity, remaining without, and only participating—or taught to
believe that they participated—in the ceremonies through their
priestly vicars. In process of time other chambers and a portico
were added ; and the approach to the body of the temple was
through avenues of sphinxes, and a succession of courts, well
suited for the grand processions in which the Egyptians
delighted, and by which the priests sought to impress that
superstitious people with the importance of their office.

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