middle (A) is a great hall in shape of the letter T, adorned with sixteen
square pillars 16 feet in height; at the north-west corner of this hall is
a narrow passage on an inclined plane (B), by which the building is now
entered;[16] at the south-west corner is a recess (C) which contains six
niches, in pairs one over the other. A long gallery opening at each end
into a square chamber, now filled with rubbish (E), completes the plan.
Without any main door, without windows, and entered through a passage too
long to admit the light of day, the building can only have received light
and air through slanting air-slits in the roofing, of which traces are yet
visible on the tops of the walls (_e, e_) on each side of the main hall
(Note 10). Inscriptions, bas-reliefs, paintings, such as we are accustomed
to find everywhere in Egypt, are all wanting; and yet these bare walls
produce as great an impression upon the spectator as the most richly
decorated temples of Thebes. Not only grandeur but sublimity has been
achieved in the mere juxtaposition of blocks of granite and alabaster, by
means of purity of line and exactness of proportion.

Some few scattered ruins in Nubia, the Fayûm, and Sinai, do not suffice to
prove whether the temples of the Twelfth Dynasty merited the praises
lavished on them in contemporary inscriptions or not. Those of the Theban
kings, of the Ptolemies, and of the Caesars which are yet standing are in
some cases nearly perfect, while almost all are easy of restoration to
those who conscientiously study them upon the spot. At first sight, they
seem to present an infinite variety as to arrangement; but on a closer view
they are found to conform to a single type. We will begin with the
sanctuary. This is a low, small, obscure, rectangular chamber, inaccessible
to all save Pharaoh and the priests. As a rule it contained neither statue
nor emblem, but only the sacred bark, or a tabernacle of painted wood
placed upon a pedestal. A niche in the wall, or an isolated shrine formed
of a single block of stone, received on certain days the statue, or