crosswise at the end of another rectangle. Thothmes II. and Hatshepsût[18]
covered the walls erected by their father with bas-relief sculptures, but
added no more buildings. Hatshepsût, however, in order to bring in her
obelisks between the pylons of Thothmes I., opened a breach in the south
wall, and overthrew sixteen of the columns which stood in that spot.
Thothmes III., probably finding certain parts of the structure unworthy of
the god, rebuilt the first pylon, and also the double sanctuary, which he
renewed in the red granite of Syene. To the eastward, he rebuilt some old
chambers, the most important among them being the processional hall, used
for the starting-point and halting-place of ceremonial processions, and
these he surrounded with a stone wall. He also made the lake whereon the
sacred boats were launched on festival days; and, with a sharp change of
axis, he built two pylons facing towards the south, thus violating the true
relative proportion which had till then subsisted between the body and the
front of the general mass of the building. The outer enclosure was now too
large for the earlier pylons, and did not properly accord with the later
ones. Amenhotep III. corrected this defect. He erected a sixth and yet more
massive pylon, which was, therefore, better suited for the façade. As it
now stood (fig. 84), the temple surpassed even the boldest architectural
enterprises hitherto attempted; but the Pharaohs of the Nineteenth Dynasty
succeeded in achieving still more. They added only a hypostyle hall (fig.
85) and a pylon; but the hypostyle hall measured 170 feet in length by 329
feet in breadth. Down the centre they carried a main avenue of twelve
columns, with lotus-flower capitals, being the loftiest ever erected in the
interior of a building; while in the aisles, ranged in seven rows on either
side, they planted 122 columns with lotus-bud capitals. The roof of the
great nave rose to a height of 75 feet above the level of the ground, and
the pylon stood some fifty feet higher still. During a whole century, three
kings laboured to perfect this hypostyle hall. Rameses I. conceived the
idea; Seti I. finished the bulk of the work, and Rameses II. wrought nearly