parallel with each other. Neither are they attached to the pylon with a due
regard to symmetry. This arises neither from negligence nor wilfulness, as
is popularly supposed. The first plan was as regular as the most
symmetrically-minded designer could wish; but it became necessary to adapt
it to the requirements of the site, and the architects were thenceforth
chiefly concerned to make the best of the irregularities to which they were
condemned by the configuration of the ground. Such difficulties were, in
fact, a frequent source of inspiration; and Philae shows with what skill
the Egyptians extracted every element of beauty and picturesqueness from
enforced disorder.

[Illustration: Fig. 88.--Plan of Speos, Kalaat Addah, Nubia.]

[Illustration: Fig, 89.--Plan of Speos, Gebel Silsileh.]

[Illustration: Fig. 90.--Plan of the Great Speos, Abû Simbel.]

[Illustration: Fig. 91.--Speos of Hathor, Abû Simbel.]

[Illustration: Fig. 92.--Plan of the upper portion of the temple of Deir el
Baharî, showing the state of the excavations, the Speos of Hathor (A); the
rock-cut sanctuary (B); the rock-cut funerary chapel of Thothmes I. (C);
the Speos of Anubis (D); and the excavated niches of the northern
colonnade. Reproduced from Plate III. of the _Archaeological Report of the
Egypt Exploration Fund_ for 1893-4.]

[Illustration: Fig. 93.--Plan of temple of Seti I., at Abydos.]

The idea of the rock-cut temple must have occurred to the Egyptians at an
early period. They carved the houses of the dead in the mountain side; why,