registers. The principal figures are, as it were, compressed, so as to
occupy less room, and all the intermediate space is crowded with thousands
of tiny hieroglyphs. The gods and kings are no longer portraits of the
reigning sovereign, but mere conventional types without vigour or life. As
for the secondary figures and accessories, the sculptor's only care is to
crowd in as many as possible. This was not due to a defect of taste, and to
the prevalence of a religious idea which decided but enforced these
changes. The object of decoration was not merely the delight of the eye.
Applied to a piece of furniture, a coffin, a house, a temple, decoration
possessed a certain magic property, of which the power and nature were
determined by each being or action represented, by each word inscribed or
spoken, at the moment of consecration. Every subject was, therefore, an
amulet as well as an ornament. So long as it endured, it ensured to the god
the continuance of homage rendered, or sacrifices offered, by the king. To
the king, whether living or dead, it confirmed the favours granted to him
by the god in recompense for his piety. It also preserved from destruction
the very wall upon which it was depicted. At the time of the Eighteenth
Dynasty, it was thought that two or three such amulets sufficed to compass
the desired effect; but at a later period it was believed that their number
could not be too freely multiplied, and the walls were covered with as many
as the surface would contain. An average chamber of Edfû or Denderah yields
more material for study than the hypostyle hall of Karnak; and the chapel
of Antoninus Pius at Philae, had it been finished, would have contained
more scenes than the sanctuary of Luxor and the passages by which it is
surrounded.

Observing the variety of subjects treated on the walls of any one temple,
one might at first be tempted to think that the decoration does not form a
connected whole, and that, although many series of scenes must undoubtedly
contain the development of an historic idea or a religious dogma, yet that