same front. The capitals, which in some degree represent the tulip in bud, are let into the columns. Several other shafts of granite are scattered about near the temple, bearing a distinct evidence to its original extent and grandeur. We pass by Antinopolis or Sheikh Ababdé, because its features unequivocally denote its modern origin, and fix its larger buildings to the time of the Romans. It is said to have been erected by the Emperor Hadrian in memory of Antinous, who perished in the Nile; and it has been remarked that its colonnades, triumphal arches, baths, and amphitheatres, are as little in unison with the surrounding objects, and as foreign to the soil in which they stand, as was the new capital raised by the same people at Treves, on the banks of the Moselle. Siout, which is now esteemed the metropolis of Upper Egypt, is better stored with the relics of former days, consisting, however, of tombs and sepulchral grottos rather than of the more lively monuments of antiquity, the palaces and temples of the victorious Pharaohs. Norden describes at some length those primeval repositories of the dead, which are excavated in the mountains about half a league from the modern town. Passing a gateway, the visitor enters a large saloon supported by hexagonal pillars hewn out of the rock itself. The roofs are adorned with paintings, which can be distinguished sufficiently well even at present; and the gold that was employed in the decoration glitters on all sides. There are perceived here and there some openings which lead to other apartments; but the accumulation of sand and rubbish prevents all ingress. He suggests that there are three tiers of tombs approach able by separate avenues from the outside,—an opinion which is confirmed by Sir F. Henniker, who observed in the second story an excavation of 108 feet by 78, the entrance of which was ornamented with some costly sculptures. Denon, indeed, assures us that all the inner porches of these grottos are covered with hieroglyphics: "Months," says he, "would be required to read them, even if one knew the language, and it would take years to copy them. One thing I saw by the little daylight that enters the first porch, that all the elegancies of ornament which the Greeks have employed in their architecture, all the wavy lines and scrolls, and other Greek forms, are here executed with taste and exquisite delicacy. If one of these excavations were a single operation, as the uniform regularity of the plan of each would seem to indicate, it must have been an immense labour to construct a tomb. But we may suppose that such a one, when finished, would serve for ever for the sepulture of a whole family, or even race, and that some religious worship was regularly paid to the dead; else, where would have been the use of such laboured ornaments in the form of inscriptions never to be read, and a ruinous, secret, and buried splendour. At different periods or at annual festivals, or when some new inhabitant was added to the tombs, funereal rites were doubtless performed, in which the pomp of ceremony might vie with the magnificence of the place. This is the more probable, as the richness of decoration in the interior forms a most striking contrast with the outer walls, which are only the rough natural rock. I found one of these caves with a single saloon, in which were an innumerable quantity of graves cut in the rock in regular order; they had been ransacked with the view of procuring mummies, and I found several fragments of their contents, such as linen, hands, feet, and loose bones. Besides these principal grottos, there is such a countless number of smaller excavations that the whole rock is cavernous, and resounds under the foot."* The temple at Antæopolis, the modern Gau-elKebir, is well deserving of attention, and more especially as it is fast mouldering into a heap of ruins. The portico, in the year 1813, consisted of three rows, each of six columns, eight feet in diameter, and, with their entablature, sixty-two feet high. This structure, which, from its situation in a thick grove of palm-trees, is perhaps the most picturesque in Egypt, stands close to the banks of the Nile, whose waters have already undermined some part of it, and threaten to wash the whole away. The columns, architraves, and indeed every stone of the building, are covered with hieroglyphics in bas-relief. At the farthest extremity of the temple is an immense block of granite of a pyramidal form, twelve feet high, and nine feet square at the base, in which a niche has been cut seven feet in height, four feet wide, and three deep. It is hollowed out as if for the reception of a statue, though Mr Legh imagined that the cavity was meant as a chest or depository for the sacred birds. In the year 1817, many overturned stones and pillars were lying on the brink of the river, or had fallen into its channel. Of the portico just described only one column remained standing, presenting * Denon, vol. i. p. 150. |