time it has been done. The best works even of the Venetian school betray their age; but the colours, here supposed to have been in existence two thousand years before the time of Titian, are at this moment as fresh as if they had been laid on an hour ago. The stones of which this fabric is built measure in some cases about twenty-two feet in length; the span of the arch is cut in a single stone; a portico is still visible; each individual part is of exquisite workmanship, but badly put together. This writer agrees with Mr Hamilton in the opinion that the ancient Egyptians did not understand the principle of the arch. One chamber, in particular, appears to demonstrate at once their intention and their inability, the span of the arch being cut in two stones, each of which bears an equal segment of the circle. These placed together would naturally have fallen, but they are upheld by a pillar placed at the point of contact,an expedient which leaves no doubt that, in this point of architectural invention, the subjects of the Pharaohs had not attained their usual success. If, says Sir Frederick, those who raised the Pyramids and built Thebes, and elevated the obelisks of Luxor, had been acquainted with the principle of the arch, they would have thrown bridges across the Nile, and have erected to Isis and Osiris domes more magnificent than those of St Peter's and St Paul's.*

It was in one of the inmost chambers of the larger edifice at Abydos that Mr W. Bankes, in 1818, discovered a large hieroglyphical tablet containing a

* A Visit to Egypt, p. 112.

long series of royal names, as was evident from the ring, border, or, as the French call it, the cartouche, which surrounds such inscriptions. On examination, it proved to be a genealogical table of the immediate predecessors of Ramesses the Great, the Sethos or Sethosis of Manetho, the Sesoosis of Diodorus, and the Sesostris of Herodotus. A careful comparison of it with other documents has enabled M. Champollion to ascertain, with a considerable degree of probability, the period in which the sixteenth and following dynasties mentioned by Manetho must have occupied the throne. The epochs thus determined, though still liable to some objections, are supported by so many concurrent and independent testimonies as to warrant the expectation, now entertained by many chronologists, that they will ultimately be established beyond the reach of controversy.*

Dendera, which is commonly identified with the ancient Tentyra, presents some very striking examples of that sumptuous architecture which the people of Egypt lavished upon their places of worship. The gateway in particular which leads to the temple of Isis has excited universal admiration. Each front, as well as the interior, are covered with sculptured hieroglyphics, which are executed with a richness, a precision, elegance of form, and variety of ornament, surpassing in many respects the similar edifices which are found at Thebes and Philoe. The height is forty-two feet, the width thirty-three, and the depth seventeen. "Advancing along the brick ruins," says Dr Richardson,

.

66

we came to an

Encyclopædia Metropolitana, article Egypt.