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 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

A Visit to Egypt, p. 112.

† Encyclopædia Metropolitana, article Egypt.

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, is 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, "we came to an elegant gateway or propylon, which is also of sandstone, neatly hewn, and completely covered with sculpture and hieroglyphics remarkably well cut. Immediately over the centre of the doorway is the beautiful Egyptian ornament usually called the globe, with serpent and wings, emblematical of the glorious sun poised in the airy firmament of heaven, supported and directed in his course by the eternal wisdom of the Deity. The sublime phraseology of Scripture, the Sun of Righteousness shall rise with healing on his wings,' could not be more emphatically or more accurately represented to the human eye than by this elegant device." The temple itself still retains all its original magnificence. The centuries which have elapsed since the era of its foundation have scarcely affected it in any important part, and have impressed upon it no greater appearance of age than serves to render it more venerable and imposing. To Mr. Hamilton, who had seen innumerable monuments of the same kind throughout the Thebaid, it seemed as if he were now witnessing the highest degree of architectural excellence that had ever been attained on the borders of the Nile. Here were concentrated the united labours of ages, and the last effort of human art and industry, in that uniform line of construction which had been adopted in the earliest times.

The portico consists of twenty-four columns, in three rows; each above twenty-two feet in circumference, thirtytwo feet high, and covered with hieroglyphics. On the front, Isis is in general the principal figure to whom offerings are made. On the architrave are represented two processions of men and women bringing to their goddess, and to Osiris, who is sitting behind her, globes encompassed

with cows' horns, mitred snakes, lotus flowers, vases, little boats, graduated staffs, and other instruments of their emblematical worship. The interior of the pronaos is adorned with sculptures, most of them preserving part of the paint with which they have been covered. Those on the ceiling are peculiarly rich and varied, all illustrative of the union between the astronomical and religious creeds of the ancient Egyptians; yet, though each separate figure is well preserved and perfectly intelligible, we must be more intimately acquainted with the real principles of the sciences, as they were then taught, before we can undertake to explain the signs in which they were imbodied.

The sekos, or interior of the tempie, consists of several apartments, all the walls and ceilings of which are in the same way covered with religious and astronomical representations. The roofs, as is usual in Egypt, are flat, formed of oblong masses of stone resting on the side-walls; and when the distance between these is too great, one or two rows of columns are carried down the middle of the apartment, on which the huge flags are supported. The capitals of these columns are very richly ornamented with the budding lotus, the stalks of which, being extended a certain way down the shaft, give it the appearance of being fluted, or rather scalloped. The rooms have been lighted by small perpendicular holes cut in the ceiling, and, where it was possible to introduce them, by oblique ones in the sides. But some idea might be formed of the perpetual gloom in which the apartments on the ground-floor of the sekos must have been buried, from the fact, that where no sidelight could be introduced, all they received was communicated from the apartment above; so that, notwithstanding the cloudless sky and the brilliant colours on the walls, the place must have been always well calculated for the mysterious practices of the religion to which it was consecrated. On one corner of the roof there was a chapel or temple twenty feet square, consisting of twelve columns, exactly similar in figure and proportions to those of the pronaos. The use to which it may have been applied must probably remain one of the secrets connected with the mystical and sometimes cruel service in which the priests of Isis were employed, though it is by no means unlikely that it was meant as a repository for books and instruments collected P

for the more innocent and exalted pursuits of practica astronomy.

Towards the eastern end of the roof are two separate sets of apartments, one on the north and the other on the south side of it. The latter consists of three rooms, the first of which is only remarkable for the representation of a human sacrifice. A man, with the head and ears of an ass, is kneeling on the ground, tied with his hands behind him to a tree, with two knives driven into his forehead, two in the shoulders, one in his body, and another in the thigh. Five priests, with the heads of dogs and hawks, are in a row behind him, each having a knife in his hand. The deity, before whom the mactation is about to be performed, is clothed in a long white garment, and holds in his right hand the crook or erosier, with the flagellum.

The ceiling of the next room is divided into two compartments by a figure of Isis in very high relief. In one of them is the circular zodiac; in the other a variety of boats with four or five human figures in each; one of whom is in the act of spearing a large egg, while others are stamping with their feet upon the victims of their fury, among which are several human beings. Near this scene a large lion, supported by four dog-headed figures, each carrying a knife, may be regarded as an additional type of the sanguinary purposes for which the apartment was used. The walls of the third room are covered with the several representations of a person,-first at the point of death lying on a couch; then stretched out lifeless upon a bier; and finally, after being embalmed. As these sculptures are much more defaced than the others, it is very difficult to decipher their details. But the ensigns of royalty and the presence of the deity are, in general, clearly discernible; on which account it is not improbable that the scenes may bear an allusion to the death of some sovereign of the country who was honoured as the patron of religion or of science.

The western wall of the great temple is particularly interesting for the extreme elegance of the sculpture,-as far as Egyptian sculpture is susceptible of that character, -for the richness of the dresses in which the priests and deities are arrayed, and even of the chairs in which the atter are seated. Here are frequent representations of men vho seem prepared for slaughter or just going to be put to