§ 3. The Temple under the New Empire.
Before we cross the threshold of the great Theban temples and attempt to evolve order out of their complexity of courts, halls, porticos and colonnades, it may be convenient to describe their approaches. Each temple had its external and accessory parts which had their share in the religious ceremonies of which it was the theatre, and it would be difficult to make its economy understood unless we began by noticing them in detail.
Fig. 205.—Ram, or Kriosphinx, from Karnak.
One of the first signs which denoted to visitors the proximity of an Egyptian temple was what the Greek travellers called a δρόμος, that is to say a paved causeway bordered on each side with rams or sphinxes, their heads being turned inwards to the road. These avenues vary in width, that at Karnak is 76 feet between the inner faces of the pedestals;[300] within the precincts of the sacred edifice, between the first and second pylon, this width underwent a considerable increase. The space between one sphinx and another on the same side of the causeway was about 13 feet. The dromos which led from Luxor to Karnak was about 2,200 yards long; there must, therefore, have been five hundred sphinxes on each side of it. At the Serapeum of Memphis the sphinxes which Mariette found by digging 70 feet downwards into the sand were still nearer to one another;[301] the dromos which they lined was found to be 50 feet wide and about 1,650 yards long.
Following our modern notions we should, perhaps, expect to find these causeways laid out upon an exactly rectilinear plan. They are not so, however. It has sometimes been said that one of the characteristic features of Egyptian architecture is its dislike, or rather hatred, of a rigorous symmetry. Traces of this hatred are to be found in these avenues. The very short ones, such as those which extend between one pylon and another, are straight, but those which are prolonged for some distance outside the buildings of the temple almost always make some abrupt turns. The Serapeum dromos undergoes several slight changes of direction, in order, no doubt, to avoid the tombs between which its course lay. We find the same thing at Karnak, where the architect must have had different motives for his abandonment of a straight line. At the point where the man-headed sphinxes of Horus succeed to those sphinxes without inscriptions the date of which Mariette found it impossible to determine, the axis of the avenue inclines gently to the left.
These avenues of sphinxes are always outside the actual walls of the temple, from which it has been inferred that they were merely ornamental, and without religious signification.[302]
Some of the great temples have several of these avenues leading up to their different gates. It is within these gates only that the sacred inclosure called by the Greeks the τέμενος commences. The religious ceremonies were all performed within this space, which was inclosed by an encircling wall built at sufficient distance from the actual temple to allow of the marshalling of processions and other acts of ritual.
These outer walls are of crude brick. At Karnak they are about 33 feet thick, but as their upper parts have disappeared through the perishable nature of the material, it is impossible to say with certainty what their original height may have been.[303] Their summits, with their crenellated parapets, must have afforded a continuous platform connected with the flat tops of the pylons by flights of steps.
"These inclosing walls served more than one purpose. They marked the external limits of the temple. They protected it against injury from without. When their height was considerable, as at Denderah, Sais, and other places, they acted as an impenetrable curtain between the profane curiosity of the external crowd and the mysteries performed within; and when they had to serve their last named purpose they were constructed in such a fashion that those without could neither hear nor see anything that passed.