[305] Mariette, Karnak, pp. 5, 6.
[306] The word πυλών strictly means the place before the door (like θυρών), or rather great door (upon the augmentative force of the suffix ών, ῶνος, see Ad. Regnier, Traité de la Formation des Mots dans la Langue Grecque, § 184). Several passages in Polybius (Thesaurus, s. v.) show that in the military language of his time the term was employed to signify a fortified doorway with its flanking towers and other defences. We may therefore understand why Diodorus (i. 47) made use of it in his description of the so-called tomb of Osymandias. Strabo (xvii. 1, 28) preferred to use the word πρόπυλων. Modern usage has restricted the word propylœum to Greek buildings, and pylon to the great doorways which form one of the most striking features of Egyptian architecture.
[307] We learn the part played by these masts and banners in Egyptian decoration entirely from the representations in the bas-reliefs. The façade of the temple of Khons is illustrated in one of the bas-reliefs upon the same building. That relief was reproduced in the Description de l'Égypte (vol. iii. pl. 57, Fig. 9), and is so well known that we refrained from giving it in these pages. It shows the masts and banners in all their details. Another representation of the same kind will be found in Cailliaud, Voyage à Méroé, plates, vol. ii. pl. 64, Fig. 1. See in the text, vol. iii. p. 298. It is taken from a rock-cut tomb between Dayr-el-Medinet and Medinet-Abou.
[308] This plate ([v].) is not a picturesque restoration; it is merely a map in relief. Only those buildings are marked upon it which have left easily traceable remains. No attempt has been made to reconstruct by conjecture any of those edifices which are at present nothing but confused heaps of débris.
[309] The obelisk of Ousourtesen at Heliopolis is 20·27 metres, or 67 feet 6 inches, high; the Luxor obelisk at Paris, 22·80 metres, or 76 feet; that in the piazza before St. Peter's in Rome, 83 feet 9 inches; that of San Giovanni Laterano, the tallest in Europe, is 107 feet 2 inches; and that of Queen Hatasu, still standing amid the ruins at Karnak, 32·20 metres, or 107 feet 4 inches. This is the highest obelisk known. [The Cleopatra's Needle on the Victoria Embankment is only 68 feet 2 inches high.—Ed.]
[310] At Thebes, still existing inscriptions prove this to be the case, and at Memphis the same custom obtained, as we know from the statements of the Greek travellers. The temple of Ptah—the site of which seems to be determined by the colossal statue of Rameses which still lies there upon its face—must have rivalled Karnak in extent and in the number of its successive additions. According to Diodorus (i. 50) it was Mœris (Amenemhat III.) who built the southern propylons of this temple, which, according to the same authority, surpassed all their rivals in magnificence. At a much later period, Sesostris (a Rameses) erected several colossal monoliths, from 20 to 30 cubits high, in front of the same temple (Diodorus, cap. lvii.; Herodotus, ii. 140); at the same time he must have raised obelisks and constructed courts and pylons. Herodotus attributes to two other kings, whom he names Rhampsinite and Asychis, the construction of two more pylons on the eastern and western sides of the temple (ii. 121 and 136). Finally Psemethek I. built the southern propylons and the pavilion where the Apis was nursed after his first discovery. (Herodotus, ii. 153.)
[311] Strabo, xvii, 1, 28.
[312] This is the temple which the members of the Egyptian institute call the Great Southern Temple. In the background of our illustration ([Fig. 208]) the hypostyle hall and the southern pylons of the Great Temple are seen.
[313] Τοῦ δὲ προνάου παρ' ἑκάτερον πρόκειται τὰ λεγόμενα πτερά· ἔστι δὲ ταῦτα ἰσοΰψη τῷ ναῷ τείχη δύο, κατ' ἀρχὰς μὲν ἀφεστῶτα ἀπ' ἀλλήλων μικρὸν πλέον, ἢ τὸ πλάτος ἐστὶ τῆς κρηπῖδος τοῦ νεώ, ἔπειτ' εἰς τὸ πρόσθεν προϊόντι κατ' ἐπινευούσας γραμμὰς μέχρι πηχῶν πεντήκοντα ἢ ἑξήκοντα.—Strabo, xvii, 1, 28.
[314] Description de l'Égypte, Antiquités, vol. i. pl. 5.