[54] In his Histoire de l'Habitation, Viollet-le-Duc has sought to find the origin of this cornice in an outward curve imparted to the upper extremity of the reeds of which primitive dwellings were made, and maintained by the weight of the roof. He published a drawing in justification of his hypothesis. There are, however, many objections to it. It requires us to admit the general use of the reed as the material for primitive dwellings. Branches which were ever so little rigid and firm could not have been so bent, and yet they are often found in the huts to which we refer. It may even be doubted whether the reeds employed would bear such a curvature as that of the Egyptian cornice without breaking.
[55] This imitation of wooden roofs was noticed by the savants of the Institut d'Égypte. They drew a rock-cut tomb in which the ceiling is carved to look like the trunks of palm trees (Description, Antiquités, vol. v. pl. 6, figs. 3, 4, and 5). See also Baedeker, part i. p. 360.
[56] Pierret, Dictionnaire d'Archéologie Égyptienne.
[57] This pylon dates from the Ptolemies, but if there was anything that did not change in Egypt, it was their processes of construction.
[58] This has been well shown by Champollion à propos of one of the Nubian buildings constructed by the Theban kings. He speaks thus of the hemispeos of Wadi-Esseboua: "This is the worst piece of work extant from the reign of Rameses the Great. The stones are ill-cut; their intervals are masked by a layer of cement over which the sculptured decoration, which is poorly executed, is continued.... Most of this decoration is now incomprehensible because the cement upon which a great part of it was carried out, has fallen down and left many and large gaps in the scenes and inscriptions."—Lettres d'Égypte et de Nubie, 121.
[59] Description de l'Égypte, Antiquités, vol. ii. p. 437.
[60] Strabo, xvii. 37.—Lepsius, Briefe aus Ægypten, p. 74.
[61] Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien, text, p. 364.
[62] The columns at Luxor are constructed in courses. The joints of the stone are worked carefully for only about a third of their whole diameter. Their centres are slightly hollowed out and filled in with a mortar of pounded brick which has become friable. (Description de l'Égypte, Antiquités, vol. ii. p. 384.)
[63] See p. 29, vol. i. (Note 1) and p. 170. The engineers who edited the Description make similar remarks with regard to Karnak. (Antiquités, vol. ii. pp. 414 and 500.)