Fig. 107.—The portico of the pronaos, Luxor.
All these are within the external walls of the courts, but the peripteral portico, embracing the temple walls, like those of Greece, is also to be found in a few rare instances (Fig. [108]); as, for example, in the small temple at Elephantiné which we have already described.[120]
Fig. 108.—Part plan of the temple at Elephantiné.
Fig. 109.—Luxor, plan of the second court.
In the cases where the portico is within the courts, it is sometimes confined to two sides, as at Luxor (Fig. [109]); the columns shown at the top of our plan belong to the pronaos and not to the court. In the Temple of Khons it surrounds three sides (Fig. [110]), while the fine court added to the temple of Luxor by Rameses II. has a double colonnade all round it (Fig. [111]).
Both in the interior of the halls and in the external porticos we find an apparently capricious irregularity in spacing the columns. Sometimes intercolumniations vary at points where we should expect uniformity, as in the outer court of Luxor (Fig. [112]). On two of the faces the columns are farther apart than on the other two. The difference is not easily seen on the ordinary small plans, but it is conspicuous in the large one of the Description.[121]
It is easy to understand why the spacing should have been increased in front of a door, an arrangement which exists at Gournah (Fig. [113]), and at Luxor (Figs. [109] and [111]).
