In their elevations doorways show still greater variety.
Let us consider in the first place those by which access was gained to the temenos, or outer inclosure, of the temple. They may be divided into three classes.
First of all comes the pylon proper, with its great doorway flanked on either side by a tower which greatly exceeds it in height (Fig. [207], Vol. I.). Champollion has pointed out that even in the Egyptian texts themselves a distinction is made between the pylon and that which he calls the propylon. The latter consists of a door opening through the centre of a single pyramidoid mass, and instead of forming a façade to the temple itself, it is used for the entrances to the outer inclosure. Figs. [144] and [145] show the different hieroglyphs which represent it.[136]
These propylons, to adopt Champollion's term, seem to have included two different types which are now known to us only through the Ptolemaic buildings and the monumental paintings, as the boundary walls of the Pharaonic period have almost entirely disappeared and their gateways with them.
Fig. 141.—Plan of doorway, Temple of Elephantiné.
Fig. 142.—Plan of doorway, Temple of Khons.
We have illustrated the first type in our restoration, page 339, Vol. I. (Fig. [206]). The doorway itself is very high, in which it resembles many propylons of the Greek period which still exist at Karnak and Denderah.[137] The thickness of the whole mass and its double cornice, between which the covered way on the top of the walls could be carried, are features which we also encounter in the propylon of Denderah and in that of the temple at Daybod in Nubia.[138] We have added nothing but the wall, and a gateway, in Egypt, implies a wall; for there is no reason to suppose that the Egyptians had anything analogous to the triumphal arches of the Romans. The temple was a closed building, to which all access was forbidden to the crowd. The doors may well have been numerous, but, if they were to be of any use at all, they must have been connected by a continuous barrier which should force the traffic to pass through them.
