One of the doorways we have represented, that in Fig. [146], requires to be here mentioned again for a moment. Its lintel is discontinuous. The doorway in question dates from the Ptolemaic period, but there is undoubted evidence that the same form was sometimes used in the Pharaonic period for the openings in inclosing walls. There is a representation of such a door in a bas-relief at Karnak, where it is shown in front of a pylon and forms probably an opening in a boundary wall.[141] It was this representation that decided us to give a broken lintel to the doorway opposite to the centre of the royal pavilion at Medinet-Abou (Plate VIII.). This form of entrance may have originated in the desire to give plenty of head-room for the canopy under which the sovereign was carried, as well as for the banners and various standards which we see figured in the triumphal and religious processions of the bas-reliefs (Fig. [172], Vol. I.).
Fig. 152.—Doorway of the Temple of Seti, at Abydos.
Windows
The royal pavilion at Medinet-Abou is the only building in Egypt which has preserved for us those architectural features which we call windows. They differ one from another, even upon this single building, as much as the doors. One of them (Fig. [153]) is enframed like the doorway at Gournah; but the jambs are merely the ends of the courses which make up the wall, and their salience is very slight. On the other hand a window frame with a very bold relief (Fig. [154]) is to be found in the same building. This window is a little work of art in itself. It is surmounted by a cornice, over which again appear various emblems carved in stone, making up one of the most graceful compositions to be found in Egyptian architecture.
Figs. 153, 154.—Windows in the Royal Pavilion at Medinet-Abou.
§ 9. The Illumination of the Temples.
We have described the way in which the Egyptian architects treated doors and windows from an artistic point of view; we have yet to show the method which they adopted for allowing sufficient light to penetrate into their temples, that is, into those buildings, which, being closely shut against the laity, could not be illuminated from windows in their side walls. Palaces and private houses could have their windows as large and as numerous as they chose, but the temple could only be lighted from the roof, or at least from parts contiguous to the roof.