DONKEY BOYS WERE WAITING FOR US.
"But why was it built in a depression?"
"It was not originally in a hole," explained the guide, "but was built on level ground. Some sixteen hundred years ago the Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius forbade the worship of idols. After that time, the worship of the goddess Hathor being discontinued, the temple was neglected and a village of mud huts sprang up around it. These huts, built of sun-dried bricks, crumbled to dust in the passage of years and were trampled under foot. Again and again new huts supplanted the old until in the course of centuries the debris accumulated many feet in depth. When the government, fifty years ago, undertook to restore the temple, the workmen had to begin by shoveling mud huts off the roof."
We descended a long flight of steps to reach the level of the floor of the excavated temple, and passing the blue-uniformed guards entered the grand hall of columns. The hall, as the guide had told us, was richly decorated. Master sculptors had carved every available space on the walls and columns with hieroglyphic inscriptions and beautiful reliefs; master artists in color had heightened the effect with tint and shade. Looking up we saw, pictured on the ceiling, the Egyptian deity, Nut, the goddess of the sky, controlling the movements of sun and stars; the rays of the sun shining in blessing on the head of Hathor; the moon issuing from Nut's mouth; the signs of the Zodiac; the flying Hours of day and night; and the sailing boats of the planets.
RICHLY DECORATED WITH CARVINGS AND PAINTINGS.
OFFERED INCENSE TO THE GODS.
The guide raised a stone trap door less than two feet square in the stone floor and through this small entrance we squeezed, candle in hand, and descended a stone stairway to explore the dark crypt underneath. Although the ladies screamed when the bats, disturbed and blinded by the light, flew wildly overhead, they bravely followed the guide. The long passage was but three feet in width and we wondered why the dragoman had brought us down into its close and gloomy recesses; but when magnesium wires were lit, our wonder turned into admiration, for the sputtering white light revealed on the smooth sidewalls most beautiful reliefs in well preserved coloring.