Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/426

A History of Art in Ancient Egypt, the theatre, and it would be difficult to make its economy under- stood unless we began by noticing them in detail. One of the first signs which denoted to visitors the proximity of an Egyptian temple was what the Greek travellers called a Bpofios, that is to say a paved causeway bordered on each side with rams or sphinxes, their heads being turned inwards to the road. These avenues vary in width, that at Karnak is 76 feet between the inner faces of the pedestals ; ^ within the precincts of the sacred Fig. 205. — Ram, or Kriosphinx, from Karnak. edifice, between the first and second pylon, this width underwent a considerable increase. The space between one sphinx and another on the same side of the causeway was about 13 feet. The dromos which led from Luxor to Karnak was about 2,200 yards long; there must, therefore, have been five hundred sphinxes on each side of it. At the Serapeum of Memphis the sphinxes which Mariette found by digging 70 feet downwards into the sand ^ Mariette, Karnak, p. 4.