Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/88

66 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt, are at least 29 feet long.^ It is said that some attain a length of nearly 32 feet. The Egyptian architect was therefore quite ready to use mono- liths of exceptional size for the covering of voids when they were necessary, but he did not wantonly create that necessity, as those of other nations have often done. Most of the travellers who visit Egypt expect to find huge monolithic shafts rearing their lofty heads on every side, and their surprise is great when they are told that the huge columns of the hypostyle halls are not cut from single blocks. Their first illusion is fostered by the large number of monolithic granite columns which are found at Erment at Antinoe, at Cairo, in most of the modern Egyptian mosques. When they arrive at Thebes they discover their error. At Karnak and at Luxor, at Medinet-Abou and in the Ramesseum, the columns are made up of drums placed one upon another. In many cases even these drums are not monolithic, but consist of several different stones. Under the Roman domination the Egyptians deliberately chose to make their columns of single stones, and most of those which are of exceptional size date from that late epoch. We know but one case to which these remarks do not apply ; we mean that of the monolithic supports in the chambers of the labyrinth which were mentioned by Strabo, and discovered, as some believe, by Lepsius.'^ We are told by that traveller that they were of granite, but he only saw them when broken. Strabo says that the chambers were roofed in with slabs of such a size that they amazed every one who saw them, and added much to the effect which that famous structure was otherwise calculated to produce. Prisse describes and figures a column of red granite which he ascribes to Amenophis III,, and which, according to him, was brought from Memphis to Cairo. Without the base which, as given in his drawing, must be a restoration, it is 13 feet 8^ inches high, including the capital.^ It belongs to the same kind of pillar as those observed by Lepsius in the Fayoum. In a painting in one of the Gournah tombs, three workmen are shown polishing a column exactly similar to that figured by Prisse, with the single exception that its proportions are more slender (Fig. 42). Monolithic columns of red granite have been discovered to the ^ Descriptioti de V Egypte, Antipiites, vol. ii. p. 437. " Strabo, xvii. 37. — Lepsius, Briefe aus AigypteJi, p. 74. 2 Prisse, Histcire de PArt Egyptien, text, p. 364.