Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/173

Bk. I. Ch. VI. NUBIA — PYRAMIDS. 141 design, about 500 ft. in length by 120 or 140 in width, consisting of two great courts, with their propylons, and with internal halls and sanctuaries arranged mucli like those of the Rhaniession at Thebes (Woodcut No, 19), and so nearly, also, on the same scale as to make it probable that the one is a copy of the other. The other temple placed near this, but as usual unsynimetrieally, consists of an outer hall, internally about 50 ft. by 60, the roof of which is supported by four ranges of columns, all with capitals repre- senting figures of Typhon or busts of Isis. This leads to an inner cell or sanctuary, cut in the rock.^ There are smaller remains strewed about, indicating the existence of a city on the spot, but nothing of architectural imjiortance. The most remarkable monuments of the Ethiopian kingdom are the pyramids, of which three great groups have been discovered and Fig] 44. Pyramids at Meroi-. (From Hoskius' " Travels iu Etliioi>ia.") Fig. 1.— Plan of the Principal Group. Scale I FiG. 2. — Section and Elevation of that marked 100 ft. to 1 in. I A. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in. described. The principal group is at a place called Dankelah, the assumed site of the ancient Meroe, in latitude 17° north. Another is at Gibel Barkal ; the third at Nourri, a few miles lower down than the last named, but probably only another necropolis of the same city. Compared with the great Memphite examples, these jiyramids are most insignificant in size — the largest at Nourri beinij onlvllO ft. bv 100 ; at Gibel Barkal the largest is only 88 ft. square ; at Meroe none exceed 60 ft. each way. They differ also in form from those of Egypt, 1 The information rejraiding tliese the best and most accurate work yet temples is principally derived from Hos- published on the subject, kins' " Travels in Ethiopia," which is