bit men working, sowing,
harvesting, beating and winnowing grain; we have representations of
herds of cattle, sheep, geese, swine; of persons richly clothed,
processions, feasts where the harp is played--almost the same life
that we behold 3,000 years later. As early as this time the Egyptians
knew how to manipulate gold, silver, bronze; to manufacture arms and
jewels, glass, pottery, and enamel; they wove garments of linen and
wool, and cloths, transparent or embroidered with gold.

=Architecture.=--They were the oldest artists of the world. They
constructed enormous monuments which appear to be eternal, for down to
the present, time has not been able to destroy them. They never built,
as we do, for the living, but for the gods and for the dead, _i.e._,
temples and tombs. Only a slight amount of debris is left of their
houses, and even the palaces of their kings in comparison with the
tombs appear, in the language of the Greeks, to be only inns. The
house was to serve only for a lifetime, the tomb for eternity.

=Tombs.=--The Great Pyramid is a royal tomb. Ancient tombs ordinarily
had this form. In Lower Egypt there still remain pyramids arranged in
rows or scattered about, some larger, others smaller. These are the
tombs of kings and nobles. Later the tombs are constructed
underground, some under earth, others cut into the granite of the
hills. Each generation needs new ones, and therefore near the town of
living people is built the richer and greater city of the dead
(necropolis).

=Temples.=--The gods also required eternal and splendid habitations.
Their temples include a magnificent sanctuary, the dwelling of the
god, surrounded with courts, gardens, chambers where the priests
lodge, wardrobes for his jewels, utensils, and vestments. This
combination of edifices, the work of many generations, is encircled
with a wall. The temple of Ammon at Thebes had the labors of the kings
of all the dynasties from the twelfth to the last. Ordinarily in front
of the temple a great gate-way is erected, with inclined faces--the
pylone. On either side of the entrance is an obelisk, a needle of rock
with gilded point, or perhaps a colossus in stone representing a
sitting giant. Often the approach to the temple is by a long avenue
rimmed with sphinxes.

Pyramids, pylones, colossi, sphinxes, and obelisks characterize this
architecture. Everything is massive, compact, and, above all, immense.
Hence these monuments appear clumsy but