e came a courtyard, where the priests and devotees
assembled. This courtyard was surrounded by a colonnade to which the public
had access, and was entered through a gateway flanked by two towers, in
front of which were placed statues, or obelisks; the whole being surrounded
by an enclosure wall of brickwork, and approached through an avenue of
sphinxes. Every Pharaoh was free to erect a hall still more sumptuous in
front of those which his predecessors had built; and what he did, others
might do after him. Thus, successive series of chambers and courts, of
pylons and porticoes, were added reign after reign to the original nucleus;
and--vanity or piety prompting the work--the temple continued to increase
in every direction, till space or means had failed.

[Illustration: Fig. 75.--South Temple of Amenhotep III. at Elephantine.]

[Illustration: Fig. 76.--Plan of temple of Amenhotep III., at El Kab.]

The most simple temples were sometimes the most beautiful. This was the
case as regards the sanctuaries erected by Amenhotep III. in the island of
Elephantine, which were figured by the members of the French expedition at
the end of the last century, and destroyed by the Turkish governor of Asuan
in 1822. The best preserved, namely, the south temple (fig. 75), consisted
of but a single chamber of sandstone, 14 feet high, 31 feet wide, and 39
feet long. The walls, which were straight, and crowned with the usual
cornice, rested on a platform of masonry some 8 feet above the ground. This
platform was surrounded by a parapet wall, breast high. All around the
temple ran a colonnade, the sides each consisting of seven square pillars,
without capital or base, and the two facades, front and back, being
supported by two columns with the lotus-bud capital. Both pillars and
columns rose direct from the parapet; except on the east front, where a
flight of ten or twelve steps, enclosed between two walls of the same
height as the platform, led up to the _cella_. The two columns at the head
of the steps were wider apart than those of the opposite face, and through
the space thus opened was seen a richly-decorated door. A second door
opened at the other end, beneath the portico. Later, in Roman times, this
feature was utilised in altering the building. The inter-columnar space at
the end was filled up, and thus was obtained a second hall, rough and bare,
but useful for the purposes of the temple service. These Elephantine
sanctuaries bring t