rs were
generally left untouched, and only the ceremonial parts of the building, as
the hypostyle halls, the courts, or pylons, were attacked. The procedure of
the Egyptians under these circumstances is best illustrated by the history
of the great temple of Karnak. Founded by Usertesen I., probably on the
site of a still earlier temple, it was but a small building, constructed of
limestone and sandstone, with granite doorways. The inside was decorated
with sixteen-sided pillars. The second and third Amenemhats added some work
to it, and the princes of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasties adorned
it with statues and tables of offerings. It was still unaltered when, in
the eighteenth century B.C., Thothmes I., enriched with booty of war,
resolved to enlarge it. In advance of what already stood there, he erected
two chambers, preceded by a court and flanked by two isolated chapels. In
advance of these again, he erected three successive pylons, one behind the
other. The whole presented the appearance of a vast rectangle placed
crosswise at the end of another rectangle. Thothmes II. and Hatshepsut[18]
covered the walls erected by their father with bas-relief sculptures, but
added no more buildings. Hatshepsut, however, in order to bring in her
obelisks between the pylons of Thothmes I., opened a breach in the south
wall, and overthrew sixteen of the columns which stood in that spot.
Thothmes III., probably finding certain parts of the structure unworthy of
the god, rebuilt the first pylon, and also the double sanctuary, which he
renewed in the red granite of Syene. To the eastward, he rebuilt some old
chambers, the most important among them being the processional hall, used
for the starting-point and halting-place of ceremonial processions, and
these he surrounded with a stone wall. He also made the lake whereon the
sacred boats were launched on festival days; and, with a sharp change of
axis, he built two pylons facing towards the south, thus violating the true
relative proportion which had till then subsisted between the body and the
front of the general mass of the building. The outer enclosure was now too
large for the earlier pylons, and did not properly accord with the later
ones. Amenhotep III. corrected this defect. He erected a sixth and yet more
massive pylon, which was, therefore, better suited for the facade. As it
now stood (fig. 84), the temple surpassed even the boldest architectural
enterprises hitherto attem