ther in horizontal pyramid of
rows.[67] The three rows which frame in the doorway are inscribed with the
titles of an unclassed Pharaoh belonging to one of the first Memphite
dynasties. The hieroglyphs are relieved in blue, red, green, and yellow,
upon a tawny ground. Twenty centuries later, Rameses III. originated a new
style at Tell el Yahudeh. This time the question of ornamentation
concerned, not a single chamber, but a whole temple. The mass of the
building was of limestone and alabaster; but the pictorial subjects,
instead of being sculptured according to custom, were of a kind of mosaic
made with almost equal parts of stone tesserae and glazed ware.

[Illustration: Fig. 237.--Tile inlay, Tell el Yahudeh.]

[Illustration: Fig. 238.--Tile inlay, Tell el Yahudeh.]

[Illustration: Fig. 239.--Inlaid tiles, Tell el Yahudeh.]

The most frequent item in the scheme of decoration was a roundel moulded of
a sandy frit coated with blue or grey slip, upon which is a cream-coloured
rosette (fig. 237). Some of these rosettes are framed in geometrical
designs (fig. 238) or spider-web patterns; some represent open flowers. The
central boss is in relief; the petals and tracery are encrusted in the
mass. These roundels, which are of various diameters ranging from three-
eighths of an inch to four inches, were fixed to the walls by means of a
very fine cement. They were used to form many different designs, as
scrolls, foliage, and parallel fillets, such as may be seen on the foot of
an altar and the base of a column preserved in the Gizeh Museum. The royal
ovals were mostly in one piece; so also were the figures. The details,
either incised or modelled upon the clay before firing, were afterwards
painted with such colours as might be suitable. The lotus flowers and
leaves which were carried along the bottom of the walls or the length of
the cornices, were, on the contrary, made up of independent pieces; each
colour being a separate morsel cut to fit exactly into the pieces by which
it was surrounded (fig. 239). This temple was rifled at the beginning of
the present century, and some figures of prisoners brought thence have been
in the Louvre collection ever since the time of Champollion. All that
remained of the building and its decoration was demolished a few years ago
by certain dealers in antiquities, and the _debris_ are now dispersed in
all directions. Mariette, though with great difficulty, recovered some of
the more importa