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urt of the double truth) were situated. ** The ceremonial of these receptions is not represented on any monuments with which we are at present acquainted, prior to the XVIIIth dynasty. It is difficult for us to catch a glimpse of the detail of the internal arrangements: we find, however, mention made of large halls "resembling the hall of Atumu in the heavens," whither the king repaired to deal with state affairs in council, to dispense justice and sometimes also to preside at state banquets. Long rows of tall columns, carved out of rare woods and painted with bright colours, supported the roofs of these chambers, which were entered by doors inlaid with gold and silver, and incrusted with malachite or lapis-lazuli.* * This is the description of the palace of Amon built by Ramses III. Ramses II. was seated in one of these halls, on a throne of gold, when he deliberated with his councillors in regard to the construction of a cistern in the desert for the miners who were going to the gold-mines of Akiti. The room in which the king stopped, after leaving his apartments, for the purpose of putting on his ceremonial dress and receiving the homage of his ministers, appears to me to have been called during the Ancient Empire "Pi-dait" --"The House of Adoration," the house in which the king was worshipped, as in temples of the Ptolemaic epoch, was that in which the statue of the god, on leaving the sanctuary, was dressed and worshipped by the faithful. Sinuhit, under the XIIth dynasty, was granted an audience in the "Hall of Electrum." The private apartments, the "akhonuiti," were entirely separate, but they communicated with the queen's dwelling and with the harem of the wives of inferior rank. The "royal children" occupied a quarter to themselves, under the care of their tutors; they had their own houses and a train of servants proportionate to their rank, age, and the fortune of their mother's family. The nobles who had appointments at court and the royal domestics lived in the palace itself, but the offices of the different functionaries, the storehouses for their provisions, the dwellings of their _employes_, formed distinct quarters outside the palace, grouped around narrow courts, and communicating with each other by a labyrinth of lanes or covered passages. The entire building was constructed of wood or bricks, less f
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