The temples at Medinet Tabu are the most elegant of these. The hieroglyphics are cut to the depth of half-a-foot, in some places, but we have still the same figures, or rather a less variety, than at Dendera.
The hieroglyphics are of four sorts; first, such as have only the contour marked, and, as it were, scratched only in the stone. The second are hollowed; and in the middle of that space rises the figure in relief, so that the prominent part of the figure is equal to the flat, unwrought surface of the stone, and seems to have a frame round it, designed to defend the hieroglyphic from mutilation. The third sort is in relief, or basso relievo, as it is called, where the figure is left bare and exposed, without being sunk in, or defended, by any compartment cut round it in the stone. The fourth are those mentioned in the beginning of this description, the outlines of the figure being cut very deep in the stone.
All the hieroglyphics, but the last mentioned, which do not admit it, are painted red, blue, and green, as at Dendera, and with no other colours.
Notwithstanding all this variety in the manner of executing the hieroglyphical figures, and the prodigious multitude which I have seen in the several buildings, I never could make the number of different hieroglyphics amount to more than five hundred and fourteen, and of these there were certainly many, which were not really different, but from the ill execution of the sculpture only appeared so. From this I conclude, certainly, that it can be no entire language which hieroglyphics are meant to contain, for nolanguage
