Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/169

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The Okdonnance of Egyptian Colonnades. M5 to the hypostyle hall.^ Marietta also discards the idea of architraves, which would have to be unusually long, but he cannot accept the notion that the columns were merely colossal Venetian masts bordering the approach to the sanctuary. He supposes the centre of the courtyard to have contained a small hypsethral temple built by Tahraka. This temple figures upon his plan, but neither he himself, by his own confession, nor any one else has ever found the slightest trace of it in reality.- In the ex- cavations made by him in 1S59, he did not find a vestige even of Fig. 129. — Anta and column at Medinet-Abou. the two columns which he inserts upon each of the two short sides of the rectangle. These columns were necessary in order to 1 Description, Antiquitis. vol. v. pp. 120, 121. In their Description Gincrale dc Thebes (ch. ix. section 8, § 2). the same wiiters add : •' We are confirmed in our opinion by the discover}- on a bas-relief of four lotus stems with their flowers sur- mounted by hawks and statues, and placed exactly in the same fashion as the columns which we have just described. They are votive columns. We are also confirmed in this opinion by the fact that we find things like them among those amulets which reproduce the various objects in the temples in small."' This bas relief is figured in the third volume of plates of the Description, pi. n, Fig. i. - Mariette, Karnak, p. 19, pi. ^. Voyage dans la Hnnte-Egyptc. pp. 13, 21, 22. VOL. IL U