zodiac, supposed to have been ancient when Noah was busy at his ark, was a very clumsy piece of astronomical mechanism, tinkered up and botched on by some ignorant Greek or Roman artist. Dr. Richardson, indeed, who saw both the copy of Denon at Paris, and the original at Dendera, declares that the drawing of the Frenchman "is extremely incorrect," "perfectly foppish," has "fewer stars," which "are differently arranged from the original," and that it is "not the least Egyptian in manner;" while he declares his opinion that the ceiling at Dendera, on which the zodiac was found, is no zodiac at all, but merely a congregation of gods and goddesses, mythological figures, and religious processions. In this last opinion, however, he differs with the great majority of authorities, who trace some evident astronomical features in this now celebrated sculpture of Dendera, and refer it to a date somewhere near the Christian era, certainly not later than A.D. 132. The zodiac itself was afterwards cut out of the ceiling by a barbarian Frenchman, and is now in an obscure corner in the Imperial Library at Paris.* The most ancient name yet found in the temple of Dendera, is that of Cæsarion, a son of Cleopatra and Cæsar, and the most recent names are those of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, and Antoninus (J. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, p. 203). It seems to have been built by the last of the Ptolemies, but was finished by the Roman emperors. Champollion says the sculptures with which it is covered are detestable, while the edifice itself is a pattern of elegance and ability.

The architecture of Dendera, on the western side of the Nile, though proved to be of comparatively recent date, is of a very sumptuous character. The gateway which leads to the Temple of Isis is a very imposing building. Inside and out it is covered with hieroglyphics, in some respects being superior to those of Thebes. The height of this gateway is forty-two feet, the width thirty-three feet, and the depth seventeen feet. Nearer the temple is a second gateway, less than the first, but not inferior in workmanship; and over the centre is the common Egyptian ornament, called a globe, with serpent and wings, emblematical of the sun poised in the air, and supported by the eternal wisdom of the Deity. The portico of the temple has twenty-four columns, each thirty-two feet high, and above twenty-two feet in circumference, all covered with hieroglyphics. On the architraves are sculptured processions of men and women, bringing to Osiris globes, surrounded with cows' horns, mitred snakes, vases, lotus flowers, boats, staves, and other figures symbolical of worship. The interior of the temple, consisting of several rooms, is similarly covered with sculptured hieroglyphics. The great oblong stone roofs rest on side walls, and when the distance is too great for these, rows of pillars on which to rest them are carried down the centre of the apartment. All these pillars have richly ornamented capitals. Light is let in, not by windows, but small holes in the ceilings, or by oblong ones in the sides. These rooms are gloomy enough, and well fitted for the practice of the mysteries of their

The reader will find an account of the discovery, copying, and all particulars of this said zodiac, done with all the brilliant enthusiasm of the Frenchman, in "Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt." By Vivant Denon, vol. ii., pp. 141-2, 187.

religion. At one corner of the roof is a small chapel twenty feet square, with twelve pillars. In other rooms are representations of human sacrifices, men, with the head and ears of an ass, tied to trees, with hands behind them, and with knives driven into their foreheads, shoulders, and other parts of the body. Then there are priests, with the heads of dogs and hawks, carrying knives, and a deity stands before these clad in a long white robe. In another room, the ceiling is divided into two parts by a large figure of Isis. The famous zodiac was found in one of these divisions. It was set in a firmament of stars on an azure ground, and, as we have stated, instead of being the work of some old artist who lived before Adam, turned out to be only just contemporaneous with Tiberius. Some figures in these rooms are stamping with their feet on the victims of their fury; others represent lions, supported by dog-headed animals; others, human beings lying on the point of death, then lifeless on a bier, then under the process of embalming. The western wall of the great temple is very rich in sculpture, particularly in the dresses of the priests and deities. Figures are cut as if just about to be slaughtered, and display very disagreeable and distorted postures. A magnificent cornice is carried along the whole length of the walls, and lends a very solid appearance to the whole edifice. In a small chapel behind the great temple, the cow and the hawk appear to have been used as idols, for the priests are seen kneeling before them with sacrifices and offerings. Isis is here shown again in the centre of the ceiling, and a body of rays issues from the mouth. The space which encloses all these structures, with some others, forms a square of about 1,000 feet, surrounded by a brick wall fifteen feet thick, and, where best preserved, thirty-five feet high. When Belzoni first saw this templeand he had seen many before, he tells us that he was overcome, and sat down on the ground bewildered with admiration. Only a very inadequate notion of the vast structures of ancient Egypt can be given by the use of figures, and to compare them with the general run of modern architectural displays, would be something like showing our parlour aquarium to illustrate the magnitude and life of Lake Windermere.

We pass over the remains of Beni Hassan, where there are some rooms and remarkable grottoes, colonnaded, containing curious paintings, one of which is sixty feet long and forty feet high; and the old Hermopolis Magna, whose remains reach four miles in circumference ; and Antinopolis, which is evidently Roman; and Siout, with its tombs and sepulchral grottoes, carved and painted, and even gilde, with the gold still glittering. Nor can we stay to describe the splendid remains of Abydos, once Ihis, now Girgeh, and formerly as large as Thebes, but, even as early as Strabo, reduced to a shabby village. There are here the ruins of some magnificent buildings. In one of them is a single room of 350 feet by 150 feet. Strabo states this city to have been the residence of Memnon. The painting here, which was laid on 2,000 years before the time of Titian, is as fresh as new; and here it was that Mr. Banks discovered, in 1818, the hieroglyphical tablet, which, within a ring or border, contained the names of a series of Egyptian kings. Some very important chronological conclusions have been drawn, both by Champollion and other learned men, from these royal inscriptions, and other

The

similar tablets have been discovered since the time of Banks. one found by Banks was discovered to contain a genealogical register of the immediate predecessors of the great Sesostris.'

But for monumental remains the city of Thebes, some considerable distance up the Nile beyond Dendera, stands pre-eminent. Diodorus, in speaking of it, tells us that the principal temple was one and a half miles round, and that it had walls twenty-four feet thick and seventy feet high. Homer calls Thebes the "city of a hundred gates." Cambyses made dreadful work with all the temples of Egypt, setting them on fire, and smashing the idols and other figures, "taking away all the gold, silver, ivory, and precious stones." When Strabo saw Thebes, he found many temples partially destroyed by Cambyses. Denon tells us that when the French army came up to it, all the men "suddenly, and with one accord, stood in amazement at the sight of its scattered remains, and clapped their hands with delight, as if the end and object of their glorious toils and the complete conquest of Egypt were accomplished by taking possession of these splendid remains." "No words," says another writer, "can impart a conception of the profusion of pillars, standing, prostrate, inclining against each other, broken and whole. Stones of a gigantic size propped up by pillars, and pillars again resting upon stones, which appear ready to crush the gazer under their sudden fall; yet on a second view he is convinced that nothing but an earthquake could move them." "The descriptions of Denon and Hamilton I found essentially correct, yet without giving me any adequate idea of the glorious reality." Many of the ruins are built over, for the modern Egyptians have often erected their huts right on the summit of a palace or a temple, even to the roofs and the highest parts of the walls. In some cases this has been done to escape the inundations, and to procure conveniently from the old ruins building materials. These huts of the people therefore, as far as they go, have prevented explorations; and the grandeur of Thebes can be seen only, or mainly, in three or four villages, the most interesting of which are Carnac and Luxor, on the western, and Medinet Abou, and Gornoo on the eastern bank of the river.

Strabo tells us that the avenues of the temples are 100 feet wide, from 300 to 400 feet long, and all paved, with two rows of sphinxes thirty feet apart on each side. In the temple are some sphinxes which belong to the reign of Sheshouk I.-he whom we know as Shishak of the Bible. This Pharaoh took Jerusalem nearly 1,000 years B.C., and Champollion has deciphered amongst the engraved names on the stones, that of the king of Judah-Yuda Malek; but the principal representations on the walls of Carnac treat mainly of the exploits of two Pharaohs-Sesostris and his father, Osiris I. The avenues just noticed lead into a square in front of the temple, after which is the sanctuary, surrounded by walls high as the temple,

For a full account of Abydos, and especially the famous ringed tablets, we must refer the reader to Osburn's "Antiquities of Egypt," Hawk's "Monuments," and Hamilton's "Egyptiaca." We might have referred the reader to Savary's account of Abydos, which we found, Frenchman-like, rather dashing, but Mr. Hamilton says "it ispompous;' "a fictitious narrative;" that Savary "never saw Abydos, and that has considerably embellished the accounts from which he drew his narrative.

and all covered with sculptured figures. At Carnac, at present, there are four principal temples. "One of these," says Savary, "has eight entrances, three of which are decorated with huge sphinxes, while two others have colossal statues on each side all cut out of single blocks of marble." Then come porticoes 30 feet wide, 52 feet high, and 150 feet long; and one portico is entirely of polished red granite. On the walls of these porticoes are innumerable hieroglyphics, and amongst them are statues of men and other colossal figures, thirty feet high, one, of white marble, being headless. One portico is in ruins, and another, standing, is entirely covered with hieroglyphics and colossal figures, while near the gate is a defaced figure of white marble fifteen feet in circumference at the trunk. About the porticoes lie fragments of other colossal statues of red granite, measuring thirty feet round the body. When you have passed the porticoes you come to lofty walls which enclose the first court of the temple, which was entered by thirty gates, some at present in ruins, others entirely destroyed. Now we have another long avenue of sphinxes forty feet wide, sixty feet high, and forty-eight feet thick at the foundation. There were staircases which led to the upper parts of this temple, but they are now in ruins. "One of the gates here is of an awful simplicity." "Above and in front of the temple is another court, ornamented with two rows of columns fifty feet high, and eighteen in circumference at the base." The capitals of these columns are crowned with huge square stones, probably once used for statues. At the end lies two huge mutilated colossals. The walls of the temple are of pure marble; the stone roofs are supported by eighteen rows of pillars, some of them thirty-four feet in circumference and eighty feet high. The roof is painted in clusters of stars on a blue ground. "The whole structure," says Savary, "is awful in its grandeur." Outside and inside, wherever you look, all is covered with the most elaborate hieroglyphics and colossal figures. On the north side of the temple are sculptured pictures of battles, horses, and chariots. On the south are pictures of vessels, with sailors, each at his post. At the entrance of this magnificent edifice once stood four splendid obelisks, cut out of single blocks of red granite, but only three of these are now upright, the fourth having been overthrown. Two of these are seventy-two feet high and thirty feet in circumference at the base, the other two being sixty feet high and twenty-one in girth at the base-all covered with hieroglyphics. Onevery hand, for long distances, lie fragments of figures and ruins in amazing profusion.

The plain reaching from Carnac to Luxor, still going up the Nile, is about three miles in length; avenues, traces of which still remain, once connected these two places. The whole of this space was formerly covered with well-built houses, was well populated, and formed the eastern portion of Thebes. At present there is scarcely a vestige of its ancient condition to be seen. Those stately mansions have sunk into ruins, and are entirely covered with earth from the inundations. Corn, flax, and vegetables grow over them, as if human dwellings had never been there. The little village of Luxor, not more than two miles from Carnac, stands at the end of this plain. Here are vast masses of masonry, imposing enough to awe any men

of modern times. The great temple covers an immense space, and, like those of Carnac, has its courts and porticoes supported by columns forty feet high, pyramidal gates covered with hieroglyphics, massive granite walls, whole files of marble colossal figures forty-eight feet high-two-thirds of their height buried in soil-with the main building tumbled into a mountain of piled ruins. Two huge granite obelisks, about ninety feet high, and at the base thirty-two in circumference both monoliths,-seem as if they had been placed there by some giants of another world, and the hieroglyphics on these obelisks. stand out one-and-three-quarter inches. The poor Copts of the present day move amongst these wonderful displays of human energy and skill as if they were not worth a thought, and they build their miserable huts close by as if all life and genius had been clean beaten out of them. If they want the means to grind their corn, they at once fell a pillar which supports a temple or a portico, and cut it up for millstones, never dreaming that a temple and its accessories are of any more importance than the unhewn rocks in the neighbouring hills. Approaching the temple there is a magnificent gateway, in length 200 feet, 57 feet of which are yet unburied. The two obelisks in front are not surpassed in grandeur by any in the world. Between them and the gateway stand two red granite colossal statues, buried to the chest, but even then measuring twenty-two feet to the top of the mitres. On the great gateway at the north-eastern wing there is pictured a great battle fought by some Egyptian kingprobably Sesostris-with some people, evidently, from their head-dress and long robes, Asiatics. Mr. Hamilton has given an elaborate account of this splendid work of art, but we cannot even supply a bald outline.

The picture shows the enemy driven back on their fortresses, and the Egyptians, in victorious pursuit, about to take the citadel. This great sculptured picture, all executed to decorate a single gateway, accords most marvellously and circumstantially with the exploits of Sesostris, as narrated by the Greek historians. In front of the walls a row of colossal granite figures, beautifully polished, had once stood, but only fragments now remain. Mr. Hamilton says that he fancied he saw here "the originals of many of Homer's battles, the portraits of some of the historical narratives of Herodotus, and one of the principal groundworks of the description of Diodorus." The younger Champollion deciphered the inscriptions and discovered that the whole picture is connected with the victories of Sesostris, whose name they are intended to immortalize, thus proving them to be more than 3,000 years old. The Asiatics, he says, are Mesopotamians. After passing through the gateway the traveller enters a large portico, after which he sees a double row of seven columns, twenty-two feet round, with lotus capitals, and then he enters a court 160 feet long, 140 wide,. terminated on each side by another row of columns, beyond which are columns again, thirty in number, supporting another portico; and then comes the interior of the temple. We have given some details of the hieroglyphics of this gateway at Luxor, that the reader may form some idea of the nature and extent of the wonderfully elaborate sculpture of the ancient Egyptians as seen in nearly every part or the country.