[Illustration:  Fig. 77.—­Plan of temple of Hathor, Deir el Medineh.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 78.—­Plan of temple of Khonsu, Karnak.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 79.—­Pylon, with masts, from a bas-relief in the temple of Khonsu at Karnak.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 80.—­The Ramesseum restored, to show the rising of the ground.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 81.—­Crypts in the thickness of the walls, round the sanctuary at Denderah.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 82.—­The pronaos of Edfu, as seen from the top of the eastern pylon.]

We cannot say as much for the temple which the Pharaohs of the Twentieth Dynasty erected to the south of Karnak, in honour of the god Khonsu (fig. 78); but if the style is not irreproachable, the plan is nevertheless so clear, that one is tempted to accept it as the type of an Egyptian temple, in preference to others more elegant or majestic.  On analysis, it resolves itself into two parts separated by a thick wall (A, A).  In the centre of the lesser division is the Holy of Holies (B), open at both ends and isolated from the rest of the building by a surrounding passage (C) 10 feet in width.  To the right and left of this sanctuary are small dark chambers (D, D), and behind it is a hall of four columns (E), from which open seven other chambers (F, F).  Such was the house of the god, having no communication with the adjoining parts, except by two doors (G) in the southern wall (A, A).  These opened into a wide and shallow hypostyle hall (H), divided into nave and aisles.  The nave is supported by four lotus-flower columns, 23 feet in height; the aisles each contain two lotus-bud columns 18 feet high.  The roof of the nave is, therefore, 5 feet higher than that of the sides.  This elevation was made use of for lighting purposes, the clerestory being fitted with stone gratings, which admitted the daylight.  The court (I) was square, and surrounded by a double colonnade entered by way of four side-gates and a great central gateway flanked by two quadrangular towers with sloping fronts.  This pylon (K) measures 105 feet in length, 33 feet in width, and 60 feet in height.  It contains no chambers, but only a narrow staircase, which leads to the top of the gate, and thence up to the towers.  Four long grooves in the facade, reaching to a third of its height, correspond to four quadrangular openings cut through. the whole thickness of the masonry.  Here were fixed four great wooden masts, formed of joined beams and held in place by a wooden framework fixed in the four openings above mentioned.  From these masts floated long streamers of various colours (fig. 79).  Such was the temple of Khonsu, and such, in their main features, were the majority of the greater temples of Theban and Ptolemaic times, as Luxor, the Ramesseum, Medinet Habu, Edfu, and Denderah.  Though for the most part half in ruins, they affect one with a strange and disquieting sense of oppression.  As mystery was a favourite attribute of the Egyptian