* The exact measurements are 23 1/2 ft. in height, 12 ft. 9 ins. in width, and 10 ft. 6 ins. in depth.  The naos of Saft el-Hinneh must have been smaller, but it is impossible to determine its exact dimensions.

     ** It measures 9 ft. 7 ins. in height, 3 ft. 1 in. in width,
     and 3 ft. 8 ins.

[Illustration:  114.jpg THE NAOS OF AMASIS AT THMUIS]

     Drawn by Boudier, from the sketch of Burton.

The naos of Sais, which amazed Herodotus, was much larger than either of the two already mentioned, or, indeed, than any known example.  Tradition states that it took two thousand boatmen three years to convey it down from the first cataract.  It measured nearly thirty feet high in the interior, twenty-four feet in depth, and twelve feet in breadth; even when hollowed out to contain the emblem of the god, it still weighed nearly 500,000 kilograms.  It never reached its appointed place in the sanctuary.  The story goes that “the architect, at the moment when the monument had been moved as far as a certain spot in the temple, heaved a sigh, oppressed with the thought of the time expended on its transport and weary of the arduous work.  Amasis overheard the sigh, and taking it as an omen, he commanded that the block should be dragged no further.  Others relate that one of the overseers in charge of the work was crushed to death by the monument, and for this reason it was left standing on the spot,” where for centuries succeeding generations came to contemplate it.*

* The measurements given by Herodotus are so different from those of any naos as yet discovered, that I follow Kenrick in thinking that Herodotus saw the monument of Amasis lying on its side, and that he took for the height what was really the width in depth.  It had been erected in the nome of Athribis, and afterwards taken to Alexandria about the Ptolemaic era; it was discovered under water in one of the ports of the town at the beginning of this century, and Drovetti, who recovered it, gave it to the Museum of the Louvre in 1825.

Amasis, in devoting his revenues to such magnificent works, fully shared the spirit of the older Pharaohs, and his labours were nattering to the national vanity, even though many lives were sacrificed in their accomplishment; but the glory which they reflected on Egypt did not have the effect of removing the unpopularity in which Tie was personally held.  The revolution which overthrew Apries had been provoked by the hatred of the native party towards the foreigners; he himself had been the instrument by which it had been accomplished, and it would have been only natural that, having achieved a triumph in spite of the Greeks and the mercenaries, he should have wished to be revenged on them, and have expelled them from his dominions.  But, as a fact, nothing of the kind took place, and Amasis, once crowned, forgot the wrongs he had suffered as an aspirant to the royal dignity; no sooner was he firmly seated on