cxxxviii
HISTORY OF ART.
burned bricks of Nile mud; the roofs were made of slender wooden
beams, covered with straw or reeds and daubed within and without
with Nile mud; the columns were either of stone, of mud, or of
wood, and in palaces were inlaid with coloured stones or glass-paste.
Colour was also extensively used in the interiors; the walls were
whitewashed and adorned with bright-coloured rugs or with paint¬
ings, and even the pavements were covered with colouring matter.
A considerable number of Fobtified Steuctuees have been
preserved. Amongst these may be mentioned the Nubian castles to
the S. of Wadi Haifa and the Egyptian castles of El-Kab and Kom
el-Ahmar, the most of which probably date from the period of the
Middle Empire.
As taxes and salaries were paid in kind, large Magazines were
required for the reception of tribute, not only by the state but also
by temples. The remains of such storehouses have been found
beside the Ramesseum (p. 287), at Tell el-Maskhuta (p. 163), and
elsewhere.
Probably in no other country have so many Temples within such
narrow limits survived from antiquity as in Egypt. Most of these,
it is true, date from the New Empire and the Ptolemaic epoch, so
that we have a clear conception of the temples of these periods only.
Few or no complete temples have survived from the Ancient or
Middle Empires or from the late-Egyptian period.
Among the Temples of the Ancient Empibe the first place is
held by the Sanctuary ofthe Sun at Abu Gurab, erected by King Ra-
n-woser (p. 129), and excavated in 1899 by Borchardt and Schaefer.
This temple resembles those of later periods in having its interior
walls embellished with reliefs and inscriptions. Practically nothing
now remains of the small Temples beside the second and third pyr¬
amids at Gizeh, where the manes of the kings buried in those pyr¬
amids were worshipped; but Flinders Petrie's discovery of the
Temple beside the pyramids of Meidum affords us a clear idea of
such a sanctuary at the earliest period (p. 192). Here the walls are
absolutely bare and the architectural forms of the severest simplic¬
ity. It is very questionable whether, as was at one time supposed,
the Granite Temple, beside the great Sphinx (p. 124), and the small
Temple, near the Birket Karun (p. 181), really belong to the period
of the Ancient Empire.
The remains of the Temples of the Middle Empibe are even
scantier. Large sanctuaries, little inferior in size to those of later
times, were built during this period at Luxor, Karnak, Koptos, Abydos,
Hawdra (the so-called Labyrinth), lllahiln, Medinet el-Fayum, He¬
liopolis, Bubaslis, and Tanis; but none has left any considerable
traces. All probably fell into decay during the troublous times of
the Hyksos supremacy and were replaced under the 18th Dyn. by
new buildings, in which the materials of the earlier edifices were
utilized as far as possible. Their inner walls were decorated as in
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