Position 44 - Columns Of The Great Hypostyle Temple Of Sethos I At Abydos

For the first time we stand in an Egyptian temple; yet its structure is not of the usual type, and you will find very different arrangements when you visit the Theban sanctuaries. We are now standing at the left (southeast) side of the second hypostyle hall, and looking northwestward between its second and third rows of columns, which close in our view on the right and left; the second row on the right, the third row on the left. Just behind the third row, that is, on our left, are the seven shrines of Amon, Osiris, the king, and the great gods of Egypt (see Plan 7). That of the king is directly opposite your left shoulder, and if you raise your left arm, it will point directly into the king's shrine, only ten feet distant.

You are therefore looking; across the seven aisles leading to the seven shrines, and as the floor before the shrines is higher than that of the hypostyle hall, you observe a series of inclined bridges, leading from the floor of the hypostyle to the higher level. You are standing on the bridge which leads to the king's shrine, but you can count the six others with the exception of the fifth next to the other end, which is destroyed.

Eleven of the twelve columns in the row to our left can be counted. The twelfth in the row to our right is almost within our reach. Note the heavy architraves above us; they furnish support for the roofing blocks that cover the hall. But on our left the roof has now fallen in and the fragments have been removed. Hence you see how the sun shines in from the left and the broad shadows of the columns are thrown obliquely across the pavement. It is upon these columns that the architraves rest, as you note especially at the other end.

The row at our left shows a very unusual form, each column being a plain cylinder, resting upon a circular base, and surmounted at the top by a square block, without any trace of a capital.

On our right, however, the columns are of a very common type, modeled on the bud of the papyrus plant. The bud forms the capital, and the stem of the plant is the shaft, which is not cylindrical, but shows a marked swelling of the lines as it rises, like the entasis of the Greek column. But we can study this column more fully when we arrive at Thebes, where it is common.

The architect's method of erecting these columns is very interesting. When the pavement on which we stand has been laid, the architect, with his ground plan of the temple in his hand, transfers that plan in the full scale to the pavement, drawing the lines which show where the bases of all the columns are to rest, and thus covering the pavement with long rows of circles in red paint. These circles may be found still clearly visible on the pavement, where a colonnade has been destroyed. Upon the circular base, the column is built up in huge drums of limestone, such as you see here in the first column on our left.

The architects did employ columns hewn from a single stone, and some of these monolithic columns of granite already made in the Old Kingdom, are of the greatest beauty. But in building these great colonnades of the Empire, so large a number of columns were required that they could not be turned out fast enough to supply the architect. Hence he began to build them up in this way, a method which was more rapid.

The inscriptions and reliefs, with which these columns are covered, concern the king and the gods. The column of hieroglyphs on the shaft behind the native dragoman reads: “Lord of the two lands, Menmare, Son of Re, emanation of all the gods, Lord of Diadems, Sethos (I) Merneptah,” which is Sethos' double name and the titles belonging thereto. On the farther columns are figures of the gods belonging in the particular shrine, to which the respective columns, or the aisles they enclose, lead.

Yonder tourist seems rapt in an endeavor to puzzle out those ancient records, but like most tourists, he will find it in vain; and if he turns to the descendant of the men who put these writings on the columns, as the tourist frequently does, he will either be imposed upon with extravagant nonsense or receive only a shake of the head. But the most important and interesting record in this temple is in the long, narrow hall immediately behind us as we now stand, and on the right-hand wall as we turn directly about and face in the opposite direction. Turn again to Plan 7 and see what is to be our next position as we study this record.