or less modified by local conditions.
The Speos Artemidos is approached by a pillared portico, but contains only
a square chamber with a niche at the end for the statue of the goddess
Pakhet. At Kalaat Addah (fig. 88), a flat narrow facade (A) faces the
river, and is reached by a steep flight of steps; next comes a hypostyle
hall (B), flanked by two dark chambers (C), and lastly a sanctuary in two
storeys, one above the other (D). The chapel of Horemheb (fig. 89), at
Gebel Silsileh, is formed of a gallery parallel to the river (A), supported
by four massive pillars left in the rock. From this gallery, the sanctuary
chamber opens at right angles. At Abu Simbel, the two temples are excavated
entirely in the cliff. The front of the great speos (fig. 90) imitates a
sloping pylon crowned with a cornice, and guarded as usual by four seated
colossi flanked by smaller statues. These colossi are sixty-six feet high.
The doorway passed, there comes a first hall measuring 130 feet in length
by 60 feet in width, which corresponds to the usual peristyle. Eight
Osiride statues backed by as many square pillars, seem to bear the
mountain on their heads. Beyond this come (1) a hypostyle hall; (2) a
transverse gallery, isolating the sanctuary, and (3) the sanctuary itself,
between two smaller chambers. Eight crypts, sunk at a somewhat lower level
than that of the main excavation, are unequally distributed to right and
left of the peristyle. The whole excavation measures 180 feet from the
doorway to the end of the sanctuary. The small speos of Hathor, about a
hundred paces to the northward, is of smaller dimensions. The facade is
adorned with six standing colossi, four representing Rameses II., and two
his wife, Nefertari. The peristyle and the crypts are lacking (fig. 91),
and the small chambers are placed at either end of the transverse passage,
instead of being parallel with the sanctuary. The hypostyle hall, however,
is supported by six Hathor-headed pillars. Where space permitted, the rock-
cut temple was but partly excavated in the cliff, the forepart being
constructed outside with blocks cut and dressed, and becoming half grotto,
half building. In the hemi-speos at Derr, the peristyle is external to the
cliff; at Beit el Wally, the pylon and court are built; at Gerf Husein and
Wady Sabuah, pylon, court, and hypostyle hall are all outside the mountain,
The most celebrated and original hemi-speos is that built by Queen
Hatshepsut, at D