estored and rebuilt the temples of
the national gods, working after the old plans and in the old spirit of
Pharaonic times. The great earthquake of B.C. 22 had destroyed Thebes,
which now became a mere place of pilgrimage, whither devotees repaired to
listen to the voice of Memnon at the rising of Aurora. But at Denderah and
Ombos, Tiberius and Claudius finished the decoration of the great temples.
Caligula worked at Coptos, and the Antonines enriched Esneh and Philae. The
gangs of workmen employed in their names were still competent to cut
thousands of bas-reliefs according to the rules of the olden time. Their
work was feeble, ungraceful, absurd, inspired solely by routine; yet it was
founded on antique tradition--tradition enfeebled and degenerate, but still
alive. The troubles which convulsed the third century of our era, the
incursions of barbarians, the progress and triumph of Christianity, caused
the suspension of the latest works and the dispersion of the last
craftsmen. With them died all that yet survived of the national art.[54]

[42] The classic Syene, from all time the southernmost portion of Egypt
proper. The Sixth Dynasty is called the Elephantine, from the island
immediately facing Syene which was the traditional seat of the
Dynasty, and on which the temples stood. The tombs of Elephantine were
discovered by General Sir F. Grenfell, K.C.B., in 1885, in the
neighbouring cliffs of the Libyan Desert: see foot-note p. 149.--
A.B.E.

[43] For an explanation of the nature of the Double, see Chapter III., pp.
111-112, 121 _et seq._

[44] Known as the "Scribe accroupi," literally the "Squatting Scribe"; but
in English, squatting, as applied to Egyptian art, is taken to mean
the attitude of sitting with the knees nearly touching the chin.
--A.B.E.

[45] "The Sheikh of the Village." This statue was best known in England as
the "Wooden Man of Bulak."--A.B.E.

[46] The Greek Chephren.

[47] I venture to think that the heads of Rahotep and Nefert, engraved from
a brilliant photograph in _A Thousand Miles up the Nile_, give a
truer and more spirited idea of the originals than the present
illustrations,--A.B.E.

[48] That is, the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties.
--A.B.E.

[49] According to the measurements given by Mr. Petrie, who discovered the
remains of the Tanite colossus, it must have stood ninety feet high
without, and