ch 100,000 men are said to have been
continuously employed for thirty years. The latter is not only a marvel
of constructive skill, but is by many authorities considered to be a
most accurately designed astronomical observatory.

[Illustration: Section of King's Chamber, and of Passage in Great
Pyramid]

The Pyramids consist of masses of admirably squared and polished stones,
in certain cases supplemented with bricks piled up in the form of a
rectangle around a sepulchral chamber, the entrance to which was most
carefully concealed. When the body of the monarch had been placed in it
the tapering mound above it was finished off with huge facing blocks,
that were skilfully worked into the angle required and finally levelled
to a smooth surface.

Near the Pyramids of the kings are the tombs, known as Mastabas, of
their wives and children and of the great officers of state. They are
constructed of stone, are square or oblong in form, and their walls are
adorned with paintings of scenes from contemporary life, the whole
reminiscent of earlier timber structures. Later tombs are those hewn out
of the living rock at Beni Hassan and elsewhere, dating from about 2500
B.C., with porticoes upheld by columns resembling those of Greek
temples and flat or curved roofs, the latter suggestive of the principle
of the arch having been known to those who excavated them.

[Illustration: Section of Hall at Karnak]

It was between 1600 B.C. and 1110 B.C. that the Egyptians reached their
highest point of civilisation, and it was during that period that were
erected the magnificent Theban temples, of which those at Karnak and
Luxor, which were connected by an avenue of colossal sphinxes, are the
finest still remaining. The plan of all Egyptian temples of whatever
size was the same: a horizontal gateway flanked on either side by masses
of masonry of considerably greater height than it, known as pylons,
their surfaces enriched with symbolic carvings, giving access to a
square space open to the sky, and partly surrounded with cloisters,
leading into a noble hall of huge dimensions, its flat roof upheld by
columns, some with capitals resembling lotus buds, others representing
the head of the goddess Isis. Beyond this hall were a number of small
dark rooms, the use of which has never been ascertained, enclosing
within them the nucleus of the whole, the low narrow mysterious cell or
sanctuary in which was enshrined the image of the god to whom th