3-070-566 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches in Egypt: the Ruins of Thebes - Temples of Luxor, 1883. 'The architectural wonders of Karnak and Luxor, part of the ancient city of Thebes, the capital of the mighty Kings of Egypt three thousand years ago, have often been described. The greater is Karnak, a collection of temples grouped around a chief temple, built at the epoch of the eighteenth to the twentieth dynasties of the Pharaohs, when Egyptian art was at its highest perfection. The largest temple has a propylon 360 ft. wide, giving access to an open court, 329 ft. by 275 ft., with columns on each side and a double row of columns in the middle; through which the grand hall is entered..., its roof formerly supported by 134 columns, 62 ft. high and 12 ft. thick, having a very grand effect. This temple was erected by Seti I. and his son Ramses II., of the nineteenth dynasty, conquerors of the Hittites, of the Armenians, of Syria and great part of Arabia, as displayed in the sculptures of battle scenes on the walls. The grand entrance to Karnak faces the Nile; in another direction extends the avenue of sphinxes which connects it with Luxor, or El-Uksur, a secondary precinct of temples, with a village of huts adjacent, and with a Mohammedan mosque in its great court'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.