The sixteen sides were
then hollowed out (channeled). The result is illustrated by Fig.
6. It will be observed that the pillar has a low, round base, with
beveled edge; also, at the top, a square abacus, which is simply a
piece of the original four-sided pillar, left untouched. Such
polygonal pillars as these are commonly called proto-Doric
columns. The name was given in the belief that these were the
models from which the Greeks derived their Doric columns, and this
belief is still held by many authorities.
With the New Empire we begin to have numerous and extensive
remains of temples, while those of an earlier date have mostly
disappeared. Fig. 7 may afford some notion of what an Egyptian
temple was like. This one is at Luxor, on the site of ancient
Thebes in Upper Egypt. It is one of the largest of all, being over
800 feet in length. Like many others, it was not originally
planned on its present scale, but represents two or three
successive periods of construction, Ramses II., of the Nineteenth
Dynasty, having given it its final form by adding to an already
finished building all that now stands before the second pair of
towers.
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