The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-06-15
RESTORING KARNAk TEMPLE.
Engineers of To-day Rebuilding the
Ruins OF Egyptian Architecture.

HuAhS Oh EGYPTIAN Architecture.
From the Egyptian Gazette.
Never since the old worshipers crowd
ed the great haM of the temple of Kar-
! max has that ancient shrine seen so much
| activity as now prevails. Hundreds of
Arab laborers are now at work there, and
all the accessories of great modern en-
cheering enterprise lie contiguous to
the gr1ndest memorial OF ancient Egypt
Undoubtedly the most important Egyp-
biological work now in progress is the
restoration of the hypostyie hall. The fol-
lowing description OF the present state
of the works is by Mr.. Legrain. inspec-
tor and designer for the Ghizeh museum,
who is directing the restoration. There are
q columns in all that are to be restored
Thirteen fell in ancient times, IL came
down on October 3, 1900, and three which
Were shaken and threatened to fall were
taken down last year. All these q columns
will be reconstructed and replaced in their
original position. The first step that had
to be taken after the fall of the II COL
umns was TO take down the three col
umns whose destruction appeared to be
imminent and would have entaHed fur
ther ruin.
One column has also an archftrave
which threatened to come down, and ow-
Sng to the impossibility of removing this
huge block, which weighs AZ tons, it was
necessary to resort to the original meth
cd whereby the old Egyptians erected the
monuments which are the wonder and
admira ton of the modern world Accord
ingly Mr. Legrain made a huge inclined
plane which required 100000 cubic meters
OF earth for its construction The archi-
trave was taken down by this means
and the enormous accumulation of soil
which its REMOVAL necessitated is now
being gradually removed. The following
figures will give some idea of the i'm
rense labor involved. Each column has
an abacus. 1212 tons and 10 segments, IA
tons, or q pieces altogether. There are,
therefore, 729 pieces to be found from out
of the mass of ruin which the hVpostyle
haM now presents, and to be numbered
and taken away to the depot, and Az still
remain to de discovered and removed
without counting the architRaves, which
weigh 30 tons or Is tons each. On an
average six of these blocks are removed
every day, and assuming that the rate of
progress is normal. it will be 80 days be-
fore the hall can be cleared.
1t is an immense labor for each block
has to be methodfcaDly arranged and num-
bered. and placed in reserved space until
the time comes for all to he pieced to-
gether Many hundreds of workmen are
employed. Each man receives cd a day
and boy AID. By April l it is hoped to
have everything removed fromrthe hypo-
style hall. After this has been done a
commission will come to Luxor to study
the foundations and arrive at the neces-
sary means of consolidating the whole.
In the summer the hall will be left to
dry and work will be recommended as
soon as the Nile flood permits. BY May,
1904, it is hoped that everything will be
finished. AS visitors enter the hypostyle
hall they at once notice that the two py~
Ions of the hall are shored up. These
pylons also threatened to fall al the same
time as the columns collapsed, and pro-
visional props have been made to avert
the calamity. Nothing has yet been done,
and the work of underpinnfng the foun-
dations has to be commenced and, it as
hoped, will be taken in hand shortly.