Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-09-01

against the background of orange-yel- low. overhanging cliffs as high as Beachy Head, with the ineffably blue sky of Egypt above them, and perhaps a solitary vuIture or kite lowering in the blue just away from the cliff edge. And those who remember this much will, perhaps, also recol1ect the con- fused heaps of yellow desert-rubbish, detritus from the cliffs above, the rub- bish heaps of former excavators of the temple and so on, which lie between the temple and the southern horn of the circle of cliffs These have con- cealed for many years the remains of another temple of Defr el-Bahari. lying side by side with the shrine of Hat shersut, and to the south of it. This building, the excavation of which was begun during the past season, by Prof. Naville, assisted by H. R, Hall, is of most interesting character. It is a thousand years older than the great temple, dating as it does from the reign of Mentuhetep Nebkherura, of the elev- enth dynasty, about 2500 B. O.: 1t is therefore the most ancient temple at Thebes, and, further, it is apparently the prototype on which the great tenn pie, with it's colonnades and terraces, its great ramp or inclined plane 1ead- ing from terrace to terrace, and it's 16- sided .sproto-Doric" columns, has all ways distinguished it as the most re- markable In Egypt, and various the orfes have been devised to account for It's eccentricities The excavations have shown us that Hatshepsut's architects merely initiated the small temple of A1entuhetep Nebkherura, which had ex- fsted for a thousand years under the shadow of the cliffs in the place which they intended to adorn with the new sanctuary. Prof Navi1le's new temple Is in it's outward arrangements small CT edition of Hatshupset's. It has an outer colonnade and ramp and the remains of "proto-D -Doric'' columns, though these are eight, not 16 sided. The square pillars of the colonnade are, of course, not perfect, being broken of at various heights above the ground: the best preserved of the stumps of the octagonaI columns of the hypostyle hall are nine feet high.
 Il The whole building, which thus pre- sents many interesting architectural features, is the itinerary or mortuary temple of the king who built it. Here he intended the funeral rites to be car- ried out for the benefit of his soul as long as his name should endure upon khe temple walls He so far succeeded that his spirit was tn after days adopt ed as sort of patron saint or guardian demon of the whole metropolis of Deir el-Bahari, in which many personages of his own and later times were buried, and was venerated as deity of the place, in conjunction with the Great Amon-Ra, "king of the gods, lord of the thrones of the world" and the lady Hathor, goddess of the waste, under whose protection the mountains and cliffs of Deir e1-Bahari had always been placed This worship, however, did not save the temple from destruction, prob ably in Ramesside times, in the days of the nineteenth, dynasty. Towards the middle of that dynasty the temple was. 1t is evident, beginning to fall into ruin It's ancient sculptures were scarred and damaged, the pillars of it's colonnades clipped and covered with the names of learned visitors, scribe Set1 and scribe Userhat, who chroni- cled their visits in a way not unknown to 8 more modern age, and with hte sketches of priestly scholars practising the proper way of deltneating a kings head, boat, bull, an uraeus breath ing flame, etc; rubbish and dust filled it's courts, which the priests of the pop ular neighboring Hathor shrine, in the great temple, used as a dust heap on which to throw the superfuous ex-vo- tos which had accumulated in the shrine; the roofs began to fall in, and brick pillars and piers were built in vain attempt to stave them up; and, finally, the fiat came forth that the temple Akhetasut, Glorious are it's Seats" of King Nebkherura was to be broken up and, presumably, its stones used for buildings elsewhere.
 Must Mind Parents.
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