shall see, its first inspiration from the older and smaller XIth Dynasty temple which stood close beside it, it was far superior to the older building both in size and beauty. Only in one point did the XVIIIth Dynasty workers fall below their predecessors in the quality of their masonry. That of Hatshepsut's temple is of fairly good quality; but it is not to be compared to the fine work of the masons who worked for Mentuhotep Neb-hapet-Ra. With this one qualification, it may safely be said that it is scarcely possible to imagine a more satisfactory solution of the problem with which Senmut was confronted-of placing in a great bay of the desert, backed by towering red cliffs, a building which should neither be dwarfed by its surroundings nor seem to compete vainly with them. The old architect's design is in the most perfect harmony with its environment. "In a series of three terraces," says Breasted, "the temple rose from the plain to the level of an elevated court, flanked by the massive yellow cliffs, into which the holy of holies was cut. In front of the terraces were ranged fine colonnades, which, when seen from a distance, to this day exhibit such an exquisite sense of proportion and of proper grouping as to quite disprove the common assertion that the Greeks were the first to understand the art of adjusting external colonnades, and that the Egyptians understood only the employment of the column in interiors." This high praise is thoroughly well deserved. Der-el-Bahri remains a model to all architects of the perfect understanding of the true relation between a noble building and a noble site. Mr. Robert Hichens may be somewhat over-fanciful and precious

in his description of Hatshepsut's beautiful creation-"The temple at Deir-el-Bahari," he says, "came upon me like a delicate woman, perfumed and arranged, clothed in a creation of white and blue and orange, standing-ever so knowingly against a background of orange and pink, of red and of brown-red, a smiling coquette of the mountain." It does sound a little like an extract from somebody's Fashion Magazine; but it has caught the essential note of the grace with which the temple is fitted into its environmentbeauty under the shadowing protection of majesty.

When M. Naville had finished his long work at Hatshepsut's temple, and given us back as much of its beauty and historic interest as the hatred of Thothmes III, the fanaticism of Akhenaten, and the stupid materialism of the Copts had left comparatively intact, he, along with Mr. H. R. Hall, of the British Museum, began operations on the site immediately south of the XVIIIth Dynasty building, where there was some evidence of the existence of an XIth Dynasty necropolis, and where Mariette, as long ago as 1879, had suggested that a temple of one of the Mentuhoteps of that Dynasty might be found. The great explorer's anticipation was almost immediately justified. Soon there came to light an inclined ramp, like that of Hatshepsut's temple, running parallel to the boundary-wall of the later building, and leading up to a square platform. This platform had been surrounded by a double colonnade, the pillars of the upper part of which were octagonal on plan-"proto-Doric" in fact, like those of the north colonnade of Hatshepsut's temple. This colonnade had enclosed a square mass in the

centre of the platform, which proved to have been the base of a small pyramid, which rose above the hall; and behind the pyramid an open court, surrounded by octagonal pillars, led to a second colonnaded hall, driven back into the solid cliff, beneath which a rock-hewn passageway descended to a subterranean sanctuary.

The temple proved, as Mariette had suggested, to belong to Mentuhotep-Neb-hapet-Ra, of the XIth Dynasty, and is therefore one of the very earliest fairly complete specimens of Egyptian temple-architecture, and of inestimable importance. Within the hall which surrounds the pyramid were found six shrines of princesses, probably members of the king's harem, while in the southern court of the temple were found six statues in grey granite of one of the most famous of Egyptian Pharaohs, Senusert III, the true Sesostris of later tradition. They were a revelation of the power of Egyptian sculpture at this period, and the strong, harsh, truculent features are thoroughly in keeping with what we know from other sources of the character of this great conqueror. One of the great artistic finds of the explorationindeed one of the great finds in the whole story of the rediscovery of Egyptian art, was that of a very beautiful XVIIIth Dynasty shrine of Hathor which had been intruded into the north corner of the temple. Within the shrine stood a statue of the goddess herself in the shape of a cow sculptured in sandstone. With the possible exceptions of the granite lions of Amenhotep III and Tutankhamen, now in the British Museum, this is by far the finest piece of Egyptian animal sculpture which has survived. "Neither

Greece nor Rome," says Maspero, "has left us anything that can be compared with it; we must go to the great sculptors of animals of our own day to find an equally realistic piece of work."

One result of the new excavations at Der-el-Bahri was, of course, to destroy the claim to originality which had been advanced on behalf of the architect of Hatshepsut's temple. Manifestly Senmut found his inspiration in the earlier work which was before his eyes when he began his task; but he was a sufficiently great man to make his borrowings his own by the brilliant use to which he put them, and the result is ample justification for his plagiarism, if one can use so harsh a name for what is really only a very skilful adaptation of a simple motive. The two temples, ancient and modern, with about six centuries between them, must have made a wonderful pair, when both were standing complete in all their splendour, with their solemn environment of cliff and desert; and even now, after so many centuries of ruin and desolation, they form one of the most remarkable pictures that Egypt has to show.

From Der-el-Bahri we turn to the last of the temples of Thebes which we can notice before we visit the Biban-elMoluk, and tell of some of the wonders which have been revealed there, and the romance of their discovery. The huge memorial temple of Ramses III, at Medinet-Habu, has many claims on our attention. It is, to begin with, the almost intact work (in the sense of not having been usurped and altered by another monarch) of one of the greatest of Egyptian Pharaohs-the last of Egypt's great soldier-kings,