experience for the special work upon which they were employed; but the great majority were men suddenly taken from very different occupations, from the oar, the plough, the management of cattle; who therefore could have nothing but their unskilled labour to bestow. To such men as these a great part of the work had perforce to be confided, in order that it might be complete at the required time. In spite of the strictest supervision, the almost religious care in the placing and fixing of masonry, which might be fairly expected from the practised members of a trade guild, could not be ensured. Hence the singular inequalities and inconsistences which have been noticed in most of the great
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Fig. 18, 19.—Scribes registering the yield of the harvest. From a tomb at Sakkarah. (Boulak, 9½ inches high. Drawn by Bourgoin.)
Egyptian buildings; sometimes it is the foundations which are in fault, and, by their sinking, have compromised the safety of the whole building;[1] sometimes it is the built up columns of masonry, which, when deprived by time of their coating of stucco, appear
- ↑ "The foundations of the great temple at Abydos, commenced by Seti I. and finished by Rameses II., consist of but a single course of generally ill-balanced masonry. Hence the settling which has taken place, and the deep fissure which divides the building in the direction of its major axis."—Mariette, Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, p. 59. The same writer speaks of Karnak in a similar strain: "The Pharaonic temples are built, as a rule, with extreme carelessness. The western pylon, for instance, fell because it was hollow, which made the inclination of the walls a source of weakness instead of strength."—Itineraire, p. 179.
