Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/503

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is known to us, namely, that which is cut in the flanks of the Gebel-Barkal at Napata.^[1] It is called the Typhonium, on account of the erimacinor figures which stand before the piers. It dates from the time of Tahrak,
Fig. 236.—Plan of speos at Beit-el-Wali; from Prisse. and was one of the works with which the famous Ethiopian decorated his capital in the hope that it might become a formidable rival to those great Egyptian cities which he had taken and occupied.^[2] All the other rock-cut temples were the work of Rameses II.; they are, as we ascend the Nile, Beit-el-Wali, near Kalabcheh (Figs. 236 and 237); Gherf- Hossein, or Gircheh, Wadi-Seboua, Dayr, and Ipsamboul.

We may give Gherf-Hossein as a good example of the hemlspeos (Figs. 238 and 239). It was approached from the river by a broad flight of steps, decorated with statues and sphinxes, of which but a

Fig. 237.—Longitudiinal section of the speos at Beit-el-Wali; from Prisse.

few fragments now remain. A pylon gave access to a rectangular court, on the right and left sides of which stood five piers faced with colossal statues of Rameses II. These statues

1. Lepsius, Denkmæler, part i. pl. 127.
2. There are also a hemispeos or two of the Ptolemaic period. That, for instance, of which the plans are given in plate 101 of Lepsius's first part, was begun by Ptolemy Euergetes II.