146 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. complete a peripteral arrangement, similar to that which exists in the hypaethral temples at Philse and in Nubia. The closest study of the site has brought to light nothing beyond the twelve columns shown in our plan (Fig. 214, e, Vol. I.). The most probable explanation is that which we have hinted at above. ^ These great columns were erected to give majesty to the approach to the hypostyle hall, and to border the path followed by the great religious processions as they issued from the hall and made for the great doorway in the pylon. They must always P"iG. 130.— Column in the court of the Buba^tides, at Karnak. have been isolated, and it is possible that formerly each carried upon the cubic die which still surmounts the capital, groups of bronze similar to those which, to all appearance, crowned those stele-like piers which we described in speaking of the work of Thothmes in the same temple (page 94). This was also the opinion of Prisse d'Avennes, who studied the monuments of Egypt, both as an artist and as an archceologist, more closely, ^ This explanation seems to have been accepted by Prof. Ebers ; /Egypten iiii Bild tirid Wort, vol. ii. p. 331.
