Other parts of the structure are the work of the XIXth Dynasty, which did so much at Abydos, and bear the cartouche of Merenptah and representations of this king worshipping the gods; but the chamber of the pool is another matter. Its construction is of such a character as to refer it at once to a very much earlier date; and there can be little doubt that the resemblance to the Temple of the Sphinx is only the evidence of the fact that the two buildings are of the same period, and that the Pool of Osiris is the earliest Egyptian building of any size known, apart from the pyramids. The magnificence of its masonry shows how far the Egyptians of this early period had already carried the system of construction which they were to use to such splendid purpose in the great temples of the land. Never again, however, even in the great days of New Empire building, did they put together such a piece of sumptuous massiveness as the underground chamber of Osiris at Abydos. Another aspect of work among the temples must be referred to, as being, in its own way, not less important than the rescuing of the actual structures from obscurity and neglect; and that is the interpretation of the work thus rescued, the tracing of its history, and the disentangling of the various periods of building which are represented, and the different hands which have been at work in the completion of a building whose history as a growing organism may stretch through centuries, and involve the activities of half a dozen dynasties. [Illustration: 12. KARNAK, AVENUE OF SPHINXES.] To make the temples intelligible is a matter scarcely less important than to make them visible, and it has involved scarcely less effort. Even after all that has been accomplished in this direction, a great Egyptian temple such as Karnak remains a sufficiently complicated business to bewilder the ordinary sight-seer and make him turn with relief to the clarity of Greek architecture; but at least it is now possible to arrive at something like an understanding of how the vast bulk of Karnak grew, century after century, to what we now see, and to realise a little of the romance of history which is involved in the succession of Pharaohs who have laboured to make great and splendid the holy and beautiful house of Amen in Thebes.