Petrie tells us that the pitiful remains of the Labyrinth, the great temple of Amenemhat III of the XIIth Dynasty, show that it was big enough to hold all the temples of Karnak and Luxor put together; but the imagination is scarcely capable of trying to comprehend the extent of such a building, and Karnak is quite big enough for most people. The actual area of its buildings is about equal to that of St. Peter’s (Rome), Milan, and Nôtre Dame (Paris); while the sacred enclosure, the Cathedral Close, so to speak, would hold another half-dozen of the biggest cathedrals of Europe, without crowding them unduly. Let us try to imagine ourselves visiting the great temple in the days when it had reached its greatest extent, though, by that time, the glory of Thebes had in great measure departed. Still the building, as we now see it, was practically completed only in the days of the Ptolemies, and no survey of it would be adequate without including their work. Unfortunately in taking the temple in the natural order of approach, by its west front, so to speak, we reverse almost exactly the order of its building, which was, generally speaking, from east to west. Yet the history of the building is sufficiently intelligible even when thus taken in reverse order, and though there are other approaches to Karnak, and the approach by either the Eastern or the Western Avenue of Sphinxes must have been very impressive, yet the main front of the temple must always have been that which faced the Nile, in the termination of the axis of the whole structure. No doubt also the Egyptian Kings, with their fondness for using their great river as the scene of ceremonial processions, used the western front of the temple for their visits to the shrine of Amen. We land, then, at a quay of hewn stone, adorned with two small obelisks of Sety II of the XIXth Dynasty, and with two statues of couchant lions. Passing down a short and gentle slope, we move along a broad paved way between rows of couchant ram-headed sphinxes, which were placed here by Ramses II. The path extends for 200 feet, and leads up to the vastest portal to be found even in this land of vast portals. This is the First Pylon of Karnak--first in point of approach, but last in point of erection, for it is the work of the Ptolemaic Pharaohs who grasped the sceptre of Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great; and indeed, as you can see, the work is not yet complete. Building is still going on, and the ramps of crude brick by which the great stones are dragged up to their positions are still heaped against the walls, where they will continue to stand for more than two thousand years.