At Abydus the remains of two great temples have been found; one of Rameses II., with great court surrounded by piers with osireide figures on them; two halls of columns, a sanctuary, and other small chambers in the rear. The other, completed only and decorated with sculpture by Rameses II., the temple having been built by his father, Sethi I. This second temple differs in the arrangement of its plan from other examples (Woodcut No. 29); it was preceded by two great courts; at the further end of the second court was a peristyle with twelve piers, from which, through three doors, a hall of twenty-four columns was reached; the columns here were so arranged as to suggest seven avenues, beyond which were seven doors leading to a second hall with thirty-six columns, similarly disposed to those in the first hall. These avenues led to seven sanctuaries, the roofs of which were segmental, the arched form of vault being cut out of solid blocks of stone (Woodcut No. 29A). Beyond the sepulchral destination, which roofs of these sanctuaries suggest, nothing is known from inscriptions as to their precise use. Through one of the sanctuaries other halls of columns and chambers were reached which lie in the rear of the building, and on the south side, and approached from the second great hall of columns, many other halls, chambers, and staircases leading to the roof. The special interest to the Egyptologist, however, of this temple lies in the fact that it was on the walls of one of these that the so-called tablet of Abydus was discovered—now in the British Museum—which first gave a connected list of kings, the predecessors of Rameses, and sufficiently extensive to confirm the lists of Manetho in a manner satisfactory to the ordinary inquirer. A second list, far more complete, has recently been brought to light in the same locality, and contains the names of 76 kings, ancestors of Meneptah, the father of Rameses. It begins, as all lists do, with Menes; but even this list is only a selection, omitting many names found in Manetho, but inserting others which are not in his lists.[57] Before the discovery of this perfect list, the longest known were that of the chamber of the ancestors of Thothmes III., at Karnac, containing when perfect 61 names, of which, however, nearly one-third are obliterated; and that recently found at Saccara, containing 58 names originally, but of which several are now illegible.