fault, and, by their sinking, have compromised the safety of the whole building;[62] sometimes it is the built up columns of masonry, which, when deprived by time of their coating of stucco, appear very poor and mean. The infinite foresight and self-respect, the passionate love for perfection for its own sake, which is characteristic of Greek work at its best time, is not here to be found. But this defect was inseparable from the system under which the Egyptian buildings were erected. [62] "The foundations of the great temple at Abydos, commenced by Seti I. and finished by Rameses II., consist of but a single course of generally ill-balanced masonry. Hence the settling which has taken place, and the deep fissure which divides the building in the direction of its major axis."--MARIETTE, _Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte_, p. 59. The same writer speaks of Karnak in a similar strain: "The Pharaonic temples are built, as a rule, with extreme carelessness. The western pylon, for instance, fell because it was hollow, which made the inclination of the walls a source of weakness instead of strength."--_Itineraire_, p. 179. [Illustration: FIG. 17.--Columns in the Hypostyle Hall, Karnak.] [Illustration: FIGS. 18, 19.--Scribes registering the yield of the harvest. From a tomb at Sakkarah. (Boulak, 9-1/2 inches high. Drawn by Bourgoin.)] [Illustration: FIG. 20.--Colossi of Amenophis III. (statues of Memnon) at Thebes.] The absolute and dreaded master whose gesture, whose single word, was sufficient to depopulate a province and to fill quarries and workshops with thousands of men, the sovereign who, in spite of his mortality, was looked up to by his people as one so near akin to the gods as to be hardly distinguishable from them, the high priest and father of his people, the king before whom all heads were bent to the earth; filled with his own glory and majesty the buildings which he caused to spring, as if by magic, from the earth. His effigy was everywhere. Seated in the form of colossal statues in front of the temples, in bas-reliefs upon pylons, upon the walls of porticos and pillared halls, he was represented sometimes offering homage to the gods, sometimes leading his troops to battle or bringing them home victorious. The supreme efforts of architect and sculptor were directed to constructing for their prince a tomb which should excel all others in magnificence and durability, or to immortalizing him by a statue which should raise its head as much above its rivals as the royal power surpassed the power and dignity of ordinary men. The art of Egypt was, in this sense, a monarchical art; and in so being it was the direct expression of the sentiments and ideas of the society which had to create it from its foundations. [Illustration: FIG. 21.--Scribe registering merchandize. Sakkarah. (9-1/2 inches high. Drawn by Bourgoin.)]