[Illustration: FIG. 126.--Anta and base of pylon, Temple of Khons. _Description_, iii. 55.] The anta is often without a capital, as, for instance, in the temple of Khons (Fig. 126). Elsewhere the architect seems to have wished to bring it into more complete harmony with the magnificence of its surroundings, and accordingly he gives it a capital, as at Medinet-Abou, but a capital totally unlike those proper to the column.[124] It was identical in form with that gorge or cornice which crowns nearly every Egyptian wall. Considering that the anta was really no more than a prolongation or momentary salience of the wall, such an arrangement was judicious in every way (Fig. 129). [124] In this the Greek architects took the same course as those of Egypt. [Illustration: FIG. 127.--Antæ, Medinet-Abou.] [Illustration: FIG. 128.--Antæ, Medinet-Abou.] The width of the intercolumniations also varied between one court or hall and another, and, at least in the present state of the Egyptian remains, we are unable to discover any rule governing the matter, such as those by which Greek architects were guided. We may affirm generally that the Egyptian constructor, especially in the time of the New Empire and when using columns of large dimensions, preferred close spacing to wide. His tendency to crowd his columns is to be explained, partly by the great weight of the superstructure which they had to support, partly by the national taste for a massive and close architecture. The spaces between the great columns in the hypostyle hall of Karnak, measured between the points of junction between the bases and the shafts, is slightly less than two diameters. The spaces between the smaller columns on each side are hardly more than one diameter. A better idea of the original character of these ordonnances may perhaps be gathered from the plate which faces the next page (Pl. VIII) than to any plan to which we could refer the reader. It represents that part of the colonnade, in the second court of the temple at Medinet-Abou, which veils the wall of the pronaos, and it shows how little space the Egyptian architects thought necessary for the purposes of circulation. The spaces between the columns and the wall on the one hand and the osiride piers on the other, are not quite equal to the diameter of the bases of those columns, which have, however, been expressly kept smaller than was usual in Egypt. If they had been as large as some that we could point out, there would have been no room to pass between them and the wall.