oblong truncated pyramids, crowned by flaring cornices, and were decorated on the outer face with masts carrying banners, with obelisks, or with seated colossal figures of the royal builder. An avenue of sphinxes formed the approach to the entrance, and the whole temple precinct was surrounded by a wall, usually of crude brick, pierced by one or more gates with or without pylons. The piety of successive monarchs was displayed in the addition of new hypostyle halls, courts, pylons, or obelisks, by which the temple was successively extended in length, and sometimes also in width, by the increased dimensions of the new courts. The great Temple of Karnak most strikingly illustrates this growth. Begun by Osourtesen (XIIth dynasty) more than 2000 years B.C., it was not completed in its present form until the time of the Ptolemies, when the last of the pylons and external gates were erected. [Illustration: FIG. 11.--TEMPLE OF KARNAK. PLAN.] The variations in the details of this general type were numerous. Thus, at El Kab, the temple of Amenophis III. has the sekos and hall but no forecourt. At Deir-el-Medineh the hall of the Ptolemaic Hathor-temple is a mere porch in two parts, while the enclosure within the circuit wall takes the place of the forecourt. At Karnak all the parts were repeated several times, and under Amenophis III. (XVIIIth dynasty) a wing was built at a nearly right angle to the main structure. At Luxor, to a complete typical temple were added three aisles of an unfinished hypostyle hall, and an elaborate forecourt, whose axis is inclined to that of the other buildings, owing to a bend of the river at that point. At Abydos a complex sanctuary of many chambers extends southeast at right angles to the general mass, and the first court is without columns. But in all these structures a certain unity of effect is produced by the lofty pylons, the flat roofs diminishing in height over successive portions from the front to the sanctuary, the sloping windowless walls covered with carved and painted pictures, and the dim and massive interiors of the columnar halls.