The palace was built of brick; it was approached by a colossal gateway, and contained vast halls, interspersed with small apartments for the accommodation of the household, and storehouses for the necessary provisions, besides gardens which had been hastily planted with rare shrubs and sycamores. Fragments of furniture and of the roughest of the utensils contained in the different chambers are still unearthed from among the heaps of rubbish, and the cellars especially are full of potsherds and cracked jars, on which we can still see written an indication of the reign and the year when the wine they once contained was made. Altars of massive masonry rose in the midst of the courts, on which the king or one of his ministers heaped offerings and burnt incense morning, noon, and evening, in honour of the three decisive moments in the life of Atonu.* * Naville discovered at Deir el-Bahari a similar altar, nearly intact. No other example was before known in any of the ruined towns or temples, and no one had any idea of the dimensions to which these altars, attained. A few painted and gilded columns supported the roofs of the principal apartments in which the Pharaoh held his audiences, but elsewhere the walls and pillars were coated with cream-coloured stucco or whitewash, on which scenes of private life were depicted in colours. The pavement, like the walls, was also decorated. In one of the halls which seems to have belonged to the harem, there is still to be seen distinctly the picture of a rectangular piece of water containing fish and lotus-flowers in full bloom; the edge is adorned with water-plants and flowering shrubs, among which birds fly and calves graze and gambol; on the right and left were depicted rows of stands laden with fruit, while at each end of the room were seen the grinning faces of a gang of negro and Syrian prisoners, separated from each other by gigantic arches. The tone of colouring is bright and cheerful, and the animals are treated with great freedom and facility. The Pharaoh, had collected about him several of the best artists then to be found at Thebes, placing them under the direction of Bauki, the chief of the corporation of sculptors,* and probably others subsequently joined these from provincial studios. * Bauki belonged to a family of artists, and his father Mani had filled before him the post of chief of the sculptors. The part played by these personages was first defined by Brugsch, with perhaps some exaggeration of their artistic merit and originality of talent.