The casts taken by the expedition while on the Nile were intended to complete the collection of casts begun by the advice of Lepsius. Large and fortunate additions were afterwards made to this collection, and its founder always, and with justice, attributed great importance to it. By means of these casts it was possible to supply in an available and desirable manner the inevitable deficiencies with respect to an historical sequence of the original monuments. Other museums imitated that of Berlin in instituting collections of casts. The finishing and painting of the halls which had been renovated for the Egyptian collection were begun and completed under the superintendence of Lepsius, who had entire liberty in the matter. In every respect it was done to correspond with those ideas and wishes which he had already expressed in Cairo. All the demands of the Egyptian style were observed in the three halls at his disposal, and the walls, pillars and ceilings received that decorative and highly-colored pictorial ornament with which the temples and tombs of the time of the Pharaohs are adorned. The most interesting pictures from the tombs and sanctuaries on the Nile were reproduced here, and Ernest Weidenbach, upon whom devolved the execution of the multitude of paintings selected and arranged by Lepsius, performed the task with that delicate feeling for the characteristics of Egyptian style which was peculiar to himself. They had at their disposal the rooms situated in the northern half of the ground floor of the new museum. The entrance leads immediately into the anteroom, where a column from Philae with a palm capital is stationed. If one turns thence towards the hall adjoining on the right, one has before him a series of rooms which can in some measure represent the chief divisions of an Egyptian temple; vestibule, hypostyle and sanctuary. In an Egyptian temple the court was usually surrounded by colonnades, whose architraves contained the dedication of the building. In the midst stood an altar. Behind these sacred halls there were smaller rooms, the last of which, in the axis of the building, was the sanctuary containing the statue of the god of the temple. In a general way the rooms of the Berlin Egyptian collection correspond to this customary arrangement. They contain the court, covered with glass and surrounded by columns, the hypostyle adjoining, and the cella in the background. At the side of this central temple lie three main rooms; to the right are the mythological hall and the hall of tombs, while the historical hall extends along the whole length of the left side.