This temple of Amen-Rā is beyond all question the most majestic ruin in the world. There is a sort of stone avenue in the centre, giving a view towards the north-west, and this axis is something like five hundred yards in length. The whole object of the builder of the great temple at Karnak--one of the most soul-stirring temples which have ever been conceived or built by man--was to preserve that axis absolutely open; and all the wonderful halls of columns and the like, as seen on one side or other of the axis, are merely details; the point being that the axis should be absolutely open, straight, and true. The axis was directed towards the hills on the west side of the Nile, in which are the tombs of the kings. From the external pylon the South-eastern outlook through the ruins shows the whole length of the temple, and we see at the very extremity of the central line a gateway nearly six hundred yards away. This belonged to a temple pointing towards the south-east. There were really two temples in the same line back to back, the chief one facing the sunset at the summer solstice, the other probably the sunrise at the winter solstice. The distance which separates the outside entrances of both these temples is greater than that from Pall Mall to Piccadilly; the great temple covers about twice the area covered by St. Peter's at Rome, so that the whole structure was of a vastness absolutely unapproached in the modern ecclesiastical world. [Illustration: PLAN OF THE TEMPLE OF AMEN-RĀ AND SOME OF ITS SURROUNDINGS, INCLUDING THE SACRED LAKE. II. Original Sanctuary. III. Obelisks. IV. Hall of Columns. V. Interior Pylon. VI. Outer Court. VII. External Western Pylon. VIII. Sphinxes. 1 Temple M. of Lepsius. 2 Temple of Seti II. 3 Side Entrance. 4 South Wall. 5 } Pylons of South 6 } Courts. 7 } 8 } Inner Courts near 9 } the Sanctuary. 10 } _a_ } N. Wall. _b_ } _c_ } Columns in Outer _d_ } Court, N. Side. _e_ } Columns in Outer _f_ } Court, S. Side. _g_ Taharqa's Columns.] Some Egyptian temples took many tens of years to build; the obelisks, all in single blocks, were brought for hundreds of miles down the Nile. The building of a solar temple like that of Amen-Rā meant to the Egyptians a very serious undertaking indeed.