Technical descriptions of buildings, whether religious or civil, would be out of place in the present work; but a compendious account of the Erectheion and Parthenon, the two great sanctuaries of the Acropolis, could not with propriety be omitted. To commence with the former, as the more ancient and sacred:—this edifice, of irregular design though highly beautiful, contained three chapels, with the same number of porticoes. The chapel of Erectheus, entered through a portico of six columns, faced the east, where stood the altar of supreme Zeus, never stained by blood or libations of wine. The pavement of this portion of the edifice was raised eight feet above the level of the other chapels. Here the piety of Athens had erected altars to Erectheus, Poseidon, Butas, and Hephaistos, and pictures dedicated by the sacred family of the Eteobutadæ adorned the walls. In a subterraneous chamber beneath the floor lay the mortal remains of Ericthonios, a man sprung in a mysterious manner from the gods. The Erectheion being about twenty-four feet square, some have imagined it must have been hypæthral, unless the stone blocks of the roof were supported by pillars. But the ancients employed slabs of much greater dimensions in building and roofing their temples; for at the Egyptian quarries of Hajjar Silsilis and Essouan we observed blocks from forty-two to seventy feet in length and of suitable proportions, while others equally vast had been removed. Volney, too, as the reader will remember, found masses of no less magnitude in the walls of Syrian temples: besides, several obelisks, now on their pedestals, fall little short of a hundred feet in height. Between the Erectheion and the chapel of Athena Polias there was no door of communication. Having surveyed the former, therefore, the stranger again issued into the open air, and turning to the left entered the stately portico leading from the north into the temple of Pandrosos, where, constructed of Pentelic marble, stood the altar of frankincense. Passing this, and traversing the Pandrosion, he entered the ancient sanctuary of Athena, unwindowed and gloomy, whither not even that “dim religious light” which contends with obscurity in our gothic cathedrals could find its way. This is the case in many Egyptian temples where the adyta are totally dark. But sunshine and the splendour of day would ill have suited the mystic rites here celebrated; for which reason these sacred recesses were lighted up with lamps, magnificent in form and materials, that shed a soft pale ray over the worshippers. The many-branched[257] golden candelabrum of Athena’s sanctuary was furnished with asbestos wicks, and, according to the temple-wardens, of sufficient dimensions to contain oil for a whole year. Once lighted, therefore, it burned with perennial flame, and the smoke was received and conducted to the roof by a hollow bronze palm tree reversed. Footnote 257: A conjecture of Müller, Minerv. Pol. v. 25.