The Great Temple of Karnak is one of the chief cares of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities.  Its paramount importance, so to speak, as the cathedral temple of Egypt, renders its preservation and exploration a work of constant necessity, and its great extent makes this work one which is always going on and which probably will be going on for many years to come.  The Temple of Karnak has cost the Egyptian government much money, yet not a piastre of this can be grudged.  For several years past the works have been under the charge of M. Georges Legrain, the well-known engineer and draughtsman who was associated with M. de Morgan in the work at Dashur.  His task is to clear out the whole temple thoroughly, to discover in it what previous investigators have left undiscovered, and to restore to its original position what has fallen.

[Illustration:  376.jpg THE GREAT TEMPLE OP KAKNAK.]

The left-hand obelisk is the highest in Egypt, and was erected by Hatshepsu; the right-hand obelisk was put up by Thothmes III.  No general work of restoration is contemplated, nor would this be in the slightest degree desirable.  Up to the present M. Legrain has certainly carried out all three branches of his task with great success.  An unforeseen event has, however, considerably complicated and retarded the work.

In October, 1899, one of the columns of the side aisles of the great Hypostyle Hall fell, bringing down with it several others.  The whole place was a chaotic ruin, and for a moment it seemed as though the whole of the Great Hall, one of the wonders of the world, would collapse.  The disaster was due to the gradual infiltration of water from the Nile beneath the structure, whose foundations, as is usual in Egypt, were of the flimsiest description.  Even the most imposing Egyptian temples have jerry-built foundations; usually they are built on the top of the wall-stumps of earlier buildings of different plan, filled in with a confused mass of earlier slabs and weak rubbish of all kinds.  Had the Egyptian buildings been built on sure foundations, they would have been preserved to a much greater extent even than they are.  In such a climate as that of Egypt a stone building well built should last for ever.

M. Legrain has for the last five years been busy repairing the damage.  All the fallen columns are now restored to the perpendicular, and the capitals and architraves are in process of being hoisted into their original positions.  The process by which M. Legrain carries out this work has been already described.  He works in the old Egyptian fashion, building great inclines or ramps of earth up which the pillar-drums, the capitals, and the architrave-blocks are hauled by manual labour, and then swung into position.  This is the way in which the Egyptians built Karnak, and in this way, too, M. Le-grain is rebuilding it.  It is a slow process, but a sure one, and now it will not be long before we shall see the hall, except its roof, in much the same condition as it was when Seti built it.  Lovers of the picturesque will, however, miss the famous leaning column, hanging poised across the hall, which has been a main feature in so many pictures and photographs of Karnak.  This fell in the catastrophe of 1899, and naturally it has not been possible to restore it to its picturesque, but dangerous, position.