It is not till we reach their bases that we guess their enormous size.  The lower courses then stretch seemingly into infinity to right and left, while the summit soars up out of our sight into the sky.  “The effect is gained by majesty and simplicity of form, in the contrast and disproportion between the stature of man and the immensity of his handiwork:  the eye fails to take it in; it is even difficult for the mind to grasp it.  We see, we may touch hundreds of courses formed of blocks, two hundred cubic feet in size,... and thousands of others scarcely less in bulk, and wo are at a loss to know what force has moved, transported, and raised so great a number of colossal stones, how many men were needed for the work, what amount of time was required for it, what machinery they used; and in proportion to our inability to answer these questions, we increasingly admire the power which regarded such obstacles as trifles.”

We are not acquainted with the names of any of the men who conceived these prodigious works.  The inscriptions mention in detail the princes, nobles, and scribes who presided over all the works undertaken by the sovereign, but they have never deigned to record the name of a single architect.*

* The title “mir kautu nibu niti suton,” frequently met with under the Ancient Empire, does not designate the architects, as many Egyptologists have thought:  it signifies “director of all the king’s works,” and is applicable to irrigation, dykes and canals, mines and quarries, and all branches of an engineer’s profession, as well as to those of the architect’s.  The “directors of all the king’s works " were dignitaries deputed by Pharaoh to take the necessary measurements for the building of temples, for dredging canals, for quarrying stone and minerals; they were administrators, and not professionals possessing the technical knowledge of an architect or engineer.

[Illustrations:  234a.jpg Avenue of Sphinxes—­Karnak]

[Illustrations:  234a-text.jpg]

They were people of humble extraction, living hard lives under fear of the stick, and their ordinary assistants, the draughtsmen, painters, and sculptors, were no better off than themselves; they were looked upon as mechanics of the same social status as the neighbouring shoemaker or carpenter.  The majority of them were, in fact, clever mechanical workers of varying capability, accustomed to chisel out a bas-relief or set a statue firmly on its legs, in accordance with invariable rules which they transmitted unaltered from one generation to another:  some were found among them, however, who displayed unmistakable genius in their art, and who, rising above the general mediocrity, produced masterpieces.  Their equipment of tools was very simple—­iron picks with wooden handles, mallets of wood, small hammers, and a bow for boring holes.  The sycamore and acacia furnished them with a material of a delicate grain and soft texture, which they used to good advantage:  Egyptian