* The proof that the temple was founded by Ramses III. is
     furnished by the inscriptions of the sanctuary and the
     surrounding chambers.

Its proportions are by no means perfect, the sculpture is wanting in refinement, the painting is coarse, and the masonry was so faulty, that it was found necessary in several places to cover it with a coat of stucco before the bas-reliefs could be carved on the walls; yet, in spite of all this, its general arrangement is so fine, that it may well be regarded, in preference to other more graceful or magnificent buildings, as the typical temple of the Theban period.  It is divided into two parts, separated from each other by a solid wall.  In the centre of the smaller of these is placed the Holy of Holies, which opens at both ends into a passage ten feet in width, isolating it from the surrounding buildings.  To the right and left of the sanctuary are dark chambers, and behind it is a hall supported by four columns, into which open seven small apartments.  This formed the dwelling-place of the god and his compeers.  The sanctuary communicates, by means of two doors placed in the southern wall, with a hypostyle hall of greater width than depth, divided by its pillars into a nave and two aisles.  The four columns of the nave are twenty-three feet in height, and have bell-shaped capitals, while those of the aisles, two on either side, are eighteen feet high, and are crowned with lotiform capitals.

[Illustration:  077.jpg THE COURT OF THE TEMPLE OF KHONSU]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato.

The roof of the nave was thus five feet higher than those of the aisles, and in the clear storey thus formed, stone gratings, similar to those in the temple of Amon, admitted light to the building.  The courtyard, surrounded by a fine colonnade of two rows of columns, was square, and was entered by four side posterns in addition to the open gateway at the end placed between two quadrangular towers.

[Illustration:  078.jpg THE COLONNADE BUILT BY THUTMOSIS III]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger and
     Daniel Heron.

This pylon measures 104 feet in length, and is 32 feet 6 inches wide, by 58 feet high.  It contains no internal chambers, but merely a narrow staircase which leads to the top of the doorway, and thence to the summit of the towers.  Four long angular grooves run up the facade of the towers to a height of about twenty feet from the ground, and are in the same line with a similar number of square holes which pierce the thickness of the building higher up.  In these grooves were placed Venetian masts, made of poles spliced together and held in their place by means of hooks and wooden stays which projected from the four holes; these masts were to carry at their tops pennons of various colours.  Such was the temple of Khonsu, and the majority of the great Theban buildings—­at