DENDERA.--The centuries that this great temple of Venus has seen have scarcely affected it in any important part; and have given it no greater appearance of age and ruin than what serves to render it more venerable and imposing. After seeing innumerable monuments of the same kind throughout the Thebaid, it seemed as if we were now arrived at the highest pitch of architectural excellence that was ever attained on the borders of the Nile. Here we found concentrated the united labour of ages, and the last effort of human art and industry in that regular uniform line of construction, which had been adopted in the earliest times. After admiring the general effect of the whole mass, its elegance, solidity, correct proportions and graceful outlines, it was difficult to decide what particular objects were to be first examined. Whether its sculptures or paintings, typical and ornamental, the distribution of the interior apartments, the details of the capitals and columns, the mystical meaning of particular representations here seen for the first time; the zodiacs,[14] or the other celestial phenomena, sculptured on the ceilings, all seemed objects of high interest and importance, all invited a nearer and closer inspection. The portico consists of twenty-four columns in three rows, each above twenty-two feet in circumference, thirty-two high, and covered with hieroglyphics. The peculiar form of the square capital, with a front face of the goddess on each side, particularly attracted our attention. We were at first struck by the singularity of an idea so foreign to the common notions of Greek architecture; but the eye is soon reconciled to it; and the solemn and mild monotony of these faces impresses the spectator with a silent, reverential awe, a willing conviction of the immediate presence of the deity of the place in her most gracious character; and, indeed, the Greeks, in their Caryatides, seem in some degree to have added their sanction to the principle.
[Footnote 14: The principal zodiac has since been removed.]
The sekos, or the interior of the temple, consists of several apartments, all the walls and ceilings of which are in the same way covered with religious and astronomical representations. The roofs are, like the rest in Egypt, flat; the oblong masses of stone resting on the side walls; and, when the distance of these is too great, one or two rows of the columns are carried down the middle of the apartment, by which the roof is supported. The capitals of these columns are very richly ornamented with the budding lotus, the stalks of which being carried down some way below the capital, give the shaft the appearance of being fluted, or rather scolloped.