RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF MEDAMOUT, NEAR THEBES.

 

 

MEDAMOUT stands inland, east of the Nile, and has by some antiquaries been supposed to mark the site of Maximianopolis, a Greek bishop's see under the Lower Empire. Little of this Temple remains, except a part of the portico. The stone of which it was built was more liable to decay than the materials generally used in the temples of Egypt.

    The style of the architecture has been given to the Ptolemaic period; and on the columns may be traced the ovals of Ptolemy Euergetes II., of Lathyrus Auletes, and of the Emperor Antonius Pius. But a block of granite gives the temple a higher antiquity; for it bears the name of Amunoph II., and proves its foundation to have been coeval with at least the middle of the fifteenth century before the Christian era.

    The pylon before the portico bears the name of Tiberius, but the blocks used in its construction were taken from an older edifice erected or repaired by Remeses II.

    The ruins of many houses, built of crude brick, mark the site of a town, in the centre of which this Temple was situated; a wall or enclosure of similar materials surrounds the Temple. The remains of a reservoir are near it, and not far distant is a small ruin bearing the name of Ptolemy Euergetes I., and traces are found of a wall of crude brick which surrounded the town.

    The capitals of the columns are elegant, those in the centre of the portico exhibit the form of the expanded lotus; while the outer columns on either side of them, bear that of the budding lotus: this, which is generally considered an incongruity in architecture, is beautiful in effect.