The same document records work done that day for the excavation of a canal "which is on the south of (the building) 'Beneficial is Menmaatre for Osiris'." The blocks described here were probably destined for the foundations and lower courses of stonework in the main chamber as they included column bases and paving stones. This might correspond to the earliest pan of what could be called a second phase in the construction at the edifice. During the first stage, the limestone retaining walls, which allowed safe access to the site, allong with the sarcophagus chamber, had been installed. The blocks used up to this point were fairly small, and could be transported by men overland from the quay, apparently located near the front of the memorial temple, to the site of the Osireion. Yet once the foundation, paving stones and pillar bases were in place, the third stage of construction began. This involved installing the huge granite monoliths for the pillars and architraves and large sandstone blocks for walls of the central chamber. To
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It is impossible to say when these reliefs were carved, but it need not have been while the rest of the building was under construction. These reliefs were carved in limestone, and are of the same high quality as those found in the nearby temple. Presumably the temple was Seti's first priority, and decoration of the cenotaph would have drawn sculptors away from their work at the former site. Thus the carving of the reliefs in the sarcophagus chamber might post-date its construction by a considerable period
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It has to be admitted that no similar building is known from the Nineteenth Dynasty. Is is not, however, correct to quote the so-called “Temple of the Sphinx” at Giza as a parallel (2). Even the most superficial perusal of Professor Hoelscher’s full publication of that building will reveal the fact that it has no features in common with the structure at Abydos, except the use of square granite pillars and architraves. And these resemble each other as the columns of the Nike temple on the Acropolis resemble those of Baalbek. Certainly our Central Hall possesses an impressive grandeur. But compared with the smaller but far more finely proportioned pillars at Giza those at Abydos are heavy and inelegant; and in all other points the lower sanctuary of Khafra’s pyramid-temple at Giza and our building at Abydos differ completely. It must not be forgotten that the “stern simplicity” at Abydos is merely a consequence of the unfinished state of building, and that we possess evidence that not only the walls, but also the architraves and the
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Some indirect evidence for the presence of an earlier building behind the Seti temple is sometimes considered to exist in Professor Petrie’s theory as to the original plan of Seti’s temple. According to this view the plan of the temple as we know it is a secondary distortion of that which was originally made, and the rooms that now form the southern wing of the temple were meant to follow in the main axis behind what is now its most westerly room. This change of plan would have been caused by the fact that Seti’s builders found an older building in the place of the Cenotaph when they started to lay the foundations for the back of the temple. The “original plan” which this hypothesis would accept is little in keeping with that found in other temples in Egypt (4). We never find an important group of rooms, such as the “Slaughtering Hall” and the “Hall of the Barques,” interposed between the chapel and the back wall of the temple; if there are any rooms at all they are few and secondary, such as magazines for cult objects. That the rooms
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