A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

SECOND EDITIONS OF TEMPLES. 233
those which had previously existed in Nubia, as
well as Egypt, in the time of the Pharaohs, and
which had been destroyed by the Persians, dedi-
eating them to the same divinities ; a convincing
proof that the domination of the Greeks and
the Romans had produced no innovation in the
religion of the Egyptians. Dakkeh is the most
southern point where he found monuments exe-
cuted under the Ptolemies and the Caesars, which
convinces him that the Greek and Roman domi-
nation did not extend beyond Ibrim. From
Dakkeh to Thebes he found an almost continuous
series of edifices constructed at those two epochs.
The Pharaonic monuments are there rare, whilst
those of the Ptolemies and the Caesars abound,
and are almost all unfinished. From all this he
deduced that the temples of the Pharaohs were
defaced by the Persian conquerors of Egypt, and
that they were reconstructed by the Ptolemies
and the Caesars— and he very expressively terms
the old monuments thus restored, " des secondes
editions des temples."
Temple upon temple !
they followed each other
in such rapid succession that I feared I should
have a surfeit of them, and already felt the diflfi-
culty of digesting so many propyla as daily fell
to my lot during the first days of our descent of