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

316 TEMPLE OF DENDERAH.
pronaos of the temple, siirmoimted by quadri-
lateral capitals, each side containing a full face
of Isis with the cow's ears, and wearing the
usual antique Egyptian head-dress, the ends of
which descend on each side of the throat
down to where the bosom might be, were
the bust represented, and form a graceful fluted
termination to the capital. But destroyers
have mercilessly defeatured the mild counten-
ance of the moon-faced Isis, leaving nothing
distinguishable but its round contour and elon-
gated eyes. As the temple w^as built under
the last of the Ptolemies, these devastations
could not have been perpetrated by those
wholesale destroyers of Egyptian art, the bar-
barous Persians of Cambyses ; they are, there-
fore, attributable to the early Christians, who,
in their zeal to propagate a new and purer
faith, defaced, to the utmost of their power,
the offending emblems of an idolatrous wor-
ship. Some of the columns of the first hall
succeeding the pronaos, bear evident traces of
fire having been applied to destroy them ; and
the interior dark chambers are so blackened
with smoke, that to this added obscurity I
must attribute my not having been able to
distinguish the elaborate mythological embel-