As regards architecture, we find not only the pyramids, which
date from the very earliest period of Egyptian history, and
which are to this hour the wonder of the world for size, for
boldness, for exactness, and for skilful contrivance, but also
the temples, with long ranges of colossal columns wrought in
polished granite, with wonderful beauty of ornamentation, with
architraves and roofs vast in size and exquisite in adjustment,
which by their proportions tax the imagination, and lead the
beholder to ask whether all this can be real.
As to sculpture, we have not only the great Sphinx of Gizeh, so
marvellous in its boldness and dignity, dating from the very
first period of Egyptian history, but we have ranges of sphinxes,
heroic statues, and bas-reliefs, showing that even in the early
ages this branch of art had reached an amazing development.
As regards the perfection of these, Lubke, the most eminent
German authority on plastic art, referring to the early works in
the tombs about Memphis, declares that, "as monuments of the
period of the fourth dynasty, they are an evidence of the high
perfection to which the sculpture of the Egyptians had
attained.
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