Even the Romans, although they had already discovered the _vault_, followed here the primitive models, and continued those granite ceilings, made of monstrous slabs, placed flat, like our beams.

And so this temple of Hathor, built though it was in the time of Cleopatra and Augustus, on a site venerable in the oldest antiquity, recalls at first sight some conception of the Ramses.
If, however, you examine it more closely, there appears, particularly in the thousands of figures in bas-relief, a considerable divergence.

The poses are the same indeed, and so too are the traditional gestures.

But the exquisite grace of line is gone, as well as the hieratic calm of the expressions and the smiles.

In the Egyptian art of the best periods the slender figures are as pure as the flowers they hold in their hands; their muscles may be indicated in a precise and skilful manner, but they remain, for all that, immaterial.