32 .-- Plan of the walled city at El Kab.] The same system of fortification which was in use for isolated fortresses was also employed for the protection of towns.

At Heliopollis, at San, at Sais, at Thebes, everywhere in short, we find long straight walls forming plain squares or parallelograms, without towers or bastions, ditches or outworks.

The thickness of the walls, which varied from thirty to eighty feet, made such precautions needless.

The gates, or at all events the principal ones, had jambs and lintels of stone, decorated with scenes and inscriptions; as, for instance, that of Ombos, which Champollion beheld yet _in situ_, and which dated from the reign of Thothmes III.

The oldest and best preserved walled city in Egypt, namely, El Kab, belongs probably to the ancient empire (fig.