From these masts floated long streamers of various colours (fig.

79).

Such was the temple of Khonsu, and such, in their main features, were the majority of the greater temples of Theban and Ptolemaic times, as Luxor, the Ramesseum, Medinet Habu, Edfu, and Denderah.

Though for the most part half in ruins, they affect one with a strange and disquieting sense of oppression.

As mystery was a favourite attribute of the Egyptian gods, even so the plan of their temples is in such wise devised as to lead gradually from the full sunshine of the outer world to the obscurity of their retreats.