The Doors
Of The Two Apartments Opening Into The Vestibule Are Covered With
Carvings Richer And More Beautiful Than Those On The Door Of The
Principal Chamber.
The colonnade is about thirty-five feet high, and the
columns are about three feet in diameter with Corinthian capitals.
The
pilasters at the two extremities of the colonnade, and the two columns
nearest to them, are formed out of the solid rock, like all the rest of
the monument, but the two centre columns, one of which has fallen, were
constructed separately, and were composed of three pieces each. The
colonnade is crowned with a pediment, above which are other ornaments,
which, if I distinguished them correctly, consisted of an insulated
cylinder crowned with a vase, standing between two other structures in
the shape of small temples, supported by short pillars. The entire
front, from the base of the columns to the top of the ornaments, may be
sixty or sixty-five feet. The architrave of the colonnade is adorned
with vases, connected together with festoons. The exterior wall of the
chamber at each end of the vestibule, which presents itself to the front
between the pilaster and the neighbouring column, was ornamented with
colossal figures in bas-relief; but I could not make out what they
represented. One of them appears to have been a female mounted upon an
animal, which, from the tail and hind leg, appears to have been a camel.
All the other ornaments sculptured on the monument are in perfect
preservation.
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