Note 57 — Chapter XII · PHILÆ.

The famous capitals are not the only specimens of admirable coloring in Philæ. Among the battered bas-reliefs of the great colonnade at the south end of the island there yet remain some isolated patches of uninjured and very lovely ornament. See, more particularly, the mosaic pattern upon the throne of a divinity just over the second doorway in the western wall; and the designs upon a series of other thrones a little farther along toward the north, all most delicately drawn in uniform compartments, picked out in the three primary colors, and laid on in flat tints of wonderful purity and delicacy. Among these a lotus between two buds, an exquisite little sphinx on a pale-red ground, and a series of sacred hawks, white upon red, alternating with white upon blue, all most exquisitely conventionalized, may be cited as examples of absolutely perfect treatment and design in polychrome decoration. A more instructive and delightful task than the copying of these precious fragments can hardly be commended to students and sketchers on the Nile.