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The small speos of Hathor, about a hundred paces to the northward, is of smaller dimensions. The façade is adorned with six standing colossi, four representing Rameses II., and two his wife, Nefertari. The hypostyle hall, however, is supported by six Hathor-headed pillars.
The so-called tombs of "Beni Hasan," the Enchantress Isis stopped for us to see, in order that we might admire wall-paintings in rock chambers, and gabble about Queen Hatasu or King Seti and his mother Pakhet, the "Beautiful Lady of the Speos." But it was difficult to rouse emotion concerning things which we glided by without visiting.
The fine colossi in red granite which Horemheb placed against the uprights of the inner door of his first pylon at Karnak, the bas-reliefs on the walls of his speos at Silsilis, his own portrait and that of one of the ladies of his family now in the museum of Gizeh, are, so to say, spotless and faultless.
Cats were embalmed, and innumerable cat mummies have been discovered in wooden coffins at Bubastis, Speos, Artemidos and Thebes. When a cat died the Egyptians shaved their eyebrows, not only to show grief at the loss of their loved one, but to avert subsequent misfortune.
The other lioness goddesses are probably likewise destructive or hunting deities. The lesser felidae also appear; the cheetah and serval are sacred to Hathor in Sinai; the small cats are sacred to Bast, especially at Speos Artemidos and Bubastis. The bull was sacred in many places, and his worship underlay that of the human gods, who were said to be incarnated in him.
Several exhausted or abandoned quarries have been transformed into votive chapels; as, for instance, the Speos Artemidos, which was consecrated by Hatshepsut, Thothmes III. and Seti I. to the local goddess Pakhet. The most important limestone quarries are at Tûrah and Massarah, nearly opposite Memphis.
All varieties of the constructed temple are found in the rock-cut temple, though more or less modified by local conditions. The Speos Artemidos is approached by a pillared portico, but contains only a square chamber with a niche at the end for the statue of the goddess Pakhet. From this gallery, the sanctuary chamber opens at right angles.
Loftie's collection contains, however, an interesting piece of trial-work consisting of the head of a Ptolemaic queen in red granite. For pigments used at the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty, see Petrie's Medum. The rose-coloured, or rather crimson, flesh-tints are also to be seen at El Kab, and in the famous speos at Beit el Wally, both tempo Nineteenth Dynasty.
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