"It is doubtful if any building yet designed has attained the dramatic power of the hypostyle hall of the Egyptian temple. Hypostyles—the Greek root means 'resting on columns'—were man-made stone forests separating the temple's open court, where festivals and ceremonies took place, from the sanctuary, to which only kings and priests were admitted. (Egyptian temples did not provide for congregational worship.) The processional path through the hypostyle was a preparatory passage from this world to the next.

"The hypostyle of the Temple of Amun, the most prodigious ever erected, was finished by Rameses II (d. 1225 B.C.) as an extension of an existing temple that had its origins a thousand years earler and had experienced additions throughout its long life. This stone bastion of 134 columns delimits one side of the temple's Great Court and measures 338 feet wide by 170 feet deep. The columns defining the processional aisle are 69 feet high, the others 42 feet, the difference in height filled by a stone grille or clerestory. The entire hypostyle was originally roofed with slabs of stone: the effect of columns vanishing into darkness must have been spellbinding. We can bow to it today.

"...Architecture has rarely produced such titanic theater."

— from G.E. Kidder Smith. Looking at Architecture. p14.

Details

134 columns, 338 feet wide, 170 feet deep. The columns along the processional ailse are 69 feet tall, and the others are 42 feet.