NONFICTION - June 2, 1991

MONUMENTS OF EGYPT by Eliot Porter (University of New Mexico Press: $40; 160 pp.). Best known for his photographs of Mexico and the American Southwest, Porter also spent time in another hot and dry (if totally unexpected) place. In the 1970s, he traveled to Egypt, concentrating on the New Kingdom structures near Thebes and the temples at Abu Simbel. His cool, precise, mysterious color photographs, showing both the gaudily painted interiors and striking exteriors (such as the ram-headed sphinxes from the Temple of Amun at Karnak, above), are simultaneously beautiful and unnerving, emphasizing the sense of awe and power that clings to these exquisite places.