Two Colossal Statues of Rameses II.
History of Those Remarkable Relics of Antiquity.
Hypostyle Hall a Wonder of the World.
Other Interesting Things To Be Seen In Egypt.
Basle, Switzerland, March 25.
The Pyramids of Sakkara may easily be visited front Gizeh by donkey, but having deferred this visit for another day, we took the train for Bedrashen and from there went over the desert. This little village was formerly the centre of Old Memphis, the famous capital of ancient times, built of sun-dried bricks, made out of Nile mud, Memphis stood on the borders of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms, and was founded by Menes, the head of the First Dynasty, about four thousand years before Christ. The narrow streets of this large city were a half a day’s journey long and extended as far as Gizeh, its several quarters being known as the “South Wall,” the “White Wall,” and the “House of the Spirit of Ptah.”
But as Thebes rose Memphis declined. It was a shining mark for Cambyses, who took it by storm, and it competed for a season with Alexandria; and, at the time of Augustus, though many of its buildings were laid low, it was still a populous city. The Mohammedans appropriated a large part of its ruins when they built their mosques and dwellings on the right side of the Nile, but its vastness could not be used up in a moment and up to the 12th century it is said to have been a wonderland; finally, however, every stone was taken to make Cairo the beautiful city it is today.
The first of the sights of Sakkara are the two colossal statues of Rameses II., a historical figure whom we shall have occasion to many times mention, and remember as a very busy man, judging from the number of temples built and the wondrous deeds he celebrated in tombs and temples. These statues seem immense until one has visited Upper Egypt; but since they are only twenty five and forty feet in height respectively, they are comparatively little. The cartouche of Rameses II., that is an eliptical oval containing his name in groups of Egyptian characters, is imprinted on the shoulder and breast while the girdle is adorned with hawks’ heads. These statues used to stand in front of a temple of Ptah. Many antiquities have been discovered in the vicinity which the depth of the deposit indicate to be at least four thousand years old.
Through palm-groves and villages our donkeys took us in a scorching wind, which in Egypt always fills the atmosphere with sand, and passing the great Step Pyramid, we found ourselves in the ancient Necropolis.
These tombs are celebrated for their artistic beauty as well as for being the oldest in Egypt excepting the Pyramids. Among the most famous and the earliest is the Apis Tomb, the subterranean part of the Serapeum. Apis was the sacred bull of the God Ptah. It was thought, that his soul was restored to the God Osiris as Osiris Apis, who became a “God of the Dead,” and the “Lord of the Western Land,” and was afterwards worshiped as Serapis. Hence the Serapeum, the cells of which for years were inhabited by a colony of hermits, the prototypes of the monk centuries after. After death the Sacred Bull was embalmed and interred with great pomp. This Sacred Bull was black with white spots and wore on his forehead a triangle and on his right side a crescent. In this same way the jackal was sacred to the God Anubis, the ibis of Thout and the sparrow hawk to Homs the son of Osiris and Isis; while later the worship of the sacred animals was carried even farther.
The Apis mummies were deposited in sarcophagi, hewn out of a block of red granite; but these are now all empty but two.
The Mastaba of Thy is another remarkable tomb of the 5th Dynasty and has many splendid mural reliefs. Excepting the human figure, these are true to nature, and even recall the occupations of the present day. These domestic scenes and articles of household use are painted on the walls of the chambers of the dead in order to keep them in touch with the home life they have temporarily left behind. For many years only the kings had magnificent tombs, other people being buried in graves together with the articles which had sustained life; but after a time all who could afford it also had tombs, hence the great number in Upper Egypt. “Thy” himself was architect to the King, and he is here in a long wig and short broad apron, holding a staff in one hand and a club in the other, while in one relief his wife is represented with him. The reliefs are more numerous than in any other Egyptian tomb, and the work is considered the masterpiece of Egyptian art.
But this wonderland of tombs of forty centuries ago, still in good condition, are too numerous to mention. They illustrate in a startling degree how the longing of the soul for something tangible with which to grasp immortality, was as keen in ages past as that of today.
After all the avenues of study open to the scholar in Egypt, in architecture, in history of Old Testament times, and in all one may learn of geology, plants, animals and climate the study of the people is most interesting. This is largely due to the fact that every phase of Oriental existence except with reference to their domestic affairs is open to the outside world. The little mud hut and open court—for every building, even the old tombs, has to have a court, vestibule, and one or two inner chambers—is only a shelter against the noon day sun and the cold nights of this tropical clime, their life in general being in the open air. This freedom is reflected in their faces and unrestrained bearing.
As you pass into Upper Egypt it is the Fellah—in modern times often a well-to do farmer, owning cattle—you see working in the field in his long, blue jean frock; or sometimes all day long he is drawing water from a deep pool or well, and emptying it into the various little canals dug through the field for irrigating purposes.
It is the stalwart, bronze-hued native with a kingly bearing whom you see in the distance, repairing canals or digging new ones, clothed in the garb of Eden, unhampered by a thought of last year’s style or the present cut of garment. But he usually wears a turban. This turban is a long strip of cloth, differing in color according to some dividing line of tribe or clan, and wound around the head into an artistic headgear. The descendants of the Prophet wear white turbans, the Mecca pilgrims green, the clergy a light-colored turban, the orthodox length being seven times that of the head; that is the length of his body, in order that he may afterwards wear it as a winding sheet.
The Sheik always wears a long straight coat over the loose garment surmounted by a fez or turban. He supports a grizzly grey beard and is the chief over a village squad of donkey boys, or the head of any organization, and is the umpire in all disputes.
To the European the tamed Bedouin is a far more interesting product than the Fellah, since he is less taciturn and seeks out the haunts of strangers. He has for his stock-in-trade a considerable stock of English, which does great credit to American Mission school teaching, by means of which, a well trained set of dragomen are springing up in Upper Egypt. When the season is over, they spend the long hot days of summer in the study of the old temples, comparing the hieroglyphics with Baedecker, so that these mysterious signs become wonderful revelations to the traveler.
At present the Nile by the first of February is so low that the tourist boats and steamers stick in the sand for hours so that many a traveler loses the sight of some important temple or is obliged to see it by torchlight. Accordingly, at least in one direction tourists are advised to take the cars, which except for the desert sand, sifting into every crack and cranny, prove very comfortable conveyances. We were warned to take all the wraps and rugs at our command; but since we had been told that muslin dresses, shirt waists and the thinnest kind of bonnets were the things for Egypt, it had never occurred to us to load ourselves with buffalo robes and seal skins. But before the long night was over we appreciated the advice. An hour after sunset the heated atmosphere in the cars from the tropical sun pelting down all day or the roof, had departed and by midnight our teeth began to chatter; and before morning everything among our belongings that had a fibre of woolen in it and all that we could borrow from more provident people was brought to the rescue in order to keep the breath of life within us. Before we left the train at Luxor, how ever, at about ten o’clock in the morning the sun was as broiling as ever.
The feeling you have when you stand before the Temple of Luxor that at last you are in the presence of constructions extant before Greek Art was born, is indescribable. The very first sight of the Pylon before the Great Court of Rameses II., with his mammoth statues standing in front, and he himself and queen—the daughter of a Hittite King—sitting each side of the door way of the Great Colonnade and the long stories of his wars written in hieroglyphics, is most bewildering.
Luxor was under a heap of rubbish for many hundreds of years and it is now less than a quarter of a century since these beautiful columns, courts and colonnades were brought to the light of day. The reliefs in the walls of the latter represent great festivals on New Year’s Day, when the sacred boats of the gods were brought by way of the Nile from Karnak to Luxor returning in the evening. The ruins stand beneath the level of the village street, a mosque still occupying a part of the Great Hall, since the poor moslems are waiting for a large sum before they will consent to give it up.
From a distance, especially from the Nile, the ruins of Luxor make a finer display than any of Upper Egypt. The Temple was built by Amenophis III, and was added to by his great grandson, Thutmosis III., while the great-grandson of the latter, the mightiest of the Architect Pharoahs, Rameses II., greatly enhanced its beauty, as is seen by his magnificent Pylon and Court. The companion to the great obelisk which stands in front of the Temple is the one in the Place de la Concorde in Paris.
The two Egyptian kingdoms hitherto hostile to each other were united under Menes and the arms were formed by the Lily and Papyrus the symbolical plants of Upper and Lower Egypt. The King, who styled himself “Lord of Both Lands,” wore a double tiara, the white for the north and the red for the south.
But the object of our long journey was to explore the great temples at Karnak, which are twenty minutes distance on foot or by donkey from the village of Luxor. In olden times an avenue of ramsheaded Sphinxes connected the two temples, and beyond were the streets of ancient Thebes interspersed by the residences, groves and sacred lakes, and near the mountains were the houses of the embalmers. On the way thither you are importuned by a small army of natives begging for Baksheesh; but this seems only a harmless amusement since they really expect nothing.
The ruins of Karnak strike you at first an inextricable mass of confusion; but when you make up your mind that the great Temple of Ammon is to be the centre of all your attention, you for the moment ignore the less interesting features, and only stop to admire the great Pylon before the Temple of Khons, where you show your ticket which has cost you just exactly five dollars. Passing rapidly through the Court and Balls of Khons, you see a little in the distance, the Great Court of the Temple of Ammon.
All that the imagination has pictured, or the prints in the books of architecture have shown, or the photo of the day has presented, nothing can give a true idea of the magnificence of this great temple which used to be called the “Throne of the World.” From the Middle Empire which lasted from about 2200 to 1601 B. C., all the Pharaohs delighted to add to its majesty and greatness, the foundation of the Temple being ascribed to the first king of the 18th Dynasty. From the top of the Great Pylon we get a view of the whole ruins and of the country for many miles around. On one side are many other pylons and directly in front of you the great court, in which only one of six columns remains perfect, with the lotus flower for the capital.
The large Hypostyle Hall may be considered one of the wonders of the world, the grand outlines of its majestic columns, covered with hieroglyphics, so familiar to everybody, from splendid photographs, strike the beholder with awe and astonishment; the reality so far surpasses the fondest dreams. There are lofty figures of gods and kings amongst rows and rows of colossal columns, there being one hundred and thirty-four arranged in sixteen rows. The first row are papyrus columns with calyx capitals while the two central rows have bud capitals. As you look from the door of the second pylon, the immense size of this temple compared with every other structure in the world is most apparent. Some of the columns are half leaning, some architraves ready to fall, and yet so far as artistic effect is concerned the whole is in a state of complete preservation. The idea of the great space between the pillars can better be realized when we are informed that the Notre Dame in Paris could be contained in the area of this great Hypostlye Hall.
After this even the obelisks seem small and the wonderful court with its columns tapering downward with inverted calyxes for bases, seems nothing out of the usual course. The largest obelisk in the world, now in front of St. John Lateran in Rome, was taken from the midst of this confusion of Temples and the largest in Egypt now stands there alone.
At last we left all this grandeur and magnificence behind, and went home in the early moonlight, leaving the huge columns casting their dark black shadows and taking with us ineffaceable impressions, which will make all other sights in the world hereafter seem but pigmies.
A. H. G.
The Portland Daily Press, Portland, ME, April 27, 1901