THE RATIONALE OF THE MONUMENTS.
Jamque opus exegi, quod non Jovis ira, nec ignes,
Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas;
... nomenque erit indelebile nostrum.—OVID.
It was for us a piece of great good fortune that the mighty Pharaohs
of old Egypt felt to an heroic, almost sublime, degree the narrow,
selfish, oriental desire to perpetuate their names, and the memory of
their greatness. Of course, this was connected very closely with the
traditional, primitive idea that great kings were not as other men.
They were of the materials of which gods had been made. Were they not,
indeed, already objects of worship to their subjects? Were they not
already received into the family of the gods? It is to these feelings
that we are indebted for the possession of one of the earliest—and not
least interesting—chapters in the records of our race. We have at this
day precisely what, four or five thousand years ago, they deliberately
contrived means for our having; and we have it all written in a fashion
which indicates, through the very characters used, much of the artistic
peculiarities, and even of the moral condition, and of the daily life,
of those who inscribed it. There is nothing in the history of mankind
which combines such magnitude, such far-reaching design, and such wise
provision of means for the purpose in view, crowned, as time has shown,
with such complete success. Some circumstances and accidents, such as the
climate of the country, the materials with which they had to work, and
the point the arts they had to employ had then reached, happily conspired
to aid them; but this does not deprive them of the credit of having
turned everything they used to the best account with the utmost skill,
and the most long-sighted sagacity.
The question they proposed to themselves was—How the memory of their
greatness, and of their achievements, might be preserved eternally. There
was the method we know was practised by the Assyrians, the Persians, and
the Hebrews. They might have caused to be recorded what they pleased
in chronicles of their reigns, written in whatever was the ordinary
character, and on whatever were the ordinary materials. There can be
little doubt but that this was done. Such records, however, did not
give sufficient promise of the eternity they desired. All materials for
writing were perishable. Great national overthrows might occur, and
all written documents might be destroyed. The language in which they
were written might change, and even the memory of it die out. Written
documents, too, in order that the record might be preserved, must be
transcribed. Here were opportunities for omissions and alterations.
These objections were conclusive against trusting exclusively to written
documents. We can now see that if the old Pharaohs had relied only on
such records as these, very little would at this day be known about them,
or ancient Egypt. What we now know would have occurred, fully justifies
their prescience: just as well as we know now, after the event, what
would have been, they knew, before the event, what would be.
They, therefore, devised another method—that both of inscribing, and of
sculpturing, on stone what they had to record. This was a material which
might be so used as to be practically imperishable. What was written on
this would not require to be rewritten from time to time. The work might
be so done as to bid fair to survive national overthrows. It might be
read by any man’s eyes, although the language of Egypt might be lost. The
sculptures, at all events, would be partially understood.
But in order to secure the advantages which might be found in the
adoption of this method, certain conditions were necessary, a want of
foresight, or neglect of which would render the attempt futile. The
building on which the records were to be engraved, and sculptured, must
be of such a size as to supply sufficient wall-space for the whole of
the chronicles of the king’s reign, and for all the scenes, religious or
secular, he might wish, from their connexion with himself, to depict and
perpetuate. This, it is obvious, would necessitate very large buildings.
They must, also, be so constructed as to be able to withstand all the
accidents, and adverse circumstances, to which they might, in the course
of ages, be exposed. No buildings that men had hitherto considered most
solid and magnificent would fulfil these conditions. They all in time,
from one cause or another, had become dilapidated. A double problem was
thus presented to them: first, how to get sufficient wall-space, and then
to get this sufficiency on buildings exempt from all the ordinary, and
even most of the extraordinary, chances of destruction. The first was
easily answered. The building—or if it be a tomb, the excavation—must
be enlarged to the required dimensions. The second was more difficult.
They answered it by the character they gave to the architecture. The
smaller the stones of which a building is constructed, the smaller its
chances of longevity: the larger its stones, the greater its chances. The
stones, for instance, might be so small, that any one who, in times when
the building might be deprived of all natural guardians, happened to want
such pieces, might carry them off on his donkey, or, if larger, on his
camel, to burn for lime, or to use for the walls of a house or enclosure.
Stones, even of considerable size, might easily be thrown down, and cut
up, to serve the purposes of those who could command the amount of labour
always at the disposal of any well-to-do person; but it was possible
to imagine stones used of so great a size that it would require such
expensive tackle, and so many hands, to throw them down, that it would
be as cheap, in most instances, to go directly to the quarry, and cut
out for one’s self what was wanted. It was, too, hoped that there would
be some indisposition to destroy such grand structures, for massiveness
appeals to the thought of even the most uninstructed. Now, this was just
what the Pharaohs of old Egypt foresaw, and acted on. They built with
stones, which could not be removed, except by those who could command
something like the amount of labour, machinery, and funds they themselves
employed in raising them, and who might find it profitable to employ
their resources in this way. The wisdom of the prevision was proved
when the Persians were in complete possession of the land, and in their
iconoclastic zeal, and hatred of the religion of Egypt, would, if they
could have readily managed it, not have left one stone upon another in
any temple throughout the Valley of the Nile.
This method of building also reduced to a minimum the number of joints.
This was, in more ways than one, a great gain. Many joints would have
interfered very materially with the sculptures and wall-writing; and to
have these in as perfect a form as possible was the great object. That
the masonry had many joints would also, sooner or later, have led to
the displacement of stones, which would have mutilated the record; and
eventually have brought about the ruin both of it, and of the building
itself. When we see how careful Egyptian architects were in making the
joints as fine as possible, so that the stones of a building are often
found to be as accurately fitted together as if it were jewellers’ work,
and not masonry; and when we observe that the further precaution is
sometimes taken of covering the joints of the roof with stone splines, in
order to minimize the corroding effects of air and wet, we may be sure
that they would be predisposed to adopt a style of building, which would
very much reduce the number of joints.
The thoughts and motives I have been attributing to these old builders
will account for another fact, that needs explanation. The ancient
Egyptians were familiar with the principle, and use of the arch. We find
in the temple-palace of the great Rameses a crude brick arch, every
brick of which contains his name. On the same grounds we must assign
another brick arch in this neighbourhood to Amunoph, one of the great
builders of the preceding dynasty. There are, too, frequent instances
of it in tombs of a still earlier date; but we do not find it in their
grand structures. There is no difficulty in divining the reason. It was
unsuitable to the purpose they had in view. For the reasons I have given
they had decided on using enormous blocks of stone. Arches thus heavily
loaded would have been subject to unequal subsidence, which would have
been derangement—probably, destruction—to them; and they knew that the
arch, in consequence of the lateral thrust, is a form of construction
that never sleeps. Hence their conception and formation of a style—for
they did not borrow it—which was confined to horizontal and perpendicular
lines.
That it was their intention to use their walls for historical and
descriptive sculptures and writing, precisely in the same way in which we
use a canvas for a picture, or a sheet of paper for writing, or printing,
is undoubted, because every square foot of space of this kind they had
created, in the great buildings they erected, is invariably used in
this way. And that this, and the other motives I have assigned, decided
them in employing such enormous blocks of stone, is equally undoubted,
because they are obvious reasons, and no other reason can be imagined
for inducing them to go to so much expense. The size of the building was
decided by the amount of wall-space they required for the records they
wished to place upon it; and the size of the stones by their estimate of
what would be sufficient to ensure their record against the destroying
hand, both of time and of man. Had the arts of printing, and of making
cheap durable materials to print upon, been known in those days, these
monuments would never have been constructed: the motive would have been
wanting.
Two methods were used for presenting the record to the eye,
hieroglyphical writing and sculpture. Here, again, the idea that
originated the monument is manifested. Those who could not understand
the writing would be able to understand, at all events, the sculptures.
The time might come when none would understand the writing, then the
sculptures might still be depended on confidently for supplying the
desired record. If the object was any other than that of securing an
eternal record, why adopt these two methods? If it had been merely
decoration that was in their thoughts, the sculptures would have been
enough.
The question has often been asked—Why the rock tombs of the kings, and of
others, were excavated to such a surprising extent? Their extent presents
so much difficulty to some minds, that one of our best known engineers,
who is also quite familiar with them, tells me that he cannot believe
but that they were originally merely stone quarries; and that the kings,
and sometimes wealthy subjects, finding them ready made, converted them
into tombs. We may, however, be quite sure that the Egyptians never
would have gone up into the mountains to the valley of the kings, to
quarry limestone in descending galleries, two or three hundred feet long,
when every step that they had taken for the previous two or three miles
had been over limestone equally good. Nor would they have made such
multitudes of quarries subterranean, and of precisely the dimensions
and character that fitted them for tombs. What, indeed, was the fashion
in which they worked their quarries, we see at Silsiléh, and elsewhere.
The true answer is that they made these sepulchral excavations of such
enormous extent for just the same reason that they constructed their
temples and palaces of such vast dimensions. They would not have answered
the purpose for which they were wanted had they been less. Wall-space was
required for recording all that an active prince in a long and eventful,
or prosperous, reign had done; and all that he wished to be known about
himself, his pursuits, his amusements, and his relations to the gods.
And just as, if it had been possible to put it all in print, a great
deal of paper would have been needed, so, when put in hieroglyphics and
sculptures, there was required a proportionate amount of wall-space. So
also with private individuals. If Petamenap could have written memoirs
of himself, and had a thousand copies struck off, and sent one to be
deposited in each of several great public libraries, he would have been
content with less than three-quarters of a mile of wall-space in his
tomb. Under the circumstances, then, what we find is just what we might
have expected. There is nothing wonderful, considering the motive, in
the extent of these excavations. The excavated tombs of Jews, Edomites,
Greeks, Etruscans, and many other people were not larger than was
necessary for the becoming interment of the corpse. If the Egyptians had
had only the same object, and no other, their excavations would have been
of the same size.
Of course the idea of suggesting the greatness of the gods by the
greatness of the houses that had been built for them, and of regarding
the temple as an offering, which became worthy of its object in
proportion to its vastness and costliness, could not have been wanting
in Egypt. Nor could there have been wanting among the priest class
the additional idea that the greatness of the temple is reflected on
those who minister in, and direct its services. All this may be readily
acknowledged; still such ideas will not justify, or account for the
unusual dimensions of these temples, or for the still more unusual
dimensions of the stones of which they are constructed. Everything has a
reason. And in an especial degree must particulars of this kind, which
involved so great an expenditure of time and labour, have had a distinct
and sufficient reason; and that could have been no other than the one I
have assigned for them. Of course, the vast dimensions of the rock-tombs
must be considered in conjunction with the vast dimensions of the
temples. What made the rock-tombs of Egypt larger than other rock-tombs
made the temples of Egypt larger than other temples: and that was the
desire of their excavators and builders to secure a vast expanse of
wall-space fit for such mural sculptures, paintings, and inscriptions as
we now find upon them.
The obelisks, also, come under the same category. They were books,
on which were inscribed the particulars those who set them up wished
them to record. Herodotus mentions that stelæ and figures, both with
inscriptions, were set up by Sesostris (Sethos and Rameses in one)
in Syria, Asia Minor, and elsewhere. The object in view here also
was, of course, mainly to have something to write upon. Where the
commander-in-chief of a modern army would use a gazette, or posters, for
his manifestoes, Sesostris inscribed what he had to say to the people of
the country on the face of a rock, or upon a statue of himself he had set
for that purpose.