THE RUINS OF MEROË.
Arrival at Bedjerowiyeh—The Ruins of Meroë—Walk Across the
Plain—The Pyramids—Character of their Masonry—The Tower
and Vault—Finding of the Treasure—The Second Group—More
Ruins—Site of the City—Number of the Pyramids—The Antiquity
of Meroë—Ethiopian and Egyptian Civilization—The Caucasian
Race—Reflections.
A light breeze sprang up soon after midnight, and when I arose, at
sunrise, we were approaching the village of Bedjerowiyeh. By the time
coffee was ready, the America was moored at the landing-place, and Raïs
Bakhid, who was familiar with all the localities, stood in waiting.
Achmet, with Beshir and another sailor, also accompanied me. We crossed
some fields of cotton and dookhn to the village, which was a cluster of
_tokuls_ or circular huts of mud and sticks, in a grove of sont trees.
The raïs tried to procure a donkey for me, but the people, who took me
for an Egyptian, and appeared very timorous and humble, denied having
any, although I saw two half-starved beasts among the trees. We therefore
set out on foot, toward a range of mountains, about five miles distant.
The discovery of the ruins of Meroë is of comparatively recent date,
and it is only within a very short time that their true character
and place in Ethiopian history have been satisfactorily established.
Hoskins, Cailliaud and Ferlini were the first to direct the attention of
antiquarians to this quarter, and the later and more complete researches
of Lepsius leave room for little more to be discovered concerning them.
It is remarkable that both Bruce and Burckhardt, who travelled by land
from Berber to Shendy, failed to see the ruins, which must have been
visible from the road they followed. The former, in fact, speaks of the
broken pedestals, carved stones and pottery which are scattered over the
plain, and sagely says. “It is impossible to avoid risking a guess that
this is the ancient city of Meroë”—but he does not mention the groups of
pyramids which are so conspicuous a feature in the landscape.
Our path led over a plain covered with thorny shrubs at first, but
afterwards hard black gravel, and we had not gone more than a mile
before the raïs pointed out the pyramids of the ancient Ethiopian city.
I knew it only from its mention in history, and had never read any
description of its remains; consequently I was surprised to see before
me, in the vapory morning air, what appeared to be the ruins of pylæ and
porticos, as grand and lofty as those of Karnak. Rising between us and
the mountains, they had an imposing effect, and I approached them with
excited anticipations. As we advanced, however, and the morning vapors
melted away, I found that they derived much of their apparent height
from the hill upon which they are built, and that, instead of being the
shattered parts of one immense temple, they were a group of separate
pyramids, standing amid the ruins of others which have been completely
destroyed.
We reached them after a walk of about four miles. They stand upon a
narrow, crescent-shaped hill, which rises forty or fifty feet from the
plain, presenting its convex front to the Nile, while toward the east its
hollow curve embraces a small valley lying between it and the mountain
range. Its ridge is crowned with a long line of pyramids, standing so
close to each other that their bases almost meet, but presenting no
regular plan or association, except in the direction of their faces.
None of them retains its apex, and they are all more or less ruined,
though two are perfect to within a few courses of the top. I climbed one
of the highest, from which I could overlook the whole group, as well as
another cluster, which crowned the summit of a low ridge at the foot of
the mountains opposite. Of those among which I stood, there were sixteen,
in different degrees of ruin, besides the shapeless stone-heaps of many
more. They are all built of fine red sandstone, in regular courses of
masonry, the spaces of which are not filled, or cased, as in the Egyptian
pyramids, except at the corners, which are covered with a narrow hem
or moulding, in order to give a smooth outline. The stones are about
eighteen inches high, and the recession of each course varies from two to
four inches, so that the height of the structure is always much greater
than the breadth of the base. A peculiarity of these pyramids is, that
the sides are not straight but curved lines, of different degrees of
convexity, and the breadth of the courses of stone is adjusted with the
utmost nicety, so as to produce this form. They are small, compared with
the enormous piles of Gizeh and Dashoor, but singularly graceful and
elegant in appearance. Not one of the group is more than seventy feet in
height, nor when complete could have exceeded one hundred.
All or nearly all have a small chamber attached to the exterior, exactly
against the centre of their eastern sides, but no passage leading into
the interior; and from the traces of Dr. Lepsius’s labors, by which I
plainly saw that he had attempted in vain to find an entrance, it is
evident that they are merely solid piles of masonry, and that, if they
were intended as tombs, the bodies were deposited in the outer chambers.
Some of these chambers are entire, except the roof, and their walls
are profusely sculptured with hieroglyphics, somewhat blurred and worn
down, from the effect of the summer rains. Their entrances resembled the
doorways of temples, on a miniature scale, and the central stones of two
of them were sculptured with the sacred winged globe. I saw on the jamb
of another a figure of the god Horus. The chambers were quite small,
and not high enough to allow me to stand upright. The sculptures have a
very different character from those in the tombs of Thebes, and their
resemblance to those of the Ptolemaic period was evident at the first
glance. The only cartouches of monarchs which I found were so obliterated
that I could not identify them, but the figure of one of the kings,
grasping in one hand the hair of a group of captives, while with the
other he lifts a sword to slay them, bears a striking resemblance to that
of Ptolemy Euergetes, on the pylon of the temple at Edfou. Many of the
stones in the vast heaps which lie scattered over the hills, are covered
with sculptures. I found on some the winged globe and scarabeüs, while
others retained the scroll or fillet which usually covers the sloping
corners of a pylon. On the northern part of the hill I found several
blocks of limestone, which exhibited a procession of sculptured figures
brilliantly colored.
The last structure on the southern extremity of the hill is rather a
tower than a pyramid, consisting of a high base or foundation, upon which
is raised a square building, the corners presenting a very slight slope
towards the top, which is covered with ruins, indicating that there was
originally another and narrower story upon it. When complete, it must
have borne considerable resemblance to the Assyrian towers, the remains
of which are found at Nineveh. On this part of the hill there are many
small detached chambers, all facing the east, and the remains of a large
building. Here Lepsius appears to have expended most of his labors, and
the heaps of stone and rubbish he has left behind him prevent one from
getting a very clear idea of the original disposition of the buildings.
He has quarried one of the pyramids down to its base, without finding
any chamber within or pit beneath it. My raïs, who was at a loss to
comprehend the object of my visit, spoke of Lepsius as a great Frank
astrologer, who had kept hundreds of the people at work for many days,
and at last found in the earth a multitude of chickens and pigeons,
all of solid gold. He then gave the people a great deal of backsheesh
and went away, taking the golden fowls with him. The most interesting
object he has revealed is a vaulted room, about twenty feet long, which
the raïs pointed out as the place where the treasures were found. It
is possible that he here referred to the discoveries made about twenty
years ago by Ferlini, who excavated a great quantity of rings and other
ornaments—Greek and Roman, as well as Ethiopian—which are now in the
Museum at Berlin. The ceiling of this vault is on the true principle of
the arch, with a keystone in the centre, which circumstance, as well
as the character of the sculptures, would seem to fix the age of the
pyramids at a little more than two thousand years.
I took a sketch of this remarkable cluster of ruins from their northern
end, and afterwards another from the valley below, whence each pyramid
appears distinct and separate, no one covering the other. The raïs and
sailors were puzzled what to make of my inspection of the place, but
finally concluded that I hoped to find a few golden pigeons, which the
Frank astrologer had not carried away. I next visited the eastern group,
which consists of ten pyramids, more or less dilapidated, and the ruined
foundations of six or eight more. The largest, which I ascended, consists
of thirty-five courses of stone, and is about fifty-three feet in height,
eight or ten feet of the apex having been hurled down. Each side of the
apex is seventeen paces, or about forty-two feet long, and the angle of
ascent is consequently much greater than in the pyramids of Egypt. On the
slope of the hill are the substructions of two or three large buildings,
of which sufficient remains to show the disposition of the chambers and
the location of the doorways. Towards the south, near where the valley
inclosed between the two groups opens upon the plain, are the remains
of other pyramids and buildings, and some large, fortress-like ruins
are seen on the summits of the mountains to the East. I would willingly
have visited them, but the wind was blowing fresh, and the raïs was
impatient to get back to his vessel. Many of the stones of the pyramids
are covered with rude attempts at sculpturing camels and horses; no
doubt by the Arabs, for they resemble a school-boy’s first drawings on
a slate—straight sticks for legs, squares for bodies, and triangles for
humps.
Leaving the ruins to the company of the black goats that were browsing
on the dry grass, growing in bunches at their eastern base, I walked
to another group of pyramids, which lay a mile and a half to the
south-west, towards the Nile. As we approached them, a herd of beautiful
gray gazelles started from among the stones and bounded away into the
Desert. “These were the tents of the poor people,” said the raïs,
pointing to the pyramids: “the Frank found no golden pigeons here.”
They were, in fact, smaller and more dilapidated than the others. Some
had plain burial chambers attached to their eastern sides, but the
sculptures were few and insignificant. There were sixteen in all, more
or less ruined. Scattering mounds, abounding with fragments of bricks
and building-stones, extended from these ruins nearly to the river’s
bank, a distance of more than two miles; and the foundations of many
other pyramids might be seen among them. The total number of pyramids
in a partial state of preservation—some being nearly perfect, while a
few retained only two or three of the lower courses—which I counted on
the site of Meroë, was _forty-two_. Besides these, I noticed the traces
of forty or fifty others, which had been wholly demolished. The entire
number, however, of which Meroë could boast, in its prime, was _one
hundred and ninety-six_. The mounds near the river, which cover an extent
of between one and two miles, point out the site of the city, the capital
of the old Hierarchy of Meroë, and the pyramids are no doubt the tombs of
its kings and priests. It is rather singular that the city has been so
completely destroyed, as the principal spoilers of Egypt, the Persians,
never penetrated into Ethiopia, and there is no evidence of the stones
having been used to any extent by the Arabs, as building materials.
The examination of Meroë has solved the doubtful question of an
Ethiopian civilization anterior to that of Egypt. Hoskins and Cailliaud,
who attributed a great antiquity to the ruins, were misled by the fact,
discovered by Lepsius, that the Ethiopian monarchs adopted as their own,
and placed upon their tombs the nomens of the earlier Pharaohs. It is now
established beyond a doubt, that, so far from being the oldest, these
are the latest remains of Egyptian art; their inferiority displays its
decadence, and not the rude, original type, whence it sprang. Starting
from Memphis, where not only the oldest Egyptian, but the oldest human
records yet discovered, are found, the era of civilization becomes
later, as you ascend the Nile. In Nubia, there are traces of Thothmes
and Amunoph III., or about fifteen centuries before the Christian era;
at Napata, the ancient capital of Ethiopia, we cannot get beyond King
Tirhaka, eight centuries later; while at Meroë, there is no evidence
which can fix the date of the pyramids earlier than the first, or at
furthest, the second century before Christ. Egypt, therefore, was not
civilized from Ethiopia, but Ethiopia from Egypt.
The sculptures at Meroë also establish the important fact that the
ancient Ethiopians, though of a darker complexion than the Egyptians
(as they are in fact represented, in _Egyptian_ sculpture), were, like
them, an offshoot of the great Caucasian race.[3] Whether they were
originally emigrants from Northern India and the regions about Cashmere,
as the Egyptians are supposed to have been, or, like the Beni Koreish
at a later period, crossed over from the Arabian Peninsula, is not so
easily determined. The theory of Pococke and other scholars, based on the
presumed antiquity of Meroë, that here was the first dawning on African
soil of that earliest Indian Civilization, which afterwards culminated at
Memphis and Thebes, is overthrown; but we have what is of still greater
significance—the knowledge that the highest Civilization, in every age of
the world, has been developed by the race to which we belong.
I walked slowly back to the boat, over the desolate plain, striving to
create from those shapeless piles of ruin the splendor of which they were
once a part. The sun, and the wind and the mountains, and the Nile, were
what they had ever been; but where the kings and priests of Meroë walked
in the pomp of their triumphal processions, a poor, submissive peasant
knelt before me with a gourd full of goat’s milk; and if I had asked
him when that plain had been inhabited, he would have answered me, like
Chidhar, the Prophet: “As thou seest it now, so has it been for ever!”