shape of the Doum, or Theban palm-leaf, is of colossal size: that is,
far larger than all the other warriors, standing up in a car drawn by
two horses. His helmet is adorned with a globe with a serpent on each
side. He is in the act of shooting an arrow from a bow which is full
stretched; around him are quivers, and at his feet is a lion in the
act of rushing forward. There is a great deal of life and spirit in
the form and attitude of the horses, which are in full gallop,
feathers waving over their heads, and the reins lashed round the body
of the conqueror. Under the wheels of the car, and under the horses’
hoofs and bellies, are crowds of the slain; some stretched on the
ground, others falling. On the enemy’s side, horses in full speed
with empty cars,—others heedless of the rein, and all at last rushing
headlong down a precipice into a broad and deep river which washes
the walls of the town. The expression is exceedingly good; and
nowhere has the artist shown more skill than in two groups, in one of
which the horses having arrived at the edge of the precipice,
instantly fall down; and the driver clinging with one hand to the
car, the reins and whip falling from the other,—his body, trembling
with despair, is about to be hurled over the backs of the horses. In
the other, the horses still find a footing on the side of the hill,
and are hurrying forward their drivers to inevitable destruction;
these throw themselves back upon the car in vain. Some that are yet
unwounded pray for mercy on their knees, and others in their flight
cast behind a look of anxious entreaty; their limbs, their eyes, and
their hands, sufficiently declare their fears. The breathless horses
are admirable,—whether fainting from loss of blood, or rearing up and
plunging in the excess of torture. Immediately in front of the
conqueror are several cars in full speed for the walls of the town;
but even in these the charioteers and men-of-war are not safe from
the arrows shot from his unerring bow, and when wounded they look
back on their pursuer as they fall. Further on, more fortunate
fugitives are passing the river; in which are mingled horses,
chariots, arms, and men, expressed in the most faithful manner,
floating or sunk. Some have already reached the opposite bank where
their friends, who are drawn up in order of battle, but venture not
to go out to the fight, drag them to the shore. Others, having
escaped by another road, are entering the gates of the town amid the
shrieks and lamentation of those within. Towers, ramparts, and
battlements, are crowded with inhabitants, who are chiefly bearded
old men and women. A party of the former are seen sallying forth,
headed by a youth whose different dress, and high turban, mark him
out as some distinguished chieftain. On each side of the town are
large bodies of infantry, and a great force of chariots issuing out
of the gates, and advancing seemingly by different routes to attack
the besiegers.
“The impetuosity, with which the hero of the picture has moved, has
already carried him far beyond the main body of his own army, and he
is there alone amid the dying and the slain—victims of his valour and
prowess. Behind this scene, the two lines of the enemy join their
forces, and attack in a body the army of the invaders, which advances
to meet them in a regular line. ‘Besides the peculiarities of the
incidents recorded in this interesting piece of sculpture,’ says Mr.
Hamilton, ‘we evidently traced a distinction between the short
dresses of the Egyptians and the long robes of their Oriental
enemies; whether Indians, Persians, or Bactrians; the uncovered and
the covered heads; the different forms of the cars, of which the
Egyptian contains two, and the others three warriors; and above all,
the difference of the arms.’
“At one extremity of the west wing of the gateway, the beginning of
this engagement appears to be represented; the same monarch being
seen at the head of his troops, advancing against the double line of
the enemy, and first breaking their ranks. At the other extremity of
the same wing the conqueror is seated on his throne after the
victory, holding a sceptre in his left hand, and enjoying the cruel
spectacle of eleven of the principal chieftains among his captives
lashed together in a row, with a rope about their necks: the foremost
stretches out his arms for pity, and in vain implores a reprieve from
the fate of his companions: close to him is the twelfth, on his
knees, just going to be put to death by the hands of two
executioners. Above them is the captive sovereign, tied with his
hands behind him to a car, to which two horses are harnessed; these
are checked from rushing onward by the attendant, till the monarch
shall mount and drag behind him the unfortunate victim of his
triumphs. Behind the throne different captives are suffering death in
various ways; some held by the executioner by the hair of their head;
others dragged by chariots or slain by the arrow or the scimitar.
There is then the conqueror’s camp, round which are placed his
treasures, and where the servants prepare a feast to celebrate his
victory.
“We have described these sculptures at length, because they are
undoubtedly one of the greatest of the many wonders of Thebes, and
because in no other manner could we convey to our readers a proper
notion of their merits.”
The following observations are by Lord Lindsay:—
“We visited the Temples of Luxor and Carnac. The former is a most
magnificent pile, architecturally considered, but otherwise the least
interesting of the four great temples of Thebes. You originally
entered between four gigantic statues of Rameses the Great, and two
superb obelisks, of which one only remains;—the French have carried
off his brother, and every lover of antiquity must regret their
separation. The obelisks, statues, and pyramidal towers, were
additions by Rameses to the original edifice, founded by Amunoph the
Third. From the propyla and obelisks of this temple an avenue,
guarded by sphinxes, facing each other, extended northwards, to the
great temple of Jupiter Ammon at Carnac; meeting it at right angles,
the latter extending from west to east. The road we followed lay
nearer the river, and led us through a comparatively small temple of
Isis, that would have detained us longer in a less attractive
neighbourhood, into the great court of Jupiter Ammon’s temple, the
noblest ruin at Thebes. A stupendous colonnade, of which one pillar
only remains erect, once extended across this court, connecting the
western propylon or gate of entrance, built by Sesostris, with that
at its eastern extremity, leading to the grand hall of Osirei, and
the sanctuary. We ascended the former;—the avenue of sphinxes,
through which the god returned, in solemn procession, to his shrine
at Carnac, after his annual visit to the Libyan suburb, ascends to it
from the river,—the same avenue traversed age after age by the
conqueror, the poet, the historian, the lawgiver, the
philosopher,—Sesostris, Cambyses, Homer, Herodotus, Thales,
Anaxagoras, Solon, Pythagoras, Plato,—and now the melancholy song of
an Arab boy was the only sound that broke the silence; but that poor
boy was the representative of an older and a nobler race than that of
the Pharaohs. Long did we gaze on the scene around and below
us—utter, awful desolation! Truly, indeed, has NO been ‘rent
asunder!’ The towers of the second or eastern propylon are mere heaps
of stones, ‘poured down’—as prophecy and modern travellers describe
the foundations of Samaria—into the court on one side, and the great
hall on the other;—giant columns have been swept away like reeds
before the mighty avalanche, and one hardly misses them. And that
hall, who could describe it? Its dimensions, one hundred and seventy
feet by three hundred and twenty-nine,—the height of the central
avenue of columns sixty-six feet, exclusive of their pedestals,—the
total number of columns that supported its roof one hundred and
thirty-four. These particulars may give you some idea of its extent;
but of its grandeur and beauty—none. Every column is sculptured, and
all have been richly painted. The exterior walls, too, are a
sculptured history of the wars of Osirei and Rameses. Except those at
Beit Wellee I have seen nothing in Egypt that would interest so much.
In one corner, of especial interest, are represented the Jews
captured by Shishak, and their king Rehoboam, with the hieroglyphical
inscription ‘Jehouda Melek,’ the king of the Jews. This is the only
reference to the Israelites found in Egyptian sculpture. Many have
wondered at finding no allusions to their residence in Egypt; but I
think without cause; for, except the pyramids, the tombs in their
vicinity, those of Beni Hassan, and a few other remains, of but
little interest, I do not believe that any monuments exist, coeval
with Moses and the Exodus.”
The remains of this temple are thus described by Denon:—
“Of the hundred columns of the portico alone, the smallest are seven
feet and a half in diameter, and the largest twelve; the space
occupied by the circumvallation of the temple contains lakes and
mountains. In short, to be enabled to form a competent idea of so
much magnificence, the reader ought to fancy what is before him to be
a dream; as he who views the objects themselves rubs his eyes to know
whether he is awake. The avenue leading from Karnac to Luxor, a space
nearly half a league in extent, contains a constant succession of
sphinxes and other chimerical figures to the right and left, together
with fragments of stone walls, of small columns, and of statues.”
“The most ancient remains,” says Mr. Wilkinson, “now existing at Thebes,
are unquestionably in the great temple of Karnac, the largest and most
splendid ruin[273] of which, perhaps, either ancient or modern times can
boast; being the work of a number of successive monarchs, each anxious
to surpass his predecessor, by increasing the dimensions and proportions
of the part he added.
“It is this fact which enables us to account for the diminutive size of
the older parts of this extensive building; and their comparatively
limited scale offering greater facility, as their vicinity to the
sanctuary greater temptation, to an invading army to destroy them, added
to their remote antiquity, are to be attributed their dilapidated state;
as well as the total disappearance of the sculptures executed during the
reigns of the Pharaohs, who preceded Osirtesen I., the cotemporary of
Joseph, and the earliest monarch whose name exists on the monuments of
Thebes[274].”
Speaking of this magnificent edifice, and of the vast sphinxes and other
figures, Belzoni says:—“I had seen the temple of Tentyra, and I still
acknowledge that nothing can exceed that edifice in point of
preservation, and the beauty of its workmanship and sculpture. But here
I was lost in a mass of colossal objects, every one of which was more
than sufficient of itself to attract my whole attention. How can I
describe my sensations at that moment? I seemed alone in the midst of
all that is most sacred in the world; a forest of enormous columns from
top to bottom; the graceful shape of the lotus, which forms their
capitals, and is so well proportioned to the columns; the gates, the
walls, the pedestals, the architraves, also adorned in every part with
symbolical figures in low-relief, representing battles, processions,
triumphs, feasts, and sacrifices, all relating to the ancient history of
the country; the sanctuary wholly formed of fine red granite; the high
portals, seen at a distance from the openings, of ruins of the other
temples, within sight;—these altogether had such an effect upon my
soul, as to separate me, in imagination, from the rest of mortals, exalt
me on high above all, and cause me to forget entirely the trifles and
follies of life. I was happy for a whole day, which escaped like a flash
of lightning.”
Here stood, and does now stand, a fragment of the famous vocal statue of
Memnon, which, many writers attest, sent forth harmonious sounds, when
first touched of a morning by the rays of the sun. The circumstance
being attested by Strabo, Pliny, Juvenal, Pausanias, Tacitus, and
Philostratus, it is assuredly not to be doubted. The first injury this
statue received was from Cambyses; who ordered it to be sawed in two, in
order to get at the secret. It was afterwards thrown down by an
earthquake.
Some have supposed, that the sounds alluded to were produced by the
mechanical impulse of the sun’s light. Others that, being hollow, the
air was driven out by the rarefaction of the morning, which occasioned
the elicitation of a murmuring sound. But some assert, that it saluted
the morning and evening sun differently;—the former with animating
sounds; the latter with melancholy ones. Darwin, in the true spirit of
poetry, describes this statue as sending forth murmurs of indignation at
the ravages of Cambyses:—
Prophetic whispers breathed from sphinx’s tongue;
And Memnon’s lyre with hollow murmurs rung.
In another passage, equally poetical, he makes it view with delight the
waters of the Nile, rushing from the cataracts of Ethiopia:—
Gigantic sphinx the circling waves admire;
And Memnon bending o’er his broken lyre.
In many parts of the East the custom still remains of proclaiming the
sun by the sounding of instruments. That similar signals were given in
Egypt is not to be doubted, since the custom is almost as old as solar
adoration itself. That the sun was worshipped in that country, is
equally established: both being rendered the more certain by the
ceremony of sounding harps, at sunrise, having been introduced into
Italy by Pythagoras, who had long sojourned with the Egyptian magi. The
sounding of Memnon’s statue, then, might have been an artifice of the
priesthood; to effect which many methods might have been adopted. Either
the head of Memnon contained wires, like the strings of an Æolian harp;
or the sounds might have been produced by the touching of a stone[275].
The real cause of the sound has lately been discovered by Mr.
Wilkinson:—“In the lap of the statue is a stone, which, on being
struck, elicits a metallic sound, that might still be made use of to
deceive a visitor, who was predisposed to believe its powers; and from
its position, and the squared space cut in the block behind, as if to
admit a person, who might thus lie concealed from the most scrutinous
observer in the plain below, it seems to have been used after the
restoration of the statue; and another similar recess exists beneath the
present site of the stone, which might have been intended for the same
purpose, when the statue was in its mutilated state.”
This statue has frequently been mistaken for the statue of Osymandyas.
Strabo says, that it was named Ismandes. These words were derived from
Os-Smandi, to give out a sound; a property possessed, it was said, by
this statue at the dawn of day and at sunset. Its true name was
Amenophis. It was visited by Germanicus. On its legs are to be seen
Greek and Roman inscriptions, attesting the prodigy of the harmonious
sounds emitted by this colossus.
After the temples at Karnac and Luxor, the next grand building at Thebes
was the Memnonium; that is, the tomb or palace of one of the Pharaohs,
whom the Greeks suppose to be the same as Memnon. In the middle of the
first court was the largest figure ever raised by the Egyptians,—the
statue of the monarch, seventy-five feet high.
“The name MEMNONIUM[276] is used by Strabo to designate some part of
ancient Thebes lying on the western side of the river. Some modern
travellers have applied it to a mass of ruins at a little distance to
the north of Medeenet-Habou, which are by others identified with the
palace and tomb of Osymandyas, described by Diodorus. The dimensions
of the building are about five hundred and thirty feet in length, and
two hundred in width: it is chiefly remarkable for the magnificent
colossal statues which have been discovered within it. The ‘Memnon’s
head,’ which forms so valuable an object in the collection of
Egyptian antiquities contained in the British Museum, formerly
belonged to one of these statues. It is generally supposed that the
French, during their celebrated expedition, separated the bust from
the rest of the figure by the aid of gunpowder, with the view of
rendering its transport more easy. They were compelled, however, from
some cause or other, to leave it behind, and it was brought away by
Belzoni.
“Close to the spot where the Memnon’s head was found, lie the
fragments of another statue, which has been called the largest in
Egypt. It was placed in a sitting posture, and measures sixty-two or
sixty-three feet round the shoulders; six feet ten inches over the
foot. The length of the nail of the second toe is about one foot, and
the length of the toe to the insertion of the nail is one foot eleven
inches. This enormous statue, formed of red granite, has been broken
off at the waist, and the upper part is now laid prostrate on the
back: the face is entirely obliterated, and next to the wonder
excited at the boldness of the sculptor who made it, as Mr. Hamilton
remarks, and the extraordinary powers of those who erected it, the
labour and exertions that must have been used for its destruction are
most astonishing.
“The mutilation of this statue must have been a work of extreme
difficulty: Hamilton says that it could only have been brought about
with the help of military engines, and must then have been the work
of a length of time; in its fall it has carried along with it the
whole of the wall of the temple which stood within its reach.
“We have remarked that this edifice, called the Memnonium, is by many
travellers identified with that described by Diodorus, under the name
of the monument of Osymandyas; his description is the only detailed
account which we have in the ancient writers of any great Egyptian
building. There is no one now at Thebes to which it may be applied in
all its parts, or with which it so far agrees, as to leave no doubt
concerning the edifice to which it was intended to apply by its
author; and Mr. Hamilton expresses his decided opinion that Diodorus,
in penning this description of the tomb of Osymandyas, either
listened with too easy credulity to the fanciful relations of the
Greek travellers, to whom he refers; or that, astonished with the
immensity of the monuments he must have read and heard of as
contained within the walls of the capital of Egypt, and equally
unwilling to enter into a minute detail of them all, as to omit all
mention of them whatever, he set himself down to compose an imaginary
building, to which he could give a popular name. In this he might
collect, in some kind of order, all the most remarkable features of
Theban monuments, statues, columns, obelisks, sculptures, &c. to form
one entire whole that might astonish his reader without tiring him
by prolixity or repetition, and which at the same time gave him a
just notion of the magnificent and splendid works which had
immortalised the monarchs of the Thebaid. It is evident that there is
no one monument in Thebes which answers in all its parts to the
description of Diodorus; yet it is urged that there is scarcely any
one circumstance that he mentions that may not be referred to one or
other of the temples of Luxor, Karnak, Goorno, Medeenet-Habou, or the
tombs of the kings among the mountains. Others think that Diodorus
used his best endeavours to describe a real place; and the chief
agreements with that now called the Memnonium are in the position of
the building and its colossal statues, which are supposed to outweigh
the exaggerations of dimension; these being set down as faults of
memory or observation. On the colossal statue mentioned by Diodorus
as the largest in Egypt, was placed, as he tells us, this
inscription:—‘_I am Osymandyas, king of kings: if you wish to know
how great I am, and where I lie, surpass my works!_’ He speaks also
of certain sculptures representing battle scenes; and of the famous
sacred library, which was inscribed with the words, ‘_Place of cure
for the soul!_’ Yet from this conclusion we learn that he has been
describing what the tomb of Osymandyas _was_, ‘which not only in the
expense of the structure, but also in the skill of the workmanship,
must have surpassed by far all other buildings.’”
The following observations and history are taken from an exceedingly
learned and agreeable work, “Egyptian Antiquities:”
“Those who visit the British Museum cannot fail to have observed, in
the room of Egyptian antiquities, a colossal statue of which only the
head and breast remain. It is numbered 66 in the catalogue and on the
stone. Though this statue is commonly called the ‘Younger Memnon,’ a
name to which for convenience we shall adhere, there is no reason in
the world for calling it so, but a mistake of Norden, a Danish
traveller, who visited Egypt in 1737. He then saw this statue in its
entire state, seated on a chair, in precisely the same attitude as
the black breccia figure, No. 38, but lying with its face on the
ground; to which accident, indeed, the preservation of the features
is no doubt mainly due. Several ancient writers, and among them the
Greek geographer Strabo, speak of a large temple at Thebes on the
west side of the Nile, to which they gave the name of the Memnonium,
or Memnon’s temple. Norden fancied that the building, amidst whose
ruins he saw this statue, was the ancient Memnonium: though he
supposed, that another statue of much larger dimensions than this in
the Museum, and now lying in numerous fragments in the same place,
was the great Memnon statue, of which some ancient writers relate the
following fact:—That at sunrise, when the rays first struck the
statue, it sent forth a sound something like that of the snapping of
the string of a lute.