Before passing to the pyramids and ruins of Meroë in Ethiopia, let us
notice the celebrated Sphinx, which stands near the great pyramids of
Gizeh, and the enormous bulk of which attracts the attention of every
traveler. Of all the monuments of Egypt, this, in many respects, is the
most mysterious and impressive. It is cut out of the solid rock, and by
some is supposed to have been the sepulcher of Amasis. It is more than
sixty feet from the ground to the crown of the head; more than a hundred
feet around the forehead; and nearly one hundred and fifty feet in
length. The nose has been shamefully mutilated. “Though its proportions
are colossal, its outline,” says Denon, “is pure and graceful; the
expression mild, gracious, and tranquil; the character is African; but
the mouth, the lips of which are thick, has a softness and delicacy of
execution truly admirable; it seems real life and flesh. Art must have
been at a high pitch when this monument was executed; for, if the head
is deficient in what is called _style_, that is, in the straight and
bold lines which give expression to the figures under which the Greeks
have designated their deities, yet sufficient justice has been rendered
to the fine simplicity and character of nature displayed in this
figure.”
[Illustration: GREAT GALLERY OF THE TOMBS OF SAKKARA.]
Thus far the description of Denon. But Taylor, who says of this monument
that “there is nothing like it in the world,” adds, that “those
travelers who pronounce its features to be negro in their character, are
certainly very hasty in their conclusions. That it is an Egyptian head,
is plainly evident, notwithstanding its mutilation. The type, however,
is rather fuller and broader than is usual in Egyptian statues.” Who
reared it, and for what purpose, and by what mighty enginery, is utterly
unknown. But there it stands, “on the verge of the desert whose sands
are heaped around it, and in advance of the three vast pyramids that
form an immovable phalanx as if to guard it from destruction, looking
out in unfathomable silence over the empty plain where once stood
Memphis in the pride of the earlier Pharaohs, and where Cambyses
battered down that pride with the recklessness of a barbarian invader.
Once an altar stood before it, and a _dromos_ of crouching lions and
other figures formed a fit approach to the gigantic symbol of Egypt
deified. But now the sands drift in perpetually to hide all but the
head, whose sublime repose neither the war-club of the Persian, nor tho
fury of the sirocco has ever disturbed.”