Passing up the Nile to its great fork in about latitude seventeen
degrees, we come to the wonderful ruins and pyramids of Meroë, in
Ethiopia. “The discovery of these ruins,” says the well known traveler
last quoted, “is of comparatively recent date; and it is only within a
very short time that their true place and character 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 traveled 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 afterward 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
advanced, however, and the morning vapors melted away, I found that they
derived much of their apparent hight 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 molding, 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
hight 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 hight, nor
when complete could have exceeded one hundred. All, or nearly all, have
a small chamber attached to the exterior, exactly against the center 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 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 toward 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 center, 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 afterward 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 hight, 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. Toward 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, toward 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 can
not 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. 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 afterward 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 forever!’”