1st Theban Royal Dynasty, the 12th of Manetho, between 2600 and 2700
B.C., and even now exhibits some ruins in the centre of the building
from that period, bearing the name of this king. During the Dynasties
immediately succeeding, which for several centuries groaned under the
yoke of the victorious hereditary enemy, this sanctuary no doubt was
also deserted, and nothing has been preserved which belonged to that
period. But after the first king of the 17th Dynasty, Amosis, in the 17th
century B.C., had succeeded in his first war against the Hyksos, his two
successors, AMENOPHIS I. and TUTHMOSIS I., built round the remains of the
most ancient sanctuary a magnificent temple, with a great many chambers
round the cella, and with a broad court, and pylones appertaining to it,
in front of which Tutmosis I. erected two obelisks. Two other pylones,
with contiguous court-walls, were built by the same king, at a right
angle with the temple in the direction of Luqsor. Tutmosis III. and his
sister enlarged this temple to the back by a hall resting on fifty-six
columns, besides many other chambers, which surrounded it on three sides,
and were encircled by one common outer wall. The succeeding kings partly
closed the temple more perfectly in front, partly built new independent
temples near it, and also placed two more large pylones towards the
south-west, in front of those erected by Tuthmosis I., so that now four
lofty pylones formed the magnificent entrance to the principal temple on
this side.
But a far more splendid enlargement of the temple was executed in the
fifteenth and fourteenth centuries B.C. by the great Pharaohs of the
19th Dynasty; for SETHÔS I., the father of Ramses Miamun, added in the
original axis of the temple the most magnificent hall of pillars that
was ever seen in Egypt or elsewhere. The stone roof, supported by 134
columns, covers a space of 164 feet in depth, and 320 feet in breadth.
Each of the twelve central columns is 36 feet in circumference, and 66
feet high beneath the architrave; the other columns, 40 feet high, are
27 feet in circumference. It is impossible to describe the overwhelming
impression which is experienced upon entering for the first time into
this forest of columns, and wandering from one range into the other,
between the lofty figures of gods and kings on every side represented
on them, projecting sometimes entirely, sometimes only in part. Every
surface is covered with various sculptures, now in relief, now sunk,
which were, however, only completed under the successors of the builder;
most of them, indeed, by his son RAMSES MIAMUN. In front of this
hypostyle hall was placed, at a later period, a great hypæthral court,
270 by 320 feet in extent, decorated on the sides only with colonnades,
and entered by a magnificent pylon.
The principal part of the temple terminated here, comprising a length of
1170 feet, not including the row of Sphinxes in front of its external
pylon, nor the peculiar sanctuary which was placed by Ramses Miamun
directly beside the wall farthest back in the temple, and with the
same axis, but turned in such a manner that its entrance was on the
opposite side. Including these enlargements, the entire length must have
amounted to nearly 2000 feet, reckoning to the most southern gate of the
external wall, which surrounded the whole space, which was of nearly
equal breadth. The later Dynasties, who now found the principal temples
completed on all sides, but who also were desirous of contributing their
share to the embellishment of this centre of the Theban worship, began
partly to erect separate small temples on the large level space which was
surrounded by the above-mentioned enclosure-wall, partly to extend these
temples also externally.
The head of the 20th Dynasty, RAMSES III., whose campaigns in Asia, in
the fifteenth century before Christ, were scarcely inferior to those of
his renowned ancestors, Sethôs I. and Ramses II., built a special temple,
with a court of columns and a hypostyle hall, above 200 feet long, which
now intersects, in a rather unsymmetrical manner, the enclosure-wall of
the external court in front; and he founded, at a little distance from
it, a still larger sanctuary for the third person of the Theban Triad,
Chensu, the son of Ammon. This last was completed by the succeeding kings
of his Dynasty, and the priest-kings of the 21st Dynasty, who added to
it a magnificent court of columns, with a pylon in front. In the 22nd
Dynasty we recognise SCHESCHENK I., the warlike King Shishak of the
Bible, who, about 970 B.C., conquered Jerusalem. His Asiatic campaigns
are celebrated on the southern external wall of the great temple, where,
in the symbolic form of prisoners, he leads 140 vanquished towns and
countries before Ammon. Among their names there is one which, not without
reason, is considered to be a designation for the kingdom of Judæa, as
well as the names of several well-known towns in Palestine.
The two priests’ Dynasties mentioned above, which followed immediately
after the Ramessides, were no longer of the Theban race, but proceeded
from towns in Lower Egypt. The power of the Monarchy sank with this
change; and after the short 23rd Dynasty, from which period there are
still some remains in Karnak, a revolution seems to have occurred. The
present lists of authors name only _one_ king of the 24th Dynasty, who
has not yet been re-discovered on the Egyptian monuments. In his reign
the invasion of the Ethiopians occurred, who, from the 25th Dynasty,
SCHABAK and TAHRAKA (the So and Tirhaka of the Bible), reigned in Egypt
at the commencement of the seventh century B.C. These kings came, indeed,
from Ethiopia, but governed completely in the Egyptian manner, and they
did not neglect to worship the Egyptian god-kings. Their names are found
on several smaller temples of Karnak, and on a splendid colonnade in the
great court in front, which seems to have been first placed there by
Tahraka. According to historical accounts, this last king returned of
his own accord to Ethiopia, and left the Egyptian kingdom to its native
rulers.
The dispossessed Saitic Dynasty now returned to the throne, and once
more, in the seventh and sixth centuries, developed all the splendour
of which this country, as rich in internal resources as in external
power, was capable of producing under a powerful and wise sceptre.
It opened for the first time a peaceful intercourse between foreign
countries and Egypt; Greeks settled amongst them, commerce flourished,
and a new and enormous amount of wealth was accumulated, such as before
had only been attained by the spoils of war and tribute. But this was
only an artificial height of glory; for the pristine vigour of the
nation had long been broken, and even art gave more signs of luxury
than of intrinsic value. The last flourishing period of the nation soon
passed away. The country could not withstand the advancing storm of the
Persians. In the year 525 it was conquered by CAMBYSES, and trodden
down with barbaric fanaticism. Many monuments were destroyed, and not a
single sanctuary nor wall was erected during this period; nothing at
least has been preserved to our time, not even from the long and milder
government of DARIUS; one temple only in the Oasis of Kargeh, or at
least sculptures with his name, having been discovered from that period.
Under Darius II., exactly one hundred years after the commencement of
the Persian rule, Egypt became, indeed, once more independent, and we
then again find the names of the native kings in the temples of Karnak;
but after three Dynasties had succeeded each other in rapid succession,
during the space of sixty-four years, it fell a second time under the
dominion of the Persians, who soon afterwards, in the year 332, lost
it by the conquest of Alexander of Macedon. Since then the country was
reduced to the necessity of getting habituated to foreign rulers, it had
lost its independence for ever, and passed from one hand to another, the
succeeding ruler always worse than the preceding, down to the present day.
Under the Macedonians and Greeks, Egypt still possessed sufficient vigour
to retain its religion and institutions in the manner that had been
carried down from ancient times. The foreign princes in all respects took
the place, and followed in the footsteps of the ancient Pharaohs. Karnak
bears testimony to this. We here find the names of ALEXANDER and PHILIP
ARIDÆUS, who preceded the Ptolemies in restoring that which had been
destroyed by the Persians. Alexander rebuilt the sanctuary behind the
great temple; Philip that to the front; the Ptolemies added sculptures to
it—restored other parts, and even erected entirely new sanctuaries, at
no inconsiderable expense, though no longer, indeed, on the grand scale
of the Egyptian classic style of the olden times. Even the last epoch
of declining Egypt, that of the Roman dominion, is still represented in
Karnak by a series of representations which were executed under CÆSAR
AUGUSTUS.
Thus this remarkable spot, which, in the course of twenty-five hundred
years, had increased from the small sanctuary in the centre of the
large temple to a complete city of temples, situated on a level space
a quarter of a geographical mile in length, and above 2000 feet in
breadth, presents both an almost uninterrupted thread of events, and an
interesting scale of measurement for the history of the whole of the
New Egyptian Monarchy, from its origin in the Old Monarchy down to its
decline under the Roman dominion. The appearance or non-appearance of the
Dynasties and individual kings in Egyptian history is almost uniform with
the representation of them in and round the temple of Karnak.
Higher up the river than Karnak, where the stream, which has been divided
by the fertile island of Gedîdeh, reunites, rises even now to view a
second bright point of the ancient city, the temple of LUQSOR. One of
the most powerful Pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty, AMENOPHIS III., who had
only built a side temple in Karnak, and had added but very little to the
principal temple, here erected a so much the more splendid sanctuary to
Ammon, which the great Ramses enlarged still more by a second magnificent
court in front, in the direction of Karnak. For, although a good half
hour distant from it, this temple must also be regarded as belonging to
the space dedicated, from ancient times, to the great national sanctuary.
This is proved by a circumstance which otherwise would be difficult to
explain: that the temple, though situated close to the bank, has its
entrance, contrary to custom, away from the river, and directed towards
Karnak, with which it was, besides, immediately connected by colonnades,
series of rams, and artificially-constructed roads.
The ruins on the eastern bank terminate with Luqsor. The monuments of
_western_ Thebes offer still greater variety, as here the subterranean
dwellings and palaces of the dead are added to those above ground. At
one time an uninterrupted series of the most splendid temples extended
from Qurna as far as Medînet Hâbu, which nearly occupied the whole of the
narrow strip of desert between the cultivated land watered by the Nile
and the foot of the mountain range. The immense field of the dead spreads
out immediately behind these temples, where the sepulchral caves, like
the cells of bees, close beside each other, are either dug in the rock of
the plain, or hewn in the adjacent hills.
Qurna is situated on the angle of the Lybian range, projecting farther
forward towards the river. As the mountains here suddenly retreat
towards the west, they form a great mountain cauldron, the front part
of which, where it is separated by low hills from the valley, is called
EL ASASIF. Behind, it is closed in by lofty, steep escarpments of rock,
which display their beautiful stone to the mid-day and morning sun.
These precipitous declivities of the limestone range, which, owing to
their solid and uniform texture, are particularly adapted for the finest
sculptures of the rock-tombs, seem to have been produced by the gradual
removal of a bed of clay beneath them, from the wearing effects of
exposure to the weather, and thus the overhanging masses are deprived of
their foundation.
In this rock-creek are situated the _most ancient_ tombs, and they belong
to the Old Monarchy. Their entrances may be seen from a distance, high up
in the rocks lying to the north, exactly beneath the vertical precipice
which rises from the steep hills of rubbish to the summit of the mountain
ridge. Their external site, and the road up, bounded by low stone walls
leading to the entrances in a steep and straight line of several hundred
feet from the valley, reminded me directly of the tombs of Benihassan,
which belong to the same period. They date from between 2500 and 3000
B.C., under the kings of the 11th and 12th Manethonic Dynasties, the
first of which laid the foundation of the mighty power of Thebes, and
made the town the seat of the government they had rendered independent of
Memphis; the second elevated it to be the capital of the Monarchy of the
whole country.
These grottoes, of which there are some of a similar age in the adjacent
hills in the foreground, generally descend, in an oblique angle, deep
into the rock, but they have neither paintings nor inscriptions; it was
only the stone sarcophagi on which peculiar diligence was bestowed. These
are usually formed of the finest limestone, and are sometimes above
nine feet long; they have inscriptions, and are decorated with colours,
both internally and externally, in the elaborate and pure style of that
period, very elegantly, though with a certain degree of parsimony. We
are bringing away with us one of these sarcophagi, as I mentioned once
before. A few days ago it was safely carried down into the plain, after
the pit, which had long been completely filled with rubbish, had been
cleared, and part of the solid rock itself had been cut through, to
obtain a shorter exit for it. The occupant of the tomb was the son of
a prince, and himself bore the dynastic appellation of the 11th Royal
Dynasty, namely, NENTEF.
In the outermost angle of this rock-cove is situated the most ancient
temple-building of Western Thebes, which belongs to the period of the
New Egyptian Monarchy, at the commencement of its glory. One street,
above 1600 feet long, adorned on either side with colossal rams and
sphinxes, led from the valley in a straight line to an outer court, then,
by means of a flight of steps to another, whose front wall was adorned
with sculpture, and had a colonnade before it, and finally, beyond, by a
second flight of steps to a granite gate in good preservation, and to the
last temple court, which was surrounded on both sides with beautifully
decorated halls and chambers, and terminated behind with a broad façade,
placed along the precipitous rock. Another granite gate, in the centre
of this façade, leads at length to the innermost temple-chamber, which
was hewn into the rock, and had a lofty, stone-vaulted roof, out of
which again opened several smaller niches and chambers, at the sides
and the back. All these chambers were covered with the most beautiful
sculptures, with variegated colours on a grey ground, executed in the
finished style of that period. This grand structure, beside which stood
other series of buildings, now destroyed, seems to have been originally
connected with the river, by a street intersecting the whole valley, and
beyond, with the great temple of Karnak, which lies exactly in the same
direction; I have no doubt that it was with this object that the narrow
rock-gate was first artificially cut through the hills in front, across
which the temple-street enters into the lower plain. It was a Queen, NUMT
AMEN, the elder sister of Tuthmosis III., who accomplished this bold
plan of a structural connection between the two sides of the valley, the
same who had erected the two greatest obelisks in front of the temple
of Karnak. She never appears on her monuments as a woman, but in male
attire; we only find out her sex by the inscriptions. No doubt at that
period it was illegal for a woman to govern; for that reason, also, her
brother, probably still a minor, appears at a later period as ruler along
with her. After her death, her Shields were everywhere converted into
Tuthmosis Shields, the feminine forms of speech in the inscription were
changed, and her names were never adopted in the later lists along with
the legitimate kings.
There are two peculiar temples, both erected on the border of the desert
by TUTHMOSIS III., who completed the work of his royal sister during the
long period that he sat alone upon the throne. Of these, the northern one
can now only be recognised by its ground plan, and by the remains of its
brick pylon; the southern one, on the other hand, at Medînet Hâbu, is
still in good preservation; and judging by some sculptures, the oldest
part of the building might perhaps have belonged to an earlier Tuthmosis,
and have only been completed by him. His second successor, TUTHMOSIS IV.,
also built a temple, which has now almost disappeared.
He was followed by AMENOPHIS III., in whose brilliant and long reign the
temple of Luqsor was built. To him are inscribed the two giant Colossi,
far out in the fertile plain, near Medînet Hâbu, which once stood at the
gates of a great temple-building, but whose remains are now for the most
part buried beneath the crops of the annually accumulating soil of the
valley. Perhaps, also, a connecting street, corresponding with that to
the north, once led from this point across the valley to Luqsor, on the
opposite side. Of the two Colossi, the one situated to the north-east was
the celebrated sounding statue, which the Greeks connected with their
charming legend of the beautiful Memnon, who every morning at sunrise
greeted his mother, Aurora, while she moistened him with her tears of
dew for his early heroic death. This myth, as Letronne has shown, was
only composed at a late period; because the actual phenomenon of clear
tremulous tones produced by the springing of small particles of the
stone when it became rapidly warm after being cooled during the night,
did not become strikingly evident till fragments of the statue had
partly fallen inwards upon itself, having been previously split by an
earthquake which happened in the year B.C. 27. The phenomenon of cracking
and sounding stones in the desert and among great fields of ruins, is
not unfrequent in Egypt; but the nature of the hard flinty conglomerate
of which this statue is composed, is peculiarly favourable to it, as is
further proved by the innumerable large and small cracks now penetrating
in all directions portions of the statue, which were described even as
late as the Greek period, and consequently were then uninjured. It is
also remarkable how, even now, several of the pieces that have split
off, and are only hanging loose, sound as clear as metal if they are
struck, while others beside them remain perfectly dumb and without
sound, according as they are more or less moistened by their reciprocal
positions. The numerous Greek and Roman inscriptions which are engraved
upon the statue, and which intimate the visits of strangers, especially
if they have been so fortunate as to hear the morning greeting, first
commence in the time of Nero, and extend down to the time of Septimius
Severus, from which period we may probably date the restoration of the
original monolithic statue. Since this restoration of the upper portion
in single blocks, the phenomenon of the sounding stones seems, if not to
have entirely ceased, yet to have become less frequent and less striking.
The change of Amenophis (who even then, as the inscriptions inform us,
was not forgotten) into Memnon was probably chiefly occasioned by the
name of this entire western portion of Thebes, MEMNONIA, which the Greeks
seem to have explained by the “palaces of Memnon,” while the name in
hieroglyphics, _Mennu_, meant, speaking generally, “splendid buildings,
palaces.” At the present day the statues are called by the Arabs Schama
and Tama, or, both together, the Sanamât, _i. e._ the “idols” (not
Salamât).[54]
When we came here in the beginning of November, the whole plain, as far
as the eye could reach, was overflowed, and formed one entire sea, from
which the Sanamât rose up still more strangely and more solitary than
from the green but yet accessible corn-fields. A few days ago I measured
the Colossi and the elevation to which the soil of the Nile had risen
upon their thrones. The height of the Memnon statue, calculated from head
to foot, not including the tall ornament on the head which it once bore,
amounted to about 14 metres 28′, or 45 feet and a half, in addition to
which the base separated from it, a block by itself, measured 4 metres
25′, or 13′ 7″, of which 3 feet were covered by steps placed round. Thus
the statues were originally nearly 60 feet in height, including the
Pschent, perhaps 70 feet above the ground on which the temple stood.
Now the surface of the valley is already 8 feet above that level, and
the inundation sometimes rises as far as the upper edge of the base,
therefore 14 feet higher than it could ever have risen, at the period of
their erection, without reaching the temple itself. Now, if we compare
this fact with our discovery at Semneh, where the surface of the Nile
during historical times has sunk above 23 feet, it is proved, by simple
addition, that the Nile at the Cataracts fell from a greater height by at
least 37 feet between this and Semneh than it does at present.[55]
Horus, the last King of that great 18th Dynasty, had also erected a
temple near Medînet Hâbu, which has now, however, disappeared in rubbish.
The fragment of a colossal statue of the King, of hard limestone,
almost like marble, seems to point out the position of what was once
the entrance to the temple, the bust carved in the most finished style,
weighing several hundred-weight, is intended for our Museum.
A large portion of two temples still exist from the succeeding Dynasty;
they were built by the two greatest and most renowned of all the
Pharaohs—SETHÔS I. and his son RAMSES II. The temple belonging to the
first is the most northern in the series, and is usually called the
temple of QURNA, because the old village of Qurna was grouped round a
Coptic church at this spot, and was principally situated in the interior
of the great outer courts of the temple, but which was afterwards
deserted by the inhabitants, and exchanged for the rock-tombs in the
angle of the mountain situated very near at hand.
Farther towards the south, between the temples of TUTHMOSIS III. and
IV., now totally destroyed, stands the temple of RAMSES II. (MIAMUN),
in its structural arrangement, and in all its parts, perhaps the most
beautiful in Egypt, though inferior in grandeur of scale, and in variety
of interest, to the temple of Karnak. That portion of the temple to the
back as well as the lateral halls, belonging to the hypostyle hall, have
disappeared, and their original plan could only be explained by the aid
of careful, protracted excavations, under the direction of Erbkam. All
round this destroyed portion of the temple the extensive brick halls
are visible, which are everywhere covered with regular and neatly-built
waggon-vaulted roofs, some of them 12 feet wide, which belong to the
period of the erection of the temple itself. This is indisputably proved
by the stamps, which were impressed on every brick in the royal factory,
and which contain the Name-Shields of King Ramses. That this temple, even
in ancient times, attracted much notice, we learn from the particular
description of it, under the name of the TOMB OF OSYMANDYAS, given by
Diodorus Siculus, according to Hecataeus.
Directly to the right of the temple, one of the few industrious Fellahs
has laid out a small vegetable garden, which affords us some variety for
our table, and for that reason, yielding to the intercessions of our
good-natured dark-skinned gardener, as was but just, it was spared in our
excavations, which threatened to extend towards that side, although it is
over the foundations of a side temple hitherto unnoticed, whose entrance
I found opening into the outer court of the temple of Ramses.