THEBES AND KARNAK.
Coming on deck the third morning after leaving Denderah, we found the
dahabeeyah decorated with palm-branches, our sailors in their holiday
turbans, and Reïs Hassan _en grande tenue_; that is to say, in shoes and
stockings, which he only wore on very great occasions.
“Nehârak-sa’ïd--good-morning--Luxor!” said he, all in one breath.
It was a hot, hazy morning, with dim ghosts of mountains glowing through
the mist and a warm wind blowing.
We ran to the side; looked out eagerly; but could see nothing. Still the
captain smiled and nodded; and the sailors ran hither and thither,
sweeping and garnishing; and Egendi, to whom his worst enemy could not
have imputed the charge of bashfulness, said: “Luxor--kharûf[36]--all
right!”--every time he came near us.
We had read and dreamed so much about Thebes, and it had always seemed
so far away, that but for this delicate allusion to the promised sheep,
we could hardly have believed we were really drawing nigh unto those
famous shores. About ten, however, the mist was lifted away like a
curtain, and we saw to the left a rich plain studded with palm-groves;
to the right a broad margin of cultivated lands bounded by a bold range
of limestone mountains; and on the farthest horizon another range, all
gray and shadowy.
“Karnak--Gournah--Luxor!” says Reïs Hassan, triumphantly, pointing in
every direction at once. Talhamy tries to show us Medinet Habu and the
Memnonium. The painter vows he can see the heads of the sitting colossi
and the entrance to the valley of the tombs of the kings.
We, meanwhile, stare bewildered, incredulous; seeing none of these
things; finding it difficult, indeed, to believe that any one else sees
them. The river widens away before us; the flats are green on either
side; the mountains are pierced with terraces of rock-cut tombs; while
far away inland, apparently on the verge of the desert, we see here a
clump of sycamores--yonder a dark hillock--midway between both a
confused heap of something that may be either fallen rock or fallen
masonry; but nothing that looks like a temple, nothing to indicate that
we are already within recognizable distance of the grandest ruins in the
world.
Presently, however, as the boat goes on, a massive, windowless structure
which looks (heaven preserve us!) just like a brand-new fort or prison,
towers up above the palm-groves to the left. This, we are told, is one
of the propylons of Karnak; while a few whitewashed huts and a little
crowd of masts now coming into sight a mile or so higher up mark the
position of Luxor. Then up capers Egendi with his never-failing
“Luxor--kharûf--all right!” to fetch down the tar and darabukkeh. The
captain claps his hands. A circle is formed on the lower deck. The men,
all smiles, strike up their liveliest chorus, and so, with barbaric
music and well-filled sails, and flags flying, and green boughs waving
overhead, we make our triumphal entry into Luxor.
The top of another pylon; the slender peak of an obelisk; a colonnade of
giant pillars half-buried in the soil; the white houses of the English,
American and Prussian consuls, each with its flagstaff and ensign; a
steep slope of sandy shore; a background of mud walls and pigeon-towers;
a foreground of native boats and gayly painted dahabeeyahs lying at
anchor--such, as we sweep by, is our first panoramic view of this famous
village. A group of turbaned officials sitting in the shade of an arched
doorway rise and salute us as we pass. The assembled dahabeeyahs dozing
with folded sails, like sea-birds asleep, are roused to spasmodic
activity. Flags are lowered; guns are fired; all Luxor is startled from
its midday siesta. Then, before the smoke has had time to clear off, up
comes the Bagstones in gallant form; whereupon the dahabeeyahs blaze
away again as before.
And now there is a rush of donkeys and donkey boys, beggars, guides and
antiquity-dealers, to the shore--the children screaming for backshîsh;
the dealers exhibiting strings of imitation scarabs; the donkey boys
vociferating the names and praises of their beasts; all alike regarding
us as their lawful prey.
“Hi, lady! Yankee-Doodle donkey; try Yankee Doodle!” cries one.
“Far-away Moses!” yells another. “Good donkey--fast donkey--best donkey
in Luxor!”
“This Prince of Wales donkey!” shouts a third, hauling forward a
decrepit little weak-kneed, moth-eaten looking animal, about as good to
ride upon as a towel-horse. “First-rate donkey! splendid donkey! God
save the queen! Hurrah!”
But neither donkeys nor scarabs are of any importance in our eyes just
now, compared with the letters we hope to find awaiting us on shore. No
sooner, therefore, are the boats made fast than we are all off, some to
the British consulate and some to the poste restante, from both of which
we return rich and happy.
Meanwhile we propose to spend only twenty-four hours in Luxor. We were
to ride round Karnek this first afternoon; to cross to Medinet Habu and
the Ramesseum[37] to-morrow morning; and to sail again as soon after
midday as possible. We hope to get a general idea of the topography of
Thebes, and to carry away a superficial impression of the architectural
style of the Pharaohs. It would be but a glimpse; yet that glimpse was
essential. For Thebes represents the great central period of Egyptian
art. The earlier styles lead up to that point; the later depart from it;
and neither the earlier nor the later are intelligible without it. At
the same time, however, travelers bound for the second cataract do well
to put off everything like a detailed study of Thebes till the time of
coming back. For the present, a rapid survey of the three principal
group of ruins is enough. It supplies the necessary link. It helps one
to a right understanding of Edfu, of Philæ, of Abu Simbel. In a word, it
enables one to put things in their right places; and this, after all,
is a mental process which every traveler must perform for himself.
Thebes, I need scarcely say, was built, like London, on both sides of
the river. Its original extent must have been very great; but its public
buildings, its quays, its thousands of private dwellings, are gone and
have left few traces. The secular city, which was built of crude brick,
is represented by a few insignificant mounds; while of the sacred
edifice, five large groups of limestone ruins--three on the western bank
and two on the eastern, together with the remains of several small
temples and a vast multitude of tombs--are all that remain in permanent
evidence of its ancient splendor. Luxor is a modern Arab village,
occupying the site of one of the oldest of these five ruins. It stands
on the eastern bank, close against the river, about two miles south of
Karnak and nearly opposite the famous sitting colossi of the western
plain. On the opposite bank lie Gournah, the Ramesseum, and Medinet
Habu. A glance at the map will do more than pages of explanation to show
the relative position of these ruins. The Temple of Gournah, it will be
seen, is almost _vis-à-vis_ of Karnak. The Ramesseum faces about
half-way between Karnak and Luxor. Medinet Habu is placed farther to the
south than any building on the eastern side of the river. Behind these
three western groups, reaching far and wide along the edge of the Libyan
range, lies the great Theban Necropolis; while farther back still, in
the radiating valleys on the other side of the mountains, are found the
tombs of the kings. The distance between Karnak and Luxor is a little
less than two miles; while from Medinet Habu to the Temple of Gournah
may be roughly guessed at something under four. We have here, therefore,
some indication of the extent, though not of the limits, of the ancient
city.
Luxor is a large village inhabited by a mixed population of Copts and
Arabs and doing a smart trade in antiquities. The temple has here formed
the nucleus of the village, the older part of which has grown up in and
about the ruins. The grand entrance faces north, looking down toward
Karnak. The twin towers of the great propylon, dilapidated as they are,
stripped of their cornices, incumbered with débris, are magnificent
still. In front of them, one on each side of the central gateway sit two
helmeted colossi, battered and featureless and buried to the chin, like
two of the proud in the doleful fifth circle. A few yards in front of
these again stands a solitary obelisk, also half-buried. The colossi are
of black granite; the obelisk is of red, highly polished and covered on
all four sides with superb hieroglyphs in three vertical columns. These
hieroglyphs are engraved with the precision of the finest gem. They are
cut to a depth of about two inches in the outer columns and five inches
in the central column of the inscription. The true height of this
wonderful monolith is over seventy feet, between thirty and forty of
which are hidden under the accumulated soil of many centuries. Its
companion obelisk, already scaling away by imperceptible degrees under
the skyey influences of an alien climate, looks down with melancholy
indifference upon the petty revolutions and counter-revolutions of the
Place de la Concorde. On a line with the two black colossi, but some
fifty feet or so farther to the west, rises a third and somewhat smaller
head of chert or limestone, the fellow to which is doubtless hidden
among the huts that encroach half-way across the face of the eastern
tower. The whole outer surface of these towers is covered with elaborate
sculptures of gods and men, horses and chariots, the pageantry of
triumph and the carnage of war. The king in his chariot draws his
terrible bow, or slays his enemies on foot, or sits enthroned, receiving
the homage of his court. Whole regiments armed with lance and shield
march across the scene. The foe flies in disorder. The king, attended by
his fan-bearers, returns in state, and the priests burn incense before
him.
This king is Rameses II, called Sesostris and Osymandias by ancient
writers, and best known to history as Rameses the Great. His actual
names and titles as they stand upon the monuments are Ra-user-ma
Sotp-en-Ra Ra-messu Mer-Amen; that is to say: “Ra strong in truth,
approved of Ra, son of Ra, beloved of Amen.”
The battle scenes here represented relate to that memorable campaign
against the Kheta, which forms the subject of the famous “Third Sallier
Papyrus,”[38] and is commemorated upon the walls of almost every temple
built by this monarch. Separated from his army and surrounded by the
enemy, the king, attended only by his chariot-driver, is said to have
six times charged the foe--to have hewn them down with his sword of
might--to have trampled them like straw beneath his horses’ feet--to
have dispersed them, single-handed, like a god. Two thousand five
hundred chariots were there and he overthrew them; one hundred thousand
warriors and he scattered them. Those that he slew not with his hand he
chased unto the water’s edge, causing them to leap to destruction as
leaps the crocodile. Such was the immortal feat of Rameses, and such the
chronicle written by the royal scribe, Pentaur.
Setting aside the strain of Homeric exaggeration, which runs through
this narrative, there can be no doubt that it records some brilliant
deed of arms actually performed by the king, within sight, though not
within reach, of his army; and the hieroglyphic texts interspersed among
these tableaux state that the events depicted took place on the fifth
day of the month Epiphi, in the fifth year of his reign. By this we must
understand the fifth year of his sole reign, which would be five years
after the death of his father, Seti I, with whom he had from an early
age been associated on the throne. He was a man in the prime of life at
the time of this famous engagement, which was fought under the walls of
Kadesh on the Orontes; and the bas-relief sculptures show him to have
been accompanied by several of his sons, who, though evidently very
young, are represented in their war-chariots, fully armed and taking
part in the battle.[39]
The mutilated colossi are portrait statues of the conqueror. The
obelisk, in the pompous style of Egyptian dedications, proclaims that
“The Lord of the World, Guardian-Sun of Truth, approved of Ra, has built
this edifice in honor of his father Amen Ra, and has erected to him
these two great obelisks of stone in face of the house of Rameses in the
city of Ammon.”
So stately was the approach made by Rameses the Great to the temple
founded about a hundred and fifty years before his time by Amenhotep
III. He also built the court-yard upon which this pylon opened, joining
it to the older part of the building in such wise that the original
first court became now the second court, while next in order came the
portico, the hall of assembly, and the sanctuary. By and by, when the
long line of Rameses had passed away, other and later kings put their
hands to the work. The names of Shabaka (Sabaco), of Ptolemy Philopater
and of Alexander the younger appear among the later inscriptions; while
those of Amenhotep IV (Khu-en-Aten), Horemheb and Seti, the father of
Rameses the Great, are found in the earlier parts of the building. It
was in this way that an Egyptian temple grew from age to age, owing a
colonnade to this king and a pylon to that, till it came in time to
represent the styles of many periods. Hence, too, that frequent
irregularity of plan, which, unless it could be ascribed to the caprices
of successive builders, would form so unaccountable a feature in
Egyptian architecture. In the present instance, the pylon and court-yard
of Rameses II are set at an angle of five degrees to the court-yard and
sanctuary of Amenhotep III. This has evidently been done to bring the
Temple of Luxor into a line with the Temple of Karnak, in order that the
two might be connected by means of that stupendous avenue of sphinxes,
the scattered remains of which yet strew the course of the ancient
roadway.
As I have already said, these half-buried pylons, this solitary obelisk,
those giant heads rising in ghastly resurrection before the gates of the
temple, were magnificent still. But it was as the magnificence of a
splendid prologue to a poem of which only garbled fragments remain.
Beyond that entrance lay a smoky, filthy, intricate labyrinth of lanes
and passages. Mud hovels, mud pigeon-towers, mud yards and a mud mosque,
clustered like wasps’ nests in and about the ruins. Architraves
sculptured with royal titles supported the roofs of squallid cabins.
Stately capitals peeped out from the midst of sheds in which buffaloes,
camels, donkeys, dogs and human beings were seen herding together in
unsavory fellowship. Cocks crew, hens cackled, pigeons cooed, turkeys
gobbled, children swarmed, women were baking and gossiping and all the
sordid routine of Arab life was going on, amid winding alleys that
masked the colonnades and defaced the inscriptions of the Pharaohs. To
trace the plan of this part of the building was then impossible.
All communication being cut off between the courts and the portico, we
had to go round outside and through a door at the farther end of the
temple in order to reach the sanctuary and the adjoining chambers. The
Arab who kept the key provided an inch or two of candle. For it was very
dark in there; the roof being still perfect, with a large, rambling,
modern house built on the top of it--so that if this part of the temple
was ever partially lighted, as at Denderah and elsewhere, by small
wedge-like openings in the roof, even those faint gleams were excluded.
The sanctuary, which was rebuilt in the reign of Alexander Ægus; some
small side chambers; and a large hall, which was perhaps the hall of
assembly, were all that remained under cover of the original
roofing-stones. Some half-buried and broken columns on the side next the
river showed, however, that this end was formerly surrounded by a
colonnade. The sanctuary--an oblong granite chamber with its own
separate roof--stands inclosed in a larger hall, like a box within a
box, and is covered inside and outside with bas-reliefs. These
sculptures (among which I observed a kneeling figure of the king,
offering a kneeling image of Amen Ra) are executed in the mediocre style
of the Ptolemies. That is to say, the forms are more natural but less
refined than those of the Pharaonic period. The limbs are fleshy, the
joints large, the features insignificant. Of actual portraiture one
cannot detect a trace; while every face wears the same objectionable
smirk which disfigures the Cleopatra of Denderah.
In the large hall, which I have called the hall of assembly, one is
carried back to the time of the founder. Between Amenhotep III and
Alexander Ægus there lies a great gulf of twelve hundred years; and
their styles are as widely separated as their reigns. The merest novice
could not possibly mistake the one for the other. Nothing is, of course,
more common than to find Egyptian and Græco-Egyptian work side by side
in the same temple; but nowhere are the distinctive characteristics of
each brought into stronger contrast than in these dark chambers of
Luxor. In the sculptures that line the hall of Amenhotep we find the
pure lines, the severe and slender forms, the characteristic heads of a
period when the art, having as yet neither gained or lost by foreign
influences, was entirely Egyptian. The subjects relate chiefly to the
infancy of the king; but it is difficult to see anything properly by the
light of a candle tied to the end of a stick; and here, where the
bas-relief is so low and the walls are so high, it is almost impossible
to distinguish the details of the upper tableaux.
I could make out, however, that Amen, Maut, and their son Khonsu, the
three personages of the Theban triad, are the presiding deities of these
scenes; and that they are in some way identified with the fortunes of
Thothmes IV, his queen, and their son Amenhotep III. Amenhotep is born,
apparently, under the especial protection of Maut, the divine mother;
brought up with the youthful god Khonsu; and received by Amen as the
brother and equal of his own divine son. I think it was in this hall
that I observed a singular group representing Amen and Maut in an
attitude symbolical perhaps of troth-plight or marriage. They sit face
to face, the goddess holding in her right hand the left hand of the god,
while in her left hand she supports his right elbow. Their thrones,
meanwhile, rest on the heads and their feet are upheld on the hands of
two female genii. It is significant that Rameses III and one of the
ladies of his so-called hareem are depicted in the same attitude in one
of the famous domestic subjects sculptured on the upper stories of the
pavilion at Medinet Habu.
We saw this interesting temple[40] much too cursorily; yet we gave more
time to it than the majority of those who year after year anchor for
days together close under its majestic columns. If the whole building
could be transported bodily to some point between Memphis and Siût,
where the river is bare of ruins, it would be enthusiastically visited.
Here it is eclipsed by the wonders of Karnak and the western bank, and
is undeservedly neglected. Those parts of the original building which
yet remain are, indeed, peculiarly precious; for Amenhotep, or Amunoph
III, was one of the great builder-kings of Egypt, and we have here one
of the few extant specimens of his architectural work.
The Coptic quarter of Luxor lies north of the great pylon and partly
skirts the river. It is cleaner, wider, more airy than that of the
Arabs. The Prussian consul is a Copt; the polite postmaster is a Copt;
and in a modest lodging built half beside and half over the Coptic
church lives the Coptic bishop. The postmaster (an ungainly youth in a
European suit so many sizes too small that his arms and legs appeared to
be sprouting out at the ends of his garments) was profuse in his offers
of service. He undertook to forward letters to us at Assûan, Korosko,
and Wady Halfah, where postoffices had lately been established. And he
kept his promise, I am bound to say, with perfect punctuality--always
adding some queer little complimentary message on the outer wrapper,
such as “I hope you well my compliments;” or “Wishes you good news
pleasant voyage.” As a specimen of his literary style I copied the
following notice, of which it was evident that he was justly proud:
NOTICE: On the commandation. We have ordered the post stations in
lower Egypt from Assiut to Cartoom. Belonging to the Post Kedevy
Egyptian in a good order. Now to pay for letters in lower Egypt as
in the upper Egypt twice. Means that the letters which goes from
here far than Asiut; must pay for it two piastres per ten grs. Also
that which goes far than Cartoom. The letters which goes between
Asiut and Cartoom; must pay only one piastre per ten grs. This and
that is, to buy stamps from the Post and put it upon the letter.
Also if somebody wishes to send letters in insuranced, must two
piastres more for any letter. There is orderation in the Post to
receive the letters which goes to Europe, America and Asia, as
England France, Italy Germany, Syria, Constantinople etc. Also to
send newspapers patterns and other things.
“L’Ispettore,” M. ADDA.
Luxor the 1st January 1874.
This young man begged for a little stationery and a pen-knife at
parting. We had, of course, much pleasure in presenting him with such a
modest testimonial. We afterward learned that he levied the same little
tribute on every dahabeeyah that came up the river; so I conclude that
he must by this time have quite an interesting collection of small
cutlery.
From the point where the railroad ends the Egyptian and Nubian mails are
carried by runners stationed at distances of four miles all along the
route. Each man runs his four miles, and at the end thereof finds the
next man ready to snatch up his bag and start off at full speed
immediately. The next man transfers it in like manner to the next; and
so it goes by day and night without a break, till it reaches the first
railway station. Each runner is supposed to do his four miles in half an
hour, and the mail which goes out every morning from Luxor reaches Cairo
in six days. Considering that Cairo was four hundred and fifty miles
away, that two hundred and sixty-eight miles of this distance had to be
done on foot, and that the trains went only once a day, we thought this
a very creditable speed.
In the afternoon we took donkeys and rode out to Karnak. Our way lay
through the bazaar, which was the poorest we had yet seen. It consisted
of only a few open sheds, in one of which, seated on a mud-built divan,
cross-legged and turbanless like a row of tumbler mandarins, we saw five
of our sailors under the hands of the Luxor barber. He had just lathered
all five heads, and was complacently surveying the effect of his work,
much as an artistic cook might survey a dish of particularly successful
méringues à la crême. The méringues looked very sheepish when we laughed
and passed by.
Next came the straggling suburb where the dancing-girls most do
congregate. These damsels in gaudy garments of emerald green, bright
rose and flaming yellow, were squatting outside their cabins or lounging
unveiled about the thresholds of two or three dismal dens of cafés in
the market-place. They showed their teeth and laughed familiarly in our
faces. Their eyebrows were painted to meet on the bridge of the nose;
their eyes were blackened round with kohl; their cheeks were
extravagantly rouged; their hair was gummed, and greased, and festooned
upon their foreheads, and plaited all over in innumerable tails. Never
before had we seen anything in female form so hideous. One of these
houris was black; and she looked quite beautiful in her blackness,
compared with the painting and plastering of her companions.
We now left the village behind and rode out across a wide plain, barren
and hillocky in some parts; overgrown in others with coarse halfeh
grass; and dotted here and there with clumps of palms. The Nile lay low
and out of sight, so that the valley seemed to stretch away
uninterruptedly to the mountains on both sides. Now leaving to the left
a sheik’s tomb, topped by a little cupola and shaded by a group of
tamarisks; now following the bed of a dry watercourse; now skirting
shapeless mounds that indicated the site of ruins unexplored, the road,
uneven but direct, led straight to Karnak. At every rise in the ground
we saw the huge popylons towering higher above the palms. Once, but for
only a few moments, there came into sight a confused and wide-spread
mass of ruins, as extensive, apparently, as the ruins of a large town.
Then our way dipped into a sandy groove bordered by mud-walls and
plantations of dwarf-palms. All at once this groove widened, became a
stately avenue guarded by a double file of shattered sphinxes, and led
toward a lofty pylon standing up alone against the sky.
Close beside this grand gateway, as if growing there on purpose, rose a
thicket of sycamores and palms; while beyond it were seen the twin
pylons of a temple. The sphinxes were colossal, and measured about ten
feet in length. One or two were ram-headed. Of the rest--some forty or
fifty in number--all were headless, some split asunder, some overturned,
others so mutilated that they looked like torrent-worn bowlders. This
avenue once reached from Luxor to Karnak. Taking into account the
distance (which is just two miles from temple to temple) and the short
intervals at which the sphinxes are placed, there cannot originally have
been fewer than five hundred of them; that is to say, two hundred and
fifty on each side of the road.
Dismounting for a few minutes, we went into the temple; glanced round
the open court-yard with its colonnade of pillars; peeped hurriedly into
some ruinous side-chambers; and then rode on. Our books told us that we
had seen the small temple of Rameses III. It would have been called
large anywhere but at Karnak.
I seem to remember the rest as if it had all happened in a dream.
Leaving the small temple, we turned toward the river, skirted the mud
walls of the native village, and approached the great temple by way of
its main entrance. Here we entered upon what had once been another great
avenue of sphinxes, ram-headed, couchant on plinths deep cut with
hieroglyphic legends, and leading up from some grand landing-place
beside the Nile.
And now the towers that we had first seen as we sailed by in the morning
rose straight before us, magnificent in ruin, glittering to the sun, and
relieved in creamy light against blue depths of sky. One was nearly
perfect; the other, shattered as if by the shock of an earthquake, was
still so lofty than an Arab clambering from block to block midway of its
vast height looked no bigger than a squirrel.
On the threshold of this tremendous portal we again dismounted.
Shapeless crude-brick mounds, marking the limits of the ancient wall of
circuit, reached far away on either side. An immense perspective of
pillars and pylons leading up to a very distant obelisk opened out
before us. We went in, the great walls towering up like cliffs above our
heads, and entered the first court. Here, in the midst of a large
quadrangle open to the sky, stands a solitary column, the last of a
central avenue of twelve, some of which, disjointed by the shock, lie
just as they fell, like skeletons of vertebrate monsters left stranded
by the flood.
Crossing this court in the glowing sunlight, we came to a mighty doorway
between two more propylons--the doorway splendid with colored
bas-reliefs; the propylons mere cataracts of fallen blocks piled up to
right and left in grand confusion. The cornice of the doorway is gone.
Only a jutting fragment of the lintel stone remains. That stone, when
perfect, measured forty feet and ten inches across. The doorway must
have been full a hundred feet in height.
We went on. Leaving to the right a mutilated colossus engraven on arm
and breast with the cartouche of Rameses II, we crossed the shade upon
the threshold and passed into the famous Hypostyle Hall of Seti I.
It is a place that has been much written about and often painted; but of
which no writing and no art can convey more than a dwarfed and pallid
impression. To describe it, in the sense of building up a recognizable
image by means of words, is impossible. The scale is too vast; the
effect too tremendous; the sense of one’s own dumbness, and littleness,
and incapacity, too complete and crushing. It is a place that strikes
you into silence; that empties you, as it were, not only of words but of
ideas. Nor is this a first effect only. Later in the year, when we came
back down the river and moored close by, and spent long days among the
ruins, I found I never had a word to say in the great hall. Others might
measure the girth of those tremendous columns; others might climb hither
and thither, and find out points of view, and test the accuracy of
Wilkinson and Mariette; but I could only look and be silent.
Yet to look is something, if one can but succeed in remembering; and the
great hall of Karnak is photographed in some dark corner of my brain for
as long as I have memory. I shut my eyes, and see it as if I were
there--not all at once, as in a picture; but bit by bit, as the eye
takes note of large objects and travels over an extended field of
vision. I stand once more among those mighty columns, which radiate into
avenues from whatever point one takes them. I see them swathed in coiled
shadows and broad bands of light. I see them sculptured and painted with
shapes of gods and kings, with blazonings of royal names, with
sacrificial altars, and forms of sacred beasts, and emblems of wisdom
and truth. The shafts of these columns are enormous. I stand at the foot
of one--or of what seems to be the foot; for the original pavement lies
buried seven feet below. Six men standing with extended arms, finger-tip
to finger-tip, could barely span it round. It casts a shadow twelve feet
in breadth--such a shadow as might be cast by a tower. The capital that
juts out so high above my head looks as if it might have been placed
there to support the heavens. It is carved in the semblance of a
full-blown lotus, and glows with undying colors--colors that are still
fresh, though laid on by hands that have been dust these three thousand
years and more. It would take not six men, but a dozen, to measure round
the curved lip of that stupendous lily.
Such are the twelve central columns. The rest (one hundred and
twenty-two in number) are gigantic, too, but smaller. Of the roof they
once supported, only the beams remain. Those beams are stones--huge
monoliths[41] carved and painted, bridging the space from pillar to
pillar, and patterning the trodden soil with bands of shadow.
Looking up and down the central avenue, we see at the one end a
flame-like obelisk; at the other, a solitary palm against a background
of glowing mountain. To right, to left, showing transversely through
long files of columns, we catch glimpses of colossal bas-reliefs lining
the roofless walls in every direction. The king, as usual, figures in
every group, and performs the customary acts of worship. The gods
receive and approve him. Half in light, half in shadow, these slender,
fantastic forms stand out sharp and clear and colorless; each figure
some eighteen or twenty feet in height. They could scarcely have looked
more weird when the great roof was in its place and perpetual twilight
reigned. But it is difficult to imagine the roof on and the sky shut
out. It all looks right as it is; and one feels, somehow, that such
columns should have nothing between them and the infinite blue depths of
heaven.
The great central avenue was, however, sufficiently lighted by means of
a double row of clerestory windows, some of which are yet standing.
Certain writers have suggested that they may have been glazed; but this
seems improbable for two reasons. Firstly, because one or two of these
huge window-frames yet contain the solid stone gratings which in the
present instance seem to have done duty for a translucent material; and,
secondly, because we have no evidence to show that the early Egyptians,
though familiar since the days of Cheops with the use of the blow-pipe,
ever made glass in sheets, or introduced it in this way into their
buildings.
How often has it been written, and how often must it be repeated, that
the great hall at Karnak is the noblest architectural work ever designed
and executed by human hands? One writer tells us that it covers four
times the area occupied by the cathedral of Nôtre Dame in Paris. Another
measures it against St. Peter’s. All admit their inability to describe
it; yet all attempt the description. To convey a concrete image of the
place to one who has not seen it, is, however, as I have already said,
impossible. If it could be likened to this place or that, the task would
not be so difficult; but there is, in truth, no building in the wide
world to compare with it. The pyramids are more stupendous. The
colosseum covers more ground. The parthenon is more beautiful. Yet in
nobility of conception, in vastness of detail, in majesty of the highest
order, the hall of pillars exceeds them every one. This doorway, these
columns, are the wonder of the world. How was that lintel-stone raised?
How were these capitals lifted? Entering among those mighty pillars,
says a recent observer, “you feel that you have shrunk to the dimensions
and feebleness of a fly.” But I think you feel more than that. You are
stupefied by the thought of the mighty men who made them. You say to
yourself: “There were indeed giants in those days.”
It may be that the traveler who finds himself for the first time in the
midst of a grove of _Wellingtonia gigantea_ feels something of the same
overwhelming sense of awe and wonder; but the great trees, though they
have taken three thousand years to grow, lack the pathos and the mystery
that comes of human labor. They do not strike their roots through six
thousand years of history. They have not been watered with the blood and
tears of millions.[42] Their leaves know no sounds less musical than the
singing of birds, or the moaning of the night-wind as it sweeps over the
highlands of Calaveros. But every breath that wanders down the painted
aisles of Karnak seems to echo back the sighs of those who perished in
the quarry, at the oar, and under the chariot-wheels of the conqueror.
The Hypostyle Hall, though built by Seti, the father of Rameses II, is
supposed by some Egyptologists to have been planned, if not begun, by
that same Amenhotep III who founded the Temple of Luxor and set up the
famous colossi of the plain. However this may be, the cartouches so
lavishly sculptured on pillar and architrave contain no names but those
of Seti, who undoubtedly executed the work _en bloc_, and of Rameses,
who completed it.
And now, would it not be strange if we knew the name and history of the
architect who superintended the building of this wondrous hall, and
planned the huge doorway by which it was entered, and the mighty pylons
which lie shattered on either side? Would it not be interesting to look
upon his portrait and see what manner of man he was? Well, the Egyptian
room in the Glyptothek museum at Munich contains a statue found some
seventy years ago at Thebes, which almost certainly represents that man,
and is inscribed with his history. His name was Bak-en-Khonsu (servant
of Khonsu). He sits upon the ground, bearded and robed, in an attitude
of meditation. That he was a man of unusual ability is shown by the
inscriptions engraved upon the back of the statue. These inscriptions
record his promotion, step by step, to the highest grade of the
hierarchy. Having obtained the dignity of high priest and first prophet
of Amen during the reign of Seti I, he became chief architect of the
Thebaid under Rameses II, and received a royal commission to superintend
the embellishment of the temples. When Rameses II “erected a monument to
his divine father Amen Ra,” the building thereof was executed under the
direction of Bak-en-Khonsu. Here the inscription, as translated by M.
Deveria, goes on to say that “he made the sacred edifice in the upper
gate of the abode of Amen.[43] He erected obelisks of granite. He made
golden flagstaffs. He added very, very great colonnades.”
M. Deveria suggests that the Temple of Gournah may here be indicated;
but to this it might be objected that Gournah is situated in the lower
and not the upper part of Thebes; that at Gournah there are no great
colonnades and no obelisks; and that, moreover, for some reason at
present unknown to us, the erection of obelisks seems to have been
wholly confined to the eastern bank of the Nile. It is, however,
possible that the works here enumerated may not all have been executed
for one and the same temple. The “sacred edifice in the upper gate of
the abode of Amen” might be the Temple of Luxor, which Rameses did in
fact adorn with the only obelisks we know to be his in Thebes; the
monument erected by him to his divine father Amen (evidently a new
structure) would scarcely be any other than the Ramesseum; while the
“very, very great colonnades,” which are expressly specified as
additions, would seem as if they could only belong to the Hypostyle Hall
of Karnak. The question is at all events interesting; and it is pleasant
to believe that in the Munich statue we have not only a portrait of one
who at Karnak played the part of Michael Angelo to some foregone and
forgotten Bramante, but who was also the Ictinus of the Ramesseum. For
the Ramesseum is the Parthenon of Thebes.
The sun was sinking and the shadows were lengthening when, having made
the round of the principal ruins, we at length mounted our donkeys and
turned toward Luxor. To describe all that we saw after leaving the great
hall would fill a chapter. Huge obelisks of shining granite--some yet
erect, some shattered and prostrate; vast lengths of sculptured walls
covered with wondrous battle subjects, sacerdotal processions, and
elaborate chronicles of the deeds of kings; ruined court-yards
surrounded by files of headless statues; a sanctuary built all of
polished granite, and engraven like a gem; a second hall of pillars
dating back to the early days of Thothmes III; labyrinths of roofless
chambers; mutilated colossi, shattered pylons, fallen columns,
unintelligible foundations and hieroglyphic inscriptions without end,
were glanced at, passed by, and succeeded by fresh wonders. I dare not
say how many small outlying temples we saw in the course of that rapid
survey. In one place we came upon an undulating tract of coarse halfeh
grass, in the midst of which, battered, defaced, forlorn, sat a weird
company of green granite sphinxes and lioness-headed basts. In another,
we saw a magnificent colossal hawk upright on his pedestal in the midst
of a bergfall of ruins. More avenues of sphinxes, more pylons, more
colossi were passed before the road we took in returning brought us
round to that by which we had come. By the time we reached the sheik’s
tomb, it was nearly dusk. We rode back across the plain, silent and
bewildered. Have I not said that it was like a dream?