There are numerous catacombs in Egypt, the principal of which are at
Alexandria; at Sakkara, near Cairo; at Siut, near the ancient Lycopolis
or City of the Wolf; at Gebel Silsilis, on the banks of the Nile between
Etfu and Ombos, the site of one of the principal quarries of ancient
Egypt; and at Thebes. Many of these are of vast extent, and were
doubtless formed by quarrying the rocks and mountains for building
materials. They consist of grottos, galleries, and chambers, penetrating
often to a considerable distance, the superincumbent mass being
supported by huge pillars of rock; or the galleries running parallel,
with masses of solid rock intervening for supports. Many of these
chambers and grottos contained multitudes of mummies, probably the
bodies of the less wealthy; many were evidently private family tombs of
wealthy individuals, some of which are of great magnificence, adorned
with sculptures, paintings, and hieroglyphics. The Arabs for centuries
have been plundering these abodes of the dead, and great numbers of the
mummies have been destroyed for fuel, and for the linen, rosin, and
asphaltum they contain, which is sold to advantage at Cairo. An immense
number of them have been found in the plain of Sakkara, near Memphis,
consisting not only of human bodies, but of various sacred animals, as
bulls, crocodiles, apes, ibises, fish, &c.; hence it is called _The
Plain of the Mummies_. Numerous caves or grottos, with contents of the
same kind, are found in the two mountainous ridges which run nearly
parallel with the Nile, from Cairo to Syene. Many of these tombs and
mummies are two or three thousand years old, and some of them perhaps
older.
Among all the wonderful subterranean monuments of Egypt, the Catacombs
of Thebes are the most extraordinary and magnificent. These consist of
the Necropolis, or city of the dead, on the west bank of the Nile (which
was the common burial-place of the people), and the Tombs of the Kings.
The latter lie to the northwest of the city, at some distance in the
Desert. Having passed the Necropolis, the traveler enters a narrow and
rugged valley, flanked with perpendicular rocks, and ascending a narrow,
steep passage about ten feet high, which seems to have been broken down
through the rock, the ancient passage being from the Memnonium under the
hills, he comes to a kind of amphitheatre about 100 yards wide, which is
called Bab-il-Meluke--that is, the gate or court of the kings--being the
sepulchres of the kings of Thebes. In this court there are signs of
about eighteen excavations; but only nine can be entered. The hills on
each side are high, steep rocks, and the whole plain is covered with
rough stones that seem to have rolled down from them.
The grottos present externally no other ornaments than a door in a
simple square frame, with an oval in the centre of the upper part, on
which are inscribed the hieroglyphical figures of a beetle, a man with a
hawk's head, and beyond the circle two figures on their knees, in the
act of adoration. Having passed the first gate, long arched galleries
are discovered, about twelve feet wide and twenty feet high, cased with
stucco, sculptured and painted; the vaults, of an elegant elliptical
figure, are covered with innumerable hieroglyphics, disposed with so
much taste, that notwithstanding the singular grotesqueness of the
forms, and the total absence of demi-tint or aërial perspective, the
ceilings make an agreeable whole, a rich and harmonious association of
colors. Four of five of these galleries, one within the other, generally
lead to a spacious room, containing the sarcophagus of the king,
composed of a single block of granite, about twelve feet long by eight
in breadth, ornamented with hieroglyphics, both within and without; they
are square at one end, and rounded at the other, like the splendid
sarcophagus deposited in the British Museum, and supposed by Dr. Clarke
to have contained the body of Alexander. They are covered with a lid of
the same material, and of enormous thickness, shutting with a groove;
but neither this precaution, nor these vast blocks of stone, brought
from such a distance with immense labor, have been able to preserve the
relics of the sovereigns from the attempts of avarice; all these tombs
have been violated. The figure of the king appears to have been
sculptured and painted at full length on the lid of each sarcophagus.
The paintings found in these sepulchres are among the most curious and
interesting remains of Egyptian art; and they are in wonderful
preservation, the colors being as fresh as when first executed. Some of
these figures were copied by Bruce; and Denon, a member of the French
Commission sent by Napoleon to examine the antiquities of Egypt, has
published a most valuable collection which have all the appearance of
spirited and characteristic resemblances. "I discovered," says he, "some
little chambers, on the walls of which were represented all kinds of
arms, such as panoplies, coats of mail, tigers' skins, bows, arrows,
quivers, pikes, javelins, sabres, helmets, and whips: in another was a
collection of household utensils, such as caskets, chests of drawers,
chairs, sofas, and beds, all of exquisite forms, and such as might well
grace the apartments of modern luxury. As these were probably accurate
representations of the objects themselves, it is almost a proof that the
ancient Egyptians employed for their furniture Indian wood, carved and
gilt, which they covered with embroidery. Besides these, were
represented various smaller articles, as vases, coffee-pots, ewers with
their basins, a tea-pot and basket. Another chamber was consecrated to
agriculture, in which were represented all its various instruments--a
sledge similar to those in use at present, a man sowing grain by the
side of a canal, from the borders of which the inundation is beginning
to retire, a field of corn reaped with a sickle, and fields of rice with
men watching them. In a fourth chamber was a figure clothed in white,
playing on a richly ornamented harp, with eleven strings."
Denon observed everything with the eye of an artist. Speaking of the
Necropolis, which consists of numerous double galleries of grottos,
excavated in the solid rock for nearly a mile and a half square, he
observes, "I was convinced by the magnificence both of the paintings and
sculptures, that I was among the tombs of great men and heros. The
sculpture in all is incomparably more labored and higher finished than
any I had seen in the temples; and I stood in astonishment at the high
perfection of the art, and its singular destiny to be devoted to places
of such silence and obscurity. In working these galleries, beds of a
very fine calcareous clay have occasionally been crossed, and here the
lines of the hieroglyphics have been cut with a firmness of touch and a
precision, of which marble offers but few examples. The figures have
elegance and correctness of contour, of which I never thought Egyptian
sculpture susceptible. Here, too, I could judge of the style of this
people in subjects which had neither hieroglyphic, nor historical, nor
scientific; for there were representations of small scenes taken from
nature, in which the stiff profile outlines, so common with Egyptian
artists, were exchanged for supple and natural attitudes; groups of
persons were given in perspective, and cut in deeper relief than I
should have supposed anything but metal could have been worked."
The Sepulchres of the Kings of Thebes are mentioned by Diodorus Siculus
as wonderful works, and such as could never be exceeded by anything
afterwards executed in this kind. He says that forty-seven of them were
mentioned in their history; that only seventeen of them remained to the
time of Ptolemy Lagus; adding that most of them were destroyed in his
time. Strabo says, that above the Memnonium, the precise locality of
Denon's description, were the sepulchres of the kings of Thebes, in
grottos cut out of the rock, being about forty in number, wonderfully
executed and worthy to be seen. In these, he says, were obelisks with
inscriptions on them, setting forth the riches, power, and empire of
these kings, as far as Scythia, Bactria, India, and Ionia, their great
revenues, and their immense armies, consisting of one million of men.
In Egypt, the honors paid to the dead partook of the nature of a
religious homage. By the process of embalming, they endeavored to
preserve the body from the common laws of nature; and they provided
those magnificent and durable habitations for the dead--sublime
monuments of human folly--which have not preserved but buried the memory
of their founders. By a singular fatality, the well-adapted punishment
of pride, the extraordinary precautions by which it seemed in a manner
to triumph over death, have only led to a more humiliating
disappointment. The splendor of the tomb has but attracted the violence
of rapine; the sarcophagus has been violated; and while other bodies
have quietly returned to their native dust in the bosom of their mother
earth, the Egyptian, converted into a mummy, has been preserved only to
the insults of curiosity, or avarice, or barbarism.