are called Ethiopians. The cinctures and boots of each individual
are of a different pattern, rivalling in variety and elegance the
chintz morning dresses of our modern belles. These Ethiopians have
their hair dressed in curls above their foreheads, and ringlets
hanging down on their shoulders. The first is carrying a piece of
an elephant’s tooth and a vase in his hand; the others, eleven
in number, are bearing elegant descriptions of vases, apparently
of gold and silver; these, although unadorned with figures and
mythological subjects, are most exquisite in form, and I am sure
the reader will admit their decorations to be most beautiful. Those
carried by the third, fifth, and tenth figures of the second row of
this plate, apparently contain flowers; whether these are artificial
decorations of the vases, or really represent plants,—varieties,
perhaps, of the lotus peculiar to Ethiopia—is a question I cannot
decide. The necklaces which the third figure is bearing are very
elegant, apparently of lapis lazuli and gold. The elegant vase the
seventh figure is carrying, is either of ivory or silver.
The third row in this plate contains a most interesting group of
Ethiopians. The first figure, bearing a log of ebony and a monkey
on his shoulder, is conducting a drove of seven oxen. I might have
taken the liberty to restore the forms of the latter; but, as will be
seen by the plate, the heads and fore-legs only are still remaining,
showing the curious and beautiful manner in which the Egyptians
grouped their cattle. Above the oxen is a curious group of dogs, not
very unlike the greyhounds that at present exist in Ethiopia. The
next group is very interesting; two Ethiopians are conducting a
giraffe, admirably drawn. A mischievous monkey is climbing up its
neck. The way in which he is conducted, with cords attached to his
feet, is curious, and the cincture of the Ethiopians leading him
is formed apparently of the skin of a giraffe, they being, perhaps,
inhabitants of the deserts where the animal is found. The next, or
fourth figure, is leading a monkey, and bearing a vase full of ostrich
eggs and feathers. The fifth figure is a negro, carrying a tooth
of an elephant and skins; he has a blue cap. I do not believe that
such caps were then worn, but that their hair is represented blue,
to distinguish it from the colour of their faces, which was black;
otherwise, from the same colours joining, it would have appeared as
if they wore no hair at all. The Egyptian border is a great finish to
the painting. The broad blue streak above the top-line represents the
heavens. The ground colour, which is exactly the tint of the original,
adds to the richness of the painting, and throws out the white.
Part II. is a continuation of the three rows last described. The four
figures in the top row are dark-coloured, but not quite black. This
is one of the very few instances in which the Egyptians preserved
any degree of difference between the usual red colour and the black
of the negroes. The pile of gorgeous offerings in the centre of this
plate is magnificent; the first row contains two obelisks, perhaps
of granite, beautifully decorated vases containing rings, which,
from the hieroglyphics, we find are of gold, sealed bags of the same,
and precious stones, and heaps of grain, and apparently fruit. The
second row contains still richer offerings: in the first line are two
very prettily decorated vases, laden with ingots of silver, and an
elegant tray, on which are rings, which, from their hieroglyphics,
must be also of silver; and another vase, containing, I think,
indigo. The second line comprises some very elegant vases, apparently
of gold and silver, and one blue glass bottle: the streaks of yellow
in the latter are curious. The third line includes beautifully-shaped
vases, which, from the hieroglyphics, are either full of silver and
gold, or actually made of those precious metals; and, what is very
remarkable in this line, there are several heads of animals, which,
from the hieroglyphics, and also from the colouring, are evidently of
silver and gold. There is the head of a capricorn, in gold; one of an
antelope, and another of a jackall, in silver; and one of a leopard,
and of a curious description of bird, apparently a cock, in gold.
[Illustration: From a Drawing by G. A. Hoskins Esqr.
GRAND PROCESSION._PART 2._
From a Tomb at Thebes.
_Published by Longman, Rees & Co. April 6th. 1835._
_Printed in Colours by C. Hullmandel._]
The third row is equally rich. In the first line there are rings of
gold, and bags, which the reader will remark in the plate, are also
sealed; ostrich feathers, logs of ebony, and a cynocephalus, perched
comically in the centre. The lower line contains elephants’ teeth,
a beautiful skin of a leopard, ingots and rings of gold, and sealed
bags of precious stones. At the end of each row is a scribe, writing
in his book with his pen an inventory of the different offerings;
behind the latter are gentlemen, perhaps of the household of the king,
with their white wands of office. All the hieroglyphics above the
figure are in the original of a blue colour, as represented, with
the exception of the two lines of large hieroglyphics in this plate,
forming part of the tablet before a figure of the king, seated;
but, as his majesty, in this instance, is very plainly attired,
I have not considered it necessary to give a drawing of him.
Part III. contains two rows of figures immediately underneath the
three rows of Part I. The people represented in the first row of this
plate are all white, with blue eyes, red hair, and pointed beards:
they are dressed in long robes, open in front, like the caftans of
the Turks. The first group is curious, exhibiting one of these men
leading a bear, and having on his shoulders a tooth of an elephant,
while behind him is a representation of that animal. The features of
these figures resemble those of the Jews: their complexion, and one
of them having a long glove in his hand, certainly indicate their
coming from a cold country. The elephant must be from Ethiopia: if,
therefore, they are the Scythians, as some suppose, they must be
employed as slaves bearing the produce of Ethiopia. It is possible
that they are natives of the mountains of Abyssinia, who are now
so much whiter than the natives of the valley of the Nile of the
same latitude; but I think it far more probable that they are white
slaves of the king of Ethiopia, sent to the Egyptian king as the most
acceptable present. The same people are leading an elegant car and a
pair of horses. The plate will show their beautiful manner of drawing
that animal, almost equal to the Grecian. The lowest row represents
the Egyptians leading two rows of another race of white men. They
are without beards, have blue hair and eyes, and are dressed in long
gowns: from their position, they must be either strings of prisoners,
or recruits drilling for the army: behind them are their wives,
curiously dressed, carrying and leading their children. The latter
are painted red, as if born in Ethiopia, whither their parents had
been brought prisoners. The Egyptian border at the bottom of this
plate heightens considerably the effect of the painting.
[Illustration: From a Drawing by G. A. Hoskins Esqr.
GRAND PROCESSION._PART 3._
From a Tomb at Thebes.
_Published by Longman, Rees & Co. April 6th. 1835._
_Printed in Colours by C. Hullmandel._]
Part IV., the last compartment of this grand procession, represents,
in the upper row, five of the Jewish-looking figures, with their
aquiline noses, bearing large vases. The second bears an elegant bow
and quiver full of arrows; the third has a long glove in his hand;
and the fourth, perhaps, an ivory bottle. The offerings in the centre
are almost similar to those I have described before. There are some
bundles of reeds, and two vases of a blue article, perhaps indigo. The
lowest row contains a group of seven male Ethiopian slaves, recruits
I conceive for the army; behind them are their wives and children; one
of the latter in a pannier suspended from the head of its mother. The
figures in this row are not, like those above, bearing presents; the
Egyptian scribe at the end is, however, represented, as in the other
instances, writing on his scroll, which confirms the idea that they
are slaves forming part of the tribute to the great Egyptian king.
Athenæus (see lib. v.), in his description of the festival given
by Ptolemy Philadelphus to the Alexandrians, mentions, that in the
procession there was a number of Ethiopians, carrying the teeth of
600 elephants. Others bore two thousand blocks of ebony, and some
were loaded with vessels of gold and silver, containing the finest
gold. Besides these, there were 2,400 dogs, men bearing trees, and
a number of animals, both beasts and birds, parroquets, and other
birds of Ethiopia, carried in cages; 130 Ethiopian sheep, 300 Arabian,
and 20 from the island of Nubia; 26 Indian buffaloes, white as snow,
and 8 from Ethiopia; three brown bears, and a white one, 14 leopards,
16 panthers, 4 lynxes, 1 giraffe, and a rhinoceros of Ethiopia. The
reader has only to refer to my drawings to perceive how admirably
the procession, represented on the walls of this tomb, erected
at the time of Thothmes III., considering it also as a pictorial
representation, agrees with the one described by Athenæus, and the
tribute mentioned by Herodotus as paid to the Persians 1000 years
after the reign of Thothmes.
In the voyage of Scylax round the world mention is made of the
Ethiopians. Although the account is rather confused, particularly
as to their situation, the description agrees so remarkably, in many
instances, with the people represented in these plates, that I cannot
refrain from giving part of it. “The nation whom they traffic
with are the Ethiopians, who sell them skins of stags and lions,
precious stones, skins and teeth of elephants, and droves of domestic
animals. The richest furniture of these Ethiopians consists in _carved
vases_, and of bottles of ivory. They wear beards and _long hair_;
they are the most beautiful men on the earth: he who has the finest
figure is chosen their chief. They are excellent horsemen, and very
skilful archers. They drink milk, but also wine, which they make in
great quantities from the vines that they cultivate. They have a large
town, where the Phœnicians carry their merchandise. Some pretend that
the Ethiopians inhabit a vast territory, extending from Egypt to the
sea.” The skins, precious stones, ivory, herds of cattle, carved
vases, ivory bottles, long hair, use of the bow and arrows, agree in
an extraordinary manner with the representations in these plates. The
large town, to which the Phœnicians traded, was, perhaps, Meroe.
This grand procession may perhaps be merely a representation of
an amicable present made on the part of the Ethiopians to the king
Thothmes; but as that Egyptian monarch waged war against Ethiopia,
built the temple of Semneh, and left his name in an inscription on
the rocks at Toumbos, this painting (particularly as it is depicted
in the most conspicuous part of his tomb) may reasonably be supposed
to represent either a tribute from the conquered regions, or the
price at which Ethiopia obtained a peace.
[Illustration: From a Drawing by G. A. Hoskins Esqr.
GRAND PROCESSION._PART 4._
From a Tomb at Thebes.
_Published by Longman, Rees & Co. April 6th. 1835._
_Printed in Colours by C. Hullmandel._]
When Egypt grew into importance, before the commencement of those
wars which were so fatal to the prosperity of the kingdom of Meroe,
her colonies in that country would be a great source of wealth;
receiving the manufactures of the mother country, and sending back
in return the rich productions of the more northern valley of the
Nile. The Bahr el Abiad and the Bahr el Azruk would enable her
merchants to carry their manufactures among the wild natives of the
interior. It is now impossible to say how far that commerce extended
in that direction. The difference of religion, supposing it to have
existed, was probably not very great, nor does history lead us to
suppose, that there existed the same bigotry which now separates the
Mahometan from the Pagan. The former religion, particularly at its
commencement, was most intolerant; its believers being almost bound
to propagate it with the sword. This will account for the little
communication which, according to the tradition of the country,
has existed for several centuries between the present inhabitants
of Shendy, that is, Meroe, and the still wilder tribes of the
interior. The Arab princes of this country made excursions into the
interior, not as merchants, to exchange the produce of the land,
and diffuse the seeds of knowledge and civilisation, but with arms
in their hands, to force their weaker neighbours to embrace their
faith, and, in later times, to drag their children into captivity;
but we cannot suppose that a wise and civilised people could have
adopted so impolitic a course. The account given by the historians
of the different sects which existed, even in the kingdom of Meroe,
prove that toleration was then allowed.
Meroe, therefore, possessed local advantages far greater than have
been enjoyed by many great commercial states; and I now hope to
show, that her internal resources, until exhausted or decayed,
were sufficient to insure a continuation of that prosperity. Her
great superiority over other states would consist, not only in the
productions of the soil, but principally in her standing singly
pre-eminent in civilisation. That science and knowledge of the arts,
when applied to commerce, enriched her citizens, and enabled them
to indulge their taste for luxury, for architectural ornament, and
to encourage her artists. What was of greater importance, it would
afford to many the means of devoting their lives to the pursuit
of literature; the same activity would, of course, to a certain
degree, be applied to the improvement of her manufactures, and the
production of useful and ornamental articles, for which the natives
of the interior would gladly give in exchange that precious metal,
which is only valuable for what it procures.
My article on the state of the arts at Meroe will show the skill and
science possessed by her inhabitants; which, with their wealth and
commercial habits, would be employed in useful and elegant inventions,
with their monopoly of which their uncivilised neighbours would be
unable to interfere. I have stated in my topographical description
of the pyramids of Meroe, how the evidence of all travellers—that a
great part of the soil of Egypt, and the whole of the Delta, has been
brought down from Ethiopia by the Nile,—agrees with the testimony
of the historians, particularly of Diodorus, and the information
they received in a country, the natives of which were more likely
to conceal than invent such an account.
The first great source of the power of Meroe was probably the extreme
fertility of her soil, and the abundance of her harvests. Those
banks, which are now in a great many instances entirely covered
by the sands of the desert, were doubtless then overspread with
that rich soil which astonishes the traveller in Egypt, and her
country was resorted to perhaps by the natives of less favoured
climes, as the richest under the sun.[86] With regard to her mines,
notwithstanding what Diodorus says, I suspect, as formerly stated,
that this great source of her wealth was derived more from the centre
of Africa; but it is true that the interior of the island has never
yet been fully explored. If any remains of those riches now exist,
access to them is almost impossible, at all events for an individual,
in consequence of the number of ferocious and terrible animals with
which that tract is infested.
I have described Meroe, such as she must have been in the zenith of
her greatness,—the emporium of the commerce of interior Africa, the
cradle and early seat of arts, science, and civilisation. Such was she
in the height of her prosperity; but, as the sun which rises must set,
and nation must succeed nation in the career of improvement, I must
now endeavour to account for her gradual decline, and the chain of
circumstances which finally caused her name to be erased from the
list of kingdoms. The first cause perhaps was the failure of her
internal resources, in consequence of the Nile carrying down yearly
to Egypt a portion of her richest soil, and the deserts encroaching
on her plains. She thus became dependent on foreign countries for
an adequate supply of those necessaries, of which her territory
perhaps formerly produced a superfluity. Those mines also, whether
on her own territory or farther in the interior, which furnished
such an abundance of the precious metal, would in course of time
become exhausted; or accidental circumstances might interrupt her
commercial intercourse with the countries which supplied them. Her
inhabitants, finding the soil swept away by the Nile, would follow the
course of the river, and establish themselves in Egypt. The latter
country, besides the extraordinary advantages afforded by it to the
cultivators, would, by instructions received from these Ethiopian
colonies, almost immediately rise to an equal rank of civilisation and
knowledge. We have seen that the same religion, the same mysteries,
the same writing, and the same style of architecture, existed in
the two countries. The land of Egypt would increase every year in
fertility, and the tree of knowledge, planted in that genial soil,
would spread wide its branches. The activity too of a more northern
region, and the energies of a less corrupted nation, would raise
the people of Egypt above those of Ethiopia, then perhaps become
more luxurious, and consequently more indolent.
In the earliest ages, Meroe might have profited by a commerce with
her Egyptian colonies; the markets of the latter country might,
for a short time, have been supplied with produce and manufactures
of Arabia and the Indies, from the mother country; but it is not
to be supposed that the Egyptians would have been so deficient in
intelligence, and the Arabians in common sense, as not to perceive
the advantage of a direct communication.[87] The Egyptian ports of
Myos Hormos and Berenice, and others, possessed also the advantage of
being less distant from the river, and afforded to the Arabians the
means of supplying rich and populous Egypt with the productions of
the Indies and the peninsula. Philostratus (2 de Vitâ Apollonii,
l. iii. c. 35.) says, that a certain prince named Eythus (who
is supposed by some, but, I conceive, erroneously, to be Esau)
dispossessed the Egyptians of their trade in the Red Sea, making
a law, that they should not navigate that sea with more than one
merchant ship at a time; but the Egyptians built one of immense size,
to supply the place of several. Their trade at that time could not
have been very extensive, if it could be carried on by any one
vessel; but perhaps, as in the time of Joseph, who (see Genesis
xxxvii. 25.) was sold by his brethren to a company of Ishmaelites,
the descendants of Ishmael, the son of Abraham by Hagar, 1730 B.C.,
travelling from Gilead, with their camels, bearing spices and myrrh
for the Egyptian market, they had a considerable land commerce with
the Arabians: the caravan I have just alluded to must, by the nature
of the produce, have come from Arabia.
The Jews, in the time of Solomon, carried on a great trade in the
Red Sea, and imported gold from Ophir. “And Huram sent him, by
the hands of his servants, ships, and servants that had knowledge
of the sea; and they went with the servants of Solomon to Ophir, and
took thence 450 talents of gold, and brought them to King Solomon.”
(2 Chron. viii. 18.)—“And the Queen of Sheba (chap. ix. 9.) gave
King Solomon 120 talents of gold, and of spices great abundance, and
precious stones.” And in the same chapter, 13th and 14th verses,
we find that Solomon received, “in one year, 666 talents of gold,
beside that which chapmen and merchants brought; and all the kings
of Arabia brought gold and silver to Solomon.” These passages are
important, as showing one particular district of Ethiopia, where gold
was found in abundance. The gold brought by the chiefs of Arabia,
I conceive not to have been the natural production of that country,
but the fruit of their industry and commerce with the Ethiopians. As
Solomon was son-in-law to the Pharaoh of Egypt, the latter was,
probably, not excluded from the commerce. Ezekiel mentions Ethiopia as
one of the upholders of Egypt; and (chapter xxx. verse 9.) he says,
“In that day shall messengers go forth from me in ships to make
the careless Ethiopians afraid, and great pain shall come upon them,
as in the day of Egypt.” The expression “careless,” I conceive,
alludes to the security which they, no doubt, felt in their power,
and the natural protection their rocky cataracts afforded them for
resisting an invader. Their being afraid of ships almost leads me
to suppose that they could have had little or no navy, or wherefore
that apprehension? for there is no doubt that their land army,
even in the most distant times, was very great. I have shown, in my
historical chapter, that Zerah, the Ethiopian, marched with a host
of a thousand thousand, and three hundred chariots.
But these remarks regard chiefly the navigation, for whether the
produce was brought in the vessels of Eythus (whom I conceive to
have been an Arabian king), of the Jews, or of the Tyrians (Strabo,
c. 16.), or Syrians (_Id._ 17.), and eventually by the ships of the
Ptolemies and Cæsars, little affects the question, as Egypt was,
in every case, the emporium of the merchandise. That enterprising
spirit and activity which always characterise a rising nation,
would lead the Egyptians into the markets of the centre of Africa,
and thus inflict another blow on the prosperity of Meroe. We know
what Alexandria became, from the immense commerce with the East which
it continued to enjoy, notwithstanding the impediments occasioned by
the ignorance and barbarism of its governments, until the Portuguese
discovery of the passage by the Cape. After that event, which led the
commerce of the Indies into another channel, Alexandria and Kosseer
dwindled into obscurity, having lost, as Meroe had previously done,
that great source of wealth.
Strabo says, quoting from Cicero, that Auletes, the father of
Cleopatra, drew from Egypt 12,500 talents, more than two millions
and a half sterling. Diodorus only calculated the revenue at
half that sum. The observations which Strabo afterwards makes are
important. “If,” says he, “the revenue was so considerable,
under the negligent and bad rule of that prince, what will it be now
that it is governed with so much care, and that the commerce of the
Indies and of the country of the Troglodites is increased so much;
for formerly,” said he, “they counted only twenty vessels, who
dared to advance beyond the entrance of the Arabian Gulf, whilst
now considerable fleets sail to the Indies and to the extremities
of Ethiopia, whence the most precious merchandise is brought into
Egypt, and thence sent into other countries. In this manner they
have a double tax on the imports and exports, in proportion to the
value of the merchandise;” and he adds, that “Alexandria is the
principal depôt for their merchandise, and the place of commerce
which furnishes other countries with it in great abundance.” This
account is curious, as it shows that, until the time of Strabo, the
Egyptian trade with the Indians was not very extensive: its increase
would naturally diminish the commercial relations of Meroe.[88]
It is also remarkable, that about the time when Meroe began to
decline, Egypt was most famous for her commerce. Psammetichus, who
reigned six centuries and a half before our era, almost immediately
after the expulsion or retirement of the Ethiopian dynasty, gained
great wealth by trade before he was King of Egypt. The richest and
most magnificent tombs of private individuals, now remaining at
Thebes, belong chiefly to that era, proving a degree of opulence
unequalled at any other period.
I have shown, in my historical chapter, that, notwithstanding the
diminution of the trade of Meroe with India and Arabia, she was
still able to resist the armies of the Egyptians. The pyramids of
Geezah and the tombs of Beni Hassan are proofs of the great wealth
and power of the latter, even so early as the 16th dynasty; and
during the 18th dynasty the Kings Thothmes, Amunoph, &c. invaded
Ethiopia. Yet, notwithstanding the power of those princes, it seems,
according to the evidence of Herodotus[89], and of the monuments
themselves, that Rameses II. was the only Egyptian king who subdued
Ethiopia; but a hero sprang up in the 8th century, who, in return,
conquered Egypt. Shabak, and his successors Shabatok and Tahraka,
reigned over that country forty-four years. The power of Meroe
must have been very great, even at that period, to have enabled her
armies to make such an important conquest, and extend her sway from
Meroe to the Mediterranean. It is also wonderful that it should
have been so little impaired by the diminution of her commerce,
and the decline of her internal resources. I have described the
power of the priests, whose influence was so great at the time
of Ergamenes, who was contemporary to Ptolemy, that that prince,
who had received a liberal education, had recourse to the violent
measure of attacking and slaying them at their altars. The chief
cause of the decline of Meroe was probably the injury this theocratic
government had inflicted on the country; for we cannot suppose that
the people would have submitted to the destruction of the ministers
of their religion, had there not been some deep causes of complaint,
and a general consciousness that their mismanagement and bigotry
had plunged the country into distress. The lamentable decline of
the arts at this period proves that the resources of the country
were entirely occupied in maintaining a force sufficient to defend
it from invasion, and its diminished commerce and wealth offered
less means of encouragement to artists. War, not the fine arts and
intellectual cultivation, was become the necessary occupation of
the nation. The resources of Meroe, even for some time afterwards,
must have been considerable, that their Queen Candace could check
the Roman arms; but the expedition of Petronius, already described,
ruining all the country between Syene and Napata, and destroying the
cities which had escaped from the previous desolating war between
the Ethiopians and the Egyptians, must have inflicted a deep blow
on the prosperity of Meroe. That queen, indeed, followed the Roman
army in its retreat, and finally, drove them from Premnis; but the
long series of wars would, of course, hasten the decline of a country
whose internal resources had long been gradually diminishing. Pliny
says[90], that at the time of Candace, which name for many years the
Ethiopian queens had assumed, there were few edifices in the city
of Meroe; but, after mentioning the holy shrine of Hammon, and the
small temple and chapels on the road, bearing testimony to the power
of the Ethiopians, he describes the island as once of great renown,
having an army of 250,000 men, and 400,000 artificers. The number of
artificers, supposing even that in that class are comprised artists,
craftsmen, manufacturers, and all labourers not agriculturists,
is enormous, and proves a vast degree of industry and civilisation.
Even in the eighth century, after the country had become Christian,
her monarchs were so powerful, that it was asserted, about the year
737, that the kings of Nubia and Ethiopia could bring into the field
100,000 horse, and as many camels. When Christianity was spread over
Ethiopia, the painter’s and sculptor’s skill would be no longer
necessary to make representations of their gods but the ministers of
the gospel at that time were more occupied in schismatical disputes,
and in making converts to their peculiar and often fanciful tenets,
than in propagating the pure principles of their religion, dispelling
the darkness of superstition, and advancing the civilisation and
prosperity of the kingdom.
According to the tradition which I learned at Dongolah, in the
reign of the fourth caliph after Mahomet this country was conquered
by the Arabs, and the inhabitants blended with the conquerors, who
forced them to become Mussulmen, or drove them out of the country,
probably into Abyssinia.
After all that has been said, those who view the present rude and
degraded state of this territory may feel a difficulty in believing
that it ever could be so enlightened and flourishing as I have now
described it. They ought, however, to consider, that it is not more
surprising that Meroe, under the uncivilised and ignorant dominion
of the Arabs, would lose all knowledge of the arts, than that the
little island of Rhodes, once eminent for power, civilisation, and
commerce, should now, although not, like Meroe, deprived of her rich
soil, be equally ignorant and barbarous. Syracuse, from the same
cause, had risen to such a height of civilisation and power, as to
be able to resist the vast efforts of the Athenians; and finally,
with little assistance, inflict a deadly blow on the prosperity
of the city of Minerva. What is Tunis, compared to Carthage? Where
are Tyre and Sidon, the cities of Phœnicia? If it was necessary,
numerous similar examples might be adduced, of the vicissitudes to
which kingdoms and cities are liable. Sufficient reasons have been
assigned for the downfall of Meroe. The failure of her commerce;
her rich soil carried away, or swallowed up by the deserts, and
the consequent diminution of her population; her mines exhausted,
and the active rivalry of a nation finally more powerful; the long
and ruinous wars with Egypt; and at last the Arabian conquest, swept
away every trace of her affluence and civilisation: the invaders,
with a brand in one hand, burning her libraries[91] and edifices, and
in the other the sword, forcing her subjects to embrace a different
faith, and renounce the arts and knowledge of their ancestors.
In a country where the arts are now totally unknown, and which
is become little better than a desert, it is not surprising to
find commerce reduced to the mere exchange of the most absolute
necessaries of life, and a few trifling superfluities. Small caravans
occasionally go from Shendy to Abyssinia. Sometimes the rulers of
the latter country do not permit them to enter their dominions,
and civil wars not unfrequently put an entire stop to the trade; but
when, as is generally the case, the merchants succeed in procuring
an entrance, they inform me that the profits on their Cairo goods
are enormous. They receive in exchange a little ivory; gold, the
value of which is several dollars per ounce lower there than in
Egypt; a very fine species of cotton scarf, much esteemed and worn
by the Abyssinian women in the Turkish harems, and the Abyssinian
coffee; which, although not equal to the Mocha, is almost the only
kind drunk in Nubia: but their chief return is in slaves. The wars
which generally distract that unfortunate country furnish to each
state abundance of these victims, which, like cattle, are exchanged
with the merchant for the luxuries of Egypt: few are the Turks
who have not Abyssinian girls in their harems, and I have seen
numerous eunuchs brought from that country. It is horrid to think
that beings called Christians should be guilty of such enormities;
but there is no doubt of the fact. The slaves, whether girls or boys,
by compulsion or inclination, invariably become Mahometans.
A caravan also occasionally goes to Souakim, where they get India
stuffs, Mocha coffee, and a great part of the spices, the use of which
is so general. Small caravans also go to Kordofan and Darfour. In
the former of these countries the Pasha of Egypt monopolises the
richest produce, as gum, ivory, and ostrich feathers; but Kordofan
is the chief mart of the negro slaves. The jealousy of the King of
Darfour against any persons going or coming from the dominions of the
Pasha of Egypt, at whose power he trembles, prevents that commerce
being now very extensive. The merchants are very illiterate, and in
general extremely debauched. Even their interest does not check their
dissoluteness, or protect the honour of their poor Abyssinian female
slaves. The supply of gold is very much diminished: some, however,
is still found, and of the finest quality; but in every direction
the caravans regard slaves as the most advantageous exchange for
their goods. They drive them like cattle over the burning sands,
and, what I have been an eye-witness to, over the bones of their
brethren which lie bleaching in the desert. The ingenuity of their
masters seems to be exercised, not in alleviating their pains, but
in devising how to economise their own purses, by discovering on how
little and how coarse food their victims can exist, and what extent of
fatigue and suffering they can endure, and still remain saleable. In
the district which we have seen to have been once the emporium of the
East, there remains only this miserable traffic. Instead of palaces
and splendid edifices, there are now only rude and miserable huts. Of
the power, civilisation, and wealth of Meroe, not a vestige remains to
corroborate the testimony of the historians but a few small temples,
and the splendid sepulchres of her departed kings.
CHAPTER XXII.
ON THE ARTS OF MEROE.
AFFLUENCE WOULD INTRODUCE A TASTE FOR THE ARTS. — THE HEAT OF THE
CLIMATE FAVOURABLE TO SEDENTARY PURSUITS. — PRIVATE EMULATION
WOULD AFFORD FURTHER ENCOURAGEMENT. — DESIRE OF DISTINGUISHING
THEMSELVES BY INTELLECTUAL PURSUITS. — TESTIMONY OF DIODORUS THAT
KNOWLEDGE WAS VERY GENERALLY DIFFUSED IN ETHIOPIA. — THE PYRAMIDS
OF MEROE THE OLDEST SPECIMENS OF ETHIOPIAN ART. — CIVILISATION
OF THE ETHIOPIANS PROVED BY THEIR MONUMENTAL EDIFICES. — THE
ETHIOPIANS INVENTORS OF THE ARCH. — EGYPTIAN ARCHES. — ETHIOPIAN
SCULPTURE. — PROBABLE CAUSE OF THEIR PECULIAR STYLE. — REASONS
FOR PRESERVING IT. — DEFERENCE OF THE PTOLEMIES AND ROMANS FOR
THE SUPERSTITIONS OF THE EGYPTIANS. — PLEASING EFFECT OF THE
EGYPTIAN AND ETHIOPIAN SCULPTURE. — ADMIRABLE MANNER OF DRAWING
ANIMALS, HIEROGLYPHICS, AND THEIR TASTE IN ORNAMENTS. — COLOURING
ON ETHIOPIAN SCULPTURE. — THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE ARTS DESCENDED FROM
ETHIOPIA. — COMPLEXION OF THE ANCIENT AND PRESENT INHABITANTS. —
ACCURACY OF DIODORUS’ ACCOUNT PROVED BY THE MONUMENTS. — TASTE FOR
THE ARTS IN A NATION INSEPARABLE FROM OTHER INTELLECTUAL PURSUITS. —
WORKS OF THE ETHIOPIAN KING TIRHAKA. — REVIEW OF THE ANTIQUITIES
IN ETHIOPIA. — FOLLY OF COMPARING THE PRESENT WITH THE ANCIENT
INHABITANTS OF THE VALLEY OF THE NILE.
It has appeared in the preceding chapters, that the kingdom of
Meroe was the emporium of the interior of Africa, and from her rich
productions, and the abundance of her precious metals, was resorted
to by the inhabitants of the regions in her vicinity. This influx
of population would naturally oblige many to employ their capital
and talent in other pursuits besides commerce. Every branch of
industry would gradually improve; a rich and luxurious people would
constantly desire new objects to please the fancy, and contribute
to the enjoyment of life. The son of the merchant, who had earned
great wealth, would, as in our days, be able to reap the fruits
of that industry. Some might indulge in foolish extravagance; but
others would place their enjoyment in the encouragement of the arts,
or in those studies which gratify and enrich the mind, and, at the
same time, tend to improve and civilise society.
In so fertile a country, a great proportion of the principal
landed proprietors, besides those who had realised large fortunes
by commerce, must have been able to pass their lives in literary
leisure, and employ their fortune in the encouragement of the arts,
and the propagation of science. Even the heat of the climate would
contribute to the advancement of civilisation. In Europe, particularly
in its northern districts, how many consume a great portion of their
time and fortune in the healthy, but rough, amusement of the chase;
but in the tropics, the greatest luxury is repose. I have remarked
repeatedly, that the rich natives of the climates of the East rarely
expose themselves to the heat of the sun, except when necessity
absolutely requires it, as on a journey; and even then as little as
possible. It is considered one of the greatest advantages of rank and
fortune, that its possessors can enjoy the luxury of shade during
the whole day, while their less fortunate brethren are obliged to
toil under a burning sun.
The same natural causes, operating equally in ancient times, would
give to the Ethiopians an inclination for sedentary pursuits, which
would be advantageous to their advancement in the different branches
of science, as soon as their taste for them had been unfolded. That
rivalry which always arises among bodies of men, would urge to the
improvement of the arts. The great and wealthy would endeavour
to surpass each other in the beauty and magnificence of their
palaces, and they would emulously display their piety to the gods,
by contributing to the building and decorating the temples, and
their munificence and generosity, by the construction of edifices
of public utility.
This is not an imaginary picture. Let the reader look at the drawings
of Meroe, and candidly say whether, in a country containing architects
able to construct such chaste and beautiful monuments, men could
have spent the superfluity of wealth, derived from commerce,
in mere sensual indulgence? Was the knowledge of architecture,
sculpture, and painting, exclusively employed in the construction of
the sepulchres of her monarchs and the temples of the gods? Can it
be supposed that those who must have had the means, would content
themselves with wretched huts, when their wealth enabled them to
employ their skilful architects in erecting commodious and elegant
habitations, suitable to their rank? Can we imagine that the gentry
of a kingdom, famous in antiquity for its civilisation, would spend
their time, like the Turks, in listless indolence, and would not seek
to distinguish themselves by studies and learning? But Diodorus,
speaking of the language of hieroglyphics, says, that, in Egypt,
the priests only were acquainted with them, whilst, in Ethiopia,
they were generally understood. This shows that civilisation was
widely diffused among the people, who apparently were not content,
like their neighbours, to view without understanding the tablets of
writing and sculpture which ornamented the walls of their temples.
Unfortunately, the remains of pure Ethiopian art, at all events,
those of the earliest period, are but few. The pyramids of Nouri,
but particularly those of Meroe, must have been built many ages
before the temples of Gibel el Birkel, especially the one finished by
Tirhaka: the style of the sculpture differs so widely, that a slight
examination only is necessary to prove that a long period must have
intervened before, in a country like this, the style could have so
materially changed. I place, then, the pyramids of Meroe among the
earliest specimens now existing of the skill of the Ethiopians. In my
description of those ruins, I have extolled the beautiful simplicity
of the architecture, imposing, and, at the same time, elegant, in
a superior degree to the immense pyramids of Geezah. The sepulchres
of Meroe delight us by evincing the greatest purity of taste, while
they are not, like the Egyptian pyramids, monuments of the tyranny
and oppression of their kings.
The different plates I have given of the sculpture in the porticoes
of Meroe, at Gibel el Birkel (see Plates X., XI., and XII., and
particularly Plate XI., which contains a number of vases,) display
a great degree of elegance, and, perhaps, a refined simplicity,
equal to what we find in Egyptian sculpture.
The offerings (see Plate XXIX.) are the animals of the country
and surrounding deserts. The group with branches of the palm
tree, is quite Ethiopian, and very beautiful; but the splendid
procession alluded to, in treating of the commerce, as existing in
a tomb at Thebes, is particularly instructive: the Ethiopians are
there represented carrying presents to a great man at the time of
Thothmes. Besides the ivory, ebony, gold, silver, skins, and animals,
enumerated in my last chapter, they are also represented bearing
different kinds of vases. These evince a degree of elegance and
refinement which has never been surpassed. They are not ornamented
with figures like the Phœnician, Etruscan, Greek, and Roman vases,
but in taste and elegant simplicity of form they are not surpassed by
those of any nation. Such discoveries as these afford the strongest
evidence of the civilisation of a people. No learning or profound
knowledge of the arts is required to understand, that a nation,
among whom have been wrought such rich and magnificent vases as are
now to be found in London, could be barbarians.
When a people have attained a certain degree of taste, such
knowledge is never confined to one branch. The cultivated minds,
which could appreciate such works of art as the pyramids of Meroe,
and were accustomed to such a degree of elegance in their domestic
ornaments, could not, I conceive, have been uncivilised, generally
speaking. These vases, like the chairs and furniture represented on
the walls of Thebes, admit us at once to a knowledge of the private
life of the people. We cannot doubt the luxury and refinement of the
private life of the Egyptians, when we find represented, in one of
the tombs of the kings at Thebes, more beautiful patterns of chairs,
cushions, &c. than are now to be found in Europe. As little can we
imagine, that apartments, ornamented with such elegant vases as the
Ethiopians are represented offering to the Egyptians, would not in
every other respect be furnished with equal taste. I think, then,
that I am not too bold in asserting, that the people who had skill
to devise, and ability to execute, such beautiful works of art,
are entitled to a very high rank in the scale of civilisation. To
the other proofs that they are Ethiopian, I should add, their long
curly hair, their peculiar dress, differing from the Egyptian, the
similarity with the few vases which I found sculptured on the walls
at Meroe, (see Plate XI.) and, most of all, the hieroglyphics written
over the procession, which state them to be from the land of Ethiopia.
Another important proof of the extensive architectural skill of
the Ethiopians is their knowledge and employment of the arch. In
my narrative, I have described that which exists in one of the
porticoes of Meroe, having the form of the segment of a circle,
and have mentioned also the pointed arch in a pyramid at Gibel el
Berkel. Both are constructed on the true principle of being supported
only by lateral pressure. The pyramids of Meroe being the oldest,
we may say that the earliest specimen of the arch now existing is
on the site of the capital of Ethiopia. I conceive it very likely,
that the necessity of finding some method of resisting the tropical
rains led the Ethiopians to the invention of the arch; as of course,
slight even as they are here, they would be obliged to pay more
attention to their roofs than in Egypt, where, with few exceptions,
sometimes, especially in Upper Egypt, not exceeding once in the year,
it may almost be said never to rain. The rains which fall at Shendy
are, however, rarely heavy. As I have noticed in my topographical
description (page 156.), the only specimens of the arch in Egypt
belong to that period when wars existed between the two countries,
and the Egyptians would have the opportunity of learning that
invention from the Ethiopians. It is also singular, that there
is not a stone arch in Egypt regularly constructed, except one,
before mentioned, of the time of Psammitichus, who reigned after the
Ethiopian dynasty. The only specimens which show the Egyptians to have
been acquainted with the true mode of forming one, is a brick arch,
erected at the time of Amunoph, and another of the time of Thothmes
III. They are formed of crude bricks; the size of which is seven
inches by five. (See Vignettes.) Is it not singular, that although
these and other brick arches at Thebes are regularly constructed,
the specimens there and elsewhere in stone, lead us to infer, that
they were acquainted with the beauty of the arch as an architectural
ornament, but not with its great utility? I refer to that arch near
to the temple excavated out of the rock, in the valley of Hassaseef,
at Thebes, of the time of Amunoph, which is formed by approaching
stones (see Vignette), and numerous excavations in the valley of
the Nile, where the roofs are hollowed slightly into the arched
form. As, therefore, no specimen of even a brick arch exists before
the reign of those kings who carried their arms into Ethiopia; and
as the pyramids of Ethiopia are evidently so very ancient, it seems
highly probable that this important discovery had there its origin.
[Illustration: STONE ARCH AT THEBES.]
The tomb in which the elliptical arch (see Vignette) exists,
is near the valley of the Sepulchre of the Queens, at Thebes. It
is almost filled up to the ceiling with mummies, which occasioned
great difficulty to get at the spring of the arch. It is a painted
tomb, and the roof is plastered; and over the plaster, along the
centre, is a line of hieroglyphics, containing the name of Amunoph
I.; proving the existence of the knowledge of the arch in Egypt,
about fifteen centuries and a half before the Christian era. It is
also very remarkable, that this arch is not a segment of a circle,
but elliptical. A part of the ceiling being broken, discovered the
space between the ceiling and the rock.
[Illustration: BRICK ARCH IN A TOMB AT THEBES.]
On the road from the Memnonium to the valley of the Hassaseef, a
little elevated on a rock, is a very small painted tomb, which is
also vaulted. The vignette represents the arch of the roof resting
on the rock, and the inner arch of a recess at the end. This recess,
as likewise the whole tomb, is covered with a coating of plaster;
and on one of the jambs of the recess are the titles and prænomen of
Thothmes III., “Sun, Establisher of the World,” fifth king of the
eighteenth dynasty, who reigned about fifteen centuries before the
Christian era. The present access to this tomb is through a hole in
the ceiling, from the floor of another tomb. This fracture discovers
satisfactorily the construction of the arch. The sections, therefore,
of the pointed arch at Gibel el Birkel (see Plate XXVIII.), of the
circular one at the site of the metropolis of Ethiopia (see Plate
VII.), and this elliptical and circular arch at Thebes, will, I think,
satisfy the most sceptical, that the Romans were not the first who
were acquainted with the power and principle of the arch. We have
here, undoubtedly, the geometrical forms; and in answer to the _cui
bono_ of the learned author of the able article in the last Quarterly
Review[92], I must state that the Ethiopian arches were obviously
invented to resist the rains; as the peasants of Sennaar have conical
roofs to their cottages for the same purpose. The brick arches at
Thebes, I conceive to have been erected not merely as ornaments, but,
as regards the one of the time of Amunoph III., for the purpose of
protecting it from the partial decomposition of the calcareous rock,
which happens to be there less solid, while the tomb of the time
of Thothmes III., being immediately beneath another, suggested the
utility, if not necessity, of strengthening the roof with an arch.
[Illustration: BRICK ARCH IN A TOMB AT THEBES.]
The Ethiopian sculpture has the same defects as the Egyptian,
as to the manner of representing the profile of the face, but the
bodies have a roundness which distinguishes them entirely from the
Egyptian. The latter is more graceful and pleasing to the eye, when
the traveller is accustomed to that peculiarity of style, but I do
conceive the Ethiopian to be, in some respects, more true to nature.
It may be asked why, advanced as the Ethiopians were in the arts,
they did not draw the human figure better, and more in accordance
with nature. It is difficult, and, I must confess, almost impossible,
to explain quite satisfactorily this circumstance. The Egyptians,
as I have said, had a style still more unnatural, yet few can doubt
their high degree of civilisation. The general form of the figures
gives one the idea of their being very early efforts of art. It
seems to me very possible, that the invention of the sculptor and
painter may have been first exercised on the walls of some celebrated
temple; and this defective representation may, from the sacredness
of the place, have become the conventional style of the country. The
bigotted veneration which the people would naturally feel for those
forms under which their divinities were first represented, may have
made them consider it lawful, indeed, to improve the delineation,
but criminal to attempt to change it entirely.
The Egyptians and the Ethiopians were equally ignorant of
perspective. When Egypt was under the dominion of the Greeks and
Romans, we perceive that policy and respect for the prejudices of
the people prevented those nations from making any innovations in
the national style. The differences between the sculpture, at those
periods, and during the eighteenth dynasty, cannot be called so much
changes, as marks of the great decline of the pure Egyptian art. No
figures, on the walls of the temples, are sculptured or painted in the
pure Greek or Roman style. Those rulers of Egypt, though of course
acquainted with the latter, continued to follow the Egyptian style
in all the edifices that they erected. The only instances in which
they seem to have deviated at all from this rule, are in some few
portraits found on Greek mummies. This renders it probable that there
existed a strong religious prejudice on the subject, and that the
Ethiopians and Egyptians were as tenacious of the forms and costumes
of their divinities, as religious sects, in more recent times, have
shown themselves about the dress and appearance of their ministers.
There is, therefore, no reason to suppose, that the Ethiopians
were unable to draw figures correctly, because, from reverence
to the antiquity of their religion, and the superstition of the
people, they did not improve the forms of their divinities. Faulty,
however, as that style is, both in design and colour, it has still
its attractions, though, in saying so, I may be accused of being
an admirer of deformity. Their formality is not inappropriate to
sacred edifices. Travellers daily become reconciled to its defects,
and at last admire what at first appeared to them so strange. No
one can have visited the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes, without
an enthusiastic admiration of the beautiful and rich harmony of
the colouring, the taste displayed in the ornaments, the spirited
execution of the animals and hieroglyphics, and the magical effect
of the decorations. We see, in the fragments which still exist, that
the Ethiopians drew animals, and also ornaments, very beautifully. We
may therefore consider it almost certain, that they could have drawn
the human figure better had they been permitted.
There are few traces of colour remaining on any Ethiopian edifice,
yet I found sufficient in one of the porticoes of the pyramids
of Gibel el Birkel, to enable me to ascertain the important fact,
that the colouring was similar to the Egyptian. That of the human
body is of the same red tint; and is it not singular that man is
represented of the same complexion in Ethiopia as in every part of
Egypt? Such a coincidence could only arise from the circumstance of
the one people having derived their knowledge of the arts from the
other. The colouring of the Ethiopians and Egyptians was of course,
like the form of the figure, conventional. Now, I ask the reader,
Where is it most probable that this colour was first established? Was
it in a country where the inhabitants must have been nearly of that
dark tint represented in these sculptures, or was it in one, 1700
miles farther north, where the people must have been, as they are
now, yellow, or, comparatively speaking, white. The first colonies
which introduced the arts into Egypt would naturally represent their
divinities under the same appearance as in the mother country, and
the first kings, and other persons making offerings, would of course
be the colonists. Impressed with reverence for the first models
presented to them, the Egyptians would continue to use this colour,
tacitly acknowledging, by this circumstance, that they derived the
knowledge of the arts from Ethiopia. There are several representations
in Egypt of black men and black queens, but these almost invariably
bear the negro features. Even if they were intended to represent
Ethiopians, that colour could only be a mark of distinction,
afterwards introduced, as of a blacker nation than themselves;
for we find the Ethiopians, on their own edifices, represented as
exactly of the same tint as the Egyptians of Thebes and Memphis.
If the artist were to paint them of one of the six colours with which
they were acquainted,—white, red, green, blue, yellow, or black,
the one approaching nearest to what was probably the real Ethiopian
complexion, would certainly be the red. We shall be confirmed in this
conclusion, if we consider the latitude and the colour of the present
cultivators of the soil. Though they speak the Arabic language, they
are most probably (and the tradition I heard at Dongolah confirms the
supposition) descended from the race of the true Ethiopians, obliged,
by force, to adopt the language and religion of their conquerors. That
people, from their climate, could not have been white, and, had they
been black, they would have so represented themselves. The Copts,
the descendants of the Egyptians, are fairer than the Fellaheen,
yet the latter look white in Ethiopia, contrasted with the present
inhabitants of that country. It must also be considered that the
Arab conquerors, being from the southern part of their country,
and therefore darkened by the climate and the desert life they led,
would, to a certain extent, give a darker tint to the Ethiopians;
nevertheless, I have given views of some Berbers whose complexions are
decidedly lighter than they are represented on the walls. (See Plate
XVI.) We must recollect also that it has ever been a custom of the
Orientals to represent themselves and their mistresses as beautifully
fair. The present Ethiopians esteem nothing more than a light
complexion. Before they were accustomed to Europeans, they looked
with horror on what they considered their unnatural whiteness; but
if an Ethiopian is celebrating in a song the charms of his mistress,
he dwells with the greatest rapture on her fair skin. The petty kings
seek wives of equal rank with themselves, chiefly on account of their
fair complexion, which the daughters of the meleks acquire by being
generally confined to the house; particularly as all mixture with
the negro blood is carefully shunned. The colour most approaching
to nature, if this conventional one had originated in Egypt, would
certainly have been the white, or rather light yellow. Such must
have been the colour of the Egyptians; and we cannot suppose that
they would pay themselves so bad a compliment as to represent their
complexion so many shades darker than it must really have been. Here
then we have another great proof that civilisation and art descended
the river. I have mentioned, in my topographical description, the
passages of Diodorus which state shortly, but explicitly, that the
Ethiopians stated the Egyptians to have derived all their knowledge
from them. The inquiries of that intelligent traveller penetrated
through the veil which the pride of the Egyptians, jealous, and
anxious to magnify their antiquity, had thrown over the origin of
their institutions; and when to this national propensity we add the
obstinate wars, which would naturally eradicate every attachment to
their parent land, and induce them to conceal their obligations to
Ethiopia, it appears surprising how that intelligent traveller should
have been able to ascertain the fact, that civilisation descended
from Meroe. Diodorus had no object in inventing that account; and
if the Ethiopians gave it to him in Egypt, he had there the means of
ascertaining the truth from the priests and other learned men, who,
no doubt, were acquainted with the fact; and would have contradicted
it if he had not believed it. Herodotus apparently heard a similar
account. He visited Egypt during the time of the Persian dynasty,
while Diodorus was in that country little more than half a century
(sixty years) before Christ, when the philosophy of the Greeks
may have penetrated through the pride and false pretensions of
the Egyptian priests. Herodotus states that the Egyptians believed
themselves to be from where the race of man first existed (ἐξ
οὗ ἄνθρωπον γένος ἐγένετο). He mentions that the Thebaid was Egypt
before the formation of the Delta[93]: the increase of population
forced them to spread themselves down the valleys, emigrating from
the Thebaid to the Delta, in the same way, no doubt, as they
originally emigrated from Meroe. There is one question connected
with this subject, which, I must confess, is an important one; namely,
by what language the hieroglyphics of both countries are to be
interpreted. Is it by a common one, as emanating from the same origin,
or by a different one in the two countries? I shall not now commit
myself by a discussion and hasty opinion on a subject which I hope to
be better able to treat, as I extend my acquaintance with
hieroglyphics, and with the Coptic and the Ethiopian languages. It
seems to me, however, that if the Egyptians derived their knowledge
of hieroglyphics from Ethiopia, they would, of course, receive from
the same source the language by which they were explained.
With regard to the early literature and science of the Ethiopians,
we know them only by the monuments; but we may rest satisfied, that
they could not have been neglected in a country where, as Diodorus
says, the language of hieroglyphics was generally understood. The
existence of these on the walls of the porticoes of the pyramids, is
a proof that some at least were acquainted with them. It is a very
remarkable circumstance, which, even at the hazard of repetition,
I must impress upon the reader, that notwithstanding the little
sculpture and the few monuments that remain, there is sufficient to
corroborate the very words of Diodorus. The reader who has examined
my drawings will agree with him, that the Ethiopians buried their
dead with as much pomp as the Egyptians; the processions were the
same; and although there is some little difference in the style
of the sculpture and hieroglyphics, it certainly is my conviction,
that the Egyptian style had, as he very correctly expresses himself,
its origin in Ethiopia.[94]
History affords no example, at least that I know, of a people
being so advanced in the fine arts, without at the same time having
applied themselves to the cultivation of the sciences, of history
and philosophy. Their religion, as I may show on another occasion,
evinces their acquaintance with metaphysics, not being a gross
mythology, but the worship, under different forms, of the one great
Divinity, whose attributes are manifested in the wonders of the
creation. A people who had evidently so much taste for the arts,
must have been sensible to the charms of study. Those who had the
means would naturally wish to distinguish themselves, or at least
their children, by various literary acquirements. Individuals seeking
to elevate themselves above the common level would rise together,
and what was at first an extraordinary attainment would become
necessary to secure admittance into society.
The remarks which I have hitherto made on the arts of Ethiopia are
chiefly applicable to their earliest period. In my narrative I have
mentioned, that there are still the remains and traces of 80 pyramids
at Meroe, 42 at Nouri, and 17 at Gibel el Birkel. In the few which
are now nearly entire, the porticoes are decorated with figures
sculptured in the round and bulky Ethiopian style. It is impossible
now to determine positively whether these are representations of
private individuals, of kings, or of members of different royal
families. They represent in several instances, two persons,—a king
and his wife, and there is one instance of a queen only. The tombs
which we can ascertain, from the hieroglyphics, to be those of kings
and queens, being not of superior, or even equal magnitude with many
of the others, I think it not unreasonable to conclude, that every
one of them was erected for a sovereign or some members of a royal
family. If they were each of a king or queen who had reigned alone,
the immense number which can even now be traced, independent of the
many which the desert has swallowed up, would carry us back to an
earlier era than can be admitted, for it is evident, from the style
of the sculpture, and other appearances of the monuments, that they
were erected long previous to the time of Tirhaka, (730 years B.C.)
That Ethiopian king, who reigned over Egypt, constructed a magnificent
temple at Gibel el Birkel, which city, if not the place of his birth,
and at one time the seat of his empire, was at all events peculiarly
favoured by him; for we do not see his name on any Ethiopian edifice,
except on an altar in the great temple, and on the walls and columns
of the temple of Athor at Birkel.
Part of the temple of Tirhaka is excavated out of the rock, either
in imitation of those he had seen in Egypt, or it may perhaps be a
more ancient temple, added to and decorated by that king. The style of
sculpture at that time was tolerably good, very like the Egyptian, but
by no means equal to the best at Thebes. The architecture, however,
seems to have then very much declined. The columns of Athor and the
deformed Pthah in the temple built by Tirhaka, are very inferior to
the fragment we have at Abou Naga, and the great temple at Gibel el
Birkel, built, perhaps, by Pionchei, probably a much more ancient
king. That edifice, for magnificence, may be compared to any in the
valley of the Nile. I may here also remark, that, notwithstanding
the great pecuniary resources which Tirhaka must have possessed, as
king of two such rich and powerful countries as Egypt and Ethiopia,
still the temple erected by him is not to be compared to the splendid
edifice of his predecessor.
It is singular, that, with the exception of the remains of this
large temple, and some other less important vestiges of smaller
edifices there, the colossal statues of Argo, the Ethiopian temple
of Amarah, the fragment of an Ethiopian ruin at Naga, on the Nile,
and the Ethiopian temples at Mecaurat or Naga, in the desert (see
Cailliaud), there are no remains of any sacred edifice of an earlier
period than Tirhaka, or indeed of a later, except the ruins at Wady el
Owataib. The sepulchres of the kings only are standing. The temples
which remain in the best state of preservation above the second
cataract are those of Semneh, built by Thothmes III., an Egyptian
king, and the magnificent temple of Solib, built by Amunoph III.,
also an Egyptian monarch. Petronius, in his hatred for every thing
that was Ethiopian, probably destroyed all the edifices which had
escaped from the ravages of previous wars.
If Gibel el Birkel was Napata (as it is considered by many), the
temples might have been destroyed by Petronius, but I have before
stated, that I cannot conceive it to be that town. We must therefore
attribute its destruction to an earlier era, or to the Christians
or Arabs. The great temple of Gibel el Birkel must have required
great labour to demolish it so utterly. The immense and massive
columns and thick walls would have lasted for ages, had they not
been destroyed by violence. As no attempts have apparently been
made to restore these edifices, the place was perhaps deserted,
and the name erased from among the list of cities. My drawings,
plans, &c. of the temples of Semneh, Solib, and the small temple
at Gibel el Birkel, will show that they are exceedingly ruined,
yet not with the same dreadful destruction as the large temple at
the latter place, and others, of which scarcely a vestige remains.
Some of the pyramids of Gibel el Birkel and Meroe bear evidence
of the greatest violence having been employed to destroy them,
whereas others seem injured only by time. The demolition of the
former, may, I conceive, be entirely attributed to the avarice of
the Mahometans. The very nature of the construction of the pyramids
would certainly present greater difficulties in destroying them,
but this could not have been the motive in forbearing from the
attempt; for all events it would have been easy for the levellers
of whole rows of immense and lofty columns to demolish entirely
every portico. That respect for the sepulchres of the dead, which
has existed in every age, among civilised and uncivilised nations,
prevented probably the devastators from violating the pyramids of
Meroe and Nouri, whilst, at both those places, every trace of the
temples has been obliterated. Religious bigotry must have been the
cause of this violence. The invaders, while they respected the
habitations of the dead, the sepulchres of ancient kings, might
consider the destruction of the sanctuaries to be the surest mode
of eradicating every trace of the idolatrous worship of Ammon.
The monuments of Ethiopia present unfortunately no regular series of
edifices by which we might trace the progressive rise and subsequent
decline of the arts. There is as wide a difference between the most
ancient sculpture and architecture of Meroe and that of the time of
Tirhaka, as between the latter and the far more modern edifice, the
ruins of which are now called Wady el Owataib. In my description
of the latter, (see narrative, Chapter VIII.) I have stated my
belief that it was erected during the last stage of the arts. The
confused and extremely defective plan, and the wretched style of the
sculpture, are proofs that it must have been built very long after
the reign of Tirhaka. I have mentioned also that, from the design,
and from a certain affectation of Greek ornaments, particularly in
the fluting of the columns, I conceive it not improbable, that this,
and also, perhaps, the Greek edifice at Mecaurat, were erected by
the Ethiopian king Ergamenes, who had a Greek education, and was
contemporary with Ptolemy Philadelphus.
It will be remarked, that there is a vast difference between
these monuments in Ethiopia, and the magnificent architectural
edifices erected at that period in Egypt; but we must recollect,
that the dynasty of the Ptolemies infused fresh vigour into every
pursuit connected with the prosperity of the country. The first
kings of that dynasty occupied themselves almost exclusively in
promoting the commerce and encouraging the literature and arts of
the country. The sculpture indeed was then very inferior to the pure
Egyptian; but their temples, notwithstanding this inferiority, may
rank among the most splendid edifices which ornament the banks of
the Nile, or even any part of the world. But Meroe did not enjoy the
same advantage. The extended commerce of her rival would of course
diminish more and more her own prosperity. Her territory declining
continually in richness and affluence, and her commerce impaired,
her kings, instead of occupying themselves in encouraging the arts,
would require all the resources of the state to save them from
becoming the prey of their more powerful neighbour.
The next and only additional edifice which I have now to notice,
as marking the last epoch in the history of the arts of Meroe, is
the Christian church opposite Gibel el Birkel. As we have no certain
ground to suppose that Christianity was much spread in Ethiopia before
the year 330[95], a later date cannot be assigned to that structure. I
conceive it to be one of the earliest Christian edifices erected in
that country, as I have remarked, in my description of it, that it
is ornamented with the Ethiopian cornice and beading. This is the
most modern architectural construction that now remains in Ethiopia.
The Arabs at their invasion do not seem to have brought with them
the talent and means to erect any of those splendid mosques which
they have reared in honour of their prophet in other climes. I have
elsewhere described the dwellings of the present inhabitants. They are
miserable mud and straw huts, some of the latter having conical roofs,
a remnant of the knowledge of the arch. The fortified castles of the
chiefs are superior to these, but necessity only has taught them to
build towers and thick walls for their protection: nothing can be
more barbarous and rude than their internal structure. For the man
who has made himself independent, or is ignorant, of the luxuries,
elegancies, and comforts of life, they are perhaps sufficient, since
they afford shelter against the summer heat, the occasional showers
of rain, and the winter cold; but it is impossible to have a more
striking evidence of the effects of civilisation, than the contrast
between the wretched abodes of the present inhabitants of Ethiopia,
and the magnificent sepulchres of her departed kings.
Some writers even of ability affect to doubt the civilisation
and great power of the Ethiopians and Egyptians, particularly
the latter. They reason on the present condition of the country,
without reflecting on the great changes it has undergone. I may add,
that they display little knowledge of Egyptian subjects, and even of
the history of the arts in general. They would otherwise be aware
of the time necessary for a nation to acquire the degree of taste,
knowledge, and affluence, necessary for the construction of such
edifices as those still existing in the valley of the Nile. Setting
aside altogether the authority of historians, let us only compare
the present inhabitants, who are almost destitute of any ideas or
information, incapable even of rearing for themselves a suitable
abode, with a nation whose architectural proficiency has never been
surpassed, and whose advancement in so many branches of science and
civilisation is established by the indisputable evidence of lapidary
inscriptions. It were vain to expect to find at the present day in
this part of Ethiopia, an individual capable of constructing such
edifices as we have seen existing at Meroe. I do not hesitate to say,
that were it possible to transport one of the pyramids of Meroe
entire to London, it would be considered one of the most chaste
and beautiful ornaments of our metropolis. Though constructed more
perhaps than three thousand years ago, it might, even now, be studied
with advantage by our artists and architects.
When such observations are applied to Egypt, the answer is still
more easily made. Where in Europe is there an edifice like the
great temple at Karnak, one hall of which contains 140 columns,
36 feet in circumference, dimensions rarely to be found in Europe,
and every portion of that splendid court covered with carefully
finished and painted sculptures? Having, however, trespassed so long
on the reader’s patience, I must not now allow myself to enter
on the subject of Egyptian art. I will only say, in conclusion,
that the materials used in the pyramids of Memphis are sufficient
to construct a city, and that no palaces of Europe are comparable
in splendour to the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes.
THE END.
LONDON:
Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODE.
New-Street-Square.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: I possess numerous notes and drawings of the antiquities
in the lower valley of the Nile, selections from which I had some
intention of publishing, as intimated several times in my journal. But
I doubt much now if I shall enter on a field in which there are
already so many competitors. Signor Rosellini’s magnificent work is
already well known to the literary world. That of Champollion will,
I believe, soon appear. Mr. Wilkinson’s invaluable work, “Thebes,
and General View of Egypt,” with his most accurate map of that
interesting city, are already before the public. The same author has
promised us an account of the private life of the Egyptians; and such
a subject could not be in more learned hands. I trust the result of
Mr. Burton’s residence of above twelve years in that country will
soon appear. Mr. Hay’s portfolio is the most magnificent which has
ever been brought from that country. It comprises plans, sections,
and detailed drawings, by eminent architects; also delineations of
sculpture from the tombs and temples, by himself and able artists,
whom he employed; with a complete series of picturesque views,
entirely by his own pencil. Mr. Lane, Dr. Hogg, and others, are on the
eve of publishing. In mentioning the interesting works which I hope
will soon appear, I cannot refrain from expressing my regret, that
the valuable labours and researches of the above English travellers
in that classic soil have not been combined for the formation of a
great national work,—an imperishable monument of public utility
and individual enterprise.
I refer the reader, with great pleasure, to the fifth volume of the
Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, in which there is a very
interesting description of the peninsula of Sennaar, communicated
by Sir John Barrow, from the memoranda of Lord Prudhoe. Had it been
published before this volume was completed, I should have availed
myself of the information which it contains; but I am glad to find
that in many respects it confirms my statement.]
[Footnote 2: Lord Prudhoe and Major Felix are the only Englishmen who
have seen the antiquities of the island of Meroe; and it is deeply
to be regretted that they have not published their observations.]
[Footnote 3: In a work on Egypt, for which I have ample notes, and
400 drawings to select from, I may give a more detailed description
of these places.]
[Footnote 4: The temples I mention in this volume, below the second
cataract, I may perhaps describe at a future opportunity.]
[Footnote 5: It somewhat resembled, also, what Festus says of the
Salian dancers: the præsaltor advanced “et amptruabat,” then
all the rest came “et redamptruabant,” or danced and sang as he
had done.—SIR WM. GELL, T. R. vol. ii. p. 385.]
[Footnote 6: Part I. Canto II.]
[Footnote 7: The reader will have observed that my estimate of
the pace of the camel differs from those of many travellers, and
particularly from that of Mr. Burnes, the author of the justly
celebrated work “Travels into Bokhara” (see vol. ii. p. 149.);
but he must recollect that my camels were of the Bishareen race. My
servants were all mounted; and the animals, even at starting, were
not heavily laden with a stock of water, which diminished daily. There
being only one well containing water, and that bad, in a distance of
250 miles, it was their interest to urge on their camels, which they
did by singing in the manner I have described. I took great pains
to ascertain the pace of these animals, observing not only theirs,
but also that of the drivers walking by their side, dismounting
repeatedly myself for that purpose. I had the gratification to find,
on arriving at the Nile, that my calculations agreed, within two
or three miles, with the observations of latitude. I have made many
long journeys on camels, and I certainly think that animal, when well
taken care of, and not overloaded, fully capable of marching ten or
eleven hours per day, at the average rate of two miles and a half
an hour in valleys or over rough roads, and three miles on plains,
without being _at all_ distressed. On the banks of rivers, and in
districts where water and forage are plentiful, except urged on,
the men are always inclined to move more slowly, and make a shorter
day’s journey, not so much to save their camels as to lessen the
fatigue to themselves: a few days more or less _en route_ being
generally a matter of indifference to them.]
[Footnote 8: Burckhardt calls them angareyg, and says the peculiar
smell of the leather some of them are made of keeps them free from
vermin. I conceive it to be rather the excessive heat of the climate
that preserves the inhabitants of these latitudes from the plagues
of Egypt.]
[Footnote 9: These flies also annoy the cattle; but neither here
nor on the Mugrum (the Astaboras) have they the effect described
by Bruce.]
[Footnote 10: The specimens which I brought to England have confirmed
the accuracy of the description of them in Cailliaud’s work—“Cette
coquille, bien reconnue aujourd-hui comme devant appartenir au genre
éthérie, est remarquable par son talon, qui souvent semble s’accroître
et présenter nombre de compartimens. J’avais conservé de ces valves
d’éthéries qui avaient jusqu’à huit ou dix poules de longueur: la forme
en est alongée et variée, la nacre blanche et feuilletée. Les deux
attaches musculaires semblent être le seul motif qui jusqu’à present
a fait placer ces éthéries avec les cames plutôt qu’avec les huîtres,
dont elles ont du reste tout le caractère.”—Vol. ii. p. 222.]
[Footnote 11: “Who hath sent out the wild ass free? or who
hath loosed the bands of the wild ass? Whose house I have made
the wilderness, and the barren land his dwellings. He scorneth
the multitude of the city, neither regardeth he the crying of the
driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth
after every green thing.”]
[Footnote 12: Pliny.]
[Footnote 13: Lib. ii. c. 29.]
[Footnote 14: See the Chapters on the Commerce and Arts of Meroe.]
[Footnote 15: See Historical Appendix, and Account of the Ruins of
Gebel el Berkel, for further remarks on the arch.]
[Footnote 16: The first Egyptian edifice recorded is the pyramid
built by Venephes, at Cochon; according to Eusebius from Manetho,
the fourth king of the first dynasty. Africanus calls the town
Cochomen. That valuable remark shows the great antiquity of this
description of tomb.]
[Footnote 17: Virg. Georg. iv. 291.]
[Footnote 18: In the Appendix on the arts of Meroe I have mentioned
many other reasons for this opinion.]
[Footnote 19: Assour, on the north side, I did not see.]
[Footnote 20: The Sheakhs and Meleks generally profess to be very
religious, and observant of the laws of the Koran; but when they
want another wife, and have already four, they divorce one of their
old ones.]
[Footnote 21: They have some few wells, but generally send for water
from the river.]
[Footnote 22: Agatharchides of Gnidos (Diod. lib. i.), and others in
the time of the Ptolemies, seem to have divined the cause; and Homer
(vide Odyssey, book iv. ver. 581.), when he describes the Nile as
descending from heaven, apparently alludes to the rain in Ethiopia;
but at the time of Herodotus it is certain that the Egyptians were
not acquainted with the true cause; and Moses, in describing the
promised land (Deut. ch. xi. ver. 10.), “not as the land of Egypt,
but as a land of hills and valleys, which drinketh water of the
rain of heaven,” that is, owed its fertility to the rain that fell
from the clouds, would not have used those expressions, had he been
exhorting a people aware that the rain in Ethiopia was the cause
of the rising of the Nile; the source of the productiveness of the
two countries being the same, although in the one more immediate,
and therefore more apparent.]
[Footnote 23: As a boat would sail, following all the windings of
the river and the islands, the distance from Shendy to Rosetta can
scarcely be less than 1800 miles.]
[Footnote 24: In crossing this desert, to save anxiety, I gave each
person his own provision of water to take care of, warning him,
if that fell short, it was his own fault. This plan succeeded, each
individual taking such care of his skins that none of them ran out.]
[Footnote 25: In calling it not very ancient, I, of course, mean,
in comparison to some of the edifices in Ethiopia and Egypt. Tirhaka
began to reign in the latter country about 700 years A.C.]
[Footnote 26: See Plates LIII. and LIV.]
[Footnote 27: The generality of the pyramids face a little to the
south of south-east. I regret to state, that, from an error of
the engraver’s, which I did not discover until all the copies
were printed off, their direction is not correctly marked in the
General Plan; but, as their position is accurately shown in the above
vignette, I have considered it unnecessary to incur the expense of
having the plate reprinted.]
[Footnote 28: I have not considered it necessary to publish a separate
drawing which I made of this group.]
[Footnote 29: The Ethiopians are represented by Herodotus
(vii. 69.) as carrying bows not less than four cubits in length.]
[Footnote 30: The arch at North Der is formed by approaching stones.]
[Footnote 31: I shall make some further remarks on this important
subject in my Appendix on the arts of Meroe.]
[Footnote 32: Lib. xvi. p. 770.]
[Footnote 33: The okre consists of 2¾ rotles, or pounds of 12 ounces;
and 150 rotles, or pounds, make a cantar.]
[Footnote 34: This Plate contains also an Ababde of the Desert,
in the short drawers they sometimes wear.]
[Footnote 35: The bearings of the course of the river, and numerous
other villages and islands, whose names I obtained, are marked in
the map.]
[Footnote 36: About fifteen miles from the second cataract.]
[Footnote 37: The rotle consists of 12 ounces.]
[Footnote 38: He fell ill in Kordofan, but did not die until he
arrived at Wady Modeen, on the Bahr el Azruk, where I believe he
is buried.]
[Footnote 39: As regards the title of “melek,” this is the
name given in Hebrew to the different chiefs: but it is invariably
translated, in our version, “kings.”]
[Footnote 40: I have heard a song that describes this battle. The
Arabs adopt very generally this method of preserving the recollection
of any important event. There is a curious one about the Deftar Dar
Bey, when he avenged the death of Ismael Pasha on the Shendyans. He
is represented as coming as swift as the ostrich; “burning the
fakeers,” and “killing the sheakhs.”]
[Footnote 41: The Ababde girl, in relating this tale, sang this part
very sweetly, and several who were standing by joined in the chorus.]
[Footnote 42: The Ababde girl sang this.]
[Footnote 43: This man gave me the description of the customs,
&c., which I have given, having found them to agree with other
accounts. When I asked him whether I could be of any service to him
in Cairo, he begged, as a favour, that I would send him a blank book,
as he was anxious to make a copy of the Koran.]
[Footnote 44: “Le 17 Avril nous eûmes occasion de voir à Beit el
Fakih un exemple du sangfroid et de la fermeté des Arabes. Le feu
prit à une maison à l’extrémité méridionale, et, comme le vent
soufflait du sud avec violence, en peu de tems la plus grande partie
de la ville fut dévorée par les flammes: cependant les habitants
restaient tranquilles: on n’entendait dans les rues ni cris, ni
lamentations; et quand on plaignait leur sort, ils répliquaient,
C’est la volonté de Dieu. Nous occupions une maison de pierre dans
un quartier que les flammes épargnèrent: montés sur notre toit
nous vîmes les toits des autres maisons, remplis de spectateurs,
qui regardaient tranquillement l’incendie. Un savant pauvre, qui
nous rendait souvent des visites, vint à nous voir après avoir mis
en sûreté ses effets, et nous indiqua d’un air indifférent le
moment où sa maison s’embrasa.”]
[Footnote 45: The title which all travellers, who remain any time
in Egypt, generally take, is that of Effende. There are two great
advantages in assuming a Turkish name:—it affords greater facility
to the natives in recollecting it, and it likewise prevents your
being called Howwajee, merchant, or, rather, pedler; and as that
class of persons are, in this country, rarely respectable, either
from their morals or station, an Englishman submitting to such a
title, of course, lowers himself, both in the eyes of the Turks and
natives. The Arabs, among themselves, often have other names for
Europeans. I was called Abou Toweel, Father of the tall. Rosellini
had a name in reference to his beard (Abou Dagan); Champollion
(Abou Galeed), from his corpulency; and a noble traveller, who has
surpassed us all in the extent of his journey up the Nile, was called,
I am told, Abou Dagegah, or Father of the Minutes, from the report
having spread that he had a dollar every minute. The Turks and Arabs
of these provinces, where travellers are more rare, sometimes honour
me with the title of Bey Zadé, or, Son of a Governor.]
[Footnote 46: My servant having broken my thermometer at Gibel el
Birkel, I have, unfortunately, been unable to ascertain the heat here:
I can only remark, that the temperature for these last three months
has increased perceptibly every week. Some travellers have stated
that the extreme heat in Nubia is in April. Such an observation,
if not entirely an error, can only be applicable to that part where
heavy tropical rains fall. On the 11th of March (see p. 97.) we had
110° in the shade; but although that was the commencement of the
extreme heat, and for that reason more difficult to support, I did
not experience so great an inconvenience from it as at present. The
natives did not then complain as they do now, nor did my servants
from Cairo and Thebes suffer so much. They were all ill at El Ourde,
and I thought my Greek servant Ibrahim would have died.]
[Footnote 47: Mr. Waddington’s Travels in Ethiopia contain a view
and plan of this temple, and also some views of Gibel el Birkel. I
have avoided, as much as possible, the disagreeable task of swelling
my text with criticisms on the observations and plates of Monsieur
Cailliaud. It would, however, be unjust and ungenerous to make any
observation on the views of Mr. Waddington, as he states candidly
that he was no draughtsman; yet, as no other views had been published,
he was, of course, justified in giving such as he possessed.]
[Footnote 48: The names of these two kings occurring together
at Semneh, where Thothmes is represented worshipping his ancestor
Osirtisen as a god, is confirmatory of the accuracy of the supposition
that these are the names in the tomb at Doshe.]
[Footnote 49: See Bruce’s account of the reverence and adoration
of the Agous at the source of the Nile.]
[Footnote 50: Inscription No. 1. is from the same portico, and
opposite to a large figure, similar to the one in Plate X., Sculpture,
Meroe. No. 2. is before a figure presenting offerings. No. 4. before
a figure of Anubis. No. 5. before a figure of Horus. The tablet,
No. 3. is in the same portico, over a figure kneeling before a funeral
boat, very much defaced, at the end of the portico. As will be seen
by the plate, these inscriptions are very much injured; but, although
the least perfect of any that I possess, I publish them, because they
are the most important, being from the pyramids of Meroe. No. 6. is
an inscription which was above the sculpture on one side of the first
chamber excavated out of the rock of the Temple of Tirhaka, Gibel
el Birkel. No 7. is another portion of this apparently dedicatory
inscription, going round the whole of the room. The hieroglyphics are
large, well executed, and very legible, except some which were quite
defaced, and others almost covered with dirt. No. 8. are fragments
from the large granite altar in the western corner of the great
Temple, Gibel el Birkel. The first line is on the south-east side,
the second on the north-east; the remainder of the hieroglyphics on
this altar I have not been able to publish. Plate LIII. shows the
two subjects on the altar in the sanctuary of the same temple. (See
Plate XXIV.) I have alluded to them in my description of the ruins.]
[Footnote 51: His name is also found in the tomb near Solib, and on
the rocks at Toumbos.]
[Footnote 52: Since I wrote the above, I have seen the two beautiful
granite lions which were brought from Gibel el Birkel, and presented
to the British Museum, by Lord Prudhoe. The sculpture is most
beautiful. They appear to be of the same period, as their attitude
is similar; otherwise, their forms are different. The one which is
the most defaced, and has been apparently the most symmetrical,
bears the name of Amunoph III., in deep intaglio. As the name of
this king does not exist on any edifice at Gibel el Birkel, I think
the circumstance of the lion bearing his name being found there, no
decisive proof of his having penetrated so far south. The sculpture
is too good to be Ethiopian, and the granite is not of a description
I met with near there. Gibel el Birkel, whatever might be its ancient
name, was evidently the capital and favoured city of Tirhaka, who
might, on his abdication of the throne of Egypt, have brought away
these splendid specimens of Egyptian art. The nomen and prænomen on
the other are not Egyptian, but seem to be of a king called Amnasre,
or Amun Asre.]
[Footnote 53: Lib. ii. cap. 110.]
[Footnote 54: Odys. Δ′. 184.]
[Footnote 55: Odys. Λ′. 522.]
[Footnote 56: Pausanias correctly states the vocal statue of Memnon at
Thebes was by the natives called Phamenoph (that is, Amunoph III.),
the name it actually bears; and it certainly is curious, that this
is the very king whose name we find in Ethiopia at Solib, and on
the lion, as I have stated, brought from Gibel el Birkel. That
king may possibly have been master of a portion of Ethiopia, and
styled himself, as was often the custom, king of the Upper and
Lower Countries; but he could not have been the Ethiopian Memnon,
who marched to the succour of Troy: for the king who reigned in
Egypt at the time of the Trojan war was Osirei, or Menephtah II.;
and Amunoph III. died more than a century and a half before that
event. As no edifices remain bearing the name of this king south
of Solib, which is not a hundred miles above the second cataract,
I see no just reason, as I have said before, for supposing that he
carried his arms to Gibel el Birkel, much less to Meroe.]
[Footnote 57: 2 Chronicles, xii. 2, 3.]
[Footnote 58: 2 Chronicles, xvi. 8.]
[Footnote 59: 2 Chronicles, chap. xiv. l. 8-11.]
[Footnote 60: 2 Chronicles, xiv. 12, 13.]
[Footnote 61: Lib. ii. 137.]
[Footnote 62: Lib. ii. 139.]
[Footnote 63: Major Felix’s account of the Egyptian dynasties
was the first that showed us the great utility of the lapidary
inscriptions. Although brief, it is so admirably arranged, the
information it contains so valuable, and, notwithstanding the recent
progress in the study of hieroglyphics, generally so correct, that
it is very much to be regretted that the papers he lithographed at
Cairo have not been more widely circulated by a reprint in England.]
[Footnote 64: 2 Kings, chap. xviii.]
[Footnote 65: Rosellini, i Monumenti dell’ Egitto e della Nubia,
lib. ii. chap. 7.]
[Footnote 66: Isaiah, xxxvii. 36-38.]
[Footnote 67: Lib. ii. 137.]
[Footnote 68: Page 1007.]
[Footnote 69:
[Hieroglyphs]
Meroe. (See Plate X.) There is a fragment of a figure of a god,
with the hieroglyphics before it; this is evidently the god Sebek,
which, with the Greek termination, makes the Sevechus of Eusebius;
but, although the name in the list and that of Eusebius and Africanus
are made thus to agree with the name in the Bible, I have some doubts
if Signor Rosellini is correct in the connection he supposes between
the name of these hieroglyphics and the god Sevek; for the Ethiopians
apparently wrote the name of that deity in the same manner as the
Egyptians, and yet not one of the hieroglyphics used in writing the
name of the god is employed in that of the king.]
[Footnote 70: Herodotus, lib. ii. 30. Diodorus states the number
to have been more than 200,000; and assigns as the reason of their
emigration, that in the expedition into Syria the post of honour
was given to foreigners.—Lib. iii. vol. i. p. 175.]
[Footnote 71: Herodotus, lib. iii. 17. 20.]
[Footnote 72: Heliodorus, in his history of Ethiopia, or, rather,
novel of Theagenes and Cariclia, relates the war of Hydaspes, king
of the East and West Ethiopians, with the Egyptians, or rather the
Persians, then in possession of Egypt, for the island of Philæ and
the emerald mines. He gives also an account of the siege of Syene;
and mentions the prisoners being bound with chains of gold, so that
one of them, Theagenes, the hero of the tale, laughed, and said,
that he was more richly decorated in prison than out.]
[Footnote 73: Heeren’s Afrikanische Völker, vol. i. ch. 3.]
[Footnote 74: Lib. iii. 102.]
[Footnote 75: The following description, extracted from the journal
of my first voyage up the Nile, may amuse the reader:—
“April 8. 1832.—Our pilot afforded us a curious exhibition,
although not, I believe, uncommon; but to us it was new. He pretended
or believed that his saint, to whom he had been addressing his
evening devotions, had entered his body, and he immediately fell
into the most violent paroxysms, throwing his arms about, rolling
his head, and twisting his body in a very outrageous manner:
sometimes he held up his hands, and shook, as in the most dreadful
convulsions, groaning most piteously, and gabbling forth all sorts of
gibberish. The sailors made a circle round him, and continued making
low obeisances, calling on Mahomet to assist him, for nearly two
hours; they believe that, unless they did this, the saint would never
leave him, and he would have probably died. The man, in his madness,
seemed to have a great jealousy for his honour; one of the mariners
was sleeping on board the boat, while the others were on the banks
praying for them; on a sudden he darted into the boat, and, had he
not been detained, would have roughly used the drowsy mariner. After
all the Mahometans near him had joined the circle to pray for his
recovery, he returned, by degrees, to his senses: when the fit was
over, he lay for some time apparently quite exhausted. The man is
remarkable at other times for the mildness of his manner, and is one
of the finest looking Nubians I have seen, being above six feet high,
with uncommonly handsome features. The people consider those who are
thus possessed as peculiarly favoured, not one in a thousand being
so fortunate. After death they are generally considered as saints,
and have tombs erected to them by the government, which does this,
no doubt, to gain popularity, or conciliate the people: but it
is generally believed that the saint has appeared to the Pasha,
ordering him to erect it.”]
[Footnote 76: Lib. xvii. p. 820.]
[Footnote 77: Lib. vi. chap. 29.]
[Footnote 78: See Letronne’s note on Strabo, l. xvii. vol. v. p. 435.]
[Footnote 79: See Acts, chap. vi. vii. 33.]
[Footnote 80: Lib. iii. c. 2.]
[Footnote 81: Except Rameses II., who certainly penetrated as far
as Gibel el Birkel; but there is no other Egyptian name on any rocks
or edifices south of Solib and Toumbos.]
[Footnote 82: Herodotus (Thalia, 114.) describes Ethiopia as the
last of the inhabited regions of the earth, and possessed by men of
very great stature, beautiful, and of very long life; adding, that
it produces much gold, and very large elephants, with long teeth,
wild trees of every description, and ebony.]
[Footnote 83: Diodorus (lib. iii. p. 105.) says, that near the
confines of Egypt and the adjacent Ethiopia and Arabia, there is a
place which abounds in rich gold mines, whence, at a great expense
and toil of a great multitude of criminals, gold is dug. He speaks
also of the manner they pounded the gold; and also mentions veins
of white marble. It is a singular coincidence, that at the mines
in the great Nubian desert, there are actually remaining mortars
exactly such as he describes; and, with one exception, the only
place I found white marble during this journey was in that desert,
not far from the mines. The marble, however, may perhaps be the
white quartz the gold is found in.]
[Footnote 84: On the road to Abou Hashim, in the kingdom of Berber,
and other places, I found rocks of sandstone, much charged with iron,
and beyond Sennaar, they say that there are iron mines.]
[Footnote 85: I regret that in some few of the impressions the caps
were printed black. The reader must be aware, that the management of
such engravings as these is excessively difficult. Four colours are
impressed from separate stones—red, blue, black, and the ground. The
others were put in by hand. I took great pains in superintending the
mixing of the colours, to give the reader as exact a representation of
an Egyptian painting as was in my power. I am indebted to Mr. Bonomi
for having drawn for me on the stones these and the other plates
of sculpture.]
[Footnote 86: The past and present condition of Ethiopia are so
admirably described in the first two verses, chap. xviii. of Isaiah,
and the prophecy so admirably fulfilled, that I cannot refrain from
repeating them:—“Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is
beyond the rivers of Ethiopia: that sendeth ambassadors by the sea,
even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift
messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible
from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down,
whose land the rivers have spoiled!” Can the expression “shadowing
with wings” allude to the winged globe on all the edifices in
Egypt and Ethiopia? Vessels of bulrushes are highly characteristic
of a wild tribe in the interior, almost similar ones being used at
the present day; but the “nation, terrible from the beginning,
meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled,”
can only be Ethiopia.]
[Footnote 87: Strabo mentions that Coptos was the entrepôt, not
only of the merchandise of Ethiopia, but also of India and Arabia.]
[Footnote 88: Isaiah (xlv. 14.) also mentions the “merchandise
of Ethiopia.”]
[Footnote 89: Euterpe, 110.]
[Footnote 90: Plin. lib. vi. cap. xxix.]
[Footnote 91: Destruction of the library at Alexandria.]
[Footnote 92: No. CVI. p. 350.]
[Footnote 93: Euterpe, xv.]
[Footnote 94: This is no new doctrine of my own: Champollion,
Rosellini, Heeren, and many other first-rate authorities have the
same idea. I had expressed no opinion on the subject before going
into the country; and, therefore, without prejudice, examined the
evidence afforded by the monuments. At the same time that I deeply
regret, that many learned travellers and geographers differ with me
on this important point, I have not feared to express my own opinion;
and I trust it will be candidly allowed, that in my topographical
description I have not omitted any observation that might militate
against my argument. I have stated, that in the latitude of Shendy it
occasionally rains, (but Cailliaud is mistaken in supposing that it
rains there three months in the year,) and that such rain would have a
certain effect even on the solid mass of a pyramid. I have mentioned,
also, that the stones are smaller, and often of a softer material,
than the sandstone of Egypt; but we must consider that the pyramids
are also smaller, that they have no rooms in the interior, and that
the material of the least durable is harder than that of many of
the pyramids of Memphis. Mr. Waddington did not reach the wonderful
cemetery of the metropolis of Meroe, but the result of his comparison
of the other pyramids of Ethiopia with those of Egypt agrees with
mine, that is to say, as regards their relative antiquity; but from
the discoveries in hieroglyphics, Mr. W. is found to be wrong in the
dates he assigns to the monuments of Memphis and Thebes. But I cannot
conclude this subject better than with an extract from his work.
He says (Journal of a Visit to some Parts of Ethiopia, p. 184),
“Now, the utter destruction and shapelessness of many of the
pyramids at Birkel and El Bellal (Nouri), attest their antiquity;
while those of Egypt do not appear to have been erected above eleven
or twelve hundred years before Christ, when that country had been
frequently overrun by the Ethiopians;”—alluding to the statement
of Herodotus, that eighteen of the kings of Egypt were Ethiopians;
but Manethon and the monuments do not confirm this account, and,
therefore, I have not mentioned it before. “The pyramids are of
a later date than the ruins of Thebes. Thebes, which is known to
have been founded by a colony of Ethiopians[a], was called Ammon
No, Diospolis, or the city of Ammon. It follows, then, I think, very
clearly, from the concurrence of these observations on the antiquities
of Ethiopia, with the conclusions derived from historical evidence,
that the origin of the Egyptian divinities, as well as that of their
temples and their tombs, and of the sculptures, figures, and symbols,
may be traced to Ethiopia. In the magnitude of their edifices, the
imitators have, indeed, surpassed their masters; but, as far as
we could judge from the granite and other sculptures at Argo and
Gibel el Birkel, that art seems to have been as well understood,
and carried to as high perfection, as it was afterwards by their
scholars at Thebes and at Memphis.]
[Footnote a: Bruce’s Travels, vol. i. p. 380. The words of Bruce
are,—“We know that Thebes was a colony of Ethiopians, and probably
from Meroe; but whether directly or not we are not certain.” There
is, I believe, no passage distinctly stating this; but Bruce very
correctly inferred it from the statements of Diodorus and Herodotus.]
[Footnote 95: Ludolf, lib. iii. chap. 2.]
Transcriber's note:
Changes in the ERRATA have been made, with some differences:
"Ababdis" to: "Ababdes" — Also changed in: pg 15.
"Melik" to: "Melek" — Not found in any of the pages listed, but
changed instead in: Pl. 2, Pl. 3, pg 51 (x2), pg 52 (plur.),
pg 58 (plur.).
"Psammeticus" to: "Psammitichus" — Also changed in: pg 75, pg 213.
pg xi Changed: Calliaud to: Cailliaud
pg 9 Changed: Philœ to: Philæ
pg 23 Changed: to the ast of it to: east
pg 75 Changed: equal to the the best to: to the best
pg 146 footnote 26 Changed: See Plates LII. and LIII. to:
LIII. and LIV.
pg 185 Changed: I conceived he ight be to: might
pg 189 Changed: of these reamls to: realms
pg 193 Changed: The two views (Plates XXXVII. and XXXVIII.) to:
Plates XXXVI. and XXXVII.
pg 204 Changed: _April_ 13. to: _April_ 17.
pg 210 footnote 44 Changed: et novs indiqua to: nous
pg 240 Changed: Plate LI. is a drawing of the Osshi to: Plate LII.
pg 270 Changed: sculpture (see Plate XLI.) to: Plate LI.
pg 286 footnote 50 Changed: very much defaced. to:
very much defaced,
pg 298 Changed: ⲦⲙⲁⲩϢⲛⲓⲡⲟϥⲣⲉ to: ⲦⲙⲁⲩϢⲛⲓⲛⲟϥⲣⲉ
pg 310 Changed: Nazr è Deen to: Nazr e’ Deen
pg 311 footnote 72 Changed: Philœ to: Philæ
pg 315 (x2) Changed: Philœ to: Philæ
pg 316 Changed: Philœ to: Philæ
pg 316 footnote 76 Changed: Liv. to: Lib.
pg 326 Changed: road to Abon Hashim to: Abou
pg 327 Added: ” after: elephants’ teeth.
pg 360 Changed: but Calliaud is to: Cailliaud
pg 363 Changed: see Calliaud to: Cailliaud
Other spelling and formatting inconsistencies have been
left unchanged.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.