A History of Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. 1 (of 2)Perrot, Georges
History
A History of Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Perrot, Georges
Art -- Egypt -- History; Egypt -- Antiquities
Did the royal tombs contain statues of the defunct? None have been
found in any of those already opened, and yet there is a chamber in
the tomb of Rameses IV. which appears from its inscriptions to have
been called the _Statue chamber_, while another apartment in its
neighbourhood is reserved for the funerary statuettes. The tombs of
private individuals contained statues; why then should none have been
put in those of the sovereigns? The commemorative sanctuary, the
external funerary temple, was adorned with his image often repeated,
which in order that it might be in better keeping with the
magnificence of its surroundings, and should have a better chance of
duration, was colossal in its proportions. In the inclosures of the
temples of the two Rameses and upon the site of the Amenophium, the
remains of these huge figures are to be counted by dozens, most of
them are of rose granite from Syene; the smallest are from 24 to 28
feet high, and some, with their pedestals, are as much as from 55 to
more than 60 feet. The two colossi of Amenophis III., the Pharaoh
whom the Greeks called Memnon, reached the latter height. Flayed,
mutilated, dishonoured as they have been, these gigantic statues are
still in place. They should be seen in autumn and from a little
distance as they raise their solitary and imposing masses above the
inundated plain, when their size and the simplicity of their lines
will have an effect upon the traveller which he will never forget
(Fig. 20, and Plate vi.).
In the royal tombs at Thebes, as in those at Memphis, the approach to
the mummy-chamber is not by a well, but by an inclined plane. The only
wells which have been discovered in the tombs of the Bab-el-Molouk
are, if we may use the term, false wells, ingeniously contrived to
throw any would-be violator off the right scent. We have already
mentioned one of these false wells as existing in the tomb of Seti. In
the pyramids the corridor which leads to the mummy-chamber is
sometimes an ascending plane, but in the Theban tomb it is always
descending. At the end of the long descent the mummy-chamber is
reached with its sarcophagus, generally a very simple one of red
granite, which has hitherto, in every instance, been found empty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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