Egypt -- History -- To 332 B.C. -- Fiction; Historical fiction
This occupation had apparently kept me at my desk well on towards dawn.
I deduce this from the fact that immediately following the above short
entry, I find a number of fragmentary hieroglyphic inscriptions having to
do with the history of the foundation and erection of Pharaoh’s Mortuary
Temple, upon which I had been so long at work.
One of these entries is of special interest in this connection, since,
after a lapse of some three thousand years, the two colossal statues of
King Amenhotep III, to whom it refers, may still be seen gazing stolidly
and immutably eastward across the broad reaches of the Theban Plain.
The following graphic description of the now vanished building itself, a
literal translation from the original hieroglyphic, is the last entry in
my diary, the last for many a long day, I may add. Further, and for an
excellent reason, this last entry was never completed. The translation
runs in the following somewhat grandiloquent and semi-poetic vein: “It
hath been given me to set up in a holy place two great statues of the
Son of Ra, Amenhotep, Conqueror of Asia. These are they which stand
before the entrance portal of the Mortuary Temple of His Majesty (Life,
Stability and Health to him). Carved from solid blocks of the hard
grit-stone of On, they tower seventy feet into the air. Their golden
headdresses touch the very dome of heaven. On either side, gold-capped
obelisks of red granite reach high above the temple pylons. Four cedar
flag-staffs tipped with gold rise from grooves cut in the sculptured
sandstone of the temple front. The walls of the temple are carved
and richly painted with scenes representing the Asiatic conquests of
Pharaoh, Lord of Might. Its great bronze doors are inlaid in gold with
the figure of the God Min of Coptos. Through this jeweled outline of
his ‘double’ twice daily doth the Great God enter the Holy Sanctuary,
there to partake of the offerings spread upon its jeweled altars. In
his honor are the ceilings covered with true lazuli of Babylon, its
floors enriched with silver and sprinkled with powdered turquoise.
Its gleaming walls are engraved with designs representing the New
Year’s procession of the Sun Barque, from the Northern to the Southern
Apt. Beside the High Altar stands a tablet thirty feet in height,
covered with gold and inlaid with sard and emerald. Thus is marked
‘The-Place-Where-His-Majesty-Stands-at-the-Sacrificing.’ Beq, son of Beq,
carved the statues and erected the obelisks. Renny, the Syrian, overlaid
and enriched the tablet.”
Inserted here was a drawing of the above mentioned tablet, and, upon it,
the following additional fragment: “Memorial-tablet found face downwards.
I enclose drawings and translations. Evidently _mine_ is a very ancient
_name_? All traces of——.”
Here the diary abruptly stops!
Now, I directly trace the mishap which thereafter befell me to the
discovery of this same tablet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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