We arrive at the Memnonion. This temple was raised by Rameses the Great.
In the colossal Caryatides we recognise the same genius that excavated
the rocks of Ipsambul, and supported a cavern temple upon the heads of
giants. From the Memnonion came the statue that is now in the British
Museum. But this figure, though a fine specimen of Egyptian sculpture,
sinks, so far as magnitude is concerned, into insignificance when
compared with the statue of Rameses himself, which, broken off at the
waist, now lies prostrate in the precincts of the sanctuary. This is
probably the most huge colossus that the Egyptians ever constructed. The
fragment is of red granite, and of admirable workmanship. Unfortunately
the face is entirely obliterated. The statue lies upon its back, and
in its fall has destroyed all the temple within reach. It measures more
than sixty feet round the shoulders, the breadth of the instep is nearly
seven feet, and the hieroglyphical figures engraven on the arm are large
enough for a man to walk in.
Perhaps the most interesting group of ruins at Thebes is the quarter
of Medcenet Habu. Most of the buildings are of the time of Rameses the
Third.
The sculptured walls of the great temples, covered with battles,
chariots, captives, and slaves, have been worthily described by the
vivid pen of Mr. Hamilton. They celebrate the victorious campaigns of
the monarch. Here also the Third Rameses raised his palace. And it is
curious, among other domestic subjects, that we find represented on the
walls, in a very admirable style, Rameses playing chess with his Queen.
Chess is, probably, a most ancient Oriental game. Rameses the Third
lived before the Trojan war, to which the Greeks, as usual, ascribe the
invention of chess.
The sepulchres of Thebes still remain to be described, a theme more
fertile in interest and instruction than even its palaces and temples.
The arts of the Egyptians must be studied in their tombs, and to learn
how this remarkable people lived, we must even go where they were
buried. To cite no other instances in a sketch which is already too
long, it is from a painting in a tomb near Beni-hassan that we learn how
the Egyptians procured from the distant quarries of Nubia those masses
of stone and granite with which they raised the columns of Karnak and
the obelisks of Luxor.
But we must conclude. We have touched a virgin subject rich with
delightful knowledge, and if our readers be not wearied with wandering
on the banks of the Nile, we may perhaps again introduce them to the
company of the Pharaohs.
SHOUBRA
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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