THE SPHINX.
Before passing to the pyramids and ruins of Meroë in Ethiopia, let us notice the celebrated Sphinx, which stands near the great pyramids of Gizeh, and the enormous bulk of which attracts the attention of every traveler. Of all the monuments of Egypt, this, in many respects, is the most mysterious and impressive. It is cut out of the solid rock, and by some is supposed to have been the sepulcher of Amasis. It is more than sixty feet from the ground to the crown of the head; more than a hundred feet around the forehead; and nearly one hundred and fifty feet in length. The nose has been shamefully mutilated. “Though its proportions are colossal, its outline,” says Denon, “is pure and graceful; the expression mild, gracious, and tranquil; the character is African; but the mouth, the lips of which are thick, has a softness and delicacy of execution truly admirable; it seems real life and flesh. Art must have been at a high pitch when this monument was executed; for, if the head is deficient in what is called style, that is, in the straight and bold lines which give expression to the figures under which the Greeks have designated their deities, yet sufficient justice has been rendered to the fine simplicity and character of nature displayed in this figure.”
GREAT GALLERY OF THE TOMBS OF SAKKARA.
Thus far the description of Denon. But Taylor, who says of this monument that “there is nothing like it in the world,” adds, that “those travelers who pronounce its features to be negro in their character, are certainly very hasty in their conclusions. That it is an Egyptian head, is plainly evident, notwithstanding its mutilation. The type, however, is rather fuller and broader than is usual in Egyptian statues.” Who reared it, and for what purpose, and by what mighty enginery, is utterly unknown. But there it stands, “on the verge of the desert whose sands are heaped around it, and in advance of the three vast pyramids that form an immovable phalanx as if to guard it from destruction, looking out in unfathomable silence over the empty plain where once stood Memphis in the pride of the earlier Pharaohs, and where Cambyses battered down that pride with the recklessness of a barbarian invader. Once an altar stood before it, and a dromos of crouching lions and other figures formed a fit approach to the gigantic symbol of Egypt deified. But now the sands drift in perpetually to hide all but the head, whose sublime repose neither the war-club of the Persian, nor tho fury of the sirocco has ever disturbed.”
RUINS AND PYRAMIDS OF MEROË[MEROË].
Passing up the Nile to its great fork in about latitude seventeen degrees, we come to the wonderful ruins and pyramids of Meroë, in Ethiopia. “The discovery of these ruins,” says the well known traveler last quoted, “is of comparatively recent date; and it is only within a very short time that their true place and character in Ethiopian history have been satisfactorily established. Hoskins, Cailliaud and Ferlini were the first to direct the attention of antiquarians to this quarter, and the later and more complete researches of Lepsius leave room for little more to be discovered concerning them. It is remarkable that both Bruce and Burckhardt, who traveled by land from Berber to Shendy, failed to see the ruins, which must have been visible from the road they followed. The former, in fact, speaks of the broken pedestals, carved stones and pottery which are scattered over the plain, and sagely says, ‘It is impossible to avoid risking a guess that this is the ancient city of Meroë;’ but he does not mention the groups of pyramids which are so conspicuous a feature in the landscape. Our path led over a plain covered with thorny shrubs at first, but afterward hard black gravel, and we had not gone more than a mile before the raïs pointed out the pyramids of the ancient Ethiopian city. I knew it only from its mention in history, and had never read any description of its remains; consequently I was surprised to see before me, in the vapory morning air, what appeared to be the ruins of pylæ and porticos, as grand and lofty as those of Karnak. Rising between us and the mountains, they had an imposing effect, and I approached them with excited anticipations. As advanced, however, and the morning vapors melted away, I found that they derived much of their apparent hight from the hill upon which they are built, and that, instead of being the shattered parts of one immense temple, they were a group of separate pyramids, standing amid the ruins of others which have been completely destroyed.
“We reached them after a walk of about four miles. They stand upon a narrow, crescent-shaped hill, which rises forty or fifty feet from the plain, presenting its convex front to the Nile, while toward the east its hollow curve embraces a small valley lying between it and the mountain range. Its ridge is crowned with a long line of pyramids, standing so close to each other that their bases almost meet, but presenting no regular plan or association, except in the direction of their faces. None of them retains its apex, and they are all more or less ruined, though two are perfect to within a few courses of the top. I climbed one of the highest, from which I could overlook the whole group, as well as another cluster, which crowned the summit of a low ridge at the foot of the mountains opposite. Of those among which I stood, there were sixteen, in different degrees of ruin, besides the shapeless stone-heaps of many more. They are all built of fine red sandstone, in regular courses of masonry, the spaces of which are not filled, or cased, as in the Egyptian pyramids, except at the corners, which are covered with a narrow hem or molding, in order to give a smooth outline. The stones are about eighteen inches high, and the recession of each course varies from two to four inches, so that the hight of the structure is always much greater than the breadth of the base. A peculiarity of these pyramids is, that the sides are not straight but curved lines, of different degrees of convexity, and the breadth of the courses of stone is adjusted with the utmost nicety, so as to produce this form. They are small, compared with the enormous piles of Gizeh and Dashoor, but singularly graceful and elegant in appearance. Not one of the group is more than seventy feet in hight, nor when complete could have exceeded one hundred. All, or nearly all, have a small chamber attached to the exterior, exactly against the center of their eastern sides, but no passage leading into the interior; and from the traces of Dr. Lepsius’s labors, by which I plainly saw that he had attempted in vain to find an entrance, it is evident that they are merely solid piles of masonry, and that, if they were intended tombs, the bodies were deposited in the outer chambers. Some of these chambers are entire, except the roof, and their walls are profusely sculptured with hieroglyphics, somewhat blurred and worn down, from the effect of the summer rains. Their entrances resembled the doorways of temples, on a miniature scale, and the central stones of two of them were sculptured with the sacred winged globe. I saw on the jamb of another, a figure of the god Horus. The chambers were quite small, and not high enough to allow me to stand upright. The sculptures have a very different character from those in the tombs of Thebes, and their resemblance to those of the Ptolemaic period was evident at the first glance. The only cartouches of monarchs which I found were so obliterated that I could not identify them; but the figure of one of the kings, grasping in one hand the hair of a group of captives, while with the other he lifts a sword to slay them, bears a striking resemblance to that of Ptolemy Euergetes, on the pylon of the temple at Edfou. Many of the stones in the vast heaps which lie scattered over the hills, are covered with sculptures. I found on some the winged globe and scarabeüs, while others retained the scroll or fillet which usually covers the sloping corners of a pylon. On the northern part of the hill I found several blocks of limestone, which exhibited a procession of sculptured figures brilliantly colored.
“The last structure on the southern extremity of the hill, is rather a tower than a pyramid, consisting of a high base or foundation, upon which is raised a square building, the corners presenting a very slight slope toward the top, which is covered with ruins, indicating that there was originally another and narrower story upon it. When complete, it must have borne considerable resemblance to the Assyrian towers, the remains of which are found at Nineveh. On this part of the hill there are many small detached chambers, all facing the east, and the remains of a large building. Here Lepsius appears to have expended most of his labors; and the heaps of stone and rubbish he has left behind him, prevent one from getting a very clear idea of the original disposition of the buildings. He has quarried one of the pyramids down to its base, without finding any chamber within or pit beneath it. My raïs, who was at a loss to comprehend the object of my visit, spoke of Lepsius as a great Frank astrologer, who had kept hundreds of the people at work for many days, and at last found in the earth a multitude of chickens and pigeons, all of solid gold. He then gave the people a great deal of backsheesh and went away, taking the golden fowls with him. The most interesting object he has revealed is a vaulted room, about twenty feet long, which the raïs pointed out as the place where the treasures were found. It is possible that he here referred to the discoveries made about twenty years ago by Ferlini, who excavated a great quantity of rings and other ornaments, Greek and Roman, as well as Ethiopian, which are now in the museum at Berlin. The ceiling of this vault is on the true principle of the arch, with a keystone in the center, which circumstance, as well as the character of the sculptures, would seem to fix the age of the pyramids at a little more than two thousand years. I took a sketch of this remarkable cluster of ruins from their northern end, and afterward another from the valley below, whence each pyramid appears distinct and separate, no one covering the other. The raïs and sailors were puzzled what to make of my inspection of the place, but finally concluded that I hoped to find a few golden pigeons, which the Frank astrologer had not carried away. I next visited the eastern group, which consists of ten pyramids, more or less dilapidated, and the ruined foundations of six or eight more. The largest, which I ascended, consists of thirty-five courses of stone, and is about fifty-three feet in hight, eight or ten feet of the apex having been hurled down. Each side of the apex is seventeen paces, or about forty-two feet long, and the angle of ascent is consequently much greater than in the pyramids of Egypt. On the slope of the hill are the substructions of two or three large buildings, of which sufficient remains to show the disposition of the chambers and the location of the doorways. Toward the south, near where the valley inclosed between the two groups opens upon the plain, are the remains of other pyramids and buildings, and some large, fortress-like ruins are seen on the summits of the mountains to the east. I would willingly have visited them, but the wind was blowing fresh, and the raïs was impatient to get back to his vessel. Many of the stones of the pyramids are covered with rude attempts at sculpturing camels and horses; no doubt by the Arabs, for they resemble a school-boy’s first drawings on a slate; straight sticks for legs, squares for bodies, and triangles for humps.
“Leaving the ruins to the company of the black goats that were browsing on the dry grass, growing in bunches at their eastern base, I walked to another group of pyramids, which lay a mile and a half to the south-west, toward the Nile. As we approached them, a herd of beautiful gray gazelles started from among the stones and bounded away into the desert. ‘These were the tents of the poor people,’ said the raïs, pointing to the pyramids; ‘the Frank found no golden pigeons here.’ They were, in fact, smaller and more dilapidated than the others. Some had plain burial chambers attached to their eastern sides, but the sculptures were few and insignificant. There were sixteen in all, more or less ruined. Scattering mounds, abounding with fragments of bricks and building stones, extended from these ruins nearly to the river’s bank, a distance of more than two miles; and the foundations of many other pyramids might be seen among them. The total number of pyramids in a partial state of preservation, (some being nearly perfect, while a few retained only two or three of the lower courses,) which I counted on the site of Meroë, was forty-two. Besides these, I noticed the traces of forty or fifty others, which had been wholly demolished. The entire number, however, of which Meroë could boast, in its prime, was one hundred and ninety-six. The mounds near the river, which cover an extent of between one and two miles, point out the site of the city, the capital of the old hierarchy of Meroë, and the pyramids are no doubt the tombs of its kings and priests. It is rather singular that the city has been so completely destroyed, as the principal spoilers of Egypt, the Persians, never penetrated into Ethiopia, and there is no evidence of the stones having been used to any extent by the Arabs, as building materials.
“The examination of Meroë has solved the doubtful question of an Ethiopian civilization anterior to that of Egypt. Hoskins and Cailliaud, who attributed a great antiquity to the ruins, were misled by the fact, discovered by Lepsius, that the Ethiopian monarchs adopted as their own, and placed upon their tombs the nomens of the earlier Pharaohs. It is now established beyond a doubt, that, so far from being the oldest, these are the latest remains of Egyptian art; their inferiority displays its decadence, and not the rude, original type, whence it sprang. Starting from Memphis, where not only the oldest Egyptian, but the oldest human records yet discovered, are found, the era of civilization becomes later, as you ascend the Nile. In Nubia, there are traces of Thothmes and Amunoph III., or about fifteen centuries before the Christian era; at Napata, the ancient capital of Ethiopia, we can not get beyond King Tirhaka, eight centuries later; while at Meroë, there is no evidence which can fix the date of the pyramids earlier than the first, or at furthest, the second century before Christ. Egypt, therefore, was not civilized from Ethiopia, but Ethiopia from Egypt. The sculptures at Meroë also establish the important fact that the ancient Ethiopians, though of a darker complexion than the Egyptians, (as they are in fact represented, in Egyptian sculpture,) were, like them, an offshoot of the great Caucasian race. Whether they were originally emigrants from northern India and the regions about Cashmere, as the Egyptians are supposed to have been, or, like the Beni Koreish at a later period, crossed over from the Arabian peninsula, is not so easily determined. The theory of Pococke and other scholars, based on the presumed antiquity of Meroë, that here was the first dawning on African soil of that earliest Indian civilization, which afterward culminated at Memphis and Thebes, is overthrown but we have what is of still greater significance, the knowledge that the highest civilization, in every age of the world, has been developed by the race to which we belong.
“I walked slowly back to the boat, over the desolate plain, striving to create from those shapeless piles of ruin the splendor of which they were once a part. The sun, and the wind, and the mountains, and the Nile, were what they had ever been; but where the kings and priests of Meroë walked in the pomp of their triumphal processions, a poor, submissive peasant knelt before me with a gourd full of goat’s milk; and if I had asked him when that plain had been inhabited, he would have answered me, like Chidhar, the prophet: ‘As thou seest it now, so has it been forever!’”[forever!’”]