FIG. 8.—PLAN OF THE RAMESSEUM.
a, Sanctuary; b, Hypostyle Hall; c, Second court; d, Entrance court; e, Pylons.
TOMBS OF THE NEW EMPIRE. Some of these are structural, others excavated; both types displaying considerable variety in arrangement and detail. The rock-cut tombs of Bab-el-Molouk, among which are twenty-five royal sepulchres, are striking both by the simplicity of their openings and the depth and complexity of their shafts, tunnels, and chambers. From the pipe-like length of their tunnels they have since the time of Herodotus been known by the name syrinx. Every precaution was taken to lead astray and baffle the intending violator of their sanctity. They penetrated hundreds of feet into the rock; their chambers, often formed with columns and vault-like roofs, were resplendent with colored reliefs and ornament destined to solace and sustain the shadowy Ka until the soul itself, the Ba, should arrive before the tribunal of Osiris, the Sun of Night. Most impressively do these brilliant pictures,[2] intended to be forever shut away from human eyes, attest the sincerity of the Egyptian belief and the conscientiousness of the art which it inspired.
While the tomb of the private citizen was complete in itself, containing the Ka-statues and often the chapel, as well as the mummy, the royal tomb demanded something more elaborate in scale and arrangement. In some cases external structures of temple-form took the place of the underground chapel and serdab. The royal effigy, many times repeated in painting and sculpture throughout this temple-like edifice, and flanking its gateways with colossal seated figures, made buried Ka-statues unnecessary. Of these sepulchral temples three are of the first magnitude. They are that of Queen Hatasu (XVIIIth dynasty) at Deir-el-Bahari; that of Rameses II. (XIXth dynasty), the Ramesseum, near by to the southwest; and that of Rameses III. (XXth dynasty) at Medinet Abou still further to the southwest. Like the tombs, these were all on the west side of the Nile; so also was the sepulchral temple of Amenophis III.
(XVIIIth dynasty), the Amenopheum, of which hardly a trace remains except the two seated colossi which, rising from the Theban plain, have astonished travellers from the times of Pausanias and Strabo down to our own. These mutilated figures, one of which has been known ever since classic times as the “vocal Memnon,” are 56 feet high, and once flanked the entrance to the forecourt of the temple of Amenophis. The plan of the Ramesseum, with its sanctuary, hypostyle hall, and forecourts, its pylons and obelisks, is shown in Figure 8, and may be compared with those of other temples given on pp. 17 and 18. That of Medinet Abou resembles it closely. The Ramesseum occupies a rectangle of 590 × 182 feet; the temple of Medinet Abou measures 500 × 160 feet, not counting the extreme width of the entrance pylons. The temple of Hatasu at Deir-el-Bahari is partly excavated and partly structural, a model which is also followed on a smaller scale in several lesser tombs. Such an edifice is called a hemispeos.
[1.] The Egyptian names known to antiquity are given here first in the more familiar classic form, and then in the Egyptian form.
[2.] See Van Dyke’s History of Painting, Figure 1.