The central or gateway tower is substantially perfect. The writer, with help, got as high as the first chamber; the ceiling of which is painted in a rich and intricate pattern, as in imitation of mosaic. The top room is difficult of access, but can be reached by a good climber. Our friend F. W. S., who made his way up there a year or two before, found upon the walls some interesting sculptures of cups and vases, apparently part of an illustrated inventory of domestic utensils. Three of these (unlike any engraved in the works of Wilkinson or Rosellini) are here reproduced from his sketch made upon the spot. The lid of the smaller vase, it will be observed, opens by means of a lever spooned out for the thumb to rest in, just like the lid of a German beer-mug of the present day.
The external decorations of the two lodges are of especial interest. The lower subjects are historical. Those upon the upper stories are domestic or symbolical, and are among the most celebrated of Egyptian bas-reliefs. They have long been supposed to represent Rameses III in his hareem, entertained and waited upon by female slaves. In one group the king, distinguished always by his cartouches, sits at ease in a kind of folding-chair, his helmet on his head, his sandaled feet upon a footstool, as one returned and resting after battle. In his left hand he holds a round object like a fruit. With the right he chucks under the chin an ear-ringed and necklaced damsel, who presents a lotus-blossom at his nose. In another much mutilated subject they are represented playing a game at draughts. This famous subject—which can only be seen when the light strikes sidewise—would scarcely be intelligible save for the help one derives from the cuts in Wilkinson and the plates in Rosellini. It is not that the sculptures are effaced, but that the great blocks which bore them are gone from their places, having probably been hurled down bodily upon the heads of the enemy during a certain siege of which the ruins bear evident traces.[203] Of the lady there remains little besides the arm and the hand that holds the pawn. The table has disappeared. The king has lost his legs. It happens, however, though the table is missing, that the block next above it contained the pawns, which can still be discerned from below by the help of a glass. Rosellini mentions three or four more subjects of a similar character, including a second group of draught-players, all visible in his time. The writer, however, looked for them in vain.
These tableaux are supposed to illustrate the home-life of Rameses III, and to confirm the domestic character of the pavilion. Even the scarab-selling Arabs that haunt the ruins, even the donkey boys of Luxor, call it the hareem of the sultan. Modern science, however, threatens to dispel one at least of these pleasant fancies.
The king, it seems, under the name of Rhampsinitus, is the hero of a very ancient legend related by Herodotus. While he yet lived, runs the story, he descended into hades, and there played a game at draughts with the Goddess Demeter, from whom he won a golden napkin; in memory of which adventure, and of his return to earth, “the Egyptians,” says Herodotus, “instituted a festival which they certainly celebrated in my day.”[204] In another version as told by Plutarch, Isis is substituted for Demeter. Viewing these tales by the light of a certain passage of the ritual, in which the happy dead is promised “power to transform himself at will, to play at draughts, to repose in a pavilion,” Dr. Birch has suggested that the whole of this scene may be of a memorial character, and represent an incident in the land of shades.[205]
Below these “hareem” groups come colossal bas-reliefs of a religious and military character. The king, as usual, smites his prisoners in presence of the gods. A slender and spirited figure in act to slay, the fiery hero strides across the wall “like Baal[206] descended from the heights of heaven. His limbs are indued with the force of victory. With his right hand he seizes the multitudes; his left reaches like an arrow after those who fly before him. His sword is sharp as that of his father Mentu.”[207]
Below these great groups run friezes sculptured with kneeling figures of vanquished chiefs, among whom are Libyan, Sicilian, Sardinian, and Etruscan leaders. Every head in these friezes is a portrait. The Libyan is beardless; his lips are thin; his nose is hooked; his forehead retreats; he wears a close-fitting cap with a pendant hanging in front of the ear. The features of the Sardinian chief[208] are no less Asiatic. He wears the usual Sardinian helmet surmounted by a ball and two spikes. The profile of the Sicilian closely resembles that of the Sardinian. He wears a head-dress like the modern Persian cap. As ethnological types, these heads are extremely valuable. Colonists not long since departed from the western coasts of Asia Minor, these early European settlers are seen with the Asiatic stamp of features; a stamp which has now entirely disappeared.
Other European nations are depicted elsewhere in these Medinet Habu sculptures. Pelasgians from the Greek isles; Oscans perhaps from Pompeii; Daunians from the districts between Tarentum and Brundusium, figure here, each in their national costume. Of these, the Pelasgian alone resembles the modern European. On the left wall of the pavilion gateway, going up toward the temple, there is a large bas-relief of Rameses III leading a string of captives into the presence of Amen-Ra. Among these, the sculptures being in a high state of preservation, there are a number of Pelasgians, some of whom have features of the classical Greek type, and are strikingly handsome. The Pelasgic head-dress resembles our old infantry shako; and some of the men wear disk-shaped amulets pierced with a hole in the center through which is passed the chain that suspends it round the neck.
Leaving to the left a fine sitting statue of Khons in green basalt and to the right his prostrate fellow, we pass under the gateway, cross a space of desolate crude-brick mounds, and see before us the ruins of the first pylon of the great Temple of Khem. Once past the threshold of this pylon we enter upon a succession of magnificent court-yards. The hieroglyphs here are on a colossal scale, and are cut deeper than any others in Egypt. They are also colored with a more subtle eye to effect. Struck by the unusual splendor of some of the blues and by a peculiar look of scintillation which they assumed in certain lights, I examined them particularly and found that the effect had been produced by very subtle shades of gradation in what appeared at first sight to be simple flat tints. In some of the reeds, for instance, the ground-color begins at the top of the leaf in pure cobalt, and passes imperceptibly down to a tint that is almost emerald green at the bottom.[209]
The inner walls of this great court-yard and the outer face of the northeast wall, are covered with sculptures outlined, so to say, in intaglio, and relieved in the hollow, so that the forms, though rounded, remain level with the general surface. In these tableaux the old world lives again. Rameses III, his sons and nobles, his armies, his foes, play once more the brief drama of life and death. Great battles are fought; great victories are won; the slain are counted; the captured drag their chains behind the victor’s chariot; the king triumphs, is crowned and sacrifices to the gods. Elsewhere more wars, more slaughter. There is revolt in Libya; there are raids on the Asiatic border; there are invaders coming in ships from the islands of the Great Sea. The royal standard is raised; troops assemble; arms are distributed. Again the king goes forth in his might, followed by the flower of Egyptian chivalry. “His horsemen are heroes; his foot-soldiers are as lions that roar in the mountains.” The king himself flames “like Mentu in his hour of wrath.” He falls upon the foe “with the swiftness of a meteor.” Here, crowded in rude bullock-trucks, they seek safety in flight. Yonder, their galleys are sunk; their warriors are slain, drowned, captured, scathed, as it were, in a devouring fire. “Never again will they sow seed or reap harvest on the fair face of the earth.”
“Behold!” says the Pharaoh, “Behold! I have taken their frontiers for my frontiers! I have devastated their towns, burned their crops, trampled their people under foot. Rejoice, O Egypt! Exalt thy voice to the heavens; for behold! I reign over all the lands of the barbarians! I, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Rameses III!”[210]