“In describing the ruins, we shall begin with the most considerable, which are on the east of the Nile. The chief is the Great Temple, an oblong square building, of vast extent, with a double colonnade, one at each extremity. The massy columns and walls are covered with hieroglyphics, a labour truly stupendous. 1. The Great Temple stands in the district called Karnak. 2. Next in importance is the temple at Abu-Hadjadj. 3. Numerous ruins, avenues marked with remains of sphinxes, &c. On the west side of the Nile appear, 1. Two colossal figures, apparently of a man and woman, formed of a calcareous stone like the rest of the ruins. 2. Remains of a large temple, with caverns excavated in the rock. 3. The magnificent edifice styled the Palace of Memnon. Some of the columns are about forty feet high, and about nine and a half in diameter. The columns and walls are covered with hieroglyphics. This stands at Kourna. 4. Behind the palace is the passage styled Bibân-el-Molûk, leading up the mountain. At the extremity of this passage, in the sides of the rock, are the celebrated caverns known as the sepulchres of the ancient kings. Several of these sepulchres have been described by Pococke, with sufficient minuteness; he has even given plans of them. But in conversation with persons at Assiût, and in other parts of Egypt, I was always informed that they had not been discovered till within the last thirty years, when a son of Shech Hamâm, a very powerful chief of the Arabs, who governed all the south of Egypt from Achmîm to Nubia, caused four of them to be opened, in expectation of finding treasure.
“They had probably been rifled in very ancient times; but [Pg 422]how the memory of them should have been lost remains to be explained. One of those which I visited exactly answers Dr. Pococke’s description; but the other three appear materially different from any of his plans. It is, therefore, possible that some of those which he saw have been gradually closed up by the sand, and that the son of Hamâm had discovered others. They are cut into the free-stone rock, in appearance, upon one general plan, though differing in parts. First, a passage of some length, then a chamber; a continuation of the first passage turns abruptly to the right, where is the large sepulchral chamber, with a sarcophagus of red granite in the midst.
“In the second part of the passage of the largest are several cells or recesses on both sides. In these appear the chief paintings, representing the mysteries, which, as well as the hieroglyphics covering all the walls, are very fresh. I particularly observed the two harpers described by Bruce; but his engraved figures seem to be from memory. The French merchants at Kahira informed me that he brought with him two Italian artists; one was Luigi Balugani, a Bolognese, the other Zucci, a Florentine.”
The edifice at Luxor[270] was principally the work of two Egyptian monarchs,—Amunoph the Third, who ascended the throne 1430 years before the Christian era, and Rameses the Second—the Great, as he is surnamed,—whose era has been fixed at 1500 or 1350 B. C. The Amenophium, as the more ancient part erected by the former is called, comprises all that extends from the river on the south up to the great court; a colonnade, together with a propyla which bound it on the north, is thus a portion of it. The great court itself, with the propyla forming the grand entrance into the whole building, and the obelisks, colossal statues, &c., was the work of Rameses the Second, and is sometimes called the Rameseium; under this appellation, however, it must not be confounded with the great monument of the same monarch on the western side of the river. As this great edifice is very near the bank of the river where it forms an angle, the soil is supported by a solid stone wall, from which is thrown out a jetty of massive and well-cemented brick, fifty yards in length, and seven in width. Mr. Wilkinson says that it is of the late era of the Ptolemies, or Cæsars, since blocks bearing the sculpture of the former have been used in its construction; and the same gentleman communicates the unpleasant intelligence that the river having formed a recess behind it, threatens to sweep away the whole of its solid masonry, and to undermine the [Pg 423]foundations of the temple itself. This jetty formed a small port, for the convenience of boats navigating the river. Mr. Hamilton says that its ruins very much resemble the fragments of the bridge called that of Caligula in the Bay of Baiæ; which is now generally believed to have been a pier for the purposes of trade. Dr. Richardson considered the workmanship of the embankment to be entirely Roman; and he suggests that the temple at Luxor was probably built on the banks of the Nile for the convenience of sailors and wayfaring men; where, without much loss of time they might stop, say their prayers, present their offerings, and bribe the priests for promises of future success.
“The entrance,” says Denon, “of the village of Luxor affords a striking instance of beggary and magnificence. What a gradation of ages in Egypt is offered by this single scene! What grandeur and simplicity in the bare inspection of this one mine! It appears to me to be at the same time the most picturesque group, and the most speaking representation of the history of those times. Never were my eyes or my imagination so forcibly struck as by the sight of this monument. I often came to meditate on this spot, to enjoy the past and the present; to compare the successive generations of inhabitants, by their respective works, which were before my eye, and to store in my mind volumes of materials for future meditations. One day the sheik of the village accosted me, and asked if it was the French or the English who had erected these monuments, and this question completed my reflections.”
Every spot of ground, intervening between the walls and columns, is laid out in plantations of corn and olives, inclosed by mud walls.
“We have little reason to suppose[271], that when Egypt formed a part of the Eastern empire, its former capital was at all raised from its fallen condition; and we have, unfortunately, but too much reason to conclude, that under the dominion of the Arabian caliphs, it sank yet deeper into desolation, and the destruction of its monuments was continued still by the same agency which had all along worked their ruin,—the hand of man. Though we have no distinct account of the injuries inflicted on it in this period, we may infer their extent, and the motives which operated to produce them, from the following remarks of Abdallatif, an Arabian physician of Bagdad, who wrote a description of Egypt in the fourteenth century. He tells us, that formerly the sovereigns watched with care [Pg 424]over the preservation of the ancient monuments remaining in Egypt; ‘but, in our time,’ he adds, ‘the bridle has been unloosed from men, and no one takes the trouble to restrain their caprices, each being left to conduct himself as to him should seem best. When they have perceived monuments of colossal grandeur, the aspect of those monuments has inspired them with terror; they have conceived foolish and false ideas of the nature of these remains of antiquity. Every thing, which had the appearance of design, has been in their eyes but a signal of hidden treasure; they have not been able to see an aperture in a mountain, without imagining it to be a road leading to some repository of riches. A colossal statue has been to them but the guardian of the wealth deposited at its feet, and the implacable avenger of all attempts upon the security of his store. Accordingly, they have had recourse to all sorts of artifice to destroy and pull down these statues; they have mutilated the figures, as if they hoped by such means to attain their object, and feared that a more open attack would bring ruin upon themselves; they have made openings, and dug holes in the stones, not doubting them to be so many strong coffers filled with immense sums; and they have pierced deep, too, in the clefts of mountains, like robbers penetrating into houses by every way but the doors, and seizing eagerly any opportunity which they think known only to themselves.’ This is the secret of much of the devastation which has been worked among the monuments of ancient Egypt.”
The village of Luxor[272] is built on the site of the ruins of a temple, not so large as that of Karnac, but in a better state of preservation, the masses not having as yet fallen through time, and by the pressure of their own weight. The most colossal parts consist of fourteen columns, of nearly eleven feet in diameter, and of two statues of granite at the outer gate, buried up to the middle of the arms, and having in front of them the two largest and best preserved obelisks known. They are rose-coloured, are still seventy feet above the ground, and to judge by the depth to which the figures seem to be covered, about thirty feet more may be reckoned to be concealed from the eye; making in all one hundred feet for their height. Their preservation is perfect; and the hieroglyphics with which they are covered being cut deep, and in relief at the bottom, show the bold hand of a master, and a beautiful finish. The gravers, which could touch such hard materials, must have been of an admirable temper; and the machines to drag such enormous blocks from the quarries, to transport them thither, and to set them upright, together with the time required for the labour, surpass all conception.
The temple is very near the river, says another writer, and there is a good ancient jetty, well built of bricks. The entrance is through a magnificent gateway facing the north, two hundred feet in front, and fifty-seven feet high, above the present level of the soil. Before the gateway, and between the obelisks, are two colossal statues of red granite; from the difference of the dresses, it is judged that one was a male, the other a female, figure. They are nearly of equal sizes. Though buried in the ground to the chest, they still measure twenty-one or twenty-two feet from thence to the top of the mitres.
The gateway is filled with remarkable sculptures, which represent the triumph of some ancient monarch of Egypt over an Asiatic enemy; and which we find repeated both on other monuments of Thebes, and partly, also, on some of the monuments of Nubia. This event appears to have formed an epoch in Egyptian history, and to have furnished materials both for the historian and the sculptor, like the war of Troy to the Grecian poet. The whole length of this temple is about eight hundred feet.