“Of the hundred columns of the portico alone, the smallest are seven feet and a half in diameter, and the largest twelve; the space occupied by the circumvallation of the temple contains lakes and mountains. In short, to be enabled to form a competent idea of so much magnificence, the reader ought to fancy what is before him to be a dream; as he who views the objects themselves rubs his eyes to know whether he is awake. The avenue leading from Karnac to Luxor, a space nearly half a league in extent, contains a constant succession of sphinxes and other chimerical figures to the right and left, together with fragments of stone walls, of small columns, and of statues.”
“The most ancient remains,” says Mr. Wilkinson, “now existing at Thebes, are unquestionably in the great temple of Karnac, the largest and most splendid ruin[273] of which, perhaps, either ancient or modern times can boast; being the work of a number of successive monarchs, each anxious to surpass his predecessor, by increasing the dimensions and proportions of the part he added.
“It is this fact which enables us to account for the diminutive size of the older parts of this extensive building; and their comparatively limited scale offering greater facility, as their vicinity to the sanctuary greater temptation, to an invading army to destroy them, added to their remote antiquity, are to be attributed their dilapidated state; as well as the total disappearance of the sculptures executed during the reigns of the Pharaohs, who preceded Osirtesen I., the cotemporary of Joseph, and the earliest monarch whose name exists on the monuments of Thebes[274].”
Speaking of this magnificent edifice, and of the vast sphinxes and other figures, Belzoni says:—“I had seen the temple of Tentyra, and I still acknowledge that nothing can exceed that edifice in point of preservation, and the beauty of its workmanship and sculpture. But here I was lost in a mass of colossal objects, every one of which was more than sufficient of itself to attract my whole attention. How can I describe my sensations at that moment? I seemed alone in the midst of all that is most sacred in the world; a forest of enormous columns from top to bottom; the graceful shape of the lotus, which forms their capitals, and is so well proportioned to the columns; the gates, the walls, the pedestals, the architraves, also adorned in every part with symbolical figures in low-relief, representing battles, processions, triumphs, feasts, and sacrifices, all relating to the ancient history of the country; the sanctuary wholly formed of fine red granite; the high portals, seen at a distance from the openings, of ruins of the other temples, within sight;—these altogether had such an effect upon my soul, as to separate me, in imagination, from the rest of mortals, exalt me on high above all, and cause me to forget entirely the trifles and follies of life. I was happy for a whole day, which escaped like a flash of lightning.”
Here stood, and does now stand, a fragment of the famous vocal statue of Memnon, which, many writers attest, sent forth harmonious sounds, when first touched of a morning by the rays of the sun. The circumstance being attested by Strabo, Pliny, Juvenal, Pausanias, Tacitus, and Philostratus, it is assuredly not to be doubted. The first injury this statue received was from Cambyses; who ordered it to be sawed in two, in order to get at the secret. It was afterwards thrown down by an earthquake.
Some have supposed, that the sounds alluded to were produced by the mechanical impulse of the sun’s light. Others that, being hollow, the air was driven out by the rarefaction of the morning, which occasioned the elicitation of a murmuring sound. But some assert, that it saluted the morning and evening sun differently;—the former with animating sounds; the latter with melancholy ones. Darwin, in the true spirit of poetry, describes this statue as sending forth murmurs of indignation at the ravages of Cambyses:—
Prophetic whispers breathed from sphinx’s tongue; And Memnon’s lyre with hollow murmurs rung.
In another passage, equally poetical, he makes it view with delight the waters of the Nile, rushing from the cataracts of Ethiopia:—
Gigantic sphinx the circling waves admire; And Memnon bending o’er his broken lyre.