The Colossi at Thebes.
His architect and namesake, Amenhotep, has left some notices of his own life and labours. ‘The king appointed me under secretary. I studied the holy book and beheld the glories of the god Thoth. I was acquainted with the sacred mysteries, and was a master in the art of speech.’ Amenhotep was besides intrusted with the charge of the royal household and the collection of the revenue, and he was commander-in-chief of the king’s forces. All his varied services, however, might have sunk into oblivion for later ages had it not been that in his capacity of chief architect he devised a scheme for immortalising the memory of his royal master by the execution of two portrait statues ‘in noble hard stone for his great building,’ in Western Thebes. These colossal statues were about 60 feet high, and each was cut out of a single block of stone. Amenhotep caused eight ships to be built to convey them down the river; he tells us that all the masons under his direction were full of ardour in the work, and that the safe arrival and landing of the statues at Thebes was a ‘joyful event.’ ‘Every heart,’ he says, ‘was filled with joy, and the people shouted in praise of the king.’ They were raised in their appointed place some little distance in front of the new temple the king had founded on the western side of the river. And he tells us that ‘they made the gate-towers look small. They were wonderful for size and height, and they will last as long as heaven.’
A few scattered ruins only of the temple remain, but these two battered giants sit there still and keep their watch upon the desert plain. These were the statues called by Greek fancy the ‘statues of Memnon,’ who was, they said, the son of Aurora, and came to the aid of the Greeks at the siege of Troy. One of them was broken in two during a terrible earthquake that wrought great destruction in Egypt in a.d. 27. The upper part fell to the ground, and it was after this event that the statue became vocal, and emitted every morning at sunrise a musical and melancholy strain. The fact of such a sound being heard was attested by an immense number of inscriptions left there by both Greek and Roman travellers. Septimius Severus afterwards repaired the statue, and from that time the phenomenon ceased, but has ever since been subject of curious speculation.
As might be supposed from the extent and splendour of his works, the reign of Amenhotep iii. was not of short duration. We read of one thirty years’ jubilee that was celebrated amid national rejoicings. Some of the taxpayers brought, it is said, on that occasion ‘when the overseer had spoken but one word, more than the actual amount due, and the king rewarded their devotion by the presentation of golden chains and collars—the customary badges of honour.’
The portraits of Egyptian kings and queens bear every sign of being truthful and characteristic likenesses. The kings of the Thothmes family are all fine-looking men, their noses straight, their features well formed; those of the second and third Thothmes being particularly refined and delicately cut. And Queen Tai-ti, wife of Amenhotep iii., is unquestionably the most beautiful amongst the Egyptian queens that we know. But the monarch who reigned next, or next but one to the last-named sovereign, is of quite peculiar ugliness; he has a retreating forehead, a very long aquiline nose, and an extraordinary chin, long and pointed. His figure is thin and effeminate, his legs feeble and attenuated, and his expression somewhat idiotic. It is difficult to believe that he could have belonged to the same family, or even the same nation as the Thothmes and Amenhoteps, his predecessors, and one is inclined to conclude with Mr. Villiers Stuart,[42] that a princess must have unexpectedly succeeded to the throne whose husband was a foreigner. This idea would agree with the fact that the new sovereign actually introduced a new form of worship into the country.
The mysterious god of Thebes was worshipped under the name and figure of the sun, but this was regarded as only one of his manifestations, who was a being ‘of many names, of holy transformations, of mysterious forms.’[43] But the new king worshipped Aten or the sun’s disk, and recognised no other god. He also adopted the name of Khu-en-aten or ‘Splendour of the Disk.’ It is hard to understand theological controversies of so very ancient a date, but it is easy to feel what must have been the indignation among the priests and people at Thebes, when a royal edict was issued commanding that the names of Amen and of Mut should be erased from all the monuments in this, the ancient seat of their worship. Royal authority, however, proved sufficient to accomplish this outrage upon the national faith, but the king’s further scheme of erecting a temple to his god Aten in Thebes itself could not be carried out, the influence of the rich and powerful priesthood and the strength of the national feeling were too great.
Khu-en-aten therefore abandoned Thebes altogether, and migrated with his court to a spot about midway between that city and Memphis. Here he built an entirely new city and a splendid temple, with fire altars in honour of Aten. He summoned the masons of all Egypt to his work, and called together the chief men of the people, most of whom must have rendered but a sullen and unwilling obedience. There were courtiers, however, ready to adopt the royal creed, and to become, some of them at least, its zealous advocates. Amongst these the foremost was one Meri-ra, who was promoted to the dignity of chief seer. ‘Be thou chief seer of the disk of the sun according to thy wish,’ said the king, ‘for thou wast my servant who wast obedient to the teaching. Thou treasurer of the chamber of silver and gold! reward the chief seer of Aten—place a gold chain around his neck, and join it behind—place gold at his feet, because he was obedient unto the teaching of the king.’