Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Khedivé

by F. Barham Zincke

All the phenomena of the case are thus accounted for. Every one must wish that these imposing historic monuments of a great past had been preserved to our times. We feel as if those who threw them down, and those who afterwards employed their displaced, but still sacred, stones for their own petty purposes, had done to ourselves, and to the civilized world, an irreparable wrong. It may, however, mitigate our indignation, to remember that the former acted under a misapprehension of the nature and requirements of their cause; and that we ought not to be hard upon the poor Arab for having done what popes and cardinals did, when, to build palaces for themselves, they pulled down, with sacrilegious hands, the monuments of old Rome.

This destruction of tombs and temples has in Egypt been going on always. Of late years, indeed, there has been an increased demand for building materials, in consequence of some portion of the Khedivé’s numerous loans having been spent in public works, and in giving employment to a great many people who have had to build houses for themselves: the work of destruction, therefore, is now advancing at a greater rate than it ever did before. Many can confirm this from their own observation. Every one who revisits the country sees how rapidly and completely the stones of newly-opened tombs have disappeared. He saw them a few years ago: now he hears that they have been sent to the kiln.

CHAPTER XXIX.
POST-PHARAOHNIC TEMPLES IN UPPER EGYPT.

Cui bono?—Cicero.

The Ptolemaic temple of Edfou, unlike those of the Delta, has suffered little from the injuries either of time, or of man. It is substantially, both internally and externally, in the state in which it was two thousand years ago, when the inhabitants of the great city of Apollo passed in procession between its stately propylons, and entered its great court, to hear hymns sung in praise of, and to witness offerings made to, the child Horus, and the Egyptian Venus, or, as she is described in an inscription on the walls, “the Queen of men and of women,” to whom the temple was dedicated.

The external walls are complete, so are all the chambers, halls, corridors, and courts within, even to the monolithic granite shrine. The well, too, to which you descend by a flight of steps, is still full of water. I seldom found a temple without its well. Many had lakes also annexed to them for ornament, for the performance of religious ceremonies, as that at Sais for the mysteries of Osiris, or for the boat procession in the funeral function, as at Thebes; or, in addition to these objects, to strengthen the defensive position of the temple. We know that this was a purpose for which the temples were used: in fact, each had its own trained and armed militia: and it is impossible to look upon such a structure as this temple of Edfou without perceiving that the idea of having a stronghold was included by the builder in his original design. The height and massiveness of the surrounding wall were such as to make either battery, or escalade, impossible, and there were no apertures left in it by which entrance could be effected. In fact, the temples gave the priests, and government, in every city an impregnable citadel, and one against which no exception could be taken, however strong it was made, for was it not all done for the glory of the gods of the city? And so the people were tricked into assisting to forge their own chains. Thoughts of this kind arise in your mind as you pass through the courts and galleries, ascend the propylons, and walk upon the roof of this magnificent fortress temple. Some of the sculptures on the walls, representing a royal boat procession on the river, enable us to picture to ourselves how the last of the Ptolemies, the Circe of the Nile, appeared on these occasions. Here, too, is an inscription of much interest, for it gives some account of several estates belonging to the temple.

At Dendera the greater part of the work, and of the sculptures, belong to the Roman period. The Egyptian architect now receives through the Roman governor of the province, his instructions from, and reports back their execution to, the banks of the Tiber. On the walls we read the names of Augustus and of his four successors in the Empire, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. On an older part of the structure occurs the name of the Egyptian son of the greatest of the Cæsars, together with his mother’s, the great Egyptian enchantress. In the Ptolemaic temple also at the south-west angle of the enclosure at Karnak, both these names are repeated several times. In each case the name is accompanied with what is meant for a sculptured portrait of this famous lady. In the fulness and roundness of the face there is some resemblance to the features with which Guido embodies his idea of her in his celebrated picture. His intuitive perception of refined and enduring voluptuousness has thus proved true to nature.

But, though at Dendera the existing buildings are modern, dating from a little before and after the Christian era, yet the site is as old as any in Egypt. An inscription has been found by which we are informed that a temple was completed on this spot by Apappus (that is to say, perhaps three thousand years before Christ), which had been commenced three or four hundred years previously by Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid. (We may ask, by the way,—How does this agree with the legend that he closed the temples?) And that eighteen hundred years after the foundation of the temple by Cheops, that is one thousand five hundred years before Christ, the structure which Apappus had completed was reconstructed by Tuthmosis III.