Ramses, having completed the funerary chapel of Seti at Qurneh upon the left bank of the river, then began to think of preparing the edifice destined for the cult of his “double”—that Eamesseum whose majestic ruins still stand at a short distance to the north of the giants of Amenôthes. Did these colossal statues stimulate his spirit of emulation to do something yet more marvellous? He erected here, at any rate, a still more colossal figure. The earthquake which shattered Memnon brought it to the ground, and fragments of it still strew the soil where they fell some nineteen centuries ago. There are so many of them that the spectator would think himself in the middle of a granite quarry.*
* The ear measures 3 feet 4 inches in length; the
statue is 58 feet high from the top of the head to the
sole of the foot, and the weight of the whole has been
estimated at over a thousand tons.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato
The portions forming the breast, arms, and thighs are in detached pieces, but they are still recognisable where they lie close to each other. The head has lost nothing of its characteristic expression, and its proportions are so enormous, that a man could sleep crouched up in the hollow of one of its ears as if on a sofa. Behind the court overlooked by this colossal statue lay a second court, surrounded by a row of square pillars, each having a figure of Osiris attached to it. The god is represented as a mummy, the swathings throwing the body and limbs into relief.
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato; the great
blocks in the foreground are the fragments of the colossal
statue of Ramses II.