The wonders of the world

by John Loraine Abbott

“The eastern base of the mountain, which fronts the Nile, is strewn with hewn blocks, fragments of capitals, immense masses of dark bluish-gray granite, and other remains, which prove that a large and magnificent temple once stood there. The excavations made by Lepsius and others have uncovered the substructions sufficiently to show the general plan of two buildings. The main temple was at the north-eastern corner of the mountain, under the highest point of its perpendicular crags. The remains of its small propylons stand in advance, about two hundred yards from the rock, going toward which, you climb the mound formed by the ruins of a large pylon, at the foot of which are two colossal ram-headed sphinxes of blue granite, buried to their necks in the sand. Beyond this is a portico and pillared court, followed by other courts and labyrinths of chambers. Several large blocks of granite, all more or less broken and defaced, lie on the surface or half quarried from the rubbish. They are very finely polished and contain figures of kings, evidently arranged in genealogical order, each accompanied with his name. The shekh had a great deal to tell me of the Franks, who dug up all the place, and set the people to work at hauling away the lions and rams, which they carried off in ships. I looked in vain for the celebrated pedestal; it has probably become the spoil of Lepsius.

“It was now noon, and only the pyramids remained to be seen on that side of the river. The main group is about a third of a mile from the mountain, on the ridge of a sand-hill. There are six pyramids, nearly entire, and the foundations of others. They are almost precisely similar to those of the real Meroë, each having a small exterior chamber on the eastern side. Like the latter, they are built of sandstone blocks, only filled at the corners, which are covered with a hem or molding; the sides of two of them are convex. On all of them the last eight or ten courses next the top have been smoothed to follow the slope of the side. It was no doubt intended to finish them all in this manner. One of them has also the corner molding rounded, so as to form a scroll, like that on the cornice of many of the Egyptian temples. They are not more than fifty feet in hight, with very narrow bases. One of them, indeed, seems to be the connecting link between the pyramid and the obelisk. Nearer the river is an older pyramid, though no regular courses of stone are to be seen any longer. These sepulchral remains, however, are much inferior to those of Meroë. The oldest names found at Napata are those of Amenoph III. and Remeses II. (1630 B. C. and 1400 B. C.) both of whom subjected Nubia to their rule. The remains of Ethiopian art, however, go no further than King Tirkaka, 730 B. C.—the Ethiopian monarch, who, in the time of Hezekiah, marched into Palestine to meet Sennacherib, king of Assyria. Napata, therefore, occupies an intermediate place in history, between Thebes and Meroë, showing the gradual southward progress of Egyptian art and civilization. It is a curious fact that the old religion of Egypt should have been here met face to face, and overthrown, by Christianity, which, starting in the mountains of Abyssinia, followed the course of the Nile northward. In the sixth century of our era, Ethiopia and Nubia were converted to Christianity and remained thus until the fourteenth century, when they fell beneath the sword of Islam.

“The next morning, the shekh proposed going with me to the remains of a temple, half an hour distant, on the eastern bank of the river. After walking a mile and a half over the sands, which have here crowded the vegetation to the very water’s edge, we came to a broad mound of stones, broken bricks and pottery, with a foundation wall of heavy limestone blocks, along the western side. There were traces of doors and niches, and on the summit of the mound the pedestals of columns similar to those of El Berkel. From this place commenced a waste of ruins, extending for nearly two miles toward the north-west, while the breadth, from east to west, was about equal. For the most part, the buildings were entirely concealed by the sand, which was filled with fragments of pottery and glass, and with shining pebbles of jasper, agate and chalcedony. Half a mile further, we struck on another mound, of greater extent, though the buildings were entirely level with the earth. The foundations of pillars were abundant, and fragments of circular limestone blocks lay crumbling to pieces in the rubbish. The most interesting object was a mutilated figure of blue granite, of which only a huge pair of wings could be recognized. The shekh said that all the Frank travelers who came there broke off a piece and carried it away with them. I did not follow their example. Toward the river were many remains of crude brick walls, and the ground was strewn with pieces of excellent hard-burnt bricks. The sand evidently conceals many interesting objects. I saw in one place, where it had fallen in, the entrance to a chamber, wholly below the surface. The Arabs were at work in various parts of the plain, digging up the sand, which they filled in baskets and carried away on donkeys. The shekh said it contained salt, and was very good to make wheat grow, whence I inferred that the earth is nitrous. We walked for an hour or two over the ruins, finding everywhere the evidence that a large capital had once stood on the spot. The bits of water-jars which we picked up were frequently painted and glazed with much skill. The soil was in many places wholly composed of the debris of the former dwellings. This was, without doubt, the ancient Napata, of which Djebel Berkel was only the necropolis. Napata must have been one of the greatest cities of ancient Africa, after Thebes, Memphis and Carthage. I felt a peculiar interest in wandering over the site of that half-forgotten capital, whereof the ancient historians knew little more than we. That so little is said by them in relation to it is somewhat surprising, notwithstanding its distance from the Roman frontier.”

EGYPTIAN TEMPLES AND MONUMENTS.

Returning from Ethiopia to Egypt, we find not a few of its monuments and temples worthy of our notice as wonderful testimonies to the art and wealth of their ancient builders.

POMPEY’S PILLAR AND CLEOPATRA’S NEEDLE.

Passing out, toward the south, from modern Alexandria, one of the first objects that greets the eye of the traveler, is Pompey’s pillar, which rears its stupendous mass of polished granite in solitary grandeur, a monument of buried empires and of nations that have passed away. Though it now stands alone, it is supposed to have been but one of the four hundred stately columns of the Serapeum as it once stood in all its grandeur. “This pillar,” says Thompson, “is the one solitary monument of the old city upon its southern front, and answers to the one standing obelisk that is its solitary monument on the north. Of its origin, history is as silent as the mummy of Belzoni’s tomb; but there is no doubt that ‘Pompey’s pillar is really a misnomer;’ for the inscription ‘shows it to have been erected by Publius, the prefect of Egypt, in honor of Diocletian,’ who subdued a revolt at Alexandria by capturing the city, A. D. 296. But whether it was then first hewn from the quarry, or was transported from some decaying temple up the Nile, the Greek lettering does not inform us. If the latter, (which, considering the decline of art and the pilfering propensities of the Romans, is probable,) then this now lonely sentinel, an Egyptian column with a Greek inscription to a Roman emperor, has witnessed in turn the decay of Egypt, of Greece, and of Rome, upon the soil where it still disputes with Time the empire of the past. To the reader of Gibbon, it may seem strange that a monument should have been reared at Alexandria in honor of a conqueror, who, during a siege of eight months, wasted the city by the sword and by fire, and who, when it finally capitulated and implored his clemency, caused it to feel ‘the full extent of his severity,’ and destroyed ‘thousands of its citizens in a promiscuous slaughter.’ The fact may serve to show the worthlessness of such monuments as testimonials to character, or as expressions of public esteem. But whatever may be its history or its associations, one can not look upon this column without a feeling of astonishment and awe. Outside of the modern city walls and some six hundred yards to the south of them, away from the present homes of men, but on an eminence that overlooks the entire city, and in striking contrast with the meager, attenuated style of its present architecture, stands this stupendous column of red granite, ninety-nine feet in hight by thirty in circumference, its shaft an elegant monolith measuring seventy-three feet between the pedestal and the capital. It marks the site of an ancient stadium, and as some conjecture, of the gymnasium, which was surrounded with majestic porticos of granite.”

CLEOPATRA’S NEEDLE.

From Pompey’s pillar, to Cleopatra’s needles, is a distance of about a mile through the city in a north-easterly direction. “These obelisks,” says Thompson, “have no more relation to Cleopatra, than the pillar has to Pompey. Their hieroglyphics, according to Wilkinson and Lepsius, date back as far as the exodus from Egypt; and they were brought to Alexandria from the city of Heliopolis, or On, about a hundred miles to the south. Each ‘needle’ is a solid block of red granite, about seventy feet high, and nearly eight feet in diameter at the base. How such huge blocks were cut from the quarry, transported hundreds of miles, and erected upon their pedestals, is a mystery not solved by anything yet discovered of ancient mechanic arts. Only one of the obelisks is standing. The other was taken down to be transported to England, but now lies half buried in the mud and sand. On one side of the standing obelisk the hieroglyphics are distinctly legible, but on the northern or seaward side they are much defaced by the action of the weather. It stands upon the edge of the great harbor, in a line with the rock of Pharos that forms the extreme northern point of the horseshoe port.