Half looking, half feeling, I found some sculptures on the outer walls of the tomb temple, and also perceived figures and writing on the inner walls. I recollected that I had a candle-end in the wallet of my donkey; this I lighted, and examined several ante-chambers. Then immediately the forms of the Egyptian Gods—Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Atmu, &c., came out with their names in the well-known hieroglyphics.[70] In the first chamber, too, I found the cartouche of a king. One of the two rings contained the signs of a great Pharaoh of the Old Empire, Sesurtesen I.; the same was assumed by two later Egyptian kings, and now encountered for the fourth time as the throne-name of an Ethiopian king. The sculptures on the other side were not ended. On the same evening, I also found royal names in another ante-chamber, but they were rather illegible. Both writing and representations had, in fact, suffered much. The pyramids, like those in Egypt, have lost their tops, and many are totally destroyed.
Our new khawass, who would not leave us in the night, had followed immediately. He knew the locality perfectly, as he had been here a long time with Ferlini, and had assisted him in the examination of the pyramids. He showed us the place in the pyramid where Ferlini, in 1834, discovered the rich treasure of gold and silver rings built in the wall.
I also discovered a case-pyramid that evening, enlarged according to the principle of the Egyptian pyramids by a later mantle of stone. According to the inscriptions and representations in the antechambers, these pyramids are chiefly built for kings, and a few perhaps for their wives and children. The great number of them argues for a long series of kings, and a well-grounded empire that probably lasted for a number of centuries.
The most important results of this examination by moon and candlelight was, however, not the most agreeable; I was fully convinced that I had before me here, on the most celebrated spot of ancient Ethiopia, nothing but the ruins of comparatively recent art.[71] Already, at an earlier period, had I judged from the monuments of Ferlini, drawings of which I had seen in Rome, and the originals in London, that they were certainly produced in Ethiopia, but not in any case earlier than the first century before the Christian era; therefore, at about the same period to which a few veritable Greek and Roman works belong, which we discovered together with the Ethiopian treasure. And I must say the same now of all the monuments not only situated here, but upon the whole island of Meroë, as well of all the pyramids near Begerauîe, as of the temples of Ben Naga, of Naga, and of the Wadi e’ Sofra (Cailliaud’s Mesaurât), which we have subsequently seen. The representations and inscriptions leave not the least doubt on the subject, and it will be for ever in vain to attempt the support of the much-loved idea of an ancient Meroë, glorious and famous, the inhabitants of which were the predecessors and teachers of the Egyptians in civilisation, by referring to its monumental remains.
Yet this conviction is of no little value, and appears to throw a certain degree of light upon the historical connection of Egypt and Ethiopia, the importance of which will first be fully developed at the monuments of Barkal. There, no doubt, will be found the oldest Ethiopian memorials, although perhaps not earlier than the time of Tarhaka, who reigned contemporaneously over Egypt and Ethiopia, in the seventh century before Christ.
We rode back to the pyramids the next morning with the sunrise, and found fifteen various royal names, but some in a very bad condition.
We had just completed the survey of the two north-easterly groups of pyramids, and were riding towards the third, which lies in the plain not far from the ruins of the city, and is perhaps the oldest Necropolis, when we heard shots from the shore, and saw white sails fluttering on the river. Soon after Erbkam, the two Weidenbachs, and Franke came walking over the plain, and greeted us already from afar. We scarcely expected them so soon, and therefore the meeting was the more pleasant. We could now continue our journey to Chartûm all together.
At two o’clock in the afternoon we went off, and reached Shendi at about ten the next morning. After dinner we went on, stayed the night on the island Hobi, and came the next morning early to Ben Naga. Here we first visited the ruins of two little temples, of which the west one had Typhon columns instead of pillars, but showed no writing on its few remains; in the other eastern one there were a few sculptures preserved on the low wall, and writing on a few round pillars, but too little that anything connected might be gathered from it. Excavations might probably discover royal names; but such an attempt is only possible on our return.
Some camels were procured for the next morning, and I rode off with Abeken, Erbkam, and Maximilian Weidenbach at nine o’clock for Naga. So are the ruins of a city and several temples named, which lie in the eastern wilderness, at a distance of seven or eight hours from the Nile. From our landing-place, near the only palm group of the whole region, we only wanted half an hour to the village of Ben Naga, which lies in Wadi Teresîb. One hour eastward, down the river (for it flows from west to east here), the ruins are situated, where we had landed the day before, in the Wadi el Kirbegân; we now passed them on the left, and rode south-east into the wilderness, sparely grown with dry underwood, crossed the valley El Kirbegân, which stretches hither from the river, and in which we found a camp of Abâbde Arabs.
After four and a half hours from Ben Naga, we arrived at a solitary mountain in the wilderness, named Buêrib. This lay between the little southwestern wadis (so they call even the most level sinkings of the plain, when the water runs off, and which we should scarcely call valleys) and the great wide Wadi Auatêb, into which we now descended, after we had passed the Buêrib at a little distance to the left. In three and three quarter hours from Buêrib, we came to the ruins of Naga.