The Story Teller of the Desert—"Backsheesh!" / or, Life and Adventures in the Orient

by Thomas Wallace Knox

How did the Egyptians manage to move these masses of stone from the quarries at Assouan, and to put them in place? I give it up.

Do you know where is the most stupendous hall in the world? It is in the temple at Karnak. It is three hundred and twenty-nine feet long and one hundred and seventy feet broad; it has down its centre, twelve columns, each sixty feet high (without counting capital and pedestal), and twelve feet in diameter. Then besides these there are one hundred and twenty-two other columns (arranged in fourteen rows, seven on each side of the central rows), forty-two feet high and nine feet in diameter. Thus there are one hundred and thirty-four columns in this great hall, and all of them are covered with sculptures. There was once a roof over the hall, but it is mostly gone now, and some of the columns have fallen. Seven of us, with our outstretched hands touching each other, were just able to encircle one of the great columns. Compared with this hall of the temple, the Parthenon at Athens becomes of dwarfish size. All around are stones of great size that once formed parts of the temple; everything around is so great that the stones do not appear large till you stand close beside them, and then you realize their extent and your littleness. As at Abydos and Denderah the walls of the temple, the faces of the pylons, the columns, the pillars, the sides of the encircling wall, everything and everywhere, were covered with sculptures. The most of the sculptures were battle scenes, but there were many that represented offerings to the deities. In the historical pictures the campaigns of the kings were represented, and one who has time and patience to study them can read the story of a campaign. Here the king is marching out with his army, and next he is attacking a fortress; next he is routing the enemy and driving them across a river; next he is returning in triumph, and there is a long series of the cities he passes through on his return.

On the front wall of a tower of a pylon, the king is represented striking off the heads of a group of captives, and these representations are so frequent as to make it pretty certain that the Egyptians were accustomed to offer human sacrifices. The hands, and sometimes other portions of the bodies of the slain enemies, are cut off and piled before the king; and some of the pictures are of a kind that could hardly be reproduced in a family album of the present time. The king is nearly always represented of much greater stature than those that surround him, and the Egyptians were generally so doubtful of the faces of their rulers reaching posterity, that they were careful to engrave their names on most of the pictures and to detail the incidents described.

This temple was not the work of one but of several kings, and there is a chronological difference of two hundred and fifty years between the earliest and latest sculptures. There is much dispute as to the antiquity of the edifice, but it is generally conceded to have been completed not less than fifteen centuries before the Christian era.

One of our visits was made by moonlight, and the effect of light and shade, especially in the great hall, was beautiful beyond description, and therefore I forbear attempting to describe it We disturbed several jackals and bats, the only occupants of the ruins.

There is an Arab village close to the temple, but it does not extend into the great structure. The water of the Nile enters the ruins at the time of the inundation, and is eating away the base of the columns, so that several have fallen from its effects. The Egyptian architects, while producing magnificent superstructures, were curiously negligent of the foundations.

On the west bank of the Nile are several temples, the most prominent of them being the Memnonium or Rameseum, and Med in et Aboo.

Both were on the same general plan of Egyptian temples, and second only to Karnak in greatness; there are other temples around here—half a dozen or more—and each has its peculiar historical and religious sculptures covering the walls.

In the court yard of the Rameseum is an overturned and broken statue of Rameses III, the builder of the temple. It was destroyed by the Persians at the time of the invasion of Egypt, but they did not succeed in obliterating it. The figure was a sitting one like many of the statues of Egypt. The throne and legs were reduced to comparatively small fragments, but the upper part, broken at the waist, lies comparatively perfect and enables us to judge of the great size of the figure. It is not sufficient to say that it was the largest statue ever hewn from a single block and transported two or three hundred miles. It is calculated to have weighed (when entire) not far from nine hundred tons. It was nearly twenty feet across the shoulders of the statue, and the foot of the figure was eleven feet from toe to heel. From the shoulder to the elbow was nearly five yards, and the other measurements were in proportion.

On the plain toward the river and quite a distance in front of the Rameseum are the sitting Colossi. They were made to represent one of the Kings, and one at least was cut from a single block. The height of the figures is about fifty feet, and they originally had pedestals ten feet high. The soil has risen considerably since their erection and is now about seven feet above their base.