An Artist in Egypt

by Walter Tyndale

Some portions are out of repair; but let us hope that no more attempts at restoration may be made, more than to tie or buttress such places that may be in danger of falling. All credit is due to Mariette, who, under the auspices of Saîd Pasha, cleared the temple of the rubbish which in places filled it to the roofing slabs; a part of the town actually stood on the roof. The rubbish hills which surround it are gradually lessening, for the septic material of which they are composed serves as a valuable manure to the fields around.

The entire building took 187 years to complete, its progress going on more or less uninterruptedly during the rule of eleven of the Ptolemies. The design is so complete that it is hard to believe that one architect did not draw up all the plans. I do not purpose to give the details of this vast building, as this has been so adequately done by Baedeker and in other guide-books. Curiously enough the Baedeker, which so accurately describes the most interesting details to be observed, makes no mention of the dimensions, though the first thing which impresses the visitor is the vastness of the building. Actual measurements are liable to do little more than give an impression of size, but a comparison with well-known structures often conveys a truer conception. The area of St. Paul’s, in square feet measurement, is 28,050, that of St. Peter’s at Rome is 54,000, while the temple at Edfu covers an area of 80,000 square feet. There is but one other temple in Egypt with which we can compare it, and that is the temple of Denderah. But in every way it is Denderah’s superior. The great temple of Ammon at Karnak was raised when Egyptian art was at a higher level than at the time of the Ptolemies, and, grand as that ruin may be, it fails to impress one as much as the almost intact structure here at Edfu.

The temples of Edfu, of Denderah, and of Esneh, though all three were raised during a debased period of Egyptian art, owe their impressiveness chiefly to the fact that they still have a roof above them. The subdued light of the vestibule, the dimmer light of the hypostyle hall, and the increasing darkness as one passes through the next two chambers till the blackness of the sanctuary is reached, strikes the imagination to a degree which no sunlit ruins can do, be they ever so fine. The reliefs which cover every wall space and column are not to be compared with the refined work in Hatshepsu’s shrine; but in this dim religious light they serve their purpose, and the general effect is in no wise diminished. The sculptured reliefs, on the girdle-wall and the pylons, which are seen in broad daylight, suffer greatly in comparison with the eighteenth dynasty work. But taken as a whole, the design of these temples is probably more beautiful than was that of the earlier structures, of which only fragments now remain. A Greek most likely furnished the design, the detail being left to Egyptians who had lost much of their artistry.

We ascended to the roof by a long inclined plane in the thickness of one of the walls, and in the comparative coolness of the evening we watched the sun dip into the coloured mists which hung over the cultivation between us and the Libyan desert. Edfu spreads round three sides of the temple, and we got a bird’s-eye view of the medley of mud huts, little courtyards, and modest places of worship which go to make up a small Nilotic town. Children were at play amidst the cattle and fowls in the yards, while their elders were attending to their household duties on the roof. The houses were on a higher level as they neared the temple, and the piles of débris on which they stood were sharply cut away a few yards from the girdle-wall, forming a second enclosure on that side of us. It was easily seen that before the temple was cleared the incline of the rubbish mounds would have reached to the roof we stood on.

In a letter which Mariette wrote in 1860 to the Révue Archéologique, he says: ‘I caused to be demolished the sixty-four houses which encumbered the roof, as well as twenty-eight more which approached too near the outer wall of the temple. When the whole shall be isolated from its present surroundings by a massive wall, the work of Edfu will be accomplished.’

Something similar to what Mariette found here fifty years ago may still be seen at the north end of the Luxor temple, where a mosque and a cluster of houses still remain on the top, on the yet unexcavated portions. The apertures in the roofing slabs (which now at midday allow of some rays of sunlight to lighten the interior) served as drains to carry off the filth from the houses on the roof. No wonder that the fellaheen gladly now fatten their land with the scourings from the temple enclosure. Many of the smaller objects now seen in the Antika shops are found by the peasants while they load their asses with this septic rubbish. Sub-inspectors and guards are told off to watch these operations; but it is seldom that anything which is not too heavy to carry off can be saved to the Antiquities Department.

It is no sinecure being Chief Inspector over as extended an area as that which is in Mr. Weigall’s charge.

By the light of a couple of candles we dined in the courtyard. The afterglow caught the top of the propylon as we sat down—from a deep rose it sank to a slaty grey, and then slowly darkened to a black mass against the starlit sky.

The two guardians preceded us with candles, so that we could find our way to the stairway entrance at the further end of the temple. Thousands of bats squeaked and fluttered above, disturbed by these unwonted lights; and from the rounded columns, whose summits were lost in the darkness, beast and bird headed gods seemed to resent our intrusion into the sacred precincts. When we ascended the inclined stairway we rubbed shoulders with the divinities and the Ptolemies which lined the wall surfaces of the narrow passage to the roof.

Selim had fixed up our camp beds above the great vestibule, which is considerably higher than the inner precincts of the temple; and here we slept well above the gods, but beneath the canopy of the heavens.