EGT
361
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Pfesenj 6 king, who offered to each of them the suitableMtn ess S ’falling Osiris , and the princes his predecessors, toJUstie e * b e i lad exercised piety towards the gods and°' Va rds men. By the side of the library, in one of^eritv r ^ eaut ^ u l buildings of the place, were to be seena cles surrounded by their beds, on which reposed thethought ^ u P^ ter > J un o, and Osimondue. His body isliuil.f to be denosited in this place. Several adjoiningthe representations of all the sacred
, lt Ue 3
l uil c fjj' t; to be deposited in this place.
atl ' ,n ulf S P reserved
8 of Egypt . From these apartments one mounted toof g ' n S s tomb, on the top of which was placed a crown
N.. ' ' “ ' '
a cubit wide, and 365 round. Each cubit answered' th °f ^ le year, and the rising and setting of the starsMrro W da y was engraven on each of them, with sucha ' ca l observations as the superstition of the Egyptianscircle wi,* 0 ^ lem - It is said that Cambyses carried off this
l ^ a , ' o — —v ” - ^ -o ■ - -*
oy i( s COl nb of Osimondue, which surpassed all others, both°» it_» exten t, and by the labour of the able artists employed
">0 to° a t’us passage Savary remarks, “ I dare not take upon^ th e arrant all these facts, advanced by Diodorus Siculus Prin cit)ni Uthorit y °f preceding writers; for in his time thej., 1 Part of these buildings no longer existed. I admit?Ur e c i. ail these wonderful descriptions would pass fora <id, ^ V j 1 f aer as in any other country ; but in this fruitfulpCatiyg 110 * 1 seems to have been first honoured with therj, lity. Genius 0 f the arts, they acquire a degree of proba-h ' e Hh „ u s examine what remains to us of these monu-our eyes will compel us to believe in prodigy,are in heaps, near to Medinet Abou, in the space
and
I thi
?<! stibu1 '
leagued circumference. The temple, the peristyles,
l gst -
os, present to the eye nothing but piles of ru
- p,. ea ' V l ich rise up some pyramidal gates, whose solidity“loss erv ed them from destruction; but the numerousof^'latef? desci 'ibed by Diodorus , are still subsisting, thoughyell ’ lEat which is nearest to these ruins, composedTi^arble, is buried two-thirds of its height in thegrille *i lere * s another in the same line, of black and white“ 8 . back of which is covered with hieroglyphics forc ’afis' 11 In the space between them, trunks of
tw' t ' n u at atld broken statues cover the ground, and mark theto’° ot iie' 0ri tbe vest *bules. Farther on we distinguishfr 0 c °l° ssa l statues, totally disfigured. A hundredb sirru tbem > the traveller is struck with astonishment/ d 'e i 1 °f two colossuses, which, like rocks, are seatedN of
Th^ blocks °f granite 30 feet long, and 18 feet( ° c k 0 f e smallest of these colossuses is also of a singlei t rr ac(l 0 p arblp; the other, which is the largest in Egypt , istty^Pearg Ve cou rses of granite, and broken in the middle ;4f° t0 b ave been the statue of Osimondue, for one seesa J)Oh t S Cut ' n relievo , the length of his legs, and whichOf ° ne -third of his height. These are the mother
j). °tie 8 ‘ u gnter of this prince. The other colossus, which is’tg° d °rug o 6 ’ and which corresponds with the dimensions ofgive v ulus > represented also the mother of the king.j'° u an idea of the gigantic stature of the greatJjj ’i 0 18 enough to tell you, that his foot alone is neari)^° r as ^bich answers exactly to the seven cubits ofa and' ■ statue, the half of which remains upon its
vy hat Strabo calls the statue of Memnon, utteredr etlQ fbe rising of the sun. It possessed formerlyV lv >i asr r vi i- Several writers have spoken of it with
each other. Their pedestals are nearly equal,
re garding it as one of the seven wonders of the8 till i e ^altitude of Greek and Latin inscriptions, that
e gtble, on the
base and
4 z
the legs of the colossus,
testify that princes, generals, governors, and men of everycondition, have heard this miraculous sound.”
The following account of a portion of the above, which isgiven somewhat more in detail, is from Wilkinson.
“Following the edge of the cultivated land, and about180 yards to the west of this building, are two mutilatedstatues of Remeses II., of black granite, with a few sub-structions to the north of them; and 770 yards farther tothe west, lies, in the cultivated soil, a sandstone block ofRemeses III., presenting in high relief the figure of thatking, between Osiris and Pthali ; 1,400 feet beyond this, inthe same direction, is a crude brick enclosure, with largetowers, which once contained within it a sandstone temple,dating probably from the reign of the third Thothmes, whosename is stamped on the bricks, and who appears to havebeen the contemporary of Moses .
“ Other fragments and remains of crude brick wallsproclaim the existence of other ruins in its vicinity; andabout 1,000 feet farther to the south-west, is the palaceand temple of Remeses II., erroneously called the Memno-nium; a building which, for symmetry of architecture andelegance of sculpture, can vie with any other monument ofEgyptian art. No traces are visible of the dromos, thatprobably existed before the pyramidal towers which formthe facade of the first hypaethral area, a court whose breadthof 180 feet, exceeding the length by nearly 13 yards, isreduced to a more just proportion, by the introduction of adouble avenue of columns on either side, extending from thetowers to the north wall. In this area, on the right of aflight of steps leading to the next court, was the stupendousSyenite statue of the king seated on a throne, in the usualattitude of these Egyptian figures, the hands resting on his ,knees, indicative of that tranquillity which he had returnedto enjoy in Egypt , after the fatigues of victory. But thefury of an invader has levelled this monument of Egyptian grandeur, whose colossal fragments lie scattered around thepedestal, and its shivered throne evinces the force used forits demolition.
“ If it is a matter of surprise how the Egyptians couldtransport and erect a mass of such dimensions, the meansemployed for its ruin are scarcely less wonderful; nor shouldwe hesitate to account for the shattered appearance of thelower part by attributing it to the explosive force of powder,had that composition been known at the period of itsdestruction. The throne and legs are completely destroyed,and reduced to comparatively small fragments, while theupper part, broken at the waist, is merely thrown back uponthe ground, and lies in that position which was the conse-quence of its fall ; nor are there any marks of the wedge, orother instrument, which should have been employed forreducing those fragments to the state in which they nowappear. The fissures seen across the head, and in thepedestal, are the work of a later period, when some of theseblocks were cut for millstones by the Arabs , but its previousoverthrow will probably be coeval with the Persian invasion.To say that this is the largest statue in Egypt , will conveyno idea of the gigantic size or enormous weight of a mass,which, from an approximate calculation, exceeded, whenentire, nearly three times the solid content of the greatobelisk of Karnak, and weighed about 887 tons, 5 hundred-weight, and a half.
“ No building in Thebes corresponds with the descriptiongiven of the tomb of Osymandyas by Hecataeus. Diodorus ,who quotes his work, gives the dimensions of the first orouter court, two plethra, or 181 feet 8 inches English ,agreeing very nearly with the breadth, but not the lengthof that now before us ; but the succeeding court, of four