Chapter 8

The Sphynx, with the great pyramid of Chafra,Susuphis or Chephren in the background.

A quarter of a mile to the south and east of the great pyramid is the colossal statue of the Sphynx, carved out of the summit of a rock, which crops up like an island in the midst of the sandy desert. The statue represents the couching body of a lion, with the head of a man, the union of power with intelligence, and is typical of royalty. The face, thirty feet in length by fourteen in breadth, has been much mutilated; its entire height is 100 feet, and its paws, which are fiftyfeet long, embrace a considerable area, having in its centre a sacrificial altar, and a space for religious worship. This huge memento of the past dates back to a period antecedent to the pyramids themselves, and marks the spot where two ancient temples formerly stood, one dedicated to Isis, the other to Osiris; both of which Cheops declares, on a tablet preserved in the museum at Boulak, were purified and restored by himself; whilst a neighbouring site was selected for thefoundation of his own pyramid. The paws of the Sphynx are covered with inscriptions, among which is the following very interesting one, transcribed and translated by the distinguished Egyptologist, Dr. Thomas Young:—

“Thy form stupendous here the gods have placed,Sparing each spot of harvest-bearing land;And with this mighty work of art have gracedA rocky isle encumbered once with sand;And near the pyramids have bid thee stand:Not that fierce Sphynx that Thebes erewhile laid waste,But great Latona’s servant, mild and bland;Watching that prince beloved who fills the throneOf Egypt’s plains, and calls the Nile his own:That heavenly monarch (who his foes defies),Like Vulcan powerful, and like Pallas wise.”—Arrian.

“Thy form stupendous here the gods have placed,

Sparing each spot of harvest-bearing land;

And with this mighty work of art have graced

A rocky isle encumbered once with sand;

And near the pyramids have bid thee stand:

Not that fierce Sphynx that Thebes erewhile laid waste,

But great Latona’s servant, mild and bland;

Watching that prince beloved who fills the throne

Of Egypt’s plains, and calls the Nile his own:

That heavenly monarch (who his foes defies),

Like Vulcan powerful, and like Pallas wise.”—Arrian.

“Even now,” writes Dean Stanley, “after all that we have seen of colossal statues, there was something stupendous in the sight of that enormous head, * * * its vast projecting wig, its great ears, its open eyes, the red colour still visible on its cheek, the immense projection of the lower part of its face. Yet what must it have been when on its head there was the royal helmet of Egypt; on its chin the royal beard; when the stone pavement, by which men approached the pyramids, ran upbetween its paws; when, immediately under its breast an altar stood, from which the smoke went up into the gigantic nostrils of that nose now vanished from the face, never to be conceived again.”[18]

On our left hand, as we still stand gazing forward into the south, in the direction of the coming wavelets of the tawny Nile, is a desert plain, afore-time called the “Land of Goshen,” lying between Cairo and the Suez Canal. It was here that Abraham found an abiding-place 1,920 years before the birth of Christ, when, driven out of Syria by the floods, he sought in Egypt herbage for his flocks and herds, and sustenance for his retainers. Here, in various stages of decay, are the ancient cities of the Hebrews, where Hebrew, until very recently, was the prevailing language of the people. Here we find On, or Onion, still bearing its Hebrew appellation, and Rameses and Pithom, and Succoth and Hieropolis. Nearer the Mediterranean Sea is “the field of Zoan” (Psalms, chap. lxxviii. ver. 12, 43), with the ruins of the ancientcity of San, or Tanis, remarkable for the vast extent of the foundation of a once magnificent temple, teeming with monuments and obelisks. Here, says Mr. Macgregor, “you see about a dozen obelisks, all fallen, all broken; twenty or thirty great statues, all monoliths of porphyry and granite, red and grey.” Isaiah had afore-time levelled his reproaches against San:—“The princes of Zoan are become fools, the princes of Nopth (Memphis) are deceived; they have also seduced Egypt, even they that are the stay of the tribes thereof.” (Chap. xix. ver. 13.) And here was the gap through which the nations of Arabia, Syria, and Persia maintained intercourse with Egypt, one while as peaceful traders, another while as fugitives and outlaws, and again as enemies in arms. Here the shepherds or pastors made their predatory incursions, and conquered and subjected Lower Egypt; here the children of Israel began their exodus; and here, also, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans found an easy portal for their hostile invasion.

Eight miles away from Cairo, in the midst of a plot of sugar-cane, verdant with the luxuriance of its foliage, there stands forth againstthe sky a magnificent obelisk, the first that we have yet seen implanted on the spot where it was erected by its artificers. This obelisk bears the cartouche of Usertesen I.[19](a Pharaoh of the twelfth dynasty, who ascended the throne 1,740 years before the Christian era), engraven on its face. It is not only the earliest and most ancient of all known obelisks, but it may be said to be the first page of the monumental history of Egypt: antecedent to it there is no record of monuments, save the pyramids and some ruined temples and tombs; but coeval with it, and illustrating the reign and acts of Usertesen, are the tombs of Beni Hassan, and the sanctuary, with its beautiful polygonal columns at Karnak, built by Usertesen himself.

The obelisk of Usertesen at Heliopolis, the most ancient obelisk in existence. In the background may be seen the Mokattan range of mountains, the barrier between the valley of Egypt and the Red Sea.

The cartouches of Usertesen, as seen on the obelisk, represent his first and second names: the former, which implies divinity, consists of the sun’s disk, a scarabæus, and a pair of human arms; and the oval issurmounted with two figures—a shoot of a plant and a bee, each supported on a hemisphere. These latter are royal titles, and imply the dominion of the king, or sun, over the south and the north, in addition to that part of the globe which is embraced by his own proper path, from east to west. The second oval contains the letters which constitute the word “Usertesen,” and is surmounted by a disk representing the sun and a goose, the latter being the hieroglyph for “son,” therefore, “son of the sun.” So that the entire emblem may be supposed to read thus:—“The king; born and being of the sun; son of the sun; Usertesen.”

The Cartouches of Usertesen.

On the spot occupied by this obelisk there formerly stood a temple dedicated to the sun—to Ra, the rising sun; and to Toum or Tum, the setting sun. It is uncertain whether Usertesen founded the temple himself, or whether, as was the custom among the Pharaohs of Egypt, he simply contributed to its decoration and completion. But his name being sculptured on the face of the obelisk, serves to identify it with him. The temple of the sun was surrounded with habitations and temples of inferior mark, and became a city which, in their language, the Greeks named Heliopolis. Originally, there were two of these obelisks, as was lately corroborated by the discovery of the foundation of its fellow; but the shaft itself has long since disappeared, and nothing, save this one solitary obelisk, remains of the important city, in which Egyptians and Hebrews were united for many centuries in holy brotherhood. This monument, like the rest of the great obelisks of Egypt, was hewn in the quarries of rose-red granite of Syené. It is 67 feet 4 inches in height, and its pyramidion, now bare and without carving, was originally capped with gilt-bronze or some other metallic covering. Itshieroglyphs form a single central column, boldly and clearly carved, surmounted with the tutelar emblem and the standard of the king, and followed by the proper name and family name of Usertesen. The obelisk is stained for some distance up its shaft by the waters of the Nile, and, with its pedestal, is buried six or seven feet deep in the alluvium deposited by the stream.

While we credit Usertesen with these two obelisks, we have also to mention that portions of a broken shaft, engraven with hieroglyphs, which record his name, are to be met with at Biggig, in the Fyoom. These have been described as parts of a broken obelisk, but of an obelisk uncouth in its proportions, and terminated by a rounded point pierced with an opening as if for the purpose of receiving some ornament or finial. These characteristics of figure have led certain Egyptologists to treat of it as a monumental stone or tablet rather than as an obelisk, and the more so as it is situated on the western bank of the Nile; and supposing it to be an obelisk, is presumed to be the only monument of that kind met with on the western shore. A certainpoetical hypothesis is also opposed to the belief; for the obelisk is the emblem of therisingsun and of life, and is therefore found only on the eastern bank of the Nile; whereas the western bank is presided over by thesettingsun, and is therefore allied to the pyramids and tombs of the dead. The mounds of Memphis have not as yet been explored; but if an obelisk should be met with there at some future time, our dream of the privileges of the living and of the dead (already disturbed by Mariette’s discovery of the pedestals of two obelisks, in front of the temple of Queen Hatasou, in Western Thebes), must share the fate of other pretty but illusory dreams. It seems hardly fair that the eastern bank should enjoy a monopoly of the sun’s beaming rays, considering that tombs are also abundant along its rocky bounds.

But besides the ancient obelisks of Usertesen, there were four or more other obelisks at Heliopolis: two, which had received the name of Pharaoh’s Needles, and were removed by Constantine—both of the period of Thothmes III.; and the two Thothmes-Rameses obelisks, or Cleopatra’s Needles, which were set up at Alexandria.

When Napoleon, addressing his army in the desert of Libya, and pointing to the Pyramids, exclaimed, “Four thousand years look down upon you,” his words had a deeper signification than the mere wakening up of a soldier’s vanity. What, besides, have those Pyramids witnessed in that vast space of time? We now, in our turn, are called upon to ask the same question with reference to the obelisks of Heliopolis. The most ancient of those obelisks bears a date of seventeen centuries before the Christian era; not far short of the four thousand years of the Great Pyramids. The Thothmes obelisks date back about fourteen centuries before Christ, or more than three thousand years from the present time; and those of Rameses about twelve centuries, or 3,100 years.

The Heliopolis obelisk, it is true, was not erected until two hundred years after the arrival of Abraham in the land of Goshen; but it must have “looked down” on the caravan of Ishmaelite traders who brought Joseph a prisoner into Egypt, and sold him to Potiphar as a slave; on his sufferings and adventures in prison; on his skill in theinterpretation of dreams; on his elevation to power by the Pharaoh of the day; and on that gratifying ceremony, when “Pharaoh called Joseph’s name Zaphnath-paaneah,” literally, revealer of secrets, “and when he gave him to wife Asenath, the daughter of Potipherah, priest of On.” And no less does the obelisk point to that moment of filial devotion when “Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen; and presented himself unto him; and he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while.”

In the way from Cairo to Heliopolis, and near to the ruins of the latter, is a village called Matareeah, which has a similar signification to the word Heliopolis—namely, “town or place belonging to the sun.” “Just before reaching the village of Matareeah, at a little distance from the road, on the right, is the garden in which isshown the sycamore tree,[20]beneath whose shade the Holy Family are said to have reposed alter the flight into Egypt. It is a splendid old tree, still showing signs of life, but terribly mauled alike by the devout and the profane, who, respectively, have forgotten their piety and their scepticism in the egotistical eagerness to carry away and to leave a record of their visit. The present proprietor, a Copt, fearing lest their united efforts should result in the total disappearance and destruction of the tree, has put a fence round it, which, while it prevents the ruthless tearing off of twigs and branches, affords those who are anxious to commemorate their visit, a smooth and even surface, on which, with the help of a knife obligingly kept in readiness by the gardener, they may make their mark.”[21]

We are now on the confines of the desert, where the air is reputed for its salubrity; and fifteen miles further on, at a distance of three miles from the river, Professor Flower takes notice of a warm sulphur spring, called Helwân, or Helouan des Bains, which has already beenappropriated by invalids, and is likely to become a rival of Aix-la-Chapelle, the baths of Switzerland, and those of the Pyrenees. Professor Flower informs us that a commodious bath establishment has been built on the spot, and has attracted the attention of numerous visitors. The temperature of the springs is 86° of Fahrenheit. A quarter of a century ago, Mr. Bayle St. John writes of Helwân as follows:—“We had resolved to visit the village of Helwân, parts of which we could just distinguish from our mooring-ground, peeping between groves of palms, sycamores, and acacias * * * with the bold line of rocks beyond. * * * The village, which has many neat houses, is approached on all sides between the lofty mud walls of gardens, full of trees, that, drooping over, form not unpicturesque avenues. An expanse of greensward, surrounded with sycamores, extends on one hand: altogether, the place is more agreeable to the eye than the generality of the Egyptian villages, principally on account of the great variety of foliage that nestles around it; for there are palms, and sycamores, and fig-trees and orange-trees, and locust-trees, and bananas andpomegranates. An immense number of doves cooed amorously in the branches.”

The chronology of ancient Egypt is a subject not without its difficulties, open to a variety of opinion, and involved in perplexing uncertainty. Nevertheless, the mind naturally yearns for information as to the time of an occurrence, and the opportunity of comparing it with coincident events. Ptolemy Philadelphus made a first step towards a better state of knowledge, when in the year 250b.c.he commissioned Manetho, an Egyptian priest, experienced in the learning of Heliopolis, to draw up a list of the kings of Egypt from the earliest times. Manetho performed his task ably; but, alas! the book was injured, and in troublous times a part of it was lost: nevertheless, that which remains is still a valuable record; and had the book been preserved entire, it would have settled many problems at present difficult of solution. Manetho groups the kings of Egypt into thirty-four reigning families or dynasties, each containing a number of kings, and by calculating backwards, from the known to the unknown, hearrives at the year 5504b.c.as the date of Menes, the first king of the first dynasty; that is to say, nearly seven thousand years from the present time. It is only fair to say, however, that several English authorities, including Sir Gardner Wilkinson, have declared against his dates, and have assumed the year 2700b.c.to be more correct; Josephus says 2320; Bunsen, 3623; and Brugsch, 4455: in fact, a difference exists, on this point, between the German Egyptologists alone, of upwards of two thousand years. Under such circumstances it is encouraging to meet with an authority like Mariette Bey, Conservator of the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities at Boulak, one who has the best opportunities of investigation, and has devoted himself thoroughly to his work, express his confidence in the fidelity of Manetho’s list, and, at least provisionally, adopt his dynasties and his dates. Modern discoveries, according to Mariette, have tended to corroborate Manetho’s calculations; such, for example, as the tablets of Abydos, of which one is preserved in the British Museum, and more especially the tablet recently found by himself at Sakkarah, in thetomb of an Egyptian priest. Next we have the hieroglyphic evidence of the monuments, beginning with those of Usertesen; and later on, such further elucidation by the engraving on the monuments as serves to bring opposing opinion to an exact agreement. Thus, the date of the reign of Psammeticus I., of the twenty-sixth dynasty, as stated by Wilkinson, is 664b.c.; while that of Bunsen and Mariette is 665b.c.; even to a year.

All praise to the good old Egyptian priest, who wrote in Greek the chronology of his country’s rulers; thanks to the industry and labour of Egyptologists, which have resulted in the corroboration of his researches; and thanks also to the Pharaohs who, in the midst of a splendid career of magnificence and victories, have found time for the meditations of the cloister, and have left behind them a consecrated attestation of the succession of their ancestors. In a small and secluded chapel adjoining the sanctuary of the great temple of Karnak, called the Hall of Ancestors, a record was found of Thothmes III. making oblations to sixty-one of his predecessors. This record is preserved in the national library of Paris; and whilst it verifiesManetho’s list, is especially correct as to the succession of the eighteenth dynasty, 1703 to 1464b.c.The papyrus of Turin, so called from being preserved in that city, contains a list of the kings from the earliest period of Egyptian government, although the papyrus itself is broken into fragments. In the tablet of Abydos, preserved in the British Museum, Rameses II. does homage to fifty ancestors; but the names of twenty are lost. This tablet is a valuable record of the twelfth dynasty, 3064 to 2851b.c., sustained by the family of Amenemha and Usertesen, and especially of the nineteenth dynasty, 1402 to 1288b.c., the Ramessean period. A second tablet, similar to the above, and found in a companion temple, the one dedicated to Rameses II., the other to his father Seti, agrees in every respect with the British tablet. And last, though far from being the least, is the tablet of Sakkarah, found by Mariette in the tomb of an Egyptian priest, by name Tounar-i, of the time of Rameses II. The belief already existed in those days, that a well-behaved commoner, when he entered the land of spirits, might be permitted, as a reward of good conduct, toassociate with kings; and so Tounar-i would seem to have prepared beforehand a list of his probable visiting acquaintance in the future world. Here he has assembled the cartouches of fifty-eight kings, closely corresponding with Manetho’s list, and naturally with a respectful regard to precedency; so that his prospective visiting list admits of being turned to useful account by his successors. Saqqarah, or as it is commonly written, Sakkarah, is supposed to be the ancient Thinis, the capital of the Pharaohs of the first and second dynasties: the tablet is preserved in the museum at Boulak. On it we should doubtless find delineated the oval of Menes, with those of Cheops, Chephren, and Mycerinus, of the giant Apappus, and the rosy-cheeked but vengeful Nitocris.[22]

The pyramid and the obelisk have something analogous in their form—the four sides and the pointed summit—indeed, the apex of an obelisk, in nearly every case, is a diminutive pyramid, or pyramidion. Both had mystical attributes assigned to them in relation to the worship of the Sun, the “organiser of the world.” The pyramid, with its four sides looking north, south, east, and west, was selected as the tomb of the mummified body which was destined to rise from the dead, and be restored to life at the appointed time. When the pyramid was too costly, a pair of small obelisks stood sentry at the entrance of the tomb, and were in common use during the early dynasties. A considerable number of these relics have been found, and preserved in the Egyptian museum at Boulak. The obelisk of Syenite granite, however, belongs to a later period; it may have come into use before the twelfth dynasty, before the reign of Usertesen; but the Heliopolis obelisk is generally admitted to be the pioneer of the colossal obelisks of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, of the reigns of the Thothmeses and of the Ramseses. These latter were not funereal, but, on the contrary, weretriumphal, and took the place of triumphal arches of modern times. On the facets of the pyramidion, and at the top of the shaft immediately below it, were usually engraved figures denoting supplication and gifts, by the Pharaoh who dedicates the monument, to the gods whom he intends to propitiate; it might be wine, or it might be milk; and occasionally, as at Heliopolis and at Karnak, the pyramidion was capped with metal, sometimes gold, from the countries which had been conquered in battle; sometimes burnished copper or bronze, which might represent the spoils of war, or by the reflection of its rays, an artificial sun; while certain of the obelisks are said to have been more extensively ornamented with metal.

We have ample evidence of the great care which has been bestowed on the preparation and finish of these Syenite obelisks: for example, the deep carving of the central column of hieroglyphs, and the shallow cutting of the side columns; the polish of the hollows of the hieroglyph to their extremest depth; and more strikingly still, in the gentle swell of the face of the shaft, intending to correct an error of reflectionof light. This latter feature is especially noticeable in connection with the Luxor obelisks; and it has been observed, that but for this slight convexity, the surfaces of the column would have had the appearance of being concave.

The carvings of the obelisks usually began at the pyramidion occupying its lower half, and the inscriptions were engraven in narrow columns, each occupying one-third of the breadth of the shaft, the central column being the chief. Where the pyramidion was capped with metal, the engraving was absent on that part, as in the case of Usertesen’s obelisk. In this obelisk we have also an example of a single column of inscriptions. In other instances, as in several of the Thothmes obelisks, and notably the British obelisk, the side spaces which were originally left blank, have been filled up by a successor of the founder, as in the case of Rameses II. The columns are to be read perpendicularly from top to bottom, and the base is sometimes decorated with symbols of thanksgiving. The inscriptions themselves were, for the most part, all of a similar character:—The Pharaoh approaches thedeity with gifts, and on bended knee supplicates his blessing; this the deity vouchsafes; then, with floating banner, the standard of the king, the potentate recites his origin, his titles, and his deeds of usefulness and glory, rarely failing to include among them the raising of the obelisk; lastly, he finishes by a declaration of his power as a descendant of the sun, of giving life like his progenitor for everlasting.

Mr. W. R. Cooper, the Honorary Secretary of the Society of Biblical Archæology, has favoured us with the following translation of the hieroglyphs engraven on the British obelisk, extracted from Burton’s “Excerpta Hieroglyphica.” The illustration is, necessarily, limited to the three sides then exposed to view, and begins with the central column of each, containing the legend of Thothmes III.

First Side.—“The kingly Horus, strong bull, crowned in Thebes, the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ra-men-kheper; he made (this) in his monuments to his father, Horemakhou; he erected two very great obelisks, capped with gold, (when he celebrated) the panegyry of hisfather, who loves him. He did (it), the son of the sun, Thothmes, the best of existences, beloved of Horemakhou.”

Second Side.—“The kingly Horus, strong bull, ruling in truth, the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ra-men-kheper. For him the lord of gods has multiplied the panegyrics (intervals of thirty years) in Habennou (the Temple of the Sun, in Heliopolis), knowing that he is his son, the elder, the divine flesh, issuing (from himself). The son of the sun, Thothmes, lord of Heliopolis, beloved of Horemakhou.”

Third Side.—“The kingly Horus, strong bull, beloved of Ra (the sun), the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ra-men-kheper. His father Tum has established him, making for him a grandeur of name in expanded royalty ... in Heliopolis, (and) giving him the throne of Seb (and) the office of khepra; the son of the sun, Thothmes, the best of existences, beloved of the Bennou (sacred bird) of Heliopolis.”

In the lateral columns, Rameses speaks as follows:—

First Side, 1.—“The kingly Horus, strong bull, son of Tum, the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ra-ousor-ma-Sotep-en-Ra, lord of diadems, who protects Egypt and chastises nations; son of the sun, Ramessou Meriamen, who throws down southern peoples as far as the Indian Ocean, and the northern peoples as far as the prop of the sky; the lord of the two lands, Ra-ousor-ma-Sotep-en-Ra; son of the sun, Ramessou Meriamen, vivifier like the sun.”

2.—“The kingly Horus, strong bull, beloved of Ma (truth), the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ra-ousor-ma-Sotep-en-Ra, lord of panegyrics like his father, Ptah Totnen; son of the sun, Ramessou Meriamen, strong bull, like the son of Nou (Set); none could stand (against him) in his time, the lord of the two lands (prenomen); son of the sun (name).”

Second Side, 1.—“The kingly Horus, strong bull, son of Khepra, the king of Upper and Lower Egypt (prenomen). Golden hawk, of abundant years, very victorious; son of the sun (name). (He) enabled men to behold (what) he has done; never was uttered denial (against it). The lord of the two lands (prenomen); son of the sun (name); splendor of the sun”....

2.—“The kingly Horus, strong bull, beloved of Truth, the king of Upper and Lower Egypt (prenomen); son of the sun, offspring of the gods, possessor of the two lands; son of the sun (name), who made his frontiers to the place he chose, and got peace through his victory; the lord of the two lands (prenomen); son of the sun (name), splendour of the sun.”

Third Side, 1.—“The kingly Horus, strong bull, beloved of Ra, the king of Upper and Lower Egypt (prenomen); lord of panegyries, like his father, Ptah; son of the sun (name); son of Tum, from his loins, who loves him; Hathor generated him; he who opened the two lands; lord of the two lands (prenomen); son of the sun (name), vivifier like the sun.”

2.—“The kingly Horus, strong bull, son of ...... the king of Upper and Lower Egypt (prenomen); lord of diadems, who cares for Egypt and chastises nations; son of the sun (name).”

The Flaminian obelisk is a beautiful example of the species; it was constructed by the Pharaoh Seti I., otherwise Osirei, the blind king,or as he is designated by the carvings on the stone, Menephtha Scthai; and was completed by his son, Rameses II.: we therefore find his own personal narrative in the middle column, and that of the great Sesostris in the side columns. This obelisk was originally erected at Heliopolis, and was brought thence and conveyed to Rome by the Emperor Augustus in the tenth year before the Christian era. At Rome it was taken to the Circus Maximus or Campus Martius, where it would seem to have fallen into neglect, inasmuch as, at a later period, it was found partly buried and broken into three pieces. It was one of the five obelisks set up by Pope Sixtus V., and was placed by him in front of the church of St. Maria at the Porta del Popolo, the old Flaminian gate, in 1589; and although it has lost a portion of its base, is the third in height of the obelisks of Rome, measuring upwards of eighty-seven feet.

The Flaminian obelisk has been made the subject of an excellent paper, contributed to the Royal Society of Literature, in 1841, by the Rev. George Tomlinson, and published in the Transactions of the Society. Mr.Tomlinson produces a careful and exact translation of the inscription on all the sides of this obelisk; and as there is necessarily a considerable amount of repetition, we have endeavoured to curtail it, without, as we hope, doing injury to the sense. On three sides of the pyramidion Seti supplicates three separate deities:—Thoré of the sacred bark; Horus-phra, lord of the two worlds; and Athom, lord of Heliopolis. He appeals as follows:—“The good god, the Pharaoh, establisher of justice, the son of the sun, Menephtha-Sethai, says: Give me a life strong and pure. To which the deities reply:—We give thee all strength; we give thee a life strong and pure.”

On the fourth side of the pyramidion, Rameses II., son of Seti, prefers a similar request to Athom, lord of Heliopolis, thus:—“The good god, the Pharaoh, guardian of justice, approved of the sun, the son of the sun, Ammon-mai Rameses, says: Give me a life strong and pure; and the deity responds:—We give thee a pure life.”

The subject of the woodcut is copied from the British obelisk, and represents the sacred hawk, the symbol of Horus, the deity of the Sun; surmounting the standard of the king, the Pharaoh, Thothmes III.

At the top of the column, immediately under the pyramidion, is a square compartment, on which are sculptured figures of the king kneeling before the respective divinities, and offering gifts, libations, vases of precious ointment, &c.

Next below the square compartment is another of oblong figure, divided into three stripes, corresponding with the three columns which descend the rest of the shaft down to its base. The upper part of the oblong space is occupied by the sacred hawk, capped with the helmet-shaped double crown of Egypt, and emblematical of the god Horus. Then follows the standard of the king in the form of a banner representing a bull, the emblem of power and moderation, together with the special attributes of the king. The inscription in the oblong compartment will therefore read as follows:—The Horus, the powerful; then, in the case of Seti; sanctified by truth and justice; the piercer of foreign countries by his victories; the beloved of the sun and justice. Whilst the legend of Rameses styles him:—The beloved of the sun; the son of Noubti or Seth; the beloved of justice; the son of Ptha-Totonen; and the son of Athom.

The vertical columns commemorative of Seti are as follows:—The Horus,the powerful, sanctified by truth and justice, &c. Lord of the diadems of Upper and Lower Egypt, Month or Mandou of the world; possessor of Egypt; the resplendent Horus, the Osiris, the divine priest of Thoré; the king, Pharaoh, establisher of justice, who renders illustrious the everlasting edifices of Heliopolis, by foundations fit for the support of the heaven; who has established, honoured, and adorned the Temple of the Sun and the rest of the gods; which has been sanctified by him, the son of the sun, Menephtha-Sethai, the beloved of the spirits of Heliopolis, everlasting like the sun.

The variations in other columns speak of Seti as “the establisher of everlasting edifices, making his sanctuary in the sun, who loves him, the adorner of Heliopolis, who makes libations to the sun and the rest of the lords of the heavenly world, who gives delight by his rejoicings and by his eyes: beloved of Horus, the lord of the two worlds:”—“The scourge of foreign countries, piercer of the shepherds, who fills Heliopolis with obelisks to illumine with their rays the Temple of the Sun; who like the Phœnix fills with good things the great temple of the gods, causing it to overflow with rejoicing.”

The vertical columns in praise of Rameses proclaim as follows:—“The Horus, the powerful, the beloved of the sun, the Ra, the offspring of the gods, the subjugator of the world, the king, the Pharaoh, guardian of justice, approved of the sun; son of the sun, Ammon-mai Rameses; who gives joy to the region of Heliopolis when it beholds the radiance of the solar mountain. He who does this is lord of the world; the Pharaoh, guardian of justice, approved of the sun, son of the sun, Ammon-mai Rameses, giving life like the sun.”

In another column he calls himself:—“The beloved of justice, who has erected edifices like the stars of heaven; he hath made his deeds resound above heaven, scattering the rays of the sun, rejoicing over them in his house * * *. In the * * year of his majesty he made good this edifice of his father, whom he loved, giving stability to his name in the abode of the sun. He who hath done this is the son of the sun, Ammon-mai Rameses, the beloved of Athom, lord of Heliopolis, giving life for ever.”

In a third column he is called “The director of the years, the greatone of victories.” In a fourth:—“The Ra, begotten of the gods, the subjugator of the world, who magnifies his name in every region by the greatness of his victories.” Again:—he is termed “The lord of panegyrics,[23]like his father Ptha-Totonen, begotten and educated by the gods, builder of their temples, lord of the world; a son of Thoré.”

At the base of the obelisk, on the north side, Seti kneels before the hawk-headed deity Hor-phra, Horus, or the Sun, offering gifts: the god says:—“The speech of Hor-phra, lord of the two worlds. We give thee vigour, magnanimity, and strength, to have a life pure, and like the sun, everlasting.”

On the south side he says:—“The speech of Hor-phra, the enlightener of the two worlds, the great god, the lord of heaven: we give thee all the worlds, all the countries * * * and to be lord of the south and the north, like the sun, sitting for ever upon the throne of Horus.”

On the east side of the base of the obelisk Rameses kneels before Athom (the setting sun), and offers, with his left hand, one of the pyramidal cakes common in Egypt. The deity says—“We, Athom, lord of Heliopolis, the great god, give thee the throne of Seb (Saturn), the altar of Athom * * * the diadems of Horus and Noubti, in a pure life.”

As another example of the inscriptions on obelisks, we quote a translation of the middle column of the west face of the Paris obelisk, as follows:—“The sun Horus, with the strength of the bull, lover of Truth, sovereign of the north and south, protector of Egypt, and subjugator of the foreigner, the golden Horus, full of years, powerful in the fortress, King Ra-user-ma, chief of chiefs, was begotten by Toum, of his own flesh, by him alone, to become King of the Earth, forever and ever, and to supply with offerings the temple of Ammon.”

“It is the son of the sun, Ramses-meri-Amon, eternally living, who constructed this obelisk.”

It may be as well to explain, that the sun being deified by the Egyptians as the symbol of creation, the maker, the disposer; and the Pharaohs being supposed to be sons of the sun, the rising sun Ra, being generated out of Toum, or Tum, the setting sun; the rising sun, therefore, becomes, at one and the same time, both father and son.

One of the inscriptions on Cleopatra’s Needle at Alexandria is as follows:—

“The glorious hero, the mighty warrior, whose actions are great on the banner; the king of an obedient people; a man just and virtuous, beloved by the Almighty Director of the universe; he who conquered all his enemies, created happiness throughout all his dominions, who subdued his adversaries under his sandals.

“During his life he established meetings of wise and virtuous men, in order to introduce happiness and prosperity throughout his empire. Hisdescendants, equal to him in glory and power, followed his example. He was, therefore, exalted by the Almighty-seeing Director of the world. He was the lord of Upper and Lower Egypt; a man most righteous and virtuous, beloved by the All-seeing Director of the world.”

The Thothmes-Rameses obelisks, subsequently called Cleopatra’s Needles; and one of them, now, the British obelisk, were erected by Thothmes III., in front of the portico of the great temple of Heliopolis; where Moses pursued his studies and became skilled in Egyptian learning, and where he afterwards filled the office of professor or priest. Many, many times, no doubt, must Moses have contemplated the pagan proclamations on these obelisks, and have contrasted them, in his own mind, with the simple language of the living God Most High, whom he himself worshipped. Many times he must have shuddered at the pagan oppression of his own people, and felt himself appealed to for their protection. Who shall say that the immolation of the Egyptian who was discovered striking a Hebrew was not a righteous act. Cruelties hadbeen suffered by the Israelites until they could be borne no longer, and this blow from the hand of an Egyptian became the starting-point of the future exodus. Many years later Moses proved his capacity as a leader,[24]and conducted his brethren safely across the Red Sea, pursued by Menephtah III., the Pharaoh of the day, the son and successor of that Rameses whose oval is impressed on the British obelisk. The date of Joseph’s advent in Egypt has latterly been referred to the period of the shepherd kings, who are supposed to have been of Jewish descent, and therefore more likely to be disposed favourably towards Joseph than the Egyptian Pharaohs. The dynasties of the shepherd kings ranged between 2214 and 1703b.c.

A little fusillade of guns reminds us that the time has arrived when we must bid farewell to the Queen of Eastern cities, and embark on the enchanting Nile for the ancient city of Thebes, just 450 miles away. A shriek from the railway-train on the west bank suggests that we mayshorten our pilgrimage by nearly 200 miles; a well-known pant from the river tells us that a steam-boat is at hand, destined to carry passengers and scare crocodiles[25]in its journey to the first cataract. But we have dreamed of a Nile voyage in the graceful Nile boat, the “Dahabeeyah,” with its huge lateen sail, for many and many a month; we have enjoyed, by anticipation, the quiet, the repose, and the opportunity for contemplation which the voyage of the Nile for several weeks[26]must afford, and our mind has long since been made up; the guns again fire their parting salute, the anchor is tripped, and wespring away from our moorings like a bird enjoying its first flight on a summer’s morning. Upon either side of the river-stream is the narrow strip of arable earth, green with its luxuriant crops, so peculiar to the land of Egypt; beyond are the yellow sands of the desert; and further off, constituting the frame in which the picture is set, is the range of orange-red sandstone rocks, which shuts in the valley of the Nile on both its sides. As we move onwards we seem to be reviewing a section of the earth—the alluvium of the Delta behind us; the sandstone, the gritstone, the limestone of the secondary rocks, rising into a wall on either side, with the porphyry, the syenite, and the granite of the primary rock awaiting us at the first cataract, the gates of Egypt. The rocks approach nearer to the river as we advance, and keep us company to the end of our journey; sometimes they are so close as to stand up like perpendicular cliffs, and encroach on the tawny stream; and at other times they recede, and encircle an extensive valley, such as that on which the grandest ruins in the world, those of the ancient city of Thebes, are heaped up. This rock-bound valley isbisected by the Nile: on the one side, the west, are the ruins of once magnificent temples and royal tombs; on the other, the east, the up-piled heaps of giganticdébris; the Nile dividing the abodes of the living from those of the dead. On the west side are temples dedicated to Rameses I. by his son Seti I.; to Seti I. by Rameses II.; and to Rameses II. by Rameses himself; a temple to Queen Hatasou, and temples to Amenophis III. and Rameses III. Then we have valleys enshrined with tombs of kings and queens, dating from Seti I. downwards to Rameses IV. In the tomb of Seti, Belzoni secured the beautiful sarcophagus of white alabaster, one of the choice relics deposited in the Soane Museum; and from the tomb of Rameses III., discovered by Bruce, was obtained the sarcophagus of red granite, the cyst of which is preserved in the Louvre, and the covercle, or lid, in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge; whilst round and about are necropolises of considerable extent, for the most part appendages of the temples.

The Memnonian Colossi; one of the two being the “Vocal Memnon.” They are sitting statues of the Pharaoh, Amenophis III.

Once upon a time there existed on this spot a temple of calcareous stone; the temple was named Memnonium, from being situated in a part of the city called Memnonia; and the trumpet of fame has ascribed it to a mythical king, Memnon: it was, however, erected by Amenophis or Amunoph III., who, for no better reason, has likewise been termed Memnon. Egyptologists deplore the loss of this temple, as it no doubt contained the historical record of the reign of Amenophis; but of its pylons, itswalls, and its columns, nothing now remains save their foundations; its stones have been broken into bits, and the bits have been carried away and burnt into lime. Nevertheless, a memorial of its former existence happily remains in the two gigantic colossal statues of Amenophis, which were carved out of breccia, a transition rock, that could yield no lime by the burning. These are the two huge Colossi, still grand, but much defaced and injured, which sat at their ease in front of the pylon of Amunoph’s temple, and will sit on, perhaps, for centuries, although the sanctuary which they once guarded and adorned is no more. Of another temple near at hand, M. Mariette says:—“The lime-burners have luckily not yet found their way here. But why? Simply because there is already so much limestone among the ruins on the plain, which is, therefore, more easy of acquisition;” but when this shall have been exhausted, then looms another invasion of those industrious shepherds, the lime-burners.

No doubt, a good deal of the destruction which we see around was the handiwork of man, perhaps of the baffled Cambyses; perhaps of PtolemyLathyrus, those two great destroyers; but history reminds us, that in the twenty-seventh year before the birth of Christ, an earthquake visited Egypt, and shook it to its very foundations. This earthquake seriously damaged the Colossi, and more especially the northernmost one, which had its upper part shaken completely off. But a curious phenomenon succeeded. Of a morning, when the sun first rose and warmed the statue, it gave forth a plaintive wail, resembling the sound of the human voice. This, apparently, resulted from some contraction or expansion of the material of the broken stump: it has been supposed that the fractured stone, moistened by the dew of night, crackled under the drying influence of the warm rays of the rising sun. But whatever the physical cause may have been, the sound attracted the notice of travellers; and visitors came from all parts of the surrounding countries to witness the phenomenon. It would seem that the event was a little fickle; it did not always manifest itself, nor precisely at the same time; but it was only at or about the time of the rising of the sun that it was evoked. To the multitude, this sound was the voice ofMemnon lamenting to his divine mother, Aurora, the injuries his statue had sustained; and in this wise he sighed forth his lament for 250 years, when Septimus Severus stretched forth his hand to heal his wounds, and perchance to elicit a happier, cheerfuller note. The statue was repaired by means of blocks of stone, as in ordinary masonry; the voice of lamentation ceased, and with it every vestige of sound. Memnon wailed and sighed no more, neither did his voice come more melodiously forth as his restorer hoped. The vocal Memnon sunk at once, from an object of wonder, to the simple rank of the northern colossus of Amenophis. But the term Colossus is well-earned when we reflect that the statue itself was fifty feet in height; while its pedestal of ten feet gave it an altitude of sixty feet. Two figures standing against the arms of the throne on which the giant sits, are those of his mother and sister.

Not far away from the ruin of the Memnonium and the Memnonian Colossi are the fragments of a temple, erected by Rameses II., and dedicated to himself, the Ramesseum; it has likewise been named the Palace of Memnonand the Tomb of Osymandias. But the object of chief interest for us, at the present time, in connection with this ruin, is the broken Colossus, which formerly stood within the entrance-court of the temple. The statue is wrought out of Syenite granite; it was brought from Syené, and is one of the most gigantic monoliths carved by the Egyptians. It is a statue of Rameses the Great, seated on his throne, in the attitude of repose, and was originally nearly forty feet high; whilst its estimated weight was very little short of 900 tons. It is now broken across at the waist; the lower part is shattered into fragments; whilst the upper portion is reduced in size by the cutting out of mill-stones by the Arabs. “It is difficult,” says Mariette, “at what most to wonder, the patience and labour of the sculptor, or the pains and force employed by the destroyer.” Miss Edwards, speaking of this Colossus, remarks, that “the stone is so hard, that when small fragments are mounted on a handle, they are used as a substitute for the diamond by engravers of antiques.”

But we must confess to a little, a very little, malice when we turn theattention of our readers to Deir-el-Bahari, a temple erected to the honour of Hatasou, also on the western and sepulchral side of Thebes. “Here,” says Mariette, “we find a temple mounting the rock behind it by regular steps or platforms, and built of a beautiful white and marble-like calcareous stone. It was formerly approached by a long avenue of sphinxes, and heralded bytwo obelisks, of which the bases alone are now traceable.”

But how, may we venture to enquire, came obelisks, the offspring of the rising sun, on the Hades side of the Nile? Can the river have changed its course? Alas! no. It is the whim of woman. Hatasou erected the grandest obelisks in existence; she covered the whole shaft, with the exception of the carvings, with gold. She erected a temple that stepped up the side of a mountain, as if it were a flight of stairs. She governed Egypt, the two worlds, and maintained the dignity of the diadems of the upper and lower country during one of the most brilliant periods of Egypt’s greatness; and now we find her imparting sunshine to the dead, and by exception proving the rule, that no obelisks are to befound on the western bank of the Nile, saving her own, and the flouted fragments of Fyoom. “She hath made this work for her father Amun-re, lord of the regions; she hath erected to him this handsome gateway * * * Amun protects the work * * * she hath done this to whom life is given for ever.”[27]So says the Pharaoh Amun-noo-het, or Hatasou. Turn we now to the eastern bank of the Nile, and we find the Arab village of Luxor grown up like a parasitic fungus over the ruins of once stately edifices, the grand temple of Amenophis III., where the Colossi of Rameses guard the entrance; and two miles away, the still more magnificent ruin of the temple of Usertesen and his successors: but of these anon.

The inscription on the paw of the sphynx, already noted, has reminded us how precious to the Egyptian is every “spot of harvest-bearing land,” so precious that not a tittle could be spared for the interment of the dead; the sands were too shifting, and the sandstone rock alone remained for the purposes of burial. The sandstone rock forms a broad shelf at the border of the desert, and thence mounts up in terraces tothe summit of the mountain-range. Cheops and Chephren, and the kings of the early dynasties, had the power and the means of raising mountains over their embalmed and mummified remains; but for the people, must suffice a more humble resting-place;—for them a hole was scooped out on the platform of rock, to be built up at its entrance until the day of resurrection should arrive. In the neighbourhood of the Pyramids, the cemetery of kings, the sandstone rock is honeycombed with tombs, in which the population of every degree have their appropriate sepulchral niche. In later times these tombs have been ransacked for antiquarian relics and for the riches they contained; and the desert around is still thickly carpeted with a profuse accumulation of fragments of mummies and mummy-cases, and vestments of every kind.

The word mummy is said to be derived from “mourn,” a kind of wax used in the process of embalming. This process would seem to have been first employed during the eleventh dynasty, about 3,000 years before the Christian era, and to have been practised until the 6th centurya.d.Mariette notes differences in theappearance and qualities of the mummies in accordance with their source—from Memphis or Thebes, or their preparation in more recent times. The Memphite mummies are extremely dry, break easily, and are black in colour; those of Thebes are tightly bandaged, yellow and flexible, bending easily, and sometimes preserving so much softness as to admit of being indented by pressure: whereas, in later times, the bodies were saturated with a kind of turpentine from Judea, and became heavy, compact, the bandages seemingly identified with the flesh, and so hard as only to be broken with violence. The Memphite mummies were often filled with amulets and scarabæi, and by their sides, or between their legs, was placed a papyrus, a copy of the Book of the Dead. On the Theban mummies were scarabæi and rings, which were worn on the fingers of the left hand.

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