Korusko.August 17, 1844.
Ourdeparture from Dongola did not take place till the 2nd July. We journeyed slowly down the west side of this river; and on the same day we came to large fields of ruins, the inconsiderable remains of once flourishing cities whose names are lost. The first we found opposite Argônsene, others near Koï and Mosh. On the following day we passed near Hannîk, opposite Tombos, in the province of Máhas; here begins the Cataract district and a new Nubian dialect, which extends to Derr and Korusko. The Nile takes a northerly course till it comes to a high mountain named after a former conqueror, Ali Bersi; this we passed to the left early on the third day. It lies on the sudden turning of the river, from north-west to due east, where it is usual to avoid the greater part of the province of Máhas by a northerly desert road. We, however, followed the windings of the river, and came in the neighbourhood of old forts on the shore, to a grove of palm-trees, in whose shade we rested during the heat of mid-day. The nearest of these forts so romantically situated among the rent rocks, I find differently named upon every map, as Fakir Effendi (Cailliaud), Fakir el Bint, frombint, the Maiden (Hoskins), Fakir Bender, frombender, the metropolis (Arrowsmith); it is, however, called FakirFenti in the dialect of the country, or Fakir Benti in that of Dongola, and is so named from the palms at their foot (Fenti,benti, means palms and dates).
We arrived on the 4th of July at Sêse, a mountain on which is the remains of a fortress. Our servant Ahmed (from Derr), informed us that after the death of every king, his successor was led to the top of this mountain, and decked with a peculiar royal head-dress. Such forts as Sêse, of which from the high land we saw many both far and near, tell of a former numerous and warlike population, which has now almost disappeared. The ruins, lying about a quarter of an hour to the south of Mount Sêse, are called Sêsebi. Here stood an old temple, of which, however, only four columns, with palm capitals, remain standing; these bear the cartouches of Sethos I., the most southerly that we have found of this king. In the neighbourhood of these remains, are situated the ruins of a city, on an artificial platform, the regular circumvallation of which is still to be recognized.
On the 6th of July we got to Solb (Soleb), the well-preserved and considerable temple of which was erected by Amenophis III., to his own genius, the divine Ra-neb-ma (Amenophis.)[90]The richdecorations of this temple, (the same to which our ram from Barkal, and the lions of Lord Prudhoe once belonged,) furnished us with employment for nearly five days. On the 11th of July we first departed again.
Scarcely an hour hence to the northward lies Gebel Dôshe; a sandstone rock projecting to the river, in which a grotto is hewn on the river side, containing sculptures of Tuthmosis III.
The same evening we got to Sedeïnga, where Amenophis III. built a temple to his own wife Tü. In the midst of the picturesque heap of ruins a single pillar stands up. To the west, a great grave-field extends.
On the 13th of July we stopped at ashôna(so are the Government station magazines called), opposite Mount Abir or Qabir, a little below the northern point of the island of Saï. Indirectly over the river, lies the village of Amara, and in its neighbourhood, the ruins of a temple. I was not a little astonished to recognize the stout queen of Naga and Meroë and her husband, on the columns, of which six are still remaining. This temple was built by them, an important testimony of the far extending government of that Ethiopian dynasty. On the grave-field to the south of the temple, I also remarked fragments of inscriptions in the already mentioned Demotic-Ethiopian alphabet, of which I had also found some examples in the neighbourhood of Sedeïnga.
After we had paid a visit to the island of Saï, on the next day, where we had found the few remains of a temple with inscriptions of Tuthmosis III., andAmenophis II., besides the ruins of a town and a Koptic church,—we proceeded onward, and arrived on the 15th of July at Dal, which forms the frontier between the provinces of Sukkot and Batn el hag’er (Stonebelly). At night we encamped by the cataract of Kalfa.
Hence our way led in the neighbourhood of the hot sulphur springs of Okmeh, whither I diverged from the caravan with Abeken. The road led us from the Shôna where we parted, along the craggy shore for above an hour, to a square tower, which has been erected over the fountain, and called Hammân Seïdna Solimân, after the architect. The tower, which is nine feet thick, and has an inward diameter of four feet, is now half full of sand and earth; the water rushes out of the east side of the tower to the thickness of your wrist, and on the other side sixteen little springs rise out of the sand within the space of a square foot; and here, where the water is at the hottest, it has not quite 44° Réaumur. The taste is sulphurous, and a white deposit lies all round the fountain on the ground. Every year the river rises above the spring, and indeed, above the tower, which stands at half the elevation of the shore. The water mirror had now risen to the height of a man, and had not yet reached the fountain. A rude hole is dug in the rubbish for the invalids that come hither, and is covered with rushes to keep off the steam. Somewhat further down the river, another streamlet comes out, which retains 40° of warmth at its mouth in the open air. The legend goes, that Okáshe, a friend of the prophet, was killed in acampaign to the south; his body swam up hither and then disappeared in the rocks on the opposite shore. His grave is still pointed out there at some distance from the river; a tree marking the spot.
On the 17th of July we encamped near the temple of Semneh. The village only consists of a few straw huts,[91]shaded by some date-trees; yet the many fragments in the district show that there was once a much more considerable place here. The temple is surrounded by mighty ancient works of defence, the building of which goes as far back as the Old Empire, under Sesurtesen III., a king of the twelfth dynasty.[92]It seems that this king first extended the bounds of the Egyptian empire to this place; indeed, he is found at a later period worshipped as a local divinity. The temple, built by Tuthmosis III., in the New Empire, is dedicated to him and the god Tetûn conjointly.
On the right shore too, near the village of Kummeh, old fortifications are found, and within them a still larger temple, already commenced by Tuthmosis II.
The most important discovery that we made here (which I only mention cursorily, as I have at the same time sent a complete account of it to Ehrenberg), is a number of short rock inscriptions, which give the highest Nile levels for a series of years, under the government of Amenemha III. (Mœris), and his immediate successors. These accounts are partlyvaluable historically, as they brilliantly confirm my conjecture, that the Sebekhotep immediately followed the twelfth dynasty, and are partly of peculiar interest for the geological history of the Nile, as they prove that the river rose, four thousand years ago, nearly twenty-four feet higher than at present and, therefore, must have caused quite different proportions of inundation and soil for the upper and lower country. The examination of this curious locality, with its temples and rock inscriptions, employed us for twelve days.
On the 29th of July we went from Semneh to Abke, and visited on the next day the old fortress north of that place, which is called El Kenissa, (the church,) and therefore probably contained one at some period. From the top of this fortress we had the most magnificent prospect of the principal cataracts of the whole district. Three great falls were distinguishable in the broad rocky islet valley from the smaller ones; several hundred islands passed under review to yonder black mountains. Toward the north, however, the wide plain stretched, which extend from Wadi Halfa to Philae. The gradual change in the geological construction of the rocks was plainly visible, as we descended from the last ridge of the shore crags into the great plain, from which but a few single sandstone cones arise from the bed of a dried up ocean. These are no doubt the sources of the endless sand, which, driven by the north wind into the mountains, rendered our journey to Semneh so difficult.
On the 1st of August we quitted Wadi Halfa in three barks,and passed through districts already well-known. Next morning we came to Abu Simbel, where we stopped nine days, in order to secure the rich representations of the two rock temples as complete as possible. I sought for a long time for the remarkable Greek inscription which Leake found on one of the four mighty Ramses-colossi, until I happily discovered it in the rubbish on the left leg of the second colossus from the south. I was obliged to have a great excavation made, in order to obtain a perfect impression on paper. There seem to me to be no grounds whatever not to take the inscription for that for which it proclaims itself, viz. for a memorial of the Greek mercenaries, who came hither with Psammetichus I. in pursuit of the rebellious warriors. Among the rest of the inscriptions of the colossus I find some Phœnician ones.
After we had visited rock monuments on the opposite shore, near Abahûda and Shataui, we left Abu Simbel, on the 11th of August, and next stopped on the right shore near Ibrîm, the ancient Primis, the name of which I have found written hieroglyphically PRM. On the left bank, opposite Ibrîm, lies Anîbe, in the neighbourhood of which we found and drew a solitary, but well preserved private grave of the time of the twentieth dynasty. Then we went on to Derr, where we received the richest of post-bags, which filled us all with joy.
With these treasures we hastened, by way of Amada, hither to Korusko; the charming palm groups of which had become dear to us during our long though unwilling stay last year. To-day (Sunday) we have, therefore, determined to celebrate the fortunate completion of our journey in the gayest reminiscences. Our barks lie quietly by the shore.
Philae.September 1, 1844.
I amonly now first able to end my report from Korusko, which we quitted on the evening of the 18th of August, to sail for Sebûa.
From thence to Philae the valley is called Wadi Kenûs, “the valley of Beni Kensi,” a tribe often mentioned in the Arabic accounts. The upper valley from Korusko to Wadi Halfa is generally called Wadi Nuba on all the maps, a name certainly used by Burckhardt, but which must rest on an error. Neither our Nubian servant Ahmed, born at Derr, nor any of the inhabitants know this name, and even the septuagenarian Hassen Kashef, who governed the country before the Egyptian conquest, could not return any replies to my careful questions. According to their unanimous assertion, the lower district has always been called Wadi Kenûs. Then follows near Korusko the Wadi el Arab, so called by the immigrated Arabs of the desert, then Wadi Ibrim, and lastly Wadi Halfa. The government designation of the whole province between the two cataracts is, however, since the conquest Gism Halfa, the province Halfa.
In Korusko, I found a Bishâri, named ’Ali, whose intelligent and pleasing manners determined me immediately to engage him as a teacher for this important language. He accepted very willingly myinvitation to accompany us, and now every leisure moment was occupied in preparing a grammar and vocabulary. He was born in the interior of the district Beled Ellâqi, which is eight days distant from the Nile, and twenty from the Red Sea, and gives its name to the remarkable Wadi Ellâqi, which extends without any interruption through the broad plains from the Nile to the sea. He calls the Bishâri country Edbai and their language “Midâb to Beg’auîe,” the Beg’a language: this shows its identity with the language of the powerful Beg’a people, celebrated during the middle ages.
From Korusko we sailed to Sebûa, where we remained four days; then by Dakke (Pselchis) and Kubân (Contra-Pselchis) to G’erf Hussên, with its rock temple, dedicated by Ramses to Ptah. By former travellers this place has often been called Girshe, a corruption of the name of a village lying on the eastern shore, called by the Arabians Qirsh, and by the Nubians Kish or Kishiga, and which lies in the neighbourhood of some important ruins, called Sabagûra. The 25th August we passed in the temple of Dendûr, built under the Roman empire, and the next day in Kalabsheh, the ancient Talmis, this temple also contains only the arms of Cæsar (Augustus). Talmis was for a long time the capital of the Blemyer, whose incursions into Egypt caused much trouble to the Romans. Upon one of the pillars of the outer court the interesting inscription of Silco is graven, who calls himself a βασιλίσκος Νουβάδων καὶ ὅλων τῶν Αἰθιόπων. He boasts in it of his victories over the Blemyers, whom I consider a branch of the Meroitic-Ethiopian race, the present Bishâri. The Demotic-Ethiopian inscriptions, among which is one remarkable for its length, and which perhaps is a counterpart of the Greek ones of the Nubian kings, can only be referred to the Blemyers. I discovered at the back of the temple another inscription of very late date in Greek, but so corrupted as to be perfectly unintelligible. I send it to be deciphered by Böckh.
On the 30th of August we reached Debôt, and the following day Philae, where we immediately took possession of the charming temple terrace, which, since that time, has been our head-quarters, and will be so for some time yet. The great buildings of the temple, although its earliest erection only dates as far back as Nectanebus, offer an unusually rich harvest of hieroglyphical, demotic, and Greek inscriptions, and to my astonishment I have discovered a chamber in one of the pylones, which contains only Ethiopian sculptures and inscriptions.
Thebes, Qurna.November 24, 1844.
Wearrived here, at the last great station of our journey, on the 4th of November, and feel much nearer to our native land. During our stay here, which is certain to run over several months, we have established ourselves in a charming rock fort, on a hill of Abd el Qurna; it is an ancient tomb, enlarged by erections of brick, whence the whole Thebaîc plain can be overlooked at one view. I should be afraid of being almost annihilated by the immense treasure of monuments, if the mighty character of the remains of this most royal city of all antiquity did not excite and retain the imagination at the highest point. While the examination of the previous numerous temples of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods had almost become, as it were, wearisome, I feel as fresh here, where the Homeric form of the mighty Pharaohs of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties come forth to us in all their majesty and pride, as at the beginning of my journey.
I have at once had excavations made in the celebrated temple of Ramses Miamun, situated at our feet, which have led to unexpected results. Erbkam had conducted the works with the greatest care, and his now finished ground-plan of this most beautiful building of the Pharaonic times, the tomb of Osymandyas, according to Diodorus, is thefirst which can be called complete, as it does not depend on arbitrary restorations, carried too far by the French, and not far enough by Wilkinson.
In the filled-up rock tomb of the same Ramses, at Babel Meluk, erroneously considered incomplete by Rosellini, I have also had excavations made. Several chambers have already been found, and if fortune favours us, we shall also find the sarcophagus, though not unopened, (thatthe Persians have taken care of,) yet possibly less destroyed than others, as the deposit of soil on the tomb is very ancient.
During our journey thither from Korusko, I have been engaged upon the little known languages of the southern countries, beside my antiquarian pursuits. Among these three are the most extended: the Nuba language of the Nuba or Berber nation; the Kung’âra language of the negroes of Dar Fur; and the Beg’a language of the Bisharîba, inhabiting the eastern part of the Sudan. Of all three I have so perfectly formed the grammar and vocabulary, that their publication, at some period, will offer a complete view of these languages. The most important of them is the last named, because it proves itself a rich language in a grammatical point of view, and a very remarkable branch of the Caucasian family by its position in development. It is spoken by that nation which I believe I can prove to be the once flourishing one of Meroë, and which therefore has the most definite right to be called the Ethiopian people in the most strict sense of the term.
It has also been seen that there was nothing tobe found of a primitive Ethiopian civilisation, or even of an ancient Ethiopian national culture, of which the new school of learning pretends to know so much; in fact, that we have every reason to deny its existence. Those accounts of the ancients which do not rest on totally erroneous information, only refer to the civilisation and arts of Egypt, which had fled to Ethiopia during the time of the supremacy of the Hyksos. The return of Egyptian might from Ethiopia, on the founding of the New Empire of the Egyptians, and its advance even into the depths of Asia, was transferred to the Asiatic traditions, and afterwards to the Greek, from the country of Ethiopia to the nation of Ethiopians; for no rumour of an older Egyptian empire, and its former peaceful prince had penetrated to the northern nations. I have transmitted a report to the Academy on the result of our Ethiopian journey, and I have given in it a sketch of Ethiopian history since the first conquest of the country by Sesurtesen III., in the twelfth dynasty of Manetho, till the prince of the Meroitic kingdom in the first centuries of our era, and then through the middle ages to the Bisharîba of the present day, whose sheikhs we saw, in chains, pass by the ruins of their former metropolis, and the pyramids of their ancient kings.
Thebes, Qurna.January 8, 1845.
Wehave lately received the cheering intelligence that our colossal Ram and the other Ethiopian monuments have arrived safely at Alexandria. From here, too, we shall bring some important monuments; amongst them a beautiful sarcophagus, of fine white limestone, and partially covered with painted inscriptions, belonging to the Old Empire, the earliest era of the growing power of Thebes.[93]
I have succeeded in making another conquest to-day, which causes me double pleasure, as I had inexpressible difficulty in attaining it, and as it has restored a monument to the day in the greatest perfection, and which will scarcely find its equal in any of the museums. In a deep shaft which has lately been excavated, a tomb-chamber has been found, full of interesting representations of kings, which we have drawn; hence a narrow passage leads deeper down into a second chamber, which is completely painted like the first. The spaces are hewn in a most crumbling rock, which falls in great pieces from the ceiling on the slightest touch; the rock-caves were therefore formed into cylindrical arches with Nile bricks, covered with stucco, and painted. On the sides of the inner door King Amenophis I. is represented on the right, and on the left hismother, Aahmes-nufre-ari, highly reverenced even at a much later period. Both of them are painted on the stucco to the height of four feet, and preserved in the freshest colours. These figures, which took up the whole wall, I wished to remove. But for this purpose I was obliged to break through the brick walls around, and then take away the bricks behind the stucco singly with the greatest care. Thus I have to-day succeeded in the laborious work of laying down the whole of the stucco, only of the thickness of a finger, on two slabs made of planks, and cushioned with skins, linen, and paper, and bringing it out of the half-filled narrow tomb-grotto.[94]
Our plaster-casts, to my great joy, are again cared for. Five hundred-weight of gypsum, which M. Clot Bey has granted us from a quantity ordered from France, has lately arrived, and I have found and taken into our service an Arab, who at least knows enough of the manner of using gypsum and taking casts.
Thebes.February 25, 1845.
Wehave now dwelt for more than a quarter of a year, in our Thebaïc Acropolis, upon the hill Qurna, each of us busy in his own way, from morning till evening, in examining, describing, and drawing the most important monuments, taking off inscriptions on paper, and making out plans of the architecture, without being able to finish even the Lybian side, where there yet remains twelve temples, twenty-five king’s tombs, fifteen tombs of royal wives or daughters, and a number, not to be counted, of graves belonging to persons of consequence, to be examined. The east side, with its six-and-twenty partly-standing churches, will also require not less time. And yet it is Thebes exactly that has been more explored than any other place by travellers and expeditions, (videthe Franco-Tuscan expedition), and we have only compared and supplied deficiencies in their labours, not done them afresh. We are also very far from imagining that we have exhausted the immense monumental riches to be found here. They who come after us with fresh information, and with the results of science further extended, will find new treasures in the same monuments, and obtain more instruction from them. The great end which I have always had before my eyes, and for which I have principally made myselections, has been history. When I thought I had collected the most essential information on this point, I remained satisfied.
The river here divides the valley into two unequal parts. While on the west side it flows near the steep projecting mountains of Lybia, it bounds on the east side a wide fertile plain, which extends as far as Medamôt, which lies some hours distant on the edge of the Arabian desert. On this side lies the actual city of Thebes, which appears to have formed a connection between the two temples, Karnak and Luqsor, which lie about half an hour’s distance apart. Karnak lies north, and further from the Nile; Luqsor is directly washed by the waters of the river, and has very probably been in former times the harbour-quarter of the town. On the west side of the stream stood the Necropolis of Thebes, and for the preservation of the dead, all the temples, far and near, are employed,—yes, the whole population of these parts, which were later included under the name Memnonia by the Greeks, appear to have employed themselves principally with the care of the dead and their graves. The former extent of Memnonia is ascertained by the two cities, Qurna and Medînet Habu, which lie at the north and south points.
A survey of the Thebaïc monuments begins, most naturally, with the ruins of Karnak. Here lay the great imperial temple of a hundred doors, which was dedicated to Ammon-Ra, the king of the gods, and the particular god of the place, which after him was called the city of Ammon (No-Amon, Diospolis). Ap, and with the feminine article Tap, outof which the Greeks made Thebes, was an isolated temple of Ammon, and is sometimes hieroglyphically used in the singular, or still oftener in the plural (Napu) as the name of the city; from whence the Greeks, naturally, without changing the article, made use of Θῆβαι in the plural. The whole history of the Egyptian kingdom is connected with this temple, since the elevation of the city of Ammon into a metropolis of the kingdom. Every dynasty contended for the glory of having assisted in extending, beautifying, and restoring this national sanctuary.
It was founded under the first Thebaïc Imperial dynasty, the twelfth with Manetho, by its first king, the mighty Sesurtesen I., in the fourth century of the third millenium,B.C., and even now shows some fragments of the time and name of that king. During the succeeding dynasties, who sighed for several centuries under the oppression of their victorious hereditary enemies, the sanctuary doubtless stood unheeded, and nothing remains of what belongs to that period. But after Amosis, the first king of the seventeenth dynasty, had succeeded in his revolt against the Hyksos, aboutB.C.1700, his two successors, Amenophis I. and Tuthmosis I., built round the remains of the most ancient sanctuary a stately temple with many chambers round the cella, and with a broad court and the propylæa belonging to it, before which Tuthmosis I. erected two obelisks. Two other pylones, with adjoining walls, were built by the same king, in a right angle with the temple, towards Luqsor. Tuthmosis III. and his sister enlarged this temple behind by a hall restingon fifty-six pillars, beside many other chambers which surrounded it on three sides, and were inclosed by a general outer wall. The next king partly did more toward the completion of the temple in front, and partly erected new independent temples in the vicinity, also built two other great pylones in a south-westerly direction before those of Tuthmosis I., so that from this side four high pylones formed the stately entrance to the principal temple.
A still more brilliant enlargement of the temple was, however, carried out in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries,B.C., by the great Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasties, by Sethos I., the father of Ramses Miamun, who added in the original axis of the temple the mightiest hall of pillars which was ever seen in Egypt, or, indeed, in any country. The stone roof is supported by 134 columns, covering a space of 164 feet in length and 320 in breadth. Each of the twelve middle columns is 36 feet in circumference, and is, up to the architrave, 66 feet high; the other columns, 40 feet high, are 27 feet in circumference. It is impossible to describe the overpowering impression felt on first entering this forest of columns, and on passing from one avenue to another, and between the sometimes half, and sometimes whole-projecting grand gods and kingly statues which are sculptured on the columns. All the surfaces are ornamented with gay sculptures, partly in relief and partly in intaglio, which, however, were only completed under the successors of the founder, and mostly by his son Ramses Miamun. Before this hypostole, a large hypathrale court, ofabout 270 to 320 feet, was afterwards erected, with a majestic pylon, and ornamented only on the sides by pillars.
Here the great plan of the temple terminated a length of 1,170 feet, without reckoning the row of sphinxes before its exterior pylon, and without the private sanctuary which was erected by Ramses Miamun directly against the furthest wall of the temple, and in the same area, but in such a manner that the entrance to it was on the opposite side. This enlargement reckoned with it, would make the whole length nearly 2,000 feet, to the southernmost gate of the outer wall, which makes the whole place about the same breadth. The later dynasties, who found this principal temple completed on all sides, and yet could not renounce the idea of doing honour to this centre of Theban worship, began by erecting small temples on the great plain surrounded by the outer wall, and afterwards gradually enlarging these again.
The head of the twentieth dynasty, Ramses III., whose warlike deeds in Asia in the fifteenth century before Christ, were scarcely inferior to those of his renowned ancestors, Sethos I. and Ramses II., built a separate temple with a court of columns, and hypostole above two hundred feet long, which now destroys the symmetry of the outer wall of the great court, and founded at a little distance from it, a still larger sanctuary for the third person of the Theban Triad, Chensu the son of Ammon. This last was completed by the succeeding kings of his dynasty, and the priest-kings of the twenty-first dynasty, who added a stately court of columns and a pylon.Out of the twenty-second dynasty, Sheshenk I. is known, the warrior king Shishak of the Bible, who conquered Jerusalem in 970B.C.His Asiatic campaigns are recorded in the southern outer wall of the great temple, where, under the symbolical figures of prisoners, he lays one hundred and forty conquered cities and countries before Ammon. Among their names there is one, which, not without foundation, is thought to be the denomination of the kingdom of Judah, as also the names of several well known cities of Palestine.
The two above-mentioned priest-dynasties, which followed immediately after the dynasties of the Ramses, were no longer of Theban origin, but came from the cities of Lower Egypt. The power of the kingdom sank upon this change, and after the short twenty-three dynasties, of which there are, nevertheless, some remains yet to be found in Karnak, there appears to have been a revolution. The present lists of the historians mention only one king of the twenty-fourth dynasty who has not been discovered upon the Egyptian monuments. Under him occurred the irruption of the Ethiopians, who form the twenty-fifth dynasty. Shabak and Tahraka (So and Tirhaka of the Bible) reigned in Egypt in the beginning of the seventh century,B.C.These kings came from Ethiopia, but governed quite in the Egyptian manner. They, too, did not forget to pay their reverence to the Egyptian divine kings. Their names are found on several little temples at Karnak, and on a stately colonnade in the great outer court, which appears to have been first erected by Tahraka. The latter retired, according to history, voluntarily into Ethiopia, and left the Egyptian empire to its native rulers.
The supplanted Saitic dynasty now returned to the throne, and again unfolded in the seventh and eighth centuries the splendour, which in this country, so rich in resources and in outward might, was able to be displayed under an energetic and wise sceptre. That dynasty first opened Egypt for peaceful communication with foreign countries; Greeks settled among them, commerce flourished and accumulated new and immense riches, formerly alone obtained by rapine and tribute. But the excitement was only artificial, for the fresh energy of the nations had long been broken; art, too, matured luxury rather than practical worth. The last national glory soon passed away. The country could no longer withstand the coming storm of the Persians. In the year 525B.C., it was conquered by Cambyses, and trodden down by barbarian fanaticism. Many monuments were destroyed, and no sanctuary, no wall was raised within this period; at least nothing has been preserved to our times of that era, not even of the long and mild government of Darius, of whom a temple, or only sculptures with his name alone, are found in the Oasis of Kargeh. Under Darius II., just one hundred years after the beginning of the Persian supremacy, Egypt again became independent, and we immediately find again the names of the native kings in the temples of Karnak, but after three dynasties had followed one another in rapid succession within sixty-four years, it again fell under the dominion of the Persians, who soon afterward lost it to Alexander of Macedonia, in the year 332B.C.After that the land was obliged to accustom itself to foreign rule; it had lost its national independence, and passed from one hand to another, the last always worse than the preceding, down to the present day.
Egypt still had vivifying power enough under the Macedonians and Greeks to keep up its religion and institutions in the ancient way. The foreign princes occupied in every way the places and footsteps of the ancient Pharaohs. Karnak also bears testimony to that. We here find the names of Alexander and Philip Aridæus, who preceded the Ptolemies in the restoration of that which the Persians had destroyed. Alexander rebuilt the back, Philip the front sanctuary of the great temple; the Ptolemies added sculptures to it, restored other parts, and even erected new sanctuaries at no small cost, but of course no longer in the magnificent, classic-Egyptian style of ancient times. Even the last epoch of expiring Egypt, that of the Roman supremacy, is still represented in Karnak by a number of representations, carried out under Augustus Cæsar.
Thus this remarkable place, which in the lapse of 3,500 years had grown from the little sanctuary in the midst of the great temple, into an entire temple-city covering a surface of a quarter of a geographical mile in length, and about 2,000 feet in breadth, is also an almost unbroken thread and an interesting standard for the history of the whole New Egyptian empire, from its commencement in the Old Empire down to its fall under the Roman rule. Almost in the same proportion as the dynasties and kingsare portrayed in and about the temple of Karnak, they stand forth or retire in Egyptian history.
Up the river from Karnak, where the stream, parted by the fertile island of el Gedîdeh, again unites, a second glorious memorial of the ancient city arises: the temple of Luqsor. One of the mightiest Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty, Amenophis III., who had only built a side temple at Karnak, adding little to the principal structure, here erected a sanctuary, made the more magnificent on account of the little he had done at Karnak, dedicated to Ammon, which the great Ramses enlarged by a second stately court toward Karnak. For, although a good half-hour distant, this temple must yet be looked upon as within the ancient and sacred bounds of the great national sanctuary. That is proved by the otherwise difficult, and inexplicable circumstance, that the entrance of the temple, although hard by the shore, is yet turned away from the river and toward Karnak, with which it was also architecturally placed in direct connection by colonnades, series of rams, and roads.
With Luqsor end the ruins on the eastern shore. The monuments of western Thebes offer a still greater variety, because here the subterranean dwellings and places of the dead are added to the superterranean structures for the living. From Qurna there once extended an unbroken series of the most magnificent temples to Medînet Habu, almost filling the narrow desert district between the Nile-steeped fertile land and the foot of the mountains. Immediately behind these temples stretches the vast Necropolis, the tombs of which lying close togetherlike bee-cells, are hewn partly in the rock-soil of the plain, partly in the adjoining hills.
Qurna is situated on that spur of the Libyan mountains nearest to the river. In suddenly turning to the west, the mountains form a species of ravine, the outer part of which, where it is separated from the valley by low ranges of hills, is called El Asasîf. Behind it is bounded by high, steep crags, which rear their glorious stone in the noon and morning sun. These sudden precipices of the limestone mountains, so firmly and equally grown, and therefore so eminently calculated for the sculptures in the rock-tombs, seem to have arisen on the clay stratum beneath, which has withdrawn by its gradual disintegration.
In this rock-creek are the oldest graves belonging to the Old Empire. Their entrances are seen far up in the northern rocks, directly under the perpendicular wall, which ascends from the suddenly-inclined rubbish-mounds to the tops of the mountain-ridges. This outer position, and the paths bordered with low stone walls, leading steeply and straightly from the valley several hundred feet to their entrances, reminded me at once of the graves of Benihassan of the same period. They were made in the second half of the third milleniumB.C.under the king of the eleventh and twelfth dynasties of Manetho, of which the former founded the might of Thebes, and erected the city into the seat of their dominion, independent of Memphis, the latter rendered it the imperial city of the whole country.
These grottos, of which some are found on theneighbouring hills of the same, mostly descend deep into the rock in an obtuse angle, but are not painted or written; on the stone sarcophagi only were there any particular pains bestowed; these consist usually of the finest limestone, and are occasionally more than nine feet long, and are decorated and written in the careful and pure style of that period, but with a certain degree of sparingness. One of these sarcophagi we shall bring with us, as I have already once stated. It has, a few days since, been safely transported into the plain, after the long totally choked-up shaft had been excavated, and the living rock itself broken through, to obtain a shorter way out. The person to whom the grave belonged was the son of a prince, and himself bore the dynastic name Nentef, of the eleventh royal dynasty.
In the outermost corner of the same rock-creek is situated the oldest temple structure of western Thebes, which belongs to the period of the first mighty regeneration of the New Egyptian Empire. A street, above 1,600 feet long, ornamented on both sides by colossal rams and sphinxes, led from the valley in a straight line to a court, then by a flight of steps to another, the front wall of which was adorned with representations, and a colonnade, and at last by a second stair to a well-preserved granite portal, and the last temple court surrounded on both sides by decorated halls and chambers, and ended behind by a broad façade built on to the steep rock-wall. By another granite portal in the middle of this façade, we come at last into the innermost space of the temple, hewn in the rockand vaulted with stone, whence again several little niches and spaces opened to the sides and back. All these places were covered with the most beautiful paintings, gaily coloured on a grey ground, and executed in the most finished style of the period. This grand structure, beside which other now destroyed buildings once stood, seems originally to have been connected with the river by a street traversing the whole valley, and reaching the great temple of Karnak on the other side; and I doubt not that for this behoof the narrow, rock-gate was artificially broken through, by which the temple road leads on its entrance into the valley. It was a Queen Numt Amen, the elder sister of Tuthmosis III., who carried out this daring design of an architectural communication between both the sides of the valley, the same who erected the largest obelisks before the temple of Karnak. She is never represented on her monuments as a woman, but in male attire; the inscriptions alone inform us of her sex. Without doubt it was then against the legitimate rule that a woman should hold the government; for that reason probably her brother, who was still a minor, appears as a co-regent. After her death, all her cartouches were turned into Tuthmosis-cartouches, the feminine expressions of the inscriptions changed, and her name was never mentioned in the later lists of the legitimate kings.
Of Tuthmosis III., who completed the work of his royal sister during his long reign, two temples still exist, both erected at the edge of the desert. The northernmost one of these is now only recognisable in its foundations and in the remains of its brick pylones; the southern one, however, near Medînet Habu is yet well preserved, and, to judge from some sculptures, might belong in its first planning to an earlier Tuthmosis, and was only completed by the other. His second successor, Tuthmosis IV., also erected a temple, now almost disappeared.
He was followed by Amenophis III., under whose long and glorious reign the temple of Luqsor was built. He is represented by the two giant colossi, near Medînet Habu, pushed far forward into the fertile plain, once standing at the gate of a mighty temple, the remains of which, however, principally lie buried under the harvests of the annually rising soil of the valley. Perhaps a roadway, like that to the north, led hence through the valley to the opposite Luqsor. The north-eastern of the two colossi was the celebrated vocal statue, to which the Greeks attached the pleasant legend of the handsome Memnon, who greeted his mother Aurora every morn at sunrise, while she, because of his early hero-death, watered him with her dewy tears. This mythos, as Letronne has proved, was formed at a very late period; as the peculiar phenomena of the trembling tone, the consequence of the cracking of little particles by the sudden warming of the cold stone, took its rise when the statue, already cracked, was more shattered by an earthquake in the year 27B.C.The occurrence of cracking and sounding stones in the desert and in great fields of ruins is not unfrequent in Egypt; the nature of the flint conglomerate of which the statue is composed is particularly inclined to it, as the innumerablecracks, great and small, which pass in every direction through those portions of the statue inscribed at the Greek period, at that time therefore unharmed, show. It is also remarkable how many of the cracked and loose pieces sound bell-like on being struck, while others remain dead and toneless, according as their respective positions make them more or less damped. The numerous Greek and Roman inscriptions which are graven on the statue, and announce the visit of foreigners, particularly if they had been so fortunate as to hear the morning greeting, begin first under Nero, and only go down to the time of Septimius Severus, to whom is due the restoration of the originally monolithic statue. Since this re-erection of the upper portion in single block, the phenomenon of the sounding stone appears to have become less frequent and less apparent, if had not quite stopped. The mutation of the name of the still remembered Amenophis (as the inscriptions testify) into Memnon seems to have been principally induced by the name of this western side of Thebes, Memnonia, which the Greeks seem to have explained to themselves as “Palaces of Memnon,” while the name, hieroglyphicallymennu, signified “palaces” in general. At the present day the statues are, called Shama and Tama by the Arabs, or together the Sanamât (not Salamât),i. e.“the idols.”[95]
When we arrived here at the beginning of November, the whole plain, as far as we could see, was inundated, and formed a single ocean, from which the Sanamât arose more strange and lonely than from the green and accessible fields. I have a few days since measured the colossi, as also the rise of the Nile deposit on the bases of their thrones. The height of the Memnon statue, reckoned from head to foot, but without the tall headdress they once wore, was 14·28 metres, or 45½ feet, and to this the base, another block, 4·25 metres, or 13 feet 7 inches, of which about three feet was hidden by a surrounding step. Thus the statues originally stood nearly sixty feet (perhaps nearly seventy feet with the pshent) above the level of the temple. Now the level of the valley is eight feet above this soil, and the inundation sometimes rises to the upper edge of the bases, therefore fourteen feet higher than it could have done at this time of its erection, if the water was not to reach the temple. If this fact be added to our discovery at Semneh, where the mirror of the Nile had sunkabove twenty-three feet in historical times, it is plain from that simple addition, that the Nile in the cataracts, between here and Semneh, fell at least thirty-seven feet deeper then than now.
The last king, too, of that great eighteenth dynasty, Horus, had erected a temple in the neighbourhood of Medînet Habu, which, however, is now buried in the rubbish. The fragments of a colossal statue of the king in hard, almost marble, limestone, the bust of which formed in the most perfect style, weighing several hundred centenaries, is intended for our museum, seem to indicate the position of the former temple entrance.
Two temples of the next dynasty are preserved, which were built by the two mightiest and most celebrated of all the Pharaohs, Sethos I., and his son Ramses II. The temple of the former is the northernmost in position, and is usually denominated the temple of Qurna, as the old village of Qurna here grew up round a Koptic church, lying principally within the great temple courts, but was subsequently abandoned by the inhabitants, and changed for the rock tombs of the neighbouring mountain spur.
Farther south, between the now quite destroyed temples of Tuthmosis III. and IV., lies the temple of Ramses (II.) Miamun, the most beautiful, probably, in Egypt, as to architectural design and proportions, though behind that of Karnak in grandeur and various interest. The back part of the temple, as also the halls of the hypostole, have disappeared, and their original plan could only be ascertained by long and continued excavations carefully superintended by Erbkam. Round about this destroyed part of the temples, the spacious brick saloons are visible, which are all covered by regularly well built cylindrical vaults, and belong to the period of the erection of the temple. For this is unmistakeably proved by the stamps, which were imprinted on each brick in the royal factory, and contain the cartouches of King Ramses. That this temple had already attracted great attention in antiquity, is evident from the particular description which Diodorus Siculus gives of it after Hecatæus, under the name of the Tomb of Osymandyas.
Immediately to the right of the temple, one of the few industrious Fellahs has planted a little kitchen garden, which gives us some change at our table, and was therefore spared, as it should be, with respect, in our excavations, which threatened to extend thither, at the entreaty of the friendly brown gardener, although it covers the foundation of a small temple not previously seen, the entrance of which I found in the first court of the Ramses temple.
The most southern and best preserved of the temple palaces, lies amid the ruined houses of Medînet Habu, a Koptic city, now quite deserted, but once not inconsiderable. It was founded by Ramses III. the first king of the twentieth dynasty, the wealthy Rhampsinitus of Herodotus,[96]in the thirteenth centuryB.C., and it celebrates on its walls the tremendous wars of this king by land and sea, which might vie with those of the great Ramses. Within the second court a great church was foundedby the Kopts, the monolithic columns of which still lie scattered around. The back places are mostly buried in rubbish. But of very peculiar interest is the far-projected pylon-like fore-building of the temple, which contained, in four stories, one above another, the private rooms of the king. On its wall, the prince is represented in the midst of his family; however, he caresses his daughters, known as princesses by their side-locks, plays draughts with them, and receives fruits and flowers from them.
With this building closes the great series of palace-temples, known by the particular designation of Memnonia. They embrace the actual prime of the New Empire, for after Ramses III. the outward might, as well as the inward greatness of the empire declined. Of this period only, and that immediately following, do we find the tombs of the kings in the rock valleys of the mountains.
To these the entrance lies on the other side of the promontory of Qurna. Wild and desolate, the rock walls, which round themselves off to bald peaks, rise on both sides, and have their golden tops covered with coal-black stones, burnt, as it were, by the sun. The peculiarly solemn and dull character of this region always struck me the most when I rode after sunset over the unmeasureable rock rubbish which covers the earth to a great height, and is only interrupted by broad water-streams, which have formed themselves in the course of thousands of years, by the unfrequent, though not unknown storms, as experience has shown. All around, everything is dumb and dead; only now and then the hollow bark of the jackal, or the ominous cries of the night owl,varies the sound of the active hoof of my little donkey.
After many windings, which lead by great circuits almost immediately behind the high mountain wall of the already described valley of Asasif, the dale parts into two arms, of which the right one leads up to the oldest of the tombs. Two only of these are opened, both of the eighteenth dynasty, the one belonging to the time of Amenophis IV. the Memnon of the Greeks, the other to king Ai, a contemporaneous monarch soon succeeding him, who is not included in the monumental lists of the legitimate kings.[97]The latter lies at the outer end of the slowly rising rock ravine; the granite sarcophagus of the king has been shattered in the little tomb-chamber, and his name is everywhere carefully erased, to the least line, on the walls as well as on the sarcophagus. The other lies far forward in the vale, is of great extent, and with handsome, but unfortunately much mutilated sculptures, through the hands of time and mankind. Besides these two graves, there are several others incomplete without sculpture; others, without doubt, are hidden under the high mounds of rubbish, the removal of which would take more time and means than we thought proper to give to it after severe trials. On one place, where I had excavations made after tolerablycertain proofs, a door and chamber were certainly discovered about ten feet below the rubbish, but without sculptures. Yet some remains of bases were brought to light, containing a yet unknown royal title.
The left branch of the principal valley, which was originally closed by an elevation of the soil, and was first opened artificially by a prepared pathway, at this place contains the graves of almost all the kings of the nineteenth and twentieth dynasties.
Here usually there sinks a wide-mouthed shaft, on one of the declivities of the hills, not very high over the level of the valley, descending in an oblique angle. As soon as the overhanging rock has reached a perpendicular height of twelve to fifteen feet, the sharply-cut door-posts at the first entrance appear at once, provided with one or two great doors for closing. There too, the painted sculptures usually begin, forming a strange contrast to the sudden visitor between the craggy rocks, and the wild stones, by their sharp lines, shining surfaces, and fresh living colours. Long corridors of imposing height and width lead one still farther into the rock mountains. In single divisions, formed by the narrowing of the passage, and by new doors, the paintings continue on the walls and ceiling. The king appears adoring several gods, and addressing to them his prayers and his excuses for his earthly career. The peaceful employed of the beatified spirits are portrayed on one wall, and the torments of the wicked on the other; on the ceiling, the goddess is depicted lying along, as well as the hours of the day and night with the influences which theyexercise on mankind, and the astrological meanings, all accompanied with explanatory inscriptions. At length we arrive in a great vaulted pillared saloon, the walls of which generally show the representations on a golden yellow ground, from which it has received the name of the Golden Saloon. This was intended for the royal sarcophagus, which stood in the middle from six to ten feet in height. But often when the king, after the tomb was completed, felt himself yet unweakened in his powers, and expected another series of years, the middle passage of this saloon was hewn in a steeper manner, as the beginning of a new one; new corridors and chambers were produced; sometimes the direction of the excavation was altered, until the king put a second period to the work, and the series was closed with a second hall, generally more spacious and magnificent than the first; to this were added, if time permitted, smaller spaces at both sides, destined for particular offerings to the dead, until the last hour sounded, and the royal corpse, after its seventy days of embalment, was laid in the sarcophagus. This was then so cunningly closed, that the granite colossus had always to be broken in pieces by the later violators of the graves, as the cover could not be lifted off.
The tombs of the princesses also, which lie altogether in a little valley behind Medînet Habu, at the southern end of Memnonia, belong without doubt to the eighteenth and twentieth dynasties, as also the most important of the numerous private tombs, which extend from the other side of Medînet Habu, over mountain and valley tothe entrance of the Valley of Kings. The priests of rank, and high officers, were fond of representing in their tombs all their wealth in horses, carriages, herds, boats, and household goods, as well as their hunting-grounds, fish-ponds, gardens, and halls; even the artificer and mechanic, busied in their different employments, are to be found on many of the walls; on which account many of these are of higher interest to us than even the king’s tombs, the representations on which are almost always carried through the whole life to the death.
Of later monuments, those of the twenty-sixth dynasty, in the seventh and sixth century before Christ, are the most remarkable. The greater number of these are in the rocky cove between Qurna and the hill Abd el Qurna, hewn out of flat surfaces, and are, for distinction, called el Asasif. The rocky plains here alone offered room for inscriptions, and these have been largely used. Already, from here, may be perceived a multitude of high gates and walls built of black bricks; these enclose, in long squares, sunken courts, the entrances to which are high arched pylon-doors, which, from a distance, look like large Roman triumphal arches. When you enter within the walls, you look directly into the court, dug down into the rock from twelve to fifteen feet deep, which you can descend by a staircase. This uncovered court is now the largest accessible tomb, one hundred feet long and seventy-four broad; it was excavated for a royal writer, named Petamenap. From this you go through an antechamber into a large rock-hall, with two rows of pillars, of an extent of sixty-five feet by fifty-twofeet, with rooms and corridors on both sides; then through an arched entrance into a second hall with eight pillars, of about fifty-two feet by thirty-six feet; and then into a third hall with four pillars, thirty-one feet long and broad; and at last into a chamber twenty feet by twelve feet, which ends in a niche. Out of this chamber, at the end of the first row of rooms, a door leads into a very large room, and to the right into another, to a continuation of six corridors, with two stair-cases of nine steps and one of twenty-three steps, into a chamber, in which a pit forty-four feet deep, leads to another small room. This second course of rooms and passages, which run at a right angle to the first, are 172 feet long, but the first, reckoning the outer court with them, is 311 feet. From the fountain-room, another corridor leads to the right into a diagonal room, together measuring fifty-eight feet in this direction. Before the two stair-cases, in the second suite of rooms, there opens a fourth line of passages to the right, running in the same direction for 122 feet, in which, to the left, is a large square space sixty feet each way, with other rooms adjoining, the interior of which, on the four sides, is ornamented like a monstrous sarcophagus. In the middle, under this great square, rests the sarcophagus of the dead, which one, however, can only reach by means of a sunken pit of eighteen feet deep, which reaches to the fourth suite, by a horizontal passage of fifty-eight feet, to a third pit; through this to new rooms, and at last through the roof of the last to another room, containing the sarcophagus, which really lies exactlyunder the centre of the above described square. The whole surface of this private tomb is reckoned at 21,600 feet, and with the pit-room 23,148 square feet.[98]This immense work appears much more colossal when one recollects that all the walls, pillars, and doors from top to bottom are covered with innumerable inscriptions and representations, which, from the carefulness, exactitude, and elegance of the execution, throw one into ever-increasing astonishment.
Much less important are the few remains to be found of the later foreign dominion. Of these there are only two small temples in the neighbourhood of Medînet Habu, erected under the Ptolemies, and a third may be mentioned, which lies to the south, at the end of the great lake of Medînet Habu. The oldest sculptures in this last temple are of the time of Cæsar Augustus; but the well-preserved cell of Antoninus Pius was already built at that time. The outer door of this temple contains the only representation yet found of the Emperor Otho, the discovery of which afforded an immense pleasure to Champollion and Rosellini. They, however, overlooked the circumstance that on the opposite side the name of the Emperor Galba was to be found, till then unknown in Egypt.
So soon as the time of Strabo, ancient Thebes was already divided into several villages, and Germanicus visited it as we do, out of a desire for knowledge, and respect for the great antiquity of its monuments, “cognoscendæ antiquitatis,” as Tacitus informs us. Decius,A.D.250, is the Emperor’s name, which I have found mentioned in hieroglyphics in all Egypt; it appears in a representation in the temple of Esneh. A century later the holy Athanasius retired into the Theban desert, among the Christian Hermits. The edict of Theodosius against heathendom,A.D.391, deprived the Egyptian temples of their last authority, and favoured that of the monks and hermits, before whom, from that time, Egyptian Christendom bowed down.
From that time there arose in the whole country, and soon after in the neighbourhood of the Upper Nile, innumerable churches and convents, and the caverns of the desert were turned into troglodyte dwellings, for an ascetic hermit population.[99]The Theban Necropolis afforded above all places convenience for this new requisition. The tombs of the kings, as well as the private ones, were used as Christian cells, and soon bore on their walls traces of their new destination. In a tomb at Qurna, there is still a letter from St. Athanasius, archbishop of Alexandria, to the orthodox monks of Thebes, preserved on the white stucco in handsome uncials, but unfortunately in a very fragmentary state. They were particularly fond of turning ancient temples into Koptic churches or convents.
In the temple of Medînet Habu (city of Habu). the largest church appears to have been erected. Immense monolithic, granite columns, cover the floor of the second court in great numbers; in order to make room for the choir, an old Egyptian column,on the north side, has been removed; and from the rooms transformed into priests’ cells there has been a row of doors broken in the outer wall. The adjoining convent, Dêr el Medînet, surnamed “the townley,” was erected near the Ptolemic temple, behind the hill of Qurnet Murrâi. Another church stood in the temple of Old Qurna, and to it belonged most probably the convent Dêr el Bachît, which lies on the hill of Qurna. The ruins of a third convent cover the space of the temple of the Queen Numt-amen, in the corner of the valley of Asasif, and bear the name of Dêr el Bahri, the northern convent.
Such changes in these ancient palace structures ensured their being upheld, sometimes to their advantage, and sometimes to their disadvantage. Numbers of walls were either removed or broken through, in order to make room for new arrangements; on others, the heathen representations were destroyed, in order to make naked walls, or the human figures, and even the figures of animals in the inscriptions, particularly the heads, even up to the roofs were violently hacked and disfigured. Sometimes, however, the same pious, busy hands served us by preserving the ancient glory in the most complete manner; instead of tiring themselves with the hammer, they plastered them over from top to bottom with Nile earth, which afterwards was generally covered with white, in order to receive Christian pictures. In the course of time, however, this Koptic plaster crumbled away, and the ancient painting appeared again, with a brilliancy and astonishing freshness, which they wouldhave hardly retained had they been left uncovered, and exposed to the sun and air. In the niche of an old cell I found St. Peter in old-Byzantine style, holding the keys, and pointing upwards with his finger; out of his nimbus peeped, however, from his half-fallen Christian mantle the cow-horns of the goddess Hathor, the Egyptian Venus; to her was brought originally the incense and the sacrifices of the neighbouring kings, which were now offered to the reverend apostle. Often have I assisted time with my own hand, to loosen the generally uninteresting Koptic representation on the plaster, in order to bring out the hidden magnificent sculptures of the Egyptian gods and kings, to their ancient and greater right upon our studies.
A great part of the Theban population is still Koptic on both sides of the Nile; our Christian cook Siriân was born here, and a rich Kopt, Mustafieh, who does not live far from us, brings us daily most excellent wheaten bread. But for a long time the Arabian Mahommedan population has taken the lead here, as well as in the whole country, against which the Kopts have only ancient customs to bring forward, and their knowledge of calculation, and the right of settlement in the most important financial places.
The little church in which now every Sunday the Theban Christians assemble, lies isolated in the great stony plain south of Medînet Habu. It has an Arabic cupola, and is surrounded by a court and wall. A few days since I went there, as I observed that the black turbans, which are only worn by the Kopts, were going to the chapel in greater numberthan usual. They were celebrating the feast of St. Donadeos, who founded the church. The service was over; I met the old priest (who lived in, and took care of the church), together with his numerous family. The spaces were covered with mats; they showed me the divisions for the men and the women, the little chapels ornamented with gay carvings, the square fonts for christening, and holy water. Upon the reading-desk lay a large old Koptic book, with sections of the Psalms and the Gospels, and Arabic translations of them; I asked the old man if he could read Koptic; he answered in the affirmative, but said his little boy could do it better than he; his eyes had already become weak. I now seated myself upon the mat, and the whole swarm of big and little yellow-brown children and grandchildren of the old priest squatted round me. I asked the eldest boy to read to me, and he immediately, with great fluency, began, not to read, but to sing,i. e.to chaunt in an awkward, grumbling tone. I interrupted him, and requested him to read slowly in his usual voice; this he did with great difficulty and making many mistakes, which his younger brother sometimes corrected over his shoulder; but when I went so far as to ask the meaning of the separate words, he pointed coolly to the Arabic translation, and told me that it was all there, and wanted to read it to me; as to the single words, or the value of the single letters over the sections, he could give no account, and the old man also had doubtless never understood them. I then asked them to show me the rest of the book-treasures belonging to thechurch, they were immediately brought to me, in a large cloth, tied up by the four corners; it contained some much-read Koptic and Arabic prayer-books. I left a small present for the benefit of the church, and I had already ridden some distance, when one of the boys overtook me, and out of breath, brought me a small holy cake of biscuit, stamped with Koptic crosses and Greek inscriptions, which had to be paid for by a second bakshish. These are the Epigoni, the purest, unmixed successors of that ancient Pharoah-people, who formerly conquered Asia and Ethiopia, and led their prisoners from the north and south, into the great hall of Ammon, at Karnak, in whose wisdom Moses was educated, and to whose priesthood the Greek sages went to school.
“O Aegypte, Aegypte! religionum tuarum solae supererunt fabulæ, aeque, incredibiles posteris, solaque supererunt verba lapidibus incisa tua pia facta narrantibus, et inhabitabit Aegyptum Scythes aut Indus aut aliquis talis, id est vicina barbaria.”[100]
Now we know thisaliquis, whom Hermes Trismegistos could not name; it is the Turk, housing now in the regions of Osiris.
At the foot of our hill towards the green plain there stands a fine clump of sont-trees, overshadowing a friendly well-built cistern; here the sheep and goats are daily watered, and every evening and morning the brown maidens and the veiled matrons, in their blue draped garments, come down from their rock-caves, and then return with a solemn step, with their water-jugs on their heads; a lovely picture from the patriarchal times. But hard by this place of the refreshing element there lies in the middle of the fruitful field a white barren spot; on it two kilns are erected, on which, whenever there is any want of material, the next blocks of the old temples and rock-caves, with their paintings and inscriptions, are crushed and burnt into lime for mortar to join other blocks drawn from these handy and inexhaustible quarries, into a stable or some other government buildings.
On the same day on which I had visited the Koptic church, I desired to ride thence to the village of Kôm el Birât, on the opposite side of the great lake of Habu, now dried up. To my no small astonishment my guide, the excellent old ’Auad, whom I have taken into my service on account of his immense acquaintance with the locality, declared to me that he could not accompany me; indeed, he almost dreaded to mention the name of the village, and could not be induced to tell me anything about it, or about his strange behaviour. At home, I first learnt through others, at a later time too from himself, the reason of his refusal. Seven or eight years before, a man was killed in the house of the sheîkh of Qurna, to whose household Ἀuad then belonged, though for what cause does not appear. In consequence of this event, the whole family of the murdered man emigrated hence, and settled in Kôm el Birât. Since that time the law of blood-vengeance exists between the two houses. No member of that family has since set foot on the soil of Qurna, and if Ἀuad, or any one else from the house of the sheikh were to show himself in thatvillage, any member of the injured family would be quite right in killing him in open day.[101]Such is the ancient Arab custom.
I return from my wandering through the ruins of the royal city, and through the changing thousands of years, which have passed over them, to our fort on the exposed hill of Abd el Qurna. Wilkinson and Hay have done an eminent service to later travellers, who, like ourselves, purpose remaining a long time in Thebes, by the restoration of these inhabitable places. An easy broad way leads windingly from the plain to a spacious court, the left side of which towards the mountain is formed by a long shadowy pillared row; behind this are several inhabitable rooms. At the extremity of the court there is still a single watch-tower, whence the Prussian flag is streaming, and close by it a little house of two stories, the lower of which I myself inhabit. Space, too, is there for the kitchen, the servants, and the donkeys.
Incomparably beautiful and attractive is the boundless prospect over the Thebaic plain from the wall of the court, low towards the inside and deep on the outside. Here all that remains of ancient Thebes may be seen, or still better from the battlements of the tower or from the hills immediately behind our house. Before us the magnificent ruins of the Memnonia, from the hill of Qurna on the left, to the high pylones towering over the black ruins of Medînet Habu to the right, then the green region surrounded by the broad Nile, whence on theright the lonely colossi of Amenophis rise; and on the other side of the river the temple groups of Karnak and Luqsor, behind the plain, stretches for several hours to the sharp little undulating outline of the Arabian mountains, over which we see the first rays of the sun gleaming, and pouring a wonderful flood of colours over the valley and rocky desert. I cannot compare this ever-existing prospect with any other in the world; but it reminds me forcibly of the picture, which I had for two years, from the top of the Tarpeian rock, and which comprehended the whole extent of ancient Rome, from the Aventine and the Tiber beneath it to the Quirinal, and thence over the hill to the undulating Campagna, with the beautiful profile, so strikingly like the one here, of the Alvan mount in the back ground.
But our glance never turns on the far-reaching prospect without gliding down to the silver waterway with peculiar attention, and following the pointed sails, which may bring us letters or travellers from the north. Winter here, as everywhere else, is a season of sociability. A week never passes in which we do not see several guests. A visitor’s book, which I have opened here for later travellers, and provided with a preface, was dedicated to that use by our own signatures at the new year. Since then more than thirty names have been entered, although the book is only obtainable at our fort, and will only be delivered up to our worthy castellan ’Auad on our departure.
For Christmas we have for the third time selected a palm, this much nicer symbol than our fir, and decked it with little gifts and lights. Our artists,also, celebrated the gay festival in another symbolical manner; and a Christmas manger, carried out in a typical way, and placed at the end of the rock-gallery, with the proper lights, was particularly successful.