The second immense statue of Ramses is made of limestone, and has the false beard attached to the chin, while the first is smooth faced. Both these statues originally stood before the temple of Ptah.
Besides these solitary relics of the past, nothing marks the site of ancient Memphis save a stately grove of date palms. Yet there is a certain fascination in standing upon the historic spot.
Another donkey ride took us to the tomb of Mereruka. On either side the entrance is an immense bas-relief of this personage, beside him being a very small one of his wife. The walls of this tomb are covered with bas-reliefs portraying the daily life of Mereruka, and in studying them we begin to realize that there is nothing new under the sun. In one place the gentleman is at his toilet table, with his greyhounds crouched under his chair and a pet ape perched upon his shoulder. In another picture his wife is seated beside him on a bed showing springs and mattresses and playing a harp to amuse her lord. Other scenes represent boys wrestling; men with cages containing lions; men and women dancing, with the females posing while the men keep time with their hands; boats upon the Nile; fishermen, cattle feeding, etcetera. The execution is beautiful and the proportions wonderfully perfect. In this tomb are thirty-one rooms, and Mereruka was buried in a central chamber where a large statue of him occupies a niche with an altar in front and a historic stele behind. Figures of his wife and son adorn the sides of the niche.
Next we visited the tomb of Thi, a royal personage famous as the architect and manager of the pyramids. The bas-reliefs in this tomb are considered the finest in all Egypt, as well as the best preserved. They faithfully depict life among the Egyptians five-thousand years ago. It is interesting to note Thi and his wife superintending the fattening of geese, feeding flocks of cranes and watching herds of goats browsing. The pictures also describe the method of slaughtering the cattle, cutting them up, etcetera; and a remarkable scene is one where men are building a boat, and using the same tools we are today familiar with. One is sawing a board, another boring a hole with an augur, and hammers and chisels are also in use. Among the animals depicted are antelope, gazelles, stags, mountain goats and cattle, each being named in the inscription above it. A statue of Thi which was found in this tomb is now in the Museum at Cairo.
A peculiar fact is that the women in these bas-reliefs are always colored yellow, while the men are colored red. The tomb is of historic value because its hieroglyphics so faithfully depict the manners and customs of the ancients, and they show that agricultural conditions have not greatly changed on the Nile bank in five thousand years. We see men plowing the ground about as they do now, sowing seed broadcast, rams treading in the seed, cutting and harvesting of grain, binding sheaves, etc.
After an all too brief inspection of the tombs we rode to the Serepeum, the great tombs of the sacred bulls. They consist of caverns carved out of solid limestone and connected by a narrow passage. It was so dark that we were all obliged to carry lighted candles. Twenty-four of the sacred bulls were buried here, and each was encased in an enormous granite sarcophagus after being carefully embalmed. These huge granite sarcophagi seem larger than the passage that admitted them, and as they are formed of one solid block of granite brought from Aswan it puzzles us to imagine how they were ever placed in these caves. Inscriptions show that the Serapeum cost an immense amount of labor and many human lives, but such sacrifice was deemed small by the bull worshippers, who not only buried these sacred cattle with all the honors accorded to their rulers and other gods, but built a great avenue of sphinxes leading up to the important tomb.
We stopped at Marietta Bey’s house for a time — Marietta being highly honored for his services as one of the earlier discoverers in Egypt. Afterwards we rode around the celebrated Step Pyramid of Sakkhara. It is the only one of its kind in existence, and dates from the third dynasty, so that it is older than the Gizeh pyramids. There are but six steps between the bottom and the top, and the pyramid itself is oblong in shape.
We reached our steamer after having ridden seventeen miles on donkey-back, and we found it an exhausting trip because we were so unused to this mode of locomotion. Next day I slept until noon, while our boat slowly stemmed the current of the river.
te The Nile is a beautiful stream, exceedingly picturesque for every foot of its winding length. The native boats, which we constantly pass, have sails resembling the wings of birds when in flight, and the banks in this section are alive with people herding their sheep, irrigating the land and traveling from village to village on camels and donkeys. The villages are either Coptic or Arabian, and all have mud houses and sheltering groups of tall palms. At our left lies the Arabian desert and its ranges of wonderful mountains; on our right are the cultivated fields, beyond which stretches the Libyan desert. The Nile sunsets are perfectly gorgeous, and I realize that it is impossible to describe them. The sun goes down in a golden ball behind the tracery of the palms, tinting the sky opposite with hues of beautiful pinks, violets and reds. A violet haze hangs over the mountains and permeates the atmosphere. Someone has called it “the violet Nile,” but it is not always so, by any means. One night everything was silver grey, even to the river itself. During the day the highlights on the mountains are superb. How I wish I had the power to describe it all to you! I sometimes wonder if I am fully appreciating all the beauties of this glorious country; but I think I am, so far as I am capable.
This morning the boat stopped at Beni Hassan, and we visited a grotto carved out of the solid rock. The place had a vestibule with eight pillars placed like those of a verandah. The chamber beyond was used as a place of prayer by those about to cross the desert, in which they implored the gods to grant them safe journey. Those returning came here to thank the gods for preserving them. The bas-reliefs are very poor here, although the prayer cavern was built by Queen Makere. A cemetery of mummified cats has been discovered near here.
Mounting our donkeys again we rode to a series of tombs cut from the solid rock. Here reposed many high dignitaries of the early dynasties. Before one of these we found six columns of closed lotus buds, not set in, but carved out of the rock in which the tomb had been excavated. They are richly colored. In these tombs were several mummy shafts, some said to be one hundred feet in length. At the bottom of the shafts were rooms in which the mummies were placed, after which the openings were filled up with blocks of stone. The upper chambers have walls covered thickly with paintings and inscriptions, and from these we find that our civilization has brought us little that was then unknown, except steam and electricity. We have improved upon Egyptian methods in many ways; but to realize how much we owe to this land of tombs you must come here and read these fadeless records of thousands of years gone by.
In one tomb we found the earliest known “Doric” column — sixteen-sided and fluted. The Greeks copied their architecture from the Egyptians, and these columns have come down to our own times, for they are similar to the ones on my old Fayetteville home. Even the cross of the Christians was taken from the Egyptian symbol of Life. The rounded top of the Egyptian cross was afterward used for a halo above the head of Christ, and it is at first hard to realize that this halo above the cross antedates the Christian era. The early Christians, who were Copts, (i e., Egyptians who accepted the religion of Christ) used some of these tombs as school-houses, and wantonly mutilated many of the inscriptions where reference was made to the earlier gods. But some of the pictures remain, and they are intensely interesting. In one place is depicted a delegation of foreigners, probably visitors from Palestine. The women are beautifully dressed, and ride in boats with cabins and canopies. An amusing scene is that of a barber shaving a man, while another is getting a shampoo that is ridiculously modern. Criminals are seen hung by their feet for punishment, and in domestic scenes women are found weaving and spinning much as they do today in these Eastern countries. The occupant of the tomb is usually depicted seated at a sacrificial table, while men and women bring to him wine, grain and cattle. A scribe is often seen wri
ting down a list of the things thus brought. In two of the tombs at Beni Hassan the roofs are divided into three arched sections, which are elaborately decorated.
We returned to the steamer very well pleased with our day’s excursion. Today is Washington’s Birthday, and at dinner L. F. made a neat speech in which he asked all Americans present in this land of tombs to rise and drink a toast to that simple tomb at Mount Vernon so sacred to us all. Every American was on his feet in a second, and the speech made quite a hit.
LETTER VI. THE TEMPLES OF EGYPT
On Board the “Ramses.”
Egypt is the land of tombs and temples, for these solid and imperishable monuments of the world’s first civilization alone remain to mark the days when the Nile bank boasted the most populous, the wealthiest and the most intelligent nation in existence. So a description of the long dead but now awakening Egypt of today must be largely a description of the works of its former era of prosperity.
Since I wrote my last letter we have visited Assuit, one of the most important of the Nile cities. In one of two important tombs there which date from 2500 B.C., I noticed the arched ceiling decorated with the design we call the “Greek Border.” From the fact that the Greek nation did not exist when this border was painted upon this tomb it is clear that the Greeks borrowed it — as they did many other things now called “Greek” — from the ancient Egyptians. The second tomb was remarkable in being called the “Soldiers’ Tomb,” the walls and ceiling being covered with paintings and carvings of companies of soldiers going through maneuvers very similar to those employed by our military of today. They had no fire arms, but they were uniformed and well drilled. Assuit has a fine hospital and is an important commercial town.
For the past two days we have done no “sight seeing,” but steamed lazily up the Nile, which in itself is the most fascinating thing in Egypt. To drink in the glorious sunshine and watch the quaint scenes glide by is a veritable lotus-eating existence. The mountains and the desert follow us always. Sometimes the desert creeps down to the water’s edge; again it leaves a strip of vivid green between it and the Nile to mark the cultivated land; but for great stretches the irrigated fields have pushed the desert many miles toward the mountains, and here lies the wonderful wealth of Egypt.
A busy week is ahead of us, they say. Tomorrow we visit Dendarah, where is the famous temple dedicated to Hathor, the Egyptian Venus. It was in this temple that the zodiac was discovered. By the way, you must understand that Egyptian temples were not places of worship, but store-houses or treasuries for sacred things, and schools and dwellings for the priests. Aside from the priests, no one but the reigning king and important members of the royal family was ever allowed to enter the inner chambers. The Egyptian religion was essentially one of processions, rather than concourses. The bas-reliefs and paintings prove this conclusively.
Here’s another “by the way”: To the Egyptian the Sphinx is the transformed Horus, the avenger of his father Osiris. He is facing the East and awaiting his father’s return from the netherworld, where he has gone to judge the dead. In front of the Sphinx is an inscription to Osiris dating from the era of Horns himself — long before Mena, who is the first known king of Egypt.
After an early breakfast we mounted our donkeys to visit Dendarah, which lies several miles inland. The day was beautiful and we found the temple wonderfully interesting. First you enter the Great Vestibule, supported by twenty-four Hathor-headed columns. The ceiling is tinted to represent heaven’s own blue, and on it are many winged suns, as well as the signs of the zodiac, the twelve hours of the day and the twelve hours of the night. Each hour of the day is surmounted by a sun, while each hour of the night has a star above it. Every hour has its separate guardian in attendance. The Egyptian year was three-hundred and sixty days, and every one of these days is pictured. The walls of the temple proper are covered with figures illustrating the preparations of the king to celebrate the great New Year’s festival, which was held on the twenty-first day of June, the longest day of the year and the one which marked the beginning of summer. Beyond the vestibule is the entrance hall, the assembly hall, and the hall of the Sacred Boat, or Ark of the Covenant. The king was the only one ever admitted into this last apartment, and then but once each year and only after he had purified himself and sacrificed to the gods.
The Temple of Dendarah has twenty-one separate chambers, each one sculptured with elaborate descriptions of the uses for which it was intended. Below the temple were crypts where were stored the statues of gold and silver and other paraphernalia used in the festivals and processions held in honor of Hathor. We descended into these crypts, bearing lighted candles, and found the bas-reliefs covering the walls very beautiful, their coloring being unimpaired in freshness since the ages in which they were executed. The complexion of Hathor’s skin is light buff, that of all the kings is red, and that of Osiris is blue. The workmanship of these sculptures is exceedingly fine. Hathor’s face expressed purity and love divine. She was the daughter of the Sun.
Along the wall of the stairway leading to the roof of the temple is depicted a procession of priests, headed by the king. They are on their way to the roof with the sacred boat or covenant, and are carrying banners and offerings of many sorts. The wall on the other side of the staircase represents the procession coming down again. On the lower roof is erected a small temple devoted to the worship of the slain and risen Osiris. The bas-reliefs covering the walls show (1) Osiris lying dead; (2) lying in his tomb with his two sisters kneeling besides him; (3) being conducted by Anubis to the netherworld; (4) a scribe recording his good deeds; (5) a dove perching upon his body to give him renewed life; (6) Osiris rising from his tomb. There are appropriate inscriptions upon the walls describing how he was slain by his enemies but triumphed over them and arose from the dead.
In one of the rooms of the temple is a curious relief of the goddess Nut standing upon the water. This figure is so enormous in size that it reaches up one wall, across the ceiling and down the opposite wall. Her legs occupy all of the first wall, her body the ceiling, her head and outstretched arms the other wall, so that her hands nearly touch the floor. From her mouth issues the sun, depicting life; from her lap rises another sun, with its rays shining on the head of Hathor. It was in this room, a really beautiful and impressive place, that the services of the priests were held.
The outer walls of the temple are carved with many pictures of the Roman emperors in the costumes of Egyptian kings, offering sacrifice to Hathor. Our attention was especially called to a picture of Cleopatra and her son Cœsarion, which in her lifetime was carved upon the rear wall of the Dendarah temple by her own orders. The face of the famous queen is crafty, subtle and voluptuous. A description of it is said to have inspired Shakespeare to immortalize her in his play. The inscription is one of the few marks of her era that Cleopatra left in Egypt. She was by no means one of Egypt’s greatest queens.
The columns of Hathor supporting the vestibule, to which I have referred, are fifty-eight feet in heighth and very massive. At the top of each column is carved the face of Hathor. Although important, the temple of Dendarah is comparatively modern, dating from only fifty-seven years before the Christian era. Yet it is built on the foundations of a very ancient Egyptian temple destroyed by the Persians in the time of Cambyses’ invasion. The present structure is remarkable in that neither iron, wood nor plaster is used. Each stone was marked at the quarry and numbered, and they are all fitted by means of keystones. Before the temple stands the ruin of the pylon, but the obelisks and avenues of sphinxes which belonged to every ancient temple have entirely disappeared.
We have been very busy since I wrote my last installment. The weather is hotter than our summer days at home, yet some days we have traveled fifteen miles on donkey-back. Fortunately we are both well and full of enthusiasm and interest, so that we don’t mind such slight discomforts — a small price to pay for our glorious experiences.
Tuesday we reached Luxor, and at once s
tarted to visit the noblest architectural monument ever designed and executed by human endeavor — the great Temple of Karnak.
Although it still remains the most immense structure in the world, it makes one shudder to remember that every stone assembled there cost at least one human life.
The Temple of Karnak was constructed through many generations by successive kings of Egypt, one vying with another to outdo the accomplishments of his predecessors. For instance, the Hall of Pillars, having one-hundred and thirty-four gigantic columns, was begun by Seti I, who erected seventy-nine of them during his lifetime. Ramses I set up but one, but the remainder were installed by Ramses II. The central pillars are seventy-eight feet in heighth and forty-six feet in circumference. Formerly this vast hall was completely roofed, but only a few stones of the roof now remain in place, the others having fallen. Near the top of the walls horizontal slits were cut for windows. The columns are of red sandstone, set up in drums or sections. The great monoliths are in other parts of the temple. These pillars, however, are richly carved and colored.
The Temple of Karnak was built facing the Nile, and from the pylon an avenue of immense ram-headed sphinxes led to the river. At the foot of the avenue a bridge of boats spanned the river, where began the great road to the Tombs of the Kings. This avenue of sphinxes still remains in an excellent state of preservation.
Complete Works of L. Frank Baum Page 897
