The Rape of the Nile

by Brian Fagan

  FIGURE 5.2 A saqquia, the traditional Nile waterwheel driven by an ox. Photograph by the famed Antarctic photographer Frank Hurley, taken between 1938 and 1945. By permission of the National Library of Australia, Canberra.

  6

  The Young Memnon

  On the wall of the rock, in the centre of the four statues, is the figure

  of the hawk-headed Osiris, surmounted by a globe; beneath

  which, I suspect, could the sand be cleared away, a vast temple

  would be discovered to the entrance of which the above colossal figures

  probably serve as ornaments.

  JOHANN LUDWIG BURCKHARDT,

  Travels of M. Burckhardt in Egypt and Nubia, on Abu Simbel

  Belzoni’s demonstration failed just as Henry Salt, the new British consul general, arrived in Cairo. Salt had traveled with Hamilton’s fateful Foreign Office memorandum about antiquities in his baggage and was anxious to find a new Rosetta stone as soon as possible. When he arrived at Bulaq, the plague season had enveloped Cairo. He was obliged to lodge in the same dilapidated house that the Belzonis had camped in a year before. There he met Sheik Ibrahim, a tall and prematurely old man who looked and behaved like an Arab, although he was in fact a Swiss native—Johann Ludwig Burckhardt (1784–1817).

  Burckhardt was a remarkable scholar, an expert linguist and chemist with a passion for travel. After his family was ruined in the Napoleonic Wars, Burckhardt emigrated to England, where he studied Arabic at Cambridge.

  He then met with Sir Joseph Banks, the president of the newly formed African Association, and offered to explore the sources of the Niger River, at that time a point of some geographic controversy. The association gave him an exiguous allowance and agreed that he could spend two years in Syria perfecting his Arabic before leaving by caravan for Central Africa. Burckhardt promptly steeped himself in Arab life and became so proficient in Arabic and the Koran that Islamic scholars proclaimed him an authority on Islamic law. In 1812 he turned up in Cairo, having adopted the name Sheik Ibrahim ibn Abdullah. His vague objective was to join a caravan journeying across the Sahara to the Fezzan and West Africa. Few caravans were to be found, so he filled in the time by journeying up the Nile as far as Dongola, deep in Nubia, and then making a side trip to the Red Sea. At this point, he was so close to Mecca that it seemed logical to make the pilgrimage and to visit the tomb of the Prophet at Medina. Burckhardt had returned to Cairo at about the same time as Turner and the Belzonis.

  This emaciated and weary traveler had an extraordinary amount of knowledge of Islam and the Nile. His surviving letters and notes, which were later converted into splendid books, reveal him as a superlative observer of the trivial and of the important, a man who was totally wrapped up in the world of Islam. He was the first European to visit the magnificent Abu Simbel temples below the Second Cataract in ancient Egypt’s Nubia.

  Burckhardt had not been impressed by Abu Simbel at first, for he came on the facade from above, looking down from the cliffs above the temple. It was only when he turned upstream a little way that he caught sight of one of the four colossal statues that formed the facade of Rameses II’s largest temple. The statues were almost completely buried in sand, so he had to guess what lay underneath. “Could the sand be cleared away, a vast temple would be discovered,” he remarked prophetically. And he was vastly impressed by the single exposed head, which had, he wrote, “a most expressive, youthful countenance, approaching nearer to the Grecian model of beauty than that of any ancient Egyptian figure I have seen.”1

  Burckhardt’s journeys and observations made him a fascinating and perceptive companion whom Belzoni seems to have been at some pains to cultivate. It was from Burckhardt that he heard of the Abu Simbel temples and the great statues buried in sand. The Swiss wanderer also mentioned another interesting find. While spending a few days near Thebes, Burckhardt had come across a colossal granite head of singular beauty, known to visitors as “the Young Memnon,” lying abandoned in the Ramesseum (Rameses II’s mortuary temple) on the west bank of the Nile. The head— in fact depicting Rameses II—was well known to antiquarians, for it had been described by diplomat William Hamilton in an authoritative but extraordinarily dull book on Egyptian archaeology as the most beautiful piece of Egyptian sculpture along the Nile. The French had also appreciated its worth and had tried to remove it, without success, despite having all the resources of an army at their backs.

  Burckhardt heard of the French efforts from the local people and had even thought vaguely of removing the head himself. Back in Cairo, he suggested that the pasha might give the head to Britain’s Prince Regent as a gift, but Muhammad Ali had scoffed at the idea. What monarch, he asked, would want a mere block of stone?

  Meanwhile, Belzoni was in a perilous financial position. Then he remembered the Memnon head and went to see Burckhardt. The traveler was sympathetic, but certainly did not have the money to pay for the transportation of the statue all the way to England. But Henry Salt was much more amenable. Belzoni was a godsend to a diplomat thinking of his antiquities-greedy superiors in London. He immediately obtained the necessary firman to remove the statue from the pasha and gave Belzoni a letter of instructions, which charged him with the responsibility of bringing the head down the Nile. The consul directed him “to prepare the necessary implements, at Bulaq, for the purpose of carrying the head of the statue of the younger Memnon, and carrying it down the Nile.” The letter gave instructions about recruitment of labor and a boat crew, information on expenditures, and specific guidance on how to identify the head. “It must not be mistaken for another, lying in that neighborhood, which is much mutilated,” the letter cautioned.2

  Belzoni threw himself into a fever of preparations, hiring a boat and scouring Bulaq and Cairo for suitable lifting devices. All he was able to obtain were a few poles and some palm-fiber ropes. Evidently, he would have to improvise locally. On June 30, 1816, the Belzonis left by boat for Thebes, accompanied by James Curtin and a Copt interpreter.

  This was the first time that Belzoni had been any distance upstream of Cairo, so he paused at intervals to look at places on the way. The party took six days to reach Manfalut, where they met the pasha’s son Ibrahim on his way to Cairo. Drovetti was with Ibrahim’s party, laden with antiquities he had collected near Thebes. He seems to have welcomed Belzoni warmly, although he had heard that he was on his way upstream to remove the great head. Drovetti warned that the Arabs at Thebes were refusing to work, and—one suspects rather cynically—presented Belzoni with a beautiful granite sarcophagus cover, which was, however, still firmly embedded in a rock-cut tomb near Thebes, all efforts to remove it having failed.

  At Asyut a little farther upstream, a town “celebrated for the making of eunuchs,” Belzoni called on the local governor and presented his credentials, but he had great difficulty in obtaining boats, materials, and carpenters. Excuses were made—the stone was useless, and permission to obtain workers would not be granted. Then he became more explicit. “He plainly recommended to me not to meddle in this business, for I should meet with many disagreeable things, and have many obstacles to encounter.”3 Obviously, Drovetti had been at work, hoping to secure the head for himself. But he had sadly underestimated Belzoni’s determination. With the aid of his interpreter, he hired a Greek carpenter.

  On July 18 they were at Dendera and paused to admire the magnificent temple of Hathor so ably described by Dominique-Vivant Denon. They examined the famous round zodiac of the first century AD in the temple ceiling, which showed the sky as it was known to the Egyptians and Greeks. An abandoned village lay on the temple roof. The local people seemed to have little respect for the shrine, except as a place to live above flood level.

  Four days later the expedition arrived at Thebes. Transported with wonder, Belzoni wandered among the ruins of the temples of Karnak and Luxor. He waxed lyrical over the temples and statuary: “It appeared to me like entering a city of giants, who, after a long conflict, were all destroye
d, leaving the ruins of their former temples as the only proof of their former existence.”4

  Belzoni soon crossed to the west bank to examine the head of the “Young Memnon” in Rameses II’s mortuary temple, the Ramesseum, that was the objective of his expedition. “I found it near the remains of its body and chair, with its face upwards, and apparently smiling on me, at the thought of being taken to England,” he wrote.5 Belzoni was impressed by its beauty, but not by its size, which was less than he had been led to expect. Even so, he had a formidable task ahead of him. All he had at his disposal were fourteen poles, four palm ropes, and four rollers. There were no tackles, nor could he obtain more timber in a treeless environment. The task would have been almost impossible to anyone but a former theatrical strongman. Within hours, the party had a base camp: a small and comfortable stone hut constructed from loose boulders from the temple. While his carpenter made a crude car out of eight of the Cairo poles, Belzoni examined the flood level of the river, which would be lapping at the edge of the temple within a month. Unless the head was dragged to the riverbank before the inundation, it would have to remain in place for another year. Any delay would be fatal, for Belzoni knew well that others were after the trophy.

  He set out to recruit eighty workers and soon found that Drovetti’s evil influence had been at work. The local Turkish administrator received Belzoni politely, even effusively, but was far from helpful. He claimed that all the local peasants were busy in the fields, which was untrue. Belzoni saw dozens of men idling in the villages. Furthermore, it was Ramadan, and Belzoni should wait until after the flood. In any case, he added, the local people would rather starve than undertake such an arduous task. Belzoni persisted and stood on the instructions in his firman. Reluctantly, the headman promised to find men on the morrow, and Belzoni departed well satisfied. But several frustrating days and many bribes were needed before work would actually begin on July 27.

  Belzoni wasted no time. He knew the power of levers from his theatrical years and simply worked four long timbers under the edge of the statue, using the combined weight of dozens of men working in unison to heave up the dead weight of the stone. As the levers moved the Memnon higher, Belzoni deftly slipped the wooden car under it. The men were convinced the head would never be moved and gave a great shout when the levers shifted it. “Though it was the effect of their own efforts, it was the devil, they said, that did it; and as they saw me taking notes, they concluded it was done by means of a charm,” Belzoni remarked with satisfaction. 6 Next, he used the levers once more to lift the loaded car at both it was done by means of a charm,” Belzoni remarked with satisfaction.6 Next, he used the levers once more to lift the loaded car at both ends, so he could place rollers underneath. By the end of the day, the Memnon had moved some distance toward the Nile. While most of the workers pulled on ropes, others moved rollers from back to front to keep the car moving.

  The next day, the head was out of the temple, although Belzoni had to break the bases of two columns to get it out. Despite great suffering from the heat, the men moved the Memnon more than 180 meters (200 yards) in the next two days. Then the ground became sandy and the head sank into the soil, so they had to make a detour of an extra 275 meters (300 yards).

  FIGURE 6.1 The triumphal progress of the Young Memnon. From the watercolor by Giovanni Belzoni.

  All went well until August 5, when the car reached an area of low-lying floodplain that would be inundated by the Nile within a few days. There was no time to be lost. Early in the morning Belzoni arrived to find only the guards and the carpenter, but no workmen. The headman had forbidden the laborers to work for a Christian dog any longer. Belzoni confronted him angrily in Thebes and received “saucy answers.” He attempted patience and kind words, which merely encouraged the official to more insolence, mistaking Belzoni’s forbearance for weakness. As the Turk drew his sword, Belzoni remembered his experience with angry soldiers in Cairo where decisive behavior had paid off. “There was no time to be lost; I gave him no leisure to execute his purpose. I instantly seized and disarmed him, placing my hands on his stomach, and making him sensible of my superiority, at least in point of strength, by keeping him firm in a corner of the room.”7 After giving the fellow a good shaking, Belzoni told him that he would report his behavior to the pasha. Further bribery was needed before local officialdom was placated with a pistol. The next morning the head was moving again.

  Five days later Belzoni was able to write, “Thank God, the young Memnon arrived on the bank of the Nile.” He gave the laborers a bonus payment of sixpence each in addition to their wages, “with which they were exceedingly pleased.”8

  The next requirement was a boat, but all available river craft were in the service of the pasha. So a letter was sent to Cairo asking Salt to send one to Thebes. In the meantime, two guards were posted at the site and an earthen bank built around the loaded car.

  Belzoni now turned his energetic thoughts toward the sarcophagus that Drovetti had given him. It lay inside a burial cave in the hills behind Qurna, one of the sepulchers that were famous for the fine mummies they contained. Accompanied by two Arab guides and interpreters, Belzoni removed most of his clothes, lit candles, and squeezed his way into a narrow cavity in the rock, which extended a fair distance into the hill. The party passed through a labyrinth of burial passages until Belzoni was completely lost. He stumbled upon the sarcophagus, but the guides tried, without avail, to hide the best way to take it out from him.

  Belzoni set men to work cleaning the passage to the sarcophagus, only to discover three days later that the local headman had imprisoned his workmen “bound like thieves.” Drovetti’s agents had arrived from Alexandria and become alarmed at Belzoni’s success and determination. The headman informed Belzoni that the lid had been sold to Drovetti and that was the end of the matter. “I feigned to be quite unconcerned about the matter, as well as about the Arabs he had put in prison,” he recorded.9 Playing for time, he promised to write to Cairo about the matter, and turned his attention to other sites.

  ::

  Having time to kill, Belzoni decided to travel farther upstream, both out of curiosity and also with a view to purchasing more antiquities. His boat could go wherever he wished it to proceed without further cost, and it seemed logical, with the Young Memnon stuck on the bank of the Nile and the matter of the sarcophagus unresolved, to see what lay upstream of well-exploited and highly suspicious Thebes.

  The boat trip upstream from Thebes to the First Cataract is normally an uneventful one. The traveler passes through intensively cultivated countryside, with small villages clustered on the higher ground that escapes inundation each August. For the Belzonis, every bend in the river was a new adventure, enlivened by night stops in small towns and villages where they called on the local headmen or entertained them aboard their boat.

  Kom Ombo, Aswan, and the island of Elephantine were pleasant interludes in the monotony of river travel where the travelers visited temples and Coptic chapels. Belzoni was disappointed in Elephantine, with its Nilometer and shrines to the creator god, Khnum. He had read the rapturous accounts of it penned by earlier travelers. Perhaps his disappointment was due to the hazardous ferry crossing. Nine people—one of them the massive Belzoni—crammed themselves into a matting and palm-fiber boat only 3 meters long and 1.5 meters wide (10 feet by 5 feet). “It cost, when new, twelve piasters, or six shillings,” he remarked.10

  The First Cataract breaks the serenity of the river at Aswan. Belzoni tried to hire a boat to take him upstream to the island of Philae and into Nubia. The local governor made the mistake of trying to bargain with the Italian, who argued with such determination that the official eventually let him have a boat for the local price. The agreed fare for the return trip to the Second Cataract was $20, a lot less than the governor’s original asking price of $120.

  On August 27, 1816, they came to Philae. “Long before the rising of the sun, I stood at the stern, waiting for the light to unveil that goodly sight
, the beautiful island of Philae,” Belzoni recalled. “When I beheld it, it surpassed everything that imagination could anticipate.” The wind was so favorable that they paused for the briefest of visits, resolving to return for a more leisurely inspection on the downstream passage. But he did spot “an obelisk of granite about twenty-two feet in length” close to the water and quietly noted it for future removal.11

  Upstream of the Cataract, the Belzonis found themselves in territory where the pasha’s authority counted for little. The day after they left Philae, a group of natives appeared while the crew was ashore. Soon, armed warriors with spears were swarming around the boat. Only the Belzonis and their interpreter were on board. They all grabbed pistols, and Belzoni gestured at the natives to keep away. “I then stepped forward, and with my right hand prevented the first of them from entering the boat, while I held the pistol in my left. At last I pointed a pistol at him, making signs, that, if he did not retire, I would shoot at him.”12 Once again, Belzoni’s decisive behavior had prevented trouble.

  They were now in less well-known country, where Belzoni relied on notes given him by Burckhardt. At Kalabsha, they inspected the large temple near the river.13 A large crowd of armed locals blocked the entrance as they turned to leave and demanded money. Belzoni drew himself up to his full and imposing height, told them he would not give them money under duress, stared them in the face, and walked through the crowd unmolested. Later he was able to buy some tombstones with Greek inscriptions.