himself, the other two his wife Nefert-Ari. These statues, which are
about 34 feet high, are separated one from another by eight
buttresses, two of them acting as jambs for the door, above which
they unite and become a wide band of flat carving marking the centre
of the façade. The gentle salience of these buttresses forms a
framework for the statues (see Fig. 242), which are chiselled with great care and skill in the fine yellow sandstone of which the
mountain consists.
The façade of the Great Temple is much larger. It is about 130 feet
wide by 92 high. It is not divided by buttresses like the other, but it
has a bold cornice made up of twenty-two cynocephalic figures
seated with their hands upon their knees. Each of these animals is
sculptured in the round, and is only connected with the face of the
rock by a small part of its posterior surface. They are not less than
seven feet high. A frieze, consisting of a dedicatory inscription carved
in deep and firmly drawn hieroglyphs runs below the cornice. Above
the doorway a colossal figure of Ra is carved in the rock, and on each
side of him Rameses is depicted in low relief, in the act of adoration.
This group occupies the middle of the façade. But the most striking
feature of the building is supplied by the four colossi of Rameses
placed two and two on either side of the door. They
413
are the largest in Egypt. From the sole of the feet to the apex of the
pschent which the king bears on his head, they are about sixty-five
feet in height. Rameses is seated, his hands upon his thighs, in the
pose ordinarily made use of for the royal statues at the entrances of
the temples. In spite of these enormous dimensions the workmanship
is very fine. The countenance, especially, is remarkable for its
combination of force and sweetness, an expression which has been
noticed by all the travellers who have written upon Ipsamboul.
Fig. 242.—Façade of the smaller temple at Ipsamboul.
Fig. 243.—Plan of the smaller temple. Fig. 244.—Perspective of
the principal chamber in the smaller temple; from Horeau.
Fig. 245.—Longitudinal section of the smaller temple; from
Horeau. Fig. 246.—Plan of the Great Temple.
The interiors of the two temples are still more different than the
exteriors, and, in this instance, the variations are entirely in favour of
the greater monument. The total depth of the smaller edifice is about
ninety feet. A single hall, supported by six square Hathor-headed
pillars, precedes the sanctuary. The latter is nothing but a narrow
gallery, in the middle of which a small
414
chamber or niche is cut, in which the rock-carved cow of Hathor may
be seen with a statue between its legs. The other temple is a great
deal larger. Its total length is about 180 feet. The first hall is 60 feet
long and 53 wide; the roof is supported by eight pillars, against each
of which a colossal figure 33 feet high is placed. A doorway in the
middle of the further side leads to a second chamber not quite so
large as the first, and supported by four thick square pillars. Three
openings in its furthest side lead to a third chamber, as wide as the
second, but only 10 feet deep. Through this the innermost parts of the
speos are reached; they consist of three small chambers, those on
the left and right being very small indeed, while that in the centre, the
adytum, is about 13 feet by 23. In the middle of this chamber was an
altar, or table for offerings; at the back of it a bench with four seated
statues. The walls of both temples are covered with pictures like
those of Luxor, Karnak, and the Ramesseum. They represent
417
the battles and triumphs of Rameses, and the king seated upon the
laps of goddesses, who act as the tenderest of nurses.
Fig. 247.—Perspective of the principal hall in the Great
Temple; from Horeau.
Besides the halls which form the main body of the temple, the plan
shows eight lateral chambers, some perpendicular to the major axis
of the building, others falling upon it obliquely. Several of these do not
seem to have been finished. There are indications that they were
utilized as depositories for the objects worshipped in the temple.
Fig. 248.—Façade of the Great Temple at Ipsamboul.
We have now briefly noticed the principal rock-cut temples in Egypt
and Nubia. Neither in plan nor in decoration do they materially differ
from the temples of wrought masonry. The elements of the building
are the same, and they are arranged in the same order—an avenue
of sphinxes when there is room for it, colossi before the entrance, a
colonnaded court, a hypostyle hall acting as a pronaos, a naos with
its secos, or sanctuary; but sometimes one, sometimes many of
these divisions are excavated in the living rock. Sometimes only the
sanctuary is subterranean, sometimes the hypostyle hall is included,
and at Ipsamboul the whole temple is in the mountain, from the secos
to those colossal statues which generally form the preface to the
pylon of the constructed temple.
Fig. 249.—Longitudinal section of the Great Temple; from
Horeau.
Except in the case of the peristylar court, the interior of the rock-cut
temple did not differ so much in appearance from that of the
constructed edifice as might at first be imagined. We have already
explained how scantily lighted was the interior of the Egyptian temple;
its innermost chambers were plunged in almost complete darkness,
so that the absolute night which was involved in their being excavated
in the heart of a mountain was no very
418
great change from the obscurity caused by the thick walls and heavy
roofs of the edifices in the plain. In the case of a hemi-speos the
internal effect must have been almost identical with that of any other
religious building. In the great temple of Ipsamboul the daylight does
not penetrate beyond the second hall; from that point onwards
artificial light is necessary to distinguish objects, but the Egyptians
were so thoroughly accustomed to a mysterious solemnity of shadow,
to a "dim religious light," in their temples, that the darkness of the
speos would seem no drawback in their eyes.
The column occurs very seldom in these subterranean temples.[361]
Even those chambers which correspond to the hypostyle hall by their
places in the excavation and the general characteristics of their form,
are hardly ever supported by anything but the rectangular piers in use
in the early ages of the monarchy; but these piers are often clothed
with an elaborate decoration which is unknown in the works of the
primitive architects. This preference for the pier is easily to be
explained by the necessity for having supports of sufficient strength
and solidity to bear the weight of the superincumbent mountain.
Another and more constant peculiarity of the underground temples, is
the existence in them of one or more seated statues carved from
masses of rock expressly left in the furthest recesses of the
excavation. These statues, which represent the presiding deity of the
place and his acolytes, do not occur in the constructed temples. In
the latter the tabernacle which stood in the secos was too small to
hold anything larger than a statuette or emblem. We think that the
cause of this difference may be guessed. At the time these rock
temples were cut, the Pharaohs to whom they owed their existence
no doubt assigned a priest or priests to each. But their position,
sometimes in desert solitudes, as in the case of the Speos Artemidos,
sometimes in places only inhabited for an intermittent period, in the
quarries at Silsilis for instance, or in provinces which had been
conquered by Egypt and might be lost to her again, rendered it
impossible that they could be served and guarded in the ample
fashion which was easy enough in the temples of Memphis, Abydos
and Thebes. All these considerations suggested that, instead of a
shrine containing
421
some small figure or emblem, statues of a considerable size, from six
to eight or ten feet high, should be employed, and that they should be
actually chiselled in the living rock itself and left attached to it by the
whole of their posterior surfaces. By their size and by their
incorporation with the rock out of which both they and their
surroundings were cut, such statues would defend themselves
efficiently against all attempts on the part of enemies. In spite of their
age several of these statues came down to us in a sufficiently good
state of preservation to allow Champollion and his predecessors to
recognize with certainty the divine personages whom they
represented. During the last fifty years they have suffered as much at
the hands of ignorant and stupid tourists as they did in the whole of
the many centuries during which they were exposed to all the
vicissitudes of Egyptian history.[362]
Fig. 250.—Dayr-el-Bahari; according to M. Brune.
Our study of the Egyptian temple would not be complete without a
few words upon the buildings called Dayr-el-Bahari.[363] By their extent, their picturesqueness, and the peculiar nature of their
situation, these ruins have always had a great effect upon foreign
visitors. Those who know Thebes will, perhaps, be surprised at our
having said so little about them hitherto, especially as they are older
than most of the buildings over which we have been occupied. We
have not yet described them because they do not belong to any of
the categories which we have been treating; they form a class by
themselves; their general arrangement has no parallel in Egypt, and
therefore we have reserved them to the last.
The building in question is situated at the foot of the Libyan chain, in
a deep amphitheatre hollowed out by nature in the yellow limestone
rocks which rise on the north-west of the necropolis. On two sides, on
the right and at the back, it rests against perpendicular walls of rock
cut by the pickaxe and dominating over the built part of the temple.
On the left this natural wall is absent and is replaced by an inclosure
of bricks (Figs. 250 and 251).
422
Under such conditions we need feel no surprise at finding part of the
temple subterranean. In backing his work against the mountains in
this fashion the architect must have been partly impelled by a desire
to make use of the facilities which it afforded. The mausoleum of
Hatasu, unlike the other funerary chapels at Thebes, is, then, a triple
hemispeos. At a point immediately opposite to the door in the external
pylon, but at the other extremity of the building, a chamber about
sixty-five feet deep was excavated in the rock. This must have acted
the part of a sanctuary. Right and left of it, and at a shorter distance
from the entrance, there are two more groups of rock-cut apartments.
The whole arrangement may be compared to the system of three
apsidal chapels which is so common at the east end of European
cathedrals.
In approaching this temple from the river bank, a dromos of sphinxes
had to be traversed of which very scanty traces are now to be found,
but in the time of the Institut d'Égypte there were still two hundred of
them to be distinguished, a few of the last being shown in the
restoration figured upon the opposite page (Fig. 251). At the end of the dromos, upon the spot where a few traces of the bounding walls
still remain, we have placed a pylon with a couple of obelisks in front
of it. We have done so not only because nearly all the important
temples had such a preface, but also because Sir Gardner Wilkinson
says that he saw the foundations of two obelisks and of a doorway.
After passing the pylon, a first courtyard was entered, which
communicated with a second by an inclined plane stretching almost
across its width.[364] Here the arrangements which constituted the real originality of Dayr-el-Bahari began. The whole interior of the temple,
between the pylon and the commencement of the speos, consisted of
four courtyards, rising in terraces one above another like the steps of
a gigantic staircase. The walls upon which these inclined planes and
terraces were constructed are still to be traced in places. In order to
furnish the vast courts, we have supposed them to contain seated
statues at regular intervals along the inner faces of their walls; in such
matters of
425
decorative detail a little conjecture may perhaps be allowed.[365] As for the portico which ornamented the further side of the second court, its
remains were visible even before the excavations of Mariette.[366]
Fig. 251.—Restoration in perspective of Dayr-el-Bahari, by Ch.
Chipiez.
Those excavations have since 1858 led to the discovery of the
porticos of the third court. There seems to have been only a plain wall
on the left of this court, while on the right there was a long colonnade
which masked a number of chambers cut in the rock which rose
immediately behind it. Facing the entrance to the court there was also
a colonnade which was cut in two by the steps leading to the fourth
and highest terrace. In the middle of this terrace a line doorway
leading to the principal speos was raised. While all the rest of the
temple was of limestone, this doorway was built of fine red granite, a
distinction which is to be explained by its central situation, facing the
gateway in the pylon though far above it, and forming the culminating
point of the long succession of terraces and inclined planes. The
attention of the visitor to the temple would be instantly seized by the
beauty and commanding position of this doorway, which, moreover,
by its broad and mysterious shadows, suggested the secos hidden in
the flanks of the mountains, to which all the courts were but the
prelude.
These terraced courts have surprised all visitors to the cenotaph of
Hatasu. "No one will deny," says Mariette, "that the temple of Dayr-el-
Bahari is a strange construction, and that it resembles an Egyptian
temple as little as possible! "[367] Some have thought 426
foreign influence was to be traced in its arrangements. "Are we to
consider it an accident, asks Ebers, that the stepped building at Dayr-
el-Bahari was built shortly after an Egyptian army had, under
Thothmes, trodden the soil of Mesopotamia for the first time, and
found monumental buildings constructed in terraces in its great
cities? Why did the Egyptians, who as a rule were so fond of
repeating themselves that they became almost incapable of inventing
new forms, never imitate the arrangements of this imposing building
elsewhere, unless it was because its forms reminded them of their
foreign enemies and therefore seemed to be worthy of
condemnation? "[368]
We are content with asking the question and with calling attention to
its interest. The materials are wanting for a definite answer but the
suggestion of Professor Ebers is probable enough. Twelve or thirteen
centuries later the Persians, after their conquest of Egypt, carried
back with them the notion of those hypostyle halls which gave to the
buildings of Persepolis so different an aspect from those of Assyria,
although the decorative details were all borrowed from the latter
country. So too the Egyptians, in spite of the pride which they felt in
their ancient civilization, may have been unable to control their
admiration when they found themselves, in the wide plains of Persia,
before those lofty towers with their successive terraces, to which
access was obtained by majestic flights of steps. It seems by no
means unlikely that one of their architects should have attempted to
acclimatize an artistic conception which was so well calculated to
impress the imaginations of the people; and none of the sovereigns of
Egypt was better fitted to preside over such an attempt than the high
spirited and enterprising Hatasu, the queen who reared two obelisks
in the temple of Karnak, one of them being the highest that has
remained erect; who made the first recorded attempt at
acclimatization;[369] and who was the first to launch a fleet upon the waters of the Red Sea.
427
Whether Hatasu's architect was inspired by those artistic creations of
the Chaldees which, as time went on, were multiplied over the whole
basin of the Euphrates and even spread as far as northern Syria, or
whether he drew his ideas entirely from his own brain, his work was,
in either case, deserving of high praise. In most parts of the Nile
Valley sites are to be found which lend themselves readily to such a
building. The soil has a gentle slope, upon which the erection of
successive terraces would involve no architectural difficulties, and
there is no lack of rocky walls against which porticoes could be
erected, and in which subterranean chambers could be excavated.
Upon a series of wide platforms and easy gradients like these, the
pompous processions, which played such an important part in the
Egyptian ritual, could defile with great effect, while under every
portico and upon every landing place they could find resting places
and the necessary shelter from the sun. Why did such a model find
no imitators? Must we seek for the reason in the apparent reaction
against her memory which followed the death of Hatasu? "The
Egyptian people chose to look upon her as an usurper; they defaced
the inscriptions which celebrated her campaigns; they effaced her
cartouches and replaced her titles with those of her brothers."[370]
It is certain that nowhere in Egypt has any building of considerable
dimensions been discovered in which the peculiar arrangements of
Dayr-el-Bahari are repeated. At most it may be said that something of
the same kind is to be found in those rock-cut temples of Nubia which
are connected with the river bank by a dromos and flights of steps.
When the princes of the nineteenth dynasty wished to raise funerary
temples to their memory in their own capital, it would have been easy,
had they chosen, to find sites upon the slopes of the western chain
similar to that which Hatasu had employed with such happy results;
but they preferred a different combination. They erected their
cenotaphs in the plain, at some distance from the hills, and they
chose a form which did not essentially differ from that of the great
temples on the opposite bank of the Nile.
The religious architecture of Egypt, in all its richness and variety, is
known to us only through the monuments of the second Theban
Empire, through the great works of the kings belonging to the
eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties. We are
428
tempted, however, to believe that the architects of the Sait period
must have introduced fresh beauties into the plans, proportions, and
decorations of those temples which the princes of the twenty-sixth
dynasty, in their desire that their capital and the other cities of the
Delta should rival or excel the magnificence of Memphis and Thebes,
confided to their skill. Both the statues and the royal tombs of the Sait
period have characteristics which distinguish them from those of
earlier epochs. In all that we possess from this last period of artistic
activity in Egypt, there is a new desire for elegance, for grace, carried
sometimes to an extreme which is not free from weakness and
affectation. It is probable that the same qualities existed in the
religious architecture of Sais.
Unhappily all the buildings constructed in Memphis and Lower Egypt
during the Sait supremacy have disappeared leaving hardly a trace
behind, and the Greek writers have left us nothing but vague
accounts to supply their place. Herodotus goes into ecstasies over
the propylæa, that is, the pylons and outer courts, which Amasis
added to the temple of Neith at Sais, and over the enormous size of
the stones employed. He describes in great detail a chapel carved
out of a single block of Syene granite, which Amasis transported from
the quarries at great cost in order that it might be erected in the
sanctuary of the said temple; unhappily it was so much injured on the
journey that his intention had to be abandoned.[371]
All that we learn from the historian is that the Sait princes made use
of colossal stones in their buildings without much regard to their
appropriateness, but simply to impress their contemporaries with an
exaggerated idea of their wealth and power. The contractors of an
earlier age were also in the habit of employing blocks which seem
astonishing to us from their length and size, but they were never used
except when they were required, to cover a void or some other
purpose; the earlier architects never made the mistake of seeking for