Manual of Egyptian Archaeology and Guide to the Study of Antiquities in Egypt by Gaston Maspero (popular books of all time txt) 📖

tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">Fig 106.--Frieze of uraei and cartouches.
Amen, on the right, receives the corn, the wine, the liquids of the south; while on the left he receives the corn, the wine, and the liquids of the north. As with Amen, so with Maut, Khonsû, Mentû, and many other gods. Want of space frequently frustrated the due execution of this scheme, and we often meet with a tableau in which the products of north and south together are placed before an Amen who represents both Amen of the south and Amen of the north. These departures from decorative usage are, however, exceptional, and the dual symmetry is always observed where space permits.

In Pharaonic times, the tableaux were not over-crowded. The wall-surface intended to be covered was marked off below by a line carried just above the ground level decoration, and was bounded above by the usual cornice, or by a frieze. This frieze might be composed of uraei, or of bunches of lotus; or of royal cartouches (fig. 106) supported on either side by divine symbols; or of emblems borrowed from the local cult (by heads of Hathor, for instance, in a temple dedicated to Hathor); or of a horizontal line of dedicatory inscription engraved in large and deeply-cut hieroglyphs. The wall space thus framed in contained sometimes a single scene and sometimes two scenes, one above the other. The wall must be very lofty, if this number is exceeded. Figures and inscriptions were widely spaced, and the scenes succeeded one another with scarcely a break. The spectator had to discover for himself where they began or ended. The head of the king was always studied from the life, and the faces of the gods reproduced the royal portrait as closely as possible. As Pharaoh was the son of the gods, the surest way to obtain portraits of the gods was to model their faces after the face of the king. The secondary figures were no less carefully wrought; but when these were very numerous, they were arranged on two or three levels, the total height of which never exceeded that of the principal personages. The offerings, the sceptres, the jewels, the vestments, the head-dresses, and all the accessories were treated with a genuine feeling for elegance and truth. The colours, moreover, were so combined as to produce in each tableau the effect of one general and prevailing tone; so that in many temples there were chambers which can be justly distinguished as the Blue Hall, the Red Hall, or the Golden Hall. So much for the classical period of decoration.

As we come down to later times, these tableaux are multiplied, and under the Greeks and Romans they become so numerous that the smallest wall contained not less than four (fig. 107), five, six, or even eight registers. The principal figures are, as it were, compressed, so as to occupy less room, and all the intermediate space is crowded with thousands of tiny hieroglyphs. The gods and kings are no longer portraits of the reigning sovereign, but mere conventional types without vigour or life.
Fig 107.--Wall of a chamber at Denderah, to show the arrangement of the tableaux. Fig 107.--Wall of a chamber at Denderah, to show the arrangement of the tableaux.
As for the secondary figures and accessories, the sculptor's only care is to crowd in as many as possible. This was not due to a defect of taste, and to the prevalence of a religious idea which decided but enforced these changes. The object of decoration was not merely the delight of the eye. Applied to a piece of furniture, a coffin, a house, a temple, decoration possessed a certain magic property, of which the power and nature were determined by each being or action represented, by each word inscribed or spoken, at the moment of consecration. Every subject was, therefore, an amulet as well as an ornament. So long as it endured, it ensured to the god the continuance of homage rendered, or sacrifices offered, by the king. To the king, whether living or dead, it confirmed the favours granted to him by the god in recompense for his piety. It also preserved from destruction the very wall upon which it was depicted. At the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty, it was thought that two or three such amulets sufficed to compass the desired effect; but at a later period it was believed that their number could not be too freely multiplied, and the walls were covered with as many as the surface would contain. An average chamber of Edfû or Denderah yields more material for study than the hypostyle hall of Karnak; and the chapel of Antoninus Pius at Philae, had it been finished, would have contained more scenes than the sanctuary of Luxor and the passages by which it is surrounded.

Observing the variety of subjects treated on the walls of any one temple, one might at first be tempted to think that the decoration does not form a connected whole, and that, although many series of scenes must undoubtedly contain the development of an historic idea or a religious dogma, yet that others are merely strung together without any necessary link. At Luxor, and again at the Ramesseum, each face of the pylon is a battle- field on which may be studied, almost day for day, the campaign of Rameses II. against the Kheta, which took place in the fifth year of his reign. There we see the Egyptian camp attacked by night; the king's bodyguard surprised during the march; the defeat of the enemy; their flight; the garrison of Kadesh sallying forth to the relief of the vanquished; and the disasters which befell the prince of the Kheta and his generals. Elsewhere, it is not the war which is represented, but the human sacrifices which anciently celebrated the close of each campaign. The king is seen in the act of seizing his prostrate prisoners by the hair of their heads, and uplifting his mace as if about to shatter their heads at a single blow. At Karnak, along the whole length of the outer wall, Seti I. pursues the Bedawîn of Sinai. At Medinet Habû Rameses III. destroys the fleet of the peoples of the great sea, or receives the cut-off hands of the Libyans, which his soldiers bring to him as trophies. In the next scene, all is peace; and we behold Pharaoh pouring out a libation of perfumed water to his father Amen. It would seem as if no link could be established between these subjects, and yet the one is the necessary consequence of the others. If the god had not granted victory to the king, the king in his turn would not have performed these ceremonies in the temple. The sculptor has recorded the events in their order:--first the victory, then the sacrifice. The favour of the god precedes the thank-offering of the king. Thus, on closer examination, we find this multitude of episodes forming the several links of one continuous chain, while every scene, including such as seem at first sight to be wholly unexplained, represents one stage in the development of a single action which begins at the door, is carried through the various halls, and penetrates to the farthest recesses of the sanctuary. The king enters the temple. In the courts, he is everywhere confronted by reminiscences of his victories; and here the god comes forth to greet him, hidden in his shrine and surrounded by priests. The rites prescribed for these occasions are graven on the walls of the hypostyle hall in which they were performed. These being over, king and god together take their way to the sanctuary. At the door which leads from the public hall to the mysterious part of the temple, the escort halts. The king crosses the threshold alone, and is welcomed by the gods. He then performs in due order all the sacred ceremonies enjoined by usage. His merits increase by virtue of his prayers; his senses become exalted; he rises to the level of the divine type. Finally he enters the sanctuary, where the god reveals himself unwitnessed, and speaks to him face to face. The sculptures faithfully reproduce the order of this mystic presentation:--the welcoming reception on the part of the god; the acts and offerings of the king; the vestments which he puts on and off in succession; the various crowns which he places on his head. The prayers which he recites and the favours which are conferred upon him are also recorded upon the walls in order of time and place. The king, and the few who accompany him, have their backs towards the entrance and their faces towards the door of the sanctuary. The gods, on the contrary, or at least such as do not make part of the procession, face the entrance, and have their backs turned towards the sanctuary. If during the ceremony the royal memory failed, the king needed but to raise his eyes to the wall, whereon his duties were mapped out for him.

Nor was this all. Fig 108.--Obelisk of Ûsertesen I., of Heliopolis. Fig 108.--Obelisk of Ûsertesen I., of Heliopolis.
Each part of the temple had its accessory decoration and its furniture. The outer faces of the pylons were ornamented, not only with the masts and streamers before mentioned, but with statues and obelisks. The statues, four or six in number, were of limestone, granite, or sandstone. They invariably represented the royal founder, and were sometimes of prodigious size. The two Memnons seated at the entrance of the temple of Amenhotep III., at Thebes, measured about fifty feet in height. The colossal Rameses II. of the Ramesseum measured fifty-seven feet, and that of Tanis at least seventy feet. The greater number, however, did not exceed twenty feet. They mounted guard before the temple, facing outwards, as if confronting an approaching enemy. The obelisks of Karnak are mostly hidden amid the central courts; and those of Queen Hatshepsut were imbedded for seventeen feet of their height in masses of masonry which concealed their bases. These are accidental circumstances, and easy of explanation. Each of the pylons before which they are stationed had in its turn been the entrance to the temple, and was thrown into the rear by the works of succeeding Pharaohs. The true place of all obelisks was in front of the colossi, on each side of the main entrance.[22] They are always in pairs, but often of unequal height. Some have professed to see in them the emblem of Amen, the Generator; or a finger of the god; or a ray of the sun. In sober truth, they are a more shapely form of the standing stone, or menhir, which is raised by semi- civilised peoples in commemoration of their gods or their dead. Small obelisks, about three feet in height, are found in tombs as early as the Fourth Dynasty. They are placed to right and left of the stela; that is to say, on either side of the door which leads to the dwelling of the dead. Erected before the pylon-gates of temples, they are made of granite, and their dimensions are considerable. The obelisk of Heliopolis (fig. 108) measures sixty-eight feet in the shaft, and the obelisks of Luxor stand seventy-seven and seventy-five and a half feet high, respectively. The loftiest known is the obelisk of Queen Hatshepsût at Karnak, which rises to a height of 109 feet. To convey such masses, and to place them in equilibrium, was a sufficiently difficult task, and one is at a loss to understand how the Egyptians succeeded in erecting them with no other appliances than ropes and sacks of sand. Queen Hatshepsût boasts that