Page images
PDF
EPUB

sort.

differing from the others, and with more
much more care; the bandages con-
sist of stripes of red and white linen
intermixed, and covering the whole
body, but so carefully applied, that
the form of the trunk and limbs are
preserved separate, even to the
fingers and toes; they have sandals
of painted leather on the feet, and
bracelets on their arms and wrists;
the cases in which these mummies
are preserved are somewhat better
executed than the rest.

"The tombs containing the better
classes are of course superior to the
others; some are also more exten-
sive than others, having various
apartments adorned with figures.
It would be impossible to describe
the numerous little articles found
in them, which are well adapted to
show the domestic habits of the an-
cient Egyptians. It is here the
smaller idols are occasionally found,
either lying on the ground, or on
the cases.
Vases made of baked
clay, painted over, from eight to
eighteen inches in size, are some-
times seen, containing embalmed
entrails; the covers represent the
head of some divinity, bearing either
the human form, or that of a mon-
key, fox, cat, or other animal. I
met with a few of these made of
alabaster, in the tombs of the kings,
but they were unfortunately broken:
a great quantity of pottery and
wooden vessels are found in some
of the tombs: the ornaments, the
small works in clay in particular,
are very curious. I have been for-
tunate enough to find many speci-
mens of their manufactures, among
which is leaf-gold, nearly as thin as
ours; but what is singular, the only
weapon I met with was an arrow,
two feet long. The scarabæus, or
sacred beetle, is found, though not
abundantly, in the tombs; these
are made of basalt, verde-antico,
other stones, or baked clay:

ith hieroglyphics are much

scarce than the common

"There are various and extensive tombs at Gournou, excavated, not in the rocks themselves, but in the plains at their foot, twelve or fourteen feet below the surface, and extending a considerable distance under ground: the way to these is generally by a staircase, which leads into a large square hall, cut in the rock, in some instances, ninety to s hundred feet long; and, opposite the stairs, is generally the entrance to the tomb.

"One day while causing, as was my custom, the walls of a large tomb to be struck with a sledgehammer, in order to discover some į hidden chambers, an aperture a foot and a half wide into another tomb Į. was suddenly made: having elarged it sufficiently to pass, we tered, and found several mummies and a great quantity of broken cases; in an inner apartment was a square opening, into which we descended. and at the bottom we found a smal chamber at each side of the shaft: in one was a granite sarcophagus with its cover, quite perfect, but s situated that it would be an ard ous undertaking to draw it out.”

Among the many discoveries the enterprising Belzoni, was the of the Tombs of the Kings, a Thebes. As immediately connecte with our subject, we shall give s abridged account of this trans tion, from his work, first mention ing that many things led Belzoni a belief of the existence of such a place; and his intimacy with the situation and structure of these singular excavations gave him a wellfounded confidence that he should succeed in detecting what had escaped the observation of all who had searched this country, from the time of Strabo to the presen century.

"After a long survey of the west

[ocr errors]

T

[ocr errors]

em valley, I could observe only one spot that presented the appearance of a tomb; accordingly I set the men to work, and when they had got a little below the surface, they came to some large stones, which had evidently been put there by those who closed the tomb. Having removed these, I perceived the rock had been ent on both sides, and found a passage leading downwards, and in a few hours came to a well-built wall of stones of various sizes, through which we contrived to make a breach; at last, on entering, we found ourselves on a staircase, eight feet wide and ten high, at the bottom of which were four mummies in their cases, lying flat on the ground, and further on four more; the cases were all painted, and one had a large covering thrown over it like a pall. These I examined carefully, but no further discoveries were made at this place, which appears to have been intended for some of the royal blood."

After two or three other fruitless, though very interesting efforts, Belzoni proceeds:

"Not fifteen yards from the last tomb I described, I caused the earth to be opened at the foot of a steep hill, and under a torrent which, when it rains, pours a great quantity of water over the spot on the evening of the second day, we perceived the part of the rock which was cut and formed the entrance, which was at length entirely cleared, and was found to be eighteen feet below the surface of the ground.In about an hour there was room for me to enter through a passage that the earth had left under the ceiling of the first corridor, which is thirty-six feet long, and eight or nine wide, and when cleared, six feet nine inches high. I perceived immediately, by the painting on the ceiling, and by the hieroglyphics in bas-relief, that this was the entrance

into a large and magnificent tomb. At the end of the corridor, I came to a staircase twenty-three feet long, and of the same breadth as the corridor, with a door at the bottom, twelve feet high; this led to another corridor thirty-seven feet long, and of the same width and height as the former one, each side and the ceiling sculptured with hieroglyphics and painted, but I was stopped from further progress by a large pit at the other end, thirty feet deep and twelve wide: the upper part of this was adorned with figures, from the wall of the passage up to the ceiling; the passages from the entrance, all the way to this pit, were inclined at an angle of about eighteen degrees; on the opposite side of the pit, facing the passage, a small opening was perceived, two feet wide, and two feet six inches high, and a quantity of rubbish at the bottom fof the wall. A rope, fastened to a piece of wood that was laid across the passage, against the projections which form a kind of door, appears to have been used for descending into the pit, and from the small aperture on the other side hung another, for the purpose, doubtless, of ascending again; but these and the wood crumbled to dust on touching them, from the damp arising from the water which drained into the pit down the passages. On the following day we contrived a bridge of two beams to cross the pit by, and found the little aperture to be an opening forced through a wall, which had entirely closed the entrance, and which had been plastered over and painted, so as to give the appearance of the tomb having ended at the pit, and of there hav ing been nothing beyond it: the rope in the inside of the wall, having been preserved from the damp, did not fall to pieces, and the wood to which it was attached was in good preservation. When we had

passed through the little aperture, we found ourselves in a beautiful hall, twenty-seven feet six inches by twenty-five feet ten inches, in which were four pillars, three feet square. At the end of this room, which I shall call the entrance-hall, and opposite the aperture, is a large door, from which three steps lead down into a chamber with two pillars, four feet square, the chamber being twenty-eight by twenty-five feet. The walls were covered with figures, which, though in outline only, were as fine and perfect as if drawn only the day before: on the left of the aperture a large staircase, of eighteen steps, descended from the entrance-hall into a corridor, thirty-six feet by seven wide, and we perceived that the paintings became more perfect as we advanced further; the figures are painted on a white ground, and highly varnished; at the end of this ten steps led us into another, seventeen feet by eleven, through which we entered a chamber, twenty feet by fourteen, adorned in the most splendid manner by basso-relievos, painted like the rest: standing in this chamber, the spectator sees himself surrounded by representations of the Egyptian gods and goddesses. Proceeding further, we entered another large hall, twentyeight feet square, with two rows of pillars, three on each side, in a line with the walls of the corridors: at each side is a small chamber, each about ten or eleven feet square. At the end of this hall we found a large saloon, with an arched roof or ceiling, thirty-two feet by twenty-seven; on the right was a small chamber, roughly cut, and obviously left unfinished; and on the left there is another, twenty-six by twenty-three feet, with two pillars in it: it had a projection of three feet all round it, possibly intended to contain the cessary for the funeral

ceremonies; the whole was beaufifully painted like the rest. At the same end of the room we entered by a large door into another chamber, forty-three feet by seventeen, with four pillars in it, one of which had fallen down; it was covered with white plaster where the rock did not cut smoothly, but there were no paintings in it. We found the carcase of a bull embalmed with asphaltum, and also, scattered in various places, an immense quantity of small wooden figures of mummies, six or eight inches long, and covered with asphaltum to preserve them; there were some others of fine baked earth, coloured blue, and highly varnished. On each side of the two little rooms were some wooden statues, standing erect, four feet high, with a circular hollow inside, as if to contain a rall of papyrus, which I have no doubt they once did. In the centre of the saloon was a sarcophagus, of the finest oriental alabaster, nine feet five inches long, and three fee: seven wide; it is only two inches thick, and consequently transparent when a light is held within it; it is minutely sculptured, both inside and out, with several hundred figures, not exceeding two inches in length, representing, as I suppose, the whole of the funeral procession and ceremonies relating to the de ceased. The cover had been taken out, and we found it broken in seve ral pieces in digging before the first entrance: this sarcophagus was over a staircase in the centre of the saloon, which communicated with a subterraneous passage leading downwards, three hundred feet in length. At the end of this we found a great quantity of bats' dung, which choked it up, so that we could g no further without digging; it was also nearly filled up by the falling in of the upper part. One hundred feet from the entrance is a staircase,

[ocr errors]

in good preservation, but the rock below changes its substance; this passage proceeds in a south-west direction through the mountain. I measured the distance from the entrance, and also the rocks above, and found that the passage reaches nearly half-way through the mountain to the upper part of the valley. I have reason to suppose that this passage was used as another entrance, but this could not be after the person was buried there; for, at the bottom of the stairs, under the sarcophagus, a wall had been built, which entirely closed this communication; hence it should appear that this tomb had been opened again with violence, after all the precautions mentioned had been taken to conceal the existence of the greater part of it, and as these had been carefully and skilfully done, it is probable that the intruder must have had a guide who was acquainted with the place.

either white, blue, or green, as four colours only appear to have been used in those days, red, blue, yellow, and green; but these are arranged with considerable skill, so as to give a very splendid effect to the paintings when seen by torch-light, which they always necessarily are*. After the work was finished, a coat of varnish appears to have been laid on, but this has been noticed in this tomb only, probably from the circumstance of its having, for many centuries, been excluded from the air." It would be impossible to give a description of the subjects of these basso-relievos; they appear to have been allegories of the principal events in the life of the occupant of this splendid sepulchret, and the hieroglyphic writing mingled with them, is an interpretation of their meaning. The name of this king was the Pharaoh Menephthah, whose pompous titles are painted and sculptured in various places.

MONOLITHIC TEMPLES.

THE mechanical skill of the Egyptians is evident from their massive buildings, but one curious application of it must be noticed: we allude to the monolithic temples, so

that an exhibition was prepared by Belzoni * Many of our readers may remember in London, in which casts of a great part of these sculptures were arranged round the walls of apartments, and coloured to imitate the originals. Day-light was excluded, and, as seen by the light of lamps, a very lively

"The figures and hieroglyphics sculptured in the various chambers of this place are in basso-relievo, and coloured; the surface of the rock was first made as smooth as possible, and fissures and crevices filled up with cement; the figures being then drawn in outline, the surrounding surface was cut away, leaving the subject in relief in a greater or less degree, according to its size, the largest projecting about half an inch, and the smallest not above one-tenth of an inch. The folds of the draidea of the appearance of the tomb was conpery, and the limbs within the con-eyed. The alabaster sarcophagus, which tour, are marked by a line cut about one-tenth of an inch deep; the whole wall was then washed over with white, and this was so brilliant and clear that the whitest paper appears, even now, of a yellow hue when laid on it; the figures were then painted, the flesh being coloured red or yellowish, according as they represented men or women. The drapery and ornaments are

Belzoni also brought to England, was purchased by Sir John Soane, of whose Museum

it is now one of the greatest ornaments.

† In one of the apartments, leading to the

great saloon, Dr. Richardson discovered a representation of a human sacrifice made to a serpent; three persons are on their knees with their heads struck off, with the reptile deity opposite to them: the execuparently about to immolate three othe tioner has the knife in his hand, and is apvictims, bound, lying on the ground behin him.

called from being cut ont of " one piece of stone," and often elaborately sculptured externally and internally. Two small chests of this kind are seen in the central niche, or sanctuary, of one of the temples in the island of Phila; they were intended for cages for the sacred hawk, as it is conjectured. In the temple at Debot, in Nubia, there are two fine monolithe temples, of granite, in the sanctuary: the larger is eight feet by three in width; the winged globe is sculptured over each. They appear to have been intended for the reception of sacred animals, perhaps beetles: the places for the hinges of the door are yet visible. But the most celebrated was that quarried at Elphantine, and removed thence by the labour of two thousand men, employed for three years, according to Herodotus, to Sais, in the Delta, on the eastern side of the Rosetta arm; of this, we believe, there is now no trace.

The monolithe granite temple, termed the Green Tabernacle, at Memphis, was thirteen and a half feet high, twelve feet long, and ten and a half broad; the chamber within was ten and a half, nine, and seven and half feet in dimensions; both within and without this temple are numerous sculptures and inscriptions.

TOMB OF THE KINGS AT
ALEXANDRIA.

on the right and left are small square chambers, much filled up with sand, the ceiling and cornice supported by pilasters. The former is vaulted, and covered with a crys tallized cement, on which are traced, in red, lines obviously forming geometrical constructions on the subject of astronomy; a sun is represented in the middle of the vault. The upright sides contain vaulted niches: the hall is about twenty yards square. From this a door, in the opposite side, leads to a larger hall, but the sand fills it up from the floor to the ceiling at the further end, so that its dimensions cannot be ascertained. Two small cham bers, as before, are excavated on two sides of this also; in the right-hand one there is an opening in the wall, leading to a vast corridor, thirty-s feet long and twelve broad, half choked up, three wells in the ro having probably served to admit the

rubbish.

This corridor leads to another fine apartment, with a portico on each of its four sides, three of which have pilasters and cornice, richly carved; the other parts of the wall are left quite plain, but there are lines traced on the vaulted ceiling, indicating that it was intended to have been cut into panels, with roses in the centres. From this chamber you enter a beautiful rotunda, on the left, which appears to be the princi pal object of the excavation: it is seven yards in diameter, and about five feet high. It is regularly orna

ABOUT Sixty yards east of some excavations, called the "Baths of Cleo-mented with pilasters supporting a patra," there is a little bay, about sixty yards deep, the entrance being so nearly blocked up by two rocks, that a boat only can obtain access. At the bottom of this bay, in the steep slope of the shore, there is a small hole, through which it is difficult to pass: a passage of about thirty feet leads to the first hall. In this the visiter can stand upright;

cornice, from which springs the et pola of the ceiling; nine tombs are seen around it. The bottom is level with the sea; the water filters through, and is found a short dis tance below the floor; this place is quite free from sand, so that the whole of it can be seen, and the effect, when illuminated by many torches, the light of which is re

« PreviousContinue »