The enduring scars of eternity: Mutilation and co-option in Egypt's monumental landscape

“ It is a fascinating subject, the study of this venerable civilisation, extending back to the childhood of the human race, preserved for ever for our instruction in its own unchanging monuments like a fly in a block of amber. Everything connected with Egypt is full of an impressive solemnity. A feeling of permanence, of stability, defying time and change, pervades it. The place, the people, and the monuments alike breathe of eternity. ”

“ The Egyptians carved other large statues of men and women out of rock. These figures are usually many times bigger than life-size, and sit or stand stiffly erect with both feet flat on the ground and hands close to the body in the position some children take when they “sit” for their photograph.
They built huge houses for their gods. These were called temples and took the place of our churches. These temples had gigantic—that’s the way it is spelled, though it means “giant-ic”—columns and pillars. Ordinary people standing beside them look like dwarfs. ”

“ The façade of the great temple is larger, being one hundred and twenty-six feet long and ninety-three feet high.
Most striking are the four colossal figures of Rameses, two to the right, two to the left of the door. These are the largest figures of Egyptian sculpture, being sixty-six feet high. Everywhere are pictures like those at Luxor and Karnak, representing the battles and triumphs of Rameses.
Abydos (a-bī ́dos) , next to Thebes the most important city in the ancient kingdom of Upper Egypt. ”

“ Immortality is spent in feasting, singing, conversation, and games. But the whole of this wonderful book is well worth studying. It shows how what Addison calls “this longing after immortality“ led an ancient and deeply religious people to attempt in their burial rites to rob even the grave of its terrors, and conjured up out of the shadows of the tomb a clear and distinct vision of future life, wherein man in his complete individuality survived to all eternity.
Among the most important results of recent Egyptian exploration must be reckoned the discovery of the tablets of Tell Amarna. ”

“ We know exactly how an Egyptian of the twelfth dynasty dressed; what was the position of women in Egypt; and what uniform was worn by the Egyptian soldiers who took part in the campaign against Khitasis. We can see Rameses II riding in his war-chariot; we know the very names of the horses by whose side his tame lion is running and thirsting for the blood of his master's foes. We know all about the domestic animals, the funeral customs, the trades, the gods, the agriculture of the Nile valley thirty centuries ago. ”

“ New cities are built; temples and monuments are restored. Upon the plain of Thebes, new works of art unite the sculptured records of the Ptolemies with the broken tablets of the Pharaohs. Karnak itself opens new portals, and revives its ancient splendor. Again the schools of Egypt are visited from Greece. And where Homer drank his inspiration, and Herodotus pored over the hieroglyphics, and the papyrus records, and the dim traditions of the then old world, Plato comes to ponder the great mysteries of the soul’s existence, and its relations to the infinite. ”

“ Civil wars and revolts must have greatly injured both Upper and Lower Egypt. It is remarkable that, while the building and decoration of temples continued in the reigns of Ptolemy Auletes and the later Ptolemies and Cleopatra, papyri of those times whether Greek or Egyptian are scarcely to be found.
The Roman Period.—In 30 b.c. Augustus took Egypt as the prize of conquest. He treated it as a part of his personal domain, free from any interference by the senate. In the main lines the Ptolemaic organization was preserved, but Romans were gradually introduced into the highest offices. ”

“ What enduring monuments remain of a its ancient very ancient yet extinct civilization! What successive races of conquerors have triumphed in the granite palaces of Thebes and Memphis! Old, sacred, rich, populous, and learned, Egypt becomes a province of the Roman empire. The sceptre of three hundred kings passes from Cleopatra, the last of the Ptolemies, to Augustus Caesar, the conqueror at Actium; and six millions of different races, once the most civilized on the earth, are amalgamated with the other races and peoples which compose the universal monarchy. ”

“ The shores of this sea were a limestone desert. The coast line was smooth usually, but at the north-west corner a remarkable spur jutted out from the main mass. It was less than a mile wide, but thirty miles long. Its base is not far from Bahig, Alexandria is built half-way down it, its tip is the headland of Aboukir. On either side of it there was once deep salt water.
Centuries passed, and the Nile, issuing out of its crack above Cairo, kept carrying down the muds of Upper Egypt and dropping them as soon as its current slackened. ”

“ Hence it is that monotheistic religions alone furnish the spectacle of religious wars, religious persecutions, heretical tribunals, that breaking of idols and destruction of images of the gods, that razing of Indian temples, and Egyptian colossi, which had looked on the sun three thousand years, just because a jealous god had said, Thou shalt make no graven image. ”

“ Precautions taken to preserve the bodies of kings from mutilation. To an ancient Egyptian, with his firm belief in a personal immortality dependent on the integrity of the body, the prospect of mutilation after death must have been very repugnant; and we may suppose that the kings offered a strenuous resistance to the custom and finally succeeded in abolishing it. They may have represented to the people that they would attain their object better by keeping the royal corpse intact than by frittering it away in small pieces. ”

“ The cream is excellent; but the skins temper one’s enjoyment of the unaccustomed dainty.
There is a magnificent temple here, and close by, excavated in the cliff, a rock-cut speos, the local name of which is Bay-tel-Well. The sculptures of this famous speos have been more frequently described and engraved than almost any sculptures in Egypt. The procession of Ethiopian tribute-bearers, the assault of the Amorite city, the triumph of Rameses, are familiar not only to every reader of Wilkinson, but to every visitor passing through the Egyptian rooms of the British Museum. ”

“ The whole world joined together cannot resist thee. Thou art the mighty conqueror, in the face of thy army. The whole earth falls down before thee saying homage. Thou rulest Egypt, thou chastisest the foreigners, thou crushest, thou bowest the back of these Hittites forever.' Then said his Majesty to his bowmen and his horsemen, likewise his captains, 'Ye who did not fight, behold none of you have done well, in that ye left me alone among the enemy. The captains of the vanguard, the sergeants of the infantry, came not to help me. I fought against the myriads of the land alone. ”

“ I am pure from the issues which are carried away from thee. [Thy] name hath been made in Re-stau when it hath fallen therein. Homage to thee, O Osiris, in thy strength and in thy power, thou hast obtained the mastery in Re-stau. Thou art raised up, O Osiris, in thy might and in thy power, thou art raised up, O Osiris, and thy might is in Re-stau, and thy power is in Abtu (Abydos) . Thou goest round about through heaven, and thou sailest before Rā, and thou lookest upon the generations of men, O thou Being who circlest, thou Rā. ”

“ The first thing to be noticed is its power of lasting. Where a people lives on in its own district, without too much change in habits, or mixture with other nations, there seems no reason to expect its type to alter. The Egyptian monuments show good instances of this permanence. In Fig. 19, a is drawn from the head of a statue of Rameses, evidently a careful portrait, and dating from about 3,000 years ago, while b is an Egyptian of the present day, yet the ancient and modern are curiously alike. ”

“ The world can not spare these remains. Tear down Roman ruins if you will; level Cyclopean walls; build bridges with the stones of Gothic abbeys and feudal fortresses; but lay no hand on the glory and grandeur of Egypt! We ascended the great pylon of the temple, on the face of the towers of which the victories of Remeses are sculptured; but his colossi, solid figures of granite, which sit on either side of the entrance, have been much defaced. The lonely obelisk, which stands a little in advance, on the left hand, is more perfect than its Parisian mate. ”

“ King Ptolemy, who was the first of the Macedonians to put the power of Egypt on a firm footing,452 was engaged in building walls and temples, and instituting religious cults for his newly founded city of Alexandria, when there appeared to him in his sleep a young man of striking beauty and supernatural stature, who warned him to send his most faithful friends to Pontus to fetch his image. ”

“ The coast of Malabar, or the island of Ceylon, was the usual term of their navigation, and it was in those markets that the merchants from the more remote countries of Asia expected their arrival. The return of the fleet of Egypt was fixed to the months of December or January; and as soon as their rich cargo had been transported on the backs of camels, from the Red Sea to the Nile, and had descended that river as far as Alexandria, it was poured, without delay, into the capital of the empire. The objects of oriental traffic were splendid and trifling ”

“ Egypt, in which anciently centered all the commerce of the world, retains at present a very small portion of trade: the principal exports from Alexandria consist in the gums and drugs of the east coast of Africa, Arabia, Persia, and India; rice, wheat, dates, oil, soap, leather, ebony, elephants' teeth, coffee, &c. The imports are received chiefly from France and the Italian States, and England; and consist in woollen and cotton goods, hardware, copper, iron, glass, and colonial produce. ”

“ At one time everything Egyptian was fashionable in Rome, and the goddess of Egypt was domesticated in the Roman Pantheon, and temples in her honour were erected in several parts of the city and throughout the empire. Obelisks, fashioned in Egypt by command of the Romans, were often placed in front of the temples. But these spurious obelisks have little dignity or significance, and [203] suffer wofully when brought into comparison with specimens of the genuine work of old Egypt. ”

“ The Romans, although not themselves, either by the gift of Heaven, or by their own tastes, artists, were great patrons of art. Many a rich Roman citizen had the court of his house converted into a kind of forum, which he adorned with his favourite portrait statues. From the precious ruins of Ancient Rome—from her temples, palaces, villas—countless statues and busts have been dug out. Her tombs also were furnished with portraits, busts, and statues, recumbent, or in other postures.
In all times, and in all countries, we note a desire to perpetuate the memory of the dead ”

“ The poor creatures soon discovered their mistake. Their good friend the khedive will never return to Egypt, for England and France will not allow it. He was too sincere a friend of his own people, and too independent in dealing with the shareholders of the Suez canal built during his reign.
Alexandria has a population of two-hundred-fifty thousand. It was founded by Alexander the Great three hundred years before Christ, on account of the great natural advantages of this place as a seaport. At the time of Christ it had about half a million inhabitants. ”

“ The coasts of Italy are, in general, destitute of safe harbors; but human industry had corrected the deficiencies of nature; and the artificial port of Ostia, in particular, situate at the mouth of the Tyber, and formed by the emperor Claudius, was a useful monument of Roman greatness. 91 From this port, which was only sixteen miles from the capital, a favorable breeze frequently carried vessels in seven days to the columns of Hercules, and in nine or ten, to Alexandria in Egypt. ”

“ It may be that joyous children, toddling knee-deep mid those rich grasses, may deem it no rare thing to find a whitening skull upturned by the plough, may even carry it home as some choice plaything.
But it is strange indeed to find a nation such as Egypt once was—the greatest and most civilised of all people—now so literally proving herself (as Ezekiel foretold she would become) "the basest of the nations" ”