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CHAPTER
VII. SIÛT TO
DENDERAH. WE started
from Siût with a couple of tons of new brown bread on board,
which, being cut
into slices and laid to dry in the sun, was speedily converted into
rusks and
stored away in two huge lockers on the upper deck. The sparrows and
water-wagtails had a good time while the drying went on; but no one
seemed to
grudge the toll they levied. We often
had a “big wind” now; though it seldom began to blow before
ten or eleven A.M.,
and generally fell at sunset. Now and then, when it chanced to keep up,
and the
river was known to be free from shallows, we went on sailing through
the night;
but this seldom happened, and when it did happen, it made sleep
impossible – so
that nothing but the certainty of doing a great many miles between
bed-time and
breakfast could induce us to put up with it. We had now
been long enough afloat to find out that we had almost always one man
on the
sick list, and were therefore habitually short of a hand for the
navigation of
the boat. There never were such fellows for knocking themselves to
pieces as
our sailors. They were always bruising their feet, wounding their
hands,
getting sunstrokes, and whiltlows, and sprains, and disabling
themselves in
some way. L.-----, with her little medicine chest and her roll of lint and
bandages,
soon had a small but steady practice, and might have been seen about
the lower
deck most mornings after breakfast, repairing these damaged Alis and
Hassans.
It was well for them that we carried “an experienced
surgeon,” for they were
entirely helpless and despondent when hurt, and ignorant of the
commonest
remedies. Nor is this helplessness confined to natives of the sailor
and fellâh
class. The provincial proprietors and officials are to the full as
ignorant,
not only of the uses of such simple things as poultices or wet
compresses, but
of the most elementary laws of health. Doctors there are none south of
Cairo;
and such is the general mistrust of State medicine, that when, as in
the case
of any widely spread epidemic, a medical officer is sent up the river
by order
of the Government, half the people are said to conceal their sick,
while the
other half reject the remedies prescribed for them. Their trust in the
skill of
the passing European is, on the other hand, unbounded. Appeals for
advice and
medicine were constantly being made to us by both rich and poor; and
there was
something very pathetic in the simple faith with which they accepted
any little
help we were able to give them. Meanwhile L.-----’s medical
reputation, being
confirmed by a few simple cures, rose high among the crew. They called
her the
Hakîm Sitt (the Doctor-lady); obeyed her directions and swallowed
her medicines
as reverently as if she were the college of surgeons personified; and
showed
their gratitude in all kinds of pretty, child-like ways – singing
her favorite
Arab song as they ran beside her donkey – searching for
sculptured fragments
whenever there were ruins to be visited – and constantly bringing
her little
gifts of pebbles and wild flowers. Above
Siût, the picturesqueness of the river is confined for the most
part to the
eastern bank. We have almost always a near range of mountains on the
Arabian
side, and a more distant chain on the Libyan horizon. Gebel Sheik el
Raáineh
succeeds to Gebel Abufayda, and is followed in close succession by the
cliffs
of Gow, of Gebel Sheik el Hereedee, of Gebel Ayserat and Gebel
Tûkh – all
alike rigid in strongly-marked beds of level limestone strata;
flat-topped and
even, like lines of giant ramparts; and more or less pierced with
orifices
which we know to be tombs, but which look like loopholes from a
distance. Flying
before the wind with both sails set, we see the rapid panorama unfold
itself
day after day, mile after mile, hour after hour. Villages, palm-groves,
rock-cut sepulchres, flit past and are left behind. To-day we enter the
region
of the dôm palm. To-morrow we pass the map-drawn limit of the
crocodile. The
cliffs advance, recede, open away into desolate-looking valleys, and
show faint
traces of paths leading to excavated tombs on distant heights. The
headland
that looked shadowy in the distance a couple of hours ago, is reached
and
passsed. The cargo-boat on which we have been gaining all the morning
is
outstripped and dwindling in the rear. Now we pass a bold bluff
sheltering a
sheykh’s tomb and a solitary dôm palm – now an
ancient quarry from which the
stone has been cut out in smooth masses, leaving great halls, and
corridors,
and stages in the mountain side. At Gow,1 the scene of an
insurrection headed by a crazy dervish some ten years ago, we see, in
place of
a large and populous village, only a tract of fertile corn-ground, a
few ruined
huts, and a group of decapitated palms. We are now skirting Gebel Sheik el
Hereedee; here bordered by a rich margin of cultivated flat; yonder
leaving space
for scarce a strip of roadway between the precipice and the river. Then
comes
Raáineh, a large village of square mud towers, lofty and
battlemented, with
string-courses of pots for the pigeons – and later on, Girgeh,
once the capital
town of Middle Egypt, where we put in for half an hour to post and
inquire for
letters. Here the Nile is fast eating away the bank and carrying the
town by
storm. A ruined mosque with pointed arches, roofless cloisters, and a
leaning
column that must surely have come to the ground by this time, stands
just above
the landing-place. A hundred years ago, it lay a quarter of a mile from
the
river; ten years ago it was yet perfect; after a few more inundations
it will
be swept away. Till that time comes, however, it helps to make Girgeh
one of
the most picturesque towns in Egypt. At Farshût
we see the sugar-works in active operation – smoke pouring from
the tall
chimneys; steam issuing from the traps in the basement; cargo-boats
unlading
fresh sugar-cane against the bank; heavily-burdened Arabs transporting
it to
the factory; bullock-trucks laden with cane-leaf for firing. A little
higher
up, at Sahîl Bajûra on the opposite side of the river, we
find the bank strewn
for full a quarter of a mile with sugar-cane en masse. Hundreds
of
camels are either arriving laden with it, or going back for more
– dozens of
cargo-boats are drawn up to receive it – swarms of brown
fellâheen are stacking
it on board for unshipment again at Farshût. The camels snort and
growl; the
men shout; the overseers, in blue-fringed robes and white turbans,
stalk to and
fro, and keep the work going. The mountains here recede so far as to be
almost
out of sight, and a plain rich in sugar-cane and date-palms widens out
between
them and the river. And now
the banks are lovely with an unwonted wealth of verdure. The young corn
clothes
the plain like a carpet, while the yellow-tasselled mimosa, the
feathery
tamarisk, the dôm and date palm, and the spreading sycamore-fig,
border the
towing-path like garden trees beside a garden walk. Farther on
still, when all this greenery is left behind and the banks have again
become
flat and bare, we see to our exceeding surprise what seems to be a very
large
grizzled ape perched on the top of a dust-heap on the western bank. The
creature
is evidently quite tame, and sits on his haunches in just that chilly,
melancholy posture that the chimpanzee is wont to assume in his cage at
the
Zoological Gardens. Some six or eight Arabs, one of whom has dismounted
from
his camel for the purpose, are standing round and staring at him, much
as the
British public stands round and stares at the specimen in the
Regent’s Park.
Meanwhile a strange excitement breaks out among our crew. They crowd to
the
side; they shout; they gesticulate; the captain salaams; the steersman
waves
his hand; all eyes are turned towards the shore. “Do you
see Sheik Selîm?” cries Talhamy breathlessly, rushing up
from below. “There he
is! Look at him! That is Sheik Selîm!” And so we
find out that it is not a monkey but a man – and not only a man,
but a saint.
Holiest of the holy, dirtiest of the dirty, white-pated, white-bearded,
withered, bent, and knotted up, is the renowned Sheik Selîm
– he who, naked
and unwashed, has sat on that same spot every day through summer heat
and
winter cold for the last fifty years; never providing himself with food
or
water; never even lifting his hand to his mouth; depending on charity
not only
for his food but for his feeding! He is not nice to look at, even by
this dim
light, and at this distance; but the sailors think him quite beautiful,
and
call aloud to him for his blessing as we go by. “It is not
by our own will that we sail past, O father!” they cry.
“Fain would we kiss thy
hand; but the wind blows and the mérkeb (boat) goes and we have
no power to
stay!” But Sheik
Selîm neither lifts his head nor shows any sign of hearing, and
in a few
minutes the mound on which he sits is left behind in the gloaming. At How,
where the new town is partly built on the mounds of the old (Diospolis
Parva),
we next morning saw the natives transporting small boat-loads of
ancient
brick-rubbish to the opposite side of the river, for the purpose of
manuring
those fields from which the early durra crop had just been gathered in.
Thus,
curiously enough, the mud left by some inundation of two or three
thousand
years ago comes at last to the use from which it was then diverted, and
is
found to be more fertilising than the new deposit. At Kasr es Sayd, a
little
farther on, we came to one of the well-known “bad bits”
– a place where the bed
of the river is full of sunken rocks, and sailing is impossible. Here
the men
were half the day punting the dahabeeyah over the dangerous part, while
we
grubbed among the mounds of what was once the ancient city of
Chenoboscion.
These remains, which cover a large superficial area and consist
entirely of
crude brick foundations, are very interesting, and in good
preservation. We
traced the ground-plans of several houses; followed the passages by
which they
were separated; and observed many small arches which seemed built on
too small
a scale for doors or windows, but for which it was difficult to account
in any
other way. Brambles and weeds were growing in these deserted
enclosures; while
rubbish-heaps, excavated pits, and piles of broken pottery divided the
ruins
and made the work of exploration difficult. We looked in vain for the
dilapidated quay and sculptured blocks mentioned in Wilkinson’s "General
View
of Egypt;" but if the foundation stones of the sugar-factory close
against
the mooring-place could speak, they would no doubt explain the mystery.
We saw
nothing, indeed, to show that Chenoboscion had contained any stone
structures
whatever, save the broken shaft of one small granite column. The
village of Kasr es Syad consists of a cluster of mud huts and a sugar
factory;
but the factory was idle that day, and the village seemed half
deserted. The
view here is particularly fine. About a couple of miles to the
southward, the
mountains, in magnificent procession, came down again at right angles
to the
river, and thence reach away in long ranges of precipitous headlands.
The
plain, terminating abruptly against the foot of this gigantic barrier,
opens
back eastward to the remotest horizon – an undulating sea of
glistening sand, bordered
by a chaotic middle distance of mounded ruins. Nearest of all, a narrow
foreground of cultivated soil, green with young crops and watered by
frequent
shâdûfs, extends along the river-side to the foot of the
mountains. A sheykh’s
tomb shaded by a single dôm palm is conspicuous on the bank;
while far away,
planted amid the solitary sands, we see a large Coptic convent with
many
cupolas; a cemetery full of Christian graves; and a little oasis of
date palms
indicating the presence of a spring. The chief
interest of this scene, however, centres in the ruins; and these
– looked upon
from a little distance, blackened, desolate, half-buried, obscured
every now
and then, when the wind swept over them, by swirling clouds of dust
– reminded
us of the villages, we had seen not two years before, half-overwhelmed
and yet
smoking, in the midst of a lava-torrent below Vesuvius. We now had
the full moon again, making night more beautiful than day. Sitting on
deck for
hours after the sun had gone down, when the boat glided gently on with
half-filled sail and the force of the wind was spent, we used to wonder
if in
all the world there was another climate in which the effect of
moonlight was so
magical. To say that every object far or near was visible as distinctly
as by
day, yet more tenderly, is to say nothing. It was not only form that
was
defined; it was not only light and shadow that were vivid – it
was colour that
was present. Colour neither deadened or changed; but softened, glowing,
spiritualised. The amber sheen of the sand-island in the middle of the
river,
the sober green of the palm-grove, the little lady’s
turquoise-coloured hood,
were clear to the sight and relatively true in tone. The oranges showed
through
the bars of the crate like nuggets of pure gold. L-----’s crimson
shawl glowed with
a warmer dye than it ever wore by day. The mountains were flushed as if
in the
light of sunset. Of all the natural phenomena that we beheld in the
course of
the journey, I remember none that surprised us more than this. We could
scarcely believe at first that it was not some effect of afterglow, or
some
miraculous aurora of the East. But the sun had nothing to do with that
flush
upon the mountains. The glow was in the stone, and the moonlight but
revealed
the local colour. For some
days before they came in sight, we had been eagerly looking for the
Theban
hills; and now, after a night of rapid sailing, we woke one morning to
find the
sun rising on the wrong side of the boat, the favourable wind dead
against us,
and a picturesque chain of broken peaks upon our starboard bow. By
these signs
we knew that we must have come to the great bend in the river between
How and
Keneh, and that these new mountains, so much more varied in form than
those of
Middle Egypt, must be the mountains behind Denderah. They seemed to lie
upon
the eastern bank, but that was an illusion which the map disproved, and
which
lasted only till the great corner was fairly turned. To turn that
corner,
however, in the teeth of wind and current, was no easy task, and cost
us two
long days of hard tracking. At a point
about ten miles below Denderah, we saw some thousands of
fellâheen at work amid
clouds of sand upon the embankments of a new canal. They swarmed over
the
mounds like ants, and the continuous murmur of their voices came to us
across
the river like the humming of innumerable bees. Others, following the
path
along the bank, were pouring towards the spot in an unbroken stream.
The Nile
must here be nearly half a mile in breadth; but the engineers in
European dress,
and the overseers with long sticks in their hands, were plainly
distinguishable
by the help of a glass. The tents in which these officials were camping
out
during the progress of the work gleamed white among the palms by the
river-side. Such scenes must have been common enough in the old days
when a
conquering Pharaoh, returning from Libya or the land of Kush, set his
captives
to raise a dyke, or excavate a lake, or quarry a mountain. The
Israelites
building the massive walls of Pithom and Rameses with bricks of their
own
making, must have presented exactly such a spectacle. That we
were witnessing a case of forced labour, could not be doubted. Those
thousands
yonder had most certainly been drafted off in gangs from hundreds of
distant
villages, and were but little better off, for the time being, than the
captives
of the ancient empire. In all cases of forced labour under the present régime,
however, it seems that the labourer is paid, though very
insufficiently, for
his unwilling toil; and that his captivity only lasts so long as the
work for
which he has been pressed remains in progress. In some cases the term
of
service is limited to three or four months, at the end of which time
the men
are supposed to be returned in barges towed by government steam-tugs.
It too
often happens, nevertheless, that the poor souls are left to get back
how they
can; and thus many a husband and father either perishes by the way, or
is
driven to take service in some village far from home. Meanwhile his
wife and
children, being scantily supported by the Sheik el Beled, fall into a
condition of semi-serfdom; and his little patch of ground, left
untilled
through seed-time and harvest, passes after the next inundation into
the hands
of a stranger. But there
is another side to this question of forced labour. Water must be had in
Egypt,
no matter at what cost. If the land is not sufficiently irrigated the
crops
fail and the nation starves. Now, the frequent construction of canals
has from
immemorial time been reckoned among the first duties of an Egyptian
ruler; but
it is a duty which cannot be performed without the willing or unwilling
co-operation of several thousand workmen. Those who are best acquainted
with
the character and temper of the fellâh maintain the hopelessness
of looking to
him for voluntary labour of this description. Frugal, patient, easily
contented
as he is, no promise of wages, however high, would tempt him from his
native
village. What to him are the needs of a district six or seven hundred
miles
away? His own shâdûf is enough for his own patch, and so
long as he can raise
his three little crops a year, neither he nor his family will starve.
How,
then, are these necessary public works to be carried out, unless by
means of
the corvée? M. About has put an ingenious summary of
this “other-side”
argument into the mouth of his ideal fellâh. “It is not the
Emperor,” says
Ahmed to the Frenchman, “who causes the rain to descend upon your
lands; it is
the west wind – and the benefit thus conferred upon you exacts no
penalty of
manual labour. But in Egypt, where the rain from heaven falls scarcely
three
times in the year, it is the prince who supplies its place to us by
distributing the waters of the Nile. This can only be done by the work
of men’s
hands; and it is therefore to the interest of all that the hands of all
should
be at his disposal.” We
regarded it, I think, as an especial piece of good fortune, when we
found
ourselves becalmed next day within three or four miles of Denderah.
Abydos
comes first in order according to the map; but then the Temples lie
seven or
eight miles from the river, and as we happened just thereabouts to be
making
some ten miles an hour, we put off the excursion till our return. Here,
however, the ruins lay comparatively near at hand, and in such a
position that
we could approach them from below and rejoin our dahabeeyah a few miles
higher
up the river. So, leaving Reïs Hassan to track against the
current, we landed
at the first convenient point, and finding neither donkeys nor guides
at hand,
took an escort of three or four sailors, and set off on foot. The way
was long, the day was hot, and we had only the map to go by. Having
climbed the
steep bank and skirted an extensive palm-grove, we found ourselves in a
country
without paths or roads of any kind. The soil, squared off as usual like
a
gigantic chess-board, was traversed by hundreds of tiny water-channels,
between
which we had to steer our course as best as we could. Presently the
last belt
of palms was passed – the plain, green with young corn and level
as a lake,
widened out to the front of the mountains – and the temple,
islanded in that
sea of rippling emerald, rose up before us upon its platform of
blackened
mounds. It was
still full two miles away; but it looked enormous – showing from
this distance
as a massive, low-browed, sharply defined mass of dead-white masonry.
The walls
sloped in slightly towards the top; and the façade appeared to
be supported on
eight square piers, with a large doorway in the centre. If sculptured
ornament,
or cornice, or pictured legend enriched those walls, we were too far
off to
distinguish them. All looked strangely naked and solemn – more
like a tomb than
a temple. Nor was
the surrounding scene less deathlike in its solitude. Not a tree, not a
hut, not
a living form broke the green monotony of the plain. Behind the Temple,
but
divided from it by a farther space of mounded ruins, rose the mountains
–
pinky, aerial, with sheeny sand-drifts heaped in the hollows of their
bare
buttresses, and spaces of soft blue shadow in their misty chasms. Where
the
range receded, a long vista of glittering desert opened to the Libyan
horizon. Then as we
drew nearer, coming by and by to a raised causeway which apparently
connected
the mounds with some point down by the river, the details of the Temple
gradually emerged into distinctness. We could now see the curve and
under-shadow of the cornice; and a small object in front of the
façade which
looked at first sight like a monolithic altar, resolved itself into a
massive gateway
of the kind known as a single pylon. Nearer still, among some low
outlying
mounds, we came upon fragments of sculptured capitals and mutilated
statues
half-buried in rank grass – upon a series of stagnant nitre-tanks
and deserted
workshops – upon the telegraph poles and wires which here come
striding along
the edge of the desert and vanish southward with messages for Nubia and
the
Soudan. Egypt is
the land of nitre. It is found wherever a crude-brick mound is
disturbed or an
antique stone structure demolished. The Nile mud is strongly
impregnated with
it; and in Nubia we used to find it lying in thick talc-like flakes
upon the
surface of rocks far above the present level of the inundation. These
tanks at
Denderah had been sunk, we were told, when the great Temple was
excavated by
Abbas Pasha more than twenty years ago. The nitre then found was
utilised out
of hand; washed and crystallised in the tanks; and converted into
gunpowder in
the adjacent workshops. The telegraph wires are more recent intruders,
and the
work of the khedive; but one longed to put them out of sight, to pull
down the
gunpowder sheds, and to fill up the tanks with débris. For what
had the arts of
modern warfare or the wonders of modern science to do with Hathor, the
Lady of
Beauty and the Western Shades, the Nurse of Horus, the Egyptian
Aphrodite, to
whom yonder mountain of wrought stone and all these wastes were sacred?
We were by
this time near enough to see that the square piers of the façade
were neither
square nor piers, but huge round columns with human-headed capitals;
and that
the walls, instead of being plain and tomb-like, were covered with an
infinite
multitude of sculptured figures. The pylon – rich with
inscriptions and
bas-reliefs, but disfigured by myriads of tiny wasps’ nests, like
clustered
mud-bubbles – now towered high above our heads, and led to a
walled avenue cut
direct through the mounds, and sloping downwards to the main entrance
of the temple. Not, however, till we stood immediately under those ponderous columns, looking down upon the paved floor below and up to the huge cornice that projected overhead like the crest of an impending wave, did we realise the immense proportions of the building. Lofty as it looked from a distance, we now found that it was only the interior that had been excavated, and that not more than two-thirds of its actual height were visible above the mounds. The level of the avenue was, indeed, at its lowest part full twenty feet above that of the first great hall; and we had still a steep temporary staircase to go down before reaching the original pavement.
Among
those which escaped, however, is the famous external bas-relief of
Cleopatra on
the back of the temple. This curious sculpture is now banked up with
rubbish
for its better preservation, and can no longer be seen by travellers.
It was,
however, admirably photographed some years ago by Signor Beati; which
photograph
is faithfully reproduced in the annexed engraving. Cleopatra is here
represented with a headdress combining the attributes of three
goddesses;
namely the Vulture of Maut (the head of which is modelled in a masterly
way),
the horned disc of Hathor, and the throne of Isis. The falling mass
below the
headdress is intended to represent hair dressed according to the
Egyptian
fashion, in an infinite number of small plaits, each finished off with
an
ornamental tag. The women of Egypt and Nubia wear their hair so to this
day,
and unplait it, I am sorry to say, not oftener than once in every eight
or ten
weeks. The Nubian girls fasten each separate tail with a lump of Nile
mud
daubed over with yellow ochre; but Queen Cleopatra’s silken
tresses were
probably tipped with gilded wax or gum. It is
difficult to know where decorative sculpture ends and portraiture
begins in a
work of this epoch. We cannot even be certain that a portrait was
intended;
though the introduction of the royal oval in which the name of
Cleopatra
(Klaupatra) is spelt with its vowel sounds in full, would seem to point
that
way. If it is a portrait, then large allowance must be made for
conventional
treatment. The fleshiness of the features and the intolerable simper
are common
to every head of the Ptolemaic period. The ear, too, is pattern work,
and the
drawing of the figure is ludicrous. Mannerism apart, however, the face
wants
for neither individuality nor beauty. Cover the mouth, and you have an
almost
faultless profile. The chin and throat are also quite lovely; while the
whole
face, suggestive of cruelty, subtlety, and voluptuousness, carries with
it an
indefinable impression not only of portraiture, but of likeness. It is not
without something like a shock that one first sees the unsightly havoc
wrought
upon the Hathor-headed columns of the façade at Denderah. The
massive folds of
headgear are there; the ears, erect and pointed like those of a heifer,
are
there; but of the benignant face of the goddess not a feature remains.
Ampère,
describing these columns in one of his earliest letters from Egypt,
speaks of
them as being still “brilliant with colours that time had had no
power to
efface.” Time, however, must have been unusually busy during the
thirty years
that have gone by since then; for though we presently found several
instances
of painted bas-reliefs in the small inner chambers, I do not remember
to have
observed any remains of colour (save here and there a faint trace of
yellow
ochre) on the external decorations. Without,
all was sunshine and splendour; within, all was silence and mystery. A
heavy,
death-like smell, as of long-imprisoned gases, met us on the threshold.
By the
half-light that strayed in through the portico, we could see vague
outlines of
a forest of giant columns rising out of the gloom below and vanishing
into the
gloom above. Beyond these again appeared shadowy vistas of successive
halls
leading away into depths of impenetrable darkness. It required no great
courage
to go down those stairs and explore those depths with a party of
fellow-travellers; but it would have been a gruesome place to venture
into
alone. Seen from
within, the portico shows as a vast hall, fifty feet in height and
supported on
twenty-four Hathor-headed columns. Six of these, being engaged in the
screen,
form part of the façade, and are the same upon which we have
been looking from
without. By degrees, as our eyes become used to the twilight, we see
here and
there a capital which still preserves the vague likeness of a gigantic
female
face; while, dimly visible on every wall, pillar, and doorway, a
multitude of
fantastic forms – hawk-headed, ibis-headed, cow-headed, mitred,
plumed, holding
aloft strange emblems, seated on thrones, performing mysterious rites
– seem to
emerge from their places, like things of life. Looking up to the
ceiling, now
smoke-blackened and defaced, we discover elaborate paintings of
scarabæi,
winged globes, and zodiacal emblems divided by borders of intricate
Greek
patterns, the prevailing colours of which are verditer and chocolate.
Bands of
hieroglyphic inscriptions, of royal ovals, of Hathor heads, of mitred
hawks, of
lion-headed chimeras, of divinities and kings in bas-relief, cover the
shafts
of the great columns from top to bottom; and even here, every
accessible face, however
small, has been laboriously mutilated. Bewildered
at first sight of these profuse and mysterious decorations, we wander
round and
round; going on from the first hall to the second, from the second to
the
third; and plunging into deeper darkness at every step. We have been
reading
about these gods and emblems for weeks past – we have studied the
plan of the temple beforehand; yet now that we are actually here, our book
knowledge goes
for nothing, and we feel as hopelessly ignorant as if we had been
suddenly
landed in a new world. Not till we have got over this first feeling of
confusion – not till, resting awhile on the base of one of the
columns, we
again open out the plan of the building, do we begin to realise the
purport of
the sculptures by which we are surrounded. The
ceremonial of Egyptian worship was essentially processional. Herein we
have the
central idea of every temple, and the key to its construction. It was
bound to
contain store-chambers in which were kept vestments, instruments,
divine emblems,
and the like; laboratories for the preparation of perfumes and
unguents;
treasuries for the safe custody of holy vessels and precious offerings;
chambers for the reception and purification of tribute in kind; halls
for the
assembling and marshalling of priests and functionaries; and, for
processional
purposes, corridors, staircases, courtyards, cloisters, and vast
enclosures
planted with avenues of trees and surrounded by walls which hedged in
with
inviolable secrecy the solemn rites of the priesthood. In this
plan, it will be seen, there is no provision made for anything in the
form of
public worship; but then an Egyptian Temple was not a place for public
worship.
It was a treasure-house, a sacristy, a royal oratory, a place of
preparation,
of consecration, of sacerdotal privacy. There, in costly shrines, dwelt
the
divine images. There they were robed and unrobed; perfumed with
incense;
visited and worshipped by the King. On certain great days of the
kalendar, as
on the occasion of the festival of the new year, or the panegyrics of
the local
gods, these images were brought out, paraded along the corridors of the
temple,
carried round the roof, and borne with waving of banners, and chanting
of
hymns, and burning of incense, through the sacred groves of the
enclosure.
Probably none were admitted to these ceremonies save persons of royal
or
priestly birth. To the rest of the community, all that took place
within those
massy walls was enveloped in mystery. It may be questioned, indeed,
whether the
great mass of people had any kind of personal religion. They may not
have been
rigidly excluded from the temple-precincts, but they seem to have been
allowed
no participation in the worship of the gods. If now and then, on high
festival
days, they beheld the sacred bark of the deity carried in procession
round the
temenos, or caught a glimpse of moving figures and glittering ensigns
in the
pillared dusk of the Hypostyle Hall, it was all they ever beheld of the
solemn
services of their church. The temple
of Denderah consists of a portico; a hall of entrance; a hall of
assembly; a
third hall, which may be called the hall of the sacred boats; one small
ground
floor chapel; and upwards of twenty side chambers of various sizes,
most of
which are totally dark. Each one of these halls and chambers bears the
sculptured record of its use. Hundreds of tableaux in bas-relief,
thousands of
elaborate hieroglyphic inscriptions, cover every foot of available
space on
wall and ceiling and soffit, on doorway and column, and on the
lining-slabs of
passages and staircases. These precious texts contain, amid much that
is
mystical and tedious, an extraordinary wealth of indirect history. Here
we find
programmes of ceremonial observances; numberless legends of the gods;
chronologies of Kings with their various titles; registers of weights
and
measures; catalogues of offerings; recipes for the preparation of oils
and
essences; records of repairs and restorations done to the Temple;
geographical
lists of cities and provinces; inventories of treasure, and the like.
The hall
of assembly contains a kalendar of festivals, and sets forth with
studied
precision the rites to be performed on each recurring anniversary. On
the
ceiling of the portico we find an astronomical zodiac; on the walls of
a small
temple on the rood, the whole history of the resurrection of Osiris,
together
with the order of prayer for the twelve hours of the night, and a
kalendar of
the festivals of Osiris in all the principal cities of Upper and Lower
Egypt.
Seventy years ago, these inscriptions were the puzzle and despair of
the
learned; but since modern science has plucked out the heart of its
mystery, the
whole Temple lies before us an open volume filled to overflowing with
strange
and quaint and heterogeneous matter – a Talmud in sculptured
stone.4 Given
such
help as Mariette’s handbook affords, one can trace out most of
these curious
things, and identify the uses of every hall and chamber throughout the
building. The King, in the double character of Pharaoh and high priest,
is the
hero of every sculptured scene. Wearing sometimes the truncated crown
of Lower
Egypt, sometimes the helmet-crown of Upper Egypt, and sometimes the
pschent,
which is a combination of both, he figures in every tableau and heads
every
procession. Beginning with the sculptures of the portico, we see him
arrive,
preceded by his five royal standards. He wears his long robe; his
sandals are
on his feet; he carries his staff in his hand. Two goddesses receive
him at the
door and conduct him into the presence of Thoth, the ibis-headed, and
Horus,
the hawk-headed, who pour upon him a double stream of the waters of
life. Thus
purified, he is crowned by the goddesses of Upper and Lower Egypt, and
by them
consigned to the local deities of Thebes and Heliopolis, who usher him
into the
supreme presence of Hathor. He then presents various offerings and
recites
certain prayers; whereupon the goddess promises him length of days,
everlasting
renown, and other good things. We next see him, always with the same
smile and
always in the same attitude, doing homage to Osiris, to Horus and other
divinities. He presents them with flowers, wine, bread, incense; while
they in
return promise him life, joy, abundant harvests, victory, and the love
of his
people. These pretty speeches – chefs d’oeuvre of
diplomatic style and models
of elegant flattery – are repeated over and over again in scores
of
hieroglyphic groups. Mariette, however, sees in them something more
than the
language of the court grafted upon the language of the hierarchy; he
detects
the language of the schools, and discovers in the utterances here
ascribed to
the King and the gods a reflection of that contemporary worship of the
beautiful, the good, and the true, which characterised the teaching of
the
Alexandrian Museum.5 Passing on
from the portico to the hall of assembly, we enter a region of still
dimmer
twilight, beyond which all is dark. In the side-chambers, where the
heat is
intense and the atmosphere stifling, we can see only by the help of
lighted
candles. These rooms are about twenty feet in length; separate, like
prison
cells; and perfectly dark. The sculptures which cover the walls are,
however,
as numerous as those in the outer halls, and indicate in each instance
the
purpose for which the room was designed. Thus in the laboratories we
find
bas-reliefs of flasks and vases, and figures carrying perfume-bottles
of the
familiar aryballos form; in the tribute-chambers, offerings of
lotus-lilies,
wheat sheaves, maize, grapes, and pomegranates; in the oratories of
Isis, Amen,
and Sekhet, representations of these divinities enthroned, and
receiving the
homage of the King; while in the treasury, both king and queen appear
laden
with precious gifts of caskets, necklaces, pectoral ornaments,
sistrums, and
the like. It would seem that the image-breakers had no time to spare
for these
dark cells; for here the faces and figures are unmutilated, and in some
places
even the original colouring remains in excellent preservation. The
complexion
of the goddesses, for instance, is painted of a light buff; the
King’s skin is
dark-red; that of Amen, blue. Isis wears a rich robe of the well-known
Indian
pine-pattern; Sekhet figures in a many-coloured garment curiously
diapered;
Amen is clad in red and green chain armour. The skirts of the goddesses
are
inconceivably scant; but they are rich in jewellery, and their
headdresses,
necklaces, and bracelets are full of minute and interesting detail. In
one of
the four oratories dedicated to Sekhet, the king is depicted in the act
of offering
a pectoral ornament of so rich and elegant a design that, had there
been time
and daylight, the writer would fain have copied it. In the
centre room at the extreme end of the Temple, exactly opposite the main
entrance, lies the oratory of Hathor. This dark chamber, into which no
ray of
daylight has ever penetrated, contains the sacred niche, the Holy of
Holies, in
which was kept the great Golden Sistrum of the goddess. The king alone
was
privilieged to take out that mysterious emblem. Having done so, he
enclosed it
in a costly shrine, covered it with a thick veil, and placed it in one
of the
sacred boats of which we find elaborate representations sculptured on
the walls
of the hall in which they were kept. These boats, which were
constructed of cedar-wood,
gold, and silver, were intended to be hoisted on wrought poles, and so
carried
in procession on the shoulders of the priests. The niche is still there
– a
mere hole in the wall, some three feet square and about eight feet from
the
ground. Thus, candle
in hand, we make the circuit of these outer chambers. In each doorway,
besides
the place cut out for the bolt, we find a circular hole drilled above
and a
quadrant-shaped hollow below, where once upon a time the pivot of the
door
turned in its socket. The paved floors, torn up by treasure-seekers,
are full
of treacherous holes and blocks of broken stone. The ceilings are very
lofty.
In the corridors a dim twilight reigns; but all is pitch-dark beyond
these
gloomy thresholds. Hurrying along by the light of a few flaring
candles, one
cannot but feel oppressed by the strangeness and awfulness of the
place. We
speak with bated breath, and even our chattering Arabs for once are
silent. The
very air tastes as if it had been imprisoned here for centuries. Finally,
we take the staircase on the northern side of the temple, in order to
go up to
the roof. Nothing that we have yet seen surprises and delights us so
much, I
think, as this staircase. We had
hitherto been tracing in their order all the preparations for a great
religious
ceremony. We have seen the king enter the temple; undergo the
symbolical
purification; receive the twofold crown; and say his prayers to each
divinity
in turn. We have followed him into the laboratories, the oratories, and
the
Holy of Holies. All that he has yet done, however, is preliminary. The
procession is yet to come, and here we have it. Here, sculptured on the
walls
of this dark staircase, the crowning ceremony of Egyptian worship is
brought
before our eyes in all its details. Here, one by one, we have the
standard-bearers, the hierophants with the offerings, the priests, the
whole
long, wonderful procession, with the king marching at its head. Fresh
and
uninjured as if they had but just left the hand of the sculptor, these
figures –
each in his habit as he lived, each with his foot upon the step –
mount with us
as we mount, and go beside us all the way. Their attitudes are so
natural,
their forms so roundly cut, that one could almost fancy them in motion
as the
lights flicker by. Surely there must be some one weird night in the
year when
they step out from their places, and take up the next verse of their
chanted
hymn, and, to the sound of instruments long mute and songs long silent,
pace
the moonlit roof in ghostly order! The sun is
already down and the crimson light has faded, when at length we emerge
upon
that vast terrace. The roofing-stones are gigantic. Striding to and fro
over
some of the biggest, our Idle Man finds several that measure seven
paces in
length by four in breadth. In yonder distant corner, like a little
stone lodge
in a vast courtyard, stands a small temple supported on Hathor-headed
columns;
while at the eastern end, forming a second and loftier stage, rises the
roof of
the portico. Meanwhile,
the afterglow is fading. The mountains are yet clothed in an atmosphere
of
tender half-light; but mysterious shadows are fast creeping over the
plain, and
the mounds of the ancient city lie at our feet, confused and tumbled,
like the
waves of a dark sea. How high it is here – how lonely – how
silent! Hark that
thin plaintive cry! It is the wail of a night-wandering jackal. See how
dark it
is yonder, in the direction of the river! Quick, quick! We have
lingered too
long. We must be gone at once; for we are already benighted. We ought
to have gone down by way of the opposite staircase (which is lined with
sculptures of the descending procession) and out through the temple;
but there
is no time to do anything but scramble down by a breach in the wall at
a point
where the mounds yet lie heaped against the south side of the building.
And now
the dusk steals on so rapidly that before we reach the bottom we can
hardly see
where to tread. The huge side-wall of the portico seems to tower above
us to
the very heavens. We catch a glimpse of two colossal figures, one
lion-headed
and the other headless, sitting outside with their backs to the temple.
Then,
making with all speed for the open plain, we clamber over scattered
blocks and
among shapeless mounds. Presently night overtakes us. The mountains
disappear;
the Temple is blotted out; and we have only the faint starlight to
guide us. We
stumble on, however, keeping all close together; firing a gun every now
and
then, in the hope of being heard by those in the boats; and as
thoroughly and
undeniably lost as the babes in the wood. At last, just as some are beginning to knock up and all to despair, Talhamy fires his last cartridge. An answering shot replies from near by; a wandering light appears in the distance; and presently a whole bevy of dancing lanterns and friendly brown faces comes gleaming out from among a plantation of sugar-canes, to welcome and guide us home. Dear, sturdy, faithful little Reïs Hassan, honest Khalîfeh, laughing Salame, gentle Mehemet Ali, and Mûsa “black but comely” – they were all there. What a shaking of hands there was – what a gleaming of white teeth – what a shower of mutually unintelligible congratulations! For my own part, I may say with truth that I was never much more rejoiced at a meeting in my life. __________________________1 According
to the account given in her letters by Lady Duff Gordon, this dervish,
who had
acquired a reputation for unusual sanctity by repeating the name of
Allah 3000
times every night for three years, believed that he had by these means
rendered
himself invulnerable; and so, proclaiming himself the appointed Slayer
of
Antichrist, he stirred up a revolt among the villages bordering Gebel Sheik
Hereedee, instigated an attack on an English dahabeeyah, and brought
down upon
himself and all that country-side the swift and summary vengeance of
the government. Steamers with troops commanded by Fadl Pasha were
despatched up the
river; rebels were shot; villages sacked; crops and cattle confiscated.
The
women and children of the place were then distributed among the
neighbouring
hamlets; and Gow, which was as large a village as Luxor, ceased to
exist. The
dervish’s fate remained uncertain. He was shot, according to
some; and by
others it was said that he had escaped into the desert under the
protection of
a tribe of Bedouins. 2 Sir G.
Wilkinson states the total length of the temple to be 93 paces, or 220
feet;
and the width of the portico 50 paces. Murray gives no measurements;
neither
does Mariette Bey in his delightful little “Itineraire;”
neither does
Fergusson, nor Champollion, nor any other writer to whose works I have
had
access. 3 The names
of Augustus, Caligula, Tiberius, Domitian, Claudius, and Nero are found
in the
royal ovals; the oldest being those of Ptolemy XI, the founder of the
present
edifice, which was, however, rebuilt upon the site of a succession of
older
buildings, of which the most ancient dated back as far as the reign of
Khufu,
the builder of the great pyramid. This fact, and the still more
interesting
fact that the oldest structure of all was believed to belong to the
inconceivably remote period of the Horshesu, or
“followers of Horus” (i.e.
the petty chiefs, or princes, who ruled in Egypt before the foundation
of the
first monarchy), is recorded in the following remarkable inscription
discovered
by Mariette in one of the crypts constructed in the thickness of the
walls of
the present temple. The first text relates to certain festivals to be
celebrated in honour of Hathor, and states that all the ordained
ceremonies had
been performed by King Thothmes III (eighteenth dynasty) “in memory
of his mother,
Hathor of Denderah. And they found the great fundamental rules of
Denderah in
ancient writing, written on goat-skin in the time of the Followers of
Horus.
This was found in the inside of a brick wall during the reign of King
Pepi
(sixth dynasty).” In the same crypt, another and a more brief
inscriptions runs
thus: – “Great fundamental rule of Denderah. Restorations
done by Thothmes III,
according to what was found in ancient writing of the time of King
Khufu.”
Hereupon Mariette remarks – “The temple of Denderah is not,
then, one of the
most modern in Egypt, except in so far as it was constructed by one of
the
later Lagidæ. Its origin is literally lost in the night of
time.” See "Dendérah,
Description Générale," chap. i. pp.55, 56. 4 See
Mariette’s "Denderah," which contains the whole of these
multitudinous
inscriptions in 166 plates; also a selection of some of the most
interesting in
Brugsch and Dümichen’s "Recueil de Monuments Egyptiens"
and "Geographische
Inschriften," 1862, 1863, 1865 and 1866. 5 Hathor (or
more correctly Hat-hor, i.e. the abode of Horus) is not merely
the
Aphrodite of ancient Egypt: she is the pupil of the eye of the Sun: she
is the
goddess of that beneficent planet whose rising heralds the waters of
the
inundation; she represents the eternal youth of nature, and is the
direct
personification of the beautiful. She is also goddess of truth.
“I offer the truth to thee, O Goddess of Denderah!” says the king, in one of
the
inscriptions of the sanctuary of the Sistrum; “for truth is thy
work, and thou
thyself art truth.” Lastly, her emblem is the Sistrum, and the
sound of the
Sistrum, according to Plutarch, was supposed to terrify and expel
Typhon (the
evil principle); just as in mediæval times the ringing of
church-bells was
supposed to scare Beelzebub and his crew. From this point of view, the
Sistrum
becomes typical of the triumph of good over evil. Mariette, in his
analysis of
the decorations and inscriptions of this temple, points out how the
builders were
influenced by the prevailing philosophy of the age, and how they veiled
the
Platonism of Alexandria beneath the symbolism of the ancient religion.
The
Hat-hor of Denderah was in fact worshipped in a sense unknown to the
Egyptians
of pre-Ptolemaic times. |
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