DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4393#0079
SAKKARAH AND MEMPHIS. 61
woods, threading our way among the same mounds that
we passed in the morning. Presently those in front strike
away from the beaten road across a grassy fiat to the right;
and the next moment we are all gathered round the brink
of a muddy pool, in the midst of which lies a shapeless
block of blackened and corroded limestone. This, it seems,
is the famous prostrate colossus of Barneses the Great,
which belongs to the British nation, but which the British
government is too economical to remove.* So here it
lies, face downward; drowned once a year by the Nile;
visible only when the pools left by the inundation have
evaporated, and all the muddy hollows are dried up. It is
one of two which stood at the entrance to the great Temple
of Ptah; and by those who have gone down into the hollow
and seen it from below in the dry season, it is reported of
as a noble and very beautiful specimen of one of the best
periods of Egyptian art.
Where, however, is the companion colossus? Where is
the temple itself? Whore are the pylons, the obelisk, the
avenues of sphinxes? Where, in short, is Memphis?
The dragoman shrugs his shoulders and points to the
barren mounds among the palms.
They look like gigantic dust-heaps and stand from
thirty to forty feet above the plain. Nothing grows upon
them, save here and there a tuft of stunted palm; and
their substance seems to consist chiefly of crumbled brick,
broken potsherds, and fragments of limestone. Some
few traces of brick foundations and an occasional block or
two of shaped stone are to be seen in places low down
against the foot of one or two of the mounds; but one
looks in vain for any sign which might indicate the out-
line of a boundary wall or the position of a great public
building.
And is this all?
No—not quite all. There are some mud-huts yonder,
in among the trees; and in front of one of these we find
a number of sculptured fragments—battered sphinxes,
torsos without legs, sitting figures without heads—
in green, black, and red granite. Ranged in an irregu-
lar semicircle on the sward, they seem to sit in forlorn
* This colussus is now raised upon a brick pedestal. [Note to
second edition.]
woods, threading our way among the same mounds that
we passed in the morning. Presently those in front strike
away from the beaten road across a grassy fiat to the right;
and the next moment we are all gathered round the brink
of a muddy pool, in the midst of which lies a shapeless
block of blackened and corroded limestone. This, it seems,
is the famous prostrate colossus of Barneses the Great,
which belongs to the British nation, but which the British
government is too economical to remove.* So here it
lies, face downward; drowned once a year by the Nile;
visible only when the pools left by the inundation have
evaporated, and all the muddy hollows are dried up. It is
one of two which stood at the entrance to the great Temple
of Ptah; and by those who have gone down into the hollow
and seen it from below in the dry season, it is reported of
as a noble and very beautiful specimen of one of the best
periods of Egyptian art.
Where, however, is the companion colossus? Where is
the temple itself? Whore are the pylons, the obelisk, the
avenues of sphinxes? Where, in short, is Memphis?
The dragoman shrugs his shoulders and points to the
barren mounds among the palms.
They look like gigantic dust-heaps and stand from
thirty to forty feet above the plain. Nothing grows upon
them, save here and there a tuft of stunted palm; and
their substance seems to consist chiefly of crumbled brick,
broken potsherds, and fragments of limestone. Some
few traces of brick foundations and an occasional block or
two of shaped stone are to be seen in places low down
against the foot of one or two of the mounds; but one
looks in vain for any sign which might indicate the out-
line of a boundary wall or the position of a great public
building.
And is this all?
No—not quite all. There are some mud-huts yonder,
in among the trees; and in front of one of these we find
a number of sculptured fragments—battered sphinxes,
torsos without legs, sitting figures without heads—
in green, black, and red granite. Ranged in an irregu-
lar semicircle on the sward, they seem to sit in forlorn
* This colussus is now raised upon a brick pedestal. [Note to
second edition.]