Edwards, Amelia B.: A thousand miles up the Nile (New York, [1888])

ABOU SI MB EL. 259

see the colossi properly. Standing between the rook and
the river one is too near ; stationed on the island opposite
one is too far off ; while from the sand-slope only a side
view is obtainable. Hence, for want of a fitting stand-
point, many travelers have seen nothing but deformity in
the most perfect face handed down to us by Egyptian art.
One recognizes in it the negro and one the Mongolian
type ;* while another admires the fidelity with which " the
Nubian characteristics" have been seized.

Yet, in truth, the head of the young Augustus is not
cast in a loftier mold. These statues are portraits—jior-
traits of the same man four times repeated ; and that man
is Rameses the Great.

Now, Rameses, the Great if lie was as much like his
portraits as his portraits are like each other, must have
been one of the handsomest men, not only of his own day,
but of all history. Wheresoever wo meet with him,
Whether in the fallen colossus at Memphis or in the syenite
torso of the British Museum, or among the innumerable
bas-reliefs of Thebes, Abydos, Gournah, and Bayt-el-Welly,
his features (though bearing in some instances the impress
°f youth and in others of maturity) are always the same.
■The face is oval; the eyes are long, prominent, and heavy-
lidded; the nose is slightly aquiline and characteristically

*The late Vicomte E. de Rouge, in a letter to M. (Juigniaut on the
discoveries at Tanis, believes that be detects the Semitic type in the
Portraits of Kameses II and Seti I ; and even conjectures that the
Pharaohs of the ninteenth dynasty may have descended from Hyksos
ancestors: " L'origine de la famille des Ramses nous est jusqu' ici
completement inconnue ; sa predilection pour le dieu Set ou St/tech,
qui eclate des l'abord par le nom de Seti 1 (Sethoa), ainsi que d'antres
"ulices, pouvaient deja. engager a la reporter vers la Basse Egypte.
Nous savions meme que Ramses II avait epouse unc fille du Prince
de Kbet, quand le traite de l'an 22 eut ramene la paix entre les deux
pays. Le profi] tres-decid€ment semitique de Seti et de Ramses se
distinguait nettement des figures ordinaires de nos Pbaraons Tbe-
bains." (See "Revue Archeologique, vol. ix, A. D. 1864.) In the
course of the same letter, M. de Rouge1 adverts to the magnificent
restoration of the temple of Sutech at Tanis (San),by Rameses II and
to the curious fact that the god is there represented with the peculiar
head-dress worn elsewhere by the Prince of Kheta.

It is to be remembered, however, that the patron deity of Rameses
'I was Amen-Ha. His homage of Sutech (which might possibly nave
been a concession to bis Khetan wife) seems to have been confined
almost exclusivelv to Tanis, where Ma-at-iri-neferu-Ra may be sup-
posed to have resided.