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

DISCOVMRIES AT ABOU S1MBEL. 321

less injured the other three, flung down the great brick
pylon, reduced thepronaosof the library to a heap of ruin,
and not only brought down part of the ceiling of the exca-
vated adytum, but rent open a vertical fissure in the rock
some twenty or twenty-five feet in length.

With so much irreparable damage done to the great
temple, and with so much that was reparable calling for
immediate attention, it is no wonder that these brick
buildings were left to their fate. The priests would have
rescued the sacred books from among the ruins, and then
the place would have been abandoned.

So much by way of conjecture. As hypothesis, a suf-
ficient reason is perhaps suggested for the wonderful state
°f preservation in which the little chamber had been
handed down to the present time. A rational explana-
tion is also offered for the absence of later cartouches, of
Greek and Latin ex-votos, of Christian emblems, and of
subsequent mutilation of every kind. For, save that one
contemporary visitor—the son of the Royal Son of Kush—
the place contained, when we opened it, no record of any
passing traveler, no defacing autograph of tourist, archae-
ologist, or scientific explorer. Neither Belzoni nor Cham-
pollion had found it out. Even Lepsius had passed it by.

It happens sometimes that hidden things, which in them-
selves are easy to find, escape detection because no one
thinks of looking for them. But such was not the case in
this present instance. Search had been made here again
and again; and even quite recently.

ttameses II seems to be proved by the fact that, where the Osiride
Column is cracked across, a wall has been built up to support the
'Wo last pillars to the left at the upper end of the great hall, on
which wall is a large stela covered with an elaborate hieroglyphic
"jscription, dating from the thirty-fifth year, and the thirteenth day
or the month of Tybi, of the reign of liamesea II. The right arm
°' the external colossus, to the right of the great doorway, lias also
'»een supported by the introduction of an arm to his throne, built up
("j Square blocks; this being the only arm to any of the thrones. Miss
Martineau detected a restoration'of part of the lower jaw of the
I'oi'tlieriimost colossus, and also a part of the dress of one of the
Usiride statues in the great hall. 1 have in my possession a photo-
graph taken at a time when the sand was several feet lower than at
present, which shows that the right leg of the northernmost colossus
s also a restoration on a gigantic scale, being built up, like the
mrone-arm, in great blocks, and finished, most probably, afterward.