DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4393#0386
308 A THOUSAND MILES UP Tllti NlLti.
the desert close by an undulating semi-transparent stalk of
yellow sand, which grows higher every moment, and begins
moving northward across the plain. Almost at the same
instant, another appears a long way off toward the south,
and a third comes gliding mysteriously along the opposite
bank. While we are watching the third, the first begins
throwing off a wonderful kind of plume, which follows it,
waving and melting in the air. And now the stranger
from the south comes up at a smooth, tremendous pace,
towering at least five hundred feet above the desert, till,
meeting some cross-current, it is snapped suddenly in
twain. The lower half instantly collapses; the upper, after
hanging suspended for a moment, spreads and floats
slowly, like a cloud. In the meanwhile, other and smaller
columns form here and there—stalk a little way—waver—
disperse — form again—and again drop away in dust.
Then the breeze falls, and puts an abrupt end to this
extraordinary spectacle. In less than two minutes there is
not a sand-column left. As they came, they vanish—
suddenly.
Such is the landscape that frames the temple; and the
temple, after all, is the sight that one comes up here to see.
There it lies far below our feet, the court-yard with its
almost perfect pavement; the flat roof compact of gigantic
monoliths; the wall of circuit with its panoramic sculpt-
ures ; the portico, with its screen and pillars distinct in
brilliant light against inner depths of dark; each pillar a
shaft of ivory, each square of dark a block of ebony. So
perfect, so solid, so splendid is the whole structure ; so
simple in unity of plan ; so complex in ornament ; so
majestic in completeness, that one feels as if it solved the
whole problem of religions architecture.
Take it for what it is—a Ptolemaic structure preserved
in all its integrity of strength and finish—it is certainly the
finest temple in Egypt. It brings before us, with even
more completeness than Dendcrah, the purposes of its
various parts and the kind of ceremonial for which it was
designed. Every corridor and chamber tells its own story.
Even the names of the different chambers are graven upon
them in such wise that nothing* would be easier than to
* Not only the names of the chambers, hut their dimensions in
cubits and subdivisions of cubits are piven. See " Itineraire de la
Haute figypte." A. Mariette Bey. 1872, p. 241.
the desert close by an undulating semi-transparent stalk of
yellow sand, which grows higher every moment, and begins
moving northward across the plain. Almost at the same
instant, another appears a long way off toward the south,
and a third comes gliding mysteriously along the opposite
bank. While we are watching the third, the first begins
throwing off a wonderful kind of plume, which follows it,
waving and melting in the air. And now the stranger
from the south comes up at a smooth, tremendous pace,
towering at least five hundred feet above the desert, till,
meeting some cross-current, it is snapped suddenly in
twain. The lower half instantly collapses; the upper, after
hanging suspended for a moment, spreads and floats
slowly, like a cloud. In the meanwhile, other and smaller
columns form here and there—stalk a little way—waver—
disperse — form again—and again drop away in dust.
Then the breeze falls, and puts an abrupt end to this
extraordinary spectacle. In less than two minutes there is
not a sand-column left. As they came, they vanish—
suddenly.
Such is the landscape that frames the temple; and the
temple, after all, is the sight that one comes up here to see.
There it lies far below our feet, the court-yard with its
almost perfect pavement; the flat roof compact of gigantic
monoliths; the wall of circuit with its panoramic sculpt-
ures ; the portico, with its screen and pillars distinct in
brilliant light against inner depths of dark; each pillar a
shaft of ivory, each square of dark a block of ebony. So
perfect, so solid, so splendid is the whole structure ; so
simple in unity of plan ; so complex in ornament ; so
majestic in completeness, that one feels as if it solved the
whole problem of religions architecture.
Take it for what it is—a Ptolemaic structure preserved
in all its integrity of strength and finish—it is certainly the
finest temple in Egypt. It brings before us, with even
more completeness than Dendcrah, the purposes of its
various parts and the kind of ceremonial for which it was
designed. Every corridor and chamber tells its own story.
Even the names of the different chambers are graven upon
them in such wise that nothing* would be easier than to
* Not only the names of the chambers, hut their dimensions in
cubits and subdivisions of cubits are piven. See " Itineraire de la
Haute figypte." A. Mariette Bey. 1872, p. 241.