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

392 A THOUSAND MILES UP TUB NILE.

terraces up the mountain side, and approached once upon
a time by a magnificent avenue of sphinxes, the course of
which is yet visible—would probably be, if less ruined, the
most interesting temple ou the western side of the river.
The monumental intention of this building is shown by
its dedication to Ilathor, the Lady of Amenti; and by the
fact that the tomb of Queen Ilatshepsu was identified by
Rhiifd some twenty-five years ago as one of the excavated
sepu'lchers in the cliff-side, close to where the temple ends
by abutting against the rock.

As for the Temple of Gournah, it is, at least in part, as
distinctly a memorial edifice as the Medici Chapel at
Florence or the Superga at Turin. It was begun by Seti I
in memory of his father Rameses I, the founder of the nine-
teenth dynasty. Seti, however, (lied before the work was
completed. Hereupon Rameses II, his son and successor,
extended the general plan, finished the part dedicated
to his grandfather, and added sculptures to the memory of
Seti I. Later still, Menepthah, the son and successor of
Rameses II, left his cartouches upon one of the doorways.
The whole building, in short, is a family monument, and
contains a family portrait gallery. Here all the personages

mids, even to those who know not Egypt. We all know that they
represent Amenhotep, or Amnnoph 111; and that the northernmost
was shattered to the waist by the earthquake of b. c. 27. Being
heard to give out a musical sound during the first hour of
the day, the statue was supposed by the ancients to be endowed
with a miraculous voice. The Greeks, believing it to represent the
fabled son of Tithonus and Aurora, gave it the name of Memnon;
notwithstanding that the Egyptians themselves claimed the statues
as portraits of Amenhotep III. Prefects, consuls, emperors and
empresses, came " to hear Memnon," as the phrase then ran. Among
the famous visitors who traveled thither on this errand, we find
Strabo, Germanicus, Hadrian and the Empress Sabina. Opinion is
divided as to the cause of this sound. There is undoubtedly a hollow
space inside the throne of this statue, as may be seen by all who
examine it from behind; and Sir 'J. Wilkinson, in expressing his
conviction that the musical sound was a piece of priestly jugglery,
represents the opinion of the majority. The author of a carefully
considered article in the Quarterly Review, No. 276, April, 1875,
coincides with Sir D. Brewster in attributing the sound to a trans-
mission of rarefied air through the crevices of the stone, caused by
the sudden change of temperature consequent on the rising of the
sun. The statue, which, like its companion, was originally one solid
monolith of gritstone, was repaired with sandstone during the reign
of Septimius Severus,