DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6272#0108
AN ADVENTURE.
105
in the world may be seen—I mean the deserted solitude of the
valley of tombs behind, and the magnificent desolation and
fertility combined of the plain of Thebes in front—lies the
temple of Dayr el Bayr, or the " Temple to the North." I have
already spoken of the rained avenue of sphinxes which led to
it from the Memnonium; near it is the 2rtxo?, or sacred Hi-
closure, of one of the most ancient of temples. It was
supposed to communicate with the tombs of the kings, and
Dr. Yates says with the tomb of Sammis. Dr. Richardson
considers it, with the small temple of Isis behind the Memno-
nium, to be one of the most ancient fabrics in Thebes. At the
end of the avenue of sphinxes formerly stood some obelisks,
which you can barely trace.
The gateway of the temple is of fine architecture, and in
several of the chambers there are granite tablets, or steles,
which have been described by Champollion.
On the way to the rains of Gournou are fragments of a
colossal statue, formerly, as it is supposed, of Barneses II.
The whole way is strewn with fragments of statues.
Returning from Gournou by moonlight, with the guide,
while galloping along the desert, near what the rubbish and
bricks denoted- as the site of a rained town, in a most desolate
and dreary cemetery, with a few turban headstones, my horse
started at a fierce growl, or snarl, from an animal before him.
Riding on, I saw a horrid sight; a wild dog had just been
feeding on a carcass of what seemed in the moonlight to have
been the body of a newly buried Arab, but it might have been
the carcass of some other animal: and this sight, so common in
the desert outskirts of Egypt, would hardly have attracted me
or the horse, had not another more ferocious beast just ap-
proached, and whose glaring eyes, and whining, screeching
5*
105
in the world may be seen—I mean the deserted solitude of the
valley of tombs behind, and the magnificent desolation and
fertility combined of the plain of Thebes in front—lies the
temple of Dayr el Bayr, or the " Temple to the North." I have
already spoken of the rained avenue of sphinxes which led to
it from the Memnonium; near it is the 2rtxo?, or sacred Hi-
closure, of one of the most ancient of temples. It was
supposed to communicate with the tombs of the kings, and
Dr. Yates says with the tomb of Sammis. Dr. Richardson
considers it, with the small temple of Isis behind the Memno-
nium, to be one of the most ancient fabrics in Thebes. At the
end of the avenue of sphinxes formerly stood some obelisks,
which you can barely trace.
The gateway of the temple is of fine architecture, and in
several of the chambers there are granite tablets, or steles,
which have been described by Champollion.
On the way to the rains of Gournou are fragments of a
colossal statue, formerly, as it is supposed, of Barneses II.
The whole way is strewn with fragments of statues.
Returning from Gournou by moonlight, with the guide,
while galloping along the desert, near what the rubbish and
bricks denoted- as the site of a rained town, in a most desolate
and dreary cemetery, with a few turban headstones, my horse
started at a fierce growl, or snarl, from an animal before him.
Riding on, I saw a horrid sight; a wild dog had just been
feeding on a carcass of what seemed in the moonlight to have
been the body of a newly buried Arab, but it might have been
the carcass of some other animal: and this sight, so common in
the desert outskirts of Egypt, would hardly have attracted me
or the horse, had not another more ferocious beast just ap-
proached, and whose glaring eyes, and whining, screeching
5*