DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4020#0064
52
TRAVELS IN EGYPT
T ii ere rnust have been twenty one columns on each side j but there are no
more than thirty two standing; and it is on the north side they are wanting.
Those of the middle, being the highest, make the roof more elevated than
the galleries. The reader sees, on the design, no more than one, marked (a)*
They have twenty four Danish feet in circumference, and a proportionate
height. We see not the pavement, because it is covered with rubbish, and
three or four feet depth of sand.
A t fifty paces from this edifice, we find other remains of antiquity, which I
have represented in the same plate (letters D, E.J It seems to have been a gallery,
that went round the court. These ruins are so much the more worthy of attention,
as it appears that Philostratus has spoken of them in what he has written of
the temple ofMEMNON, in the life of Apollonius.
You see there, under'letter £>, four pilasters, formed of divers pieces, all
made of that sandy stone which I mentioned above. Each pilaster is adorned
with a term, the arms laid across, and who holds in the right hand a kind of
crook. The heads of them have been knocked off; but there remains still on
the moulders a part of the ordinary head dress of the Egyptian figures. Above
each term there is a kind of club.
Three large blocks of stone cover these four pilasters, which in the same
manner as the rest are full of hieroglyphics; but the time did not permit me to
draw a particular design of them.
Under the letter E are marked four other pilasters, resembling those that
have been just described, and whose faces look towards those of the former.
Behind the gallery there is a wall, marked letter F. It is very much
ruined. We observed there, however, that one end of this wall was joined at
top to the colonade, by large stones, so that it was a walk, sheltered from the
rays of the sun. We perceive the same thing in the stone, marked letter £), and
resting upon the four first pilasters.
The distance between the pilasters D and E is too large to have been cover-
ed. It follows from thence, that if it was the place where the statue of Memnon
was placed, it must have been uncovered and in open air; which appears so
much the more probable, as it might, by that means, receive better the impreslion
of the rays of the sun.
U n d e r the letter G is represented the fragment of a colossus thrown down
and half buried. We scarce discover enough of it, to judge whether it has been
sitting, and in the same attitude as those that I have described in plate CX.
The upper part is wanting in this, and it appears that violence has been em-
ployed to separate it: the marks of it are still visible. All the body of this
coloslus was of a single piece of black granite marble. Its pedestal is in some
measure
TRAVELS IN EGYPT
T ii ere rnust have been twenty one columns on each side j but there are no
more than thirty two standing; and it is on the north side they are wanting.
Those of the middle, being the highest, make the roof more elevated than
the galleries. The reader sees, on the design, no more than one, marked (a)*
They have twenty four Danish feet in circumference, and a proportionate
height. We see not the pavement, because it is covered with rubbish, and
three or four feet depth of sand.
A t fifty paces from this edifice, we find other remains of antiquity, which I
have represented in the same plate (letters D, E.J It seems to have been a gallery,
that went round the court. These ruins are so much the more worthy of attention,
as it appears that Philostratus has spoken of them in what he has written of
the temple ofMEMNON, in the life of Apollonius.
You see there, under'letter £>, four pilasters, formed of divers pieces, all
made of that sandy stone which I mentioned above. Each pilaster is adorned
with a term, the arms laid across, and who holds in the right hand a kind of
crook. The heads of them have been knocked off; but there remains still on
the moulders a part of the ordinary head dress of the Egyptian figures. Above
each term there is a kind of club.
Three large blocks of stone cover these four pilasters, which in the same
manner as the rest are full of hieroglyphics; but the time did not permit me to
draw a particular design of them.
Under the letter E are marked four other pilasters, resembling those that
have been just described, and whose faces look towards those of the former.
Behind the gallery there is a wall, marked letter F. It is very much
ruined. We observed there, however, that one end of this wall was joined at
top to the colonade, by large stones, so that it was a walk, sheltered from the
rays of the sun. We perceive the same thing in the stone, marked letter £), and
resting upon the four first pilasters.
The distance between the pilasters D and E is too large to have been cover-
ed. It follows from thence, that if it was the place where the statue of Memnon
was placed, it must have been uncovered and in open air; which appears so
much the more probable, as it might, by that means, receive better the impreslion
of the rays of the sun.
U n d e r the letter G is represented the fragment of a colossus thrown down
and half buried. We scarce discover enough of it, to judge whether it has been
sitting, and in the same attitude as those that I have described in plate CX.
The upper part is wanting in this, and it appears that violence has been em-
ployed to separate it: the marks of it are still visible. All the body of this
coloslus was of a single piece of black granite marble. Its pedestal is in some
measure