DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4669#0443
4o8 THE LAND OF THE MONUMENTS
to the .sound of a harp string, to a cymbal, and to a
metallic sound like the striking of brass. This last
description led Sir Gardner Wilkinson, in the year
1830,* to examine the statue carefully. He found
a large stone lying in its lap which, on being struck,
emitted a musical sound. He supposed that Memnon's
musical greeting of the Sun was a pious fraud, arranged
by the concealment of a person who struck this stone
or a similar one at the right moment to produce the
required effect.
This sound may have been produced by the expan-
sion of the stone by the heat rays of the rising sun.
Sir David Brewster t was the first to call attention to
the fact that fractured rocks after cooling during the
night, as soon as they became warm at sunrise, would
emit a certain sound, produced by the sudden change
from cold to heat, which is very great in such a latitude.
Fresh currents of air pass between the fractures and
produce musical notes.
The generally received opinion is that the " voice "
of Memnon arose from these natural causes. About
two hundred years after the earthquake the Roman
Emperor Septimius Severus ordered that the statue
should be carefully restored with sculptured blocks of
sandstone ; after this restoration no sound was ever
heard again. We climbed to the top of the pedestal
and examined the inscriptions in Greek and Latin
which abound upon the legs and feet of the statue,
and attest the fact that at such and such a date (within
the first two centuries of the Christian era) the writers
had heard Memnon salute the sun ! Standing on
either side of the legs of these statues arc the figures
of Tia, the beautiful queen of Amenhotep, and of
* " Egypt ;md Thebes," vol. ii. p. 161. f "Quarterly Review," 1831.
to the .sound of a harp string, to a cymbal, and to a
metallic sound like the striking of brass. This last
description led Sir Gardner Wilkinson, in the year
1830,* to examine the statue carefully. He found
a large stone lying in its lap which, on being struck,
emitted a musical sound. He supposed that Memnon's
musical greeting of the Sun was a pious fraud, arranged
by the concealment of a person who struck this stone
or a similar one at the right moment to produce the
required effect.
This sound may have been produced by the expan-
sion of the stone by the heat rays of the rising sun.
Sir David Brewster t was the first to call attention to
the fact that fractured rocks after cooling during the
night, as soon as they became warm at sunrise, would
emit a certain sound, produced by the sudden change
from cold to heat, which is very great in such a latitude.
Fresh currents of air pass between the fractures and
produce musical notes.
The generally received opinion is that the " voice "
of Memnon arose from these natural causes. About
two hundred years after the earthquake the Roman
Emperor Septimius Severus ordered that the statue
should be carefully restored with sculptured blocks of
sandstone ; after this restoration no sound was ever
heard again. We climbed to the top of the pedestal
and examined the inscriptions in Greek and Latin
which abound upon the legs and feet of the statue,
and attest the fact that at such and such a date (within
the first two centuries of the Christian era) the writers
had heard Memnon salute the sun ! Standing on
either side of the legs of these statues arc the figures
of Tia, the beautiful queen of Amenhotep, and of
* " Egypt ;md Thebes," vol. ii. p. 161. f "Quarterly Review," 1831.