DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4644#0004
FRAGMENT OF THE GREAT COLOSSUS AT THE MEMNONIUM, THEBES.
It has been found impossible to reconcile what exists of this Temple with the account given by
the ancients of the form, character, and exact locale of the famous Memnonium. If the enormous
statues of Damy and Shamy, the northernmost of which is, unquestionably, the Memnon of Strabo,
were, as he states, in a building called the Memnonium, or placed like the statues before the great
propylon of Luxor, this structure must have been destroyed since his time, as well as the Temple of
which it formed a part. Various remains are found, and the plan of a vast structure may be traced,
which will bear out the statement of Strabo. What, then, is the building now called the Memnonium?
Some profound investigators have agreed to consider it as the tomb of Osymandyas. It has also
been called the Ramseion, which Mr. Birch, whilst he adopts it, says is a hybrid Greek term for the
Egyptian Ei-en-Ramos, or abode of Ramses, and has been applied to a magnificent pile of buildings
called by Hecataeus the tomb of Osymandyas, and by more recent writers the Memnonium. There
are many reasons, he adds, for believing it to be either this famous tomb, or else modelled upon it.
But others look upon it as the palace, or palace-temple, of Remeses III., or Sesostris (antiquaries
have not yet settled whether Remeses II. or III. is the Sesostris of the Greeks), the greatest of
Egyptian monarchs, whose monuments decorated Egypt and Asia from the rock-temples of Aboo-
Simbel to the tablets hewn in the rock near the road between Ephesus and Sardis.
The great propylon of this Temple is in ruins, the lower part only has some remains of the
records of the victories of Sesostris; and little exists of what was, probably, not inferior to the
Temple of Karnak. The figures on the columns in this view were typical of Osiris, though portraits
of Remeses — a practice of the Pharaohs to place their own resemblances on the figures of their gods.
This fragment of the Temple, with a portion of a lateral corridor of circular columns, with capitals of
the budding lotus, is a beautiful and picturesque object.
The fragment of a statue of Remeses II. is, however, the great wonder of the Memnonium.
Hecataeus says that it was the largest in Egypt. It was formed of one stupendous mass of syenite,
or granite, from the quarries near Assouan, or Syene, and represented the king seated on a throne,
with his hands resting on his knees. Its foot, judging from the fragments, must have been nearly
eleven feet in length and four feet ten inches in breadth. The figure measures from the shoulder to
elbow twelve feet ten inches, twenty-two feet four inches across the shoulders, and fourteen feet four
inches from the neck to the elbow. It has now been overthrown, and the colossal fragments lie
scattered round the pedestal.
If it be a matter of surprise how the Egyptians could transport and erect a mass of such
dimensions, the means employed to destroy it are scarcely less extraordinary. Had gunpowder been
known, it might easily have been effected : it is as probable that they knew the force of gun-cotton,
which would have been even more efficacious. The throne and legs are reduced to small fragments,
but the upper part, thrown back upon the ground, lies still in the position in which it probably fell.
No wedge-marks or indications of slow destruction appear; and if such means had been used, it is
probable that the destroyers would have begun at the top, in places of less resistance; but here the
force of disruption was applied in the middle or lower part of the figure, and, though we are ignorant
of the means, there is little doubt that an explosive force was used. The figures on the head and
in the pedestal are the work of the Arabs, who cut out the pieces for millstones. Its destruction
was, perhaps, coeval with the time of the Persians.
No idea can be conveyed of its gigantic size, it probably exceeded, when entire, nearly three
times the solid content of the great obelisk at Karnak, and weighed nearly nine hundred tons.
Birch's Historical Notices. Wilkinson's Egypt and Thebes.
It has been found impossible to reconcile what exists of this Temple with the account given by
the ancients of the form, character, and exact locale of the famous Memnonium. If the enormous
statues of Damy and Shamy, the northernmost of which is, unquestionably, the Memnon of Strabo,
were, as he states, in a building called the Memnonium, or placed like the statues before the great
propylon of Luxor, this structure must have been destroyed since his time, as well as the Temple of
which it formed a part. Various remains are found, and the plan of a vast structure may be traced,
which will bear out the statement of Strabo. What, then, is the building now called the Memnonium?
Some profound investigators have agreed to consider it as the tomb of Osymandyas. It has also
been called the Ramseion, which Mr. Birch, whilst he adopts it, says is a hybrid Greek term for the
Egyptian Ei-en-Ramos, or abode of Ramses, and has been applied to a magnificent pile of buildings
called by Hecataeus the tomb of Osymandyas, and by more recent writers the Memnonium. There
are many reasons, he adds, for believing it to be either this famous tomb, or else modelled upon it.
But others look upon it as the palace, or palace-temple, of Remeses III., or Sesostris (antiquaries
have not yet settled whether Remeses II. or III. is the Sesostris of the Greeks), the greatest of
Egyptian monarchs, whose monuments decorated Egypt and Asia from the rock-temples of Aboo-
Simbel to the tablets hewn in the rock near the road between Ephesus and Sardis.
The great propylon of this Temple is in ruins, the lower part only has some remains of the
records of the victories of Sesostris; and little exists of what was, probably, not inferior to the
Temple of Karnak. The figures on the columns in this view were typical of Osiris, though portraits
of Remeses — a practice of the Pharaohs to place their own resemblances on the figures of their gods.
This fragment of the Temple, with a portion of a lateral corridor of circular columns, with capitals of
the budding lotus, is a beautiful and picturesque object.
The fragment of a statue of Remeses II. is, however, the great wonder of the Memnonium.
Hecataeus says that it was the largest in Egypt. It was formed of one stupendous mass of syenite,
or granite, from the quarries near Assouan, or Syene, and represented the king seated on a throne,
with his hands resting on his knees. Its foot, judging from the fragments, must have been nearly
eleven feet in length and four feet ten inches in breadth. The figure measures from the shoulder to
elbow twelve feet ten inches, twenty-two feet four inches across the shoulders, and fourteen feet four
inches from the neck to the elbow. It has now been overthrown, and the colossal fragments lie
scattered round the pedestal.
If it be a matter of surprise how the Egyptians could transport and erect a mass of such
dimensions, the means employed to destroy it are scarcely less extraordinary. Had gunpowder been
known, it might easily have been effected : it is as probable that they knew the force of gun-cotton,
which would have been even more efficacious. The throne and legs are reduced to small fragments,
but the upper part, thrown back upon the ground, lies still in the position in which it probably fell.
No wedge-marks or indications of slow destruction appear; and if such means had been used, it is
probable that the destroyers would have begun at the top, in places of less resistance; but here the
force of disruption was applied in the middle or lower part of the figure, and, though we are ignorant
of the means, there is little doubt that an explosive force was used. The figures on the head and
in the pedestal are the work of the Arabs, who cut out the pieces for millstones. Its destruction
was, perhaps, coeval with the time of the Persians.
No idea can be conveyed of its gigantic size, it probably exceeded, when entire, nearly three
times the solid content of the great obelisk at Karnak, and weighed nearly nine hundred tons.
Birch's Historical Notices. Wilkinson's Egypt and Thebes.