DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4644#0022
THE DROMOS, OR FIRST COURT OF THE TEMPLE OF KARNAK.
Few scenes of greater desolation are presented amidst the ruins of this vast structure, than within the
dromos, where one only now remains erect of that stupendous avenue of isolated columns, which
formerly continued through the great cloistered court of the Temple of Karnak between the first and
the second propylon; the former terminated the avenue of sphinxes, and the latter led from the
dromos into the great Hall of Columns: these propyla, if we may judge from their ruins, were the
most gigantic and magnificent ever erected.
Eleven of the central columns are now fallen, broken, and disjointed; yet the parts of each lie
generally in such connexion as to enable the observer to mark how they once stood, and in his
imagination replace them where they must have contributed so much to the grandeur and beauty of
this the most mighty Temple ever raised by man. Unless the single column had remained standing,
it would have been difficult to conceive the extent of the destruction of this once glorious approach,
and understand the purport of their structure; they were isolated, and bore on their summits the
figures or the emblems of Amunre, the great Egyptian deity to whom the Temple of Karnak was
dedicated. Beyond the column are seen the ruins of the second propylon, and within, the central
avenue of the great Flail of Columns.
How striking must have been the processions of the Pharaoh with the priests and the privileged
through these courts and halls! how impressive the solemnities of the music and the rites! how
splendid the dresses, the banners, the emblems, used in such processions, and the Temple itself! The
imagination is overwhelmed, not merely by its vastness, but by its sculptured and painted enrichments,
adding all that the arts of beauty could do to honour the god therein worshipped.
But this mighty Temple, which time and man have not yet been able utterly to destroy, is
permitted to exist in this state of ruin, to mark the punishment of those whose idolatrous
perversions of religion brought destruction upon what would, from its immensity and prodigious
strength, seem to have been built for all ages: what is it now ? Cities have existed of far more
recent foundation, without one stone being left upon another to mark their site; but those of Egypt,
and especially Thebes — the Noph and No of Scripture — were doomed by the maledictions of the
prophets, and the proofs before us exist of their awful verification. The predictions uttered by Divine
inspiration have been justified by Divine power. Here, where man so impiously worshipped the foul
idol he had made, the crawling reptile now shelters in, and the hyena finds a den.
Thus fearfully have the prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel been fulfilled here. " Let them know
what the Lord of hosts hath purposed on Egypt: the princes of Noph have seduced Egypt, even they
that are the stay of the tribes thereof. Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I am against thee, Pharaoh
king of Egypt, and the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste, from the tower of Syene even unto
the border of Ethiopia; and the country shall be desolate of that whereof it was full. I will also make
the multitude of Egypt to cease by the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon. Thus saith the
Lord God, I will destroy the idols, and I will cause their images to cease out of Noph; and there
shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt."
Whether it will ever be permitted that a pure faith and worship shall exist in later days in the
land which has been thus cursed for more than twenty centuries, is yet in the womb of time, and in
the inscrutable ordonnances of the Almighty.
Few scenes of greater desolation are presented amidst the ruins of this vast structure, than within the
dromos, where one only now remains erect of that stupendous avenue of isolated columns, which
formerly continued through the great cloistered court of the Temple of Karnak between the first and
the second propylon; the former terminated the avenue of sphinxes, and the latter led from the
dromos into the great Hall of Columns: these propyla, if we may judge from their ruins, were the
most gigantic and magnificent ever erected.
Eleven of the central columns are now fallen, broken, and disjointed; yet the parts of each lie
generally in such connexion as to enable the observer to mark how they once stood, and in his
imagination replace them where they must have contributed so much to the grandeur and beauty of
this the most mighty Temple ever raised by man. Unless the single column had remained standing,
it would have been difficult to conceive the extent of the destruction of this once glorious approach,
and understand the purport of their structure; they were isolated, and bore on their summits the
figures or the emblems of Amunre, the great Egyptian deity to whom the Temple of Karnak was
dedicated. Beyond the column are seen the ruins of the second propylon, and within, the central
avenue of the great Flail of Columns.
How striking must have been the processions of the Pharaoh with the priests and the privileged
through these courts and halls! how impressive the solemnities of the music and the rites! how
splendid the dresses, the banners, the emblems, used in such processions, and the Temple itself! The
imagination is overwhelmed, not merely by its vastness, but by its sculptured and painted enrichments,
adding all that the arts of beauty could do to honour the god therein worshipped.
But this mighty Temple, which time and man have not yet been able utterly to destroy, is
permitted to exist in this state of ruin, to mark the punishment of those whose idolatrous
perversions of religion brought destruction upon what would, from its immensity and prodigious
strength, seem to have been built for all ages: what is it now ? Cities have existed of far more
recent foundation, without one stone being left upon another to mark their site; but those of Egypt,
and especially Thebes — the Noph and No of Scripture — were doomed by the maledictions of the
prophets, and the proofs before us exist of their awful verification. The predictions uttered by Divine
inspiration have been justified by Divine power. Here, where man so impiously worshipped the foul
idol he had made, the crawling reptile now shelters in, and the hyena finds a den.
Thus fearfully have the prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel been fulfilled here. " Let them know
what the Lord of hosts hath purposed on Egypt: the princes of Noph have seduced Egypt, even they
that are the stay of the tribes thereof. Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I am against thee, Pharaoh
king of Egypt, and the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste, from the tower of Syene even unto
the border of Ethiopia; and the country shall be desolate of that whereof it was full. I will also make
the multitude of Egypt to cease by the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon. Thus saith the
Lord God, I will destroy the idols, and I will cause their images to cease out of Noph; and there
shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt."
Whether it will ever be permitted that a pure faith and worship shall exist in later days in the
land which has been thus cursed for more than twenty centuries, is yet in the womb of time, and in
the inscrutable ordonnances of the Almighty.