DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14563#0281
girgeii and abydos.
243
closely without cement. The ceiling was studded with
stars, and with sculptures beautifully colored. I have not
seen in Egypt more exquisite workmanship. Yet the visitor
is doomed to disappointment through the great difficulty of
access to the temple, in consequence of the drifting in of the
sand from the desert and the neighboring mountains. Near
by is another temple, also inaccessible, the temple of Osiris,
built by the great Barneses, and enriched with alabaster
walls, some fragments of which may yet be found.
The neighboring mountains are filled with tombs, some of
which are nearly four thousand years old. Every thing
indicates that here was the site of a great city — a city of
wealth, population, and power, enriched with trophies of con-
quest and monuments of religion. But these buried temples
alone remain, and the Arabs, who now squat in their rags
upon the top of the splendid sanctuary of Osiris, have given
to the place the expressive name of " The Buried."
The scene is one of utter desolation. Before you, on the
west, the huge naked limestone bluffs glare fiercely in the
sun; around their base, the sand of the desert lies in drifts,
and beyond, the desert itself stretches in interminable silence.
Grand and gorgeous temples are buried fifty feet beneath
you, and all around is one mass of sand, and crumbling brick
and stone, that reaches to the mountains, and makes this
section of the plain an utter waste. It is in keeping that
human bones should lie thus bleaching, amid the fragments
of human power.
"What empires have perished here! This whole valley
of the Nile is filled with the ruins of cities, whose names
have hardly survived their burial. Everywhere the sites
of these old cities were well chosen; commonly at some
defile of the parallel chains of mountains, that run the whole
length of the river, where the mountains would serve as a
defence from both man and the desert, while the plain that
243
closely without cement. The ceiling was studded with
stars, and with sculptures beautifully colored. I have not
seen in Egypt more exquisite workmanship. Yet the visitor
is doomed to disappointment through the great difficulty of
access to the temple, in consequence of the drifting in of the
sand from the desert and the neighboring mountains. Near
by is another temple, also inaccessible, the temple of Osiris,
built by the great Barneses, and enriched with alabaster
walls, some fragments of which may yet be found.
The neighboring mountains are filled with tombs, some of
which are nearly four thousand years old. Every thing
indicates that here was the site of a great city — a city of
wealth, population, and power, enriched with trophies of con-
quest and monuments of religion. But these buried temples
alone remain, and the Arabs, who now squat in their rags
upon the top of the splendid sanctuary of Osiris, have given
to the place the expressive name of " The Buried."
The scene is one of utter desolation. Before you, on the
west, the huge naked limestone bluffs glare fiercely in the
sun; around their base, the sand of the desert lies in drifts,
and beyond, the desert itself stretches in interminable silence.
Grand and gorgeous temples are buried fifty feet beneath
you, and all around is one mass of sand, and crumbling brick
and stone, that reaches to the mountains, and makes this
section of the plain an utter waste. It is in keeping that
human bones should lie thus bleaching, amid the fragments
of human power.
"What empires have perished here! This whole valley
of the Nile is filled with the ruins of cities, whose names
have hardly survived their burial. Everywhere the sites
of these old cities were well chosen; commonly at some
defile of the parallel chains of mountains, that run the whole
length of the river, where the mountains would serve as a
defence from both man and the desert, while the plain that