DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1035#0046
10 TOPOGRAPHY OF THEBES. [Chap. I.
which, for symmetry of architecture and elegance
of sculpture, can vie with any other monument of
Egyptian art. No traces are visible of the dromos,
that probably existed before the pyramidal towers,
which form the facade of the first hypeethral area,
a court whose breadth of one hundred and eighty
feet, exceeding the length by nearly thirteen yards,
is reduced to a more just proportion, by the intro-
duction of a double avenue of columns on either
side, extending from the towers to the north wall.
In this area, on the right of a flight of steps lead-
ing to the next court, was the stupendous Syenite*
statue of the king seated on a throne, in the usual
attitude of these Egyptian figures, the hands rest-
after Strabo's time that the name of Memnon was applied to the
vocal statue of the plain. In short, I feel persuaded, 1st, that
the word Miamun led them to imagine him the Memnon men-
tioned by Homer, and thence to apply the word Memnonian to
the buildings erected by Remeses II.; 2dly, that later visiters to
Thebes, struck with the miraculous powers of the vocal statue,
transferred the name of the only monarch with whom they supposed
themselves acquainted, to the object they admired; and, 3dly, that
they ascribed to Memnon the tomb of Remeses V. in like manner
from his having the title of Amunmai or Miamun.
* Of Syenite, or granite from the quarries in the neighbourhood
of E'Souan or Syene. May not this have been the work of
Memnon of Syene, whose name has added so much to the con-
fusion regarding the Egyptian Memnon? since, as Hecatseus
states, it was the largest statue in Egypt. Its foot exceeds, in
fact, seven cubits; and, to judge from the fragments, must have
been about eleven feet in length, and four feet ten inches in
breadth. The statue measures from the shoulder to the elbow
twelve feet ten inches, twenty-two feet four inches across the
shoulders, and fourteen feet four inches from the neck to the elbow.
which, for symmetry of architecture and elegance
of sculpture, can vie with any other monument of
Egyptian art. No traces are visible of the dromos,
that probably existed before the pyramidal towers,
which form the facade of the first hypeethral area,
a court whose breadth of one hundred and eighty
feet, exceeding the length by nearly thirteen yards,
is reduced to a more just proportion, by the intro-
duction of a double avenue of columns on either
side, extending from the towers to the north wall.
In this area, on the right of a flight of steps lead-
ing to the next court, was the stupendous Syenite*
statue of the king seated on a throne, in the usual
attitude of these Egyptian figures, the hands rest-
after Strabo's time that the name of Memnon was applied to the
vocal statue of the plain. In short, I feel persuaded, 1st, that
the word Miamun led them to imagine him the Memnon men-
tioned by Homer, and thence to apply the word Memnonian to
the buildings erected by Remeses II.; 2dly, that later visiters to
Thebes, struck with the miraculous powers of the vocal statue,
transferred the name of the only monarch with whom they supposed
themselves acquainted, to the object they admired; and, 3dly, that
they ascribed to Memnon the tomb of Remeses V. in like manner
from his having the title of Amunmai or Miamun.
* Of Syenite, or granite from the quarries in the neighbourhood
of E'Souan or Syene. May not this have been the work of
Memnon of Syene, whose name has added so much to the con-
fusion regarding the Egyptian Memnon? since, as Hecatseus
states, it was the largest statue in Egypt. Its foot exceeds, in
fact, seven cubits; and, to judge from the fragments, must have
been about eleven feet in length, and four feet ten inches in
breadth. The statue measures from the shoulder to the elbow
twelve feet ten inches, twenty-two feet four inches across the
shoulders, and fourteen feet four inches from the neck to the elbow.