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The Historians' History of the World 01 [Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
Электронная книга - «The Historians' History of the World 01 [Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia]». Краткое содержание книги:
There were two other canals with sluices at their mouths, from the lake to the river, which were alternately shut and opened when the Nile increased or decreased. This work united every advantage, and supplied the deficiencies of a low inundation, by retaining water which would uselessly have been expended in the sea. It was still more beneficial when the increase of the Nile was too great, by receiving that superfluity which would have prevented seed-time. Were the canal of Joseph cleansed, the ancient mounds repaired, and the sluices restored, this lake might again serve the same purposes. The pyramids described by Herodotus no longer exist, neither are they mentioned by Strabo.
When it is considered that this was the work of an individual, and that its object was the advantage and comfort of a numerous people, it must be agreed, with M. Savary, that the king who constructed it performed a far more glorious work than either the Pyramids or the Labyrinth.e
The Sphinx itself is hardly more distinctly Egyptian than the ruins of Karnak, a solemn memorial of Old Thebes. The famed Egyptologist, Lepsius, visited the region and described the impression the ruins made on him as follows:a
THE RUINS OF KARNAK
The river here divides the broad valley into two unequal parts. On the west side it approaches close to the precipitous Libyan range, which there projects; on the eastern side it bounds a wide fruitful plain, extending as far as Medamut, a spot situated on the border of the Arabian Desert, several hours distant. On this side stood the actual town of Thebes, which seems to have been chiefly grouped round the two great temples of Karnak and Luxor, situated above half an hour apart. Karnak lies more to the north, and farther removed from the Nile; Luxor is now actually washed by the waves of the river, and may even formerly have been the harbour of the city. The west side of the river contained the necropolis of Thebes, and all the temples which stood here referred more or less to the worship of the dead; indeed, all the inhabitants of this part, which was afterwards comprehended by the Greeks under the name of Memnonia, seem to have been principally occupied with the care of the dead and their tombs. The former extent of the Memnonia may be now distinguished by Gurnah and Medinet Habu, places situated at the northern and southern extremities.
A survey of the Theban monuments naturally begins with the ruins of Karnak. Here stood the great royal temple of the hundred-gated Thebes, which was dedicated to Amen-Ra, the King of the Gods, and to the peculiar local god of the city of Amen, so called after him (No-Amen, Diospolis). Ap, along with the feminine article Tap, from which the Greeks made Thebe, was the name of one particular sanctuary of Amen. It is also often employed in hieroglyphics in the singular, or still more frequently in plural (Napu), as the name of the town; for which reason the Greeks naturally, without changing the article along with it, generally used the plural θῆβαι. The whole history of the Egyptian monarchy, after the city of Amen was raised to be one of the two royal residences in the land, is connected with this temple. All dynasties emulated in the glory of having contributed their share to the enlargement, embellishment, or restoration of this national sanctuary.
It was founded by their first king, the mighty Usertsen I, under the Old Theban Royal Dynasty (XIIth of Manetho), between 2400 and 2300 B.C., and even now exhibits some ruins in the centre of the building from that period bearing the name of this king. During the dynasties immediately succeeding, which for several centuries groaned under the yoke of the victorious hereditary enemy, this sanctuary no doubt was also deserted, and nothing has been preserved which belonged to that period. But after the first king of the XVIIIth Dynasty, Aahmes, in the seventeenth century B.C., had succeeded in his first war against the Hyksos, his two successors, Amenhotep I and Tehutimes I, built round the remains of the most ancient sanctuary a magnificent temple, with a great many chambers round the cella, and with a broad court, and pylons appertaining to it, in front of which Tehutimes I erected two obelisks. Two other pylons, with contiguous court walls, were built by the same king, at a right angle with the temple in the direction of Luxor.
Tehutimes III and his sister enlarged this temple to the back by a hall resting on fifty-six columns, besides many other chambers, which surrounded it on three sides, and were encircled by one common outer wall. The succeeding kings partly closed the temple more perfectly in front, partly built new independent temples near it, and also placed two more large pylons towards the southwest, in front of those erected by Tehutimes I, so that now four lofty pylons formed the magnificent entrance to the principal temple on this side.
But a far more splendid enlargement of the temple was executed in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries B.C. by the great Pharaohs of the XIXth Dynasty; for Seti I, the father of Ramses Meri-Amen, added in the original axis of the temple the most magnificent hall of pillars that was ever seen in Egypt or elsewhere. The stone roof, supported by 134 columns, covers a space of 164 feet in depth, and 320 feet in breadth. Each of the twelve central columns is 36 feet in circumference, and 66 feet high beneath the architrave; the other columns, 40 feet high, are 27 feet in circumference.
It is impossible to describe the overwhelming impression which is experienced upon entering for the first time into this forest of columns, and wandering from one range into the other, between the lofty figures of gods and kings on every side represented on them, projecting sometimes entirely, sometimes only in part. Every surface is covered with various sculptures, now in relief, now sunk, which were, however, only completed under the successors of the builder; most of them, indeed, by his son Ramses Meri-Amen. In front of this hypostyle hall was placed, at a later period, a great hypæthral court, 270 by 320 feet in extent, decorated on the sides only with colonnades, and entered by a magnificent pylon.
The principal part of the temple terminated here, comprising a length of 1170 feet, not including the row of sphinxes in front of its external pylon, nor the peculiar sanctuary which was placed by Ramses Meri-Amen directly beside the wall farthest back in the temple, and with the same axis, but turned in such a manner that its entrance was on the opposite side. Including these enlargements, the entire length must have amounted to nearly 2000 feet, reckoning to the most southern gate of the external wall, which surrounded the whole space, which was of nearly equal breadth. The later dynasties, who now found the principal temples completed on all sides, but who also were desirous of contributing their share to the embellishment of this centre of the Theban worship, began partly to erect separate small temples on the large level space which was surrounded by the above-mentioned enclosure-wall, partly to extend these temples also externally.f
In almost unfailing sequence decline follows glory; and now, having seen the ruined monuments of the Theban Kingdom, we may turn to consider the ruin of her power.a
THE FALL OF THE THEBAN KINGDOM
[ca. 2250-1635 B.C.]
The new family (XIIIth Dynasty) which ascended the throne with Sebekhotep I, seems, from numerous similarities of name, to have been connected with the previous dynasty; for instance, two of its rulers took the prename of Amenemhat I, and their surname, generally supposed to have been derived from the god’s name Sebek, is linked to the name of the last queen, Sebek-neferu-Ra.
Sebekhotep I appears only once in the monuments, in a measurement of the height of the Nile at Kummeh in the first year of his reign; besides him only the sixth of his successors, with the remarkable name of Amenie-Antef-Amenemhat are on the two altar tablets of the Theban Amen.