Читать книгу The Palace and Park - Edward Winslow Forbes - Страница 4

The remains of Egyptian Architecture are the most ancient yet discovered. They possess an absorbing interest, not only on account of the connection of Egypt with Biblical history, but also of the perfect state of the remains, which enables us to judge of the high state of civilisation to which Egypt attained, and which have permitted the decipherers of the hieroglyphics, led by Dr. Young, Champollion, and Sir Gardner Wilkinson, in our own time, to give us clear insight into the manner of life—public and private—of this early and interesting nation. Egyptian architecture is characterised by simplicity of construction, gigantic proportions, and massive solidity. The buildings were almost entirely of stone, and many of them excavations and shapings of rocks. The examples of this architecture now before us are not taken from any one ruin, but are illustrations of various styles, commencing with the earliest, and terminating with the latest, so that we are enabled to follow the gradual development of the art. Little change, however, was effected during its progress. The original solidity so admirably suited to the requirements of the Egyptians continued to the end; and religion forbade a change in the conventional representations of those gods and kings which so extensively cover the temples and tombs. So that we find the same peculiar character continued in a great measure to the very last.

[5] See the “Handbook to the Egyptian Court,” by Owen Jones and Samuel Sharpe; also, “The Egyptians in the Time of the Pharaohs, being a Companion to the Crystal Palace Collection,” by Sir Gardner Wilkinson, to which is added, “An Introduction to the Study of Egyptian Hieroglyphs,” by Samuel Birch. Crown 8vo., with Illustrations.

Plan of the Egyptian Court.

Advancing up the avenue of lions, cast from a pair brought from Egypt by Lord Prudhoe (the present Duke of Northumberland), we have before us the outer walls and columns of a temple, not taken from any one particular structure, but composed from various sources, to illustrate Egyptian columns and capitals during the Ptolemaic period, somewhere about 300 years B.C. On the walls are coloured sunk-reliefs showing a king making offerings or receiving gifts from the gods. The capitals or heads of the columns are palm and lotus-leaved; some showing the papyrus in its various stages of development, from the simple bud to the full-blown flower. The representation of the palm and the papyrus occurs frequently in Egyptian architecture; the leaves of the latter, it will be remembered, were made into a kind of paper, and its flowers were specially used as offerings in the temples. We shall afterwards inspect some growing specimens of this curious plant in the fountain basin at the north end of the Nave, as well as of the lotus, when these restorations may be remembered with interest. On the frieze above the columns is a hieroglyphic inscription stating that “in the seventeenth year of the reign of Victoria, the ruler of the waves, this Palace was erected and furnished with a thousand statues, a thousand plants, &c., like as a book for the use of the men of all countries.” This inscription is repeated, with some slight additions, on the frieze of the interior of the Court. On the cornice of both the inside and outside of the Court, are the names of her Majesty and the Prince Consort, engraved in hieroglyphic characters, and also winged globes, the symbolic protecting deity of doorways. Entering by the central doorway, on the lintels and sides of which are inserted the different titles of King Ptolemy, in hieroglyphics, we find ourselves in the exterior court of a temple in which the multitude assembled; the decorations of the walls are similar to those we saw outside, and it must be borne in mind that the colouring is taken from actual remains in Egypt. On the wall to the left is a large picture copied from the great Temple of Rameses III. or Rameses Mai Amun, at Medinet Haboo, near Thebes, showing the counting of the hands of the slain—three thousand as we are informed by the hieroglyphics engraved over the heads of the scribes—before the king who is in his chariot; on the right-hand side of the Court is a representation of a battle-scene, with the Egyptians storming a fortress. Turning to the left, after examining the eight gigantic figures of Rameses the Great, forming the façade of another temple, we enter the Court of Amunothph, a colonnade of an early period, its date being about 1300 B.C. The columns represent eight stems and buds of the papyrus bound together, and are cast from a black granite column bearing the name of Amunothph, now in the British Museum.

First order of Egyptian Column.

Passing on we find ourselves in a dark tomb copied from one at Beni Hassan. It is the earliest piece of architecture in the Crystal Palace, its date being about 1660 B.C. The original tomb is cut in the solid chain of rocks that forms a boundary on the east of the Nile, separating the sandy desert from the fertile valley of the river. Although architectural remains exist in Egypt of a much earlier date than this tomb, it still possesses great value to us, for it may be considered as exhibiting the first order of Egyptian columns, which was employed in constructing buildings at as remote a period as two thousand years before Christ; this fluted column in another respect claims our attention, for there can be but little doubt that it supplied the Greeks with the model of their early Doric. The original tomb has but one instead of four entrances as here represented, and is accordingly more gloomy and impressive. What is lost in sombre effect, however, is made up to the visitor in convenience.

Passing out, we behold, in front of us, a beautiful colonnade, or portico, from the Island of Philöe, and of the same period as the Egyptian wall which we first saw fronting the Nave. Within this we cannot fail to remark the scattered statues, especially the Egyptian Antinous, executed during the Roman rule, the life-like development of whose limbs, representing, as it no doubt does, the Egyptian type, is sufficient to convince us that when Egyptian art was not tied down by the hierarchical yoke, it was capable of producing works of truth and merit. Another work of art, executed when the country was under the Greek yoke, is the remarkable bas-relief portrait of Alexander the Great, inscribed in hieroglyphics and Greek characters. The Greek name is spelt wrongly—a sufficient proof that the work of art is from the hand of an Egyptian artist. Amidst the statues will be found two circular-headed stones—copies of the celebrated Rosetta stone (so called from having been found at the little town of Rosetta, near Alexandria) from which Dr. Young and Champollion obtained a key to the deciphering of hieroglyphics. The stone is engraved in three characters: Hieroglyphic, Enchorial—the writing of the country—and Greek; the inscription is an address from the priests to the Greek King of Egypt, Ptolemy V., in which the sovereign’s praises are set forth, and orders are given to set up a statue of the king, together with the address, in every temple. The date of this interesting remnant of Egyptian manners and customs is about 200 years before the Christian era.

Further on to the right, as we face the west—in a recess—is the model of the Temple of Aboo Simbel, cut in the side of a rock, in Nubia. The sitting figures which, in the original, are of the size of the gigantic figures which we shall afterwards see in the Northern Transept, represent Rameses the Great, and the smaller ones around, his mother, wife, and daughter. The original tomb is ten times as large as the present model. It should be remembered that nearly all the models here introduced are very much below the size of the architectural remains which they represent. For example: the majority of the columns in the Temple of Karnak are 47 feet high, and some are 62 feet. Turning from this recess, and after looking at the beautiful lotus columns to the left, surmounted by the cow-eared Goddess of Love of the Egyptians, and having examined the two large pictures on the walls of the temple—one of which represents a king slaying his enemies with the aid of the god Ammon Ra, and the other a feat of arms of the same king—we direct our attention to the columns before us, which are reduced models of a portion of the celebrated Temple of Karnak at Thebes. This temple was, perhaps, one of the largest and most interesting in Egypt; the principal portions are said to have been erected by Rameses II. about 1170 B.C. It seems to have been a fashion with the Theban kings to make additions to this temple during their respective reigns; and, as each monarch was anxious to outvie his predecessor, the size of the fabric threatened to become unbounded. Temples and tombs were the grand extravagances of the Egyptian kings. The sums that modern rulers devote to palaces which add to their splendour whilst living, were given by the remote princes of whom we speak, and who regarded life as only a fleet passage towards eternity, for the construction of enduring homes when life should have passed away. Inasmuch as, if the career of an Egyptian king proved irreligious or oppressive, the priests and people could deny him sepulture in his own tomb, it is not unlikely that many Egyptian kings lavished large sums upon temples, in order to conciliate the priestly favour, and to secure for their embalmed bodies the much-prized sanctuary. It is to be observed, however, with respect to the names and inscriptions found on Egyptian monuments, that they are by no means always to be taken as an authentic account of the remains within. Some of the Egyptian kings have been proved guilty of erasing from tombs the names of their predecessors, and of substituting their own; an unwarrantable and startling deception that has proved very awkward and embarrassing to Egyptian antiquaries.

Column from Karnak.

The portion of Karnak here modelled is taken from the Hall of Columns, commenced by Osirei the First, and completed by his son, Rameses the Great, a most illustrious monarch, whose deeds are frequently recorded, and whose statue is found in many parts of Egypt, and who flourished during the twelfth century before Christ. Before entering the temple, we stay to notice the representations of animals and birds on the frieze above the columns, which is the dedication of the temple to the gods. Entering between the columns, on the lower part of which is the name of Rameses the Great, and, in the middle, a representation of the three principal divinities of Thebes receiving offerings from King Osirei; and, after thoroughly examining this interesting restoration, we return again into the outer court. The visitor who wishes to realise to himself the actual condition of the principal Egyptian temples and wall-sculptures of Karnak and Kalabshee, can do so by inspecting the splendid collection of French photographs of these ancient works of art in the Gallery immediately over this court, or by consulting the works of Champollion and Sir Gardner Wilkinson in the Reading Room of the Library. Regaining the Nave, a few steps, directed to the left, bring us to

TOMB OF BENI HASSAN.