Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/357

 The Tomb under the New Empire. 267 safety and all the honour of his victory to his father Amen, who heard his appeal for help and, precipitating himself into the 7neUe, snatched him from the very hands of his enemies. Medinet-Abou, which might be called The Second Ramesseum, is to Rameses III. what the pretended tomb of Osymandias is to Rameses II. His presence pervades both the temple itself and its adjoining pavilion. Its bas-reliefs represent one of the greatest events in Egyptian, we might almost say, in ancient, history , namely, the victory won by Rameses over a confederation of the nations of the north and west, of those who were called the maritime races. This victory was mainly instrumental in driving westwards certain peoples who were destined, in more recent times, to play a great part in the politics of the Mediterranean. Each of the buildings which we have just noticed had but a single proprietor. They were each dedicated to the memory of some one individual ; but there was nothing to prevent the association in a single temple of two sovereigns who might happen to be united by strong ties of blood, and this course was taken in the temple of Gournah, situated in the same district of Thebes. It was commenced by Rameses I., the founder of the nineteenth dynasty, continued by his son, Seti I., and finished by his grand- son, Rameses II. The first Rameses and Seti figure in it with the attributes of Osiris. The inscriptions enumerate the sources of revenue set aside by the king, in each nome, for the service of the annual sacrificial celebrations ; and thus the building reveals itself as a temple to the perpetual honour of the two first princes of a race which did so much to add to the greatness and prosperity of Egypt. The famous colossi of Amenophis III., known to the ancients as the Statues of Memnon, no doubt formed part of a similar building (fig. 18 and pi. vi). The temple built by this prince near the site of the Ramesseum has almost entirely disappeared, but the slight traces which still exist cover a vast space, and suggest that the building must have been one of rare magni- ficence.^ 1 This must have been the structure which Strabo calls the Memnonium, and near to which he seems to place the two colossi (xvii. p. 816). The true name of the author of both temple and colossi might easily be confused with that of the mythical Greek personage which the Hellenic imagination persisted in discovering everywhere in Egypt, and the similarity of sound must have helped to perpetuate the mistake among all the foreign travellers who visited the country. A curious passage in