Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1167

 THEBAE AEGYPTI. also sen'eJ to break the cuiTent of the stream. The most remarkable monuments are two obelisks of liameses III., respectively 70 and 60 feet high, one of which still remains there, while the other has been removed to the Place de la Concm-de at Paris. Their unequal height was partially concealed from the spectator by the lower obelisk being placed upon the higher pedestal. Behind them were two mono- lithal statues of that monarch, in red Syenite granite. These are now covered from the breast downwards with rubbish and fluvial deposit, but were, originally, including their chairs or bases, 39 feet high. Next succeeds a court, surrounded by a corridor of double columns, 190 feet long and 170 broad. It is entered through a portal 51 feet in height, whose pyramidal wings are inscribed with the battles of Rameses. On the opposite side of the court a second portal, erected by Amunoph III., opens upon a colonnade which leads to a smaller court, and this again terminates with a portico composed of four rows of colunms, eight in each row. Beyond the third portico follows a considerable number of apartments, flanking a sanctuary on the walls of which are represented the birth of Amunoph, and his presentation to Anum. A dromos of andro-sphinxes, and various build- ings now covered with sand and dried mud, formerly connected the quarter of eastern Thebes, represented by Luxor, with that represented by Karnak. Near Id the latter place a portion of the dromos still exists, and a little to the right of it a second dromos of crio-sphinxes branches off, which must have been one of the most remarkable structures in the city. It led up to the palace of the kings, and consisted of a double row of statues, sixty or seventy in number, each 1 1 feet distant from the next, and each having a lion's body and a ram's head. The SW. entrance of the palace is a lofty portal, followed by four spacious courts with intervening gateways. The grandeur of the palace is, in some degree, lessened by later additions to its plan, for on the right side of the great court was a cluster of small chambers, while on its left were only two apartments. Their object is unknown, but they probably served as lodgings or oflices for the royal attendants. In the first of the two main courts stand two obelisks of Thothmes I., one in fragments, the other still erect and uninjured. In a second court to the right of the first, there were two obelisks also : the one which remains is 92 feet high. The oldest portion of the palace of Kurnah appears to be a few chambers, and some polygonal columns bearing the shield of Sesortasen I. To these — the nucleus of the later structures — Thothmes III. made consi- derable additions ; among them a chamber whose sculptures compose the great Karnak Tablet, so im- portant a document for Aegyptian chronology. But the Great Court is surpassed in magnificence by the Great Hall. This is 80 feet in height, and 329 feet long by 179 broad. The roof is supported by 134 columns, 12 in the centre and 122 in the aisles. The central columns are each 6G feet high, clear of their pedestals, and each 11 feet in diameter. The pedestals were 1 feet high, and the abacus over their capitals, on which rested the architraves of the ceiling, was 4 feet in depth. The colunms ■were each about 27 feet apart from one another. The aisle-columns stood in 7 rows, were each 41 feet high, and 9 feet in girth. Light and air were admitted into the building through apertures in tiie side walls. The founder of the palace was Setei-Menephthuh, of the 1 8th dynasty ; but one reign THEBAK AEGYPTI. 114: cannot have sufficed for building .so gigantic a court, and we know indeed not only that many of the historical b:is-reliefs which cover the walls were contributed by his son Rameses II., but also tijat the latter added to the Great Hall, on its NW. side, a vast hypethral court, 275 feet in breadth, by 329 in length. This, like the hall, had u double row of columns down its centre, and a covered corridor round its sides. Four giiteways opening to the four quarters gave admission into this court: and to the principal one which fronted the Nile an avenue of crio-sphinxes led up, headed by two granite statues of Rameses II. The purpose for which these spacious courts and their annexed halls and esplanades were erected was perhaps partly religious, and partly secular. Though the kings of the 18th and succeeding dynasties had ceased to be chief-priests, they still retained many ceremonial functions, and the sacred calendar of Aegypt abounded in days of periodical meetings for religious objects. At such panec/p'ies the priests alone were a host, and the people were not excluded. From the sculptures also it appears that the Court of Royal Palaces was the {)lace where troops were reviewed, embassies received, captives executed or distributed, and the spoils or honours of victory apportioned. Both temples and palaces also served occasionally for the encampment of soldiers and the administration of justice. The temperature of the Thebaid ren- dered vast spaces indispensable for the congregation of numbers, and utility as well as pomp may have combined in giving their colossal scale to the struc- tures of the Pharaohs. In the Great Hall a great number of the colunms are still erect. The many which have fallen have been undermined by water loosening the soil below : and they fall the more easily, because the archi- traves of the roof no longer hold them uprigiit. The most costly materials were employed in some parts of the palace. Cornices of the finest marbb; were inlaid with ivory mouldings or sheathed with beaten gold. These were the principal structures of the eastern moiety of Thebes: but other dromoi and gateways stand within the circuit of its walls, and by their sculptures or inscriptions attest that the JIacedonian as well as the native rulers extended, renovated, or adorned the capital of the Upper Country. Thi; eastern branch of the dromos which connects Lv.vor with Karnak appears from its remains to have been originally 500 feet in length, and com- posed of a double row of ram-headed lions 58 in number. The loftiest of Aegyptian portals stands at its SW. extremity. It is 64 feet high, but without the usual pyramidal propyla. It is indeed a work of the Greek era, and was raised by Ptolemy Euergetes I. Rameses IV. and Rameses 'III. .added temples and a dromos to the city. Nor was Thebes without its benefactors even so late as the era of the Roman Caesars. The name of Tiberius wjis insciibed on one of its temples; and H-adrian, while engaged in his general survey of the Emi)ire, ilireclod sdUie re- pairs or additions to be made to the temple of Z<'Us- Ammon. That Thebes, as Herodotus and Diodorus saw it, stood upon the site and incorporated tins remains of a yet more ancient city, is rendered pro- bable by its sudden cxjiansion under the 18th dynasty of the Piiaraohs, as well as by extant .■^jiec!- mcns of its architecture, more in affinity with the monuments S. of the cataracts than with the jirojicr Aegyptian style. It seems hardly questionable that 4 1> 4