Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/718

 688 THEBES of the population, while the western side was covered with temples and palaces and their avenues of sphinxes, and with the rock-hewn tombs of the kings. The principal structures at Gurna are the palace temples Mernephtheum and Ramesseuni. The former, approached by an avenue 128 ft. long, has pillars in the oldest style of Egyptian architecture and remarkable bass-reliefs. The latter, which for symmetry of architecture and elegance of sculpture may vie with any other Egyptian monument, occu- pies a series of terraces communicating with each other by flights of steps. It is supposed to be the Memnonium of Strabo, and that he corrupted Miamun, the title of Eameses II., into Memnon. Its entrance is flanked by two pyramidal towers ; its first court has a double avenue of columns on either side, and in the area a pedestal on which was a syenite sitting colossus of Rameses ; its second court has walls covered with sculptures representing the wars of Rameses III., and Osiride pillars which are doubtless the monolithal figures 16 cubits high described by Diodorus; the third stairway, from the foot of which Belzoni took the head of a royal statue of red granite, now in the British museum and known as the young Mem- non, conducts to a hall for public assemblies, with columns and walls covered with civil and religious sculptures ; and beyond the hall ex- tended nine smaller apartments, two of which remain, supported by columns, one of them being the sacred library or "dispensary of the mind" mentioned by Diodorus. Among the other monuments in this vicinity are two colos- sal statues, with the pedestals about 60 ft. high, the wonder of the ancients, one of them known as the vocal Memnon. (See MEMNON.) The village of Medinet-Abu stands upon a lofty mound formed by the ruins of the most splen- did temple palace in western Thebes, the Thoth- mesium, connected with the palace of Rameses by a dromos 265 ft. long. The sculptures in the latter are of singular interest, being the only examples that have been found of the decoration of the private apartments of an Egyptian palace. The whole sweep of the Libyan hills, for the space of 5 m. and to the height of 300 ft. from Gurna to Medinet-Abu, is full of sepulchres, excavated in the native cal- careous rock. This was the necropolis of the whole city, no tombs existing on the eastern side. The mummies are laid in rows by the side of or in tiers above each other, but never stand erect. The tombs of the lower classes are unsculptured, but abound in mummies of sacred animals. The royal sepulchres are in the valley of Bab el-Muluk, or Biban el-Muluk (the gate or gates of kings), the most spacious and highly adorned belonging to those mon- archs who enjoyed a long reign. The tombs near the entrance of the gorge belong entirely to the 19th and 20th dynasties, and those in a branch path are of the 18th dynasty. The monuments, as also those in the separate burial place allotted to the queens, are chiefly inter- esting from their inscriptions. Still more re- markable are the ruins on the E. bank of the river, in the villages of Luxor and Karnak. At Luxor the most striking monuments Gateway of the Temple of Luxor. two beautiful obelisks of red granite, covered with inscriptions, one of which has been re- moved to the Place de la Concorde in Paris. In the rear are two sitting statues of Rameses, Gateway of Karnak. one 39 ft. high, but now covered to the breast with accumulations of earth and sand. Two courts and a series of apartments, connected and surrounded by colonnades and porticoes,