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Letters from Egypt, 1828-1829 Jean-Francois Champollion | | | | |
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Letters from Egypt 1828-1829
Eleventh Letter (p.136).
El-Mélissah (between Syène and Ombos), February 10, 1829.
We
have had bad luck; since our departure from Syène, to which we said
goodbye on the 8th of this month, here we are on the 10th, and we are
far from having crossed the distance which separates us from Ombos
where we go from Asouan in 9 hours in ordinary weather; but a violent
north wind has been blowing without interruption for three days, and
makes us pirouette on the waves of the Nile, swollen like a small sea.
without any interest; for the rest, perfect health, good courage, and
preparing ourselves to explore Thebes from top to bottom, if that is
not too much for our (p.138) means. We are, moreover, all cheered up by
the courier which arrived yesterday in the midst of our maritime
tribulations, and which finally brought me the letters from Paris of
September 16, October 12 and 25, and November 15. These, adding the two
previous ones, are the only letters that have reached me.
I
would like to thank our venerable M. Dacier for the good lines that he
kindly wrote to me on September 26th. I hope that he will have received
my letter from Ouadi-Halfah of last January 1, and that he will be good
enough to pardon the antiquity of my wishes for New Year's Day, already
obsolete when they reach him; but Nubia, and especially the second
cataract, are far from Paris, and the heart alone quickly crosses such
distances.
I will write from Thebes to our friend Dubois [1],
after having seen Egypt and Nubia thoroughly; I can say in advance that
our Egyptians will in the future, in the history of art, make a finer
figure than in the past; I bring back a series of drawings of great
things, capable of converting all the obstinate.
I am
transmitting to M. Drovetti the letter that M. de Mirbel wrote to me
(p.137), and I am convinced that it will be received by H.H. the Pasha
of Egypt, who never shrinks from useful things.
My last letter
is from Ibsamboul [Abu Simbel]; I must therefore resume my route starting from this
beautiful monument which we have exhausted, at the risk of being
exhausted ourselves by the difficulties of its study.
Fig.1: Map of sites in Lower Nubia visited by Champollion from January 16-23, 1829 (marked by red dots).
We left it [Abu Simbel]
on the 16th of January, and early on the 17th we landed at the foot of
the rock of Ibrim [Kasr Ibrim], the Primis of the Greek geographers, to
visit some excavations which can be seen at the bottom of this enormous
mass of sandstone.
These spéos (I give this name to excavations
in the rock, other than tombs) are four in number, and from different
periods, but all belonging to Pharaonic times.
The oldest dates
back to the reign of Thuthmosis I; the bottom of this excavation,
square in shape like all the others, is occupied by 4 figures (third in
nature), seated, and representing twice this Pharaoh seated between the
Lord God of Ibrirn (Prim), that is to say one of the forms of the
hawk-headed god Thoth, and the goddess Saté, lady of Elephantine and
lady of Nubia. This spéos was a chapel or oratory consecrated to these
two deities; the side walls have never been carved or painted.
(p.140)
This is not the case with the second spéos; this belongs to the reign
of Moeris, whose statue, seated between those of the god lord of Ibrim
and the goddess Saté (Juno), lady of Nubia, occupies the niche at the
back. This chapel to the gods of the country was dug by the care of a
prince named JSahi, a great personage, bearing in all legends the title
of Governor of the southern lands, which included Nubia between the two
cataracts. What remains of a large picture sculpted on the right wall
shows us this prince standing, before the king seated on a throne, and
accompanied by several other public functionaries, presenting to the
sovereign, as the hieroglyphic inscription says ( unfortunately very
short) which accompanies this table, the revenues and tributes in gold,
silver, grain, etc., coming from the southern lands of which he had the
government. On the door of the spéos is inscribed the dedication that
the prince made of the monument.
The third spéos at Ibrim
is from the following reign, from the time of Amenhotep II, successor
of Moeris, under which the lands of the south were administered by
another prince, named Osorsaté. On the right wall, this king Amenhotep
II is represented seated, and two princes, among whom Osorsaté occupies
the first row, present (p.141) to the Pharaoh the tributes of the
southern lands and the natural productions of the country, including
lions , living greyhounds and jackals, as the inscription engraved
above the picture bears, and which specified the number of each of the
objects offered, as for example: 40 live greyhounds and 10 live
jackals; but the text is in such a deplorable state of degradation that
it was impossible for me to extract anything from it other than the
general facts. At the bottom of the spéos, the statue of King Amenophis
is seated between the gods (.Vibrini.
The most recent of these
spéos, the 4th (plate 39), is another monument of the same kind and
from the reign of Sesostris, Rhamses-le-Grand. It was also a governor
of Nubia who had it dug in honor of the gods of 7Z>n>72, Hermes
with the head of a hawk, and the goddess Saté, to the glory of the
Pharaoh whose statue is seated in the middle of the two local deities,
in the background of the spéos. But, at that time, the lands of the
south were governed by an Ethiopian prince, whose monuments I have
found at Ibsamboul and at Ghirsché. This character is figured in the
spéos at Ibrim, paying his respectful homage to Sesostris, and at the
head of all the public functionaries of his government, among whom
there are two hierogrammates, plus the grammate of (p.142) troops, the
grammate of the lands, the steward of the royal estates, and other
scribes without further designation.
[Description pl.39 in Monuments of Egypt and Nubia by J-F Champollion (1835):
"The two subjects of this plate are taken from one of the speos (cliff temple) of Ibrim, the 4th, which is the most northerly.
1.
Left wall. King Amenopbis II (XVIII dynasty), helmet, offering the
image of a pyramid, is presented by the god Horus to several
divinities; three of them, Chnouphis, Sate and Anouké, are featured on
our board.
2. Right wall. This same king, in the interior of a
building indicated by the two columns, is seated on his throne and
holds in his hands the scepter and the cross; a fan-bearer is behind
him and fulfills his office; two other characters present the emblem of
victory to the king. Outside the edifice (at left) is the goddess Saté, standing,
holding her divine insignia in her hands."]
It is to be noted, to the
honor of Egyptian gallantry, that the wife of the Ethiopian prince
Satnouï presents herself before Sesostris immediately after her
husband, and before the other functionaries. This shows, as well as a
thousand other similar facts, how much Egyptian civilization differed
essentially from that of the rest of the East, and approached ours; for
one can appreciate the degree of civilization of peoples according to
the more or less bearable state of women in the social organization.
On the evening of
January 17, we were at Dérri or Derr, the present capital of Nubia,
where we supped on our arrival, by an admirable moonlight, and under
the tallest palm trees that we had yet seen. Having struck up a
conversation with a barabra from the country, who, seeing me alone
apart on the edge of the river, had politely come to make me company by
offering me some brandy of dates, I asked him if he knew the name of
the sultan who had built the temple of Derri; he answered me
immediately: that he was too young to know that, but that the old men
of the country had seemed to him all to agree that this Dirbé had been
built approximately three hundred thousand years (p.143) before
Islamism, but that all these The old men were still uncertain on one
point, whether it was the French, the English, or the Russians who had
executed this great work.
This is how history is written in Nubia. The
monument of Dérri, although modern in comparison with the date given to
it by my Nubian scholar, is nevertheless the work of Sesostris [Ramesses III]. We
stayed there all day on the 18th, and did not come out quite late until
we had drawn the most important bas-reliefs, and drawn up a detailed
notice of all those of which no copies were taken.
[Description pl.40 in Monuments of Egypt and Nubia by J-F Champollion (1835):
"1.Portion of a bas-relief existing in the hemi-speos
[half cliff temple] of Derr, in Nubia, and representing a victory of
Rhamses the Great. The vanquished, placed in front, carry off their
wounded and retire to a mountain where shepherds guard the flocks. One
of these shepherds relates this event to a frightened woman, who has
taken a child from her.
2. Continuation of the same bas-relief.
Three Egyptian military leaders bring back the prisoners taken,
presumably, in the same fight (The middle group is damaged; there is no
more visible than the heads of the prisoners and the figure of the
leader who led them.)
3. Table taken from the same monument,
containing the names and titles of seven male children of Ramses the
Great; the columns are arranged from right to left; the dotted signs
are lacunae of the onginal; the restitution is taken from similar
monuments.
4. Table, matching the previous one, containing the
names of nine daughters of the same Rhamses. The columns are arranged
from left to right (Same observation for the dotted signs.)"]
There I found a
list, by rank of age, of the sons and daughters of Sesostris (plate 40-3+4); it will
serve me to complete that of Ibsamboul. We have copied some fragments
of historical bas-reliefs there; they are almost all erased or
destroyed. It was there that I was able to fix my opinion on a rather
curious fact: I mean the lion which, in the pictures of Ibsamboul and
Derr, always accompanies the Egyptian conqueror; it was a question of
whether this animal was placed there symbolically to express the valor
and strength of Sesostris, or whether this king really had, like the
capitan-pasha Hassan and the pasha of Egypt, a tamed lion, his
companion faithful in military expeditions. Derri decides the question:
I read, in fact, above (p.144) lion throwing himself on the Barbarians
overthrown by Sesostris, the following inscription: the lion, servant
of his majesty is putting his enemies to pieces . This seems to
demonstrate to me that the lion really existed and followed Rhamses
into battle.
For the rest, this
temple is a speos [cliff palace] dug in the sandstone rock, but on a very large scale:
it was dedicated by Sesostris to Ammon Ra, the supreme god, and to
Phre, the spirit of the Sun that one there invoked under the name of Rhamses who was the patron of the conqueror and all his lineage (plate 41-2)Plate 41:
Other bas-reliefs of the Temple at Derr. 1) North wall of Portico. 2)
East wall of the Sanctuary. 3) East Hall at right. 4) East Hall
at left.
[Description pl.41 in Monuments of Egypt and Nubia by J-F Champollion (1835):
"1.
The god Phré (the sun), with the head of a hawk, adorned with a rich
headdress, holding in his left hand the scepter of the gods, and the
sign of divine life in the right.
2. The namesake god of Rhamses the Great, sun guardian of justice, who is also his patron and that of most Rhamses.
3.
Bas-relief of the same monument. King Rhamses the Great, Sesostis,
receives from the hands of the goddess Saf-ri, the scepter of
panegyres. The cartouches, surname and first name of the king, are
engraved above his head.
4. The same king, dressed as the god
Socharis, is led by Harmesi and Atmu before the god Phre assisted by
the goddess who wears a naos on her head. One of the first two gods
presents the king with the sign of divine life."]
This peculiarity
explains why we find on the monuments of ibsamboul, Ghirché, Derr (plate 41),
Séboua, etc., King Rhamses presenting offerings or his worship to a god
bearing the same name of Rhamses. We would be mistaken in supposing
that this sovereign worshiped himself. Rhamses was simply one of the
thousand names of the god Phre (the Sun), and these bas-reliefs only
prove at most a sacerdotal flattery towards the living king, that of
giving to the god of the temple that of these names that the king had
adopted, and sometimes even the features of the face of the king and
queen founders of the temple: this is recognizable even at Philae, in
the part of the great temple of Isis, built by Ptolemy-Philadelphus.
All the /sw of the sanctuary (p .145) are the portrait of Queen
Arsinoë, who obviously has a head of Greek race: but the thing is even
more striking on the ancient monuments (the Pharaonic ones), where the
features of the sovereigns are true portraits.
On the evening of the 18th we went down to
Amada, where we remained until the 20th afternoon. There I had the
pleasure of studying at ease and without being distracted by curious
people, since we were in the middle of the desert, a temple of the good
old days. This monument, very encumbered with sands, is composed first
of a kind of pronaos, a room supported by 12 square pillars, covered
with sculptures, and by 4 columns, which one cannot better name than
proto-Doric ^ or Doric prototypes, as they are evidently the type of
the Greek Doric column; and, by a singularity worthy of remark, I find
them employed only in the most ancient Egyptian monuments, that is to
say in the hypogea of Beni-Hassan, at Amada, at Raruac, and at
Bet-oualli, where are the most modern, although they date from the
reign of Sesostris, or rather that of his father.
Plate 49: Amada: temple of Phre. 1. First room, second pillar on the left. 2,3,4, Temple of Phre, secos, right wall.
[Description pl.49 in Monuments of Egypt and Nubia by J-F Champollion (1835):
1. Head of King Thuthmosis IV (of the XVIII dynasty \ headdressed as the god Socharis, followed by his royal legend.
2. Head of King Thuthmose 01 (King Maris, of the XVIII Dynasty), followed by his
royal legend.
3. Helmeted head of King Amenothph or Amenophis II, of the same dynasty.
4. Head of the same king.
This subjects have been taken from bas-reliefs in the Temple of Phre, the Sun, at Amada, Nubia.
The
temple of Amada was founded by Thouthmosis III (Moeris), as most of the
bas-reliefs in the sanctuary prove (plate 49), and especially the dedication,
carved on the two jambs of the interior doors (pl.45, 5+7), and of which I put here
the (p.146) literal translation to give an idea of the dedications of
the other temples, all of which I have carefully collected. (V. the
hieroglyphic text^ pl. VI, )
"The Beneficent God, Lord of the
world, the King (Sun stabiteurder univers) [2], the son Sun
(Thouthmosis) [3], moderator of justice, has made his devotions to his
father the god Phre, the god of the two celestial mountains, and raised
to him this temple of hard stone; he did it to be quickened forever."
Plate 45:
Amada, Temple of Phre: 1. To the left of the secos door. 2. lintel of
the same door. 3. lintel of a side door of the sanctuary. 4. in the
corridor of the front door. 5. door frame of the sanctuary. 6 north of
the same sanctuary. 7. on the interior face of the jambs of the front
door.
[Description pl.49 in Monuments of Egypt and Nubia by J-F Champollion (1835):
1. King Amenophis II, purified by the gods Horus and Thoth. (Amada Temple]
2, 3, 4, 5, and 7. Inscriptions taken from the same temple.
6. Full-length figure of the same king Amenophis II (Colored.)
Moeris
died during the construction of this temple, and his successor,
Amenhotep II, continued the work begun, and had the four rooms sculpted
to the right and left of the sanctuary, as well as part of the one
preceding them; the works of this king are detailed in an enormous
stele, bearing an inscription of 20 lines which I have all copied, with
the sweat of my brow, at the bottom of the sanctuary.
His successor,
Thuthmose IV, completed the temple by adding the pronaos and the
pillars; all their architraves have been covered with his dedications
or laudatory inscriptions. One of them struck me with its singularity;
here is the translation:
“This
is what the god Thoth, the Lord (p.147) of the divine words, says to
the other gods who reside in Thyri: Hasten and contemplate these great
and pure offerings, made for the construction of this temple, by King
Thuthmose (IV), to his father the god Phre, great god, manifested in
the firmament!
The sculpture
of the temple of Amada, belonging to the beautiful period of Egyptian
art, is much preferable to that of Derr, and even to the religious
picture of Ibsamboul.
On the 21st we were at Wadi-Es Seboua (the valley of the lions), which receives this name from an
avenue of sphinxes placed on the dromos of its temple, (p.148) which is
a hemi-spéos, that is- that is to say, an edifice half built of hewn
stone, and half hollowed out of the rock; it is, without a doubt, the
worst work of the time of Rhamses-le-Grand; the stones of the building
are badly cut, the intervals were masked by cement on which the
decorative sculptures had been continued, which are of rather mediocre
execution.
This
temple was dedicated by Sesostris to the god Phré and
to the god Phtha, lord of justice: four colossi representing Sesostris
standing occupy the beginning and the end of the two rows of sphinxes
which make up the avenue: two historical paintings, representing the
Pharaoh striking the peoples of the North and the South, cover the
external face of the two massifs of the pylon (plate 50-1); but most of
these
sculptures are unrecognizable, because the mastic or cement which had
received a large part of them, has fallen off, and leaves a host of
gaps in the scene, and especially in the inscriptions. This temple is
almost entirely buried in the sands, which invade it on all sides (fig.2).
Plate 50: 1. Temple (hemi-speos) of Wadi-Es
Seboua, pylon, massif on the right. 2: courtyard, massif on the left,
basement. 3. Temple of Dakka, first sanctuary, right wall, 2nd row.
[Description pl.50 in Monuments of Egypt and Nubia by J-F Champollion (1835):
"The
subject of this plate is taken from the hemi-spéos of Wadi Es Seboua;
the name of Rhamses the Great, Sesostris, is there recalled in all the
historical or religious pictures. We read it in this one, where this
king is represented with his head adorned with the divine hairstyle; he
holds in his hands the hair of eight standing captives. The king
threatens them with his battle-axe, and seems to want to immolate them
before the god Phre. The inscription which is above the figure of the
god is incomplete in our copy, because it is mutilated on the monument.
2. One of the daughters of Sesostris; with a unique hairstyle.
3
One of the numerous bas-reliefs of the temple of Dakka is reproduced
here. A king wearing a helmet of Arsenoe makes an offering. This king
is Ergamene, who reigned for some time in Ethiopia, from the period of
the first Ptolemies."]
The whole day of the 22nd was lost for us, on
account of a very violent north wind, which forced us to land and keep
quiet on the shore until sunset. We took advantage of the calm to reach
Méharrakah, whose temple (p.149) we had seen on the way up: it is not
sculpted, and therefore of no interest to me, who only seeks the
hadjar-maktoub (the stones written ), as our Arabs say.
The
rising sun of the 23rd found us at Dakka, the ancient Pselcis. I ran
to the temple, and the first hieroglyphic inscription which fell before
my eyes told me that I was in a holy place dedicated to Thoth, lord of
Pselk: I thus increased my map of Nubia with a new hieroglyphic name of
city, and today I could publish a map of Nubia with the ancient names
in sacred characters.
The
monument of Dakkèh presents a double interest under the mythological
report; it provides infinitely precious materials for understanding the
nature and the attributions of the divine being whom the Egyptians
adored under the name of Thoth (the twice-great Hermes); a series of
bas-reliefs offered me, in a way, all the transfigurations of this god.
I found him there first (what must have been) in connection with
Har-Hat (the great Hermes Trismegistus), his primordial form, and of
which he, Thoth, is only the last transformation, that is say his
incarnation on earth following Ammon-Ra and Mouth incarnated in Osiris
and Isis. Thoth goes back to the celestial Hermes (Har-Hat), divine
wisdom, the spirit of God, passing through the forms: 1° of Pahitnufi
(the one whose heart is good); 2° of Arihosnofri or Arihosnoufi (the
one who produces the harmonious songs); 3° of Meui (thought or reason)
under each of these names Thoth has a particular form and insignia, and
the images of these various transformations of the second Hermes cover
the walls of the temple of Dakkëh. I forgot to say that I found here
Thoth (the Egyptian Mercury) armed with the caduceus, that is to say
the ordinary scepter of the gods, surrounded by two serpents, plus a
scorpion.
From a historical point of view, I have recognized
that the oldest part of this temple (the penultimate hall) was built
and carved by the most famous of the Ethiopian kings, Ergamenes
(Erkamen), who, according to the account of Diodorus of Sicily,
delivered Ethiopia from theocratic government, by an atrocious means,
it is true, by slaughtering all the priests of the country, he probably
did not do the same in Nubia, since he erected a temple and this
monument there. proves that Nubia ceased to be subject to Egypt from
the fall of the XXVI dynasty, that of the Saites, dethroned by
Cambyses, and that this region passed under the yoke of the Ethiopians
until the time of the conquests of Ptolemy Euergetes I which reunited
it again with Egypt. Also the temple of Dakkèh, started by the
Ethiopian Ergamènes, was continued by Ëvergète I, by his son Philopator
and his grandson Évergetes II. It was the Emperor Augustus who carried
out, without completing, the interior sculpture of this temple.
Footnotes:
1. Dubois is the head of the Archaeological Commission sent to the Morea by the French government.
2. 1st cartouche.
3. 2nd cartoucbe.
[Continue to part 2 of Letter 11]
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