Position 51 - The Obelisk Of Ramses Ii, And The Front Of The Luxor Temple (view To The Southwest), Thebes

Again we have the pylon of the temple before us. “But it is so surprisingly low,” you object. No, only apparently so; we are standing on 25 or 30 feet of débris. Look at that colossus on the right, buried to the breast in rubbish. If we were standing on the temple pavement, that colossus would be some 40 feet high.

You may look through between the pylon towers and see the architraves, which bore the roof of the portico around the court, and the capitals of the columns which support them are almost on a level with our heads. It was up yonder on that left-hand tower that we stood for our first view of the temple (Position 48). We are now facing almost exactly as we were then, but the pylon now rises between us and the temple colonnades beyond. The river is on our right, as it then was, and Karnak behind us.

It cannot be said that these unlovely modern brick structures just before us add anything to the impression made by the pylon, of which they obstruct the view; the archaeologists, who would be more than glad to remove them and complete the excavation of the temple, have not yet succeeded in their purpose; and these natives, whom we see carrying up water in the old, old way, not being at all concerned for the temple of their forefathers, are at the same time very tenacious of their rights in these mud brick houses in which they live.

The excavator has, of course, no more right to remove these dwellings than has the surveyor of the elevated road to remove your house at home, in order to make way for his road, though you are vastly more interested in his road, than are these modern Egyptians in the excavations.

We are now near enough to the pylon to observe some of the details which we shall also see elsewhere. Those two openings near the top of the left tower are not windows, as you might suppose. Look below the one on the right, at the bottom, on the left of the obelisk, exactly in a vertical line with the opening, and you notice a sunken panel in the face of the pylon. In this panel against the masonry of the tower was set up a tall flagstaff. It passed up in front of the opening and was fastened there by a large metal clamp which projected from the same. This was the purpose of the opening. These flagstaves, of which there were at least two on each tower, and sometimes four, towered high above the pylon and were each crowned by a tuft of gaily colored pennants. But the flagstaves were not the only adornment of the pylon towers.

Notice those relief sculptures on the left-hand tower. All these temples of the Empire are great historical volumes, richly illustrated, in which the conquerors, who subdued Nubia and Syria, have recorded their achievements. These records offer not merely the inscriptional narrative of the Pharaoh's victories, but also vast walls filled with graphic pictures in stone, depicting the various incidents of the battles, sieges, marches and triumphs, in which the king took part. Thus we see here Ramses II charging the enemy in his chariot, and while he draws his mighty bow, he urges his plunging horses directly into the hostile ranks.

He is alone, or at most accompanied by his guards and attendants, having been cut off from his army by a clever maneuver of the enemy; and it is only with the greatest difficulty that he maintains himself until he is rescued by the arrival of a portion of his forces. He was so proud of his own prowess in this battle, which took place at Kadesh, on the river Orontes in Syria, that he had it thus depicted upon the walls of a number of his greater temples; and one of his court poets wrote a famous composition upon it, which is considered the epic of ancient Egypt.

Besides these reliefs, colored in the brightest hues, the flagstaves, with their brilliant pennants, and a row of massive colossi, of which we can see but one, the front of such a temple is adorned with two obelisks, which stand a little removed from the pylons, one on each side of the entrance. This obelisk before us, like the temple pylon, was erected by Ramses II. Its fellow, which should stand just before that colossus on the right, was removed to Paris in 1832-3, where it now stands in the Place de la Concorde.

It is not so high as this one before us, being 75 feet in height and weighing 212 tons. But it gave the French engineers a task worthy of their skill. As this one has not yet been excavated, its exact height is not known. The inscriptions in three columns record the fulsome names and titles of Ramses II, and the dedication of the monument by him to Amon, god of Thebes.

This last is in the middle line, and reads thus:

“He made it as his monument to his father, Amon-Re, erecting for him two great obelisks of granite.”

Being of pink granite, it was brought from the granite quarries of the first cataract at Assuan, where we shall later see such an obelisk still attached to the rock of the quarry. It is not as large as the obelisk of Queen Hatshepsut, which we shall visit at Karnak. But now we must turn to the great ruins of Karnak, which will occupy much of our time at Thebes, and before we begin our study of the ruins themselves, we must glance at our maps.

Turn first to the General Map No. 8, of the “District of Thebes.” Find Luxor and Karnak again in the lower right-hand corner of the map on the east bank of the Nile. Note again our first position at Luxor, as indicated by the lines 48 on this map, that we were looking up the river, or southwest, and remember that in our last position at Luxor we were standing only a short distance behind the first position and looking in the same direction.

Evidently, then, to go to Karnak we must turn completely around and move down the river, or northeast. Our first position at Karnak is given on this Map 8, Position 52, and shows that we are to be looking northeast, or opposite to the direction in which we looked from our last position at Luxor.

As the outline plan of Karnak is so small on this Map 8, we will turn to our Plan 11, which is on a much larger scale. It might be well to turn this plan first so that north, its lower left-hand corner, is away from us, that we may better perceive its relation to Luxor and the river, as given on Map 8. Our first position, 52, as marked on this plan shows that we are to see the “western avenue of sphinxes.”