Position 95 - The Sixty-five-foot Portrait Statues Of Ramses Ii, Before The Rock-hewn Temple Of Abu Simbel

Our sole purpose in climbing up here is to study and appreciate these portrait statues of Ramses II. We are now standing just south of the southern-most of the four colossi, and with the river on our right and the cliffs on our left, we look northward, you remember, at the two figures on the north of the door. We can see here just before us the fragments of the upper portion of the first statue on the south of the door, separated from the other two before us by an interval giving access to the door itself. How puny appears the figure of that tall native compared with the gigantic form of the Pharaoh! He is not longer than the beard of the nearer figure.

The Pharaoh sits in the ceremonious posture demanded of the divine ruler of the two Egypts, with hands reposing on his knees. He wears the tall double crown symbolic of his double realm of Upper and Lower Egypt . The crown rests upon a headdress of plaited linen, which hangs down behind the ears and falls upon the shoulders to a point as low as the tip of the beard.

This beard is artificial, and was ceremonial and symbolic. Osiris had worn such a beard when he ruled among men. It was fastened on by straps which passed up behind the ears, and if you look closely you can discern the strap following the jaw of the nearer head up to the ear. Over the forehead is the sacred uraeus serpent, the symbol of the goddess of Lower Egypt , who is thus the Pharaoh's constant companion and guardian divinity. On the breast under the beard and suspended from the king's neck is a ring bearing his name in hieroglyphics, and here on the right we also read the words: “Beloved of Amon, Usermare-Setepnere,” the latter part being the prenomen of Ramses II.

From the waist up the king's body is bare, but he wears about the loins a short kilt, a royal garment of enormous antiquity, which is, however, so scanty that it reaches not even to the knees. You can see its folds or plaits on this nearer leg below the forearm. Below it the legs are bare. You have seen the same costume, omitting the double crown, worn by King Khafre, in the Cairo Museum (Position 10). That masonry propping under the right arm is ancient, and was done by one of Ramses's successors.

You notice that the ears are set much too high. This was a device of the sculptor, frequently found in heads which are to occupy a position much higher than the observer, and you will find that this false position is not so evident if you look at these two figures again from the river, as we did at first (Position 94). Otherwise the heads are beautifully wrought, and the expression of the face is one of kindness and benevolence, combined with that impressive calm and a subtle touch of oriental indolence mingled with imperturbability, which in both ancient and modern minds are associated with royalty in the East.

Can we not easily understand how the Nubians worshiped not merely the great gods of Egypt besides their own, but also the living Pharaoh, as we look at these giant forms, which for over 3,000 years have directed the same impassive gaze over the swift-flowing river toward the rising sun? It was such works as these that made their author for generations the type of the ideal Pharaoh, so that his successors prayed the gods to grant them a reign like his.

But are these colossal sculptured figures really portraits? If you will recall the face of this king's father. Sethos I, as you saw him in his coffin in the Cairo Museum (Position 12) I think you will never question the family resemblance for a moment. Ramses II's body is also preserved in the same museum, and although these statues represent the king in his prime, while the body of the old hero was nearly, if not quite, a hundred years old when life left it, we find here, after allowance for the difference in age, the same aquiline nose and the strong chin, which are unmistakable features of the great king. They are found in all his statues, especially the most beautiful of all, a magnificent black granite figure of him in the museum of Turin.

What is here remarkable is the skill of the sculptor in working thus faithfully upon features of such colossal dimensions. In order to find out whether he was producing a faithful portrait and to gain an idea of the whole face as his work progressed, he must have gone out upon the river at short intervals and viewed these giant features from a distance. Think of working upon a nose, which from the tip to the eyebrows above was as tall as the sculptor himself! What modern sculptor possesses the hardihood to attempt a faithful portrait of this size in stone?

Now we must climb up those slippery sands, which you see drifting down the cliff north of the temple, and from there we shall look towards our present standpoint, that is, southward across the entire façade of the temple. See the lines numbered 96 on Plan 19.