Position 72 - From The High Cliffs Above Der El-bahri, Southeast Across The Plain To Luxor And The Nile, Thebes

We have looked across this plain before, but that was from a point further south (the right), where we had in range the colossi in the plain and the Ramesseum (Position 47). They are now out of our field of vision on the right. We are looking southeastward, our line of sight being at right angles with the river, which you descry as a white streak, behind which, on the right, is Luxor plainly marked by the white front of the hotel (Map 8).

On both sides of the river the fields stretch away far and wide, but our range of vision does not include Karnak, which is, of course, some distance to the left (north) of Luxor. Below us, hidden by the rocks at our feet, is the terraced temple of Der el-Bahri at the foot of the cliffs, and if our native attendant here should step incautiously out over these jagged points of rock, he would be dashed to instant death on the pavement of the upper court several hundred feet below us.

Out beyond the lower court where the pylons once stood, we see the sands of the desert covering many an ancient tomb. That rectangular brick building is a tomb of the 26th Dynasty, and the whole group of burials out there is known among the natives as El-Assasif. Beyond it you see the sands merging into the vegetation of the plain, but the line of transition is still very clearly marked.

All along this desert margin, formerly stretched in an imposing array that line of noble temples, of which now there are standing only the temple of Kurna, on the north (our left), the Ramesseum, now just outside our field on the right, and Medinet Habu on the extreme south. If you will look at the Map (No. 9), you will find the ground plans of those that have been located, but of which the superstructure has now disappeared. The temple of the great conqueror, Thutmosis III, stood out yonder on the plain, beyond and to the right of the large brick tomb, where now you see nothing but the level fields of the peasant.

There Thutmosis III celebrated one of his magnificent feasts of victory on his return from his first victorious campaign; but like all the others in that splendid line, it has utterly vanished. No city of the orient ever possessed such a group of buildings as these, and seen from below against the fine mass of these gaunt cliffs upon which we now stand, they must have made a spectacle such as the modern world has never looked upon.

Having as their pendants on the east shore the mighty mass of the Karnak group and the fine colonnades of Luxor, the whole set in the deep green of temple gardens, surrounded by splendid palaces and gorgeous chateaus of the nobles, about which were grouped the immense quarters of the vast city with miles of busy streets, markets and bazaars, the whole formed such a prospect from these heights as we have perhaps painted in fancy as we read the Arabian Nights, but no modern eye shall ever see.

For centuries the inhabitants of the city buried their dead in these cliffs at our feet, so that there grew up on this side of the river the quarters of the under-takers and embalmers, who here practiced their grewsome craft by thousands. Had we stood here on any day whatever, before the disappearance of the great city, we might have seen the sombre line of Nile boats leaving the other shore and pushing across the river.

Landing on this side we should have traced the long procession slowly winding on foot across the plain below us, while as they approached the sounds of mourning and lamentation, at first almost inaudible, would gradually rise until they seemed to fill all the plain, as the mourning cortege grew near one of those innumerable doors, which we have seen in the face of the cliff.

All day long we might have seen such processions, longer or shorter, as beseemed the rank and wealth of the departed, leaving the city yonder and entering these dread chambers beneath us; and every day for many centuries this continued, until these cliffs for miles above and below us here are honeycombed with such chambers as that of Sen-nofer, which we visited. And the vanished city, which once filled the broad plain yonder, tells its story to-day only in the paintings, inscriptions, and mortuary furniture still preserved in this city of the dead.

These tombs in the face of the cliffs are only those of the Thebans, not those of their kings. The tombs of the kings are now behind us, in a secluded valley, into which we shall presently look. There is, however, a fine view down the river from this point, and after we have enjoyed it, we shall look down into the valley where the kings were buried. First, then, we turn to the left, with our line of sight at right angles to that along which we are now looking.

See the red lines numbered 73, starting from the upper middle portion of Map 8 and extending northeast. The more extended range of vision which we are about to enjoy is marked out more fully on our large map of Egypt (Map 3).