Volume I Part 34 (2/2)
and as the first to launch a fleet upon the waters of the Red Sea
[369] MASPERO, _Histoire Ancienne_, pp 202, 203 The bas-reliefs at Dayr-el-Bahari represent the booty brought back by Hatasu fro this booty thirty-two perfuuished; these shrubs were planted by the orders of Hatasu in the gardens of Thebes On the subject of Hatasu and her expedition, see MASPERO'S paper entitled: _De quelques Navigations des egyptiens sur les Cotes de la Mer erythree_ (in the _Revue Historique_, 1878)
Whether Hatasu's architect was inspired by those artistic creations of the Chaldees which, as time went on, were multiplied over the whole basin of the Euphrates and even spread as far as northern Syria, or whether he drew his ideas entirely fro of high praise In most parts of the Nile Valley sites are to be found which lend theentle slope, upon which the erection of successive terraces would involve no architectural difficulties, and there is no lack of rocky walls against which porticoes could be erected, and in which subterranean chambers could be excavated Upon a series of wide platforradients like these, the pompous processions, which played such an ireat effect, while under every portico and upon every landing place they could find resting places and the necessary shelter from the sun Why did such a model find no imitators? Must we seek for the reason in the apparent reaction against her yptian people chose to look upon her as an usurper; they defaced the inscriptions which celebrated her cans; they effaced her cartouches and replaced her titles with those of her brothers”[370]
[370] MASPERO, _Histoire Ancienne_, p 203
It is certain that nowhere in Egypt has any building of considerable diements of Dayr-el-Bahari are repeated Atof the same kind is to be found in those rock-cut temples of Nubia which are connected with the river bank by a drohts of steps
When the princes of the nineteenth dynasty wished to raise funerary temples to their memory in their own capital, it would have been easy, had they chosen, to find sites upon the slopes of the western chain similar to that which Hatasu had employed with such happy results; but they preferred a different combination They erected their cenotaphs in the plain, at some distance from the hills, and they chose a forreat teious architecture of Egypt, in all its richness and variety, is known to us only through the reat works of the kings belonging to the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties We are tempted, however, to believe that the architects of the Sait period must have introduced fresh beauties into the plans, proportions, and decorations of those temples which the princes of the twenty-sixth dynasty, in their desire that their capital and the other cities of the Delta should rival or excel the nificence of Memphis and Thebes, confided to their skill Both the statues and the royal touish them from those of earlier epochs In all that we possess froypt, there is a new desire for elegance, for grace, carried sometimes to an extreme which is not free from weakness and affectation It is probable that the saious architecture of Sais
Unhappily all the buildings constructed in Me the Sait supre hardly a trace behind, and the Greek writers have left us nothing but vague accounts to supply their place Herodotus goes into ecstasies over the propylaea, that is, the pylons and outer courts, which Amasis added to the temple of Neith at Sais, and over the enorreat detail a chapel carved out of a single block of Syene granite, which Areat cost in order that it ht be erected in the sanctuary of the said temple; unhappily it was so much injured on the journey that his intention had to be abandoned[371]
[371] HERODOTUS, ii 175
All that we learn from the historian is that the Sait princes s without ard to their appropriateness, but sierated idea of their wealth and power The contractors of an earlier age were also in the habit of e to us froth and size, but they were never used except when they were required, to cover a void or some other purpose; the earlier architects neverfor difficulties merely to sho cleverly they could overcoretted that we know so little of the monument attributed by Herodotus to Pse becoypt, Psammitichos constructed those propylaea of the te In front of these propylaea he also caused to be constructed an edifice in which Apis was nourished as soon as he had ures Colossal statues, twelve cubits high, were employed as supports, instead of columns”[372] We yptian buildings, placed immediately in front of the real supports, and did not themselves uphold an entablature
Herodotus was not an architect, and, in taking account eneral effect, he doubtless used an expression which is not quite accurate
[372] HERODOTUS, ii 153
The most important point to be noticed in this short extract from the Greek historian is the hint it contains of the atteyptians, by ”men born too late in too old a century,” and of the means by which they hoped to rival their predecessors The architect of Pse been disused, of which, however, there are many examples at Thebes, and employed it under novel conditions
The caryatid forenerally found, in temples, in the peristyles of the fore-courts or the hypostyles of the pronaos
Psemethek made use of it for the decoration of as no more than a cattle stable[373] The stable in question had, it must be confessed, a God for its inhabitant, and so far it ht be called a temple; but it was a teements must have been very different from those required in the abode of an inanimate deity In it the God was present in flesh and blood, and special arrangements were necessary in order to provide for his wants, and to exhibit him to the crowd or conceal him, as the ritual demanded The probleyptians, as the guide who attended Herodotus called his attention to the building with an insistance which led the historian to pay it special attention
[373] Herodotus uses the word a???, of which stable or cattle-shed was one of the pris
Herodotus does not tell us what form the caryatides took in this instance It is unlikely that they were Osiride figures of the king, as in the Theban tereat deity of Mee of that God
Between the days of Caypt temporarily recovered her independencewhich numerous works were carried out and ation of the art of the Sait princes Its aims, methods, and taste were entirely similar We may, therefore, in spite of the limits which we have imposed upon ourselves, mention a work carried out no n of Nectanebo I Wewhich is sometimes called the southern te upon the island, all the rest being Ptolee we have hitherto encountered in religious architecture There are no internal subdivisions of any kind, nothing which rese to all the plans which have been published, it contained only one hall, or rather rectangular court, inclosed by fourteen graceful columns and a low, richly-decorated wall, which forms a kind of screen between the lower part of the columns This screen does not extend quite half-way up the columns; these latter support an entablature, but there has never been a roof of any kind There can be no doubt that the building was consecrated to Isis, whose ie is carved all over it; but could an edifice thus open to the outward air and to every prying eye be a te-room[374] Close to it the reainst which boats were ed their loads Thus the faithful who came to be present at the rites of Isis would asse-hall, whence they would be conducted by the priests to that sanctuary which becaes in the later years of the Egyptian ypte_, etc p 406
Certain peculiarities in the rew into frequent use in the Ptolemaic epoch, are here encountered for the first time This is not the place for its detailed consideration, but one must point it out as a second result of the desire shown by the architects of the period to achieve new develop the continuity of the national traditions Here, as in the monumental cattle-shed at Memphis, there is no invention of new forms; all the architectural eles It is the general aspect and physiogno that is new Whatever we may call it, the edifice erected by Nectanebo at the southern point of the island is certainly novel in forypt or in Nubia, but the repetition of its foreneration proves that it answered to a real change in the national taste and to new aspirations in the national genius Painting, engraving, and photography have given us countless reproductions of the picturesque building which rises on the eastern shore of the island, amid a bouquet of palm-trees It has been variously called the _bed of Pharaoh_, the _eastern tereat hypaethra_, the _su er and its proportions are more lofty, but its plan is quite similar[375] In the sketch lent to us by M Hector Leroux, the eastern te is filled up with the pylons of the great te
252)
[375] The temple of _Kerdasch_ or _Gartasse_ in Nubia resembles the Eastern Temple at Philae in plan; its date appears to be unknown
[Illustration: FIG 252--The ruins on the Island of Philae; from a sketch by Hector Leroux]
If we knew it better, we should probably find that the architecture of the Sait period formed the transition between that of the second Theban empire and that of the Ptoles of those original features of which we shall have to speak e arrive at the Graeco-Egyptian temples Unhappily, as none of the temples built by Psemethek, Amasis, and their successors have been recovered froypt, we shall be reduced to conjecture on this point Butfrom the ruins of Sais be abandoned? Mariette himself made some excavations upon its site, and confessed that he was discouraged by their result, or rather by their want of result Perhaps, however, deeper and ht sufficient indications of the ordonnance and plans of the s to per made[376]
[376] We have omitted to speak of those little temples known since the time of Champollion as _ exa to the Ptolemaic period The best preserved is that of Denderah It is probable, however, that the custoreat temples where a triad of Gods orshi+pped dated back as far as the Pharaonic period
Thein which the Goddess gave birth to the third person of the triad The authors of the _Description_ called theures in their decoration This deity has, however, nothing in common with Set-Typhon, the enemy of Osiris We no that his naypt from the country of the Aromati, and that he presided over the toilette of woypte_, etc, p 255)