The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1895-01-17
THE TEMPLE OF RAMEsES.
A Travellers Description of the Ancient
Egyptian Ruin.

EGYPTIAN Rum.
A man who reigns siXty-seven years,
lives to be just one hundred, and be-
gets one hundred and seventy children,
is likely to leave pretty big footprint
III the sands of time. His characteristic
way of proclaiming his achievements,
as it were with a foghorn, all up and
down Egypt, makes him very precious
to the historian. 1t is your modest
Cincinnatus kind of hero who does a
great thing, and then, diving back into
obscurity, wants so much researching
that he becomes a trial even TO a Ger
man savant. But directly Rameses had
achieved conquest, he could not rest
till he had carved the record of it on
every spare wall space from Memphis
up to Abu-SimbeL Moreover, he kept
a poet-laureate, one Pentaur, who wrote
a glorious poem in praise of Rameses;
and this is cut in the walls of Luxor,
on the Ramasseum at Thebes, at Ably
los, and, of course, at Abu-Simbel
1t was about the year 1880 b. c. that
Rameses began his temple at Abu-
Simbel. 1t was a superb idea, worthy
of his great mind; he simply took
vast hillside, and hewed his temple out
of the heart of it. Nothing less than
facade one hundred and twenty feet
long and one hundred and five feet
high would satisfy the imperial archi-
tect, and there he set the four immor-
tai warders, his own royal likeness
four times repeated. What must they
have been in their unspeakable dignity
on the great day when all Egypt jour
neyed to the conservation of the tenn
pie! Even now, after three thousand
years, wrecked and ruined as they are,
eternal peace sits upon their lips, and,
defying the centuries, they still keep
watch across the desert sand, gazing
with untroubled eyes into the very
heart of the dawn. The figure to the
left of the entrance has been shat
tered, the head and trunk having been
probably dashed to fragments by an
avalanche of rocks from the cliff above.
The two northernmost figures are also
more or less damaged; but the one
nearest to the river is, for all practical
purposes, quite perfect. Seen by the
first flush of sunrise he is very mysti-
cal and wonderful; even in the blaze of
full moon he remains most maiesti-
cal, " but he is most awful and over
whelming when one sees him beneath
the Egyptian moon. 1t is then that
you realize his triumph over all those
hungry generations" and feel how
small, cramped and mean modern life is.
And the interior is no less wonderful.
One enters vast hall filed with soft
twilight and mysterious hush, and
gradually, as ones eyes get accustomed
to the gloom, from ceiling, wall and
| pillar, loom and lean whole armies OF
wonderful figures-gods, heroes and
! kings, clad in gold and crimson and
blue; and of galloping horses, and all
the hurried rush of battle and con-
quest. In whirl and tempest of kingly
| glorification Rameses bursts upon his
enemies, overthrows their cities and
destroys whole legions with his own
hands. The magnificent poem of Pen
taur is written on the walls. and these
splendid pictures are the illustrations
to it. Eight enormous Osiride pillars
support the roof. Farther on, in the
heart of the mountain, is another hall,
and beyond that the holy of holies,
containing the shrine or altar; behind
this sit in semi-darkness four great
figures, Ptah, Amen. Hamarchis and
! Rameses himself. Here he has lifted
himself into the rank of the immortals,
and is enthroned with the three great
gods. One day in the year probably
the day of the dedication) strange
thing happens. The orientation of the
temple is so arranged that at sunrise
one level shaft of light pierces the
darkness of the outer and inner halls
and falls like living fire on the shrine
itself. l was fortunate enough to De
there on the very day, and the effect
was overwhelming in its mystery and
awe.-Cornhill Magazine.