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The Monuments of Rameses The: Nubia

And the prince of Nubia, superintendent of the land of Cush, having got together the necessary workmen recommenced the task that had been begun during the reign of Seti, and caused it to be pushed with so great activity, that nothing like it had been done since there were kings in Egypt. The caving in of the soil, and the infiltration of sand into the tube of the well, were checked successfully by lin- : ings of reeds woven in mats or interlaced in fascines* and with such excellent result that the viceroy was enabled to send word to Mei-Amoun that the water was spouting four cubits above the soil, but that to raise it to twelve, as his Majesty had ordered with his own lips, it was still indispensable that a skilled workman should be sent. Shortly afterward the sovereign word of Rameses had its full effect: "The king of the waters has hearkened to the king of the earth, the well has been fortunately terminated, and abundant waters leap from its mouth and pass on to a distance to fertilize the surface of the desert and quench the thirst of the parched traveller." By a last decree, Rameses, the friend of Ammon, expressed the wish that this work of public utility should bear his name, and that a stele commemorative of these acts should be placed within the enclosure of the temple raised to Thoth Trismegistus, (celestial superintendent of Nubia for the supreme gods,) on the right bank of the Nile, opposite to the city of Pselkis. And it was there, at the mouth of the wady which leads from the river to the modern cantonal district of Olaki, that it has been found again in our time. * We give this interpretation on our own responsibility; it seems to be indicated by M. Lenormand. As for Mr. Birch, the text seems to him to allude to aquatic birds playung among the reeds. THE appellation of the land of Cush, which in the presence of the encroachments of the yellow or red branches of the human main stem, had receded from the southern plains of Asia as far as the upper basin of the Nile, still ran down in the days of Mei-Amoun from the unknown heights of Africa as far as the cataracts of Syene, thus covering all the territory that the Greeks have since called Ethiopia, and the moderns Sennaar and Nubia.

The importance of these provinces in the monarchy of Rameses was such that the title of their viceroy or superintendent seems to have been, under several dynasties, one of the first that was conferred upon the heir presumptive of the empire, at his birth, and a long partnership in common, of interests and of glory, had so bound them to Egypt that Champollion did not fail to discover that the Pharaohs, full of confidence in the natives of Ethiopia, gave up to them all the administrative positions even to the command of the troops of the country. The learned Egyptian scholar has cited and deciphered in support of his assertion a great number of inscriptions still existing between the first and second cataract.* * Champollion the younger: Letters Written from Egypt and Nubia.

Mei-Amoun, whose appanage this country appcars to have been during the lifetime of his father Seti, seems also, judging by the monuments with which he endowed it, to have retained a peculiar affection for it, during the whole course of his long life.

In fact, from Phile as far as Mount Barkal, more than two hundred leagues from Thebes and four hundred from the Mediterranean, there are few ruins, steles or subterranean temples that do not retain some relic, the scrolls or even the features of the great Rameses. It is to the graphic arts, to pure archæology, that the labor of retracing the stages of this long advance specially appertain; but it is not departing from the limited circle of this sketch even, wherein the effort is to become inspired with the philosophy of history, to cite those of the localities the examination of which may prove profitable in pursuing the study of ancient manners and institutions.

XIV.

AT Essebouah, stood a temple palace the avenue to which was formed by a double row of lions emblematic of courage ever on the alert. It terminated in two magnificent pylons supported by eight gigantic statues of Rameses. A bas-relief representing the fourteen daughters of that monarch makes one think that the monument dates from an advanced epoch of his reign and of his life. Moreover, it seems to have been thrown down in wantonness at some period of ferocious reaction or bar barian invasion, and the eight colossi overturned in the sand, remind us involuntarily of the Titans struck by the bolts of Jove.* In the speos or subterranean temple cut in the rocks at Derr by order of the conqueror, his image is seen seated at the farther end of the sanctuary between those of the three great ancestors of the Egyptian pantheon: Phtah, Ammon and Phra; and the legends on the walls show the same Rameses taking part as a divinity in the religious homage which he offers as a mortal, a priest and a god, all in one.

At Ibrim, which, under the name of Primis, was the landmark of the Roman empire at the time of its greatest extension toward the south, another speos was excavated in honor of Pharaoh and under the invocation of Toth and of Sate, the local divinities, through the pious care of a royal son of Cush, the same, no doubt, who is mentioned on * Ampère: Correspondence from Egypt and Nubia. Letter IX. View of Ibrim, at the present day. the stele relative to the well of Okau. On the carved and painted walls of the subterranean temple "this same personage is represented rendering his respectful homage to Rameses, at the head of all the functionaries of his government."