82 VALUE OF EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. CHAPTER III. VALUE OF EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE- ANCIENT ARTS AND CIVILISATION GREATNESS OF MODERN NATIONS VOCAL STATUE OF MEMNON MYTHOLOGICAL LEGEND -IMPROBABLE EXPLANATIONS OF THE FABLE DESCRIPTION OF THE STATUE - INSCRIPTIONS ON THE LEGS THE MEMNONIUM BATTLE-SCENE ON THE PROPYLON COLOSSAL STATUE OF OSYMANDYAS ANOTHER BATTLE SCENE DEFECTS OF THE SCULPTURE — ALL THESE WARLIKE - CCCCLXII. IT may seem extraordinary, since, as works of art, the pictures and sculptures on the Egyptian monuments must be ranked in a very inferior class, that we nevertheless devote so much care and labour to the description of them. But our views aim at utility. By carefully investigating these wrecks of ancient civilisation, we may possibly arrive at the knowledge of many circumstances capable of throwing some light on the early history of our race, and the opinions, moral and religious, by which their GREATNESS OF MODERN NATIONS. 83 actions and their happiness were influenced. It is only when thus considered that such researches possess any value. Ignorance and imbecility alone travel to wonder and admire. The barbarians of those remote ages, arrived at the enjoyment of leisure, were impelled by natural instincts to imitate, and by superstition to erect such structures as a rude taste led them to suppose would be pleasing to their gods. In the multitude of their attempts they hit upon some useful inventions; and vanity led them to claim whatever was invented by others. Even from the savage nations of the present day some useful hints may be borrowed; and, therefore, though we regard the ancient Egyptians as barbarians, coarse in manners, ignorant of political science, slavish, fanatical, priest-ridden, it is still possible that some advantage may be derived from the study of their architectural and plastic monuments. It is certain, however, that modern nations, were they disposed to employ their wealth in the same way, could effect works infinitely superior both in grandeur and vastness to any thing ever accomplished by the Egyptians; our arts and mechanical contrivances being as superior to theirs as London is to Thebes. But with us wealth is in the hands of many, employed in promoting the comforts and conveniences of private life, or in public works of great and general utility. Our roads and bridges; our moles, and piers, and breakwaters, and canals ; our magnificent streets, and cities of palaces; our magazines, and arsenals, and navies, --all things necessary to the safety and well-being of a great em pire,compared with the most successful efforts of Egyptian civilisation are as Ossa to a wart. Even in architecture, the branch of art in which they most excelled, our ancestors, destitute of the resources we now possess, greatly surpassed them. Excepting the pyramids of Ghizeh, things perfectly unique, even in Egypt, they have no structures comparable to our Gothic cathedrals, or to St. Paul's church, whose vast and beautiful dome seems a mountain, when put, by the imagination, in juxta-position with their largest propylæa. CCCCLXIII. But to return to Thebes. When I had concluded my visits to the sepulchres of the kings, the VOCAL STATUE OF MEMNON* next commanded my attention. But who or what was this Memnon, a mortal or a god? The arbitrary attempts of mythologists to confound him with Osiris, originating in the vain desire to trace back to one the various gods of paganism, are eminently unsatisfactory. Let us relate the fable: - Memnon, son of Tithonus and Aurora, was a king of Ethiopia, who having, during the Trojan war, advanced at the head of an army through Egypt, and marched as far as Susa, Priam, his uncle, entreated his aid for Troy. The hero consented; and after the death of Hector was regarded as the champion of the Phrygian host, * On the signification of the name of Memnon, see Plato in Cratylo, edit. Bekk. t. ii. pt. ii. p. 28. — Strabo, 1. xvii. p. 813.—Ap. Creuzer, Rel. de l'Ant. t. i. p. 482.-Jablonski de Memnone, pp. 29. 97. — Salverte, Sciences Occultes, t. ii. pp. 353. 365. FABLE OF MEMNON. 85 until he also fell beneath the spear of Achilles. The traditions are not agreed respecting the place of his burial. According to some he was interred on the banks of the Æsépus, a river of Mysia which falls into the Propontis; others place his tomb in Cyprus; others in Syria; while a more poetical tradition relates that his mother, the Goddess of the Dawn, repairing herself, after his death, to the plains of Troy, bore away his beloved remains, and interred them at Susa, "the city of Lilies," where she caused a magnificent monument to be erected to his memory. Being of celestial birth, Jupiter, at the request of Aurora, consented to distinguish his funeral from that of other mortals. When the body had been deposited on the pile, and the fire kindled, there immediately issued from the flames a number of birds of prey, which, having flown thrice round the pyre, divided themselves into two bands, and engaged in so sanguinary a combat that above half their number remained dead upon the field. The survivors then departed; but every year, on the anniversary of the death of Memnon, repairing from Cyzicus to Ilion, they renewed their combat over the tomb. These birds, by the ancients called Menonides, were of a black colour, and, though by nature carnivorous, abstained from the taste of flesh. After his death Memnon was worshipped as a god. His statue at the foot of the Libyan mountains, on the plain of Thebes, was erected with its face towards the east, that it might be gilded by the earliest light of the dawn. When surrounded by darkness its notes 86 EXPLANATIONS OF THE FABLE. appeared to be the melancholy expression of pain *; but in the morning, when smitten by the first rays of the sun, it uttered a melodious, though plaintive, sound, like the breaking of the string of a harp, indicating his sorrow at being deprived of his mother's presence by the approach of Apollo. The colossal statues of Kaiumers and his consort, situated among vast precipices on the road between Bamiyan and Balkh, have also their faces turned towards the east, so that when the sun rises they seem to smile, but look gloomy in the evening.† CCCCLXIV. The explanations hitherto given of this fable are forced and trifling. And how shall we account for the fact, that the statue formerly, on the rising of the sun, emitted a vocal sound, but is now silent? Strabo states most distinctly that he heard it, but insinuates his suspicion that it was caused by the artifice of some of the bystanders. Learned and ingenious writers have laboured to establish a connection between light and sound +, and to explain * Among the remarkable things beheld by Germanicus in Egypt, Tacitus enumerates the " Memnonis saxea effigies, ubi radiis solis icta est, vocalem sonum reddens."— Annalium, l. ii. c. 61. + Asiatic Researches, vi. 465. These statues, which were recently seen by Captain Burnes, in his journey to Bokhara, far exceed in size the colossi of the Egyptians; the larger being about 120, and the smaller about 80, feet in height. They are painted, like those found in the valley of the Nile, and seem to have been executed with ability. Plutarch, Symposiacs, viii. 3.-The explanations of the moderns are still more awkward and wanting in ingenuity than those of the ancients; but since we are not compelled, under pain of death, to interpret this Theban riddle, no evil can arise from honestly confessing that its solu |