Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1876 — The Temples of Egypt. [ARTICLE]

The Temples of Egypt.

In the distribution of the monuments of Egypt, it is a curious fact that the pyramids are found only in Lower Egypt, and the great temples only in Uppsr. It was not fill we had been a tfeek on the Nile that we had our first sight of the latter at Denderah. We have since spent three days at Thebes, the great center of historical interest, and have made a regular campaign of sight-seeing, starting on excursions every morning, and thus have explored the ruins on both sides of the river—for Thebes, like many other great cities, like London and Paris—was built on both sides of a river, but one much greater than the Thames or the Seine, yet not so great but that it was spanned by a bridge, at least so it is inferred from some ancient sepultures and inscriptions, over which poured a population such as pours over London bridge to-day.. The site seems made for a great capital, for here the mountains retire from the river, sweeping round in a circuit of some fifty miles, leaving a broad plain to be filled with human habitations. Here 4,000 years ago was built a city greater than that op the banks of the Tigris or the Euphrates, than Nineveh or Babylon. Here was the center of power and dominion for two continents—not only for Africa but for Asia —to which flocked the multitudinous nations of Assyria and Arabia and Persia, and the farthest East, as well as the tribes of Ethiopia—as 2,000 years later all the peoples of the earth flocked to Rome. It is easy, from historical records and monumental inscriptions, to form some idea of the glory of this capital of the ancient world. We can imagine the tumult and the roar of this more ancient Rome, when the chariots of mighty Kings, and the tread of armies returning victorious from distant wars, thundered through her hundred gates. Then did the Kings of Egypt rear temples and palaces ana statues and obelisks worthy of all that grdatness. Then were built the most gigantic temples ever raised by the hand of man—as mnch surpassing in vartness and grandeur those reared centuries afterward by the Greeks, as the latter surpass anything by the moderns.

We have now been a Week—beginning with Denderah—studying these ruins, ana may give certain generallmpressions. We do not attempt any detailed description, which must necessarily be inadequate, since neither words nor figures convey any idea of them, any more than they do of the Alps. What would be thought of au avenue nearly a mile long, lined with over twelve hundred colossal sphinxes ? Yet such was the avenue from Luxor to Karnae—an approach worthy to lead to the temple of the gods. What can we say of a forest of columns, each twelve feet In diameter, stretching out in long colonades; of the massive walls covered with ban reliefs; and obelisks in single shafts of granite of such lofty height and crashing weight that it is a .wonder of modern engineering how they could be cut fftmthe side of the hills, and be brought over a hundred miles, and erected cm their firm base. But this temple—or rattier clusters of temples and palaces—was "not, like the temple of Solomon, finished in a single

reign. Karaac was not the work of one man, or of one generation. If was twentyfive hundred years in building, successive Kings and dynasties adding to the mighty whole, which was to represent all the glory of Egypt. The general impression of all these temples—and the same is true of the Egyptian statues and sculptures—is one of grandeur rather than beauty. They seek to overpower the senses by mere size. Sometimes they overdo the matter. Thus in the temples of Karnac the columns seem to me too large and too much crowded for the best effect. Small trees may be planted in a dense grove, but great, broadspreading oaks or elms require space around them; and if these columns were a little more spaced —to use a printer’s word—-the architectural effect would be still grander. So In the Egyptian sculpture everything is colossal. In the granite lions and sphinxes there is always an aspect of power in repose which is very impressive, and strikes one with awe. But in the lighter work, such as fresco and has reliefs, there is a total absence of delicaby and grace. Nothing can be more stiff. They sometimes have a rude force of drawing, but beauty they have none. That was born in Greece. All the sculparenot worth— except as historical monuments—the friezes of the Parthenon. — Dr. Field, in Evangelist.