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not a representation of Memnon *, but of Phamenophis, a native of their country; " and I have heard perfons affirm," continues Pausanias, "that it is the statue of Sefoftris which Cambyfes broke asunder; "and now as much of it as extends from the head to the middle of the "body is thrown down: the remainder is ftill fitting, and founds every

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day at the rifing of the fun. Its found is most like the bursting of a "ftring on the harp or lyre."

The intelligent and accurate Strabo has recorded his own visit (in a more early age) to this ftatue, in company with his friend Ælius Gallus, and a military train. He declares that he heard the miraculous found, but intimates a doubt whether it really proceeded from the base, from the fragment of the figure, or from the artifice of persons who formed a busy circle round it †. Strabo does not affign any name to the ftatue in question; but calls the scene where it was placed the Memnonium. "Here," he says, "are two coloffal figures, each of a single stone, "and near to each other. One is preferved; the upper part of the ❝other has fallen, and, as they say, by an earthquake."

The fagacious geographer expreffes, in very ftrong terms, his unwillingness to believe that the surprising found he heard could be the spontaneous production of the ftone itself.

A respectable traveller of our own country, the learned, faithful, and elaborate Pococke, has laboured to gratify curiofity concerning this

* Αλλα γαρ ο Μέμνονα οι Θηβαίοι λεγεσι, Φαμενωφα δε είναι των εγχωρίων, 8 τατο αγαλμα ην ηκέσα δε ηδη και Σεσως ριν φαμένων είναι τέτο το αγαλμα, ο Καμβυσης διεκοψε, και νυν οπόσον εκ κεφαλης ες μέσον σώμα ην απερριμμένον" το δε λοιπον καθηταί τε και ανα πάσαν ημέραν ανίσχοντος ηλιε βοα, και τον ήχον μαλιςα εικάσει τις xilagas n λupas payɛions xopons. PAUSANIAS, p. 101. edit. Kuhnii.

† Καγω δε παρών επι των τοπων, μετα Γαλλο Αίλις, και το πληθος των συνόντων αυτω φίλων τε και στρατιωτών, περί ώραν πρώτην ήκεσα το ψοφά, είτε δε από της βάσεως, είτε απο το κολοσσό, είτ' επίτηδες των κυκλῳ, και περι την βασιν ιδρυμένων τινος ποιησαντος τον ψοφον, εκ εχω διισχυρισασθαι.

STRABO, lib. xvii. p. 1171. edit. 1707.

Η Δια γας το άδηλον της αιτίας, παν μαλλον επέρχεται πισεύειν, η το εκ των λίθων ετω τεταγμένων εκπέμπεσθαι

του ήχου.

this celebrated image, by a very minute description, illuftrated by engravings: yet with every advantage that erudition and a furvey of the fragment could afford him, he is obliged to leave the fubject ftill involved in confiderable darkness; for among the various ftatues that he examined in this interefting scene, (the ruins of Thebes,) he found that two of them had pretenfions to be regarded as the miraculous image * and of these he has given the following circumftantial account:

;

"In the second court (of the temple) are remains of two ftatues of "black granite. That to the weft, which is fitting, measured, from "the hand to the elbow, five feet; thence to the fhoulder four. The "head is three feet and a half long, and the ear is one foot in length. "The statue to the east is three feet five inches long in the foot. At a "diftance from it is the head with the cap. It is three feet fix inches "long, and behind it is the ornament of the dome-leaf. Some persons "have thought that one of thefe is the ftatue of Memnon. From the temple I went to the ftatues, which I fhall call the coloffal ftatues of "Memnon. They are towards Medinet-Habou. I spent above half a day at these ftatues. They are of a very particular fort of porous, "hard granite, fuch as I never faw before. It most resembles the eagle-ftone.

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"The statues look to the south-fouth-east, and are on a pedestal or plinth, entirely plain. That to the north is thirty feet long and

• Mr. de Caylus has diftinguished the ftatue of remote antiquity from that of a later time in the following remark on Ægyptian antiquities:

"Il ne faut pas confondre la ftatue de Memnon, dont parle Pline, avec celle qui fubfifte, et "qui a infpiré une fi grande curiofité aux voyageurs anciens et modernes; non feulement "cette dernière eft coloffale, mais elle eft de granite. D'ailleurs elle étoit antique à l'egard de "Pline, puifqu'elle étoit placée de fon tems dans l'endroit qu'elle occupe aujourdhui, c'eft-à“dire, hors de la ville de Thèbes, affez près des tombeaux des anciens rois d'Egypte, et "qu'elle avoit été élevée avant la conquête, que les Perfes firent de ce pays; tandis que la ftatue "de bafalte que Pline prefente comme un objet beaucoup moins confidérable, étoit confacrée "dans un temple de Sérapis, dont le culte n'a été introduit en Egypte que fous les Pto"lémées." Antiquités de M. de CAYLUS, tom. v. p. 13.

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"feventeen broad. The pedeftal of the other is thirty-three feet long "and nineteen wide, and they are about thirty feet apart. That to the "fouth is of one ftone. The ftatue to the north has been broken off

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at the middle, above the arms, that lie on the hams, and it has been " built up with five tiers of ftones-one to the top of the clinch of the "elbow, another almost half way up the arm, one to the arm-pits, "the fourth to the neck, and the fifth, the head and neck of one stone. "The other tiers have two ftones in front, except that the middle tier "has three; and there are two ftones in the thickness of the ftatue. "The feet are broken a quarter off from the toes: but as I did not "take a particular draught of the parts of the statue that are maimed, I thought it better to give it entire from the drawing and obfervations "I did make. I found the height, from the bottom of the foot to the top of the knee, to be about nineteen feet; from the bottom of the "foot to the ankle, two feet fix inches; to the top of the inftep, four " feet; the foot is five feet broad, and the leg is four feet deep. The ornament behind the head feemed to be the dome-leaf, as I have it on a ftatue of Harpocrates. At the fide of the legs are two reliefs, "and one between the legs, of the natural height, but much defaced. "Between the former and the great statue are hieroglyphics. The pe"destal of the imperfect ftatue is cracked across, at the distance of "about ten feet from the back part. There are also fome flaws and "cracks in the other ftatue; but it is of one ftone, which I dare pofi❝tively affirm, and in which I could not be mistaken, having been "twice at the statues. I spent half a day there, and took down in my notes an account of every stone of which the upper part of the other "is built. On the pedeftal of the imperfect statue is a Greek epigram; "and on the infteps and legs, for about eight feet high, are feveral inscriptions in Greek and Latin; fome being epigrams in honour of "Memnon; others, the greater part, teftimonies of those who heard

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"the found; and fome alfo in unknown characters. All the infcrip"tions are ill cut, and in bad language, both on account of the hard"ness of the stone, and the ignorance of the people, who probably "made money by cutting these inscriptions for those that came to hear "the found. I copied them with all the exactness I could; though many of them were very difficult to be understood, and I was not entirely undisturbed while I was doing it.”

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Thus far I have tranfcribed the industrious and accurate Pococke, because his menfuration affords a fatisfactory idea of Egyptian fculpture. I omit his difcuffion of the arguments concerning the point, which of the two ftatues he has mentioned is the real Memnon, because some ideas fuggefted by a later and more lively traveller of France have led me to believe that the report of Paufanias was perfectly true, and that the marvellous ftatue was never intended to represent the prince of Æthiopia. How it acquired the name of Memnon we shall gradually discover.

M. Savary, in his elegant, amufing Letters on Egypt, has compared fuch reliques of Thebes as he could investigate himself, with the defcriptions of this magnificent scenery that are to be found in ancient authors, particularly Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, by whofe affiftance he endeavours to throw new light on this miraculous image. He falls, however, into an evident mistake, in faying that Strabo calls it the Statue of Memnon. That illuftrious and accurate geographer only fays, after naming a place, which he calls Meuvovov, a word that may fignify the Temple, or perhaps merely the monuments of Memnon, that it contained two coloffal ftatues, which he proceeds to defcribe in the manner I have already mentioned. But the ingenious French traveller, borrowing, perhaps, a hint from Strabo*, though he does not intimate

Ει δ'ως φασιν ο Μέμνων υπο των Αιγυπτιων Ισμάνδης λεγεται, και ο λαβύρινθος Μεμνόνειον αν είη και τα αυτά Αβύδω, και τα εν Θήβαις· και γαρ εκεί λέγεται τινα Μεμνόνεια. STRABO, P. 1167.

έργον, όπερ και τα εν

that he did, has ventured to beftow on the broken Coloffus, commonly called the ftatue of Memnon, the name of Ofymanduas; as he conceives that the dimenfions of the figure, and the fcene around it, fufficiently answer to the magnificent defcription by which Diodorus has commemorated the tomb of that Egyptian monarch, whose title Pococke beftows on another coloffal figure. M. Savary goes ftill farther in his probable conjecture, and imagines that Cambyfes was tempted to break the ftupendous image by the inscription which it bore, according to the narrative of the Greek hiftorian; which infcription the French traveller tranflates in the following words: "Je fuis Ofiman“duè, roi des rois. Si l'on veut favoir combien je fuis grand, et "où je repofe, que l'on detruife quelqu'un de ces ouvrages*." "I am Ofymanduas, the king of kings. If any one wishes to know "how great I am, and where I repofe, let him conquer fome of my "works." The word uxarw (literally, "let him conquer,") is rendered by the English traveller, "let him furpass;" by the French traveller, "let "him deftroy." The latter, in his interpretation of this fuperb infcription, feems to reduce it to a level with the pleasant, mysterious epitaph in Gil Blas: "A qui efta encerrada el alma del licenciado Pedro Garcias ;" and to suppose that it was defigned to lead fome ingenious interpreter to the happy discovery of a latent treafure. Though I prefume to rally the accomplished traveller of France for his fubtle conftruction, I am still particularly inclined to credit the conjecture of M. Savary concerning the proper title of this celebrated coloffal figure, becaufe it tends to confirm another conjecture by which I would account for the manner in which it acquired the very different name of Memnon. Diodorus Siculus, in describing the tomb of Ofymanduas, and the coloffal ftatues with which it was adorned, declares that thefe ftatues were the work of

* Βασιλευς Βασιλέων Οσυμανδυας ειμι ει δε τις ειδεναι βέλεται πηλικός ειμι, και το κείμαι, νικάτω τι των εμών gywy. DIODORUS SICULUS.

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