Colossi Of Memnon
| Colossi of Memnon | ||
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| Site of Ancient Egypt | ||
 Colossi of Memnom | ||
| Location | ||
| Region | Upper Egypt | |
| Contact | 25 43 '18 "North 32 36 '28 "East / 25.7218, 32.6078 | |
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Colossi of Memnon are two sculptures of monumental stone located on the west bank of Thebes ( Egypt ), on the road to the Theban necropolis. They are the last vestiges of the gigantic Palace of millions of years of Amenhotep III , built during the eighteenth dynasty , which no longer exists today. They are located at a place called Kom el-Hettan.
Summary |
The temple of Amenhotep III
The two colossal statues stood on the forecourt of the castle of millions of years of Amenhotep III, who was then the largest group of temple of the west bank of Thebes. The size of these two giants to imagine how big was designed and built this company by Amenhotep son of Hapu , the king's architect.
The temple then extended from this first tower whose height equaled that of the giants, to the limits of arable land, some five hundred yards away. There are only scattered remnants as monuments it contained served as their careers from the ancient times. It was indeed found from reliefs in the temple that was built Merneptah , son and successor of Ramses II , barely a century later.
Excavations are currently underway to better understand the architecture and plan of this temple dedicated to Amon and the glory of Amenhotep III himself.
What is known beyond the two famous Colossi of Memnon, are the traces of at least three towers , a large colonnaded courtyard leading to a large solar should precede one or more hypostyle and sanctuary. In the courtyard, whose appearance would be similar to that which the king had built in Luxor on the other side, large Osirian colossi of Amenhotep III were to be inserted between each large column. You can still see the foundations of the colonnade on the spot and huge feet, isolated remnants of large statues, the heartbeat of the peristyle.
We also found a large stele Jubilee which was erected at the second pylon.
Statues
Description
The two giants represent the Pharaoh seated on the throne of his ancestors, his hands resting on knees on either side of his legs are figured his mother Mutemwia , and his wife, Tiye. On both sides of the throne shows a representation of the symbolic union of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt , the Sema-Tawy, represented by two " Nil "tying the papyrus and lily , symbols of the "Two Lands".
Unlike most other Egyptian monuments, these two monoliths are facts or limestone , or granite , or sandstone , but a breach siliceous of quartzite . .
The dimensions, taken on the southern colossus, are as follows :
- Pedestal Height: 3.30 m (half buried in the ground)
- area of the pedestal: 10.5 mx 5.5 m
- Height of the statue: 13.97 m
- Overall height: 17.27 m
- Total height with initial assumed the crown missing: 21 m
- Mass: 556 tons pedestal; colossus 749 tons; total mass 1305 tons :
- Pedestal Height: 3.6 m (half buried in the ground)
- area of the pedestal: 10.5 mx 5.5 m
- Height of the statue: 14.76 m
- Overall height: 18.36 m
- Total height with initial assumed the crown missing: 21 m
- Weight: 602 tonnes pedestal; colossus 758 tonnes; total mass 1360 tonnes.
A majority of Egyptologists admit that the megaliths used to shape these two giants from the career of Gebel el Ahmar , near the Cairo .
The layers of rock are extracted with the two giants are oriented differently for both. The colossus of the south sees the layers of his material arranged vertically, while those of the northern colossus are horizontally. This fact indicates that the first was extracted from its ore to the horizontal (lying down), while the second was the upright (erect) .
Traces left by the sharp use of tools have been found on the northern colossus. The ancient Egyptians had to solve problems of transportation and civil engineering major in order to complete their erection: river transport over long distances, erection of rock masses three times heavier than the classical obelisks and shaping of a material very drive.
The phenomenon
Bas-relief, the right flank of the giant south. Strabo , historian and geographer Greek of the first century, is the first author to mention the giants:
"On this same bank once stood almost side by side two colossal monoliths: these giants, one was kept intact, but the entire upper portion of the other from the seat was overturned, following, it seems, a violent earthquake. "- Excerpt from the translation of Amde Tardieu .
An earthquake actually occurs in -27 , a year before the passage of Strabo, the statue is the northernmost cracked, that is to say the left when looking at the Colossi of face. A persistent legend that still wants the statue was destroyed by King Achaemenid Cambyses II , famous for his impiety .
Strabo adds that since then, according to local legend, the statue began to "sing" at sunrise and testified that he heard the phenomenon itself. It describes its product as "a noise like that produced a slight jerk "but is circumspect about its origin. Become a real curiosity, then the statue is mentioned by Pliny the Elder , Tacitus , who speaks of "the sound of a human voice "or Pausanias, which evokes the sound of" a string zither or lyre which breaks .
This phenomenon is interpreted by the ancients as the cry of Memnon , hero of the Trojan War , receiving his mother, the Dawn . Pausanias explains:
"He usually gives the name of Memnon, who is said to be, the party of Ethiopia with an army, crossed Egypt and went to Susa. But the Thebans do not want this statue is Memnon, and they see Phamnophis .Philostratus the statue dedicated to a long description in his Life of Apollonius of Tyana. For him, Memnon is not dead at Troy of the hand of Achilles , as tradition dictates, but "in Ethiopia, where he reigned for five generations." He adds:
"The statue of Memnon is turned toward the East: it is a beardless young man and is in black stone. Both feet are attached, as usual sculptors of the time of Daedalus, the two hands are straight and supported on the seat: it looks like a seated man who will stand up. (...) When the first rays shone on the statue (which happens at sunrise), .The description of Philostratus suggests that the colossi are interpreted from the beginning as Memnon to fulfill the rising sun, before the advent of sound phenomenon, as confirmed by three papyri from the Egyptian Museum in Turin mentioning Memnoneia from -112 / - 111 .
The phenomenon has been variously interpreted in modern times: as a result of Strabo, the only ancient writer to be skeptical, it was suspected that the priests concealed behind the statue produced themselves, striking with a hammer on a special stone . The consensus, however, that the phenomenon is natural, probably due to the expansion of quartzite as a result of the first rays of the sun .
Pilgrimages
The colossus is fast becoming a place of pilgrimage for the Greeks and Romans , who come in numbers to hear the oracle of Memnon. It is also a tourist attraction, just like the pyramids . Visitors have the habit of leaving graffiti, usually including the words "audi Memnonem" ("I heard Memnon") and their name and date of their passage.
The giant receives three imperial visits. The first took place in 130, under the big trip in Egypt of Hadrian , it is told in four epigrams of Julia Balbilla , poet and member of the escort of the empress Vibia Sabina . Up the Nile , the emperor and his entourage attended November 19 to sunrise on the plain of Thebes to the general embarrassment, the statue does not sing and Hadrian must return again the next day to witness the phenomenon . In the third century , the Roman emperor Septimius Severus , wanting to honor the divinity that manifests itself every morning, directed the restoration of the statue, which has stops singing.
Notes
- a and b Joseph Davidovits , they built the pyramids, ed. JC. Godefroy, Paris, 2002, ( ISBN 2-86553-157-0 ), p. 359.
- Jollois and Devilliers, Description de l'Egypte , vol. II, chap. IX, Sec. II, p. 153, quoted by J. Davidovits, op. cit., p. 359
- a and b Sourouzian Hourig, Rainer Stadelmann , Bianca Madden, Theodore Gayer-Anderson, Annals of the Department of Antiquities of Egypt , vol.80, p. 324
- a and b Sourouzian Hourig, Rainer Stadelmann , Bianca Madden, Theodore Gayer-Anderson, Annals of the Department of Antiquities of Egypt , Vol. 80, p. 345
- a and b Strabo , Geography See also
Related articles
Bibliography
- Andrew and Stephen Bernand, The Greek and Latin Inscriptions of the Colossus of Memnon, Library study of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology, 31, Broadcast Picard, Paris, 1960, consult the online registration
- (In) GW Bowersock, "The Miracle of Memnon" in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 21 (1984) 21-32.
External Links
- Folder on the Colossi of Memnon on remacle.org (excerpts from ancient texts, list of entries prior to the trip to Hadrian)
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