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This statue and its remaining companion, though now isolated in their situation, were once part of an enormous temple, the ruins of which yet remain, and the plan of which may yet be traced. The Memnonion itself is now near at hand. In the colossal Caryatides we recognise the vast genius that excavated the rocks of Ipsambul, and supported a cavern temple upon the heads of giants.
"Thou must know," he continued, explaining, "the Athor of the hills is not my first sacrilege. Once I committed a worse. My father was the royal sculptor to Rameses and is now Meneptah's murket." Rachel glanced at him shyly and sought to withdraw her hand, for she recognized the loftiness of the title. But he retained his clasp. "He is a mighty genius. He planned and executed Ipsambul.
"He's a good-natured creature, and was a great help to me; but when I think of him a preacher, I seem to see an Egyptian priest standing on the threshold of the great door at Ipsambul, blowing with all his might to keep out the Libyan desert; and the four great stone gods, sitting behind the altar, far back in the gloom, laughing at him."
His grandsire had elaborated Karnak; his father had decorated the Rameseum, but Mentu had surpassed the glory of his ancestors. In the years of his youth, side by side with the great Rameses, he had planned and brought to perfection the mightiest monument to Egyptian sculpture, the rock-carved temple of Ipsambul.
An avenue of Sphinxes more than a mile in length connected the quarters of Luxoor and Carnak in Egyptian Thebes. Its fragments remain. A stupendous portal, cut out of the solid rock, four hundred feet in height, and supported by clusters of colossal Caryatides. See the great rock temple of Ipsambul in Lower Nubia. The sitting colossi are nearly seventy feet in height.
Red was used to represent the human flesh, apparently from its being nearer the natural tint than any other simple colour; but many of their colours were evidently applied with a conventional meaning, for the representation of different races. The conquered people represented in the great temple of Abonsambel, or Ipsambul, have yellow bodies and black beards.
These little oratories are often found near fountains, streams or tree-clumps where travellers would be likely to alight. Even the paws of the Sphinx are covered with such graffiti; and those of Ipsambul or Abu Simbal have proved treasures to epigraphists.
"Aye, from the beginning, though not by the bastinado. He rends him with suspense and all the doubts and fears for his love that can haunt him in his cell. But I have more to tell. There was a signet, an all-potent signet, which belonged to the noble Mentu " "Aye, I remember," Rameses broke in. "My grandsire gave it to the murket in recognition of his great work, Ipsambul.
Thou canst rear Karnak in every herdsman's village; thou canst carve the twin of Ipsambul in every rock-front that faces the Nile; thou canst erect a pyramid tomb for thee that shall make an infant of Khufu; thou canst build a highway from Syene to Tanis and line it with sisters of the Sphinx; thou canst write the name of Meneptah above every other name on the world's monuments and it shall endure as long as stone and bronze shall last and tradition go on from lip to lip!"
In the colossal Caryatides we recognise the same genius that excavated the rocks of Ipsambul, and supported a cavern temple upon the heads of giants. From the Memnonion came the statue that is now in the British Museum.
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