Report on the Memnonium

The following is an extract from some letters which John Lewis Burckhardt addressed to Mr. Hamilton, the Secretary of the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Part of Africa¹.

Cairo, 1st July, 1816.

[...]

Mr. Salt I believe has already acquainted you with our project of conveying the fine granite head of the Memnonium to Alexandria, with the intention of sending it to England, and of offering it in our joint names to the British Museum. You know that beautiful specimen of Egyptian workmanship; the impression which it made upon you and your travelling companions in Upper Egypt, was the chief incitement to Mr. Salt, who had not yet seen it, to engage in the proposed scheme. Mr. Belzoni, a Roman, lately in the service of the Pasha, who is a good mechanician, has had proper machines made here for its transport, and is gone to Gorne to fetch it. Mr. Salt and myself have made a common purse to defray the expenses of the land and water carriage, &c. and have given Mr. Belzoni the necessary instructions. If we do not succeed, our intentions at least were too good to be laughed at, but should the head reach its destination, and become as it deserves to be, an object of general admiration, it will afford me infinite satisfaction to have been a promoter of this enterprize. The heads of the colossi, at Ebsambal (See my journal in Nubia.) bear a great likeness to this, with the difference that they are of sand stone. The expression of the face is the same; perhaps a little more gravity is perceived in those of Nubia, but the incomparable serenity, and godlike mildness are remarkable in both.
memnonium

Cairo, 20th February, 1817.

[...]

You will be pleased to hear that the colossal head from Thebes has at last, after many difficulties, safely arrived at Alexandria. Mr. Belzoni, who offered himself to undertake this commission, has executed it with great spirit, intelligence, and perseverance. The head is waiting now at Alexandria for a proper conveyance to Malta. Mr. Salt and myself have borne the expenses jointly, and the trouble of the undertaking has devolved upon Mr. Belzoni, whose name I wish to be mentioned, if ever ours shall on this occasion, because he was actuated by public spirit fully as much as ourselves. The Committee need not be under any apprehension, that this transaction has caused my name to become of public notoriety in Egypt; which would certainly have been the case, if it had been known that I had a hand in the business, for during the fortnight the head remained at Boulak, the vessel was constantly crowded by swarms of visitors, of all classes. Nobody knows that I have had any thing to do with it. The Kahirines ascribe it entirely to Mr. Salt and Mr. Belzoni, who, they say, send it to England to have it taken to pieces, in order to find the invaluable jewel which it contains. The residence of the French Savans in Egypt has not taught them to form better notions, and the same kind of belief which caused the Shikh of Tedmor to resist my carrying off a small mutilated bust, found near the portico at Palmyra, still operates in every part of Egypt.

The peasants of Gourne reported to me, that the French had in vain endeavoured to carry off this head: and that they had even cut a hole in the lower part of the bust, to blow off part of the stone, and render it thus more transportable. I am ignorant for what reason they relinquished that scheme, but it is somewhat curious to find that in the drawing which they have given of that head, in their great work, they have represented it as it would probably have been, after the lower part should have been destroyed.

The discoveries of Mr. Belzoni in Upper Egypt, are too interesting not to deserve notice here. He has half cleared the temple of Ebsambal in Nubia, of the sands that obstructed it. The frontispiece of the temple, which has thus been discovered, is full of hieroglyphics; of the four colossi which stand before it, the face of one only (which I have mentioned in my journal), remains perfect; one of the three others has been reduced by mutilation to a mere lump of rock.

Behind Gourne he has discovered a new tomb of the kings, about one mile distant from the most western “insulated tomb,” as the French laid it down in their map. He says it is beautiful, and larger than any of the others, with a sarcophagus in it. All the paintings are done upon a while stucco, adhering loosely to the wall, and thus easily to be removed.

By digging at Gourne, in the plain between the Memnonium, and Medinet Habou, in a western direction from the two sitting colossi, about half a mile distant from them, he found a mutilated colossal head of granite, of much larger dimensions than the one he carried off, or any other at Thebes, being from ten to twelve feet across the front.

You remember the small pond, within the enclosure of the interior part of the temple of Karnak, towards the side of Luxor, which encircles on three sides an elevated ground. A row of Andro-sphynxes, or whatever they may be called, stand there, which the French had dug up, and of which Mr. William Banks carried off last year the two best. In digging farther on in the line in which these statues stood, Mr. Belzoni has discovered eighteen others, of similar shape, but of much superior workmanship, all in beautiful preservation; he has brought down six of them to Mr. Salt, who had furnished him with money for the express purpose of procuring antiquities; besides the commission to carry off the head. By the side of these figures he has found another statue, of a hard, large grained sand stone: it is a whole length naked figure, sitting upon a chair, with a ram’s head upon the knees; the face and body entire; with plaited hair falling down to the shoulders. This is one of the finest, I should say the finest Egyptian statue I have seen; the expression of the face is exquisite, and I believe it to be a portrait. From the beautiful preservation of all these figures, which is so rare in Egypt, Mr. Belzoni argues, that the Egyptians used this place to hide their idols, when the Persians came to destroy them, and he hopes, in going up a second time to Thebes, to find at the same place other treasures. He has likewise found at Karnak, the four sided monument, with figures in high relief on three sides of it, of which the French talk so highly in their work, and of which they have given a drawing. But it was in quite a different place from that indicated by them, for Mr. Belzoni found it under ground far to the east of the adytum of Karnak. This, with a dozen of Sphinxes, he has been obliged to leave on the shore of the river near Karnak, the boat being already overloaded. The head alone weighs, I believe, from twelve to fifteen tons.

Mr. Belzoni, who is as enterprising as he is intelligent, high-minded, and disinterested, further informs us, that he has dug up the colossus, indicated by the French upon their map of Karnak, as laying on the N.W. side of the abovementioned pond, under the name of “Colosse renversé.” He has turned it up, and finds it to be a torso without head, or feet, about thirty feet in length, of beautiful workmanship; he says that he has seen nothing in Egypt, not even excepting our head, that can be compared to it, as it is a true imitation of nature, not done in the usual hard style, but according to the best rules of art.

If Mr. Belzoni had had a flat bottomed boat at his command, he is confident that he should have been able to float down one of the small obelisks of Philæ, about twenty five feet in length. He handles masses of this kind with as much facility as others handle pebbles, and the Egyptians who see him a giant in figure, for he is six feet and a half high, believe him to be a sorcerer. Manual labour is so very cheap in Upper Egypt, that a little money goes a great way: the hire for a Fellah per day, is about four-pence; although upwards of one hundred Fellahs were occupied for many days with our head, and that we paid one hundred pounds for the boat only, and made a present to Mr. Belzoni, small indeed, but as much as our circumstances permitted, the total expense incurred by us, as far as Alexandria, does not amount to more than three hundred pounds, and Mr. Belzoni’s whole expedition, to about four hundred and fifty pounds. The Pasha of Egypt is luckily not yet aware of the value of these statues; if he was, he would probably imitate Wely Pasha of the Mores, and ask for passage money, for he extends his extortions over every article of Egyptian produce, and condescends even to farm out the trade of camel and sheep’s dung. Mr. Belzoni, who is known in England as a hydraulic engineer, and is married to an English woman, who has accompanied him to Egypt, entered last year the service of the Pasha, as a mechanic, but not being able to contend with the intrigues of a Turkish court, and too honourable to participate in them, he was dismissed as unfit for his business, and five months of pay still remain due to him. So much for the Pasha’s encouragement of European artists. They are enticed into his service by his emissaries in the Mediterranean, but are soon left to bewail their credulity.
memnonium

Cairo, 18th May, 1817.

[...]

Our colossal head is to leave Alexandria very soon, on board a transport which Admiral Penrose has sent to load corn. Mr. Belzoni, who is at present with Mr. Beechy, the secretary of Mr. Salt, at Thebes, has made many excavations there, and has found at Karnak a colossal head very little injured equal in beauty and size to ours, and in the highest preservation. Among other things he has found two large bronze vases covered with hieroglyphics.

Notes

¹The African Association, whose influential membership was headed by Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society – a man of learning and influence, had sailed with Captain Cook on his first voyage around the world – was founded in 1788 and sponsored a series of important explorations over the next forty years.