Egypt and its monuments (1908) (14775212204)

Identifier: egyptitsmonument00hich (find matches)
Title: Egypt and its monuments
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Hichens, Robert Smythe, 1864-1950
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, Century Co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress



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branches, and advancingwith a gait of triumph that tells of spacious days.And at their head is an officer, who looks back, muchlike a modern drill sergeant, to see how his men aremarching. In the southern shrine of the temple, cut in the rockas is the northern shrine, once more I found traces ofthe Lady of the Under-world. For this shrine wasdedicated to Hathor, though the whole temple wassacred to the Theban god Amun. Upon a columnwere the remains of the goddesss face, with a broadbrow and long, large eyes. Some fanatic had hackedaway the mouth. The tomb of Hatshepsu was found by Mr. TheodoreM. Davis, and the famous VacJie of Deir-el-Bahari byMonsieur Naville as lately as 1905. It stands in themuseum at Cairo, but forever it will be connected inthe minds of men with the tiger-colored precipices andthe Colonnades of Thebes. Behind the ruins of thetemple of Mentu-Hotep III, in a chapel of paintedrock, the V^ache-Hathor was found. It is not easy to convey by any description the im- 160
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DEIR-EL-BAHARI pression this marvelous statue makes. Many of uslove our dogs, our horses, some of us adore our cats;but which of us can think, without a smile, of worship-ing a cow? Yet the cow was the Egyptian Aphroditessacred animal. Under the form of a cow she wasoften represented. And in the statue she is presentedto us as a limestone cow. And positively this cow isto be worshiped. She is shown in the act apparently of steppinggravely forward out of a small arched shrine, the wallsof which are decorated with brilliant paintings. Hercolor is red and yellowish red, and is covered withblotches of very dark green, which look almost black.Only one or two are of a bluish color. Her height ismoderate. I stand about five foot nine, and I foundthat on her pedestal the line of her back was aboutlevel with my chest. The lower part of the body,much of which is concealed by the under block of lime-stone, is white, tinged with yellow. The tail is red.Above the head, open and closed lotus flower