Despite The Disaster Which Has Overtaken The Ceilings, This Is
Nevertheless One Of The Most Perfect Of The Sanctuaries Of Ancient
Egypt.
The sands, those gentle sextons, have here succeeded
miraculously in their work of preservation.
They might have been
carved yesterday, these innumerable people, who, everywhere - on the
walls, on this forest of columns - gesticulate and, with their arms and
long hands, continue with animation their eternal mute conversation.
The whole temple, with the openings which give it light, is more
beautiful perhaps than in the time of the Pharaohs. In place of the
old-time darkness, a transparent gloom now alternates with shafts of
sunlight. Here and there the subjects of the bas-reliefs, so long
buried in the darkness, are deluged with burning rays which detail
their attitudes, their muscles, their scarcely altered colours, and
endow them again with life and youth. There is no part of the wall, in
this immense place, but is covered with divinities, with hieroglyphs
and emblems. Osiris in high coiffure, the beautiful Isis in the helmet
of a bird, jackal-headed Anubis, falcon-headed Horus, and ibis-headed
Thoth are repeated a thousand times, welcoming with strange gestures
the kings and priests who are rendering them homage.
The bodies, almost nude, with broad shoulders and slim waist, have a
slenderness, a grace, infinitely chaste, and the features of the faces
are of an exquisite purity. The artists who carved these charming
heads, with their long eyes, full of the ancient dream, were already
skilled in their art; but through a deficiency, which puzzles us, they
were only able to draw them in profile.
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