EXCAVATED TEMPLE OF GYRSHE, NUBIA.

 

THIS Temple is at Gerf-Hossayn (the ancient Tutzis), near to Gyrshe; it is of the time of Remeses the Great, and, except the portico, entirely excavated in the rock. Within it consists of a large hall, succeeded by a transverse corridor, with a small chamber on each side; in the adytum are several sitting figures in high relief, with an altar before them, as at Aboo-Simbel. The area, or portico, had a row of Osiride pillars on either side and four columns in front; but of it little now remains. The total depth of the excavated part does not exceed one hundred and thirty feet. The interior bears some resemblance to that of Aboo-Simbel, but was far less skilfully wrought, and unworthy of the time of Remeses.

    The ascent to the Temple is described by Mr. Roberts as having originally been by a flight of steps, on either side of which he conjectures that sphinxes were arranged, of which fragments are scattered around, together with large wrought stones and broken pottery, remnants of an ancient town. Within the excavation, and hewn from the rock, are six colossal figures, about eighteen feet high, with the corn-measure cap, and in their hands, crossed on their breasts, the crook and the scourge. Three are on each side, and they seem to guard the approach to the adytum, or sanctuary. The imperfections of the rock appear to have been filled up with masonry, or stucco, and coloured; it is every where covered with symbolical figures and hieroglyphics; but the whole is much defaced and blackened by the Arabs, who light fires within it when they shelter there with their cattle. Mr. Roberts says, that when those who followed him came in with torches, they disturbed myriads of bats which had hung in festoons around them.

 

        Wilkinson’s Egypt and Thebes.                         Roberts’s Journal.