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The Language of Stony Silence

by Sabah Moyeen
TO many of us today, Egypt Is a baffling phenomenon: a land of deserted monuments, silent statues, static art; itself mummified within dusty volumes of history books. It has become a myth rather than a part of human history. Can we turn our backs on 3000 years of glory and an ancient people of remarkable creative genius, pursuing eternity through their art and culture.
Egypt was one of the first of the ancient lands to weave the threads of civilisation into a truly impressive culture. It sustained its accomplishments over 2- millennia — a span of achievements few equal in the saga of humanity. One would have to write volumes to do justice to the overall effort of the ancient Egyptians. I have restricted myself to some aspects of their mesmerizing architecture, which forms as it were — "the message of the stones" — the key to a mysterious, obscure land.
It is a matter of no little wonder, that the people of an ancient land, without sophisticated tools, expressions of measure or weight, with the aid of nothing but slryew were able to erect such massive pieces of perfect symmetry and beautiful art. Under the omnipotent authority of the pharaoh were built miracles of stone which till today leave us breathless. The gigantic monuments. silent and mysterious led their contemporaries to believe the Egyptians to be a gloomy oppressed race, obsessed with death- Now. where we have deciphered the lan-guage of stony silence, we Know them to be a light hearted, jovial people who llv Ing in an age of ephemeral I Spirituality, who envisaged death as merely a continuance of life In a different perspectives.
, Imagine the hysteria of the first Greeks who arrived at to encounter a gigantic limestone beast crouching on the sand near Gtzeh, with h lion's body measuring 240 feet in length and 66 feet In height with a human face 13 feet wide. Could It be any different from the awe it would draw from us today? The Sphinx — a wood which has almost become synonymous with all the wild excitement an enigma can generate. The Sphinx w^s re garded as an embodiment of llariiiaklUB. a manifestation of the seen gad, and the face is a portrait of Khafre who ruled during the time of Its creation. An ancient text reveals that a young prince once sat under the shade of the Sphinx, and the beast spoke to him and promised him the Kingdom If he removed the sand that had piled around it. The prince did as bidden, and 34 centuries ago, did Indeed rule Egypt as Thutmose IV. At that time the Sphinx was already 1100 years old. The monument is symbolic of ancient Egyptian beliefs, values, culture and the sheer enormity of vision their mind could conceive. Is an age so primitive, the cosmos so
The pharods. according to the belief was destined to the forever. They therefore built extravagant tombs and shrines ensuring a comfortable after vast sculptures and temples were built, which, as J write still gaze across Egypt, proud and authoritarian, sentries of past glory — some 2000 years after the culture which created them warned and perished. By 2500 BC during the reign of King Djoser, the first pyramid had already been built by Imhotep, of stone blocks weighing 15 tons. It was soon dwarfed by other mammoth pieces of perfect precision and symmetry springing up at Oizeh. The tallest pyramids were those built for Khufu (of more than. 2 million stones weighing 2- tons, completed within a reign of 23 years) and Khafre. They were fitted with luxury articles, food etc, their walls rendered immortal by paintings depicting the ruler's reign and made priceless by the embiamed body of the pharaoh himself The 3000 year old mummy of Ramses II now al Cairo museum. showed. when unwrapped In 1881, hair and teeth still Intact. Ramses Il survived the ages, but underwent a harsh insult when an Egyptian officer taxed his body taking it be Imported dried fishl
During the opulent 67 year reign of Ramses II Egypt gave birth to some of its largest and showiest buildings. It is mindblowing to Imagine the tremendous scale on which the ancient Egyptian worked. The two huge temples cut into the cliffs at Abu Slnbel are
symbolic of this grand scale. Four 67 feet high statues of Ramese II were carved overlooking the Nile speaking of the might and power of a virile King.
Egypt's reign was mostly male dominant. Many queens won great renown as wives to kings The striking statue of the lovely Nefertltl. built in the realistic style, during her husband Akhenaton's reign, reveals the beauty implied by her name which means the beautiful One Is come . The most famous woman who did rule, was the willful Queen Hatahepsut. who built a lavish temple below the cliffs of Deir el Bahri, to keep her name alive. The chief exploits of the Queen s reign are carved along the porticoes Much of her memorial was destroyed by her vengeful son Thutmose III
Perhaps the most sombre relics of ancient Egypt Is the unfurnished state of Osiris, lord of eternity, carved 2000 years ago. horizontally out of the ground at a red granite quarry near Aswar Its purpose has been lost in the abyss of age. but It symbolises the decline of a great civilisation. An abandoned god — a fallen grandeur. It was such a statue of Ramses II which inspired Shelley to write : "On the sand/Half sunk, a shattered visage lies .../ And on the pedestal these words appear/ ' My name is Ozymondias, King of kings :/ Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
There are vast demonstrations In stone of the numeipus deities warshipped by the Egyptians : Re, the sun god. who ruled from Heliopolis. Hathos goddess of love and childbirth appeared wald in human form with the hours of a cow. Thoth were the head of an ibis, while Anubis, guardian of the temples wore that of a Jackal. Khum who fashioned men and babies on a potter's wheel wore the head of a ram Osiris was ruler of the under world. According to legends the phoraoh ruled on earth as horus and when he died, as Osiris, in the neither world.
For centuries. Egyptian helroglyphlcs carved on stone, addled the minds of many. In 1798 one of Napollon's soldiers discovered the Rossetta Stone near Rashid. Incrlbed with not only helroglyphlcs. but denotec and Greek. Its bilingual text made It possible for the philologist Jean Trancois Champoilton to announce In 1822 'the message of the stones', the language of heirsglyphics. thus discovering the lost key to an ancient, mysterious land.
The tnscribtion on the Rossetta stone praises Ptolemy V tn 196 BC. Ptolemy’s name which appears tn the Greek text as Ptolemais' was the first word recognised tn helro-glyphlcs. In 1822 under word surrendered Its heiroglyphlc enigma : Kleopatra Armed with the discovery of 12 phonographs Champollion eagerly applied them to another cartouche and deciphered the word Alksentrs' — Alexander. The most Important break through came In September 1882. when. In encountering eartouches pre-dating the Greek on the Roman era he discovered his first purely Egyptian names Ramses' and Thutmose'.
We have unlocked the door to an ancient kingdom. In venturing beyond, have we been able to retrieve AU Its secrets? The stones are silent. While we labour to find their obscured message. Do they still hold discoveries for newer genera tions? Only time will tell.