About The Great Temple of Isis
We now reach the great temple of Isis, which was begun
by Ptolemy II, Philadelphus ( 283 – 245 B.C. ), and completed in essentials by
Ptolemy III, Euergetes I ( 247 – 221 B.C. ) .
This temple is considered the
principal sanctuary on the island and is dedicated to Isis and her son Horus,
the god Harpocrates of the Greeks ( Child Horus, the god of silence ) .
The Roman lions and obelisks
In front of the Great Pylon lie two fallen Roman lions
of Roman or Byzantine date, carved out of pink granite, and here also stood two
small granite obelisks erected by Ptolemy VIII, Euergetes II, and his second
wife Cleopatra III . On the base of the eastern obelisk was an inscription
complaining to the royal couple that the priests of Isis at Philae were being
forced to refund the expenses of civil and military authorities incurred during
their stay on the island . This, they said, did not leave them enough resources
to continue sacrifices and libations for the welfare of the royal family . The
response was immediate ; Euergetes II released the priests of Philae from
further payments .
Neither of these obelisks are now in Philae but repose
in the garden of Mr. Ralph Bankes at Kingston Lacy in Dorset, London . The
story of their long journey throws light on the methods used to provide an
insatiable world with the monuments of Ancient Egypt . William John Bankes,
scholar, Member of Parliament, and ancestor of Ralph Bankes, first saw the
obelisks on his first visit to the island of Philae in 1815 . The eastern
obelisk lay on its side half-buried, and its western fellow was badly damaged
and only about a third of it remained . Bankes endeavoured to recover them from
the mud and debris, but was unable to do so for lack of proper equipment . He
reluctantly left them where they lay but with the firm intention of one day
bringing them back to Kingston Lacy .
In the nineteenth century no respectable traveller
would venture to return from Egypt without a souvenir of his visit . The ruler
at this time was the capable Mohammed Ali ( 1803 – 1849 ), who dispensed firmans, or licences, to consuls and important foreigners allowing them to
remove valuable pieces of Ancient Egypt in return for favours to modern Egypt .
It is probable that Mohammed Ali wondered why foreigners should bother either
about these useless old stones, which his people used for making lime, or about
the dried cadavers in their crumbling coffins, which the European people
converted it into powder for making medicines . Two of the most avid collectors
were the British Consul, Henry Salt, and the Consul-General of France,
Bernardino Drovetti . Mohammed Ali was so generous in the firmans he gave to these two men that they eventually had to curb their mutual
antagonism and agree to divide the archaeological treasures of Ancient Egypt
between them . They gave money and presents to the local chiefs who saw to it
that other collectors were warned off or not supplied with labour . Henry Salt
was fortunate to have as his agent the 6 feet 8 inch giant Italian, Giovanni
Battista Belzoni, and it was Belzoni that Salt asked to bring the Philae
obelisk to Cairo, a monument that he had already agreed to give to Bankes . On
hearing of the matter Drovetti claimed that the obelisk belonged to him, but
grandly ceded the ownership to Bankes . Belzoni considered that Drovetti had
found it impossible to find ways of transporting the obelisk through the
cataract and had relinquished his claim for this reason . Belzoni may have been
right in his judgment, for the obelisk was twenty-two feet long and weighed six
tons .
In 1819 work began and the obelisk was levered and
pushed on rollers to a stout wooden pier for shipment . The Belzoni's account
of his adventures in the removal of the shaft is both interesting and
diverting, particularly at the point where the obelisk collapses into the Nile
owing to the subsidence of the pier which he had confidingly trusted the
natives to build . " But, alas ! ", Belzoni writes, " when the
obelisk came gradually from the sloping bank and all its weight rested on it,
the pier, with the obelisk and some of the men, took a slow movement, and
majestically descended into the river " . Eventually Belzoni and his men
hauled it out of the mud and loaded it on to the boat for its journey to Cairo
. But all was not yet over . Drovetti's men intercepted Belzoni on his way to
Aswan and it was only after a long altercation which ended in gun-fire and the
arrival of Drovetti himself that the monument was allowed to proceed on its way
to Alexandria . It was shipped to England on the Despatch in May 1821 . In 1822 Bankes returned to Egypt to
collect the remains of the companion obelisk which still lay in the forecourt
of the temple . This broken piece was extracted and eventually arrived in
England in 1829 . The base for the first obelisk was placed in position in
Bankes's garden on 17 August 1827, the site being chosen by Arthur Wellesley
" the Duke of Wellington ", who was an old friend of the family . The
obelisk itself had to wait a further twelve years before it was placed on the
base . This was because it had been damaged in transit and Bankes wished to
find suitable stone for the repairs . The needed granite eventually came from
Leptis Magna in Libya by the grace of King George IV of England, who had
obtained more than he required for the erection of a small temple to grace the
royal gardens and gave this stone to Bankes, whom he knew through the Duke of
Wellington . Nearby lie the remains of the western obelisk so far unhonoured .
The French Consul Drovetti died in a mental asylum at Turin in 1852 . It is
ironical that a large part of the antiquities collected by Salt was bought by
the French government, while the collection made by the French Consul was
acquired by Italy and Germany .
It is of great interest from the fact that the
existence on its pedestal of Greek inscriptions of the same reign as the
original hieroglyphic inscription on its faces enabled Mr. Bankes in 1816,
before its removal, to identify the cartouche of Cleopatra, the wife of Ptolemy
VIII, Euergetes II, and so to contribute to the decipherment of the
hieroglyphics .
To be
continued ....
Part ( 7 ) .. Coming SoOoOon .....
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