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Looking Up the Nile from the Lofty Fortress of Kasr Ibrim, Lower Nubia. Dahabiyeh of the Univer

sity of Chicago Expedition at the foot of the rocks.

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The Fortress of Kasr Ibrim, Lower Nubia. Seen from the Opposite Shore of the River.

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In the Wilds of the Fourth Cataract Region. A Bivouack of the University of Chicago Expedition.

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Mount Barkal, Upper Nubia, the Site of Ancient Napata, the Noph of the Old Testament, the Oldest Capital of Ethiopia, and the residence of the Ethiopian Pharaohs of Isaiah's Day.

freshness, and the universal silence is broken only by the faint weird song of the peasant at the distant shadoof, a song which wafts us only the name of Allah and fades again into the silence. Then the first keen ray bursts out of the east, flashes across the purple river, pencils sharply into prominence the inscrutable faces of the Titans, and entering the door penetrates a hundred and eighty feet into the mountain through hall after hall till it passes into the holy of holies and touches with brightness the image of the sun-god still sitting in the inner darkness of the holy place. Abu Simbel is a temple of the sun-god, and thus every morning he still enters the holy place of his sanctuary as he has done for over three thousand years. One feels that the edict of Theodosius has never interrupted the sacred functions of the place. It is still a sanctuary of the sun.

We enter the first hall. Here again Ramses dominates the place with his mighty presence. We look down the axis of the hall and eight figures of the great king thirty feet high garbed and postured as Osiris stand four on each side, each four facing the center. In the morning light they seem to stand there as if waiting for the ceremonial procession that should pass between them to the holy place. The faces are scarred and disfigured by age. Only one is still perfect, the last one on the right, and here again as with the greater figures outside, we recognize at once the eagle nose of Ramses II. We are now within the mountain out of which the entire temple was excavated, and as we follow the morning ray through the inner halls we stand at last in the silent heart of the mountain where the sun-god still penetrates every morning into his sanctuary. Here in the dim recess at the extreme rear of the sanctuary is the figure of the sun-god, together with those of Amon, Ptah and Ramses himself, all four seated in a row against the rear wall. To find Ramses here as one of the gods of the place, excites no wonder after we have felt the spell of his power outside. He and the sun are indeed lords of the place.

We wander back into the great hall to view the reliefs

before the early light withdraws. All one side of the hall behind the huge Osiris-statues of the king is occupied with an enormous series of tableaus in relief, depicting the incidents of Ramses' famous battle at Kadesh on the Orontes in Syria. It is the same series which we found at Luxor and twice on the walls of the Ramesseum. It is here more completely preserved than elsewhere, not having been exposed to the weather, and in the morning light all the familar occurrences during and leading up to the battle may be followed in detail. Incidents of his Syrian, Libyan and Nubian wars are represented on the other (opposite) wall. The lithe and virile figure of the young Pharaoh as he hurls back the Libyan king and thrusts him through with his long spear, is a splendid example of vigorous drawing. It is one of the most spirited compositions left us by Egyptian art, but is not original here, having been copied from the reliefs of Seti I at Karnak. The powerful figure of the youthful Ramses contrasts very strikingly with the nerveless limbs of the smitten Libyan, relaxing as he collapses under the fatal thrust and the resistless grasp of the Pharaoh.

A hundred yards north of the great temple is a smaller grotto temple similarly excavated from the mountain in honor of Ramses' favorite queen Nefretiri. A stately facade ninety feet wide and originally over fifty feet high is adorned with six colossal figures of Ramses and his queen thirty-three feet high, standing in niches, three on each side of the central door. An interesting chapel is cut in the rocks just south of the great temple, and the cliffs are filled with shrines and memorial inscriptions of kings and officials. There must have been a considerable town here to support these sanctuaries, but it has now disappeared and left only the temples silent and deserted overlooking the river, in solemn grandeur. Egypt furnishes the traveler many a unique and ineffaceable memory, but nowhere does the imposing grandeur of a mighty presence so impress it

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