THEBES: THE COLOSSAL STATUES OF AMUNOPH III. 
The view of these wonders of the plains of Thebes is taken from the upper or 
southern side of the group. The statues and their thrones, but not their pedestals, 
were originally hewn each out of a single stone; but the farthest of these, •» the well-known 
vocal Memnon, which will hereafter he described, having suffered disruption, had been 
restored. The material of these colossi is a coarse hard gritstone, slightly stained in 
some places with iron. The height of each is forty-seven feet, without the pedestal, 
but the total height before the accumulation of soil, which has buried so much of the 
pedestal, must have been sixty feet above the plain. 
These enormous figures rest where they did at the period of their erection, when 
they formed the entrance of a grand dromos to the Temple, 1100 feet in length. Several 
pairs of statues, scarcely less colossal, originally formed the avenue, but of the others 
little more than fragments of the figures and of their pedestals can be traced: this 
avenue led to the Temple of Amunoph III. Many of the fragments are now buried 
in the alluvial deposit which each successive inundation of the Nile leaves, for at the 
pei'iod of high Nile the entire plain is so flooded that the waters reach the feet of 
these colossi, and have done so annually these 3300 years; leaving a tribute which 
has accumulated till the soil has risen seven feet above the level of the time of erection. 
Mr. Hay caused an excavation to be made below these statues, and ascertained that 
they rested on a bed of sand retained by a wall of stone. The cartouche of Amunoph III. 
has been found upon these statues; but of the Temple to which the avenue, commencing 
with these colossi, led, a few substructions alone remain to mark the site of what 
must have held a conspicuous rank among the Temples of Thebes. 
All the prominent features of these vast statues are now obliterated; the faces 
have flaked and fallen off. The massive head-dresses, which descend over the breast, 
have, in their angles, preserved the ears. Sculptured for endurance, the severe and 
simple form of the Egyptian statue required the limbs to be in close contact with 
the body, or otherwise supported. Position without action is its characteristic: the 
legs are united to the throne, the arms to the body, and the fore-arms and hands 
to the thighs, on which they rest. The smallest surface possible for its volume is 
thus presented to the action of Time, who finds few weak points in Egyptian Art 
by which to insinuate his attacks: whence the marvellous preservation to our day 
of so many of its magnificent remains. This statue may have been seen by Moses, 
for it was erected, three-and-thirty centuries ago, by that Pharaoh in whose reign 
the Israelites were led forth by the great lawgiver from their bondage in Egypt. 
The sides of the thrones are similarly ornamented with hieroglyphics, by which 
the dominion of the sovereigns over Upper and Lower Egypt is supposed to be typified 
by figures of the god Nilus binding the stalks of two different water-plants round the 
