THE STATUES OF MEMNON.


There were many colossal statues of Memnon in Egypt, but the most
remarkable were the two in the Memnonium or palace of Memnon, at Thebes.
The largest is of rose-colored granite, and stood in the centre of the
principal court; its height was sixty-four feet, and its remains are
scattered forty feet around it. Rigaud, one of the French savans, says,
"the excavations are still visible where the wedges were placed which
divided the monument when it was thrown down by Cambyses." The trunk is
broke off at the waist, and the upper part lies prostrate on the back;
it measures six feet ten inches over the front of the head, and
sixty-two feet round the shoulders. At the entrance of the gate which
leads from the second court to the palace, is the famous colossal
sounding statue, which, according to Herodotus, Strabo, and Pausanias,
uttered a joyful sound when the sun rose, and a mournful one when it
set. It is also related that it shed tears, and gave out oracular
responses in seven verses, and that these sounds were heard till the
fourth century after Christ. These phenomena, attested by many ancient
and modern writers, are variously accounted for by the learned, as
priestcraft, peculiar construction, escape of rarified air, &c. This
statue is in excellent preservation. The head is of rose-colored
granite, and the rest of a kind of black stone. Two other colossal
statues, about fifty feet high, are seated on the plain.




HELIOPOLIS.