Rannai, the priestess (singer) of the god Amon originate from tomb No. 345 located in the ancient Egyptian necropolis for nobility Sheikh Abd el-Qurna on the western bank of Thebes. According to the inscriptions, both
Archaeologists recently made a highly significant discovery in Egypt. In a find some are describing as the most significant since the Tomb of Tutankhamen, a lost “Golden City” of Egypt has been found, with the potential to change our understanding of Egyptian history forever.
Leukothea was a sea goddess who came to the aid of sailors in distress. She was once a mortal princess named Ino, a daughter of King Kadmos of Thebes. She and her husband Athamas incurred the wrath of Hera when they fostered the infant god Dionysos. As punishment the goddess drove Athamas into a murderous rage and he slew his eldest child. Ino then grapped the other, and in her flight leapt off a cliff into the sea. The pair were welcomed into the company of the sea-gods and renamed Leukothea and Palaimon. Leukothea later came to the aid of Odysseus when his raft had been destroyed by Poseidon, and wrapped him in the safety of her floating veil.
Encaustic on marble, portrait of a young man from a grave stele. The stele bears the inscription ΘΕΟΔΩΡΟΣ ΧΑΙΡΕ. The name of the man is Theodoros, while χαίρε, is a simple greeting with a special significance when addressed to a deceased person. (1st century B.C). The stele bears the inscription ΘΕΟΔΩΡΟΣ ΧΡΗΣΤΟΣ on the opposite side. It was used at a later time to signify another deceased man of the same family perhaps.
Picture from the online catalogue of the museum; The Archaeological Museum of Thebes, by Vassilios Aravantinos, Olkos publications (2010). Photography: Socrates Mavrommatis. You can peruse the book in full here
A silver stater coin of ancient Greece, specifically from Thebes (405-395 BCE). It depicts a striking head of Dyonisus in beautiful detail, as well as a Boeotian shield on the obverse.The Boeotian shield was a lesser known cousin of the usual round, heavy hoplon we see a hoplite carry in Greek vases. Not much is known of how they were used but they are believed to be a smaller and more agile version of the dypilon, a huge ancient Mycaenean full body shield where the cuts on the sides were used to stab through with the spear.
Nebamun Hunting in the Marshes, tomb-chapel of Nebamun, Thebes, Egypt (c.1350 BCE)
“Nebamun is shown hunting birds, in a small boat with his wife Hatshepsut and their young daughter, in the marshes of the Nile. Such scenes had already been traditional parts of tomb-chapel decoration for hundreds of years and show the dead tomb-owner ‘enjoying himself and seeing beauty’, as the hieroglyphic caption here says.” (Source)
Cartonnage of Nespanetjerenpere, Thebes, Egypt (c.945-718 BCE)
“The decoration here was chosen to associate its occupant, the priest Nespanetjerenpere, with divine resurrection. The ram-headed falcon on his chest represents the sun god’s nightly journey through the land of the dead. The small figures on the front represent deities aligned with various parts of his body, as described in the funerary Book of the Dead.” (Source)
Medinet Habu, The Mortuary Temple of Ramesses IIIatThebes.The temple decoration consists of a series of reliefs and texts paying tribute to the pharaoh and his many accomplishments. The murals depicting the battles between Egypt and the Sea Peoples (about 1190 BC) are located on the northern outside wall of the temple.
The texts and reliefs regarding the Sea Peoples provide an account of Egypt’s campaign against the “coalition of the sea” from an Egyptian point of view. Rameses III is depicted with his bow drawn, gigantic, while the warships of the invaders gather around his feet; it is a triumphant, propagandistic image of total annihilation. The inscriptions of the pharaoh at his temple record three victorious campaigns against the Sea Peoples.
According to Egyptian accounts the Sea Peoples, a group of distinct peoples of diverse origins, were named as the Peleset, Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denyen, Habiru and Weshesh. Scholars have tried to identify these places as mainland Italy, Sardinia, Sicily, the islands of the Aegean, Palestine and even Minoan Crete and Anatolia, but such claims still remain mere conjecture. The Medinet Habu reliefs provide valuable information about the appearance and accoutrements of the various groups.
Egypt was one of the few civilizations that managed to survive the onslaught of the Sea Peoples but in the following years they appeared in greater numbers, leaving the Egyptians more vulnerable, incapable of defending their possessions in the East.
The beginnings of archaeology; “imperialist plunder”
The Younger Memnon -in the British museum- is a colossal granite statue from the ancient Egyptian mortuary temple, the RamesseumatThebes. It depicts the pharaoh Ramesses II, “the Great” (ruled 1279-1213 BC). The statue lost its body and lower legs and it is one of a pair which originally flanked the doorway of the Ramesseum. The head of its pair is still at the Ramesseum (picture n. 3) -its body is restored. The statue was cut from a single block of two-coloured granite.
The Younger Memnon was retrieved from the Ramesseum by the italian explorer Giovanni Belzoni in 1816. He removed the bust and then shipped it to England. It took him 17 days and 130 men to tow it to the river. He used levers to lift it onto rollers. Then he had his men distributed equally with 4 ropes drag it on the rollers.
The hole on the right of the torso is said to have been made by members of Napoleon Bonaparte’s expedition to Egypt at the end of the 18th century, in an unsuccessful attempt to remove the statue. The 18th century would see Britain rise to be the world’s dominant colonial power, and France becoming its main rival. Both countries wanted to outdo each other, from empire to archaeology. They strived to build the very best collections in the entire world. This was about national pride.
When the Younger Memnon arrived to England they had nowhere to put it. It sat out in the rain and in the pollution of London. It was later acquired in 1821 by the British Museum and was at first displayed in the old Townley Galleries (now demolished) for several years, then installed in 1834 in the new Egyptian Sculpture Gallery. It was the first public collection of Egyptian antiquities and it had a massive impact on the public. People looked at these objects not as antiquities, but as symbols of British victory. One of the obelisks indeed had engraved down the side “Captured by the British Army”.
Pictures n. 4, 5: Belzoni’s drawings: The Younger Memnon being hauled from Thebes
I WISH I were as in the years of old While yet the blessed daylight made itself Ruddy thro’ both the roofs of sight, and woke These eyes, now dull, but then so keen to seek The meanings ambush’d under all they saw, The flight of birds, the flame of sacrifice, What omens may foreshadow fate to man And woman, and the secret of the Gods. My son, the Gods, despite of human prayer, Are slower to forgive than human kings. The great God Ares burns in anger still
Against the guiltless heirs of him from Tyre Our Cadmus, out of whom thou art, who found Beside the springs of Dirce, smote, and still’d Thro’ all its folds the multitudinous beast The dragon, which our trembling fathers call’d The God’s own son. A tale, that told to me, When but thine age, by age as winter-white As mine is now, amazed, but made me yearn For larger glimpses of that more than man Which rolls the heavens, and lifts and lays the deep, Yet loves and hates with mortal hates and loves, And moves unseen among the ways of men. Then, in my wanderings all the lands that lie Subjected to the Heliconian ridge Have heard this footstep fall, altho’ my wont Was more to scale the highest of the heights With some strange hope to see the nearer God. One naked peak‹the sister of the Sun Would climb from out the dark, and linger there
To silver all the valleys with her shafts‹ There once, but long ago, five-fold thy term Of years, I lay; the winds were dead for heat- The noonday crag made the hand burn; and sick For shadow‹not one bush was near‹I rose Following a torrent till its myriad falls Found silence in the hollows underneath. There in a secret olive-glade I saw Pallas Athene climbing from the bath In anger; yet one glittering foot disturb’d The lucid well; one snowy knee was prest Against the margin flowers; a dreadful light Came from her golden hair, her golden helm And all her golden armor on the grass, And from her virgin breast, and virgin eyes Remaining fixt on mine, till mine grew dark For ever, and I heard a voice that said “Henceforth be blind, for thou hast seen too much, And speak the truth that no man may believe.” Son, in the hidden world of sight that lives Behind this darkness, I behold her still Beyond all work of those who carve the stone Beyond all dreams of Godlike womanhood, Ineffable beauty, out of whom, at a glance And as it were, perforce, upon me flash’d The power of prophesying‹but to me No power so chain’d and coupled with the curse Of blindness and their unbelief who heard And heard not, when I spake of famine, plague Shrine-shattering earthquake, fire, flood, thunderbolt, And angers of the Gods for evil done And expiation lack'd‹no power on Fate Theirs, or mine own! for when the crowd would roar For blood, for war, whose issue was their doom, To cast wise words among the multitude Was fiinging fruit to lions; nor, in hours Of civil outbreak, when I knew the twain Would each waste each, and bring on both the yoke Of stronger states, was mine the voice to curb The madness of our cities and their kings. Who ever turn’d upon his heel to hear My warning that the tyranny of one Was prelude to the tyranny of all? My counsel that the tyranny of all Led backward to the tyranny of one? This power hath work’d no good to aught that lives And these blind hands were useless in their wars. O. therefore, that the unfulfill’d desire, The grief for ever born from griefs to be The boundless yearning of the prophet’s heart‹ Could that stand forth, and like a statue, rear’d To some great citizen, wim all praise from all Who past it, saying, “That was he!” In vain! Virtue must shape itself im deed, and those Whom weakness or necessity have cramp’d Withm themselves, immerging, each, his urn In his own well, draws solace as he may. Menceceus, thou hast eyes, and I can hear Too plainly what full tides of onset sap Our seven high gates, and what a weight of war Rides on those ringing axlesl jingle of bits, Shouts, arrows, tramp of the horn-footed horse That grind the glebe to powder! Stony showers Of that ear-stunning hail of Ares crash Along the sounding walls. Above, below Shock after shock, the song-built towers and gates Reel, bruised and butted with the shuddering War-thunder of iron rams; and from within The city comes a murmur void of joy, Lest she be taken captive‹maidens, wives, And mothers with their babblers of the dawn, And oldest age in shadow from the night, Falling about their shrines before their Gods, And wailing, “Save us.”
And they wail to thee! These eyeless eyes, that cannot see thine own, See this, that only in thy virtue lies The saving of our Thebes; for, yesternight, To me, the great God Ares, whose one bliss Is war and human sacrifice‹himself Blood-red from battle, spear and helmet tipt With stormy light as on a mast at sea, Stood out before a darkness, crying, “Thebes, Thy Thebes shall fall and perish, for I loathe The seed of Cadmus‹yet if one of these By his own hand‹if one of these‹” My son, No sound is breathed so potent to coerce, And to conciliate, as their names who dare For that sweet mother land which gave them birth Nobly to do, nobly to die. Their names, Graven on memorial columns, are a song Heard in the future; few, but more than wall And rampart, their examples reach a hand Far thro’ all years, and everywhere they meet And kindle generous purpose, and the strength To mould it into action pure as theirs. Fairer thy fate than mine, if life’s best end Be to end well! and thou refusing this, Unvenerable will thy memory be While men shall move the lips; but if thou dare‹ Thou, one of these, the race of Cadmus‹then No stone is fitted in yon marble girth Whose echo shall not tongue thy glorious doom, Nor in this pavement but shall ring thy name To every hoof that clangs it, and the springs Of Dirce laving yonder battle-plain, Heard from the roofs by night, will murmur thee To thine own Thebes, while Thebes thro’ thee shall stand Firm-based with all her Gods. The Dragon’s cave Half hid, they tell me, now in flowing vines‹ Where once he dwelt and whence he roll’d himself At dead of night‹thou knowest, and that smooth rock Before it, altar-fashion’d, where of late The woman-breasted Sphinx, with wings drawn back Folded her lion paws, and look’d to Thebes. There blanch the bones of whom she slew, and these Mixt with her own, because the fierce beast found A wiser than herself, and dash’d herself Dead in her rage; but thou art wise enough Tho’ young, to love thy wiser, blunt the curse Of Pallas, bear, and tho’ I speak the truth Believe I speak it, let thine own hand strike Thy youthful pulses into rest and quench The red God’s anger, fearing not to plunge Thy torch of life in darkness, rather thou Rejoicing that the sun, the moon, the stars Send no such light upon the ways of men As one great deed. Thither, my son, and there Thou, that hast never known the embrace of love Offer thy maiden life. This useless hand! I felt one warm tear fall upon it. Gone! He will achieve his greatness. But for me I would that I were gather’d to my rest, And mingled with the famous kings of old On whom about their ocean-islets flash The faces of the Gods‹the wise man’s word Here trampled by the populace underfoot There crown’d with worship and these eyes will find The men I knew, and watch the chariot whirl About the goal again, and hunters race The shadowy lion, and the warrior-kings In height and prowess more than human, strive Again for glory, while the golden lyre Is ever sounding in heroic ears Heroic hymns, and every way the vales Wind, clouded with the grateful incense-fume Of those who mix all odor to the Gods On one far height in one far-shining fire.
![[ C ] Georges Clairin - Mountains at Thebes, West Nile Bank (by Cea.)](https://64.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2ari4oj8v1qaxacfo1_500.jpg "[ C ] Georges Clairin - Mountains at Thebes, West Nile Bank (by Cea.)")
