e figures of gryphons, or hawk-headed
sphinxes, found by Belzoni in the great temple of Ibsamboul (11-13),
and emblematic or Munt-ra, will next engage the visitor's attention;
and from these specimens the visitor should turn to a black granite
fragment of the Egyptian Diana--Pasht, of the time of Amenophis; but
as he will have an opportunity of observing more finished
representations of this popular divinity, he may at once pause before
a second statue of this goddess, also of the time of the third
Amenophis (37), where Pasht is represented in black granite, upon a
throne, with the head of a lion, and in her hand the emblem of life.
Hereabouts, also, are two specimens of the strange cynocephalus, or
dog-headed baboon (38-40), sacred to the Hercules and Mercury of the
Egyptian Pantheon. The figures marked 41-45 are two more specimens of
Pasht, who appears to have been the most popular subject for the
Egyptian sculptor's chisel; these are erect figures, holding lotus
sceptres, and are both from Karnak. The figures marked 49, 50, 52, 53,
57, are all representations of the popular Pasht; in 52 she wears the
disk of the sun. And now the visitor may well pause before a fragment
marked 58. This is a piece of the beard of the Great Sphinx. Peeping
above the sands which surround the famous pyramids of Gizeh, is the
upper part of a man-headed sphinx. This sphinx is said to measure no
less than 62 feet in height, and 143 feet in length; this Colossus has
been plucked by the beard, and the result lies before the visitor.
Hereabouts, in passing, the visitor may glance at another object
wrested from the hands of the French (59). It is a fragment of a
column in porphyry, supporting a colossal areonite hawk, sacred to the
sun. More statues of Pasht! (60, 62, 63, of the 22nd dynasty; 65, 68,
69). A column found in a house at Cairo, the capital of which is
formed in the shape of a lotus flower (64), deserves notice; also
(70), the basalt statue of a god, conjectured to be Amen-ra, holding a
small figure of a monarch of the 28th dynasty. More statues of Pasht
(71, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9; 80, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9); and then the visitor may pause
before the colossal scarabaeus, emblematic of the world and creation
(74); and a broken sphinx, of Roman work (82). Not far off are
deposited the legs of Truth (91), the goddess Ma of the Egyptians;
some altars from Aboukir and Sais, that marked 135, from the Temple of
Berenice, having steps leading to it; entrance