Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/98

76 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. of innumerable arms, and then lowered by the gradual removal of the part supporting its lower end. It is certain that the process was often a slow and laborious one. We know from an in- scription that the obelisk which now stands before the church of San Giovanni Laterano in Rome was more than thirty-five years in the hands of the workmen charged with its erection in the southern quarter of Thebes.^ Sometimes, however, much more rapid progress was made. According to the inscription on the base of the obelisk of Hatasu at Karnak, the time consumed upon it, from the commencement of work in the quarry to its final erection at Thebes, zvas only seven months?' Whatever may have been their methods we may be sure that there was nothing complicated or particularly learned in them. The erection of the obelisks, like that of the colossal statues, must have been an affair merely of time and of the number of arms employed, " One day," says Maxime du Camp, " I was sitting upon one of the architraves supported by the columns of the great hall at Karnak, and, glancing over the forest of stone which surrounded me, I involuntarily cried out : ' But how did they do all this V " My dragoman, Joseph, who is a great philosopher, over- heard my exclamation, and began to laugh. He touched my arm, and pointing to a palm tree whose tall stem rose in the distance, he said : ' That is what they did it all with ; a hundred thousand palm-branches broken over the backs of people whose shoulders are never covered, will create palaces and temples enough. Ah yes, sir, that was a bad time for the date trees ; their branches were cut a good deal faster than they grew ! ' And he laughed softly to himself as he caressed his beard." " Perhaos he was rio^ht." '* ^ The text in question is quoted in the notes contributed by Dr. Birch to the last edition of Wilkinson (vol. ii. p. 308, note 2). Pliny's remarks upon the obelisks are intersprinkled with fabulous stories and contain no useful information (H. N., xxxvi. 14). ^ PiERRET, Didiomiaire d' A?r/ieologie Egyptieiine. (The dates upon which this assertion depends have been disputed. M. Chabas reads the inscription " from the first of Muchir in the year 16, to the last of Mesore in 17," making nineteen months in all, a period which is not quite so impossible as that ordinarily quoted. — Ed.) 3 Maxime du Camp, Lc Nth pp. 261 and 262.