Nevertheless, these precautions could not have accounted for the ransacking of Thebes by the colonisers, who would come in the late nineteenth century. Tomb robberies had become so commonplace from the period of the Old Kingdom onwards that Egyptian rulers started to have themselves entombed in the western desert in Upper Egypt rather than within the enormous, and very obvious, pyramids (Tignor, 2011, p. Because of this colossal size and the many valuables contained within it, Thebes had become a target for theft both from the population of the city itself and also from exterior powers in the colonial period. The size of the monument, originally standing at 57 feet, the fact that the pharaohs benefited the most economically from the cultivation of the land, and that hundreds of unpaid slaves would have worked to build these monuments, reinforce this theory of urban spaces. 12), showing the unequal distribution of wealth in a city. As opposed to a primary characteristic (such as basic infrastructure), the existence of secondary characteristics, such as monuments ‘not only distinguish each known city from any village, but also symbolize the concentration of the social surplus’ (Childe, 1950, p. By using the word ‘antique’, Shelley is trying to say that although old, what was found in the city of Thebes, present day Luxor, was also of value.Īccording to Gordon Childe’s Urban Revolution one can classify the statue of Ramesses II as a ‘secondary characteristic’ of the city. There is a slight reference to a Eurocentric view of Ancient Egypt in the beginning of the poem where it states, ‘I met a traveller from an antique land’ before generally describing the colossal wreck of the statue in question. 106) and Tignor in his book Egypt: A short History informs us that the Ramesseum was the first object visitors saw once they crossed the Nile (Tignor, 2011, p. MacGregor in his book A History of the World in 100 Objects compares the temple in size to that of four football pitches (MacGregor, 2010, p. It contained four colossal statues of himself, a temple, a palace and many other treasures (MacGregor, 2011, p. This statue was one of two, which originally stood at one of the entrances of the Ramesseum, Ramesses II’s mortuary temple, which was constructed to celebrate his many achievements. 105) during the New Kingdom era which began roughly from 1552 BCE (Metz, 1990, p. The statue which resides in the land Shelley describes, is the depiction of Rameses II (commonly referred to in Greek as Ozymandias), who had ruled over Thebes from 1279 to 1213 BCE (MacGregor, 2011, p. Contextualising ‘Ozymandias’ and the Eurocentric Viewpoint Although Shelley’s work is open to criticism of historical and geographical inaccuracies, the poem nevertheless gives us a unique tool for the analysis for Egypt’s urban past and the impacts on the study of urban histories in an era after colonial pillaging. Finally, it opens up for the reader of history questions about urban planning and the occupations of city dwellers at this time. It further describes the secondary characteristics of the city, while also portraying how hegemonic world powers dismantled the city and acquired the artefacts for themselves due to fascination a fascination shared by Shelley, which prompted the writing of ‘Ozymandias’ in the first place. ‘Ozymandias’ examines the issue of the ‘acquisition’ of ancient Egyptian artefacts by external imperial and colonial powers, which dismantled prime characteristics of the ancient city. However, one could say that it tells us more than that and also gives us a new avenue of gaining historical insight: through the reading of literary works such as this sonnet. It describes the pieces of the wrecked sculpture in the barren lands of Egypt. Percy Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’, published in 1818 in The Examiner under the pen name Glirastes, is a poem about the fascination of a Pharaoh’s statue centred in a desert landscape. The Younger Memnon, statue of Ramesses II, British Museum, EA19.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |