Petersburg sphinxes
“Embankment of the Neva at the Academy of Arts. View of the pier with the Egyptian sphinxes in the afternoon. ”1835. Vorobiev Maxim Nikiforovich (1787-1855). Russian Museum
"Eyes to eyes fixed, silent,
Filled with holy longing
They seem to hear the waves
Another solemn river.
For them, children of millennia,
Only a dream - visions of these places,
And this firmament, and these walls,
And your cross raised to the sky. "
Valery Bryusov
Filled with holy longing
They seem to hear the waves
Another solemn river.
For them, children of millennia,
Only a dream - visions of these places,
And this firmament, and these walls,
And your cross raised to the sky. "
Valery Bryusov
Ancient Egypt in images and paintings. The article about the apostate pharaoh Akhenaten aroused great interest among the VO readership. Send suggestions: tell us about that, tell us about it ... Oh, if I had been to Egypt, and most importantly, I could drive down the Nile from the temples of Abu Simbel to its Delta, then ... yes, I could tell a lot then. By the way, VO already had a series of articles "War, gold, pyramids", there were articles about the Battle of Kadesh, the "silver coffin" of Pharaoh Psusennes I, articles about ancient Egyptian fashions and warriors of ancient Egypt, and even about the gold and iron daggers of Pharaoh Tutankhamun ... but story Egypt is so rich and inexhaustible that, even without visiting it, you can quite find something very interesting, including one directly connected ... with Russia. It turns out that although we are far from each other geographically, in a number of cases we turned out to be quite close. In particular, it is in our country that there are two huge granite sphinxes depicting the father of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten - Amenhotep III. And although their lips are made of granite, they can tell us a lot!
"Sphinxes on the embankment of the Neva". Geftler Karl Eduardovich (1856-1918). Private collection
And it so happened that these sphinxes were ordered by the powerful pharaoh Amenhotep III and placed in front of his funeral temple. They stood on the right bank of the Nile, not far from the famous "colossus of Memnon", but years passed, then centuries, then millennia, and this temple collapsed, and the sphinxes were covered by the desert sands.
"View of the Neva at the Descent of the Academy of Arts." Perrault Ferdinand-Victor (1808-1841). Hermitage
Then, already in the 20s. XIX century. the first archaeological excavations began in the area of the ancient city of Thebes. And the Greek Egyptologist Janis Atonazis, who represented the interests of the British Consul General in Egypt, Henry Salt, was lucky to find them. Although what, in fact, he was an Egyptologist, when Egyptology as a science at that time was still only in his own eyes and was born. After all, the exploration of Atonasis took place almost simultaneously with the famous expedition of Jean-Francois Champollion to Egypt, the purpose of which was to replenish the Egyptian collection of the Louvre. Champollion liked the sphinx very much and tried to find money to buy both sphinxes. Therefore, one of them was sent on a raft to Alexandria in order to expedite their sale.
Sphinx with the head of Hatshepsut. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Champollion then wrote that the sphinxes are undoubtedly sculptural portraits of those kings whose names are inscribed on the bases of such monuments. But I didn't buy the Sphinxes right away. Not enough money!
"View of the Academy of Arts from the Neva", 1880. " Lev Feliksovich Lagorio (1826-1905). Research Museum of the Russian Academy of Arts, St. Petersburg
And then, in turn, Andrei Nikolaevich Muravyov, a young Russian officer, a participant in the just dead Russian-Turkish war of 1828-1829, saw them. And in Egypt, he happened to be. I decided to look to the East, and ... I started from Egypt. The sphinx he saw in Alexandria struck him to the core, and he decided that it would be nice to buy a pair of such sphinxes for Russia.
"Marina at the Academy of Arts on a moonlit night." Sazhin Mikhail Makarovich (1818-1887). Late 1830-1840s State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg
It is clear that he also did not have money, but he wrote to the Russian ambassador in Constantinople, and he sent it along with the drawing to Emperor Nicholas I through diplomatic channels. Academy of Arts: will this acquisition be useful for Russia? And the Academy said: “Useful!”, And the tsar replied: “Let's buy!”, Although he did not manage to immediately sign the decision of the Academic Council. However, the issue was still resolved positively. Moreover, it was decided to arrange a granite pier right in front of the Academy building and decorate it with the figures of these two sphinxes, they say, here both benefit and beauty will be fused to you! The work on the design of the pier was entrusted to the architect Konstantin Andreevich Ton.
The initial design of the pier. Architect K.A. Kon
By the way, at first the pier had to be decorated with equestrian figures. But for their casting they asked for a very expensive one. The Academy did not have such money.
Sphinx from ancient Thebes. Modern look. (Photo by A. Timofeeva)
Mobile phones were then absent, letters took months, so while the emperor's decision reached Alexandria, the impatient Greek had already sold the sphinxes to the French government so that they would decorate one of the squares of Paris. And we would not have seen these sphinxes, as our ears, if in 1830 another revolution had not begun in France. In these conditions, her government was no longer up to the sphinxes, and it canceled the deal.
“Autumn night in St. Petersburg. A pier with Egyptian sphinxes on the Neva at night. " 1835. Vorobiev M. N. State Tretyakov Gallery
It was then that our Muravyov arrived in time and bought the Sphinxes for 64 rubles in banknotes - a lot of money for that time.
A sketch of the embankment decoration after receiving information about the purchase of sphinxes ...
However, it was not enough to buy. The question arose of how to deliver them to Russia. After all, each sphinx weighed as much as 23 tons!
Had to go to extra costs. First of all, the ship "Buena Speranza" (Good Hope) was chartered, then a floating pier was built from thick logs, and on the ship itself, the loading hatch was increased and the bottom of the ship was reinforced with thick logs.
And on May 29, 1831, the sphinxes began to be loaded onto this ship. The first sphinx was lifted over the floating pier by a crane, brought to the ship itself and began to slowly lower it into the hold. There was less than a meter to the deck when there was a deafening rumble. The crane on the pier, unable to withstand the weight, swayed, its wooden gates broke, and the thick ropes on which it hung burst. The Sphinx fell to the deck, damaged the mast and one of the sides, and the broken ropes damaged the right side of the head of one of the sphinxes. From the middle of his neck to the very top of his head, a deep furrow ran down his face.
Here is a trace from this incident
The pier had to be strengthened, the crane repaired, and the sphinx lowered into the hold crushed all the logs-rollers that were placed under it! True, they managed to lower the second sphinx into the hold without incident, and there they were both securely secured in case of storms. Separately, pieces of granite were loaded into boxes - to repair the damage.
This is how the sphinxes look on the embankment today. The massive pedestal adds greatness to them!
The Buena Speranza sailed to Russia ... for a whole year! Exactly how long it took her to sail from Alexandria to Petersburg around Europe! It was only in the summer of 1832 that she entered the waters of the Neva, and the sphinxes were unloaded from her hold. But ... since the embankment was not yet ready to receive them, they were placed in the courtyard of the Academy, where they stood for another two years.
And at dawn, as expected, the sphinxes look at the sun ...
Only in April 1834 they were finally erected on the granite pedestals, on which they still stand. And nine years later (that's how slowly people lived at that time!) The monumental master S. L. Anisimov carved an inscription on each pedestal confirming their origin: "The Sphinx from ancient Thebes in Egypt was transported to the city of St. Peter in 1832".
Here is the inscription!
High bronze lamps (girandoli) designed by the architect K.A.Ton, decorated with cast reliefs, became an additional decoration of the pier with the sphinxes. Below, they lean on powerful lion paws. The reliefs at the top of the lamps depict dancing Greek girls, and below, leaves and stems are intertwined. Although the design has changed, Ton still retains these antique-style bronze pillars. They were cast at the Kolpino plant by master P.P. Gede.
And the pier is decorated with four cast griffins ...
And bronze lamps - girandoli
Undoubtedly, Russian Egyptologists were interested in the inscription made on the bases of the sphinxes. There are two inscriptions, and they encircle each sculpture. Their length is significant - from 5,5 to 6,5 m. There are inscriptions on the chest of the sphinxes (the royal cartouche with the name of the pharaoh), and in front of their outstretched paws.
Hieroglyphic inscription on the side between the paws
The inscriptions were easy to read. This was the title of Amenhotep III, in which he was called "the mighty calf", "the son of Ra, his favorite", "the Lord of eternity" and many other beautiful names. But scientists have noticed that the depth of the inscriptions carved into the stone varies. That is, some inscriptions were scraped off and replaced with others. Moreover, this was done in a hurry, because, having changed one word, the masters often forgot to change another, connected with it grammatically and in meaning. As a result, it turned out that the text praising the "mighty calf" began to contain gross errors and ridiculous phrases, which initially simply could not have been.
Do you know what is written here? Here is the translation: "May God live, Nebmaatra, heir of Ra, son of Ra, Amenhotep, ruler of Thebes, beloved of Amun-Ra." Nebmaatra is the throne name of Amenhotep III
Moreover, some hieroglyphs are carved very beautifully, with diligence, while others somehow and clearly in a hurry. That is, some signs and inscriptions were cut down, and new ones were carved in their place. Then these new signs were also cut down and new hieroglyphs were cut out.
Rear view
And the reason was very simple. Pharaoh Akhenaten, in the course of his reform, so fiercely took up arms against the old gods that he ordered everywhere, including on the monuments of his father, to destroy the names of the god Amun, as well as all the hieroglyphs depicting sacred animals that the Egyptians worshiped. And then ... then they had to be cut out again and it was done in a hurry. Moreover, the beards of the sphinxes were also beaten off at that distant time. The son did not even spare the monuments of his father - that is how Akhenaten was a principled person!
And this, as you can see, is the tail!
For the Egyptians, the sphinx symbolized strength and intelligence. They believed that by placing them at the entrance to the pharaoh's tomb or temple, they would thus protect them from a hostile world. They possessed the power of the gods, and after they began to deify his kings in Egypt, they began to depict the sphinxes with the faces of the pharaoh and always with the attributes of their power: a headscarf - nemis, urey - the image of the head of a sacred cobra, and a necklace around the neck.
Sometimes sphinxes take on a completely mystical appearance.
During the Great Patriotic War, wooden fences filled with sandbags were built around the sphinxes to protect against shell fragments. Then in 1959 their first restoration was carried out, and in 2002 - the second. However, for the uninitiated, they look just fine, exactly as the finds that have come to us from the depths of centuries should look!
PS The author is grateful to A. Timofeeva and N. Mikhailov for their photographs of the sphinxes.
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