The lower terrace of the temple extended in width over a distance of some one and a half stadia; at the extremes there were simple cylindrical columns, in the centre they were square and higher up they had six or sixteen faces. The central columns, the capitals of the side columns, the cornices of the porticos and the human figures were all painted in bright blue and red colours which made the glaring white of the stone still more dazzling.
This temple, brightly lit up by the sun, formed a striking contrast to other gloomy, oppressive temple buildings that Pandion had seen. The young Hellene could not imagine anything more beautiful than those rows of snow-white columns in a framework of coloured patterns. On the terraces grew trees such as Pandion had never seen before — low trees with a dense cluster of branches covered with tiny leaves growing close to each other. These trees gave off a very powerful aroma and their golden-green foliage gave them a very gay appearance backed by snow-white columns accentuated by the red cliffs.
In a burst of wild admiration Kidogo nudged Pandion, smacked his lips and emitted inarticulate sounds expressing approbation.
None of the slaves knew that the temple before which they stood had been built about five hundred years earlier by the architect Sennemut for his mistress Queen Hatshe-psut (Hatshepsut — Queen of the XVIIIth Dynasty (1500–1457 B.C.). The temple is at Deir-el-Bahri.) and was called Zesher-Zesheru — the most magnificent of the magnificent. (The Temple of Montuhotep IV, a Pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom, Xlth Dynasty, about 2050 B.C). The strange trees growing on the terraces had been brought from the Land of Punt to which Queen Hatshepsut had sent a big expedition by sea. Since that time it had been the custom for every new expedition to Punt to bring back young trees for the temple and renew the old plantation which was thus seemingly preserved from ancient days.
The voice of the overseer came from the distance. The slaves moved hurriedly away from the temple and passing round it to the left, found yet another temple, also built on a ledge on the cliff, this time in the form of a small pyramid resting on rows of closely placed columns.
Higher up the river there were two other temples of polished grey granite. The overseer led his party to the nearest of them where they joined another party of about two hundred slaves busy dismantling the temple. The white plaster on the interior walls was decorated with brightly-coloured drawings executed with great mastery. The building officials and technicians of Aigyptos, who had charge of the work, were only interested in the polished granite blocks with which the portico and the colonnade were faced. The interior walls were ruthlessly destroyed.
Pandion was shocked at this wanton destruction of ancient works of art and managed to get into the group of slaves employed in piling the stones on to wooden sleds and dragging them down to the river to be loaded on a low-lying boat.
He did not know that the Pharaohs of Aigyptos had long been dismantling ancient temples, mostly those of the Middle Kingdom (2160–1580 B.C.) which contained a large quantity of beautifully dressed stone; they had no respect for monuments of the past and hastened to perpetuate their own names by building temples and tombs from ready materials.
Neither the Hyksos, the barbaric Shepherd Kings who had conquered Tha-Quem many centuries before, nor the slaves who revolted and ruled the country for a short period some two hundred years before Pandion was born, had touched these magnificent edifices. But now, following the secret instructions of the new Pharaohs of Aigyptos, the temples and tombs of the ancient kings were being dismantled and gold poured into the treasury of the rulers from the plundered tombs hidden under the ancient sand-covered pyramids and from the magnificent underground tombs of the great kings of the XVIIIth, XIXth and XXth dynasties.
Pandion spent altogether three months on this work of dismantling the temple. He and Kidogo worked hard, doing their utmost to lighten the labour of their comrades. This was exactly what their taskmasters wanted: the labour system in Tha-Quem was organized in such a way that the weak had to keep pace with the strong. The unusual strength and shrewdness of Kidogo and Pandion attracted the attention of the overseers and they were sent to the workshop of the stone-masons to learn the craft. One of Pharaoh’s sculptors took them away from this workshop and thus cut them off completely from their comrades in the shahne. Pandion and Kidogo were housed in a long, uncomfortable shed with a number of other slaves who had already mastered the simple craft. Native inhabitants of Aigyptos, free craftsmen, occupied a few huts in one corner of the big workshop yard where there were piles of undressed stone and rubble. The Egyptians kept markedly clear of the slaves as though they might be punished for any connections with them; later Pandion learned that this actually was the case.
The master of the workshop, a royal sculptor, did not suspect that Pandion and Kidogo were real sculptors and was astonished at the progress they made. The young men longed for some creative activity and gave themselves up whole-heartedly to their work, forgetting for a time that they were working for the hated Pharaoh and the vile land of slavery.
Kidogo waxed enthusiastic over his models of animals: hippopotamuses, crocodiles, antelopes and other strange beasts Pandion had never seen; his models were used by other slaves to make faience statuettes. The Egyptian sculptor noticed Pandion’s fondness for modelling people and undertook to teach this promising young Ekwesha; he insisted on the utmost thoroughness in work done to order. “The slightest negligence is the ruin of perfection,” the Egyptian sculptor would constantly repeat — this was the watchword of the ancient masters of the Black Land. The Hellene studied assiduously and at times his nostalgia was forgotten. He made great progress in the precise work of finishing off statues and bas-reliefs from hard stone and in the embossing of gold ornaments.
Pandion accompanied the sculptor to Pharaoh’s palace and saw there apartments of unbelievable luxury. On the coloured floors of the royal quarters there were representations of the thickets of the Great River with their plants and animals, all drawn wonderfully lifelike and framed with wavy lines or spirals of many colours. The faience tiles on the walls of the rooms were covered with a transparent blue glaze through which shone fantastic designs in gold leaf, works of art that were nothing less than magic.
Amidst all this magnificence the young Hellene looked with hatred on the haughty, immobile courtiers. He examined their white garments, ironed in tiny pleats, their heavy necklaces, rings and lockets of cast gold, their wigs of curled hair falling to the shoulders and their embroidered slippers with upturned toes.
Like a silent shadow Pandion followed the hurrying master sculptor; on his way he took note of valuable thin-walled vessels cut from rock-crystal and hard stone, glass vases and pots of grey faience decorated with pale blue designs. He was fully aware of the tremendous amount of labour that had gone into the production of these works of art.
The greatest impression was produced by a gigantic temple near the Gardens of Amon where Pandion began his life as a slave, languishing behind the high walls of the she fine.
This was a temple of many gods built in the course of more than a thousand years. Each of the kings of Tha-Quem had added something new to an already huge structure more than eight hundred cubits in length.
On the right bank of the river, within the bounds of the capital city Nut-Amon, or simply Nut — the city — as the Egyptians called it, lay magnificent gardens with straight rows of high palms at both ends of which were a number of temples. These temple buildings were connected by long avenues of statues of strange animals with the river-banks and the sacred lake in front of the Temple of Mut, a goddess that Pandion could not understand.