At Thebes In the Temple of the Ogress
Here's a 1924 account of a visit to the Temple of Mut at Karnak. It's a ripper; I'm going to quote it at length (with a few... elisions).
"I walk on without stopping, and at length reach the sacred lake on the margin of which the great cats are seated in eternal council, each one on her throne. The lake, dug by order of the Pharaohs, is in the form of an arc, like a kind of crescent. Some marsh birds that are about to retire for the night now traverse its mournful sleeping water. Its borders, which have known the utmost of magnificence, are become mere heaps of ruins on which nothing grows.
And what one sees beyond, what the attentive goddesses themselves regard, is the empty desolate plain, on which some few poor fields of corn mingle in this twilight hour with the sad infinitude of the sands. And the whole is bounded on the horizon by the chain, still a little rose-coloured, of the limestone mountains of Arabia.
They are there, the cats, or, to speak more exactly, the lionesses, for cats would not have those short ears, or those cruel chins, thickened by tufts of beard. All of black granite, images of Sekhet (who was the Goddess of War, and in her hours the Goddess of Lust), they have the slender body of a woman, which makes more terrible the great feline head surmounted by its high bonnet. Eight or ten, or perhaps more, they are more disquieting in that they are so numerous and so alike.
They are not gigantic, as one might have expected, but of ordinary human stature - easy therefore to carry away, or to destroy, and that again, if one reflects, augments the singular impression they cause. When so many colossal figures lie in pieces on the ground, how comes it that they, little people seated so tranquilly on their chairs, have contrived to remain intact, during the passing of the three and thirty centuries of the world's history?
The passage of the march birds, which for a moment disturbed the clear mirror of the lake, has ceased. Around the goddesses nothing moves and the customary infinite silence envelops them as at the fall of every night. They dwell indeed in such a forlorn corner of the ruins! Who, to be sure, even in broad daylight, would think of visiting them?
Down there in the west a trailing cloud of dust indicates the departure of the tourists... the knowledge that they are gone renders more intimate the interview with these numerous and identical goddesses, who little by little have been draped in shadow.
Their seats turn their backs to the palaces of Thebes, which now begin to be bathed in violet waves and seem to sink towards the horizon, to lose each minute something of their importance before the sovereignty of the night.
And the black goddesses, with their lioness' heads and tall headgear - seated there with their hands upon their knees, with eyes fixed since the beginning of the ages, and a disturbing smile on their thick lips, like those of a wild beast - continue to regard - beyond the little dead lake - that desert, which now is only a confused immensity, of a bluish ashy-grey.
The fancy seizes you that they are possessed of a kind of life, which has come to them after long waiting, by virtue of that expression which they have worn on their faces so long, oh! so long.
Beyond, at the other extremity of the ruins, there is a sister of these goddesses, taller than they, a great Sekhet, whom in these parts men call the Ogress, and who dwells alone and upright, ambushed in a narrow temple. Amongst the fellahs and the Bedouins of the neighbourhood she enjoys a very bad reputation, it being her custom of nights to issue from her temple, and devour men; and none of them would willingly venture near her dwelling at this late hour. But instead of returning to Luxor, like the good people whose carriages have just departed, I rather choose to pay her a visit...
I approach at length the temple of the Ogress. These stones which now appear, whitish in the night, this secret-looking dwelling near the boundary wall of Thebes, proclaim the spot, and verily at such an hour as this it has an evil aspect. Ptolemaic columns, little vestibules, little courtyards where a dim blue light enables you to find your way. Nothing moves; not even the flight of a night bird: an absolute silence, magnified awfully by the presence of the desert which you feel encompasses you beyond these walls. And beyond, at the bottom, three chambers made of massive stone, each with its separate entrance. I know that the first two are empty. It is in the third that the Ogress dwells, unless, indeed, she has already set out upon her nocturnal hunt for human flesh. Pitch darkness reigns within and I have to grope my way. Quickly I light a match. Yes, there she is indeed, alone and upright, almost part of the end wall, on which my little light makes the horrible shadow of her head dance. The match goes out -irreverently I light many more under her chin, under that heavy, man-eating jaw. In very sooth, she is terrifying. Of black granite-like her sisters, seated on the margin of the mournful lake - but much taller than they, from six to eight feet in height, she has a woman's body, exquisitely slim and young, with the breasts of a virgin. Very chaste in attitude, she holds in her hand a long-stemmed lotus flower, but by a contrast that nonplusses and paralyses you the delicate shoulders support the monstrosity of a huge lioness' head. The lappets of her bonnet fall on either side of her ears almost down to her breast, and surmounting the bonnet, by way of addition to the mysterious pomp, is a large moon disc. Her dead stare gives to the ferocity of her visage something unreasoning and fatal; an irresponsible ogress, without pity as without pleasure, devouring after the manner of Nature and of Time. And it was so perhaps that she was understood by the initiated of ancient Egypt, who symbolised everything for the people in the figures of gods.
In the dark retreat, enclosed with defaced stones, in the little temple where she stands, alone, upright and grand, with her enormous head and thrust-out chin and tall goddess' headdress - one is necessarily quite close to her. In touching her, at night, you are astonished to find that she is less cold than the air; she becomes somebody, and the intolerable dead stare seems to weigh you down.
During the tête-à-tête, one thinks involuntarily of the surroundings, of these ruins in the desert, of the prevailing nothingness, of the cold beneath the stars. And, now, that summation of doubt and despair and terror, which such an assemblage of things inspires in you, is confirmed, if one may say so, by the meeting with this divinity-symbol, which awaits you at the end of the journey, to receive ironically all human prayer; a rigid horror of granite, with an implacable smile and a devouring jaw.
_
Loti, Pierre. Egypt (La Mort De Philae). 1924. (Translated by W. P. Baines.)
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3685/3685-h/3685-h.htm
"I walk on without stopping, and at length reach the sacred lake on the margin of which the great cats are seated in eternal council, each one on her throne. The lake, dug by order of the Pharaohs, is in the form of an arc, like a kind of crescent. Some marsh birds that are about to retire for the night now traverse its mournful sleeping water. Its borders, which have known the utmost of magnificence, are become mere heaps of ruins on which nothing grows.
And what one sees beyond, what the attentive goddesses themselves regard, is the empty desolate plain, on which some few poor fields of corn mingle in this twilight hour with the sad infinitude of the sands. And the whole is bounded on the horizon by the chain, still a little rose-coloured, of the limestone mountains of Arabia.
They are there, the cats, or, to speak more exactly, the lionesses, for cats would not have those short ears, or those cruel chins, thickened by tufts of beard. All of black granite, images of Sekhet (who was the Goddess of War, and in her hours the Goddess of Lust), they have the slender body of a woman, which makes more terrible the great feline head surmounted by its high bonnet. Eight or ten, or perhaps more, they are more disquieting in that they are so numerous and so alike.
They are not gigantic, as one might have expected, but of ordinary human stature - easy therefore to carry away, or to destroy, and that again, if one reflects, augments the singular impression they cause. When so many colossal figures lie in pieces on the ground, how comes it that they, little people seated so tranquilly on their chairs, have contrived to remain intact, during the passing of the three and thirty centuries of the world's history?
The passage of the march birds, which for a moment disturbed the clear mirror of the lake, has ceased. Around the goddesses nothing moves and the customary infinite silence envelops them as at the fall of every night. They dwell indeed in such a forlorn corner of the ruins! Who, to be sure, even in broad daylight, would think of visiting them?
Down there in the west a trailing cloud of dust indicates the departure of the tourists... the knowledge that they are gone renders more intimate the interview with these numerous and identical goddesses, who little by little have been draped in shadow.
Their seats turn their backs to the palaces of Thebes, which now begin to be bathed in violet waves and seem to sink towards the horizon, to lose each minute something of their importance before the sovereignty of the night.
And the black goddesses, with their lioness' heads and tall headgear - seated there with their hands upon their knees, with eyes fixed since the beginning of the ages, and a disturbing smile on their thick lips, like those of a wild beast - continue to regard - beyond the little dead lake - that desert, which now is only a confused immensity, of a bluish ashy-grey.
The fancy seizes you that they are possessed of a kind of life, which has come to them after long waiting, by virtue of that expression which they have worn on their faces so long, oh! so long.
Beyond, at the other extremity of the ruins, there is a sister of these goddesses, taller than they, a great Sekhet, whom in these parts men call the Ogress, and who dwells alone and upright, ambushed in a narrow temple. Amongst the fellahs and the Bedouins of the neighbourhood she enjoys a very bad reputation, it being her custom of nights to issue from her temple, and devour men; and none of them would willingly venture near her dwelling at this late hour. But instead of returning to Luxor, like the good people whose carriages have just departed, I rather choose to pay her a visit...
I approach at length the temple of the Ogress. These stones which now appear, whitish in the night, this secret-looking dwelling near the boundary wall of Thebes, proclaim the spot, and verily at such an hour as this it has an evil aspect. Ptolemaic columns, little vestibules, little courtyards where a dim blue light enables you to find your way. Nothing moves; not even the flight of a night bird: an absolute silence, magnified awfully by the presence of the desert which you feel encompasses you beyond these walls. And beyond, at the bottom, three chambers made of massive stone, each with its separate entrance. I know that the first two are empty. It is in the third that the Ogress dwells, unless, indeed, she has already set out upon her nocturnal hunt for human flesh. Pitch darkness reigns within and I have to grope my way. Quickly I light a match. Yes, there she is indeed, alone and upright, almost part of the end wall, on which my little light makes the horrible shadow of her head dance. The match goes out -irreverently I light many more under her chin, under that heavy, man-eating jaw. In very sooth, she is terrifying. Of black granite-like her sisters, seated on the margin of the mournful lake - but much taller than they, from six to eight feet in height, she has a woman's body, exquisitely slim and young, with the breasts of a virgin. Very chaste in attitude, she holds in her hand a long-stemmed lotus flower, but by a contrast that nonplusses and paralyses you the delicate shoulders support the monstrosity of a huge lioness' head. The lappets of her bonnet fall on either side of her ears almost down to her breast, and surmounting the bonnet, by way of addition to the mysterious pomp, is a large moon disc. Her dead stare gives to the ferocity of her visage something unreasoning and fatal; an irresponsible ogress, without pity as without pleasure, devouring after the manner of Nature and of Time. And it was so perhaps that she was understood by the initiated of ancient Egypt, who symbolised everything for the people in the figures of gods.
In the dark retreat, enclosed with defaced stones, in the little temple where she stands, alone, upright and grand, with her enormous head and thrust-out chin and tall goddess' headdress - one is necessarily quite close to her. In touching her, at night, you are astonished to find that she is less cold than the air; she becomes somebody, and the intolerable dead stare seems to weigh you down.
During the tête-à-tête, one thinks involuntarily of the surroundings, of these ruins in the desert, of the prevailing nothingness, of the cold beneath the stars. And, now, that summation of doubt and despair and terror, which such an assemblage of things inspires in you, is confirmed, if one may say so, by the meeting with this divinity-symbol, which awaits you at the end of the journey, to receive ironically all human prayer; a rigid horror of granite, with an implacable smile and a devouring jaw.
_
Loti, Pierre. Egypt (La Mort De Philae). 1924. (Translated by W. P. Baines.)
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3685/3685-h/3685-h.htm