The two armies [one Egyptian, one Greek] that went up to the fields of Cush [Upper Nubia] with Amasis [Commanding General of Pharaoh Psamtik II’s punitive raid, 593 BCE, and later Pharaoh himself] crushed the dogs.
-Phoenician graffito carved into the right calf of the Second Colossus, Abu Simbel
The legs of the four 22m high seated Colossi are tagged with graffiti in Greek, Phoenician, Arabic, French, Italian, English, and polyglot gibberish [“imbeciles’ names written everywhere” Flaubert called them on his visit in 1850]. In 1988 I was awake at dawn on the deck of the Lake Nasser ferry when it passed Abu Simbel, and all I was thinking about was the Dabouka I’d left behind in the Batn al-Hajar, Belly of Stones, in Upper Nubia.