"Rape Of The Black Earth" lyrics - NILE

NILE
"Rape Of The Black Earth"
(George Kollias / Karl Sanders / Dallas Toler-Wade)

Violent clashes engulf the war torn black earth
Political turmoil brings chaos and ruin upon the upper and lower kingdom
Heretics and zealots rape the two lands
Brazen rampant looting and wanton vandalism a bleak reality
Destroying entire epochs of history
In search of shiny bits of metal

Dogs play with human bones
Amongst hundreds of deep pits bug into exposed bombs
Children scavenge for shards of pottery amongst grisly debris
The unwrapped and dismembered remnants of the mummified dead
Ancient burial wrappings unravel in the desert wind
Broken bits of wooden sarcophagi
Shriveled mummified hands bleached skulls, spines, arm and leg bones
Scattered all around like the aftermath of a massacre

The temples of the Gods defiled
Looters hack relics off sacred walls
Laying bare hands upon the images of the Gods themselves
Unearthing what should not be unearthed

Thieves ransack antiquities
Cutting monuments and statues into small parts to sell upon the black market
Manuscripts despoiled, papyrii burned, inscriptions defaced
The images of the Gods defiled
Statues stolen priceless coffin reliefs and stelae strewn in sand
Inscriptions and wall paintings desecrated with knife and hammer
Limestone casings stripped from atop the lesser pyramids
Entire temples disappear their foundations laid waste
Their stones pulled down, taken away and sold
To be reused in foreign and profane lands
The dried and withered corpses of the preserved dead torched
The bones of the royal dead from centuries past
Ripped from their ancient slumber
Left to be trampled, kicked and faded in the sun
As heretics and zealots rape the two lands