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Egypt under the pharaohs
Heinrich Karl Brugsch, Mary Brodrick
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EGYPT
UNDEE THE PHARAOHS
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PU15TU> BT
SPOniBWOODB AKD 00^ KXW-BTRBIT 8QUABB
LONDON
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PORTRAIT HEAD OF A WOODEN STATUE OP AN ANCIBST XOTFTIAir, CALLED THE SHEIKH-
IL-BBLLED, PROBABLY OF THE TIME OF THE IVTH DTEABTT (ABOUT S700 B.C.)*
FOUND AT 8AQQARAH, AND NOW IN THE MUSEUM AT OlZEH. (See J>. 37.)
Height about 3 feet 8 inches. Engrayed from a Photograplu
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EGYPT UNDER THE PHARAOHS
A HI8T0BY DERIVED ENTIBELY FBOM THE MONUMENTS
By HEINEICH BEUGSCH-BEY
A —
A NEW EDITION
CONDENSED AND THOBOUGHLY BEYISeId BT
M. BEODEICK
WITH MAPS, PLANS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS
OLONDON JOHN MUEEAY, ALBEMAELJE STEEET
1891
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MAi(12l392
/ ■■/> J. ■
UN/vcPSivy
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PEEFACE
The estimation in which Brugsch-Bey's 'History of Egypt under the Pharaohs ' is held, and the continuously increasing demand for it, have induced the publisher to bring out a cheaper and more convenient edition. While presenting this to the public in one volume instead of two, the greatest care has been taken that, in condensing the Author's style, all the original in- formation should be retained.
The only omissions made in this edition have been that of the essay on 'The Exodus and the Egyptian Monuments,' the discovery of the site of Pithom having proved the Author's theory to be no longer tenable, and the transcription of the Tablet of TJsertsen IH., which is not given because a trans- literation without the hieroglyphs would be absolutely useless.
The much-vexed question of the nationality of the Bubastites has, so far as possible, been accommodated
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Vlll PREFACE
to Brugsch-Bey's present views without altering the tenor of the chapter. It is a well-known fact that the learned Author has, since writing his History, consider- ably modified his opinion concerning their Assyrian
origin.
At the same time the whole text has been subjected to a thorough revision, and, where necessary, has been corrected in conformity with the most recent dis- coveries in Egyptological science. A special notice of the ^ Eoyal Mummies of Deir-el-Bahari,' and also of the ^ find ' in February of this present year, has been added, as well as new Maps and a complete list of the Pharaonic Kings, with their Cartouches.
With regard to the transUteration of the Egyptian names, I have adopted that which appears to me to be most in accordance with our English alphabet, and which receives the sanction of such authorities as Lepsius, Brugsch, and Kenouf. The system of dotted letters — e,g. a, h, k, t, s — though useful for those who are able to read hieroglyphs, is liable to mislead the general reader ; it has therefore not been considered advisable to use such letters in this work. The only exception is in the case of the t\ which is always pronounced like ch in chip, e.g.
Tefab = Chefab; Pai-net'em = Pai-nechem.
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PREFACE IX
Most gratefully do I acknowledge the generous assistance of Mr. Le Page Kenouf, the Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum. While preparing the manuscript of this edition he has given me the benefit of his constant help and advice, and, though ill able to spare the time, has kindly read the whole work as it passed through the press.
M. BRODRICK.
London: 1S91.
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CONTENTS
P1.0B
Pbeface vii
List of Eings, with their Cartouches zix
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
Objects of this book — Great antiquity of the kingdom of Egypt — Origin of the Egyptians not Ethiopian — Their neighbours — Ancient name of Egypt — Poetical names — Boundaries of the kingdom — The river Nile — Divisions of the country — The Egyptians an agricultural people — Their chief characteristics — ManufiEtctures — The nobility — Oppression of the lower orders — Enquiries concerning pre -historic times — The age of the demi- gods, manes, and divine kings — Dynasty of the gods-^Ptah — Ba — Osiris — Horus — Manetho*s history — Two important lists of the Egyptian kings 1
CHAPTER II.
dynasties i.-iv.
Thinis, the ancient seat of government — Mena, the first king — Foundation of Memphis — The dike of Cocheiche — ^Different names of Memphis — ^Its temples — Ptah, the presiding deity — The necropolis — Meaning of the name * Pharaoh * — Organisation of his court — ^The queen — Overseers of the public buildings — Governors of nomes — Soldiers — * Mystery-teachers * — Death of Mena — ^His successors — An ancient prescription — The medical papyrus of Berlin — The • Pyramid of Degrees * — Institution of Apis and Mendes worship — Law of female succession — Tosor- thros, a physician king — Sneferu — Miners sent to Wady- Mag^barah — The Pyramid of Meid(lm — Ba-hotep and Nefert — Khufu— The Pyramids of Glzeh— Tatf-Ba— Khaf-Ba— The Sphinx — Temple near the Sphinx — Khaf-Ba*s wife — Men-kau- Ba — His pyramid — Inscription on his cofl&n — Shepseska-f— The courtier Ptah-Shepses 19
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CHAPTER III.
DYNASTIES V.-XI.
PAOB
User-ka-f — His pyramid — Sahu-Ba — Nefer-ar-ka-Ra — His grandson — User-en-Ra — The tomb of Thi — Men-kau-Hor — ^Assa — The maxims of Ptah-hotep — Unas — His tomb — Teta — Ati — Pepi — The oourtier Una — The queen Meri-Ba-ankh-nes — Mer-en-Ba — BUb sarcophagus — Succeeded by his brother — Queen Nitrocris — ^A period of confusion — ^Discovery of coffins of the Antefe — Mentu-hotep sinks a well in the desert — A voyage to Ophir and Punt 41
CHAPTER IV.
DYNASTY XII.
Twelfth Dynasty of Theban origin — Amen-em-hat I. — A period of internal disorder — Foreign military expeditions — Foundation of temple at Thebes — * Story of Sineh * — Usertsen I. — Quiet is re- stored to the country — City and obelisk of On — Obelisk of Begig — ^Temple at Kamak enlarged — Tomb of Ameni — The Mafkat mines opened — Inscription of Mentu-hotep — The temple and well at Abydos — ^Amen-em-hat II. — Gold-digging begun in Nubia — King Amenu — ffis wife — Usertsen II. — His history but fragmentary — Inscription from tomb of Khnum-hotep — Bights of the nobility — Calendrical inscription — Arrival of the Aamu — Usertsen III. — Military expedition against Cush — Border fortresses built at Second Cataract — Two inscriptions on boundary stones — ^Temple of Tehuti-mes HI. at Senmeh — Amen- em-hat III. — Lake Mceris — The Labyrinth — The Fayi!lm hostile to Osiris — The capital of the district — Mining operations continued — Se-hotep-ab-fla — Amen-em-hat IV. — His sister — Change of dynasty — Condition of Egypt under Twelfth Dynasty — Bise of Art — Summary by M. de Boug^ — Martisen and his son 65
CHAPTER V.
DYNASTIES XIII.-XVII.
Succession of the Egyptian dynasties — Sebek-hotep I. and his suc- cessors— Record of height of the Nile — Proofs of the undi- minished power of the kings — Ka-meri-Ba — Tomb of T'efiEib — Semitism in Egypt — The tribes inhabiting the Delta — The city of Bamses — The town of Ha-Uar — Migdol—On — Pa-Bailos— Importation of strange deities and foreign words — Foreign settlers 84
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CONTENTS xiii
CHAPTER VI.
THE HTK80S.
PAOT
Probable derivation of name — Connection between Hyksos and Phcenidans — The Bntennu — Summary of present knowledge of Hyksos — Seqenen-Ba and Apepi — Inscription in tomb of Aahmes at El-Eab — Eames — Qneen Aah-hotep and her jewellery — Egyptian nse of Semitic names — Memorial stone of Bamses II. at Tanis — Possible date of the Exodus — Tomb of Baba — Joseph in Egypt — * TaJe of the Two Brothers * — Hor-em-heb the only 'adon' mentioned on the monuments 104
CHAPTER VII.
AAHMES — HATSHEPSU.
Factions between North and South — Aahmes takes Avaris — Wars against the Zahi — Peace restored to Egypt — Bock-tablet in- soriptions — Building of temples at Earnak and Edfdl — Queen Nefert-ari- Aahmes — Mystery concerning her nationality — Amen- hotep I. — His wars — Tehuti-mes I. — Wars in Asia and the Stldan — Inscription at Third Cataract — * King's son of Cush * — Commencement of continuous campaigns in Western Asia — Trade between the Nile and Euphrates — Tehuti-mes II. and his sister Hatshepsu — Expeditions against the South country and the Shasu — Deir-el-Bahari — The woman-king sends an expedi- tion to the * Land of Punt ' — Betum of the fleet with treasures — Grand festiyal at Thebes — Hatshepsu associates Tehuti-mes III. with her in the goyemment — The great obelisk at Earnak . • 126
CHAPTER VIII.
TEHUTI-MES III.
The king's warlike tendencies — Thirteen campaigns in twenty years — Bise of the Arab dynasty in Babylon— Campaign against the Butennu and Earn — List of spoils — Earnak enriched — Insti- tution of feasts of victory — Erection of * Hall of Pillars *— In- scription in the tomb of Amen-em-heb — Summary of the royal campaigns — Tribute — Memorial tablet of Tehuti-mes IH. — Gifts to Amen at Earnak — Memorial stone from temple at Earnak — The •Chamber of Ancestors' — Be-erection of mutilated royal statues — Improvements at Thebes — Medlnet Habii — Extent of the king's conquests— Temple at Btlhan — Elephantine — Restora- tion of temple at Abydos — Memorial-stone of Neb-aiu — Be-build- ing of temple at Denderah — Erection of temple at Memphis — Obelisks at Thebes — Summary of the king's reign • . • 152
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xiv CONTENTS
CHAPTER IX,
AMEN-HOTEP II.— TEHUTI-MBS IV, — AMEN-HOTRP III.
TAOB
Amen-hotep II. goes to war with the * Bed Land *— Naharain and the South — ^Inscription at Amada — Erection and extension of temples— Campaigns of Tehuti-mes TV. — ^The Sphinx — Amen- hotep III. erects fine monuments — Is an ardent soldier and keen sportsman — Campaigns in the South — Catalogue of pri- soners— Inscription of Amen-hotep the courtier — Opening of new quarries at Mokattam and Tiirah— Temple at Kamak enlarged and connected with Luqsor by sphinxes — Temple at Medlnet Habii — ^The * vocal Memnon ' — Temple at Kak — Elephantine — Gifts to temple at Kamak — Thefts at the king's coronation — Queen Thi— The Tell-el-Amama tablets 194
CHAPTER X.
THE HERETIC KINGS.
The king*s aversion to the worship of Amen — Adores the solar disk — Builds Khu-aten— Bek, the architect — Meri-Ra, the chief prophet — Aahmes, * superintendent of the store-houses of the temple ' — The queen's address to the rising sun — Arrival of the king's mother — Family life — Rock-sculptures at Khu-aten — Victories over the Syrians — Names of the king's daughters — Saa-nekht — Tut-ankh-Amen — Arrival at Thebes of a negro queen and the princes of Ruthen— The * Holy Father Ai '—Conquers the Asiatics and subdues Cush— Hor-em-heb— His early history- Historical inscription — His wife — Adds to the temple at Kamak — ^Bas-reliefs at Silsilis — Presents to faithful retainers . . 216
CHAPTER XI.
RAMSES I. AND SETI I.
Rising of the Kheta — Short account of that people— List of con- quered Kheta towns— Relationship between Hor-em-heb and Ramses I, — Memorial stone at Wady Halfah — Seti I. — Wars with the Shasu — Inscription commemorative of his victories — Campaigns against the Kheta and the Libyans — Memorial tablet at Kamak — The queen — The young prince associated with his father in the government of the country — Victories in Cush and Punt— The temples at Kamak and Abydos— The king's tomb — Abd-el-Gtlmah- The Tablet of Abydos— New buildings at Memphis, Heliopolis, and El-Kab — Amen-uah-su, the 'first painter ' — Opening up of gold mines — Sinking of a well in the desert 287
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CONTENTS XV
CHAPTER XII.
RAMSES II.
The Sesostris of the Greeks— Completion of Seti L's temple at
Abydos — Great war between Egypt and the Eheta The battle
of Kadesh— The Poem of Pentaur— Tmiep is subdued— Captiufe of Canaanitish fortresses — Storming of Askalon — Catalo^e of prineely captives at Luqsor — ^Wars by sea — Treaty between Bamses II. and the Kheta king— Marriage of the Kheta princess to the king of Egyptr-Subjection of the Nubians and other African peoples— Gold-digging continued— Inscription at Ktlban •••••••...,. 25S
CHAPTER XIII. RAUSES II. (contimted) and his successors. Ramses II. a great builder— Inscription near Second Cataract- Colossal statue of the king at Mitraheny— Buildings at Memphis —Amen-em-an— Temple buildings at Kamak, in Nubia, and at Abtl Simbel — Zoan-Tanis becomes a capital — Letter of Panbesa —Bamses H. the probable Pharaoh of the Oppression— Founda- tion of Pithom and Bamses — Employment of the eaptives
Semitic influence in Egypt— A Uterary criticism— Length of the king's reign— Number of his children— Khamuas—Meneptah— The princesses— Inscription on the statue of Beken-Khonsu— Burial-place of Bamses II.— Meneptah II. — His insignificant
buildings— Irruption of the Libyans — The battle of Prosopis
Alliance with the Kheta and Shasu— The Pharaoh of the Exodus —Are the Aperiu the Hebrews ?— Some learned scribes— Seti n.— His temple at Kamak— Set-nekht— His rival— Queen Ta-user— Arisu the Phoenician 298
CHAPTER XIV.
DYNASTY XX.
Bamses III. — B4sum^ of his life from the Harris Papyrus— His
wars — List of the conquered people at Medlnet Habii The
Bamessea— Chief festivals— Temples built in foreign countries — The great harem conspiracy— The king's feunily— Bamses IV. —His military expeditions— Bamses V.—Meri-Atmu— Bam- ses VI.— Astronomical Table in his tomb — ^Inscriptions of this period— Penni— Bamses IX.— Bise of the priestly power at Thebes — Tomb robberies at Thebes — Bamses XII.— The * Possessed Princess of Bakhtan '—Bamses XIII.— Completion of temple of Khonsu— Letter of Bamses XIII.- The Boyal Mummies of Deir-el-Bahari— The recent * find * of mummies at Thebes 825
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Svi CONTENTS
CHAPTER XV.
DTNA8TIES XXI.-XXIV.
PAGK
Her-Hor — The Ramessides in banishment — The Ma — ^Pai-net*em is attacked by Shashanq— The Bamessides recalled — Invasion by Naromath — Shashanq places his capital at Bubastis — The priest-kings at Tanis — The princess Ea-Ea-maat — Shashanq I. sacks Jerusalem — HaJl of Bubastites at Eamak — Inscription relating to its erection at Silsilis — Auputh— Uasarken I. — His two wives — Takeleth !• — Uasarken II. — His family — Succeeded by his grandson — Takeleth Jl, — An eclipse, of the moon — Three insignificant kings — The Apis-stMsB — The Tanite dynasty — Bocchoris 864
CHAPTER XVI.
DYNASTY XXV.
Napata becomes a rival capital — Tefiaekht — Expedition of Piankhi — The stSla of Piankhi — Piankhi retires to Patoris— Memorial stone at Napata — Taharaqa I. — ^The cuneiform records — The Assyrian invasion — Esarhaddon in Egypt — ^Taharaqa revolts against Assyria — Gifts to the Apis sanctuary at Thebes— Ruda- men — Queen Ameniritis 887
CHAPTER XVII.
DYNASTIES XXVI.-XXX.
Scute becomes the capital of Egypt — Alexandria — ^Art of this epoch — Religion superseded by superstition — The Apis-stfilae — Khabbash — Cambyses — Inscription of Ut*a-Hor-resenet — Temple of Darius at El-Ehargeh — ^Attempt to cut a canal between the Nile and the Red Sea — Two eminent Persians — Retreat of the Persians — Fall ofthekingdomof Ancient Egypt 421
SUPPLBMBNTABY NOTE ON THE LaST PhABAOHS .... 442
List of Nomes 452
Values and Prices in B.C. 1000 458
Ancient Egyptian Calendar 455
INDEX 467
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GENEALOGICAL TABLES, ETC. XVll
GENEALOGICAL TABLES.
PAGI
Twenty-two Court Architects 17
A Family related to Dynasty XIII 90
Aahmes, the * Captain of Sailors * 118
The Eighteenth Dynasty Kings and their Wives 127
^The Bamessides to face 287
The Architect Amen-em-an 297
A The Pharaohs of Dynasties XX.-XXVI. . . . to face 825
PLANS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
^TheSheikh-el-Belled Frontitpiece
An Egyptian Tomh 18
^The Pyramids and Tombs of Glzeh 40
The Temple at Edfa 181
The Great Gateway of an Egyptian Temple 198
The Great Temple at Kamak 242
The Temple at Abydos 257
The Temple at Abii Simbel 298
The Bamessemn 824
A Tomb at Saqqarah bearing the name of Psamthek . . . 441
MAPS.
'^ Sketch Map of Dynasties xviii
^ Map of Lower Egypt ^
^ Map of Upper Egypt > at the end
^ Map of Thebes J
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OYNfl.ll.THlV DYN?XII.XIII.ABYOC
DYNfXI-XIII.U±T€JLL5fclB E S OYNfXVIII.XX.J^ V ^^y^KARNAK
DYN. VI. ELePHANTINE2»A88UAN PHILAEf
LB.Ah.Jel.
WaSter&B^utaltsc.
SKETCH MAP OF DYNASTIES.
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TABLE OF THE PRINCIPAL KINGS OF ANCIENT EGYPT, WITH THEIR CARTOUCHES.
Mena
Dynasty L— THINITE.
B.C. ^-^
. 4400 6 n/l Hesep-ti
B.C.
4M6-
Teta
(I)
Atet
4866 ^ I t I Mer-ba-pen
@
4888
4888 7 I If I Semen-Ptah . . 490a
4 U^ Ata
. 4800 B litl Qebh
. 4166
Dynasty II.— THINITE.
9 m^l Netor-bain . . 4188 11 [W\ Ba-en-neter .
4066
10 Us Ka-kan.
. 4100,12 LJvmI UaV-nes . 4088
18 tsi Senta
4000
a 2
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XX
THE PRINCIPAL KINGS,
Dynasty III.— MEMPHITB.
B.C.
14 |ol T'at'ai
IB If fl Neb-ka .
8966
■d
Teta
B.a . 8866
g
8988 18 |*S| 8et'€
16 I'^l Ser
• 8»<>0 19 lillSJ ^Nefer-ka-Raj ^^ 1 li'ij rTj 2 Hani J
20
Sneferu . . . 8766
Dykasty IV.— MEMPHITE.
21 l««^l Khofu .... 8788
22
If I Tat-f-Ra
8700
28 L^ Khaf.Ra
8666
8688
25 |nn| Shepses-ka-f . 8600
Dynasty V.— BLEPHANTINI:.
26 llPI User-ka-f
8566
27 pHl Sahu.Ra . . 8588
'rs\r^'
80
1 User-en-Ra]
2 An J
8488
28
Kakaa
8500
'rs\f^'
81 1*4 Men-kan-Hor . 8400
«« I ■ 1 1 JJ 1 Tat-ka-Ra 1 ^„^^
82 I 1 1 1^ » . } ' 8866
I I III *
I TH 1 Nefer-f-Ra 1 o^aa an k»«*l TT«oa Innl ^, , « 8466,88 ITTI Unas
IP HI 2 Shepses-ka-Ra J II m
8888
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84
85
i
WITH THEIR CARTOUCHES Dynasty VI.— MEMPHITB.
B.C.
XXI
Teta .... 8800
'm
Mm
1 User-ka-Ba i
a Ati J
86
I* r I ^ Meri-Ra 1 Nllll aPepil. /
. 8266
. 8288
87
1 Mer-en-Ba 1
2 Hor-em-sa-f i
8200
88 IJj Nefer-ka-Ea (Pepin.). 8166
8^ Ha M«'-«n.8e(?).em.8a-f . 8188
40 n Neter-ka-Ra.
. 8100
^A2\ /Ok*
., II O ^ Men-ka-Ral
lujte
{Queen Nitocrii.)
Dynasties VII.-XI.
42 I 1 I Nefer-ka-Ba . 8088
48 RSH Nefer-ka-Ba-nebi . 8000
44 ml Tat-ka-Ra-Maat . . 2966
46 iMgl Nefer-ka-Ba-khentn . 2988
46 L^.] Mer-en-Hor
47 |P1| Se-nefer-ka-Ba
48 Pjwyl Ka-en-Ba
2900
2866
. 2888
60 ff Nefer-ka-Hor
2766
51 UjjHn Nefer-ka-Ra-Pepi-senb 2788
62 g^l Nefer-ka-Ba-annii . 2700
58 lijl Nefer-kau-Ba yinj
64 nil Nefer-kau-Hor
55 |^>| Nefer-ari-ka-Ba
2666
2600
2566
49 1^1 Nefer-ka-Ba-terer . 2800
56
1 Neb-kher-Ba] . 2 Mentu-hotep h 2688 ^ (V.) j
57 IPtI Se-ankh-ka-Ba . 2500
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xxu
THE PRINCIPAL KINGS,
Dynasty XII.— THBBAN.
'n»\(R'
68
||^||tej 1 Se-hotep-ab-Ra | A 1 1 ^1 *2 Amen-em-hat (I.) J
B.C.
2466
59
1 Eheper-ka-Ba^
SIlSlI 2 U8ert8en(L) J
2488
60
<^\
64
Nub-kan-Ba
2 Amen-em-hat I- ^^OO (H.)
1
61
«
.Ra|
62 hflf I "
68 -->
Eha-kheper-Ba ;^ 2 UsertBen (H.)
2866
1 Kha-kaa-Ba
2 Usertaen (m.)
}2888
1 Maat-en-Ra
2 Amen-em-hat
(m.)
2800
^'
IVJ
1 Maat-kheru-Ba 1
2 Amen-em-hat (IV.) J
2266
A gap which oompriaes more than 600 years, and during which the time of the Hykaoa falls. In all Dynasties XIIL-XVn., b.c. 2238-1733, circa.
'rs)f!=^'
65
66
Dynasty XVIII.— THEBAN.
1 Neb-peh-tet-Ra -^
2 Aahmes (I.) {Amoais or Amaais I.) j
1 Ser-ka-Ba ^■1 2 Amen-hotep(I.)
,,}
" IS. in
1 Aa-kheper-ka-Ba\
2 Tehuti-mes (I.) /
I^U 1 Aa-kheper-en-Ba 1 '''tl 2 Tehuti-mes (H.) !
1700
1666
1688
1600
60
1 Maat-ka-Ba
2 Hat-shepset-khnem-Amen. {Queen Hat?iep8u)
] ■
70
1 Men-kheper-Ba 1
2 Tehuti-mes (III.) J
Digitized by
71
72
78
74
WITH THEIR CARTOUCHES
Aft-khepeni-Ra
2 Axnen-hotep-neter-haq-Annn (IL) J 1 Men-khepera-Ra 1
9 ^1^1 1 Men-khepera-Ra 1 lilil 2 Tehuti-mes (IV.) J
-A- 1 1 Maat-neb-Ra I
{^iJ 2 Amen-hotep-haq-Uast (Amen-Jiotep HL) J
£[ii 1 Nefer-khepern-Ra-na-en-Ba 1^ I 2 Amen-hotep-haq-UaBt
8 Khu-n-Aten. {Am&n-hotep IV.)
Y
1 Ser-kheperu-Ra-80tep-en-Ra |
2 Amen-meri-en-Hor-em-heb. (flbntt) i '
One generatioii of heretic Idnge.
Dynasty XIX.— THBBAN.
76
76
77
78
79
MB ||p| 1 Menpehtet-Ra 1
jj ll\j 2 Ra-meB8U. {B<MfMe» I.) J
I
S 8
|^[^ 1 Men-Maat-Ra |jliU 2 Amen-meri-en-Seti
8 Meri-en-Ptah. (50^il. Meneptah 1.)
\B\ 1 User-Maat-Ra-Botep-en-Ra I
IjipiJ 2 Ra-messu-meri-Amen. [Bainsea II.) J
|jS| 1 Ba-en-Ra-meri-en-Amen 1
1^1 2 Ptah-meri-en-hotep-her-Maat {Meneptah II.) J
ISgll 1 Khu-en-Ra-Botep-en-Ra 1
liT] 2 Ptah-meri-en-ee-Ptah. {Meneptah III.) J
1 User-khau-Ra-meri-Amen 1
Ifsl 2 Ra-meri-Amen-merer-Set-nekht. {Setnekhtj
XXIU
B.O.
. 1666
1588
1500
1466
. 1488
1400
. 1866
. 1888
. 1800
1666
. 1288
Digitized by
XXIV THE PRINCIPAL KINGS,
Dynasty XX.— THEBAN.
h|A| 1 User-Maat-Ra-meri-Amen 12 l^ll 2 Ra-meses-haq Annii. {Bamses III.) \
1 ^^ .^^ 9
.. IS
J
82
88
1 nser-Ba-sotep-enAmen fill a Ba-me86B-meri-Axnen-Ba-haq-Maat. {Battues IV.)
1200*
. 1166.
m\
User-Maat-Ba-Botep-en-kheper-Ba ]
2 Ka-meB-meri-Amen-Axnen suten-f. {Bamses V.) I
84
1 Ba-Amen-Maai-meri-neb
1^1 I^M 2 Ba-Amen-meses-neter Anna. (Bamses VI.) j
85
~ m
1 Ba-nser-Amen-meri-Botep-en-Ba
2 Ba-Amen-meseB-ta-neter-haq-Anno. {Bamses VII.)
.,) ■ -
■o)
87
88
1 -^ ^—^2
in|| 1 Ba-OBer-Maai-khu-en-Amen
«fn I 2 Ba-Amen-meseB-meri-Amen. {Bamses VIII.)
JK |4IL'I 1 Se-kha-en-Ba Meri-Amen \
y IfTJ 2 Ba-meaeB-Be-Ptah. {Bamaes IX.) J ^ ' '
1 ^-^ --^ 2
liMl. 1 Nefer-kau-Ba-Botep^n-Ba
Ijn I 2 Ba-meBeB-merer-Amen-kha-Uast. (?) {Bamsea X.)
I -
1* Ba-kheper- Maat-Boiep-en-Ba
2 Ba-meB-Buten Amen. {Bamses XI.
,1
iJLl |w| I XJBer-Maat-Ba-Botep-nu-Ba -^
IS HilVi ^ Amen-mer-IU-meBes. (i2am«f8 XII.) J
91
St
1
1 Men-Maai-Ba-Botep-en-Ba meBeB*merer-Ai] Bamsea XIII.)
trA 2 Ba-meBeB-merer-Amen-kha Uast neter haq Annu.
M {Bi
. 1188.
Digitized by
"92
WITH THEIR CARTOUCHES Dtnasty XXL— THBBAN.
I %i| 1 Neter-hen-hotep-en-Amen 1
2 Her-Hor-se-AmexL {Her-Hor) J
XXV
. 1100
D8 1^1 Pai-neVeml.
94
1 Eheper-kha-Ba-sotep-en-Axnen ] K^TI a Amen-meri-Pai-net'em (H.) J
06
Dynasty XXIL— BUBASTITE.
I Eheper-sekhet-Ra-sotep-en-Ba ] a Amen-meri-Shashanq (I.) J
966
96
1 Eherp-kheper-Ba-Botep-en-Ra 1 ^1 3 Amen-meri-Uasarken. {O$orkon I.) J
97 r* ffl U^l ^ Het*-kheper-Ba-Botep-6n-Ra 1
lA9l ll&l 2 Amen-meri-Auset-meri-thakeleth. {Takeleth I.) )
98
1 User-Maat-Ra-sotep-en-Ameii *)
a Amen-meri-Uasarken. {Oaorkon II.) f
99
tr-sekhem-Ba-sotep-en-Amen 1 •meri-Sha8h[anq] (H.) j
1 Eheper-sekhem-Ba-sotep-en-Amen ] a Amen-meri-i
100
Takeleth H.
101
1 User-Maat-Ka-sotep-en-Amen *|
3 Amen-meri-se-Bast-Shashonq (HI.)/
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
XXVI
THE PRINCIPAL KINGS,
102
1 User-Maat-Ra-sotep-en-Amen ]
2 Ameii'meri-Pa-mai J
108
i
in
1 Aa-kheper-Ba
2 Sha8]i[an'
jr-Ra 1
i]qIV.J
104
t5
Dynasty XXIIL— TANITE. Amen-meri-Peta-Be-Bast 766
105
1 Aa-kheper-Ra-sotep-en-Amen
2 Ra-Amen-meri-Uasarkena. {Osorkon III.) J
Dynasty XXIV.— SAIte.
106
wl Bakenranf. {Bocclioris)
78a
107
Dynasty XXV.— ETHIOPIAN. ^1 Pa-ankhi. {Piankhi)
108 Ut
^ijjJ 1 Neferka.Ra ]
U I 2 Shabaka. {Sabaco) J
'rs^rffii'
109
1 Tairkan-Ra |
2 Shabataka J
700
f9\ (^\
^^/v 1^1 l<fc^l 1 Ra-nefer-tem-khu ^
Ia< J V ^ J 2 Taharaqa. (TirftaAra^) J
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
WITH THEIR CARTOUCHES Dtnastt XXVI.— SAITB.
Ill
112 f
1 Uah-ab-Ba
a PBamthek. (PaammeHehtis I.)
I •
1 Nem-ab-Ba
a Nekaa. (Neeho)
}
1
118 J
js?| a Psamthek. (Paammetichut 11.)
if I 1 Neferab-Ba
} ■
114
115
It!
t
»^»
1 Haa-ab-Ba
3 Uah-ab-Ba. {Aprie$)
1
'1^
116 hj
1 Khnem-ab-Ba 1
3 Aahmes-se-Nit. {AmoM II.) J
1 Ankh-ka-en-Ba 1
a Psamthek. {P$ammeHchu$ III.) '
XXVll
B.C.
. 666
6ia
596
691
57a
688
117
Dynasty XXVIl.— PERSIAN.
Kambathet (Camhyiez) 637
118
119
lao
Khghaiarwha. {Xerxes the Great)
. 486
I
ArtakhshashaB. (Artaxerxes) 465
"H?ik| ^ Ra-meri-Amen \
7^I|M)^| a Antherirutsha. {Darim Xerxee) )
631
Digitized by
XXVlll
THE PRINCIPAL KINGS Dthastt XXVIII.— saIte.
121 [mII^I -^^ii^en-rQt. {Amyrt€BU$)
DYNAfiTY XXIX.— MBNDE8IAN.
122 ^^1 NiafaMurat
128
124
125
Dynasty XXX.— SBBENNYTUS.
1 S-nefem-ab-Ba-sotep-en-Amen
2 Nekfat-Hor-hebt-meri-Amen. {Neetanebo I.)
.)}•
luJISI '
Kheper>ka-Ba
Nekhtrneb-f. {Neetanebo IL
■}
899
\\ lKhnem.Maat.Ra^ ^^
S^l 2 Haker j
^1 j5f I 1 UBer-Ea-BOtep-en-Ptah j ^^
878
Digitized by
THE
HISTOEY OF EGYPT.
CHAPTER I.
INTBODUCTOBY.
It is the purpose of this work to collect what the monuments and books tell of the history of that most remarkable land and people on the favoured banks of the Nile, beginning with the first native king, Mena. In spite of all that has perished, never to be recovered, the last thirty years have' brought to hght an extra- ordinary and almost unexpected wealth of new dis- coveries. A walk through the rooms of the Egyptian Museum at Gizeh brings us at each step to monuments of the most remote ages, and there, there may be seen an imbroken series of new witnesses of the old time, raised out of the earth into the light of day, to give informa- tion about the long-vanished past, whose starting-point can no longer be reached even by the remotest stages in the ordinary historical measurement of time.
The Tablets of Saqqarah and Abydos, both contain- ing a selection of Egyptian monarchs from the first Pharaoh Mena onwards, give the most authentic evi- dence, now no longer to be doubted, that the primeval
B
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2 ORIGIN OF THE EGYPTIANS ch. i.
ancestors of the Egyptian dynasties, the Pharaohs of Memphis, must be recognised as real historical per- sonages, and that King Ramses 11. (about 1350 B.C.), the Sesostris of the Greek fabulous history, was preceded by at least seventy-six authentic sovereigns. What conquests the growing knowledge of the old Egyptian language and writing has won for historical research is best shown by the numerous writings of distinguished men of science, amongst which are the works of real genius by the Viscount E. de Eoug^ on the irruption of the Mediterranean peoples into Egypt in the times of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties, and the in- valuable contributions which M. Chabas, of Chalons, has made towards a knowledge of the same reigns. In sixty centuries the old Egyptian race has undergone but little change ; it still preserves those distinctive features of physiognomy, and those peculiarities of manners and customs, which have been handed down to us by th^ united testimony of the monuments and the accounts of classical writers, as the hereditary characteristics of this people.
Historical researches concerning a race of mankind are inseparably connected with the momentous enquiry after their primeval home. The sciences of ethnology and comparative philology must be taken into con- sideration to determine, even though it be but approxi- mately, the origin of nations and the directions in which they have migrated. Suffice it to say, however, that, according to ethnology, the Egyptians appear to form a third branch of the Caucasian race, the family called Cushite; and this much may be regarded as certain, that in the earUest ages of humanity, far beyond all historical remembrance, the Egyptians, for reasons un- known to us, left the soil of their early home, took their way towards the setting sun, and finally crossed
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^. I. NOT FROM ETHIOPIA 3
that bridge of nations the Isthmus of Suez, to find a new fatherland on the banks of the Nile.
Comparative philology, in its turn, gives powerful support to this hypothesis, for the primitive roots and the essential elements of the Egyptian grammar point to such an intimate connection with the Indo-Germanic and Semitic languages, that it is almost impossible to mistake the close relations which formerly prevailed between them. According to Greek tradition the pri- mitive abode of the Egyptian people is to be sought in Ethiopia, and the honour of founding their civi- lisation should be given to a band of priests from Meroe. Descending the Nile, they are supposed to have settled near the later city of Thebes, and to have esta- bhshed the first State with a theocratic form of govern- ment.
But it is not to Ethiopian priests that the Egyptian -empire owes its origin, its form of government, and its high civilisation ; much rather was it the Egyptians themselves that first ascended the river to found in Ethiopia temples, cities, and fortified places, and to diffuse the blessings of a civilised state among the rude dark-coloured population.
Supposing, for a moment, that Egypt had owed her <;ivil and social development to Ethiopia, nothing would be more probable than the presumption of our finding monuments of the greatest antiquity in that primitive home of the Egyptians, while in going down the river we ought to Ught only upon monuments of a later age. Strange to say, the whole number of the buildings in stone, as yet known and examined, which were erected on both sides of the river by Egyptian and Ethiopian kings, furnish the incontrovertible proof, that the long series of temples, cities, sepulchres, and monuments in general, exhibit a distinct chronological order, of which
B 2
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4 NEIGHBOURS OF THE EGYPTIANS ch. i.
the starting-point is found in the Pyramids, at the apex of the Delta.
The Egyptians themselves held the belief that they were the original inhabitants of the land. The fertile valley of the Nile formed in their opinion the heart and centre of the whole world. To the west of it dwelt the groups of tribes which bore the general name of Eibu or libu, the ancestors of those Libyans who, inhabiting the northern coasts of Africa, extended their abodes eastward as far as the Canopic branch of the Nile. From the evidence of the monuments they belonged to a light-coloured race, with blue eyes and blond or red hair. It is a noteworthy phenomenon that as early as the Fourth Dynasty members of this race wandered into Egypt to display their dexterity as dancers, com- batants, and gymnasts in the public games.
The great mixture of tribes who had their homes in the wide regions of the Upper Nile — near Syene — have on the monuments the common name of Nahasu. From the representations of them we recognise the ancestors of the negro race. Eastwards, across the Isthmus of Suez, were the people of that great nation which the Egyptians designated by the name of Aamu. These were the Pagans, the Kafl^s, or ' infidels ' of their time. In the coloured representations they are distinguished chiefly by their yellow or yellowish-brown complexion, while their dress has sometimes a great simplicity, but sometimes shows a taste for splendour and richness in the choiceness of cut and the variegated patterns woven into the fabric. In these Aamu scientific research has since perceived the representatives of the great Semitic family of nations. Moreover it is a fact established be- yond dispute, that even in the most glorious times of the Egyptian monarchy the Aamu were settled as perma- nent inhabitants in the neighbourhood of the present
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CH. I. VARIOUS NAMES OF EGYPT 5
lake Menzaleh, where many places formerly bore un- mistakably Semitic names.
The most remarkable nations among them who ap- pear in the course of Egyptian history as commanding respect by their character and their deeds are the Elieta, the Khar (or Khal), and the Euten (or Luten).
Egypt is designated in the old inscriptions, and by the later Christian Egyptians, by a word signifying * the black land,' and which is read in the Egyptian language Kamit The ancients had early remarked that the soil was distinguished by its very dark colour, and certainly this peculiarity suggested to the old Egyptians the name of the black land. This receives a further corroboration from the fact that the neighbouring region of the Arabian desert bore the name of Tesherit, or * the red land.' On coimtless occasions the king is mentioned as *the lord of the black country and of the red country,' in order to show that his rule extended over cultivated and un- cultivated Egypt in the wider sense of the word. The Egyptians called themselves simply the people of the black land (Kamit), and the inscriptions have handed down to us no further distinctive appellation.
But a number of other names recorded on the monu- ments designate this same land of Egypt in special manners. Amongst the oldest is unquestionably Ta- mera, which seems to have meant * the country of the inimdation.' Others alluded to Egypt poetically. Among these are the following : the land of the syco- more ; the land of the olive ; the land of the Holy Eye; the land of the sixth day of the moon (intercalary day). The explanation of many of these names can only be sought in those writings of the ancient Egyptians which relate to the doctrine of divine things and to the legends of the gods. The Hebrews gave the land the
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6 DIVISION OF THE COUNTRY ch. i.
name of Mizraim; the Assyrians, Muzur; the Persians, Mudraya. At the basis of all these designations there lies an original form, which consisted of the three letters M — z — r.
Ancient Egypt, commonly called ' the double land,' consisted of two great divisions, the land of the South and the land of the North. The first corresponds to that part of Egypt which we now know as Upper Egypt, and which the Arabs down to the present day call Sahid. Upper Egypt began on the south at the ivory-island city of Elephantine, which lay opposite to Syene, the modern trading town of Asw&n. Its northern boundary reached to the neighbourhood of Memphis. Lower I^ypt comprehended the remainder : the Bahari of the Arabs, the Delta of the Greeks. The chief divi- sion of Egypt, which, according to sacred tradition, was referred back to the time of the god-kings, explains the name of ' double country,' especially in the title of the kings, and enables us to see clearly the grounds of the opposition by which the sovereignty of the south was committed to the god Set, and that of the north to Horus, the son of Osiris.
Following tradition, every king, on the day of his solemn coronation — which was distinct from the day of his receiving the kingdom in his father's lifetime or on the death of his predecessor — ^received as his chief insignia two crowns, of which the white upper one symbolised his sovereignty over the South, the red lower one his dominion over the North.
The land of Egypt resembles a narrow girdle, di- vided in the midst by a stream of water, and hemmed in on both sides by long chains of mountains. On the right side of the river the Arabian hills accompany the stream for its whole length; on the western side, the low hills of the Libyan desert extend in the same
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CH. I. THE NOMES OF EGYPT 7
direction with the river from south to north up to the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The river itself was designated by the Greeks and Eomans by the name of Neilos (6 NelXos) or Nilus. Although this word is still retained in the Arabic language as Nil, with the special meaning of * inundation/ its origin is not to be sought in the old Egyptian language ; but, as has been lately suggested with great probability, it should be derived from the Semitic word Nahar or Nahal, which has the general signification of ' river.' From its bifur- cation south of the ancient city of Memphis, the river parted into three great arms, which watered the Lower Egyptian flat lands which spread out in the shape of the Greek letter A (Delta), and, with four smaller arms, formed the seven famous mouths of the Nile.
The land on both sides of the river was divided from the earliest times into districts called Nomes. This division is to be found on the monuments of the Fourth Dynasty, where some are mentioned by name with their chief towns. Thirty centuries later the same districts appear on Ptolemaic and Koman monuments arranged in regular and detaUed tables, which separate the upper and lower country by a clear division. Upper Egypt contained 22, Lower Egypt 20, and these the native language designated sometimes by the word Sep or Hesep, sometimes by the word Tash. According to the account given in a papyrus, the older division into 36 districts rests on a particular view, which connected the terrestrial partition into nomes with the 36 ruling houses of the heavens in astrology. Each district had its own capital, which was the seat of the governor for the time being, whose office and dignity passed by inheritance, accord- ing to the old Egyptian laws, from the father to the eldest grandson on the mother's side, and formed like-
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8 CHANGES OF DYNASTY oh. i.
wise the central point of the particular cult of the district.
From the sacred lists of the nomes we learn the names of the temple of the chief deity, of the priests and priestesses, of the sacred trees, and also the names of the town-harbour of the holy canal, the cultivated land and the land which was only fruitful during the inundation, and much other information. Thus we can form the most exact picture of Egyptian agri- cultural life in all its details. The several districts were separated from each other by boundary stones, and the authorities took the greatest pains in attending to the measurement of the lands, to the making of canals, and the inspection of the dikes. It happened very often that the inhabitants of one district threatened an attack on the occupants of another, which not in- frequently broke out into a violent struggle, requiring the whole armed power of the king to extinguish.
The disastrous results of such feuds sometimes affected even the whole dynasty, the reigning family being displaced by the conqueror. Hence arose those changes of dynasty and different names of the capitals of nomes which we find in Manetho's ' Book of the Kings.' Three districts, however, throughout the course of Egyptian history maintained the reputation of being the seats of national government: in Lower Egypt, Memphis and Heliopolis ; in Upper E^ypt, Thebes. The ancient inhabitants, like their descendants, were chiefly an agricultural people. The walls of the sepul- chral chapels are covered with thousands of bas-reliefs and their explanatory inscriptions, which preserve the most abundant disclosures respecting the labours of the field and the rearing of cattle as practised by them. On festivals the Pharaohs themselves sailed along the sacred riter in their gorgeous royal ship, to perform
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<JH. I. CHARACTER OF THE EGYPTIANS 9
mystic rites in special honour of agriculture. The priests regarded the plough as a most sacred imple- ment, and held that the highest happiness of man, after the completion of his pilgrimage here below, would consist in tilling the Elysian fields, in feeding and tend- ing his cattle, and navigating the breezy water of the other world in slender skiflfs.
.The husbandman, the shepherd, and the boatman were, in fact, the first founders of that advanced •civilisation which flourished in the Nile valley.
Some writers regard the Egyptians as a reflective, serious, and reserved people, very reUgious, occupied only with the other world, and caring nothing or very little about this lower Ufe. But is it possible that such A country and such a chmate could have produced a race of living mummies and of sad philosophers, a people who only regarded this life as a burthen to be thrown ofi* as soon as possible ? No ! No people could be gayer, more lively, of more childlike simplicity, than those old Egyptians, who loved life with all their hearts, and foimd the deepest joy in their very existence. Far from longing for death, they addressed to the host of the holy gods the prayer to preserve and lengthen life, if possible, to the ' most perfect old age of 110 years.' The song and dance and flowing cup, cheerful excursions to the meadows and papyrus marshes — to hunt with bow and arrow or throw-stick, or to fish with spear and hook — were the recreation of the nobler •classes after work was done.
In connection with this merry disposition, hu- morous jests and lively sallies of wit, often passing the bounds of decorum, characterised the people from age to age.
From a very early period stone was wrought ac- cording to the rules of an advanced skill ; and metals
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10 CHARACTER OF THE EGYPTIANS ch. i,
— gold, silver, copper, and iron — ^were melted and wrought into works of art or tools ; wood, leather, glass, flax, and even rushes were all in daily use, and on the potter's wheel vessels were formed from the Nile mud and baked in the furnace. Sculptors and painters too found profitable work among the wealthy patrons of art at the court of the Pharaohs.
The noble class (suten rekh) of the Egyptian people derived their origin chiefly from the royal house ; to them were conmiitted the offices of the court. They held as their hereditary possessions vil- lages and tracts of land, with the labouring people thereto belonging, bands of servants, and numerous herds of cattle. To their memory, after their decease, were dedicated those splendid tombs the remains of which are on the Libyan desert or in the caverns of the Egyptian hills.
Ambition and arrogant pride formed a remarkable feature in the spirit of the old dwellers on the Nile ; yet in the schools the poor scribe's child sat on the same bench beside the offspring of the rich, and the masters knew how by timely words to goad on the laggards by holding out to them the rewards which awaited rich and poor aUke. Many a monument consecrated to the memory of some nobleman gone to his long home, who during life had held high rank at the court of Pharaoh,, is decorated with the simple but laudatory inscription, 'His ancestors were unknown people.' Above all things they esteemed justice, and virtue had the highest value in their eyes. The law which ordered them — * to pray to the gods, to honour the dead ; to give bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothing to the naked ' — reveals to us one of the finest qualities of old Egyptian character — pity towards the unfortunate. The forty-two commandments of their religion, which
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CH. I. OPPRESSION OF THE PEOPLE 11
are contained in the * Book of the Dead/ are not in- ferior to the precepts of Christianity ; and in reading the old inscriptions concerning morahty we are tempted to believe that Moses modelled his teachings on the patterns given by those old sages.
They were not free, however, from vices and fail- ings. Hatred, envy, cunning, intrigue, combined with an overweening sentiment of pride, contradiction, and perversity, added to avarice and cruelty — such is the long series of those hereditary faults which history reveals to us among the Egyptians by innumerable examples.
Nor did the rule of the Pharaohs open to the in- habitants of the land the gates of a terrestrial para- dise. The people suffered and endured under the blows of their oppressors, and the stick quickened the despatch of business between the peasant and the tax- gatherer. We need but glance at the gigantic masses of the Pyramids; they tell more emphatically than living speech or written words of the miseries of a whole population, which was condemned to erect these everlasting monuments of Pharaonic vanity : and when, thirty centuries later, Herodotus visited the Pyramids of Gizeh, the Egyptians told him of the imprecations wrung from their unhappy forefathers during the erec- tion of those monuments.
The Egyptians were as enquiring as ourselves about prehistoric times, but with this difference, that for them primeval history was concerned but Uttle with the people and much more with the fame of their kings. Their enquiries were directed to the names and genealo- gies of the princes who ruled the land before the first authentic king, Mena. As they could not discover from their moniunents any records of their land before the Pharaoh Mena mounted the throne, their imagina-
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12 PREHISTORIC AGE OF EGYPT ch. i.
tion supposed three ages which followed one another, till Mena placed the double crown upon his head. During the first a dynasty of the gods reigned in the land, followed by the age of the demi-gods, while the dynasty of the mysterious Manes closed the prehistoric time.
The theology of their priests filled up these ages with heavenly persons and names. The calculations of the courses of the stars, based on the cycle of the risings of Sothis (the Dog Star), gave the numbers which were added as regnal years to the names of these imaginary sovereigns. As the priests of various oities differed in their doctrines concerning the nature of the gods and their connection with earthly things it is not surprising that the lists of the prehistoric dynas- ties contained different names and numbers, according to the respective origin of each.
Subjoined are the names of the divine kings of the first age, first in the Theban order and then according to the Memphite.
Thb Dynasty of the Gods. I. According to the Theban Doctrine,
1. Ainen-Ra, * the King of the Gods ' . Zeus
2. Mentu, his son .... Mars
|
3. Shu, son of Ka |
Agathodffimon |
|
4. Seb, son of Shu |
Saturn |
|
5. Osiris, son of Seb . |
. Dionysos |
|
6. Horus, son of Osiris |
. Hermes |
II. According to the Memphite Doctrine,
1. Ptah, 'the Father of the Gods' (the
Architect of the World) . . . Hephaistos
2. Ra, son of Ptah (Fire— Existent Being
—the Present) Sol (the Sun)
3. Shu, his son (the Air) .... Agathodsemon
4. Seb, his son (the Earth) .... Saturn
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cm. I. GODS, DEMI-GODS, AND MANES 13-
6. Osiris, his son (Water — Being that has
existed — the Fast) .... Dionysos
6. Set, son of Seb (the Annihilation of
Being) Typhon
7. Horus, son of Osiris (the Coming into
Being — the Future) .... Hermes
Thus Ptah of Memphis, whom the mscriptions^ honour with the title of * father of the gods/ is the Architect, in the highest sense of the word. This is at once indicated by his name, for Ptah, in the Egyptian language, signifies * architect.* There are inscriptions which throw light on the sacred attributes of this Architect of the Universe. The following texts, on the walls of the temple of Denderah, caU the god * the chief of the society of the gods, who created all Being.* * All things came into existence after he existed.' * He is the lord of truth and king of the gods.' At Philae it is said * he who created all being, who formed men and gods with his own hands ; ' and again, * he is the father of beginnings, who created the egg of the sun and of the moon,' and is 'the father of all the gods, the first existing.' He is *God the creator, who was before the creation of the universe, his own exclusive work.'
Ka, the Sun, his successor, according to the Memphite doctrine, is invoked in several sacred hymns as * the son of Ptah.' In difierent localities he bears the double names of Khnem-Ka, Amen-Ea, and in another deeply mystic sense he is the divine form of existence. He is Hhat which is to-day — the present;' his son and successor, Shu, is identical with wind or air. The divine Seb, who in the temple of Esneh is called the son of Shu, represents the earth, and is iden- tical with the Greek Kronos.
To his son Osiris — the divinity adored in nearly all
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14 OSmiS, SET, AND HORUS ch. i.
paxts of the land — the Egyptian priests assigned the particular meaning of Water. According to a deeper conception they believed that they recognised in hira the symbol of completed existence ; for he is that which was yesterday — the past. There is no need to dwell here upon the hostile divinity, his brother Set. Next to him comes the god of light, Horus, the son of Osiris and his divine wife, Isis. He symbolises the return of the new life, that which will be to-morrow — the future — the being bom again in the eternal cycle of earthly phenomena. Such is Horus, the primeval form and type of every royal successor of the Pharaohs, just as Ea represented the reigning, Osiris the deceased king. A myth spun out to great length about Horus, whom Isis by her mysterious magical arts awakens to life from the dead Osiris in the form of a child, tells of the com- bat of the youth and his companions with Set, the brother and murderer of his father, of the final victory of the god of light over Set, the prince of darkness and of eternal conflict and annihilation, and of the exalta- tion of the young king Horus on the undivided throne of his father Osiris.
Frequent mention is made in the old records of the royal gods, as of real personages. Besides the name of their dynasty they have a second name of honour, and, just like the Pharaohs, they bear respectively the authentic title under which the god Tehuti, the sacred scribe of the gods, registered each of them in the ' Book of the Kings,' at the command of the Sun god, Ka. They have their individual history, which the scribes wrote down in the temple books ; they married royal brides, and begat a very numerous posterity.
The monuments say little about those monarchs designated by Manetho as the Dynasties of the Demi- gods and Manes, nor is there in the Turin Papyrus the
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<JH. I. CHRONOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES 15
slightest intelligible information about them, though it is possible that they are all included under the general name of Hor-Shesu. It must, however, be granted that Egypt had really a life before the historic age, but that the monuments — apart from the myths — contain nothing about the condition of the land in those prime- val times. All that can be allowed is that Egypt's pre- historic age must of necessity correspond to the time of the first development of society and the dawn of the arts and sciences. German Egyptologists have attempted to fix the era when Mena, the first Pharaoh, mounted the throne, with the following results : —
|
B.C. |
B.C. |
||
|
Boeckh |
. 5702 |
Lauth |
. 4157 |
|
linger |
. 5613 |
Lepsius |
. 3892 |
|
Brugsch |
. 4455 |
Bunsen |
. 3623 |
The difference between the extreme dates is enor- mous, amounting to no less than 2,097 years ! It is as if one should hesitate whether to fix the date of the accession of Augustus at B.C. 207 or a.d. 1872.
The calculations in question are based on the extracts from a work on the history of Egypt by the Egyptian priest Manetho. His book, which is now lost, contained a general review of the kings, divided into Thirty Dynasties, arranged in the order of their names, with the length of their reigns, and the total duration of each Dynasty. Though this invaluable work was little known and certainly but little regarded by the historians of the old classical age, large extracts were made from it by some of the ecclesiastical writers ; but in process of time the copyists, either by error or designedly, corrupted the names and the numbers.
The deciphering of the Egyptian writing has, how- ever, proved that much of the original work was both valuable and authentic. And so the Manethonian list
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16 CHROXOLOGY BY GENEALOGIES ch. i.
of the kings served, and still serves, in spite of its cor- rupted state, as a guide for assigning to the royal names read on the monuments their place in the Dynasties. The pedigree of twenty-four court archi- tects, as given in the opposite Table, the last mentioned of whom, IQinum-ab-Ea, was alive in the twenty-seventh and thirtieth years of the reign of Darius I., has given rise to the new method of fixing the dates of the Pharaohs anterior to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, with the help of existing series of genealogies.
The credit of this is due to a Swedish scholar, M. Lieblein.
The importance of his standard for all measurements of Egyptian chronology is incontestable. Assuming the round number of a century for three consecutive human lives, we possess the means of determining approxi- mately the time which has elapsed from King Mena to the end of the Twelfth Dynasty, and again from the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty to the end of the Twenty-sixth.
As far as present discoveries go there is no possible means of doing so more exactly. The Tablet of Abydos, in a corridor of the temple of Seti I. at Harabat-el- Madffineh, gives a succession of sixty-five kings from Mena, the foimder of the line, down to the last reign of the Twelfth Dynasty. To these sovereigns, therefore, would be assigned a period of y^ x 100 = 2166 years.
It appears certain that the long series of the kings, which the Turin Papyrus once contained, was arranged by the author according to his own ideas and views ; for he gives carefully, besides the names of the Pharaohs, the years, months, and days of their reigns, but he forgets to give any account of the contemporary reigns of two kings, which have been proved beyond
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CH. I.
PEDIGREE OF COURT ARCHITECTS
17
Table of the Chief Architects.
|
Epoch |
Chief Architects of Phaiaoh |
High Priests of Amen in Thebes |
|
1200 |
Bek-en-Khonsu 1 |
|
|
1166 |
Ut'a-Khonsu j |
|
|
1133 |
Nefer-mennu 1 |
|
|
1100 |
1 Mi 1 |
King Her-Hor |
|
1066 |
Si-uer-nenen-heb j |
King Pi-ankhi |
|
1033 |
Pepi 1 |
Eling Pai-net'em I. |
|
1000 |
Amen-her-pa-mesha |
Men-kheper-Ra |
|
■' 965 |
Hor-em-saf I. j |
King Pai-net'em II, |
|
933 |
Menner 1 |
Prince Auputh |
|
900 |
Hor-em-saf II. 1 |
Prince Shashanq |
|
866 |
Ta-heb I. 1 |
|
|
833 |
Nas-shunu I. 1 |
Nimrod |
|
800 |
Ta-heb II j |
|
|
766 |
Nas-shunu II. 1 |
King XJasarken |
|
733 |
Ta-heb III. 1 |
Shashanq |
|
700 |
Nas-shunu III. 1 |
|
|
666 |
T'a-n-hebu 1 |
|
|
633 |
Nas-shunu IV. 1 |
|
|
600 |
Uah-ab-Ra-ran-uer 1 |
|
|
566 |
Ankh-Psamthek 1 |
|
|
533 |
Aah-mes se-Nit 1 |
|
|
500 |
1 Khnum-ab-Ka |
Digitized by
18 EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY ch. i.
all doubt by the inscriptions, and which was a very usual custom in the succession of a son to his father.
A^ EGTPTULN TOMB.
A, the exterior building, containing one or more chambers, generally with painted scenes of life, and inscriptions, b, the vertical pit. c, the vault, with the sarcophagus (D) containing the body.
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19
CHAPTER n.
DYNASTIES I.-IV.^ THE PHARAOHS OF THE FIRST THREE DYNASTIES.
In Upper Egypt, west of the river, stood a small town called Tini, a name which the Greeks converted into This or Thinis. It was the ancient metropolis of the eighth nome, and lying near to Abydos, it formed only a separate quarter of that celebrated city. It chose for its tutelary deity the warlike god Anhur, while at Abydos Osiris was worshipped. Both cities have now vanished, but their memory is preserved by the necro- polis and the splendid sanctuaries which the pious faith of the Egyptians raised on the border of the desert at the place which the modern inhabitants of the country call by the Arabic name of Harabat-el-MadfAneh {Harabat the sunken).
Tini, which in the Koman times enjoyed a certain repute for its purple dyes, must anciently have been held in special honour by the inhabitants of the land, for, under the sovereigns of the Nineteenth Dynasty, the highest servants of the state, of Pharaoh's own race, were denoted by the title of ' King's son of Tini,' a distinction which elsewhere occurs only in the titles ^ King's son of Gush,' or of the land of the Ethiopians, and * King's son of Hineb,' that is, the city of the Moon, EileithyiapoUs.
The high fame of this town rested, beyond doubt, on
> For Table of Kings see pp. xiz, zz.
0 2
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20 FOUNDATION OF MEMPHIS ch. n,
the received tradition that it had been the cradle of the first Egjrptian king, and the hereditary seat of his successors for two dynasties. The name of this first •-\ sovereign of ancient Egypt was Mena, ' the W steadfast.'
^2 Our only knowledge of him is confined to a Mena. few statcmcnts of doubtful credit, found in classical writings. He is said to have been the first lawgiver of Egypt, but to have corrupted the simple manners of the olden time, in that he replaced the frugal mode of life by royal pomp and sumptuous expense. To him also is ascribed the foundation of Memphis, the splendid capital of the Old Empire, after he had first diverted the Nile> in order to gain a wide space for building the new city. By the construction of an enormous dike, the previous course of the river, along the Libyan hills, was cut ofi*, and the bed thus left empty was for ever filled up.
Linant-Bey, one of the most active improvers of modern Egypt, is convinced that the great dike of Cocheiche is in all probability the same which Mena caused to be constructed 6,000 years ago. The Egyptians, like the other nations of antiquity, began the work of founding a city by building the temple, which formed the centre of the future town. New sanctuaries, erected later, occasioned the building of new quarters, which surrounded the oldest temple, and finally formed with it a single great city. The names given to the several temples embraced likewise the dwelling-places of the inhabitants which adjoined and belonged to it, and thus is explained the fact that the monuments mention the same town under the most difierent designations.
The chief name of Mena's city was also that of the nome, Anbu-hat, or the 'white wall;' in general it bore the title Men-nefer, the * good place,' which the
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DTK. I. Rums OF MEMPmS 21
Greeks altered to Memphis, the Copts to Memphi, and the cuneiform inscriptions render Mimpi. The last trace of the old name is preserved in Tell-el-Monf, the modem designation of a heap of ruins close to the for- mer royal residence of the first Pharaohs. More rarely it was called Kha-nefer, the *good appearance,' or Makhata, the ' land of the scales,' and frequently by the sacred appellation of Ha-kha-Ptah, ' house of worship of Ptah,' who often bears the additional title of Seker or Sekari, traces of which seem to be preserved in the name of the modem village Saqqarah, near the ancient city of Memphis. The wife of the god, a lion-headed goddess adorned with the sun's disk, bore the name of Sekhet, whose son, Nefer-atmu, or Im-hotep, was the Asclepios of Egyptian mythology.
All that now remains of this celebrated city con- sists of heaps of overthrown and shattered columns, altars, and sculptures which once belonged to the temples of Memphis, and of a far-extended line of mounds of dibris.
The temple of Ptah lay on the south side of the salt-encrusted plain which stretches between the * Swine's Hill,' Kum-el-Khanzir, on the east, and the little Arab village of El-Qassarteh on the west. Its length lies from north to south, and the mighty statue of Eamses 11. shows where the splendid gate of the temple once stood. The former existence of the sacred lake to the north is proved by the inscription upon the statue.
In the immediate neighbourhood of the village of El-Qassarieh (which means ' wash-pot ') are shown the broken remains and columns of a temple, the inscrip- tions on which declare Eamses 11. to be its foimder and builder. The chief axis was from east to west, and it was built of polished blocks of granite and alabaster, in honour of the divine Ptah.
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22 THE NECROPOLIS OF MEMPHIS ch. n.
Judging from the writings of Abd-el-Latif, an Arab physician of the thirteenth century, it would seem that in the Middle Ages the remains of the once great city of Memphis were still so well preserved that their materials and the perfection of their workmanship excited the admiration of Arab visitors.^
The repeated excavations which have been under- taken in our day on the site of Memphis have given results hardly worth naming, for the immense masses of stone used in the building of the temples have been in the course of time transported to Cairo, to supply the materials needed for the mosques, palaces, and houses of the city of the Khalifs.
The high priests of Ptah appear to have distin- guished themselves by their authority and influence,, and even princes of the blood royal did not find it beneath their dignity to hold that office at Memphis, for example, Khamuas, the favourite son of Bamses IE., who died early, and * gave many gifts to the gods of the temple, and fulfilled the rules of the divine service/ It was not until the decline and fall of the kingdom, and until Memphis and Thebes ceased to be the famous residences of the Pharaohs, that the authority of the high priests came gradually to an end.
Along the margin of the desert, extending from Abft Bodjsh as far as Meidiim, lay the necropolis of Mem- phis, where were buried the contemporaries of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Dynasties. Their memories have been kept alive by pictures and writings on the walls of the sacrificial chambers built over their tombs. In that obscure age, when the symmetrical building of the Pyramids and the well-executed design of the sepulchral chambers demanded skill and intelligence, the office of architect was the occupation of the noblest
> Relatum de VjSgypU, translated by S. de Saoy.
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DTK. I. THE NAMES OF PHARAOH 23
men at court, many of whom were either sons or grandsons of the king. Great dignity also belonged to the nobleman who was honoured with the office of * a prophet of the Pyramid of Pharaoh.' His duty was to praise the memory of the deceased king, and to devote the god-like image of the sovereign to enduring remem- brance. The honour of the office was mentioned in the prophet's own tomb, and was associated with the name of his deified king.
The Memphite tombs tell much concerning the customs of Pharaoh and his court. The sovereign bears the official title of * King of the Upper and Lower Country ; ' he is also called Per-ao, * liie great house,' better known, perhaps, under the Hebrew equivalent of Pharaoh. The people honoured him as *lord' (neb) and * god ' (neter). At sight of him every native pros- trated himself and touched the ground with his nose, and it was an especial favour if the command of his lord permitted him only to kiss his knee. He was spoken of as * His Majesty,' and briefly, but not less respect- ftdly> by a word equivalent to the German man.
At the court of Pharaoh, with regard to attendance on the sovereign, order, rank, and time were exactly defined, as well for nobles of the purest descent as for the mass of busy servants. Not only did the splendour of his birth secure for the nobleman dignity and authority in the eyes of the people, but far greater weight was given to prudent wisdom, noble culture, and the brightness of virtue. Good service was re- warded with honours and gifts, the noblemen receiving such titles as * hereditary highness ' (erpa) or * intimate friend ' (semer-uat).
The management and service of the court, as well as the administration of the country, was conducted imder Pharaoh's direction by the governor and bailiff* and a
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24 THE COURT OFFICIALS ch. n.
countless host of scribes, while the duties of personal attendance upon the king were performed by inferior officials controlled by the high steward. The boy distinguished by early intelligence, and who gave good promise for the future, was associated with the king's children as their companion in play and lessons, while a guardian of noble, family superintended the ^ house of the king's children,' on whom devolved heavy respon- sibility for the bodily health, for the education and discipline of the royal children.
The queen and the other ladies of the royal family were for the most part honoured with the sacred dignity of * prophetess of the goddesses Hathor and Nit ; ' they lived in the ' women's houses,' guarded by free men chosen by the king, and it was permitted to the princesses to ally themselves in marriage with some of the great nobles.
The duty of attending to the buildings and all kinds of work in stone belonged to skilled persons of the noble class. In the caverns of the mountain of Tiirah, opposite to Memphis, they quarried limestone for build- ing the royal pyramids and tombs, and for the artistic work of the sarcophagi and columns ; or they resorted to the southern region, to hew out the hard granite from the Ked Mountain, behind the city of Asw&n, and constructed rafts for the conveyance of the vast masses of stone to the lower country in the favourable season of the inundation. The dreaded band of taskmasters was set over the wretched people, who were urged to speedy work more by the punishment of the stick than by words of warning.
The inhabitants of the country in the extensive environs of the towns, or in the villages of the open plain, were kept in order by governors of nomes. The judges enforced strict obedience to the written law, and
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©m I. THE 'HERSESHTA' AND SCRIBES 25
administered justice to the oppressed, whose complaints it was the duty of the king's deputies to hear.
The warlike hosts of young soldiers (Mesha), con- sisting of infantry, whom the master of the armoury equipped with clubs and axes, spears, and bows and arrows, were commanded by experienced generals. It was the duty of the commander-in-chief to plan the campaign, dispose the troops, and go out to war with his soldiers. Of a more peaceful kind was the cele- brated office of the ' teachers of mysteries ' (Herseshta), for they were the possessors of all hidden wisdom in those ancient times. ^ The mystery-teachers of heaven ' looked upwards, and, as wise astronomers, explained the ever-changing course of the stars. ^ The mystery- teachers of all lands ' contemplated the nature of earthly things, and appear to have been the geographers of the ancient world. *The mystery-teachers of the depth,' if we are not mistaken, were the possessors of know- ledge of that which the earth conceals in its depths and were initiated into the peculiar nature of the soil.
Others, * mystery-teachers of the secret word,' wrote books on subjects of deep thought, whilst the * mystery- teachers of the sacred language ' devoted themselves to the special knowledge of the Egyptian tongue. Most frequently of all we meet with the * mystery-teachers of Pharaoh,' or ' of all the commands of Pharaoh,' wise men who held the position of private secretaries to their master. Next to them we read of 'mystery- teachers who examine words,' without doubt either learned men of letters or judges who listened to com- plaints and compared the evidence of the witnesses.
The scribes were divided into many branches, accord- ing to their position and business. In obedience to the commands of their master, they either wrote the events of his domestic life or accurately recorded his income
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26 THE FATE OF MENA ch. n.
and expenditure, and kept his books in good order. For a scribe of talent the way was open to the highest honours. The mass of servants and skilled workmen were also divided into fixed orders and gradations.
In this way the welfare of the court and country was secured by the adjustment of the individual members. Everyone maintained his place according^ to his own worth ; and the machinery of the state ran in the regular course, being set in motion by the all- powerful will of Pharaoh. BUnd obedience was the oil which caused the harmonious working of the whole.
And this great world, buried in its deep desert grave for more than 6,000 years, is now beginning to wake up out of its long sleep, like the briar rose in the legend, and to relate in childishly simple language its long past history in home and state.
To return to King Mena. After conducting a cam- paign against the Libyans he was seized and devoured by a crocodile. Such is the story of the ancients. Was Set, the lord of the horrid water-monsters, embittered with envious hatred against the founder of the most ancient state ?
The names alone of the successors of the first Pharaoh are preserved in the Tablets of Saqqarah and Abydos, and harmonise to some extent with the Turin Papyrus, which when complete contained the names of the same kings, together with the length of their reigns in a similar order. From a merely superficial examina- tion ^ it is clear that, with the exception of two or three names towards the end of the Third Dynasty, they are radically difierent from those of the Pharaohs who succeeded them. For the most part the older ones suggest the ideas of strength and terror. Thus Mena is * the constant ; ' Teta, ' the smiter ; ' Ka-kau, * the bull of
^ See Table of Kings, p. ziz. et $eq.
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DTN. I. THE SUCCESSORS OF MENA 27
bulls ; ' Senta, * the terrible ; ' Huni, ^ the hewer.' It is- not until the 22nd name on the monumental list that the gods Amen, Sebek, or Tehuti become incorporated into the royal cartouche, while from henceforth the sign of the god-king Ea is paraded in a suitable place of honour in the upper space.
Among the rulers of the most ancient kingdom Nefer-ka-Sekari (* perfect through Sekari ') is the only one whose name plainly preserves the remembrance of a deity. But then the question naturally arises. How was it that a king of Tini, the capital of Upper Egypt,, gave himself a name which, by the presence of the divine Sekari at Men-nefer (Memphis), suggests the capital of Lower Egypt ? However this may be, one thing is certain, that Mena laid the foundation of this future metropolis, and that the descendants of his house held their court at Men-nefer, not at Tini.
Unfortunately the monuments are silent until the time of Sneferu (Dyn. HE.), and our information con- cerning the most ancient rulers of Egypt comes only from the fragments of Manetho and from Greek stories of doubtful veracity.
Mena's son and successor, Teta, built the royal palace in Memphis, and wrote, wonderful as it may sound, a work on anatomy, ' for he was a physician.' The monuments are silent concerning this physician- king; but a papyrus roll of the most remote age, bought in Thebes by Ebers, tells in archaic language that, when King Teta sat on the throne, a prescription for making the hair grow was much commended. More important than this information is the testimony that the writings of the Pharaohs on medical subjects reach back as far as the First Dynasty.
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28 PRIMEVAL MEDICINE ch. n.
To mention one only, the long medical papyrus found in the necropolis of Memphis, and now in the Berlin Museum, contains prescriptions for the cure of malignant leprosy and many other kinds of illness, treats of fractures, and teaches, although in a simple, childish way, of the construction and mechanism of the body. Though composed in the reign of Kamses 11., there is a passage in it which throws back the origin of one part of the work to the fifth king of the Tablet of Abydos. It runs thus : —
This is the beginning of the sum of all methods for the core of bad leprosy. It was disooTered in a writing of very ancient origin in a writing-case underneath the feet of the divine Anpu, in the town of Sekhem, at the time when the deceased Sapti^ was king. After his death the writing was brought to the sanctuary of the blessed king Senta, on account of its miraculous power of healing.
When Uenephes (Ata) ascended the throne the land of Egypt suffered from a great famine. In spite of it the people were employed in building pyramids on the site called Ka-kam (* black bull'), where the bodies of the sacred Apis-bulls reposed in the Serapeum in the desert. The place is near the modem village of Saqqarah, and it is probable that the building with steps called the 'pyramid of degrees,' whose hollow chamber contained the bones of bulls and inscriptions relating to the royal names of Apis, was a common sepulchre, consecrated by Ata to this animal.
[This pyramid, unlike all the others, does not face the points of the compass ; it is oblong, not square, and instead of containing one chamber has many of unique form in the interior. These were explored, in 1821, by Minutoli, an Italian officer, and in one of them he found a skull and the soles of feet, both of which were -carefully gilded. Two of the chambers were inlaid
Dyn. I., No. 5.
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DTN. n. LAW OF FEMALE SUCCESSION 29
with a kind of mosaic, consisting of green faience and stucco.]
When Semex-Ptah inherited the crown a great number of miracles were displayed, and a violent plague raged in the country. When Ba-ex-neter ascended the throne the earth opened at Bubastis and swallowed up many people. When Ka-kau (* bull of bulls ') succeeded to the kingdom the worship of Apis was instituted in the city of Memphis, and that of Mnevis at On. A sanctuary and priesthood were founded to the honour of the sacred ram Mendes at the town of that name. Pure men served the sacred Apis- bull, whose death was deeply lamented; his body, adorned with decorations, was exposed on a high bier, and even his name, Hapi, was borne as an honour by many distinguished persons.
With regard to the laws of the kingdom, Ba-en-neter, who had apparently no sons, enacted as a standing rule for ever that women should inherit the throne. The working of this new custom had important consequences in the establishment of many a djmasty, either when the queen, after the death of her husband, took the reins of government or stepped into the place of her youthful son, or when the daughter and heiress of a deceased Pharaoh, who had no sons, gave her hand to a foreign husband. According to the ancient custom the mother's pedigree had great weight in the order of inheritance, because it gave an unconditional claim of right to the son as the true heir of * the father of his mother.' The husband of a royal heiress appeared as ting in name only, but it devolved on the son of such a marriage to maintain his full right to the throne and sceptre by virtue of his maternal descent. If a Pharaoh married the daughter of a noble family, not of royal race, the offspring of the union, as appears from
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30 THE FIRST MONUMENTAL KING ch. n.
many occurrences in the history of the kingdom, had not equal rights with the true royal children.
The father of the new Pharaoh was honoured by the title of ^ father of the divine one ' (Atef-neter), while the mother was called ^mother of the king' {Mut- suten). In the majority of cases the succession of the dynasties was determined by the union of new suitors with heiresses of the blood royal, whether the chosen husbands could trace their pedigree back to royal ancestors or not.
Under the rule of NepeBtKA^-Ea tradition relates that the waters of the Nile suddenly assumed for eleven days the taste of honey.
We know nothing of Sekbr but the strange tradi- tion which says he was 5 cubits in height and 3 in breadth !
Under Necherophes, the first king of the Third Dynasty, the tribes of Libya revolted against their Egyptian masters, and Pharaoh only succeeded in sub- duing them when, by the help of the gods, the moon ap- peared to grow of a gigantic size, which threw terror into the ranks of the enemy.
The heir of this king, Tosorthros, was skilled in the art of healing sickness and injuries to the body, and on account of this wisdom the title of * god of heaUng ' was given him. He was also diligent in other matters, and was skilled in the art of erecting solid masses of building in well-hewn stone. Also he gave instruction in the painting of the written characters for the benefit of people expert in writing.
^Q. The first of the monumental kings was Snb-
fcyi FERU, ' he who makes good.' A number of stones
^^ carved during his hfetime mention him. With
sneferu. Sucferu first appcars the custom of adding to the
king's own name another and sacred one, besides three
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DTK. m. JOURNEYS TO THE PENINSULA OF SINAI 31
Mgh-sounding titles. Without distinguishing the in- dividual the first title was that of Horus, who dispenses life and prosperity ; the second, ' lord of the double diadem ; ' and the third, * the image of the golden Horus, conqueror of his opponent.' After each king's name was placed that of his pyramid to distinguish him, and as a pledge of lasting fame. It was a pious custom whenever the king or a great noble was mentioned to add immediately after his name, *Life, health, and strength be to him.'
On the steep wall of rock in the Wady-Magharah, where, in the very ancient caverns, the traces of the miner may easily be recognised, Sneferu appears as a warrior, with a mighty club striking a vanquished ^nemy to the ground. The inscription engraved beside the picture mentions him clearly by name, with the title of ^ vanquisher of a foreign people.' The land, which formerly yielded copper ore, and blue and green precious stones, seems to have been a possession much coveted by the rulers of Kamit,^ and it was without doubt Sneferu who gained possession of this moun- tainous peninsula. By a short sea passage from Egypt, or by a longer journey on the backs of asses, the soldiers of the king and the troops of miners, with the steward and overseer, reached the valley of the mines. Even at this day the traveller can see and read on the half-defaced stone a number of pictures and writings. Standing on a high rock, which commands the entrance to the Wady-Magharah, his eye discovers without difficulty the ruins of the strong fortress whose well- built walls once enclosed huts beside a deep well, and protected the Egyptian troops from sudden attack. There were also temples there dedicated to Hathor, whom the Egyptians worshipped as the protectress of
1 Seep. 5.
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32 TWO ANCIENT STATUES ch. n.
the land of Mafkat,^ and to the sparrow-hawk of Sopt, the ' lord of the east.'
The princes of the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties maintained with a powerful hand the inheritance that Sneferu left them. The mines were permanently worked, the enemy conquered, and the gods worshipped. Sneferu bethought himself in good time of the end of his Ufe, and of a worthy monument. The royal edifice of the pyramid that stands near Meid<im contained, we doubt not, his body. The name of the building is in good Egyptian Kha, s ▲, a word which served to denote sometimes Hhe rising' (of the sun), sometimes Hhe festival,' sometimes * the crown.'
Here it was, in close proximity to the pyramid, that some natives discovered the entrance to some tombs of ancient time, and brought to light, amongst other things, two statues remarkable for their antiquity and their admirable art. They are portrait statues of a man and his wife, fitting side by side in a dignified attitude on a die-shaped seat. The man, who was called Ea-hotep, was the son of a king, and had filled many important offices during his life. He led the warriors in the service of the monarch, and in On, the town of the god Ea, he bore the sacred office of chief priest. His wife, Nefert (^ the beautiful ' or * the good '), was the grand- daughter of a king who is not named.
An old papyrus obtained by De Prisse in Thebes speaks thus of Sneferu : ^ Then died the hoUness of King Huni. Then was raised up the holiness of King Sneferu as a good king over the whole country. Then was Kakem appointed governor of the city.'
1 In the Sinaitio peninstila.
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DIN. IV. KING KHUFU OR CHEOPS 33
DYNASTY IV.
To restore as completely as possible the names and order of the Pharaohs of the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties, the Tablets of Abydos and Saqqarah (p. xx. et seq.) and the Turin Papyrus may together be considered as approximating to the truth. •
According to the testimony of the Tablets the suc- cessor of the good king Sneferu was Khufu, the r^ Cheops of Herodotus. With him begin the memor- U able traditions of Egyptian history, as recorded \j; by the Greek and Roman authors. ^'^'
No one who has once set foot on the black soil of i^ypt ever turns on his homeward journey till his eyes have looked upon that wonder of antiquity the threefold mass of the Pyramids on the edge of the desert, which is reached after an hour's ride over the long causeway from the village of Gizeh, on the left bank of the Nile. From the far distance are clearly seen their giant forms, looking as if they were moun- tains ; yet they are but tombs built by the hands of men, and which, raised by Khufu and two other kings of the same family and dynasty, have been the admiration and astonishment alike of the ancient and modem world. Perfectly adjusted to the cardinal points of the horizon, they differ from each other both in breadth and height, as is shown by the measurements of Colonel Howard Vyse : —
Height. Breadth.
1. Pyramid of Khufu 450*75 feet 746 feet
2. Pyramid of Khaf-Ra 447-5 „ 69075 „
3. Pyramid of Men-kau-Ra 203 „ 352-87 „
The mode of construction of these enormous masses was for long an almost insoluble enigma to even experts in engineering.
According to their ancient custom the Egyptians,
D
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34 TIIE PYRAMIDS OF OfZEH ch. ii.
while they lived in health and vigour, were ever mindful to turn their looks westward to where the door of the grave would one day close on the body, which should rise to a new existence after an appointed number of years ; while the soul, though bound to the body, was free to leave and return to the grave each day.
In such a belief it was their custom betimes to dig their graves in the form of a deep shaft in the rock, and, as a superstructure to this * eternal dwelling,' to raise sometimes only a hall, sometimes several apart- ments, and to adorn these richly with coloured writing and painted sculptures, as if it were meant for a house of pleasure and joy. Not seldom did death snatch away the builder before his work was finished. In such a case the visitor finds pictures which the ■draughtsman's skilful hand had sketched in outline with a red crayon on the polished surface of the stone wall, but time had not been left for the painter to fill in the picture with bright and varied colours.
The Pharaoh, therefore, as soon as he mounted the throne, immediately began building his tomb. The kernel of the future edifice was raised on the limestone soil of the desert, in the form of a small pyramid built in steps, of which the carefully con- structed and well-finished interior formed the king's eternal dweUing. A covering was added to the out- side of the kernel, followed by a second, and some- times even a third and fourth ; and when, at last, it became almost impossible to extend the area of the pyramid farther, a casing of hard stone, polished like glass, and fitted accurately to the angles of the steps, completely covered the gigantic building.
A special name was assigned to each pyramid, to distinguish it from its neighbours. Thus the sepul-
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DTN. IV. STRUCTURE OF THE PYRAMIDS 35
•chral monument of Khufu bore the title of 'Eiut/ i.e. ' the Lights.'
The stones for the building of it were chosen from three different places. The inner material — a spongy limestone without consistence — ^was found close at hand. The better sort of stone, chosen for the steps and the successive layers, was brought from T<irah upon rollers along the causeway (above half a mile long) which reached from the left bank of the river, immediately opposite to that mountain, to the plateau of the pyramids, while the covering was of costly stone l)rought down the river from a great distance. On the southern border of Egj^t, close to Asw^n, stands the * red mountain ' (Tutesherit), composed of a granite sprinkled with black and red, as hard as iron, and shining beautifully when polished. The brilliancy and durability of the syenite — ^well fitted for buildings that were to last for ever — ^made the possession of this stone much desired. Quarry marks of those ancient times are still visible; here we meet with the outUne of a colossal statue, and there the whole length of the fourth side of an obelisk still waits to be loosened from its bed.
Ten years passed before the workmen had quarried the stone for the Great Pyramid in the mountain of TArah, laid the foundation, and closed the dark tomb- chamber in the rock, and twice ten years more before the whole work was completed.
The few contemporary monuments present Khufu in a different light from that in which his character is drawn in the time of the Persian and Greek dominion, when his reputation was at a low ebb. The rock tablets in the Wady-Magharah extol him as the annihi- lator of his enemies, and represent him as a brave, active ruler. Later tradition says he was barbarous in
D 2
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36 KHAF-RA, OR KIIEFREN ch. iu
manners and of a tyrannical nature, and forced the people to do hard labour. He also closed the temples^ from an evil motive, fearing that prayer and sacrifices would shorten the time of the people for work.
Three small pyramids facing the east in front of Khufu's gigantic tomb formerly contained the bodies- of the king's wife and children.
Tatp-Ea followed Khufu in the kingdom. His name occurs on the Tablets of Abydos and Saqqarah, but further than this we know nothing of him.
Khaf-Ka, the Khefren of the Greeks. His pyramid^ "^ A, designated by the ancients ^ the Great,' stands- close to that of Kiufu. Although the stones say little of Khaf-Ea, his name is nevertheless well pre- served by the woiiderful workmanship of his statues.
It is only a few years ago that close to the Sphinx was discovered that building which is still a mystery — small passages, then spacious halls, then again dark side-rooms built with huge, well-cut blocks of hard variegated stone from Asw^n, and of shining alabaster fitted to a hair's breadth, each alternate comer stone being clamped into the adjacent wall and perfectly squared, but destitute of any mark or inscription. On the east side the stone-covered space of ground showed in a long hall the shaft of a well, into whose depths a number of statues of Khaf-Ka had been thrown. The greater number of them were destroyed by the violence of the fall. Only one seemed to have survived — the figure of King Khaf-Ea in a sitting posture, of regal appearance, dignified in look and bearing. A sparrow- hawk, hiding itself behind the Pharaoh's head, spreads out its wings in calm repose, as if to protect its royal master. The name and title of the king appear in- scribed on the base of the statue. The greenish stone, shining with a high poUsh, is a hard diorite.
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IDTW. IV. ANTIQUITY OF THE SPHINX 37
a material seldom chosen for the execution of a monu- ment.
In saying that the discovery of the statues of Khaf-Ra has proved an unparalleled addition to the history of the old empire, and that they must be esteemed the greatest treasure of antiquity, we have not yet nearly •exhausted the advantages to be derived from Khaf-Ra's ^tone image. As that wooden statue of an old Sheikh- •el-Belled,^ which was brought to light out of the tombs at Saqqarah, as the various coloured statues of Ume- stone which came forth from the narrow ' Serdabs '^ of the tombs as witnesses of ancient hfe, as every artistic production of those days, in picture, writing, or sculp- ture, bears the stamp of the highest perfection of art, so the statue of Khaf-Ra also teaches us that in the beginning of history the works of art already redounded to the praise of their authors.
From east to west, almost in the same Une with Khaf-Ra's pyramid, Ues the colossal Sphinx — the body of a lion united with the face of a man. As if at rest, the lion stretches out his fore paws, between which a narrow path led to the temple which stood at the breast of the monster, while a memorial stone pre- serves the memory of the gifts made by Tehuti-mes IV. to the god. The Hon was of the Uving rock ; but where the hollows in the stone interrupted the rounding of the body, hght masonry was introduced to fill in what was wanting in the form.
So far as we learn from an inscription, King Khufu had seen the monster ; therefore the statue existed before his time. To the north lay a temple of Isis ; a second, dedicated to Osiris, was situated on the southern side ; and a third was consecrated to the Sphinx. In
' See Frontispiece.
* Serdab is the Arabic woid for chapels where the statues of the the secret chamber in the sepulchral deceased were placed.
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38 PYRAMID AND COFFIN OF MEN-KAU-RA ch. ik
the sacred language the Sphinx is called ' Hu/ a word that only denotes the man-headed Hon, while as god the man-lion was called Horemkhu, a word meaning ' Horus on the horizon,' and which the Greek language translated by ' Harmachis.'
Many fragments of antiquity, preserved in the cemetery of Memphis, inform us that Khaf-Ka s wife was named Meri-s-ankh. She appears to have been a devout worshipper of the gods, and in adoring them she obtained honour for herself.
After Khaf-Ra had gone to the land where Osiris /7v held the sceptre, King Men-kau-Ra, the Mycerinus 151 ^^ ^^^ Greeks, ascended the throne. His pyramid ^M occupies the south-west comer of the plain of taSL.GHzeh, and is called X ^9 Her ('the high one'). When Colonel Howard Vyse found the well-guarded entrance to the chamber of the dead, and entered the room ' of eternity,' he saw, as the last trace of Men- kau-Ra's burial, the wooden cover of the coffin, and the stone sarcophagus, hewn out of a single block of hard stone, and beautifully ornamented outside in the style of a temple. Sent to London as a valuable memorial of antiquity, ship and cargo sank to the bottom of the sea off Gibraltar. The coffin containing the mummy was saved, and is now in the British Museum. The inscription on the cover runs thus: '0 Osiris, king of the north and the south, Men-kau-Ra, Uving for ever, the heavens have produced thee. Thou wast engen- dered by Nut ; ^ thou art the offspring of Seb.* Thy mother Nut spreads herself over thee in her form as a divine mystery. She has granted thee to be a god; thou shalt never more have enemies, 0 king of the north and south, Men-kau-Ra, living for ever.'
According to Greek testimony, Men-kau-Ra enjoyed
> The sky. « The earth
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DTN. IV. MENCHERES THE PIOUS 39
the reputation of being a mild and just man. It also appears certain that he industriously studied the re- ligious writings of his age. The ^ Eitual of the Dead/ which was usually buried with every mummy as a guide in the world beyond, mentions this king thus : —
This gate (chapter) was found in the city of Hermopolis, en- graved on a block of alabaster and painted in blue colour, under the feet of this god. It was found in the time of King Men-kau-Ra, the deified, by the king's son Hortotef , when he undertook a journey to inspect the temples of Egypt. He brought the stone as a won- derful thing to the king, after he had well understood the contents full of mystery which were on it.
SHEPSES-KA.-P, 1/400" , is the name of the
Pharaoh who succeeded Men-kau-Ea. All doubt on the subject is removed by the inscriptions on a tomb at Saqqarah. The noble for whom it was constructed bore the name of Ptah-Shepses ; he lived at court and was a favourite with the kings. He appears first as an adopted child of Men-kau-Ea, for * he placed him among the royal children in the royal women's house.' When Men-kau-Ea died Shepses-ka-f placed the young page in his own house and gave him his daughter in marriage. * He was esteemed by the kmg above all his servants. He became private secretary for every work that Pharaoh was pleased to execute. He charmed the heart of his master. His Majesty allowed him to em- brace his knees and exempted him from the salutation of the ground.' The last words are not without advan- tage to our knowledge of ancient usages at the court of the Pharaohs. When a servant of high or low degree approached his royal master, custom demanded that he should throw himself repeatedly in the dust and kiss the ground, only favourites being permitted to touch the king's knee. Ptah-Shepses directed the forced labour of the mines, and was also the prophet of the god Sekar
♦d4
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40 SHEPSES-KA-F ch. n.
and chief guardian of his sanctuary. The highest decoration he bore was that of * chief of the priesthood of Memphis.' There are but few tombs that give any further tidings of Shepses-ka-f. We know that he did not neglect to build himself a pyramid, to which he gave the name of Qebeh, /^a, * the cool.'
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PLAX OF THE PTIUMIDS AND T0MB8 OP OtZKH.
A. Entrance to the Great Pyramid.
B. Entrance to the Second FyramicL
CC. Long pits, by some supposed for mixing the
mortar. D. Pyramid of the daughter of Cheop8(Herodotus,
iL 126). £. PaTement of black stones (basaltic trap), the
same as found on the causeways of the
pyramids of Saqqarah.
F. Remains of masonry.
G. Round enclosures of crude brick, of Arab date,
at N.E. angle of this pyramid. H. Tombs of individuals, with deep pita. I. The tomb of numbers. K. Two inclined passages, meeting underground,
apparently onoe belonging to a small pyra- mid that stood over them. L L. The rock is here cut to a level surface. M. A narrow and sliallow trench cut in the
rock. N. A square space out in the rock, probablv to
receive and support the corner stone of the
casing of the pyramid. P. Here stood a tomb which has received the
title of the Temple of Osiris. Q. Tomb of trades, to west of tombs H. R. A pit cased with stone, of modern date. S. The Third P>Tamid.
T. Three small pyramids.
U, y. Ruined buildings, whose original use it is
now difficult to determine. WWW. Fragments of stone, arranged ia the
manner of a wall. X. A few palms and qrcamorea, with a well. Y. Southern stone causeway. Z. Northern causeway, repaired by the Caliphs.
a. Tombs out in the rook.
b. Masonry.
c. Black stones.
d. d. Tombs cut in the rock.
e. The sphinx.
/. Pits, probably unopened.
g. Pits.
h. Stone ruin on a rock.
i. Doorway, or passage, through the cauae^%'ay.
k. A grotto in the rock.
I. Inclined causeway, part of Y.
m, fi. Tombs in the rock.
o. Some hieroglyphics on the rock.
p. Tombs cut in the scarp of the rock.
q. Stone wall.
r. Steps cut in the rock, near the N.W. angle of the Great Pyramid.
<, t. Magnetic south, in 1833 and 1836, corre- sponding to M N ; T N being * true north.'
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41
CHAPTER m.
DYNASTIES V.-XIJ
THE PHARAOHS OF THE FIFTH AND SIXTH DYNASTIES.
TJsERCHEEES heads the list of Pharaohs of the Fifth Dynasty, according to Manetho. He is the same whom
the Tablet of Abydos gives as User-ka-f, [ i fl
About his reign we learn little. In the inscriptions on the sepulchral buildings and monuments of his contempo- raries he is praised as a Pharaoh at whose tomb a pious priesthood performed divine worship. Although there is no longer any token to indicate the monument of King
TJser-ka-f the name of his pyramid, Ab-asu, /^ J J i a,
•* the purest place,' has been faithfully preserved. It is
otherwise with Sahu-Ea. ' ^
,who followed User-
ia-f in the kingdom. The cartouche of this king is painted in red on the stone blocks of a pyramid which rose northwards from the village of Abusir, on the margin of
the desert, and was entitled IQia-ba, ^^^a9 ' rising of ^ouls/ His names are conspicuous also on the smooth <jliff in the Wady-Magharah, where he stands sculptured on the rock as the vanquisher of foreign peoples. Beside this an inscription designates him as ' God, who strikes all peoples, and smites all countries with his ium.'
■ For Table of Kings see p. zz.
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42 NEFER-AK-KA-RA — USER-EN-RA ch. ra.
Long after Sahu-Ea lay sleeping in his pyramid the pious remembrance of his name continued ; for when the Ptolemies ruled in the Nile valley a sanctuary still stood in Memphis dedicated to his memory, where priests performed their sacred offices for the dead king.
He was succeeded, according to the Tablet of Saqqarah, by a Pharaoh of the name of Nefer-ar-ka-Ea,
doubtless the same that Manetho tran-
GH'
scribed Nephercheres. He gave to his pyramid the name
Ba, that is * Soul,' Ai^A. Many fragments of tombs in
the cemetery of Memphis have faithfully preserved the memory of this king ; above all the grave of his royal grandson, Urkhuru, who is called * the royal scribe of the palace, the learned man, the master of writing who serves as a Ught to all the writing in the house of Pharaoh.' He is also called the * master of writing for the petitions of the people, he who serves as a hght to all the writing which relates to the administration, chief of the provision chambers.' He was also * general of the forces composed of all the young men.' Another officer of this time, named Pehenuka, performed the duties of secretary of state in faithful service to his master. Of the rulers who' followed this king we will mention the thirtieth according to the Tablet of Abydos,.
User-en-Ea, ( * 1 P
He is the first Pharaoh who adopted a second cartouche with his own private name, An. Following the custom of his predecessors, he built for his sepulchre a pyramid which was called Men-asu, * the firmest of
places,' ^IIIIIIIIIIII^^^ A. His name has been found, plainly traced in red, on the middle pyramid of Abuslr, and without doubt he was laid to rest ages ago in its.
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DTK. T. THE TOMB OF THI 43-
chamber. His name also appears at Wady-Magharah^ where a sculptured tablet represents him as conqueror over the ancient people who had their dwelling-places in the Sinaitic valleys. Of the tombs of those court functionaries from whose walls we learn so much of the life-history of this ancient people, the most beautiful that remains is that of Thi. The inscriptions carved in hieroglyphs and filled in with colour give a clear signi- ficance to the pictures and enlarge in eloquent language on the worth of the deceased. He served his master as scribe in all his residences, was president of the royal writings, and conducted the king's works, to say nothing of the priestly dignities with which he was invested. It appears strange that in the grave of this noblest of men the name of his father is wanting and no traces of his descent are perceptible. If Thi was a man of low origin, he must certainly have performed something great, to appear worthy of being son-in-law to the king, for Pharaoh gave him his own daughter Nefer-hotep to wife.
The last three sovereigns of this Fifth Dynasty had their places definitely fixed long before the discovery of the Tablet of Abydos.
The first, Men-kau-Hor, [ Vl *m**» li li u , built the
pyramid called Neter-asu,l ^ JJJa, which means *the holiest of places.' A sculptured block, let into a wall of the Apis-tombs (Serapeum), has faithfully preserved for us the portrait of the king in bas-reUef, accom- panied by his name and titles. It is possible that one of the pyramids of Saqqarah contained the king's tomb. The rocky walls, also, of the Sinaitic mountains, men- tion this prince several times.
He was followed by Tat-ka-Ka, [ o f u
">J
sumamed
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44 THE MAXIMS OF PTAII-HOTEP ch. m.
Assa, [ i"^^l • I^ is again the Wady-Magharah that
gives us information about this king, testifying that new mines were excavated in the mountain when Assa sat on the throne of his fathers. The name * beautiful ' (nefer), 1 a, was given to his pyramid, and in ancient
•days holy men consecrated their services to his memory.
A record worthy of remembrance is preserved in iin ancient papyrus written by Assa's son, Ptah-hotep.^ It is without doubt the oldest manuscript in existence, and contains wise instruction and admonition, praises the practice of virtue and good manners, and points out the path which leads to honour and a happy end.
The king's son must have been very aged when he wrote this book, for he speaks of decrepit old age as one who felt it himself.
* The two eyes/ thus writes the wise man, * are drawn small, the •ears are stopped up, and what was strong becomes continually weak. The mouth becomes silent, it speaks no clear word ; the memory is •dulled, it cannot recall past days ; the bones refuse their service. The good has changed to bad. Even the taste is long since gone. In every way old age makes a man miserable. The nose is stopped without air.'
After unfolding some of his deepest thoughts in very simple language he adds —
If thou hast become great after thou hast been lowly, and if thou hast amassed riches after poverty, so that thou hast become, because of this, the first in thy city ; and if the people know thee on account of thy wealth, and thou art become a mighty lord, let not thy heart be lifted up because of thy riches, for the author of them is God. Despise not thy neighbour who is as thou wast, but treat him as thy equal.
Let thy countenance shine jo3rfully as long as thou livest ; did A man ever leave the coffin after having once entered it f
» The Prisse Papyrus, now in the Biblioth^ue Nationale, Paris.
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DTK. V. UNAS — ^TETA — USER-KA-RA 45
The last Pharaoh of the dynasty bore the name of
We know Uttle more of him than that his sepulchre was called Nefer-asu, 1 iii ^, which means ' the most beautiful place.'
[The Mastabat-el-Farftn, first explored by Mariette^ was at one time supposed both by the excavator and Brugsch-Bey himself to be the tomb of this king. It has now been ascertained by Maspero that Unas was buried in the pyramid that has since 1881 bome his name, and which hes to the south-west of the Step Pyramid. The walls lining the sarcophagus- chamber are of alabaster and covered with paintings, the colours of which are stUl fresh. The fragments of the king's mummy were found scattered on the floor.]
In accordance with the Tablets of Abydos and Saq- qarah, the monuments call the first prince of the Sixth
Dynasty ( ^ ^ 1? Teta. But we also have proof of
his succession in another way. In the grave of Ptah-Shepses, at Saqqarah, this nobleman's offices and dignities are enumerated at the usual length. He was the sacred prophet of the pyramids of Unas, and of Teta, who was the first king to adopt the title
of Se-Ea, * Son of the Sun,' ^90 . The pyramid
of this latter was called Tat-asu, f^^^A «the most
lasting of places,' surely not without allusion to the king's own name.
It has been supposed that the name of Useb-ka-Ea, which the Tablet of Abydos places after that of Teta,
was the official title of a King Ati, ( ^ * ^ ^ ], who likewise built a pyramid, called Baiu, ^ a, * the pyra-
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46 MERI-RA PEPI
CH. m.
mid of the souls/ and further that this Ati was the real founder of the Sixth Dynasty, who reigned, per- haps, in Middle Egypt simultaneously with Teta, the last descendant of the ancient kings of Memphis.
One thing is certain, that a nobleman named Una passed immediately from the service of King Ati to that
ofhis successor, Meri-Ea, I • *^ I I ,* friend of Ea,*
whose family name was Pepi, ( ' I I ]•
The Wady-Magharah, which contains so many me- morials of the ancient Memphite Pharaohs, has no less perfectly preserved the memory of Pepi. A great bas- relief, carved in the rock, says that, in the eighteenth year of his reign, a governor named Abton visited the mines to inspect the progress of the work. In the tablet itself the king appears as the conqueror of the foreign people, who in his time dwelt in the valley of caverns. Amongst the ruins which cover the site of the once far-famed city of Tanis, in the Delta, a block of stone was found, covered with the names and titles of Pepi, a proof that the origin of the city extends back to the time of the ancient kingdom. At Den- derah also, in the temple of Hathor, the wall of a chamber gives us the information that Pepi enlarged the sanctuary which Khufu had founded before him, while the valleys of Hammamat, the dark rocks near Asw4n, and the walls in the quarries of El-Kab, still pre- serve the memory of the king. When Pepi ruled there was Uving a nobleman called Una, who began his career at the court of the Pharaohs. By his good ser- vices he gained the favour of the king, and when Teta died Pepi became attached to the young man, and placed him in a confidential position in his own house. Among other duties he received orders to quarry a
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DTW. VI. INSCRIPTION OF UNA 47
sarcophagus out of the mountain of Tftrah. Warriors and sailors accompanied Una to carry on the work. The monument, which was carved out of one single block, was conveyed down the river on one of the king's vessels with its cover and many other hewn stones destined for the building of the royal pyramid. Una was next sent in a mihtary capacity against the Aamu and the Herusha, peoples of the desert east of Lower Egypt. Everything necessary for the expedition was prepared ; but, as the bands of warriors did not ap- pear sufficiently numerous, levies from a foreign coun try- subject to the king, and settled on the southern boundary of the kingdom, were added to the native army ; they were instructed in the proper method of fighting by captains whom Pharaoh had placed over them. When the army was at last ready it took the field, destroyed the land of Herusha, and returned home successful.
After these wars a new contest broke out, and Pharaoh sent his army against the land of Terehbah (?), * to the north of the land of the Herusha.' It is difficult at the present day to recognise this country. Since ships are mentioned, it does not seem preposterous to think of Syria, especially of that part of it which lies to the north of the Arab desert. Pharaoh, as usual, built bimself a pyramid, which was named Men-nefer, **'*^ 1 ▲, that is, * good place ' or * good station ' (for traveUers). As a founder of cities, his memory was immortalised by the city of Pepi, in Middle Egypt.
Amongst the nobles who served him appears a certain Meri-Ea-ankh, * president of the public works of the king,' who is designated on the walls of his tomb as Governor of Tiirah. He was entrusted with the direction of the works in the quarries of the Mokattam mountains. Another at Abydos, the noble Pepi-neklit, whose grave is in the necropolis, was ' governor of the
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48 MER-EN-RA
CH. in.
city of the pyramids.' By this place is evidently meant the sanctuary before the king's tomb, in which holy men offered sacrifices to the deceased Pharaoh, burnt incense before his images, and performed all other religious service according to the usual custom.
The Pharaoh Pepi, who, according to Greek accounts,, sat for 100 years on the throne of his fathers, married a lady not of royal descent, whose father was named Khua, and her mother Nekebet. After she had received the honours of an Egyptian queen a royal name was given to her, and she was called Meri-Ea-ankhnes. Her tomb, the ruins of which were found in the necropoUs at Abydos, gives us important information about her descendants. She gave birth to two sons, Mer-en-Ea and Nefer-ka-Ea. When Pepi died the first- bom took possession of the crown and kingdom. He figures in the Tablet of Abydos under the name of
( — ^"^ — 1
Mer-en-Ea.
The long inscription from Una's grave enlightens the darkness which surrounds this monarch's history. After the death of Pepi Una rose, under the rule of his successor, to the dignity of ' Governor of Upper Egypt.' His government was bounded towards the south by the town of Elephantine, and on the north by the nome of Letopolis, in the Lower Country. He himself acknow- ledges the rarity of the favour, confessing in his own words that such a thing had never before happened in Upper Egypt.
As ancient custom demanded, Mer-en-Ea, when he had ascended the throne, was at once mindful of the eternal dwelling which after death should contain his royal mummy. Una inunediately received the command to prepare everything for the work and to quarry the hardest stone on the southernmost border of Egypt.
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DTN. VI. INSCRIPTION OF UNA 49
* His Majesty,' so speaks Una himself, ' sent me to the country of Abhat,^ to bring back a sarcophagus with its cover; also a small pyramid and a statue of the king Mer-en-Ea, whose pyramid is
called £[ha-nefer,' ^ L ^ (^ the beautiful rising ').
Scarcely had he executed these orders when he was commanded to cut blocks of alabaster and brmg them to his lord. The gigantic load was to be sent by water on great rafts 60 cubits in length and 30 in breadth (103^ X 61f ft.), which had been previously specially constructed for this purpose. But the river was found to have fallen so low that it was impossible to make use of such large rafts, so the governor was obliged to build smaller ones in all haste. The wood for this purpose had to be felled in the neighbouring country, inhabited by the negroes. It is thus related by Una : —
His Majesty sent me to cut down four forests in the South, in order to build three large vessels and four towing vessels out of the acacia wood in the country of XJa-ua-t. And behold the officials of Araret, Aam, and Mata caused the wood to be cut down for this purpose. I executed all this in the space of a year. As soon as the waters rose, I loaded the rafts with immense pieces of granite for the pyramid Kha-nefer of the king Mer-en-Ka.
This narrative of the life and actions of a single man among the contemporaries of the kings Teta, Pepi, and Mer-en-Ea, exhausts all that we know of their history. [The mummy of Mer-en-Ea is now in the Gizeh Palace.]
an
After his brother's death Nefer-ka-Ea,
followed in the kingdom. His pyramid is called Men-
ankh, ^^^^ 2 a, Uhe station of Ufe.' This king is
named in an inscription on the rocks of Wady-Magharah, in which an officer speaks of him in the second year of his reign. The tombs also in Middle Egypt frequently
* Probably near the southern frontier of Egypt.
E
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50 QUEEN NTTOCRIS ch. m.
mention noblemen whom this king had distinguished by honours and offices.
After the death of Nefer-ka-Ea Egyptian history is involved in darkness and confusion, which suggests the probabihty of a state split up into petty kingdoms, afflicted with civil wars and royal murders, and from among whose princes no deliverer arose who was able with a strong arm to put down the rebels or to guide the monarchy with firmness. The traditional story of Queen Nitocris gives us a clue to all this.
e^
^
NiT-AQERT or Nitocris.
According to Manetho she reigned twelve years, * the noblest and most beautiful woman of her time, fair in colour {^av6ri\ and the builder of the third pyramid.' Herodotus says that the king of Egypt, brother of Nitocris, was killed by conspirators, who however gave the kingdom to her, whereupon she proceeded with subtlety to avenge her brother's death, for she constructed a vast underground building, and, on the pretext of its inauguration, she invited the prin- cipal authors of the murder to a feast. During the repast the river was let into the chamber through a hidden channel, so that the whole party of banqueters was drowned. But after she had accomplished this, she plunged into a chamber filled with ashes and killed herself to escape the vengeance of the friends of the deceased. [According to Manetho Nitocris was the builder of the third pyramid, the same which Men-kau- Ea, more than a thousand years before, had prepared for his own resting-place. It has been proved by care- ful investigations that this pyramid, which contains two sarcophagus chambers, was enlarged in later times ; so it is not impossible that Queen Nitocris altered it, left the body of Men-kau-Ea in the lower chamber, and
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DTK. VI. MENTU-HOTEP 51
placed her own in the blue basalt sarcophagus con- tained in the upper one.]
The Tablet of Abydos enumerates the names of twenty sovereigns, who correspond with the unnamed Pharaohs filling up five complete dynasties, according to Manetho. According to the Turin Papyrus the number of Pharaohs immediately preceding the Twelfth Dynasty was six. These, again, were preceded by a series of seventeen or eighteen kings. From Nitocris down to the first of these eighteen kings there was room on the papyrus for the names of about ten kings.
DYNASTIES VII.-XI.» A period of confusion now follows, during which, according to the Tablet of Abydos, twenty kings reigned, of whom we know practically nothing. The fiirst of whom
the monuments speak was ( o ^^^ I ,
who was also called f ^^ \ • ■ '
like one of his ancestors (his name on the monuments is
Neb-kher-Ea, Mentu-hotep,
( o ^«r ^* \ Neb-taui-Ea).
The kings to whom Mentu-hotep belonged were of Theban origin, the feeble ancestors of whose line bore alternately the names of Antef and Mentu-hotep. They had established themselves in Thebes, and their tombs (simple pyramids of brick-work) lay at the foot of the western mountain of the Theban necropolis. Here it was that thirty years ago some Arabs brought to light two very simple coflins of these Pharaohs. They were discovered in that part now called Assassif, scarcely hidden under heaps of loose stones and sand ; one of them contained the mummy of the king, his head
» For Table of Kings see p. xxi.
b2
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52 THE ANTEFS ch. ra.
adorned with the regal circlet. The cover of the chest was richly gilt, and the hieroglyphs on the middle band bore the cartouche of Antef. In the year 1854, I had the good fortune to discover the coffin of a second Antef, distinguished from the first by the title of Hhe Great;' it is now in the Louvre. The re- maining traces of this king's tomb were discovered by Mariette at Drah-abft-l-Neggah. In the interior of a brick pyramid was found a simple chamber with a memorial stone dated in the fiftieth year of the reign of King Antef 'ao (i.e. * the Great '), the inscription and paintings on which have been fully pubUshed by Dr. Birch. The lower part of the king's image is well preserved. At his feet stand his four favourite dogs.
Of the Mentu-hotep who bore the royal name Neb- taui-Ea, * Son of the lord of the country,' a memorial is preserved on the black rocks of the island of Konosso, above the First Cataract. A bas-relief chiselled in the hard stone exhibits him as the conqueror of thirteen foreign nations, and as the devoted servant of Amsu of Coptos. This town, situated near HammamS,t, was on the edge of the desert, and was the rendez-vous of traders to and from the Eed Sea, who traced their names on the rocks, to which they usually added a pious inscription.
Mentu-hotep also appears immortalised on the clifi in the valley of rocks, together with his mother Ama. He had, so the inscription tells, sunk a deep well, ten cubits in diameter, in the desert, in order to pro- vide water for the refreshment of all pilgrims with their beasts of burthen, and for all the men who were commanded by the king to quarry stone in this hot valley. Another inscription of the second year of his reign says that a functionary, by name Amenemhat, received orders to transport the king's sarcophagus
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DTK. TH.-xi. THE INSCRIPTION OF HANNU 53
and its cover from the quarry to the eternal resting- place of his lord. The way was long, and the labour of the work heavy, for the enormous mass measured in length eight cubits, while its dimensions in breadth and height were four and two cubits. After offerings had been first made to the gods, 3,000 men moved the gigantic burthen of the stone from its place, and rolled it down the valley to the Nile.
We have less information about the second Mentu- hotep, whose pyramid bore the name of Khu-asu,
"^ jj I A, *the most shining of places.' A grave- stone found in the cemetery of Abydos commemorates the priest who offered the sacrifices of the dead for the deceased.
This list of sovereigns ends with Sankh-ka-Ea,
[ o n Q L] , whom an inscription in the rocky valley of
Hammam&t commemorates.
The first voyage to Ophir and Punt took place in
his reign, under the leadership of a nobleman named
Hannu, who gives the following account of his
journey : —
I was sent to conduct ships to the land of Punt, to fetch for Pharaoh sweet-smelling spices, which the princes of the red land collect out of fear and dread, such as he inspires in all nations. And I started from the city of Coptos. And his Majesty gave the <x>mmand that the armed men, who were to accompany me, should be from the south country of the Thebai'd.
And I set out thence with an army of 3,000 men, and passed through 'the red hamlet' and through a cultivated country. I had skins and poles prepared to carry the vessels of water, twenty in number. And of people one carried a load daily [^ootma], . . • and another placed iiie load on him. And I had a reservoir of twelve perches dug in a wood, and two reservoirs at a place called Atahet — one of a perch and twenty cubits, and the other of a perch and thirty cubits. And I made another at Ateb, of ten cubits by ten on each side, to contain water of a cubit in depth. Then I
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54 THE HOLY LAND OF PUNT ch. m.
arrived at the port Seba (?), and I had ships of burthen built ta bring back products of all kinds. And I offered a great sacrifice of oxen, cows, and goats. And when I returned from Seba (?) I had executed the king's command, for I brought him back all kinds of products which I had met with in the ports of the Holy Land^ And I came back by the road of Uak and Rohan, and brought with me precious stones for the statues of the temples. But such a thing never happened since there were kings ; nor was the like of it ever done by any blood relations who were sent to these places since the time (of the reign) of the Sun-god Ra. And I acted thus for the king on account of the great favour which he entertained for me.
There seems to be but little doubt that the present coast of Somali, opposite to Arabia, represents the Ophir of the ancient Egyptians. They understood it to be a land of hills and valleys washed by the sea^ whence came their choice woods, their balsam and frankincense, their precious metals and costly stones ;. it was rich also in strange and curious animals and birds. Punt, the * Holy Land,' possibly representedrby the south and west coasts of Arabia Felix, was the original home of the gods. Amen, Horus, and Hathor all came from there, while Bes, who was the most ancient divinity in Punt, is of peculiarly Arab origin.
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55
CHAPTER IV.
DYNASTY XIU
Manetho states that the princes of the Twelfth Dynasty were of Theban origm, which is more than probable, since the Antefs and Mentu-hoteps have left memorials of them- selves in that city. The sanctuary of the great temple of Amen at Kamak, whose ruins are covered with the names of the kings of this house, was gradually enlarged from the time of its foundation to the grandeur of an imperial edifice, whose stone walls reveal to us the history of the Theban kings.
The high distinction of this dynasty does not rest so much on the greatness of the kings as on the wisdom of their government at home and the glory of their victories abroad. Art also was cherished by these rulers, and from the hands of skilful masters arose an immense number of beautiful buildings and • pictures. It is from the accession of the Twelfth Dynasty that a more harmonious form of beauty meets the eye of the beholder, alike in architecture and in sculpture.
Amen-bm-hat I., r I ^ ^-^ J' ^^ ^^
regal name ( o fl "^' ^ \ Se-hotep-ab-Ea.
Such is the name of the ruler who greets us on the threshold of this dynasty as the leader of his race.
> For Table of Kings see p. xxii.
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56 CAMPAIGNS AGAINST THE 'RABBLE' CH. iv.
I
Unless the evidence deceives us, he is a descendant of the prince of the same name who, under Neb-taui Mentu-hotep, received the command to bring enormous stones from the valley of Hammam&t, and by so doing earned the praise of the king. His elevation to the throne was no peaceful hereditary succession, but a struggle for the crown. In the instructions which Amen-em-hat I. wrote for his son (Sallier Papyrus 11.) he speaks of the trouble which consumed the land from internal wars and conspirators who sought to murder the king. After peace and order were re-established the signal was given for external wars. A memorial stone now in London bears witness that the power of the king extended beyond the limits of the empire. His dominion in the south is confirmed by an inscription engraved on a mass of rock on the road from Korosko, which records his victory over the inhabitants of the land of Ua-ua-t, which country probably co-incided with the auriferous valley of Ollaqi, which extends northwards from Korosko to the sea. The historical information on this stone is also confirmed by con- temporary papyri, which tell us of external campaigns and wars carried on against foreign nations, such as the Mazai, the Sati, the Herusha, and other * rabble ' in the South and North, in the East and West. Besides military operations, the service of the gods lay near to the sovereign's heart. He was the founder of the temple of Amen at Thebes, where his own portrait, executed in rose-coloured granite from AswSn, bore witness to his work. Memphis also, the FayClm, and other places were chosen to be adorned with statues and temples. And even if the last stones of these works were silent, the ancient quarries in the limestone- hill of Mokattam and in the valleys of the much- frequented Wady-Hammam&t would tell the tale.
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DTK. xn. THE STORY OF SINEH 57
Amen-em-hat followed the ancient custom of the Mem- phite kings, and built himself, for an ' eternal dwelling,' his own pyramid, with the name of Ka-nefer, * beautiful
^ni high,' -* ^ 1 ^- This Pharaoh also carefully pro- vided, during his lifetime, a stone sarcophagus as the receptacle for his body. The chief of the priests of the god Amsu, Antef, the son of Sebek-nekht, was sent to the mountain of Bohannu in the Wady-Hammam&t to cut the stone for the sarcophagus from the wall of rock, and to roll the precious burthen, so immensely great that * never the like had been provided since the time of the god Ka,' down the valley to the plain of Egypt.
Of the internal condition of the country we may leam something from the ' Story of Sineh.'
From some imknown cause he fled from the court, and endeavoured to escape from the land by the north- eastern frontier. Here he encountered diflBculties, first from the keepers of the roads, then from the foreign tribes settled on the frontier. Escaping the vigilance of the watchman on the * wall,' he reached the desert in safety ; and at length gained the little kingdom of Tennu, in the land of Edom, where he was invited to the court of Amen-usha, the king, who gave him his daughter in marriage and the fruitful district of ^a as his residence. Here he lived prosperously for many years, until at last, being seized with an intense desire to see his native land, he obtained permission to re- turn. Pharaoh received him cordially, loaded him with honours, and even had his grave erected for him.
Amen-em-hat reigned the last ten years of his life in common with his son, Usertsen, who was still a boy, and to whom his father addressed the instructions -already mentioned.
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58 USERTSEN I. CH. iv.
Kheper-ka-Ra. Usertsen I.
(^ (ins
Under his rule the land gradually became quiet, and order was completely re-established. Amen-em-hat I. had been obliged to pass through the revolted country with his soldiers, in order to meet and subdue his^ opponents. It was reserved for his son Usertsen I. to- win back men's minds by gaining first of all the favour of the priests, by buildings in honour of the national divinities, works whose ruins exist until the present day.
This king is first mentioned in the inscription on the obeUsk of Heliopolis in the immediate neighbour- hood of the village of Matarleh. The Egyptians gave the old town the name of Annu, ' obeUsks of the north.' Here there existed from the very earhest known times^ a temple of the Sun-god Tmu and his wife, to which the Pharaohs were wont to make pilgrimages, in order to fulfil certain sacred rites. The temple and town lay about 6 feet below the present level of the soil,, and nearly 11^ feet below that of the high Nile. The long earthen mounds of the circumvallation are now the only visible remains of the city of Heliopolis.
The temple at On already existed in the time of Usertsen, for it is often mentioned in inscriptions of the reigns of his royal ancestors.
The erection of the obelisks proves also that the building was finished as far as the entrance-towers,, before which it was the custom to raise these giant needles. But a remarkable docimient on parchment, now in the Berlin Museum, makes the fact certain,, that Usertsen I., at the very beginning of his reign,, occupied himself with buildings at the temple of the city of the Sun. This memorial informs us how, in^
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DTK. xn. THE OBELISK AT ON 59
the third year of his reign, he assembled the first officials of his court, to hear their opinion and their counsel as to his intention of raising worthy buildings to the Sun-god, and gave commands to the proper court official to watch over the un-interrupted progress of the work which he was determined upon, and then began the solemn ceremony of laying the foundation stone. The four ^ides of the great obelisk were deeply cut with beautiful hieroglyphs in the red granite, which run thus : —
The Horus of the San, | the life for those who are bom, | the king of the upper and lower country, | Kheper-ka-Ra, | the lord of the double crown, | the life for those who are bom, | the son of the Sun-god Ra, | Usertsen, | the friend of the spirits of On, | ever living, | the golden Horus, | the life for those who are bom, | the gracious God, | Kheper-ka-Ra, | has executed this work, | at the beginning of a thirty years' cycle, | he the dispenser of life for evermore.
Usertsen must have had a special predilection for this mode of perpetuating his name ; at least, remains which have been discovered in other parts attest his inclination for the erection of stone obelisks. In the ancient province of the lake of Moeris, near Begig, are the fragments of a similar memorial, which, according to the inscription, was executed by the king in honour of the local gods of the capital.
As his father Amen-em-hat had begun to lay the foundations of the later temple of Karnak, to the east of the granite building of the chief sanctuary, so his son Usertsen enlarged it, as a proof of his veneration for Amen. His care was not confined to the dwelling of the god only, but also to that of his chief servants. He dedicated to them a separate place, which bore the name of * the holy dwelling of the first seers of Amen.' Though no traces of this ancient building exist, the fact is proved by an inscription found at Thebes, which
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60 INSCRIPTION OF AMENI ch. iv.
relates to its restoration in the reign of Eamses IX., by Ainen-hotep, the first seer of Amen, who restored the great court and the dwelling of the first seers, defraying the cost himself.
As I found the holy dwelling of the first seers of Amen, who of old sat in the house of Amen, the king of the gods, hastening to decay — ^for what there was of it dated from the time of King Usertsen the First — I caused it to be built anew, in beautiful forms and tasteful work. I restored the thickness of the surround- ing wall from behind to the front part. I caused the buildings to be raised, and their columns to be set up of hard stone in tasteful work.
One of the celebrated rock-tombs has preserved some historical memorials of Usertsen I. It is the same tomb which always attracts the attention of the visitor by the new form of the pillar, by the design of the front, and by the peculiar richness of its pictures. Chiselled in the rocks was the sacrificial hall, dedicated to the service of the dead, who belonged to a noble family holding hereditary possession of the neighbouring district.
Here Ameni, the head of the family, relates the incidents of his life as follows : —
In the year 43, under the rule of King Usertsen I. — may he live long, even to all eternity ! — which (year) corresponds with the year 25 in the nome of Mah, where the hereditary lord Amen was governor. In the year 43, on the 14th day of the month Paophi.
Address to those who enjoy life, and to whom death is hateful. Let them recite the prayer of the offerings of the dead.
In favour of the hereditary govemor-in-chief of the nome of Mah (some other titles follow), the chief over the holy seers. Amen, who has conquered (i.e. death).
I accompanied my lord when he made an expedition to smite his enemies in the country of the Atu. I went up with him as the son of the most noble lord, who was captain of the warriors and governor of the nome of Mah, as substitute (f) for my father, who was old, and who had received his reward from the king's palace, for he was beloved at court. I entered the country of Cush (the
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DTK. xn. INSCRIPTION OF AMENI 61
land of the Negroes), ascending the river, and the way brought me to the uttermost boundary of the land. I convoyed the booty of my master, and my praise reached heaven when his Majesty re- turned home successful. He had smitten his enemies in the miser- able country of Cush. I returned home in his retinue, with a joyful countenance. Not one of my warriors was missing.
Again I went up (the river) to convoy the golden treasures to his Majesty King Usertsen — ^may he live long ! I went with the king's eldest son and heir to the throne, Ameni — ^life, strength, and health be to him ! I went up with the number of 400 chosen persons of my warriors. They returned home successful : no one was missing. I brought back the gold. That was the beginning of my distinctions on the part of the kings.
My father praised me. After that I again went up (the river) to convoy the treasures to the town of Coptos, in company with the hereditary lord and chief governor of the town, Usertsen — life, strength, and health be to him ! I went up with 400 men, chosen out of the strongest people of the nome of Mah. I arrived happily. My warriors will certify all that I have said.
I was a kind master, of a gentle character, a governor who loved his city. I passed many a year as governor in the nome of Mah. All the works for the palace of the king were placed in my hands. Also the chiefs of ... of the temples of the nome of Mah gave me thousands of cows with their calves. I received thanks for this on the part of the royal palace, because of the yearly supply of milch cows. I gave up all the produce to the palace, and I kept back nothing for myself out of all the workshops. No child of the poor did I afflict, no widow did I oppress, no landowner did I displace, no herdsman did I drive away, from no 'five-hand master' (small farmer) did I take away his men for (my own) works. No one was unhappy in my time ; no one was hungry in my days, not even in the years of famine, for I had tilled all the fields of the nome of Mah, up to its southern and northern frontiers. Thus I prolonged the life of its inhabitants, and preserved the food which it produced. Ko hungry man was in it. I distributed equally to the widow as to the married woman. I did not prefer the great to the humble in all that I gave away ; and when the inundations of the Nile were great, then the owner of the seed was master of his property ; nothing of the produce of the field was withdrawn from him by my hand.
The concluding words of this inscription have given rise to the idea that they contain an allusion to the so- journ of Joseph in Egypt and to the seven years of famine.
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62 MILITARY EXPEDITION AGAINST GUSH ch. iv.
But two reasons especially tell against this supposition. First, there is the difference in the time, which cannot be made to agree with the days of Joseph, and next the indisputable fact that in other inscriptions years of famine are mentioned which thoroughly correspond with the Biblical account. What the inscription of Ameni does really teach, from an historical point of view, is that a mihtary expedition up the river was directed against the black people of the land of Cush, who dwelt from the Egyptian frontier at Syene south- wards up to the sources of the Nile. The names of the races of the land of Cush conquered by the first Usertsen, or perhaps rather the names of the countries inhabited by them, are preserved on a memorial stone which was found in the neighbourhood of Wady-Halfah, a little above the Second Cataract. This was, without doubt, the last point to which Usertsen extended his campaign against the above-mentioned inhabitants of the negro-land.
Besides pushing southwards into the gold district of Nubia Usertsen also directed his attention to the caverns and mountains of the Sinaitic peninsula, the mines of which had already been worked under the Memphite kings. New settlers were sent to the lonely valleys of this district to work up 'mafkat' * (turquoises) and copper. Some inscriptions of the Egyptian work- men whom the king sent there still bear witness to their presence in the valley of Magharah.
The road from Egypt to Sinai led from the low lands of the Delta by the narrow road along which Sineh was obliged to pass in his flight from Egypt to Edom. Here, also, on the eastern side of the low lands,
> The green mineral termed * maf- raid ; the second, called • imitation,'
kat ' appears to have been of two is thought to have been either mala-
kinds : the first was marked * genuine/ chite or smalt, and was in all probability the erne-
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DTW. xn. TOMB OF MENTU-HOTEP 63
traces of Usertsen show themselves. In Tanis, *the great city' of the lower country, surrounded on all fiides by races of Semitic origin, the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty raised buildings and sculptures, that so their pillars might do honour even to the gods. The portrait of Usertsen himself has been found on several fragments of this perished world of temples.
Among the numerous nobles who once served the king was Mentu-hotep, whose tombstone, covered with inscriptions, is now at Gizeh. According to the custom of the time he is introduced as sometimes speaking himself, sometimes as spoken of: —
A man learned in the law, a legislator, one who apportioned the offices, who regulated the works of the nome, who restored order in the whole land, who carried out all the behests of the king, and who as judge gave decisions and restored to the owner his property. As chief architect of the king he promoted the worship of the gods, and instructed the inhabitants of the country according to the best of his knowledge, even as God has commanded to be done. He protected the unfortunate, and freed him who was in want of freedom.
Again : —
Peace was in the utterances of his mouth, and the written learning of the wise Tehuti was on his tongue. Very skilful in artistic work with his own hand, he carried out his designs as they ought to be done. Being the first in the country, the king's heart was full of him : also the great and distinguished men of the court gave him their love.— He knew what was hidden in the heart of
every man, and appreciated a man according to his true value.
He compelled the enemies of the king to submit to the court of justice of the thirty. He punished the foreigners, reduced the
Herusha to quiet, and made peace with the Negroes He was
governor in the cities of Ant and the lands of Tesherit. He gave his orders to the land of the South, and imposed the taxes on the North country.
In a word, Mentu-hotep, who was also invested with several priestly dignities, and was Pharaoh's treasurer, appears as the alter ego of the king.
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64 THE WELL AT ABYDOS ch. it.
When he arrived, the great personages bowed down before him at the outer door of the royal palace.
The panegyric, which occupies twenty-two lines, finishes with a remark relating to certain buildings. Those referred to are the temple of Osiris and the construction of a well at Abydos, both entrusted to him by the special order of the king. He says on this subject : —
I it was who carried out the work for the building of the temple . . . and made the well according to the order of the Majesty of the royal lord.
The well is probably the same about which the Greek geographer Strabo relates that in the Mem- nonium of Abydos there was a well, to the bottom of which was an arched passage constructed of single stones, admirable for size and workmanship. An over- seer of the temple of Abydos, by name Ameni-seneb, who lived in the days of the sovereign just mentioned, says : —
This prince gave me the order, saying thus : * Thou art com- missioned to cleanse the temple of Abydos. Workmen shall be given thee for this purpose, and temple-servants of the district of the holy workplace.' And I cleansed it from bottom to top, and its walls which surrounded the interior. And the writings were filled up with colours, emblems, and other ornamental work ; and thus what King Usertaen L had built was restored.
Long after, under Seti I., the temple, which had suffered much, was re-built.
Among the number of other servants of the king must be named Meri, the son of Menkhtu. From an inscription in the Louvre, dated the ninth year of the reign of Usertsen I., it seems clear that Meri received orders to construct for his royal master ' the subUme place of long duration,' or, in other words, the sepulchre on a grand scale, with columns, gates, and a great front
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DTK. xn. A MEN-EM-HAT H. 65
court, all executed in well-hewn limestone from the quarries of T<irah.
The inscription runs as follows : —
I was an intelligent servant, distinguished in my works, pleasant as a palm-tree. My lord entrusted to me a commission grandly conceived, to erect for him the lofty long-enduring place of his sepulchre. It was to tower up conspicuous on all sides from every place, corresponding to the excellency of the divine one (i.e. the king). Pillars were cut to support the roof ; a canal was dug, to let in the water of the river. The gates and all the Tekhenen (!) of the roof were of bright shining stone of Tiirah.
We must here leave King Usertsen I., and turn to his successor, whom the monuments call by the double name of
Nub-kau-Ea [ o /nwrv u u u Amen-em-hat n.
The second Amen-em-hat trod in the footsteps of his predecessors, extending the southern boundaries of the empire, and defending the inhabitants of the South against the incursions of the negroes, by building well- fortified places on that frontier. The possession of this region was of importance to the Egyptian sovereigns, because its mountains, besides many precious stones, yielded gold.
A stone memorial discovered in Abydos has pre- served to us some remarkable notices about the jour- neys which were undertaken to explore the conquered countries, and to urge on the obtaining of the precious metal. Among these is one in which Se-Hathor, a most distinguished oflScial of the court, relates that he ' opened a mine by the labour of the young men, and forced the old to wash the gold. I brought back the produce. I came as far as the further land (Nubia). The negro inhabitants came to me subdued by the fear with
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66 INSCRIPTION OF SE-HATHOR ch. it.
which the lord of the land inspired them. I entered the land of He-ha, visited its watering-places, and opened the harbours/
The land of He-ha lay above the Second Cataract. Se-Hathor seems to have been the first who explored the region. Afterwards, under the third Usertsen, an immense stone covered with inscriptions was erected at Semneh, which served as a mark of the Egyptian boundary for the inhabitants of the country of He-ha. The same Se-Hathor, who boasts *that he had been sent by his Majesty many times on missions of all kinds,' relates in another passage a service of a peculiar description : —
I was sent over to the building of (Eling) Amenu, whose pyramid is called Kherp — may he live for ever ! — ^to superintend the execution of the work upon fifteen statues of hard durable stone. (The restoration of) what had been thrown down in one day was completed in two months. Never was the like done since the rule of the sun-god Ra.
King Amenu, whose name and existence we learn only from this short inscription, appears nowhere else on the monuments. He must, at all events, have be- longed to the rulers immediately before the Twelfth Dynasty, and in all probabihty he was one of the an- cestors of the Pharaohs of that dynasty.
At Tanis, in Lower Egypt, there are also traces of the royal power of A men-em-hat ; for there was found, under the debris and ruins of the destroyed temples, the life-size statue, in black granite, of the wife of this king, who was called by the name of Nefert, which means either ' the good ' or * the beautiful.' The royal lady, with her hair dressed in the ancient fashion, is seated on a throne, on which her names and titles are engraved in full. In a memorial tablet at Glzeh
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DTK. xn. USERTSEN H. 67
this queen's name appears again in the following pedigree : —
Ameni = Hun(t) Queen Nefert = Amen-em-hat II. Fuau = Princess Hat-shepset
Daughters Sons
Net'es-ankh; Hat-shepset; Nebant Nub-em-ua
(and obliterated names)
After a reign of twenty-nine years the king asso- •ciated his son with himself. He bore the names of
KhA-KHEPER-Ra f o « I 1 USERTSEN 11.
CZi]
His history is found only in an isolated passage here and there aipon the monuments. We may con- •clude with certainty from the scattered notices, that under the rule of this second Usertsen the empire was at the height of its prosperity. Some lines which are -engraved on a rock at the town of Asw4n, and which date from the common reign of the two kings, father and son, bear witness that the sovereign's attention was constantly directed to the southern borderland <Nubia).
The first kings of the Twelfth Dynasty appear in their order in the inscription which adorns the lower Tx>rder of the hall of sacrifice over Khnum-hotep's rock- tomb at Beni-Hasan. In order to give a just repre- 43entation of the public hfe of those days, a hteral translation of the inscription is appended : —
(1) The hereditary lord and blood relation of the king who loves liis god, the governor (2) of the district of the East^ Khnum-hotep, son <A Nehara, who has overcome (death), (3) the son of the daughter of an hereditary lord, the lady Beket^ who has overcome death, (4) the same has executed this for his memorial.
His first virtue consisted in this : that he was a benefactor (5) to lus town, so that he won for his name lasting remembrance for long
f2
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68 INSCRIPTION OF KHNUM-HOTEP ch. iv.
long ages, (6) and that he through his good works immortalised it in his tomb (7) of the world below (i.e. the necropolis). He made the name of his people to flourish, (8) who always did good works according to their position. (9) For good men were the inhabitants of his (10) houses. He who distinguished himself among his (11) serfs ; to him stood open every position (12) and all honour (?), as is the custom.
(13) His mouth speaks thus : (14) His Majesty (15-16) Ahen-em-hat II. raised me to be (17) hereditary lord and governor of the countries of the East, (18) and to be chief priest of Horus and of the holy lioness Sekhet, and (19) the inheritance of my mother's Either in the city of (20) Menat-khufu. He (the king) fixed (21) for me the frontier-pillar in the South ; he set (22) up that of the North corresponding to the quarter of the heavens. (23) He assigned to me the great river in his territory, (24) as had been done to the father (25) of my mother, from the first.
(26) Now an order went forth from the mouth (27) of the king's Majesty (28) Sehotbp-ab-Ra (29) Ambn-em-hat (L). (30) He made him (the father of my mother) hereditary lord and governor (31) of the countries of the East, in the city of Menat-khufu. (32) He fixed the frontier pillar towards the South, and set up (33) the Northern corresponding to the quarter of the heavens. He caused him to distribute the great river (34) over his province. His eastern boundary (35) began from the nome of Tehuti-Horus, and extended to the east country.
(36) It was at that time when his Majesty returned, after he had suppressed (37) the insurrection, manifesting himself like the god Tmu (the evening sun) (38) himself. He restored that which he found (39) destroyed. Taking possession of one town (40) after another, he informed himself of a town and (41) its boundaries up to the next town, placing (42) their boundary pillars (43) accord- ing to the quarter of the heavens, taking cognisance of their waters (i.e. the canals, &c., for irrigation) (44) according to the written registers, estimating them by (45) their produce, according to the greatness (46) of his love of justice.
And after this he made him (47) hereditary lord and chief officer of the nome of Mah. (48) He fixed for him the frontier pillars. (49) His southern boundary was towards (50) the nome of Hermopolis, his northern towards the nome of Cynopolis. He dis- tributed for him (51) the great river over his province. (52) His water, his fields, and his groves, and (53) his uncultivated land extended to the districts of the West.
(54) He made his eldest son, Nekht, (55) who has overcome (death), the highly honoured, a governor (or prince : haq) : (56) his
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DTN. XII. INSCRIPTION OF KHNUM-HOTEP 69
inheritance was in the city of Menat-khufo, (57) as a sign of great Acknowledgment (58) of tiie royal favour.
A decree (59) went forth from the mouth of his Majesty (60) the king (61) Khepbr-ka-Ra Usebtsbn (I.) — (62) may his first-bom be noble ! (63) My mother entered upon (64) the d^;nity of an here- •ditary lady, and (65) as a daughter of a governor (or prince : haq) <66) of the nome of Mah, in the city'of Ha-Sehotep-ab-Ra (Amen- em-hat I.), (67) to become the wife (68) of the hereditary lord and governor (or prince : hciq) of the cities. (69) The heart of the king, the lord of Upper Egypt, rejoiced, and enchanted (?) was (70) the lord of Lower Egypt, when he united her to the prefect of the city, (71) Nehara the highly honoured.
(72) Eling Amen-em-hat (II.) established me (73) as the son of a ruler (ha) in the inheritance (74) of the government (or princi- pality, the dignity of a haq) of my mother's father, according to the greatness (75) of his love of justice. The god Tmu (76) he is him- self. And Amen-em-hat II. (77) made me (78) a ruler (ha) in his nineteenth year, in (79) the city of Menat-khufu. There I arranged (80) and established the abundance of necessaries (81) of all sorts of things, and made to flourish (82) the name of my father, and did good for the dwellings (83) of the revered ones (the dead) and their houses, and I caused sculptures (or images, Le. as memorials of them) to be carried (84) to the holy dwelling, and arranged for them (85) their oflerings of pure gifts, (86) and I instituted the officiating priest, and was liberal to him (87) in gifts of land and (88) peasants. I ordered '(89) the funeral offerings for all the feasts (90) of the world below, at the feast of the new year, at the beginning of the year, at the feast of the little year, (91) at the feast of the great year, at the feast of the end of the year, (92) at the great feast of joy (the pamsgyry)^ at the feast of the great heat (the summer solstice), (93) at the feast of the little heat (the winter solstice), at the feast of the five intercalary days (94) of the year, at the festival of Shetat, at the festival of the sand, (95) at the twelve monthly feasts, at the twelve half-monthly feasts, (96) at the feasts on the plain and on mountain. And shoidd (97) the priest or any other person (98) cease to do all this, may he perish, and may (99) his son not sit in his seat !
A close examination of the words gives occasion for some very interesting observations, which enable us to form just ideas as to the nature and method of the public administration of the country. The nobility was in possession of certain rights, either by birth or
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70 PRINOE-GOVERNORS OF NOMES ch. it.
by alliance with a daughter who was an heiress. These rights became valid through a royal decision; it was requisite that the king should issue his commands with regard to them. Above all, the position of the Haq, or prince-governors of the nomes, was of great importance, and requires to be accifrately understood in order to comprehend many events in the course of Egyptian history, which overthrew whole dynasties and inter- rupted the ordinary course of affairs and of the govern- ment of the country.
Another observation which forces itself upon the reader is the mode of fixing the boundaries of nomea at the time of the inundations, which acted as a check upon the inevitable disputes as to boundaries between neighbouring princes of nomes and governors of towns ; it facilitated the drawing up of the written registers^ which, 'in the name of Pharaoh,' contained an exact survey of the territories thus bounded, according to which the taxes were levied. Another observation of a more scientific nature concerns the festivals of the ancient Egyptian calendar. The learned men on the banks of the Nile occupied themselves in watching the courses of the stars and studying their complete cycles with the regularly recurring seasons. They had already firmly settled ideas of the various lengths thus assigned to the year.
In order the better to judge of this very interesting question, we give the translation of another calendrical inscription engraved in beautifully cut hieroglyphs over the entrance door of the mortuary chapel of Khnum- hotep at Beni-Hasan.
We have arranged in a tabular form the series of the so-called feasts of the dead mentioned therein, in order that they may be easily understood. The days of the months, added here and there, are taken from other
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DTK. xn. YEARLY CYCLE OF FEASTS OF THE DEAD 71
monuments, which thus more clearly determine the time of the several feasts.
A. FeaaUofihe Yea/r: —
1. Feast of the New year (vagne or civil year).
2. Feast of the Great Year (Gothic or fixed year).
3. Feast of the Little Year (lunar year).
B. FeasU of the Months .—
!• Feast of the great heat (at the beginning of Mekhir). 2. Feast of the little heat (at the beginning of Phame- noth).
C. FdMts of the Days : —
L The feasts on the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 15th, 17th»
29th, and 30th day of each month. 2. The five intercalary days of the year.
D. Special feasts : —
1. Feast of the rising of Sothis (Sirius).
2. Feast called Uak (the 17th to 18th of Tehuti).
3. Feast of Tehuti (the 19th of Tehuti).
4. Feast of navigation.
5. Feast of the commencement of the inundation.
6. Feast of the bark Tebet.
7. The great feast of joy (Panegyry).
8. The good feast on the mountain.
9. The feast called Asha.
A comparison of these feasts with the catalogue of holidays given in the long inscription just quoted enables us to perceive that the latter, although on the whole less complete, nevertheless contains three feasts more, namely, the feast of the beginning of the year, another feast at the end of the year, and the feast of Shetat.
The paintings with which the tomb of Khnum- hotep is covered are invaluable for teaching of the arts and trades, as well as of the domestic and public life of the Egyptians of this time. Among the countless representations with which the hall of sacrifice is adorned, attention is due to the scene of the entry of a strange race into Egypt. A family, belonging to the
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72 ARRIVAL OF AAMU VISITORS ch. iv.
people of the Aamu, had left their native land, in the days of Usertsen 11., and migrated to the banks of the Nile. The immigrants numbered thirty-seven persons, consisting of men, women, and children, who are repre- sented as coming to Khnum-hotep begging for a gracious reception and offering him a present of the eye paint called mesfem.
Standing in the place of honour, the prince appears at the head of the foreign race, the ' haq ' of the land of Abesha, who approaches respectfully and offers to Khnum-hotep a magnificent wild goat. Behind their chieftain appear bearded men, armed with spears, bows, and clubs, women in the bright-coloured dress of the Aamu, with their children, and asses laden with the goods and chattels of the immigrants, whilst a member of the little band calls forth with the plectrum har- monious tones from his antique lyre. The paint in question was an article much in request, as the Egyptians used it to blacken their eyebrows, &c.
Khnum-hotep's descendants appear to have received manyhonours,liis eldest son, Nekht, being made governor of the Cynopolitan nome, situated to the north of the nome of Mah, and also of the Southern land, which apparently embraced several nomes.
Kha-kau-Ea f o « u u u
Usertsen KL was a name
of high renown in the most glorious period of the Egyptian empire, for this king distinguished himself above all his predecessors by his power and wisdom. The Egyptians themselves believed that they honoured the great king Usertsen m. best by regarding him as a god, to whom they built temples and offered sacrifices.
His martial deeds began by expeditions directed against the inhabitants of the negro-land of Cush, in hopes of placing an insurmountable barrier in the way of their
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DTO. xn. USERTSEN III. 73
inroads. All his predecessors had extended their cam- paigns comparatively far southward, but the complete subjection of the people was far from being accom- plished. An inscription in the island of Elephantine names the precise time when 'the king took the field to smite the miserable land of Cush.' In the region beyond the Second Cataract Usertsen built sanc- tuaries and fortresses commanding both banks of the river ; the remains of which still exist in the strongholds of Semneh and Kftmmeh. Two pillars covered with long inscriptions served formeriy as boundary-marks between the Egyptian empire and the negro-land called He-ha. They were set up, on the territory of the above- named fortresses, by the order of Usertsen m.
The inscription on the older stone begins thus : —
Here is the southern frontier, which was fixed in the eighth year under the reign of King Usertsen III., the dispenser of life for ever, in order that it may not be permitted to any negro to cross it, with the exception of the ships which are laden with cattle, goats, and asses belonging to the negroes, and except the negroes who come to trade by barter in the land of Aken. To these, on the contrary, every &vour shall be allowed. But otherwise it shall not be permitted to any vessel of the negroes to touch at the land of He-ha on its voyage evermore !
The second inscription runs thus : —
Every one of my sons who maintains this boundary, which I have fixed, shall be called my son, who was bom of me. My son is like the protector of his father (i.e. Horus), like the preserver of the boundary of his father (i.e. Osiris). But if he abandons it, so that he does not fight upon it, he is not my son, he is not then bom • of me.
I have caused my own image to be set up on this boundary which I have fixed, not that ye may (only) worship it (the image) upon it (the boundary), but that ye may fight upon it.
Without doubt Aken is the old name of the country of Nubia, called by Phny Acina; for he mentions it •directly after the well-known hill-fortress of Primi
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74 AMEN-EM-HAT III. ch. iv.
(Qasr Ibrim), and gives it a distance of 310 Eoman. miles from Syene. The invasion and final conquest of the region was not effected without cruelty. Memorial tablets of victory of the sixteenth year of Usertsen m. give an idea of the way in which the war was carried on against the negroes. The king marched between the Nile and the Eed Sea, made the women captives,, seized the people who had gone to their wells, drove away the cattle, and set fire to the standing crops.
More than fifteen centuries after these events had taken place, Tehuti-mes m. erected on the spot, where his great predecessor had raised the fortress of Semneh, a temple which was consecrated to the memory of Usert- sen m., as well as to the newly-recognised divinity of the country, Totun, a special form of the ram-headed Khnem of Elephantine.
Altars were also dedicated to them, and sacrifices instituted, which were to be offered yearly on the great feasts by the priests of the temple of Semneh.
There are a great number of memorials and in- scriptions dedicated to the memory of King Usertsen m., which originate from officials who lived in his reign and were employed on the public works.
Ea-n-maat 1 ^. 1 Amen-em-hat m. are the
names of the succeeding king, whose remembrance has been preserved for more than twenty centuries by the fame of his works of peace, for he is the founder of the wonderful Lake Moeris and of the Labyrinth.
The prosperity of Egypt depended on the fertility of the soil produced by the regularly recurring inun- dations of the Nile. If these rise above the height which is necessary to convey sufficient water to the land, they destroy the hopes of the cultivator. If, on? the contrary, the rising water stops below the required
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DTN. m. THE LAKE MCERIS 75
height, sterility and famine are the natural conse- quence of the drought. In all ages, therefore, the care of the inhabitants was directed to the state of the Nile at the time of the inundation, in order that by dams, sluices, canals, and reservoirs they might divert the mass of water the moment it reached its due height. As in our day the rising of the Nile is tele- graphed from Khartum to Cairo, in order that prepara- tions may be made for the approaching inundation, so in the days of Amen-em-hat and his successors the southernmost point of the empire (Semneh) served as the point of observation. From this place the news was sent to the lower-lying district. On the rocks of Semneh and Kftmmeh the highest point of the in- undation was always noted for comparison, and the mark was accompanied by a corresponding inscription. Thus we read at one place on the rock : —
Height of the Nile in the year 14, under the reign of his Majesty King Amen-em-hat III., the ever-living.
From observations made by Lepsius on the spot, we gather that in the times of the Twelfth Dynasty, that is, forty-three centuries before our days, the highest rise was nearly twenty-seven feet above the greatest height of the inundation in these days ; and that the average height of the Nile, when Amen-em-hat m. was king, surpasses that of our times by about twelve feet.
The attention which this king so evidently devoted to the rise of the Nile is proved most clearly by his construction of the enormous basin excavated in the Fayftm for the reception and storage of the superfluous water of the inundation. This lake, which teems with fish, was protected on all sides by artificial dams, and communicated with the river by a canal ; while a system of locks allowed either the influx or the complete shut-
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76 THE LABYRINTH ch. iv.
ting off of the waters. The Greeks gave it the name of Moeris, because, as they report, this was the name of its constructor, an old Mng Moeris, which was a cor- ruption of the ancient Egyptian word mm, or meri'iier, meaning a * basin.' Moreover, the Arab-Coptic appel- lation of the district in which the artificial lake was situated — ^now called Fayiim — is easily explained by the older name P-ium, ' the lake country.'
At last the investigations of Linant-Bey have suc- ceeded in discovering unmistakable traces of Lake Moeris. He has proved that it lay in the south-eastern part of the Fayiim, where the depression of the ground and the ruins of ancient dikes mark its site.
The same king built, in the neighbourhood of the Lake Moeris, that Labyrinth so famed in antiquity as a splendid building, as well as the pyramid, his own monument, not far from this edifice. This wonderful structure, which is utterly ignored on the Egyptian monuments, consisted, according to Herodotus (ii. 148), of three thousand halls and chambers, half of which were above the ground and half below, with twelve covered courts, the entrances to which were opposite to each other. According to Strabo (xvi. 786, 810), the Labyrinth, like the great kingdom in little, was com- posed of as many palaces as there were nomes, namely, twenty-seven.
Fragments of stone, covered with traces of the names of Amen-em-hat HE. and his successor, Queen Sebek-neferu, near the pyramid of El-Lahftn, are all that remains of this once celebrated building. The Faytlm, which, in the times of the above-mentioned king, ac- quired, through the presence of Lake Moeris, a pecu- liar importance in a political point of view, has never- theless not had the fortune to be specially mentioned in the inscriptions on the monuments. The reason is
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DTN. m. DIFFERENT NAMES OF LAKE MCERIS 77
simply this, that the province and its inhabitants were detested as being hostile to Osiris, for in the FayAm Sebek and his sacred animal, the crocodile, were held in high honour, and the pious followers of Osiris re- cognised in both the mysterious emblem of the god Set ; thus is explained the reason why in the lists of the nomes the district of Fayftm was entirely struck out.
There is in the Glzeh Palace a papyrus repre- senting a plan of the Lake Moeris, together with the canal connecting it with the Nile. Eound the basin the draughtsman has tried to reproduce a number of towns and sanctuaries, accompanied by hieroglyphic explanations, which are of inestimable value for under- standing the plan, and for a knowledge of the various places and their worship. By the help of these notes we are at once enabled to ascertain the different names of the lake with all needful clearness. Sometimes it is called She, i.e. ' basin ' or ' lake ; ' sometimes She-uer, *the great lake basin,' or, Mi-uer, *the great lake.' From the most usual designation. She, the country was called Ta-She, ' the land of the lake,' of which the Arab-Coptic word Fayftm is an exact translation. Another appellation of the lake, including the canal, is Hunt, 'the water-dam' or 'weir.' The place at which the canal leading from the Nile entered the valley formed by the great mountain basin of the Fay ftm was called Ape-tash, ' the defile of the land of the lake.' Here was the ' opening (sluice) of the canal,' the La- Hunt, from which word certainly comes the modern name of the place, El-Lahfin, which lies near the spot in question. The same word is beyond all doubt hidden in the name of the Labyrinth, the Lape-ro-hunt, that is, ' the temple at the sluice of the canal.' On the western side of the canal lay the capital of the old * country of the lake,' in which the kings of the Twelfth
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78 DrFFERENT WORKS OF AMEN-EM-HAT HI. ch. iv.
Dynasty founded temples and raised obelisks to the crocodUe-lieaded Sebek and kindred deities. Situated in the neighbourhood of the present capital of the Fayftm, called Medinet-el-Fay<hn, the city bore in an- cient times the name of Shat (canal ?), or Pa-Sebek, i.e.
' the dweUing of Sebek/ " p J^!^^ • ; whence the
Greeks called it by the corresponding name of Croco- dilopolis, or ' the city of the crocodile.'
The large stones, which the architects required for the construction of the Labyrinth, and the other sanc- tuaries in the district of the Fayftm, came from a great distance. Eohan and the valley of Hammam^t yielded the most beautiful and durable blocks, as appears with all certainty from the inscriptions in the quarries there. Thus, in the second year of the reign of Amen-em-hat KL, an official of the same name was sent there for the purpose of quarrying stones for the construction of monuments in Crocodilopolis, among which is mentioned a statue of the Pharaoh, five cubits in height.
In the dreary mines and quarries of the peninsula of Sinai traces of the activity of this king's subjects are visible, and inscriptions dating from the 2nd to the 44th year of his reign bear witness to the long stay of workmen who were employed in working the mines of mafkat (emerald) and khemet (copper). The kings of the Twelfth Dynasty were specially zealous in their worship of Osiris and the maintenance of his temple at Abydos. To this new and most convincing testimony is borne by a monument discovered in 1875 in that necropolis. It is the tombstone of a certain Sehotep- ab-Ea, who was buried there, and who during his life, under the reigns of the kings Usertsen III. and Amen-em-hat lH., was charged with the care of the temple and the worship of the god ' Osiris in the west '
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DTW. xn. AMEN-EM-HAT IV. AND SEBEK-NEFERU-RA 79
-and of the jackal-headed guardian of the dead, Anpu. He also, it appears, received orders to arrange the service at the places of the secret mysteries in Abydos, to regulate the feasts of the gods, to superintend the priests, and as a skilful artist to build for Osiris the sacred barque {bari) and to cover it with ornamental painting.
Amen-em-hat IV. and the Queen Sebek-Nefebu-Ea conclude the Twelfth Dynasty.
The monuments throw no special light on the history of these two sovereigns. This princess, his sister, was an heiress-daughter, like Nit-aqert at the close of the Sixth and Nefert-ari at the close of the Seventeenth Dynasty. After their deaths the inheritance of the empire passed by marriage to a new family.
Before closing this very remarkable period of Egyptian history it is necessary to take a backward glance at the great events which so signally distinguished the Middle Empire.
Under the rulers of the Twelfth Dynasty the frontiers of Egypt were extended southwards to the Second Cataract. Above this the two fortresses of Semneh and Kftmmeh formed the frontier, towards the negro-lands of He-ha and Aken. The peninsula of Sinai was likewise subject to the Egyptian sceptre. Officials of the king, supported by an adequate military force, maintained the Pharaonic sovereignty in the mountains of the Mafkat country.
The Egyptians also kept up a very active commerce with the tribes of Libya on the West, and on the East with the inhabitants of Palestine and the adjoining countries. The immigration into Egypt of people from these neighbouring territories is proved by paint-
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80 EGYPT UNDER THE MIDDLE EMPIRE ch. iv.
ings and inscriptions in the sepulchral chambers of tlm time. The light-coloured Libyans descended into the Nile vaUey to entertain the play-loving populace with dances and warlike games ; the dark-coloured inhabitants of Cush served the great lords of the country as slaves ; and the Asiatics presented themselves at the eastern frontier to beg for admission in order to carry on trade on the banks of the Nile. The Egyptian empire appeared to the world of that time as the centre of civilisation, and of progress in the provinces of intellectual, artistic, and coDMuercial activity.
Intellectual life flourished at this period : schools were established aU over the country, and a high tone of thought prevailed in the temple colleges. The natural resources of the country were husbanded and agriculture was thus improved. The land was all divided up into districts separated by inscribed stones : and registers were kept at the royal palace giving statistics as to the area, boundaries, and water supply of each nome. Temples, pyramids, and rock-hewn tombs of this period abound ; and from the latter we learn much of contemporary domestic Ufe in the Nile valley. In the times which comprise the history of the Twelfth Dynasty the centre of gravity of the Egyptian state was situated in Middle Egypt. Two cities of that territory — Crocodilopolis, the city of Sebek, on the shores of Lake Moeris, and Heracleopolis ' the Great ' ( Akhnas) — ^rose rapidly to an importance the extent of which we can oidy judge of by the monuments. Art in its different branches reached a perfection which we cannot better describe than in the words of M. de Eoug^. ' That long succession of generations, the date of which we are no longer able precisely to determine, witnessed various and changing phases in the development of Egyptian art. Our museums contain examples sufficient in
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OTH. in. THE ADVANCED STATE OF ART 81
number and style to enable us to follow the principal variations. The origin of this art is unknown to us ; it begins with the monuments of the Fourth Dynasty, the first to which we can assign a certain ranky in a state decidedly advanced in many respects. Architecture already shows an inconceivable perfection with regard to the working and building up of blocks of great dimen- sions ; the passages in the interior of the Great Pyramid remain a model of exact " joiner's work " which has never been surpassed. We are obliged to guess at the exterior arrangement and ornamentation of the temples of this first period, and to restore them from the bas- reliefs of the tombs or the decoration of the sarcophagi. This style of architecture was simple, but in the highest degree noble ; the straight line and the play of outline in the outer surfaces formed the whole force of the decoration. One specimen of ornament alone gives a certain life to these arrangements; namely, two lotus leaves placed opposite to each other.
^The human form, alike in the statues and the sculptures in relief, is distinguished by somewhat broad and thick-set proportions ; it seems that in the course of centuries the race became thinner and more slender under the influence of the soil and climate. In the most ancient monuments, the imitation of nature was aimed at with greater simplicity, and with a truer regard to proportion: in the execution of the single parts, the muscles especially stand out more powerfully; and are strongly indicated. The human figures preserve this character till near the end of the Twelfth Dynasty ; from this time forward they become more slender and taUer.
' Architecture had already made a great step for- ward towards ornamentation. We find at this time the first columns which have been preserved in Egypt to
G
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82 THE SCULPTURE OF THE MIDDLE EMPIRE ch. iv.
our days ; thick, fluted, and with a simple abacus as capital, they resemble most strikingly the earliest Doric columns.
' The sculptures in relief, without a trace of per- spective in the composition, are in the Old Empire often of incredible delicacy. They were always painted over with colours. There are examples among them in which the freedom of the attitudes and the truth of the movements promise to Egyptian art a great future, very different from that which was reserved for it in later centuries. The statues of limestone were often entirely painted; the figures of granite were only touched with colour on many parts of the body, such as the eyes, the hair, or also the drapery. The master- piece of Egyptian art of the Old Empire is a colossal leg of black granite, in the Berlin Museum, which belonged to a [seated] statue of King Usertsen I., and was discovered in the ruins of the city of Tanis, in Lower Egypt. This fragment furnishes the most sufficient proof that the first Egyptian school was on a more promising track than that of the Second Empire.
' The engraving of the inscriptions on these first Egyptian monuments leaves nothing to be desired. It is generally executed in reUef up to the Fifth Dynasty. The characters cut in intaglio of the Twelfth have never been surpassed. The stone obelisks of Heliopolis and the Fayiim authorise us to suppose temples of a grandeur and magnificence in harmony with these fine remains of the Twelfth Dynasty. We know, in fact, that one of the wonders of the world, the Labyrinth of the Fayftm, was constructed by one of these kings.'
In the histories of art a depreciatory sentence is constantly pronounced on the artist of those old days, who, when viewed most favourably, is placed on the
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DTK. in. MARTISEN AND HIS SON— THE ARTISTS 83
same level with the mechanic. It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that such a judgment is founded on complete ignorance of the essence of Egyptian art, or on a superficial view of it, which is unworthy of judges of art. The art of Egypt is Art in the truest sense of the word, as the statues of Ra-hotep and Nefert, the Sheikh-el-Belled, and Khaf-Ea emphatically prove ; but this art was Egyptian^ and bound by a chain of traditions and theories from which the artists — though they may have rebelled against it — never freed them- selves. Attention has sometimes been called to the fact that history has not transmitted the name of any Egyptian master. This is not true, for the artist was the most honoured man in the kingdom. Martisen, who belonged to a family of artists and lived in the Eleventh D3masty, calls himself ' a master among those who understand art and a sculptor,' who * was a wise artist in his art.' He relates his acquirements in the making of works of sculpture in every attitude, accord- ing to the prescribed custom and measure ; and he mentions, as his particular invention, an etching in ■colours (if I have rightly understood the expression), •* which is neither consumed by fire nor washed ofi* by water ; ' and he adds the further explanation, that ' no man has arisen who has been able to do this, with the sole exception of himself and the eldest son of his race ' (Usertsen), *whom God's will has created;' but that * he has arisen able to do this, and the efforts of his hand have been admired in masterly works in all sorts of precious stones, from gold and silver to ivory and ebony.'
Martisen and his son Usertsen, beyond all doubt, opened the age when art was at its zenith under the kings of the Twelfth D3masty, whose love for it is fully attested by the monuments of their time.
e 2
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84
CHAPTER V.
DYNASTIES XIIL-XVIU
The Tablet of Abydos passes at once from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Dynasty, and places Amen-hotep, the first king, immediately after the princess Sebek-neferu-Ra. The traditions of the ancients concerning this obscure period lead but to confusion and error, and the Turin Papyrus, the only document which could serve as a guide, has such frightful gaps where the list of the Thirteenth Dynasty kings should be, that it is prac- tically useless. Fate has thus done its worst to place the greatest difficulties in the way of the solution of this question. All that scientific research has succeeded in attaining is the well-grounded belief that long after the conclusion of the Twelfth Dynasty native kings ruled with unlimited power in the land until princes of foreign origin, already settled in the eastern lowlands, gradually drove back the old race, so as to establish the right of conquest over the true heirs of the throne.
Before narrating the history of these foreign con- querors it will be advisable to give here the succession of the E^ptian dynasties, the number of their kings, and the time of their total duration, according to the Manethonian sources, and on the authority of the best and most recent researches.
Xlllth dynasty, of Thebes, 60 kings 453 years. XlVth „ of Xois, 76 „ 484 „ XVth „ Hyksos, 6 „ 260 „
XVIth „ Hyksos, ? „ 261 „
XVIIth „ of Thebes, t „ ? „
> For Table of Kings tee p. 87.
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DTK. xm. INTERNAL DISORGANISATION 85
Without stopping to examine and establish the numbers-— extant and miHRing — ^it may be confidently assumed that science can scarcely be mistaken in arranging the preceding lists and periods in the follow- ing order : —
Legitimate Kings; of Theban Race. Xlllth dynasty, 60 kings, 453 years. XVIIth „ 1 „ t „
Opposition Kings ; of X&is,
XlVth dynasty of Xolb, 76 kings, 484 years.
Foreign Conquerors.
XVth dynasty of flyksos, 6 kings, 260 years. XVIth „ „ ? „ 251 „
A glance at the mutilated fragments of the Turin Papyrus will establish the fact that the last five columns were devoted to the kings who belonged to the fore- going dynasties of Manetho. Their total number in the Papyrus may be estimated at about 150 names, and the numbers which have been preserved here and there, as giving the length of reigns of single kings, seldom exceed three or four years. From this it appears pro- bable that the history of Egypt at this period con- sisted chiefly of revolts and assassinations, in conse- quence of which the lengths of the kings' reigns were not governed by the ordinary conditions of the duration of human existence. These were the times concerning which Eamses HE, remarks in the ' Harris Papyrus,' in the British Museum, that * the land of Kamit was in the hands of the princes of the cities of the foreigners, of whom the one neighbour killed the other neigh- bour.'
The kings who immediately followed the Pharaohs of the Twelfth Dynasty were in full possession of Upper and Lower Egypt. For a long time the opinion was prevalent, that the Thirteenth Dynasty marked the
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86 DYNASTIES Xn. AND XIH. ch. v..
exact epoch of the invasion of the foreigners, so that these latter must have abready gained a firm footing in Lower Egypt on the east. In opposition to this, how- ever, is the fact that several kings of the Thirteenth Dynasty enjoyed in the Delta perfect leisure and quiet to erect monuments, the remains of which have been preserved to the present time, and whose size and style do not point to their having been hastily constructed. Among these may be mentioned the wonderful stones and statues at Tanis (Zoan), in the neighbourhood of the territory on which, towards the end of the Thir- teenth Dynasty, the Hyksos kings pitched their camps. In the extracts from Manetho the names of the kings of the Thirteenth Dynasty are passed over in silence. The Turin Papyrus is, therefore, the only source from which the void can be supplied, and fortunately the extant fragments are just sufficient to establish some of the most important names.
True to ancient custom, nearly all the royal persons are distinguished by means of the official name only. The family names are, however, supplied in the case of no small number of the princes of this dynasty by the contemporary monuments, which bear double car- touches and show that the greater number of these
kings bore the name of Sebek-hotep, ^™^ -^- .
Notwithstanding the Theban origin of this race the seven Sebek-hoteps (servants of Sebek) held in special veneration the crocodile-headed god, to whom the kings of the preceding dynasty had raised monu- ments in the Fayftm and in the neighbourhood of Lake Moeris. An intimate connection must therefore be supposed between the Twelfth and Thirteenth Dynas- ties, and it is probable that Sebek-neferu-Ra, the heiress of the Twelfth Dynasty, transmitted the special wor-
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DTW. xin. LIST OF THE KINGS 87
ship of that deity to her son — for as such we must re-
, * the protecting son
cognise Ea-khu-taui, ( o a^^
rN
of the double land/ whom the Turin Papyrus places at the head of the Thirteenth Dynasty. The name Sebek- hotep constantly appears until the commencement of the Eighteenth Dynasty.
The following Table of the kings who succeeded Sebek-hotep I. is drawn up from the extant fragment of the Turin Papyrus. These Pharaohs belong to the Thirteenth Dynasty, which, according to Manetho, was composed of sixty names. It is possible that he made a selection from about 140 kings, who, at any rate, are certified on the authority of the Papyrus.
I%e Thirteenth Dyiiasty^ according to the Tv/rin Papyrus.
1. Ra-khu-taui (Sebek-hotep I.).
2. Sekhem-ka-Ra.
3. Ra-Amen-em-hat I.
4. Sehotep-ab-Ra I.
5. Aufni.
6. Sankh-ab-Ba.
7. Smen-ka-Ba.
8. Sehotep-ab-Ra 11. 9 ka-Ra,
10. (one or two names which have been destroyed.)
11. Net'em-ab-Ra,
12. Ra-Sebek-hotep II.
13. Ran-[sen]-eb.
14. Autu-ab-Ra I.
15. Setef . . . . Ra.
16. Ra-Sekhem-khu-taui (Sebek-hotep III.).
17. Ra-user
18. Smenkh-ka-Ra Mermesha. 19 ka-Ra,
20. user-ser.
21. Ra-Sekhem(sattaai) Sebek-hotep lY.
22. Kha-seshesh-Ra Nefer-hotep, son of a certain Ha-ankhf.
23. Ra-se-Hathor.
24. KJia-nefer-Ra Sebek-hotep V.
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S8
LIST OF THE KINGS
CH. ?.
25. (Kha-ka-Ra )).
26. Kha-ankh-Ra (Sebek-hotep VI.).
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27. Kha-hotep-Ra (Sebek-hotep VII.^ |
) . 4 y. 8 m. |
29 d. |
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28. Uah-ab-Ra Aaah . |
. 10 y. 8 m. |
18 d. |
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29. Mer-nefer-Ra Ai . . . |
. 13 y. 8 m. |
18 d. |
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30. Mer-hotep-Ra .... |
. 2 y. 2 m. |
9d. |
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31. Sankh-nefer-Ra Utu . |
. 3 y 2. m. |
Id. |
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32. Mer-sekhem-Ra Anran |
. 3 y. 1 m. |
Id. |
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33. Tat-kher-Ra u-Ra . |
. 5 y. ? m. |
8d. |
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34. Anemem ro. |
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35-43. (9 or 10 names destroyed.) |
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44. Mer-kheper-Ra. |
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45. Mer-ka(Ra). |
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46-50. (destroyed.) |
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51 mes. |
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52. Ra maat Aba. |
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53 RaUben I. |
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54-57. (destroyed.) |
||
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58. Nahasi-(Ra) .... |
. Oy. ?m. |
3d. |
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59. Kha-khera-Ra .... |
. ? y. 1m. |
3d. |
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60. Nebef-autu-Ra .... |
. 2 y. 5 m. |
15 d. |
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61. Seheb-Ra |
. 3y. ?m. |
Id. |
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62. Mer-tefa-Ra .... |
. 3y. 1m. |
Id. |
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63. Tat-ka-Ra |
1 y. 1 m. |
Id. |
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64. Neb-tefa-Ra .... |
. 1 y. ? m. |
Id. |
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65. Ra-Uben II |
. Oy. 1m. |
Id. |
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66, 67. (two names destroyed.) |
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68 te£a-Ra. |
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69 Ra-Uben (III.). |
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70. Autu-ab-Ra II. |
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71. Her-ab-Ra. |
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72. ^ib'Sen-Ra. |
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73-76. (names destroyed.) |
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77. Sekheper-en-Ra. |
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78. Tat-kheru-Ra. |
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79. Sankh.(ka)-Ra. |
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80. Nefertum Ra. |
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81. Sekem Ra. |
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82. Ka Ra. |
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83. Nefer^ab-Ra. |
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84. Ra |
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85. Ra-kha. |
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86. Nut-ka-Ra. |
||
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S7. Smen |
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DTK. XIII. SEBEK-HOTEP VI. 89
Unfortunately almost all the names are in such a mutilated condition that they do not admit of transcrip- tion, and still less of any proper comparison with those on other monuments. One peculiarity may be men- tioned, which is that they sometimes begin with Sekhem, ^md sometimes with User. To the names which manifestly belong to a destroyed part of the foregoing table must be added another, Sebek-hotep VI., Kha-
ankb-Ka, { o « 2 , and who is inserted in his proper
place by the help of the Tablet from the Hall of Ancestors.
The most important monuments of the Thirteenth Dynasty in sequence of time are, first, the accom- panying Genealogical Table, compiled from a number of inscriptions, and containing family records which will give an idea of the descent of certain kings from persons not of Pharaonic birth, and of their entrance into the royal circle by marriage with the princesses. The Queen Nub-khas, in the fourth generation in the Table on the next page, furnishes a good example.
Among the records of individual sovereigns of this period are two inscriptions at the two extreme limits of the Nubian country — in the one case on the rocky islands at the First Cataract in the neighbourhood of Philae ; in the other at Semneh and Kfimmeh, above the Second Cataract. At the latter place, Sebek- hotep in., following the example of his predecessors, engraved a record of the highest point to which the inundation of the Nile reached in his day. It reads simply : —
Height of the Nile in the third year | under the reign of Eling ^bek-hotep III. | the ever-living.
Ean-seneb, a distinguished courtier and commandant of the fortress of Sekhem-kha-kau-Ka, founded by
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DTK. xni. THE SEBEK-HOTEPS 91
Usertsen m., governed in those days the southern portion of the newly conquered country, and thus possessed the right to place his name by the side of his royal master's*
The eighteenth king, Smenkh-ka-Ea, with the family name of Mer-mesha (leader of armies), claims special attention, because Mariette discovered at Tanis two wonderfully perfect colossal statues of this king, on both of which his names were clearly legible. They were originally erected in the great temple of Ptah at Tanis. The Hyksos prince Apepi, as weU as Kamses 11., about 400 years later, immortalised them- selves by cutting their own names on this monument.
Sebek-hotep IV., the son of Mentu-hotep,^ must have been in possession of the lowlands of the Nile valley, for his statues in granite are found at Tanis, which proves that neither this city nor the country adjacent to it on the east was occupied by enemies. The same fact is made clear from the discovery at Bubastis of a statue of Sebek-hotep V., whose memory was also preserved beyond the boundary of Semneh and Klimmeh by another statue on the island of Argo. The power of the kkigs of the Thirteenth Dynasty was therefore neither reduced in the south nor in the north of the empire.
Eecords of the times of the same kings have been unmistakably preserved in the heart of Egypt itself. Thebes, Abydos, and the rocky vaUey of Hammam&t are rich in proofs of the undiminished power of the empire, and the museums of Europe contain many monuments of this dynasty, notably the memorial- stone at Leyden, which Sebek-hotep VI. dedicated to Hor-Amsu-nekht, the god of Panopolis. The group of kings beginning with Sebek-hotep HI. and finishmg
1 See Genealogical Table, p. 90.
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92 LIST OF DYNASTY XIH. AT KAENAK ch. v.
with Sebek-hotep Vii. axe connected with the most distinguished families of the country, and form a sepa- rate series of Thirteenth Dynasty sovereigns. As proof of this may be cited the much-discussed but little understood representation in the Hall of Ancestors. As is well known, this relates to a selection of kings who received a place in a chamber devoted to them by Tehuti-mes ITE. The right side of the hall shows the portraits and names of the Theban princes of the Thirteenth Dynasty, but only in a selection the mean- ing of which is at once evident.
Table of the Chamber <U Kamak compared ivith the Papynts of Turin.
1. . . . ka.
2. Sut-en-Ra.
3. Sankh-ab-Ra . . .No. 6. Sankh-ab-Ra.
4. Ra-Sekhem-khu-taui . „ 16. Sebek-hotep III.
5. Ra-Sekhem-tat-taui . . „ 21. Sebek-hotep IV.
6. Elha-seshesh-Ra . . ^, 22. Nefer-hotep.
7. Kha-nefer-Ra . . . „ 24. Sebek-hotep V.
8. Kha-ka-Ra . . . „ 25. (destroyed.)
9. Kha-ankh-Ra (Sebek- „ 26. (destroyed, Sebek-hotep VI.)
hotepVI.) 10. Kha-hotep-Ra . . . „ 27. Sebek-hotep VII.
For it appears to contain only the names of those kings whose importance is confirmed by contemporary inscriptions, while the rest of the names mentioned in the Turin Papyrus are passed over in silence.
Among these princes is Ka-meri-Ea, [ o u ^^ ^^
J\
9
known to us from the wall of the rock-hewn tomb of T'efab the son of Kheti, in the mountain behind Assiftt. T'efab, according to his own account, was the governor of the south country. Although the hieroglyphs are much destroyed it seems certain that the owner of the tomb had been commissioned by his royal master to execute certain works for the enlarge-
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DTK. xm. THE ROCK TOMBS AT SltlfT 93
ment and restoration of the temple of Anpu, the tutelary deity of the city just named. There are also indications which lead us to infer warlike events in Upper Egypt. The tombs at Assifit (Lycopolis) all point to a common origin — the times of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Dynasties. The most valuable histo- rically is that of T'efaa-hep, commonly called the ' Stabl Antar/ who was high priest of Anpu and filled a number of other offices at the royal court.
The interior wall, facing the entrance of the sepul- chral hall, contains a long and fairly well preserved inscription. After the deceased has set forth his various titles and offices, and has extolled the way in which he fulfilled his duties towards gods and men, he calls upon the future priestly guardian of his grave to care for him (the deceased), as he in his lifetime had cared for the deities in Sifit — ^Lycopolis. He also takes this occasion for fixing the kind and number of the sacrifices, mentioning the feast-days on which they are to be offered, and gives evidence, for the first time in an Egyptian inscription, that the inhabitants of the Nile valley were accustomed to dedicate the first-fruits of their harvest to the deity. The feasts named in this inscription took place at the end and at the beginning of the year. The in- scriptions which adorn the walls of the rock-chambers of these tombs, as well as those of El-Kab (the ancient Eileithyiapolis), all point to their belonging to the Thirteenth Dynasty. Quite apart from identity in style and from the presence of the cartouche of
( TnTiSirN
which was found in
Sebek-hotep IV., (o fpj^
one of the tombs of this place, whose