The Pyramid Builders—_Continued_.
The warlike expeditions described by Una, the Governor of the South,
form the exception rather than the rule in this early history. Fearing
no rivals at home, and almost entirely free from enemies abroad, these
powerful monarchs devoted their thoughts and care to the building of
temples and of those gigantic funeral piles that have immortalised
their names.
It is certain that the pyramids could not have been erected without a
very considerable amount of scientific knowledge, whilst as records
of engineering skill they are simply marvellous. Immense blocks were
brought from a distance of 500 miles up the river, were polished like
glass, and fitted into their places with such exactness that the
joints could hardly be detected. ‘Nothing can be more wonderful,’ says
Fergusson, ‘than the extraordinary amount of knowledge and perfect
precision of execution displayed in the construction of the interior
chambers and galleries; nothing more perfect mechanically has ever been
executed since.’
A curious calculation has been made that the stone used in the
construction of Khufu’s pyramid would make a wall of six feet high and
half a yard broad, that would reach across the Atlantic from Liverpool
to Newfoundland.
In the tombs which cluster round the royal pyramids have been
discovered records and relics of deeper and more human interest than
the pyramids themselves. At Meidoom were buried the great men of
Senefru’s time. Their tombs were formed of immense blocks of stone,
and have been long hidden from sight by the accumulation of soil above
them. The entrance passages are covered with figures and inscriptions.
The figures are wrought in a kind of mosaic work. Little square
holes were made, and filled with hard cement of various colours. The
brightness of the tints is wonderful, as if they had been laid on
yesterday; and in some places there can be discerned upon the sand,
marks of the footprints left there by the bearers of the coffin.
[Illustration: Netting Birds.]
Here we seem brought face to face with a very remote past. All is so
strangely distant and unlike, but at the same time all is strangely
near and like ourselves and our own life to-day. Here, _e.g._, is the
entrance-passage to the tomb of Nefer-mat, a high officer of state and
‘friend of the king,’ who married Atet, a royal princess. On one side
of the passage we see Nefer-mat, with his wife clinging to his arm; on
the other he is represented with his little son at his feet. In front
of us the husband and wife are again delineated; her long hair falls
loosely over her shoulders, and she places her hand upon her heart in
token of devoted affection.
Atet appears to have survived her husband, and her own tomb is close at
hand. Amongst the scenes depicted there is one in which Nefer-mat is
employed in netting fowl; the wife is seated near, watching the sport,
and servants are bringing her the game. The hieroglyphic inscription
says: ‘Princess Atet receives with pleasure the game caught by the
chief noble, Nefer-mat.’
In another of these tombs were discovered the wonderful statues of
Ra-hotep and his beautiful wife Nefert, which are now in the museum
at Boulak. Ra-hotep was a prince, very likely a son of Senefru, who
died young; he was a captain in the army, and chief priest of Ra, at
On. These, the most ancient known statues in the world, are ‘marvels
of life-like reality.’ The Egyptians always excelled in portrait
sculpture; the figures may be stiff and ill-drawn, but the faces are
beyond doubt truthful and characteristic likenesses. Men of learning
were held in honour at the court of these early Pharaohs, as well as
architects and sculptors. But the literature of those days may be said
to have perished. Portions of it, enshrined in the sacred writings,
have survived, and there is, besides, one venerable manuscript of the
time of the fifth dynasty, which has come down to us. It is called
the _Maxims of Ptah-hotep_ and is the oldest manuscript known. The
writer was a prince by birth, and a governor; he lived to be more than
a hundred years old, and after a long and varied experience of life,
when the infirmities of old age had come upon him, he recorded, for
the use and benefit of all, the teaching of that serene and simple
wisdom which is never new and never old—such as the following:—
‘A good son is the gift of God.’
‘If thou art a wise man, bring up thy son in the love
of God.’
‘If any one bears himself proudly, he will be humbled
by God, who gave his strength.’
‘If thou hast become great after having been lowly,
and art the first in thy town; if thou art known for
thy wealth, and art become a great lord—let not thy
heart grow proud because of thy riches, for it is
God who was the author of them for thee. Despise not
another who may be as thou once wast; be towards him as
towards thine equal.’
‘With the courage that knowledge gives, discuss with
the ignorant as with the learned. Good words shine more
than the emerald, which the hand of the slave finds on
the pebbles.’
‘He who obeys not does really nothing; he sees
knowledge in ignorance, virtue in vices; he commits
daily and boldly all sort of crimes, and lives as if he
was dead. What others know to be death, is his daily
life.’
‘God lives through all that is good and pure.’
And he concludes:—
‘Thus shalt thou obtain health of body and the favour
of the king, and pass the years of thy life without
falsehood. I am become one of the ancients of the
earth. I have passed 110 years of life—fulfilling my
duty to the king, and I have continued to stand in his
favour.’
The venerable Ptah-hotep was buried in one of the tombs that are
grouped around the ancient pyramid of Sakkara. Near his burial-place
is the vast tomb of Thi, on which is recorded, in sculptured story,
the course of his daily life. Of his own birth and parentage nothing
is said, but he so distinguished himself that the king gave him
his daughter in marriage. Thi was royal scribe, president of royal
writings, and conductor of the king’s works. His tomb must indeed have
been the work of a lifetime. We see him there, amidst the scenes of
rural life, watching over the ingathering of the harvest, or fowling
in the marshes; one while he is listening to the strains of music,
another time he is steering his little vessel on the broad waters
of the Nile. Servant girls are carrying on their heads and in their
hands, in baskets or in jars, the produce of his estates—wine, bread,
geese, pigeons, fruit, and flowers. Above is depicted a humorous scene,
such as Egyptian artists delighted in. A number of donkeys pass in
file, their saddle-cloths are ornamented with fringes, and they are
laden with panniers of grain. Men walk by the side to steady the heavy
loads. One load, however, has shifted from its place, and two men are
trying to put it back; the animal is restive, and one man has hold of
him by the tail while another has grasped his nose. The donkey coming
immediately behind has seized the opportunity of the halt to give the
man in front of him a poke with his nose. Each driver is armed with a
stout stick, and one of them is just raising his against the unruly
animal. It is evident that donkeys were considered troublesome and
obstinate some four or five thousand years ago, that their humours
amused the Egyptian artists, and that donkey drivers then, as now, were
ready to use their sticks.
In another drawing Thi is seen in a boat made of reeds, superintending
a hippopotamus hunt. One of his men has succeeded in getting a rope
round the neck of one savage-looking beast, and is preparing to
despatch him with a long club. The river is full of fish, and one of
the hippopotami has just seized a little crocodile between his enormous
jaws. In another picture a crocodile hunt is represented, whilst in one
drawing we see an angler who is evidently out for a day’s sport in one
of the small reed boats. He is in the act of drawing a fish out of the
water, and by his side he has loaves of bread, a cup, and a bottle.
Nowhere is depicted a scene of battle or warlike display, everything
speaks of rural and domestic life.
But we do not see the great men of Pharaoh’s court only in the scenes
and amusements of life. Funeral rites are also represented. The body
is seen embalmed and carried to its last resting-place; funeral gifts
are offered in rich abundance. No obligation was more sacred than that
of bringing funeral oblations and offering prayer for the departed
parent or friend. Inscriptions over the tombs called even on the
passer-by to stay a while and offer up the customary invocation. The
form of this invocation varied from age to age, but the main burden
of its petitions was that Osiris would ‘grant the funeral oblations
of all good things; that the departed one might not be repulsed at
the entrance of the unseen world, but might be glorified amongst the
blessed ones in presence of the Good Being, that he (or she) might
breathe the delicious breezes of the north wind, and drink from the
depth of the river.’
It was customary to build a chamber at the entrance to the tomb, in
which the family and friends of the departed assembled from time to
time to offer oblations and prayers, and to realise the actual presence
of those who were gone. The walls of these rooms were covered with
pictured and sculptured scenes taken from the varied scenes of daily
life. They were adorned ‘as for a home of pleasure and joy’—no thought
of gloom is even suggested.
The names given to the pyramids by their royal builders are very
striking in this respect. Amongst them we find the ‘Abode of Life,’ the
‘Refreshing Place,’ the ‘Good Rising,’ the ‘Most Holy,’ ‘Most Lovely,’
or ‘Most Abiding Place,’ the ‘Rising of the Soul.’
The earliest of the pyramids were unsculptured and unadorned within,
so there was attached to each of them a small sanctuary or memorial
chapel; the office of ‘priest of the royal pyramid’ being held in high
estimation and conferred on the most illustrious men of the day.
During their lifetime the Pharaohs were regarded by their people as
representatives of the gods, or even as emanations from the Divine
Being. After their death their memory was preserved and sacred rites
were performed by the priests attached to their respective pyramids.
Down to the latest days of the Empire, and even in the reign of the
Ptolemies (three or four thousand years after they had been laid to
rest ‘each within his own house’), priests were still officiating in
memory of Khufu, Khafra, or Senefru—the far-famed pyramid builders.
For whilst the names of some amongst the later Pharaohs are emblazoned
on the page of history as conquerors of high renown, who founded an
Egyptian empire and gathered in rich and varied tribute from many
subject races—those ancient monarchs are known and will ever be
remembered as the kings ‘who built the pyramids.’