Successors of Amenemhat I.—Two Provinces added to Egypt.
The stone for the sarcophagus of King Amenemhat I. was hewn in the
valley of Hammamat, and he was laid to rest in his pyramid called
_Kha-nefer_, the ‘Beautiful Rising,’ leaving behind him an honoured
name and an inheritance of peaceful days. Usertesen I., his son and
successor, reigned in profound tranquillity, and turned his attention
to the temples of the gods, which were neglected and falling into
decay. They were, he said, the only monuments that could truly confer
immortality on a king. First of all, he called together an assembly of
the chief men of the land in that ancient home of Egyptian wisdom and
learning, the City of the Sun, to consult about a temple that should
be raised, ‘worthy of the name of Ra.’ Usertesen himself laid the
foundation-stone, and gave the directions for the carrying out of the
work. The ruins of both temple and city are now buried deep beneath the
soil, but of the two stately obelisks of rose-coloured granite, which
stood at the gateway of the temple, one is still standing in solitary
grandeur amid the quiet fields; the hieroglyphs upon its surface
still record that ‘the Ruler of the North and South, Lord of the Two
Countries, Son of the Sun, Usertesen—beloved of the Gods of On, living
for ever, the good god,’ executed this work.
At the ancient sanctuary of Abydos a temple was erected to Osiris,
and Memphis was not overlooked. But whilst duly careful for those
time-honoured sanctuaries, Usertesen did not neglect the new southern
capital, and he carried on the construction of the great temple of
Amen, which his father Amenemhat had begun.
The frontiers were vigilantly guarded, and now that quiet times had
come back the mines in the Sinaitic peninsula were re-opened and
worked. A thousand years had passed since they were first explored
at the command of Senefru, and his name had become venerable in its
antiquity throughout that region, where he was worshipped as a guardian
deity, together with the goddess Hathor, protectress of the district.
One warlike expedition was undertaken during this reign, for the
purpose of fixing the boundary to the south and of bringing back gold
from Nubia. The command was intrusted to one Ameni, who has left a
brief record of the expedition. The king’s eldest son accompanied
him, and his success was certainly remarkable, if his statement is
true, that of the 400 men he took with him not one was missing when
he returned with the golden spoil. This Ameni was the head of that
illustrious family, whose tombs at Beni-Hassan have proved such an
invaluable storehouse for the investigator. They were hereditary
governors of the district, or nome, and their power was very great.
Under the firm controlling hand of the sovereigns of this great
dynasty, the power and ambition of the prince-governors, which had
once split up and half ruined Egypt, were turned into nobler channels,
and sought after more peaceful honours. The _Maxims of Amenemhat I._
seem to awaken a response and to find an echo in the memorials left
by some of the powerful governors, who were now serving loyally under
the crown. Ameni, who gives an account of his warlike doings in the
south, also tells us that he was a ‘kind master and gentle of heart, a
governor who loved his city.’ He ruled for many years in his district
of Mah, and he says: ‘I kept back nothing for myself; no little child
was vexed through me; no widow was afflicted. I never interfered with
the fisherman or troubled the shepherd. There was neither famine nor
hunger in my days. I diligently cultivated every field in my district,
from the north to the south, to its utmost extent, so that there was
food enough for all. I gave to the widow as to the married woman, and I
never showed favour to the great above the lowly.’
King and noble may alike have fallen short of their ideal, but at any
rate their standard was high, and their words recall those of the
departed spirit, who had to declare before Osiris in the judgment-hall
of Truth—‘I have not oppressed the miserable; I have not imposed
work beyond his power on any officer; I have allowed no master to
maltreat his slave; I have caused none to weep or to perish with
hunger. I have neither blasphemed the king nor my father, nor have I
mocked or despised God in my heart. I have given bread to the hungry,
water to him that was athirst, clothes to the naked, and shelter to
the wanderer.’ There is a beautiful eulogy somewhere recorded on an
Egyptian tomb—‘His love was the food of the poor, the blessing of the
weak, the riches of him who had nothing.’
Egypt was probably never more prosperous, nor her people happier, than
during the centuries in which the Amenemhats and Usertesens ruled
the land. The only reign in which serious warfare occurred was that
of Usertesen III. He determined to acquire for Egypt the disputed
territory in the south—_Ta-Khent_ (Nubia)—and, with it, its golden
treasures. But he did not succeed in finally conquering and driving
back the dark-hued tribes until after a very fierce and protracted
struggle. He erected fortresses on the southern frontier, and an
inscription on the rock proclaimed: ‘This is the southern boundary,
fixed in the eighth year of King Usertesen III. No negro shall be
permitted to pass it except for the purpose of bringing vessels
laden with their asses, camels, and goats, or of trading by barter
in Ta-Khent. To such negroes, on the contrary, every favour shall be
shown.’
[Illustration: Vincent Brooks-Day & Son, Lith.
BOATMEN AND CATTLE DRIVERS.]
If Usertesen III. secured one new province for Egypt by the ruthless
force of war, his successor, Amenemhat III., won another by gentler
means.
Egypt is, no doubt, what Herodotus called it, the ‘gift’ of the Nile.
But for the Nile the burning wastes of Sahara would stretch eastwards
without interruption to the Red Sea. By means of the great river and
its yearly inundation, the long narrow valley between the Libyan and
the Arabian mountains is watered and richly fertilised for the space of
several miles; where the inundation ceases the desert sand begins. This
long strip of fertile country, together with the Delta into which it
expands, constituted Egypt;[24] _Khemi_ (the black country), its people
called it from the dark colour of its rich soil, which rewarded the
husbandman’s toil with two or three crops a year—crops of a luxuriance
difficult for us to realise. The name of Egypt was a synonym for rich
fertility: ‘Well watered everywhere,’ we read in Genesis, ‘like the
garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt.’
In the days when the twelfth dynasty ruled, _i.e._ probably more than
2000 B.C., the average rise of the Nile was more than twenty feet
higher than it is at the present day. At the point where Usertesen
III. had erected his frontier fortress, the height attained by the
river during many successive inundations is recorded. His successor,
Amenemhat III., not only carefully noted the annual rise, but turned
his attention to the great work of controlling the overflow, for the
country was liable to suffer severely in case either of an excess or a
deficiency.
Westward from the Nile, behind the Libyan hills, lies the valley of
Fayoum, about 60 miles distant from Cairo. There the king ordered the
excavation of that immense basin or artificial sea known to us as
Lake Mœris, and caused it to be connected by canals with the river.
Lake Mœris was about 30 miles in circumference, and here the surplus
waters were stored, to be distributed by irrigation or withheld, as
might be best. The rock-encircled and desolate Fayoum thus became a
smiling oasis, full of the most luxuriant vegetation, and alive with
busy industry. When the Greek Herodotus visited Egypt, some 2000 years
later, Lake Mœris was still in existence, as were also the two pyramids
that stood either on its banks or in its centre. A still greater wonder
met the eye of the inquiring traveller, and excited his profoundest
amazement. This was the vast structure close by Lake Mœris, which
the Greeks called the Labyrinth, for what reason it is hard to say.
Herodotus tells us of this other gigantic work of Amenemhat III.,
that it had twelve courts, with gates opposite each other, and that
it contained 3000 chambers, half of which were above and half below
ground; the courts were adorned with columns, and the walls covered
with inscriptions. This colossal edifice covered a space 1150 feet in
length, and 850 in breadth; its purpose is not altogether clear, but
there seems some reason to think that it may have been intended for a
vast Hall of Assembly. It is all in ruins now. Lepsius, who in 1844
visited the district, which is 25 miles distant from the Nile, states
that it had been so arranged that three enormous masses of buildings
enclosed a square place 600 feet long by 500 broad, and that in this
square once stood the courts and columns mentioned by Herodotus, mighty
fragments of which the explorer dug up: upon them was carved the name
of the royal builder, Amenemhat III.
[Illustration: Painting a Statue.]
[Illustration: Carving a Statue.]
After this peaceful victory, which won for Egypt so fair a province,
and adorned it with such marvels of art, there is not much left to
record concerning the twelfth dynasty. Its annals are quiet and
prosperous throughout, and its art was progressive and beautiful.
No man in the kingdom was more honoured than the artist, the man
‘of enlightened spirit and skilfully working hand.’ The office of
‘architect to Pharaoh’[25] was sometimes held by sons and grandsons
of the sovereign. There is a remarkable account of a great noble,
Mentuhotep, who was a judge and learned in the law, a priest and a
warrior. It is recorded of him that, 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, as God had commanded to
be done. He protected the unfortunate, and freed him that was in need
of freedom. ‘Peace was in the utterances of his mouth, and the learning
of the wise Thoth[26] was on his tongue. Very skilful in artistic work,
with his own hand he carried out his designs as they ought to be done.’
The beautiful rock-hewn caves of Beni-Hassan bear witness to the rare
excellence attained by architecture and sculpture. These tombs and
memorial chambers were excavated in a limestone cliff on the east bank
of the Nile, 160 miles south of Cairo. They were for generations the
burial-place of the illustrious family of the Khnumhoteps, descendants
of Ameni (p. 66), and hereditary governors of the district. The roofs
of these rock tombs are vaulted; at the entrance to the northernmost,
where Ameni, head of the family lay, are columns of great beauty,
so closely resembling those called Doric 2000 years later that it
is difficult not to believe that they served as prototypes. At the
entrance to another tomb are columns still more graceful in design;
these are purely Egyptian in style, and are formed of slender reeds
bound together, and expanding into capitals like papyrus or lotus buds
or flowers. Here was buried Khnumhotep, grandson of Ameni, a man of
high character and great renown. The walls of the interior are covered
with pictorial representations, invaluable for the insight they afford
into the daily life of those long past times. Amongst the scenes
depicted on the walls of Khnumhotep’s funeral chamber is one of much
significance. A family group, consisting of 37 persons, is ushered into
the presence of the great Egyptian lord, who receives them standing and
surrounded by his dogs. They are Amu—foreigners of the East—and their
errand is to bring from the land of Pitshu (Midian) a certain mineral
substance from which was prepared a paint for the eyes much used in
Egypt. Their faces are wholly unlike the Egyptians; they have aquiline
noses and long black beards. They are evidently immigrants come to
settle in the land. The men are armed, the women gaily dressed. They
bring with them presents—the ibis and gazelle, and the splendid wild
goat of the Sinai desert; one of the group is playing on a lyre of
antique form. The children are carried in panniers, and women walk by
their side; asses laden with baggage bring up the rear.
[Illustration: Vincent Brooks-Day & Son, Lith.
ASIATIC IMMIGRANTS.]
This occurred in the sixth year of Usertesen II., and it was a scene
that was very likely often-times repeated. Families of foreigners came
to settle in Egypt, attracted by its luxuriant plenty, and gradually
developed into colonies. In the Delta more especially, foreigners
settled in great numbers. There were colonists bent on peaceful
industry, but there were others of a more restless and warlike type. It
is possible that some may have been established there since the dark
and troubled days that followed the sixth dynasty, when foreign tribes
very probably held possession of part at least of the Delta for a time.
Egypt had often maintained a severe conflict on her southern frontier,
where the boundary line was now marked by grim fortresses; but if
trouble should ever overwhelm the land the storm would assuredly
gather in the north-east. Fortresses had been erected there also,
and Amenemhat’s wall of defence was still standing, but there was no
absolute line of demarcation. The north-east of Egypt was inhabited by
many settlers, aliens, who were allied more or less closely in blood to
restless and warlike peoples beyond the frontier.
Their presence was but of ill omen to the land of their adoption.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] Egypt is the name given to the country by the Greeks, and is of
very uncertain derivation.
[25] Pharaoh is derived from the words _Per-aa_, ‘Great House,’ and
answers pretty nearly to the ‘Sublime Porte’ at Constantinople. Later
on it is used as the sovereign’s name.
[26] This god, symbolised in the moon, was more especially the god
of knowledge and science. He was the inventor of all arts, and the
inspirer of the sacred writings, the lawgiver, and the advocate and
justifier of the good before the tribunal of Osiris.