Thebes; its People, Temples, and Tombs—Close of the Nineteenth Dynasty.
In an inscription on the walls of the rock-temple at Abu-simbel,
Rameses is represented as saying to the god Ptah, ‘I have cared for the
land to create for thee a new Egypt, such as it existed in the olden
times,’ and he specially mentions the splendid sanctuary he had built
for that deity in Memphis. And not at Memphis alone, but everywhere
throughout the land, from the city of Rameses in the north to the
wonderful rock-temples of the south, we can see the magnificent traces
left by the hand of this mighty sovereign. In Thebes itself, he added
a grand court to the temple of Luxor founded by Amenhotep III. of the
preceding dynasty. This temple was connected by an avenue of sphinxes
with the still more magnificent ‘great Temple of Amen,’ the foundation
of which had been laid by Amenemhat I., not long after the close of the
civil wars, and before the Hyksos invasion.
[Illustration: Temple and Garden.]
However the Egyptian temples might differ in size or splendour, the
idea and plan were alike—so that it has been said, ‘If you have seen
one temple, you have seen all.’ A wall of enclosure surrounded the
precincts, which were adorned with trees, flowers, and artificial
lakes. The temple itself was approached by an avenue of sphinxes.
Before the entrance stood obelisks and colossal statues. On either side
of the gateway rose the pylons—massive towers, broader at the base
than at the summit; they were covered with pictorial and sculptured
representations of the great events of the day, and above them rose
the tall masts of cedar wood, whence floated the gay streamers on
days of festival and rejoicing. Passing through between the pylons,
a vast court was entered, surrounded by columns and open to the sky.
Beyond were halls, the roofs supported on pillars, and in these the
light glimmered but faintly amidst the forest of majestic columns.
Each hall or court was of less size than the one before it, and the
innermost sanctuary was small, dark, and mysterious in its solemn
obscurity. Here was the sacred shrine (containing some hidden emblem
or image of the god), which on solemn occasions was brought out and
carried in procession through the city or down the river. These
shrines or arks are seen depicted in brightly coloured tints on the
bas-reliefs. The sacred bark is standing on an altar, which is covered
by a red cloth. On two lesser altars stand flowers and vessels for
libation or for incense. In the centre of the boat is the ark itself,
a sort of chest partially veiled, in which is for ever hidden the
mystic symbol of the god. In the bark are small images of men kneeling
in adoration, and immense artificial lotus and papyrus flowers. Tall
banners or sun-screens stand behind, ready to be carried in solemn
state in the processions. On the prow of the boat is the sacred hawk,
and behind it a sphinx, emblem of the king. Underneath are the shafts
on which it rests when it is taken from the altar and borne on the
shoulders of the priests. Not only the mystic shrine itself, but
statues or images of the gods were frequently carried in procession
with music, song, and universal rejoicings—queens and princesses
deeming it an honour to take part, carrying the sistrum or musical
instrument used in the service of the gods. As a rule the people
probably were allowed only to enter the vast outer court, kings and
priests alone penetrating to the interior recesses, where sacrifices
were offered and incense ascended in clouds. Sublimity and mystery were
the ideas expressed in these Egyptian temples,[54] with their vast
halls and shrouded recesses. Comparatively little thought and care were
expended on private residences, which were simple and unpretending.
The poor were content if they had shelter from the heat and a place of
storage for their goods. In the construction of the houses belonging to
the richer classes the leading idea was still protection from the heat,
so that the windows were small, and had wooden shutters. The walls
inside were decorated with paintings, and even the outside was gaily
tinted by this colour-loving people, who coloured everything that
would admit of it. On the flat roofs of the houses much time was spent,
as also in the beautiful gardens watered by small canals in the absence
of rain, and adorned with fish-ponds, trees, and abundance of flowers.
A late Greek writer goes so far as to say that ‘flowers of every sort
grew all the year round, and that roses and violets especially grew at
all seasons.’ Be that as it may, the love of the Egyptians for flowers
was very great. Flowers are used on all occasions—in social banquets
they are in profusion, and they are never wanting in the funeral
solemnities; they furnish both decorations for the rooms and houses and
oblations for the gods.
[Illustration: The Sacred Ark.]
The house was generally built round a court-yard planted with trees
and refreshed by a fountain. In the country the farm-yards and sheds
were at some distance from the dwelling-house; the cattle were tied
up at feeding-time to rings placed in rows, and were often fed by the
hand. Around the country-houses were orchards of fig-trees, together
with sycamore, peach, pomegranate, date, olive, and almond trees,
besides others of names and kinds unknown. Monkeys were sometimes
employed in gathering the fruit, and we see from the pictures that
they did not fail to help themselves at the same time. Our museums
show us the tables and chairs of all sorts that were used by the
Egyptians—common chairs, camp-stools, and arm-chairs of elegant
workmanship, sometimes of ebony inlaid with ivory. There are the double
chairs where the master and mistress of the house sat when receiving
their guests—couches, footstools, carpets which served as bedding, and
the wooden rests on which the head was placed at night. Children’s toys
of all kinds may be seen, and a variety of musical instruments; for
music was much studied, and was employed not only in the service of the
temples, but in the social gatherings of the people, which seem to have
been frequent. But both music and dancing on such occasions appear to
have been performed for the amusement of the guests, who are themselves
only lookers-on. Buffoons also exhibited, who seem generally to have
been negroes; they are oddly dressed in a bit of bullock’s hide, with
the tail attached and tags hanging like beads from their elbows.
The chase was a most popular amusement, and besides stags, hares,
etc., there was the exciting sport of hunting wilder beasts, wolves,
jackals, and lions in the desert lands. Fowling and fishing were common
pastimes. We do not meet with the least trace of anything approaching
to gladiatorial shows; such scenes would have been abhorrent to the
Egyptian nature. Amongst indoor games we see odd and even—_mora_ (a
guessing game), draughts, and others unknown to us. Athletic games
and outdoor exercises were encouraged amongst children, and there was
a great fondness for playing ball, especially amongst the girls, who
attained great skill in the exercise, sometimes catching two or three
balls at a time. There was great freedom in social intercourse, and
women mixed in society quite as freely as men.[55]
[Illustration: Vincent Brooks-Day & Son, Lith.
PLAYING AT DRAUGHTS.]
The Egyptians have, in fact, painted their social life for us
themselves in fullest detail, whether it is the king standing proudly
in his war-chariot and striking down his foe, or the potter patiently
turning his wheel; the priest officiating in the temple rites, or the
fisherman directing his tiny craft upon the river. We see the baker
kneading the dough with his feet, and the flat loaves being carried
round to the customers; the shoemaker, sitting on his three-legged
stool, is busy fashioning the leather sandal; spinning-wheel and loom
are producing the ‘fine linen’ of Egypt, and the needle is skilful in
beautiful embroidered work. The pottery is of varied and graceful form,
the jewellery of exquisite workmanship. Glass is fashioned, and so is
brightly tinted porcelain ware; veneering too is practised with much
skill.
We may picture to ourselves the active life and gay animation that
reigned in the streets of the mighty city that had grown up around
the great temples of Amen, or, on the broad waters of the stream, the
scene of constant traffic, where boats laden with merchandise, fishing
vessels, and gay-looking pleasure-boats went to and fro in ceaseless
motion. The Nile valley is of unusual breadth on both sides of the
river here, and forms a sort of amphitheatre closed in by mountain
ranges of varied outlines. It seemed hidden away out of the invader’s
track, the ‘great city’ in all her imperial beauty, _Apu_, the ‘city of
thrones,’ or _Nu_, ‘the city,’ as her people called her of old. The sky
is of a deeper blue than in the northern part of the country; and in
spite of ceaseless sunshine the fields are clothed in richest verdure.
Here, as everywhere, light and colour reign, the shadows themselves
are luminous, so radiant is the light, and the colour harmonies of the
sunset are thus described:—
‘The western horizon is a furnace of molten gold, the stems and foliage
of the palm trees are likewise gold, and through this dazzling glow
the purple tints of the hills can just be perceived. The sky and the
Nile become in turn rose-coloured and violet, like the colour of an
amethyst; then the light dies away.’[56]
Let us follow the western sun, and cross the stream, leaving behind us
the life and animation of the great city. Here, too, is a city—Western
Thebes[57]—and its streets contain a population vaster far than that
upon the other side. But all is silent here; no man buys or sells
or joins in festive mirth. It is the City of the Dead. Here lie in
countless numbers the embalmed bodies of those who have passed away
generation after generation: kings and priests—men, women, children—the
freeman and the slave. The hills encircling the plain are pierced and
honeycombed in all directions with passages and tombs. Here are the
‘eternal dwellings’ of those who on the other side inhabit ‘hostelries’
as strangers of a day. And far more thought and care are bestowed upon
those than upon these.[58] There are large common tombs, in which the
bodies of the poor lie ranged side by side. And there are the funeral
chambers of the rich, with their sculptured façades, whence winding
galleries lead into the heart of the rock. Shafts are sunk, false
passages that lead nowhere are constructed. Everything is done that
human ingenuity can suggest, if only the body hidden there might never
be seen or handled again.[59] Nor is the silent city of the dead
without its stately palaces and temples. The two colossal twin statues
of Amenhotep III. sit there upon the plain, and behind them is his
magnificent temple. A little farther is the Ramesseum, a great temple
erected by Rameses ‘to his name,’ and to the memory of his ancestors,
marvellous for size and splendour. In the face of the limestone cliff
to the north-west arises the stately terraced temple of Queen Hatasu,
and not far off is the narrow gorge leading to the desolate valley of
the ‘tombs of the kings.’
The priests attached to the service of these temples must have lived in
the neighbourhood and kept up intercourse with the world outside, and
in Western Thebes were the dwellings of all those whose business was
with the bodies of the dead,—of those who first opened the corpse, who
were reckoned ceremonially unclean, and of those who skilfully embalmed
and bandaged it afterwards. Not a day could have passed on which some
company of mourners, rich or poor, did not land—their ‘dark freight,
a vanished life;’ whilst now and again a gorgeous funeral procession
wound its way through the narrow defile, bearing beneath a funeral tent
of exquisite workmanship the body of some prince or princess of the
Pharaoh’s house to its last long home in the western hills.
One day in the year (as we should say, on All Souls’ Day) the family
and friends of the departed assembled amidst the dead. On that day the
silent city was alive and Eastern Thebes deserted. All day long boats
of every sort plied to and fro, and the western plain was covered with
vast crowds bringing flowers and garlands and funeral gifts. Within
the funeral chambers, richly and brightly adorned with paintings and
sculptures, the family groups assembled, the scenes around awakening
vivid associations of the past. The sound of human talk was heard, and
the voice of minstrelsy and song. The feast is spread, and here, says
a modern writer[60] who has vividly described the whole scene, the
assembled family in their social union ‘remembered their departed ones
as if they were travellers who had found happiness in a distant land,
and whom they might hope to see once again sooner or later.’ In fact,
at the feast thus spread the dead were always looked upon as guests,
although unseen, and were addressed in the festive songs. One of these
songs, known as the ‘Lay of the Harper,’ has been preserved. It is in
memory of a priest of Amen named Neferhotep; part is to the following
effect:—
‘Truly is he now at rest, faithfully his work
fulfilled. Men go hence since days of Ra. Youths arise
to take their place.’
‘Holy prophet,[61] keep the feast-day! Fragrant oil,
delicious balsam, lo, we bring, and flowery wreaths
twine we round her breast and arms: Her thy sister
dearly loved, resting ever by thy side.’
‘Lift the song and strike the chords, in the presence
chamber here! Leave all idle cares behind, and be
mindful, Man, of joy, till thy day for going hence,
when the traveller findeth rest, in the silence-loving
land.’
‘Holy prophet, keep the feast-day! Perfect thou and
pure of heart. They who lived have passed away—are
as though they had not been. Thy soul dwells amongst
them there, by the sacred river’s side, drinking of the
crystal stream.’
‘Holy prophet, keep the feast-day! Neferhotep, pure
of heart.... Nought might all his works avail, to add
one moment to his years....’
‘Mind thee of the day, O man, when thou too must take
thy way to the land whence none return. Good for thee
then an honest life. For he who loveth Right is blest.’
‘Brave nor coward flee the grave. Proud and humble
meet one fate. Give, then, freely, as ’tis meet. Isis
will bless the good. Happy shall thine old age prove.’
The memorial chambers in which these feasts were celebrated were
adorned with pictures and carving representing the familiar scenes
of daily life, but in the gloomy recesses beyond mystic and awful
scenes are depicted. The representations of the gods, not often met
with in earlier times, had now become common and familiar; and so
does Amenti itself cease to be the ‘hidden’ world, and the scenes and
events of the life after death appear in visible though mystic shape.
The Egyptian from of old believed in the judgment before Osiris, but
now it was depicted. The heart is seen weighed in the balance; Osiris
is enthroned as judge; Thoth records the result.[62] The trials that
await the spirit take bodily form as foul and hideous monsters that
must be encountered and overcome; good and guardian powers appear as
star-crowned genii of light; and for the impure spirit the furnace of
purifying fire is kindled, behind which stands a figure holding in his
hand the emblem of the purity that must be won.
[Illustration: The Weighing of Actions.]
Nor is it the conflicts and triumphs of the human spirit alone that
are portrayed, but the conflicts and triumphs of the gods themselves.
We read in a very ancient chapter of the sacred book: ‘I am Ra in his
first supremacy—the great god, self-existing. There was a battle-field
of the gods prepared when I spake.’ Later on a more tangible shape and
form is given to this great battle. In the tomb of Seti I. we may see
it all in allegory and mystic symbol. Here is depicted in a series of
tableaux the ‘passage of the Sun through the hours of the day and of
the night,’ _i.e._ of the visible and invisible world, beholding and
ruling all, both mortal and immortal. Ra in his bark, the ‘ancient and
unknown One in his mystery,’ accompanied by gods and spirits, finds
the ‘field of battle prepared.’ The serpent of evil, Apepi, lies in
wait, hidden beneath the waves of the celestial rivers—the ether.
After a hard struggle he is drawn out and destroyed, and the heavenly
bark disappears in peace behind the western horizon, received by the
mother goddess Nut.[63] A hymn addressed to Ra, ‘Lord of the horizon,’
celebrates his triumph: ‘Thou awakenest, triumphant and blessed One,
thou who comest in radiance and travellest in thy disk! Thy divine
bark[64] speeds on, blest by thy mother Nut each day; thy foes fall
as thou turnest thy face to the western heaven. Glad are the mariners
of thy bark; Ra hath quelled his impious foe, he striketh down the
evil one, thou breakest his strength, casting him into the fire that
encircleth in its season the children of wickedness.’
An eminent writer who has devoted himself to the study of ancient
religions says:—‘In spite of the abundance of materials, in spite
of the ruins of temples and numberless statues and half-deciphered
papyri—I must confess that we have not yet come very near the beatings
of the heart that gave life to all this strange and mysterious
grandeur.’[65] This is only what might be expected; for the symbolism
of any religion is apt to assume an unmeaning and often a grotesque
appearance in the eyes of men professing another faith, and no religion
was ever so pervaded by symbolism as that of ancient Egypt. Symbols are
not, in any sense, works of art; they are never chosen for intrinsic
worth or beauty,[66] and are valueless, excepting for the sake of some
association of idea, which led to their selection. They are intended
to represent, but not seldom also to veil, thoughts and mysteries that
cannot be uttered in language, or _expressed_ in any form or image. But
in all religions there is a tendency to separate the symbol from the
thought, and this, carried to its fullest extent, ends in idolatry;
the mere symbol seems to the ignorant and superstitious to be endowed
with power and divine attributes, and becomes itself a god. That which
gave the Egyptian religion an especially strange and even absurd
aspect, in the eyes of Greek and Roman travellers of a later day, was
its use of living symbols, _i.e._ of the sacred animals, which was then
so excessive as to have become its prominent feature on first sight,
and which led to idolatry of the most base and degraded kind.
There are a few traces of the existence of animal worship under the
early dynasties; they are but few, however, and, so far as I am aware,
no notice of sacred animals occurs between the age of Khufu and the
reign of Rameses II. Nor are the gods depicted in the memorial chambers
of the departed before the times of the eighteenth dynasty. Under
Thothmes III., their figures are constantly met with, often with the
head of the symbolic creature that was their emblem (see p. 119). The
reason for the selection is often plain. The bull or the ram might
denote undaunted strength and the protection of the weak, the hawk
unerring sight, the crocodile terror, the scarabæus tender foresight
and unwearied care for its offspring. And not only were the gods
represented under the form of these and other objects, but the living
animals themselves were symbolic and sacred. Each district had its own
sacred animal, fed and tended with the devoutest care. Certain of them,
however, attained to far greater celebrity than the rest—the Ram of
Mendes; Mnevis, the bull sacred to Ra, at Heliopolis; and, above all,
Apis, the bull sacred to Ptah, at Memphis. The eldest son of Rameses,
named Khamus, who was governor of Memphis, was also high priest of
Ptah, and more especially under his form or manifestation as Apis.
It requires very little knowledge of human nature, and very little
acquaintance with history, to feel assured that the crowds who gathered
round these symbolic creatures would regard them with superstitious
reverence, and that to not a few the animal would be no longer a symbol
but a god.
Animal worship grew and developed immensely after the days of Rameses.
At a later period we find Greek and Roman travellers noticing it with
curiosity or contempt. Herodotus and Strabo saw the sacred crocodiles
in the Fayoum, adorned with golden ornaments, and fed with the flesh
of the sacrifices. Diodorus tells us of the furious wrath of Egyptian
villagers against a Roman soldier who had killed a cat. The comic
writers of Greece and the satirists of Rome made merry over these
peculiar deities.
‘You are never done laughing every day of your lives at the Egyptians,’
says an early Christian writer to his heathen contemporaries. Philo,
the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria, tells us that foreigners coming
to Egypt knew not what to do for laughter at the divine animals, but
that in the end they were themselves overpowered by the superstition.
There were not wanting those who, acknowledging that the animals were
to be regarded merely as symbolic, based their arguments against the
custom on that very ground.[67] The days of foreign criticism were,
however, as yet in the distant future when the kings of the nineteenth
dynasty were on the throne.
The growth of animal worship seems to speak of degradation in the
national religion, and there are not wanting at the same time evidences
both of a decay in the national morality and of a decline in art. When
art is required to work by the acre its productions are not likely
to be distinguished by high excellence or exquisite finish. In the
drawings of the time of Rameses the heads indeed are still good and the
portraits characteristic, but the figures are ill-drawn in the extreme,
and often most hastily finished off. Egyptian art suffered severely
under the influence of certain fixed rules concerning the drawing and
the proportion of figures. Under the earlier dynasties there are signs
of greater freedom of treatment than prevailed at a later period, when
the conventional rules, which no one ventured to infringe, had checked
the progress of all true art by putting a stop to its free exercise.
This following of a stereotyped pattern, combined with the absence
of perspective, gives the Egyptian drawings a very odd and stiff
appearance. The portraiture remained excellent, and much spirit was
often shown in the drawing of animals and in humorous scenes; indeed,
the manner in which, in hieroglyphic writing, the individual character
of an animal or bird is given in a few minute lines is quite wonderful.
The graceful outline of their pottery, the exquisite workmanship of
their jewellery, show how much true artistic power was there, had
it only been allowed free scope. But there never was a nation that
clung so tenaciously to fixed laws and forms. Their monarchy, their
religion, lasted unchanged as no other has yet done;[68] the very
fashion of their dress varied but little with the centuries, and their
magnificent temples were built and rebuilt on the same scheme. But
already, under the nineteenth dynasty, other influences were strongly
at work. The Delta was full of foreign settlers, and the names of
some of its cities were Semitic. Literature was affected, and the
younger writers of the day were given to introducing Semitic words and
phrases—just as an English or German author does with French. Whole
bodies of mercenary troops were employed in the army under a special
commander; others were used in the naval service, which was never very
popular in Egypt, but which was becoming of more and more importance.
Others again, not judged fit for these branches, were reduced to
serfage, being employed in the service of the kings and of the temples,
or in still harder bondage on the public buildings, in the quarries, or
the mines. Many of these, we learn, were branded with the name of the
god or master to whom they were assigned, and here we see at once the
arising of that distrust and fear which always beset the ease of the
owners of the slave. Slavery was universal in the ancient world, but in
Egypt it had always worn a milder aspect than it ever assumed in any
other country, unless it were Greece, much of whose early civilisation
came from the land of the Nile. Even in the days of harsher servitude
at which we have now arrived, there were no such hideous cruelties as
we meet with in the blood-stained pages of Roman, Carthaginian, or
American slavery. The Egyptian slave was well fed, and by the moral and
religious code maltreatment of a slave was an offence. We do not know
the legal code on this subject, but the moral tone is clearly shown in
the confession every ruler had to make before Osiris: ‘I have allowed
no master to maltreat his slave.’ But moral feeling can grow blunt, and
maltreatment was not wanting in the days of Rameses II.
The Hebrew colony in Goshen, so warmly welcomed by the Hyksos kings,
must have been regarded with distrust on the accession of the native
dynasty, which ‘knew not Joseph,’ and had the utmost aversion for aught
that was connected with the rulers he had served. Under Rameses, or one
of his predecessors, the Hebrews had been reduced to cruel bondage;
‘they built for Pharaoh treasure-cities, Pithom and Raamses.’[69]
Their future deliverer, rescued from death by a princess of the royal
house,[70] must have spent many years at Zoan, the favourite residence
of Rameses, which was close to the district of Goshen, and there he
would have the opportunity at any moment of ‘going out to his brethren
and looking upon their burdens.’
Moses did not return from his exile during the lifetime of Rameses,
but ‘in _process of time_’ that sovereign died.[71] On the accession
of Menephtah the hardships of the people were intensified, but their
deliverance was close at hand. There is no need to relate the familiar
story of their marvellous escape, and of the pursuit, in which so many
of the chosen chariots and horses of Menephtah perished.
No inscriptions or records have, as yet, been found relating to the
long sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, to the oppression, or to the
exodus, though there can be little doubt that some of the highest
interest might be brought to light were the exploration of the historic
sites of the Delta undertaken in earnest.[72] The chief event recorded
of the reign of Menephtah is connected with the western boundary. On
the north-east the frontier district bristled with fortresses, where
sentinels kept their daily and nightly watch. The great military route
that started thence was well guarded, and a regular communication
kept up with the Egyptian garrisons, which were still maintained in
some parts of Syria. By the same road there was a constant commercial
intercourse with Phœnicia, and probably also to some extent with
the distant Khetan allies;—we find, at any rate, from an incidental
allusion, that during a famine in that land, the lives of the people
were saved by corn sent from Egypt at Menephtah’s direction. But on
the western frontier, the limits were not so definite. There was less
anxiety and less watchfulness. Whilst the utmost thought and vigilance
had been exerted in the north-east, the west had been left practically
undefended. Whole districts had long been harassed by the inroads
of the Libyan tribes, and cultivation had ceased. The invaders had
even gained a firm footing in some places, and had ventured to settle
themselves in the neighbourhood of the towns, whilst the fortifications
of Memphis itself had been suffered to fall into neglect. The Libyan
people apparently regarded these settlements as a sort of advanced
posts, and in the fifth year of Menephtah they were followed up by
the further advance upon Egypt of an immense host, composed of the
Libyans, their mercenary troops, and allies drawn from every part of
North Africa, and possibly from more distant regions still. Tidings
were brought the king that Marmaiu, the Libyan king, had ‘sought out
the best of all the combatants and of all the quick runners, and had
brought his wife and children with him’—being apparently sure of
success, and intent on finding a new home in the rich Egyptian land.
No little alarm was excited throughout the country and even in the
army itself, for we are told that the king addressed his troops ‘with
flashing eyes,’ and upbraided them with trembling like geese, and not
knowing what to do or how to meet the enemy. ‘The pillagers,’ he said,
‘are devastating the country; they have come, following their chief,
that they may gain cultivated lands, and fill their mouths with food
daily. Fain would they establish themselves in Khemi.... Behold, I am
your shepherd. Who is like me to keep life in his children? Should
they be anxious and frightened like birds?’ These remonstrances were
received in silence. Then the king proceeded to declare that he would
not ‘await the enemy’s approach, so that the land should be wasted
by the advance of the foreign peoples. Their king is like a dog;
he brags with his mouth, but his courage is naught.’ Pharaoh’s own
heart, however, may not have been quite at ease, in spite of his brave
speeches, when he retired to rest that night—but his confidence was
revived by a dream. The god Ptah appeared to him, and put a scimitar
into his hand, exhorting him to ‘put away dejection and desponding
thoughts.’ ‘What am I to do?’ inquired the king. Ptah, in reply,
directed him to proceed with all his forces, and join battle with the
foe at Pi-ari-sheps (Prosopis). Accordingly, he there attacked the
confederates, and gained a complete victory. The brunt of the battle,
however, seems to have been borne by the mercenary troops. ‘For six
hours,’ says the narrative, ‘the foreign mercenaries of his majesty
hewed down the foe. The sword gave no mercy, and the land was full of
corpses.’ The fugitives, amongst whom was the Libyan king himself, were
pursued by the horsemen. All the goods and ornaments of the hostile
prince were captured, and the skin tents of the Libyans burnt upon the
field of battle. More than 14,000 were reckoned amongst the slain,
and over 9000 were made prisoners. The battle of Prosopis secured
tranquillity upon the frontier for a considerable time.
The reign of Seti Menephtah II. affords very little worthy of notice.
It was quiet and uneventful, but was followed by a period of confusion
and civil war. The names of rival kings are preserved, but the details
of the history are very obscure. A good general impression, however,
of the disastrous scenes amidst which the nineteenth dynasty closed
is given by Rameses III., first king of the succeeding dynasty. ‘The
land,’ he tells us, ‘had fallen into confusion; each man did as he
chose; there was no sovereign master. The princes of the nomes bore
sway, and men slaughtered each other through fear and jealousy. The end
of these years of calamity was that Aarsu, a Syrian by birth, gained
the chief supremacy, and the whole land did him homage. The gods fared
no better than men; their images were overthrown, and no oblations were
brought to the temples.
‘Then was Setnekht, the beloved of Amen, raised up by the gods. He was
like Set in the day of his wrath, and terrible like the god of war.
He took command of the whole country, and destroyed the evil-doers
who had wasted Lower Egypt; he purified the great throne of Khemi,
and restored that which had been disturbed. Each man saw and knew
his brother again, from whom he had been separated as by a wall. The
sacrifices were reinstated for the gods. He made me heir of the throne
of Seb, and ruler of the lands of Khemi. Then he sought repose among
the gods; the royal bark crossed the river, and he entered his eternal
dwelling-place in Western Thebes.’
FOOTNOTES:
[54] In one hall, forming only a _part_ of the temple in which it
stands, the Cathedral of Notre Dame, at Paris, could stand without
touching the walls!
[55] For the foregoing particulars and some of the following, see Sir
J. Gardner Wilkinson’s _Ancient Egyptians_.
[56] Ampère, _Voyage en Egypte et Nubie_.
[57] Thebes was indeed always considered as two cities. Homer makes it
plural, and it has ever since been so—_Thebæ_.
[58] The Greek writer Diodorus Siculus says: ‘The Egyptians call their
houses hostelries, since they can enjoy them for a brief space only;
whereas their tombs are the eternal dwelling-places of the future.’
[59] For some parts of the description of the cities of Thebes, see
Karl Oppel’s _Land der Pyramiden_.
[60] Ebers, in his Egyptian novel of the time of Rameses II., _Uarda_.
[61] Addressed to the departed seer.
[62] I am not sure at how early a date the judgment scene is depicted
in any existing funeral papyri; but I believe there is no doubt that
neither that nor any ‘other world’ scene occurs in the tombs of the
earlier dynasties, so far as they are yet known.
[63] Notice the similarity of thought underlying this myth and that of
Osiris and Set.
[64] This idea of a sacred bark appears also in the form assigned to
the sacred shrine, p. 177.
[65] Max Müller, _Science of Religion_.
[66] Take in illustration the symbols on any national flag. There is
no intrinsic beauty in three coloured stripes, or in the grotesque
figures of lions rampant. Yet for the sake of the nation of which they
have become symbolic, men will die sooner than surrender the banners
on which they are depicted. It is the same with the symbols of rival
religions. How fierce the conflict waged by Saracen and Christian
beneath the respective symbols of the Crescent and the Cross!
[67] The biographer of Apollonius of Tyana records the following
conversation. ‘The beasts and birds,’ says Apollonius, ‘may derive
dignity from such representations, but the gods will lose theirs.’ ‘I
think,’ says his opponent, ‘you slight our mode of worship before you
have given it a fair examination. For surely what we are speaking of is
wise, if anything Egyptian is so; the Egyptians do not venture to give
any form to their deities, they only give them in symbols which have an
occult meaning, that renders them venerable.’ Apollonius, however, is
not convinced: he admits that the mind forms to itself an idea which it
pictures better than any art can do, but he complains that the Egyptian
custom takes from the gods the very power of appearing beautiful
either to the eye or to the mind. Porphyry also regards the worship as
symbolic; he says that ‘under the semblance of animals the Egyptians
worship the universal power which the gods have revealed in the various
forms of living nature.’ These quotations and those in the text are
taken from Le Page Renout’s _Hibbert Lectures_.
[68] We may, perhaps, except the Chinese.
[69] Recent investigation has identified Tel-el-Maschuta, a spot not
far from the modern Ismailia, as the site of both the Pithom and the
Succoth of the Old Testament; the former was the sacred, the latter the
civil name of the city, which is thus shown to have been one of the
store-cities built by the Israelites (Ex. i. II), and also the first
stage reached by them on their journey (Ex. xii. 37; xiii. 20). The
word _Ar_, meaning storehouse, occurs in the inscription by which M.
Naville first identified Pithom-Succoth.
[70] Generally supposed to have been a daughter of Rameses, but if
Moses was eighty when he stood before the successor of that monarch,
that would have been impossible.
[71] Ex. ii. 23. How well this incidental allusion coincides with the
sixty-seven years’ reign of Rameses II.!
[72] Such an investigation has been recently undertaken by the _Egypt
Exploration Fund_. The extent to which it may be carried depends
entirely on the means placed at its disposal.