Transcriber’s Note: The original copy of this book wasn’t very well
proofread, if at all. A large number of printing errors have been
corrected, including transposed full lines of text. In one place (noted
below) at least one line was omitted completely: it wasn’t possible to
source another edition to check what the missing words might have been.
The spelling and hyphenation of Egyptian names are often inconsistent.
[Illustration: CLEOPATRA.]
PREDECESSORS
OF CLEOPATRA
BY
LEIGH NORTH
_5 Drawings by G. A. Davis_
[Illustration]
BROADWAY PUBLISHING CO.
AT
835 BROADWAY, N. Y.
1906
Copyrighted, 1906.
BY
BROADWAY PUBLISHING CO.,
_All Rights Reserved._
TO MY HUSBAND
INTRODUCTION.
In attempting even a brief and imperfect outline of the history of
Egyptian queens the author has undertaken no easy task and craves
indulgence for its modest fulfillment. The aim has been merely to put
the little that is known in a readable and popular form, to gather from
many sources the fragments that remain, partly historic, partly
legendary, of a dead past. To present—however imperfectly—sketches of
the women who once lived and breathed as Queens of Egypt, which has
been more ably and completely done—as the period was less remote and
the sources of information fuller, for their royal sisters of other
lands.
A short article published some years ago in Lippincott’s Magazine may
be said to be the nucleus of the present volume, the writer’s interest
in the subject having been awakened by the study necessary to its
preparation.
We enter a house through the portico or vestibule. We form
acquaintances on somewhat the same principle. We begin perhaps with the
weather, we exchange comments on trifles, we pass through an
introductory stage of intercourse before we reach the real heart of the
man or woman who, in time, becomes our dearest friend. Skip the
introduction if you will, busy reader, but metaphorically it forms the
portico or vestibule of the Egyptian House.
From the darkness which envelopes the centuries modern research has
brought to light much that was unknown or forgotten. With almost the
creative touch it has made the dry bones to live again and link by link
drawn out the long chain of the years. What was once a mere roll of
names with a wide hiatus here and there has grown to be a record of the
words and deeds of men of like passions with ourselves. We feel once
more in touch with the past, as it is the aim of the highest altruism
to beat responsive to the heart of the present and the by-gone faces
look forth by the side of modern man and claim the universal
brotherhood.
Well may we marvel at the faith, the patience, the ingenuity which
has unraveled so much of the tangled skein in “The Story of the
Nations.” Like Cuvier, from a single bone elaborating a whole animal,
the Egyptologist has patiently evolved from shreds of parchment, from
fragments of pottery, from broken plinth and capital a more or less
complete whole. He has woven a tapestry from which some of the figures
start forth with a lifelike vigor.
Few countries claim such antiquity as Egypt and of none were the
estimated dates more widely apart. Sometimes involving periods of
hundreds and thousands of years. An accumulation of difficulties meets
the student as it does the explorer. A cycle of time, beside which
modern life seems like a single breath. A language, at first
indecipherable, and even now imperfectly read. The hasty guesses of
scholars anxious to prove some point or be in the vanguard of
discovery; broken monuments, rifled tombs, and inscriptions, mutilated,
erased and altered by the monarchs of succeeding generations. Among all
these difficulties lies the way. But with patience and care we are
rewarded and with “imagination for a servant,” not a master, one
“arrives,” as the French say (at least in a measure), at last.
The list of authorities consulted by the author would be too long to
enumerate, but among them may be mentioned Rawlinson, Wilkinson,
Maspero, Erman, Ebers and later Edwards, Sayce, Petrie and Mahaffy,
whose interest is so absorbing and the researches of some of whom are
of such recent date. To these may be added the study of all available
pictures and photographs, and the experiences of late travel and
travellers.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION i
CHAPTER ONE.
The Black Hand 1
CHAPTER TWO.
The Queen 15
CHAPTER THREE.
Mertytefs 26
CHAPTER FOUR.
Nitocris 42
CHAPTER FIVE.
Sebek-Nefru-Ra 57
CHAPTER SIX.
Aah-Hotep 74
CHAPTER SEVEN.
Aahmes-Nefertari 91
CHAPTER EIGHT.
Hatshepsut 110
CHAPTER NINE.
Hatsheput—concluded 125
CHAPTER TEN.
Maut-a-mua 142
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
Tyi 157
CHAPTER TWELVE.
Tyi—continued 174
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
Nefertiti 187
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
Tuaa 205
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
Nofutari-Minimut 218
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
Ur-Maa-Nofur-Ra 235
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
Tausert 253
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
Succeeding Queens 265
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
Succeeding Queens—continued 281
CHAPTER TWENTY.
Daily Life 299
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.
Persian Queens 312
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.
Roxane 335
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.
Ptolemy Queens 348
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.
Arsinoe II. 362
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.
Ptolemy Queens—continued 385
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.
Ptolemy Queens—continued 396
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.
Ptolemy Queens—continued 407
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.
Cleopatra VI. 421
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.
Cleopatra VI.—continued 432
Predecessors of Cleopatra.
CHAPTER FIRST.
THE BLACK LAND.
Kem, “the Black Land,” in hieroglyphic, or Kemi, in the later and more
familiar demotic, was so called from its dark and fruitful soil, a
loam, which turned up freshly, after a recent inundation of the Nile,
has, as one traveller describes it, “a brown and velvety lustre.”
Through it winds and flows the great river of which Homer speaks as
“Egypt’s Heaven descended stream” and that more than any other has set
its stamp upon the country and its inhabitants. So potent for weal or
woe is it that one scarce wonders it was worshipped as a deity, and the
Arabs call it “El Bahari,” the sea. It is difficult to find the word
travel in their language, with the Egyptian it is always up and down
stream. From the river he drew the fish which formed part of his daily
food, its fructifying waters, spreading over the land, called forth
abundant harvests, and from the mud on its banks he built the hut in
which he lived, or manufactured the bricks for the construction of his
tomb or other more ambitious edifice. The rushes that grew beside it
furnished his writing material, and its muddy or turbid water, as a
beverage, had for him the charm of a crystal rill.
Leigh Hunt says of the Nile:
“It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands
Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream;
And times and things as in that vision seem
Keeping along it their eternal stands.”
The Nile has been said to be less like a river than a sinuous lake with
islands and sand-bars interspersed.
The sacred name of the Nile was “Hapi, the Concealed.” The early
Egyptians believed that its source was in fountains, bottomless and far
away, and the tears of the goddess Isis caused its ebb and flow. The
explorations of comparatively modern travellers have solved the mystery
of its being, and to-day we know that it springs from great lakes which
their discoverers named respectively, Victoria and Albert Nyanza.
Of the three great rivers, the Nile, the Mississippi, and the Amazon,
the first is the longest, the second has the largest number of
ramifications, and the third the greatest volume of water.
A Nilometer, a pillar standing in a pit, chronicles the rise of the
tide, and great festivities attended the opening of the canals which
were dug in all directions to carry its beneficent stream. A human
victim was sacrificed to appease the river god. A young girl was each
year dedicated to this purpose. Bound to a stake, adorned with flowers,
and hailed as “Aruseh, the bride of the Nile,” she stood and watched
the on-coming flood which was to shut out for her the light of day.
Perhaps it was in the terror with which the bounding pulses of youth
must ever regard the great Destroyer. Perhaps with the heroic spirit
of a martyr she awaited her fate, glorying in it and giving herself up
a willing sacrifice, as the Hindoo woman is said occasionally to have
done in the Suttee, when she cast herself on the funeral pile of her
husband.
It was a Mohammedan general who put an end to this annual tragedy and
refused to permit the usual offering. The river delayed its rising, and
the murmurs of the people waxed loud against him. In this dilemma he
appealed to the Kadlif Omar, he who destroyed the Alexandria library,
saying that if it agreed with the Koran it was useless to preserve it,
and if it differed it was pernicious. But in this matter he showed
himself larger-minded. He obligingly wrote a letter which was cast into
the water and ran thus: A. D. 640, “From Abd Allah Omar, Prince of the
Faithful, to the Nile of Egypt. If thou flow of thine own accord, flow
not, but if it be Allah, the One, the Mighty, who causeth thee to flow,
then we implore Him to make thee flow.”
The prayer was successful and the inundation began. Henceforth a mud
pillar, originally no doubt in human form, and still called “the Bride
of the Nile,” was substituted for a trembling maiden, and melted away
before the encroaching stream. At the inundation the land looks like a
marsh, the towns, etc., being just above the level of the water, and
even now the crier announces the rise of the current.
The juncture of the White and Blue Nile shows the difference in the
tint of the water for some time after. The Nile has no tides. The dews
are heavy in Lower Egypt and the nights cool and refreshing, while the
temperature is, as a rule, most agreeable. From the low, long, level
shore and with a coast line much the same as three thousand years ago,
we follow the river through a fertile valley, which in time narrows
between mountains and table-lands of sand. At the cataracts the stream
surges and swells round little rocky islands and the rapids cause
navigation to be difficult if not dangerous.
The Delta, so called from its resemblance to the Greek letter, is a
level plain, highly cultivated, varied by lofty dark brown, ancient
mounds, on which villages are often built, surrounded by palm trees.
The Greeks and Romans divided Egypt into the Delta, or Lower Egypt,
and the Thebaid or Upper. The rocks are generally of limestone, till
one reaches Thebes, and then they are of sandstone, while at the
first Cataract red granite bursts through the sandstone. The granite
is yellowish or reddish, with no vegetation on the rocks. The drifts
of yellow sand are everywhere. In some parts the mountains are three
hundred feet high, and at Thebes they rise to four times that height.
On the eastern side they are close to the water, while on the western
they are further from the edge. What is called the Fayum is a fertile
tract in the hollow of the desert, while at the furthest extremity is a
lake of brackish water.
Upper Egypt is bounded by mountains, through which the river has cut
its way, their height overshadowing it, but not rising into sharp
peaks. It is narrow and cultivated. From the mouth of the Nile to the
first cataract is six hundred miles of fertile valley, and it is said
that the scenery of the first cataract resembles nothing but that of
the second.
The beauty of Egypt is in its coloring. The small proportion of green
is compensated for by its intensity. Over the velvet soil hangs a sky
of turquoise blue, the sand sparkles like precious stones and the clear
air is luminous. “The land where it is always afternoon” might almost
be named the golden land. The traveller with the poetic or enthusiastic
temperament revels in the delicate variety of its hues. He sees the sun
turning the sands to gold, the river reflecting the sky, the blue lotus
blossoms and the reeds, the picturesque buffaloes standing in the water
with sleepy blue eyes and the vivid green of wheat fields. Another
describes the rusty gold of the Libyan rocks, the paler hue of the
driven sand slopes, the warm mauve of the nearer Pyramid, which from a
distance is a tender rose, like the bloom of an apricot, in delicate
tone against the sky. Low on the horizon, soft and pearly tints, blue
and luminous at the zenith, while opalescent shadows, pale blue and
violet and greenish grey, nestle in the hollows of the rocks and curves
of the sand drifts. Lakelike plains, with palm groves and corn flats,
relieve the glowing distance. Even in the moonlight one seems to see
the color.
From the top of the Pyramids the valley of the Nile looks like a
carpet of rich green, the groves of palm trees like figures woven in
deeper tints. Another speaks of the palms as sculptured in jasper and
malachite against the rosy evening sky.
A sense of rest and tranquillity pervades the mind.
“Straight in his ears the gushing of the wave
Far, far away did seem to mourn and rave.”
Even the conscience slumbers. But the prosaic traveller hurries through
all with unseeing eyes. Like the tourist who visited Cologne and
was too sleepy to get up and look at the Cathedral, he gapes at the
Pyramids, viewing them perhaps as “warts on the face of creation,” and
sees no glory in the heavens, no beauty in the earth, the story of the
ages has no charm for him.
Long before “Once upon a time,” if such a period can be conceived of,
the great monuments were raised, the colossal temples were built, which
have been the wonder of all succeeding centuries, and yet still back
of and beyond that, stretching away to the confines of Eternity, we
picture to ourselves the land as it then was, without these marvels
of Art, when Nature ruled supreme. Then as now the plains stretched
out, the yellow cliffs rose against the azure sky, the desert spread
afar, the purple cloud of the simoom hovered over it. The sun sank in
splendor of violet, rose and gold, the torn and ragged sides of the
mountains poured down their torrents of shining sand, the fissures
burning with a crimson lustre. The splendor passed and ashy paleness
followed; then a second paler but intense yellow hue, ere the stars
shone out. And ever the Nile calm and unruffled swept on with its
eternal flow, while the air breathed balm. Sometimes the waters
gained, sometimes the sand. The byblos or papyrus, now almost extinct,
abounded; along the waters edge forests and reeds, later destroyed,
were plentiful, and wild bear, hippopotami and crocodiles whose ancient
haunts know them no more, roved freely. The lakes abounded with fish,
pelicans and ducks lived on the shores, and turtle doves brooded on the
palm trees. The language of Egypt has been changed once, the religion
twice, but the natural conditions remain steadfast.
Before Menes, the first king of whom any distinct record has yet been
recovered, man, civilized man, possessed the earth. In tracing the
course of Egyptian history we never, as with many other nations, seem
to reach primeval humanity. Like Minerva, springing ready armed from
the brain of Jupiter, the earliest Egyptian known is in a measure
civilized. The wild savage, who develops into the more perfect
man, exists in theory, but we cannot lay our hand upon him. Some
authorities, as Professor Petrie, attribute the beginning of Egyptian
civilization, as the Greeks found it, to Mesopotamian influences, and
think the conquering race came over the Red Sea and the conquered were
of the same general type as the Libyans of North Africa. But none of
these stories have yet been proved beyond the possibility of differing
opinion by other students. Strabo said “The Egyptians lived from
the first under a regular form of government, they were a people of
civilized manners and settled a well-known country.”
Claiming to be the most ancient of peoples the old story tells how the
Egyptians yet yielded their pretensions to the Phrygians. The king
caused a shepherd to bring up two children, nursed by a goat, and to
observe what word they first spoke. Running towards him they cried
“Beccos,” the Phrygian for bread, which decided the question, but the
wise mother goat perhaps considered they were but imitating her “ba-a!”
The early Egyptian believed that Osiris and Isis, brother and sister,
as also husband and wife, were the children of Seb (Saturn), and
Nepthys was the sister of Isis. The two were called “the incubators,”
who spread their wings over the mummy to impart new life, Isis,
represented as a female figure, wearing on her head the pshent or
crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, was the earth, the receptive one, was
regarded as the mother of all and held somewhat the position to the
Egyptians that Juno did to the Greeks. The Egyptians also believed that
the heavens were upheld by four pillars and that the stars were lamps
lighted therein at night. Osiris and Isis stood for the Nile and Egypt,
and Osiris was the sun’s power, the winter solstice, the birth of Horus
the summer solstice, the inundations of the Nile the autumnal Equinox.
His gods and goddesses were innumerable, their images existing for him
in the shape of various animals and birds, and, among royalties, the
ancestors were deified.
We of to-day thrust from us the thought of death, and live as much
as may be in the present. Not so the Egyptian, it pervaded his daily
life and it shared in his feasts and festivals. It rang in his
laughter, “Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die!” and his favorite
occupation was the building of his tomb.
No other nation possesses such a variety of monuments, says one
writer. Their stone quarries were inexhaustible, their facilities
for transportation on the great river unlimited, and the sand and
the climate combined to preserve what the hand of man erected. Kings
pressed their signets on the mountains that the generations to come
might know of them and their power.
The sun and soil of Egypt, we are told, demands one breed of men
and will no other. The children of aliens die, and the special race
characteristics remain to the present day. The Fellah woman, in the
picture often seen, crouching beside the statue of an ancient king,
has the same contour of face, the same high cheek bones and nose,
and the same immutable expression. As the life rule of Egypt’s great
river changes not, year after year repeating the same history, so
the race shows the same characteristics, century after century.
She shares with China her changelessness. Like Japan, she has her
types of face, long, oval, slender, with heavy lidded eyes, and nose
characteristically depressed at the tip, with sensitive open nostrils,
the under lip slightly projecting, the chin short and square, with a
slim square shouldered figure. Or a lower, squatter type, belonging to
the plebeian, forehead low, nose depressed and short, face prognathous
and sensual-looking, the chin heavy, the jaw large, the lips thick
and projecting. Both exist on the earliest monuments and to our own
time. One writer thinks that the mummies differ from the Arabs of the
present day in having a better balance of the intellectual and moral
faculties. It is also said that in men the countenance is narrower than
in women. The forehead small and retreating, with a long large black
and well-shaped eye, a long nose, with a slight bridge, cheek bones
a little prominent, an expressive mouth, with full lips, and white
regular teeth, and a small round chin. The complexion of men a dark
brown, that of women olive to a pink flesh color. The women and girls
are slender, with small straight brows and close lashes on each lid,
which gives an animated expression to their almond-shaped eyes, the
use of kohl (sometimes said to be sanitary in its effects) enhancing
this. The forehead is receding, cheekbones high, the bridge of the nose
low, the mouth wide and thick-lipped. The peasantry are darker than the
townspeople and the color deepens from pale brown to bronze as you go
south.
Co-existent with, prior even, perhaps, to the pyramids is the great
Sphinx. Maspero believed that it dated before the time of Menes.
Battered, mutilated, time worn, yet rearing itself nobly still with
its majestic face in its tranquil grandeur, turned towards the East.
Towering sixty feet above one of the sand dunes, with a background of
yellow sand or sapphire sky, or whitening in the moonlight against
the starlit indigo heavens rises this colossal head and shoulders.
“Mutilated though it is,” says one traveller, “the changeless serenity,
the eternal repose of the noble countenance impresses and awes all
beholders.” The typical sphinx, a male or female head, with an animal’s
body, in the Greek “the strangler,” signifies intelligence or force.
It was a favorite form in architecture and sometimes the face was a
portrait of an existing king or queen. The great Sphinx is said, from
an inscription at Edfu, to represent one of the personifications of the
god Horus. It was designated as Horem Khou, “Horus on the Horizon,”
and bore the shape of a human-headed lion to vanquish Typhon (Set)
principle of evil, and turning East awaited the resurrection of his
father Osiris. As Horus was supposed to have reigned over Egypt, kings
took the name Horus, or “Golden Hawk.”
A picture of the Sphinx, by Elihu Vedder, is very impressive. The great
head looms skyward, the desert spreads around, the silence of Eternity
broods over all. A crouching figure, old and tattered, kneels before
it and lays his ear to the silent lips, as if to learn their hidden
secrets.
The land is rich in fruits and vegetables, but it has comparatively
few trees, and no great variety of flowers. Palms, sycamores, figs,
and accasias are among the most frequent of the former. Vegetables
are peas, lentils, leeks, onions, garlic, celery, cucumbers, carrots,
turnips, tomatoes, egg-fruit, peppers, etc. Fruits are melons, of which
the flesh is often a rich golden color, grapes, dates, almonds, figs,
pomegranates, apricots, peaches, etc. The lotus, now comparatively
rare, might once have been called the national, as it certainly was the
favorite flower. It was used at feasts and for decorations, and its
buds, blossoms and leaves were continually reproduced in architectural
designs. It was chiefly because the water lily bud opened its petals at
sunrise and closed them at sunset that the ancients held it sacred to
the sun. Pliny says: “It is reported that in the Euphrates the flower
of the lotus plunges into the water at night, remaining there until
midnight, and to such a depth that it cannot be reached with the hand.
After midnight it begins gradually to rise, and as the sun rises above
the horizon the flower also rises above the water, expands and raises
itself some distance above the element in which it grows.” “And it was
also through this peculiarity,” says another writer, “that Hankerville
proved that the Egyptians considered the lily an emblem of the world as
it rose from the waters of the deep.”
Other flowers include the rose, jassamine, narcissus, lily,
convolvulus, violet, chrysanthemum, geranium, dahlia, basil, etc.
The horse was not an early inhabitant—there were camels, elephants, and
cattle of special breeds, doves and other birds and many varieties of
fish. A number of animals were tamed in Egypt and some of them would
seem to us a singular collection of pets, lions, leopards, monkeys,
gazelles and even crocodiles, and, above all, cats were household pets,
as were the last two among the sacred animals.
Everywhere possible at the present day excavation is going on.
Seventy-five centimes a day was at one time the rate for the diggers
and fifty for the children who carried away the baskets of rubbish, the
food consisting of bread, water, a few dates, cucumbers or onions, and,
rarely if ever, any meat.
“The Nile shore,” says Bayard Taylor, “shows either palm groves, fields
of cane or doura, young wheat, or patches of bare sand blown from the
desert. The villages have mud walls and the tombs of Moslem saints
looking like white ovens. The Arabian and Libyan mountains sweep into
the foreground, the yellow cliffs overhang and recede into a violet
haze at the horizon, while the blue evening shadows lie on rose-hued
mountain walls.”
Life in the East moves more slowly, even in modern times, than in
the strenuous West. One traveller playfully remarks that one can
perceive in the face after a Nile voyage something of the patience and
resignation of the Sphinx, and another says that Egypt is the best
place in the world to rest, and recommends that one “go 600 or 700
miles up the Nile before the season opens and occupy a hotel alone.
You will find each day at least forty-eight hours long, and you will
think of nothing but Egyptian antiquities and Arabs, both of which are
wonderfully soothing to the tired mind.”
Egypt may be likened to a woman with coloring and charm, who surpasses
sometimes in attraction another of more beautiful and regular form. In
this land of golden light, of perpetual sunshine, lived and moved the
Egyptian queen. Different and yet the same as her sisters of to-day,
now she seemed a goddess in might and beauty, and again as the meanest
of her slaves, swayed by ambitions, torn by passions, swept by waves
of love and hate—a woman still. Each in turn played her little part on
the stage of life and passed beyond the curtain, leaving a few, and
but few, traces of her existence. Passed into “the land which loveth
silence,” the dim Amenti of the gods.
CHAPTER SECOND.
THE QUEEN.
Egyptian Queens! What a picture their name seems to call up of old time
splendors—of the light of Eastern skies, the soft breath of eternal
summer—of the great river Nile as a beneficent deity, of monuments and
palaces, gardens and waving palm trees—houses with gorgeous coloring,
of princes and slaves—all mingled on the tapestry of time!
In an age sometimes called “the Woman’s Era,” when woman has become
a subject of analytical study to herself and to man, it may be
interesting to turn from the varieties of the “New Woman” to the
very old. Even on the borderland of mythology she asserts a strange
individuality and is vitalized for us in the pages of history and
legend.
The Western woman on the stage of life is ever a prominent figure.
The Eastern has held a place in the background, giving glimpses only
of her real self, always a veiled form, with dark, shining eyes,
merely suggestive of beauty and charm. It may be matter of surprise,
therefore, to some, that in the most ancient of lands—or among the most
ancient of peoples, Eastern beyond dispute, woman held an almost modern
place. In this, in some respects, advanced civilization, religiously,
politically and socially she took her share in the world’s work and
pleasure, and was deemed, not the ignorant child or inferior of Semitic
lands, but the friend, the associate, the equal of man.
The Queen was the companion of her royal spouse, not his mere slave and
toy. From the time of the Second Dynasty she frequently ruled, as the
king’s guardian in youth, as regent in his absence, or as independent
sovereign after his decease, or in right of heredity. The succession
was continued on the maternal equally with the paternal side, and it
was at times through the female, and not through the male parent, that
the king traced his right to the throne.
Among the nobility also the same custom, to a degree, obtained. The
son of the eldest daughter was sometimes the heir. Thus we read in the
time of Sneferu of his “great legitimate daughter, Nefret-Kari,” and
her son was “High Treasurer.” In the hieroglyphic system after female
appellations, such as queen, wife, mother, daughter, and the like, the
figure of a seated woman appears usually on a modest stool.
On the monuments the queen is always treated as an official personage,
she shares the king’s honors and her name, like her husband’s, is
enclosed in a cartouch. We know more of her public than of her private
life.
As a rule, to which there were exceptions, the king had but one legal
wife, of high or royal birth, the daughter of “the god,” as the late
king was called, and hence she was in many instances, in the strange
Egyptian fashion, her husband’s sister. One needs surely a different
standard from the Christian to judge of the morals of Egypt. The
marriage of a brother and sister, so abhorrent to our ideas, was
frequent in the Royal Family, nor does nature herself, at that period,
seem to have set upon it the same mark of disapprobation that one
might expect. It began in the heavens with the gods, who, according to
Egyptian mythology, did not dwell on earth, and why should not humanity
follow their example. Osiris and Isis were both brother and sister,
husband and wife. Nor could the gods any more than men get on without
magic. Even the statues of the former wore amulets as a protection
against evil and death, and used mystic formulae to constrain each
other. Isis was above all the mistress of magic and famous in
incantations.
To her royal spouse the queen is spoken of as “thy beloved sister who
fills the palace with light,” or “thy sister who is in thine heart, who
sits near thee at the feast,” or “thy beloved sister with whom thou
dost love to speak.” A love song in which the woman seems the wooer is
preserved and we give one stanza.
“Thou beloved one my wish is to be with thee as thy wife;
That thy arm may lie upon my arm.
Will not my elder brother come to-night?
Otherwise I am as one who lies in the grave.
For art thou not health and light?”
The other ladies of the harem are also occasionally called sisters.
“Sutem Mut” was the Royal Mother, “Sutem Hempt,” the Royal Wife. Under
the old empire the queen was spoken of as “she who sees the gods,
Horus and Set (that is possessor of both halves of the kingdom), the
most pleasant, the highly praised, the friend of Horus, the beloved of
Ra, who wears the two diadems.” In the New Empire she was designated
as “the consort of the god, the mother of the god, the great consort
of the king.” She was eligible to all but the highest offices of the
priesthood and held forth or played the sacred sistrum to the gods,
sometimes dedicating herself to one deity, while her husband served
another, and she deemed it the greatest honor to be called “the
concubine of the god.”
All women desired the name of Hathor, Isis, the goddess of Love and
Fecundity, as in the Middle Ages the name of Mary, the mother of
Christ, was specially cherished. Other popular names under the Old
Empire signified “Beautiful,” “Strong,” etc. Under the new we also find
“Beautiful,” and in addition the names of trees, somewhat in Japanese
fashion, with their “Cherry Blossom” and “Plum Blossom,” as “Beautiful
Sycamore,” or, hardly admirable in the eyes of the Greeks or ourselves,
“Large Headed,” which some of their coiffures and head ornamentations
seemed to suggest.
The sons and daughters of the late king were always called the children
of the god. The education of both was conducted by the most learned
men of the kingdom, frequently priests, and this tutor was spoken of
as the “nurse.” The custom of entrusting the royal ladies to such
severe training reminds us of the preceptors and studies of Queen
Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey. The queen held property in her own
right. At one time the revenues from the fisheries of Lake Moeris were
appropriated to her. A talent a day, or upwards of 700 pounds a year.
Also the returns from certain cities; as, for example, the taxes on
wines of the city of Anthylla, were a queen’s dowry for her dress, and
this privilege was continued to the queens of Persia after Cambyses
conquered Egypt.
After death, at least from the Eighteenth Dynasty, divine honors
were frequently paid to the queen, and especially was this the case
of Queens Aah-hotep and Nefertari, the ancestresses of the race of
kings who drove out and succeeded the Hyksos, the usurping rulers, and
restored Egypt to its native sovereigns.
The palaces were usually of brick, as the temples were of stone
adorned with gorgeously painted walls and furnished with carpets,
rugs of skin and ebony and ivory chairs and couches. The queen was
attended by slaves, and some favored maid or official bore beside her
a fan of ostrich plumes. She wore in later periods the double crown
of Egypt and presided beside the king at feasts, where men and women,
with unveiled faces (veiling being an introduction of the Persians),
enjoyed themselves together. They decorated each other with flowers,
which already in profusion adorned the drinking vessels, listened to
music and watched the dancing of female slaves, the feats of jugglers,
etc. Monkeys were sometimes trained to act as torchbearers, and we can
imagine the confusion occasionally engendered when one or another of
them, bursting, so to speak, the bands of conventionality, reverted
to his naturally mischievous impulses and cast his flaming torch into
the midst of the festivities. Lions, leopards, dogs, and the specially
sacred cats were all numbered among the pets.
The cat, it is said, was created in the ark, hence the Garden of Eden,
“where the comforts of home were incompletely organized,” lacked
that ornament of the domestic hearth. But by the Egyptians she was,
above all, valued and adored. They mourned for her as for a dear and
familiar friend, and woe to the man who, even by accident, compassed
her destruction. She is most pleasingly set forth by one who evidently
admired and appreciated her:
“A little lion, small and dainty sweet
(For such there be),
With sea-grey eyes and softly stepping feet,
She prayed of me.
For this, through lands Egyptian far away,
She bade me pass;
But in an evil hour I said her nay;
And now, alas!
Far-travelled Nicias hath wooed and won
Arsinoe,
With gifts of furry creatures white and dun
From over sea.”
Till the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty there was little change in
female attire. A fine linen garment, through which the limbs could be
plainly seen, extended from below the breast to the ankle, sometimes
supported by straps over the shoulders, and sometimes so narrow as to
require not even these. Colored robes were used less frequently. To the
man was left in those days, as to the male bird, the gayer plumage. The
woman contented herself with the use of oils and cosmetics, blackening
her brows and eyes, leaving her hair flowing, bound by a fillet, or
with braided locks, or a wig, and encircling arms and limbs with
innumerable chains and bracelets. The queen wore a royal head-dress,
with the asp, emblem of the sun-god Ra, over her forehead, and the
vulture, dedicated to Maut, mother of Isis, above. The golden disk is
said to be an emblem of the eternal sunshine, the entwining asp of
the winding Nile, and the outspread wings of Upper and Lower Egypt,
extending along the river.
Mrs. Stevenson mentions innumerable texts which refer to the god as
hidden in the disk, whilst a winged goddess makes light with her
feathers, with which light and heat are always associated. The mother
goddess of Thebes, Mut, in the shape of a vulture, spreads her wings
and says, “I cover thy couch and give life to die back of thy neck.”
And the mother of the sun-god at the moment of birth brings her own
life “to the back of his neck in flame.” The disk amulet was put
under a mummy to preserve the vital heat The winged disk, emblem of
heaven, was, in primeval times, conceived as a bird, which, under
its embodiment as the hawk, had come to dwell in the sun. “In the
Eighteenth Dynasty this symbol over monuments was supposed to guard
and protect, and played in Egypt the role that the winged bull of the
Assyrians played on the banks of the Euphrates.”
A poetic fancy has thus painted the queen:
“Her form I know; in airless chambers
Of vast old tombs it lives to-day;
The quaint, stiff lines, the rigid posing,
The vivid colors, fresh and gay,
Of raiment striped and barred and fluted,
And tasseled waist and sandaled feet,
That lightly trod, in air and sunshine,
The dust of some Egyptian street.
Her face, I guess at line and color,
Slow almond eyes, with sidelong glance,
And full, calm lips, with curving corners,
Just touched with sleepy scorn perchance,
And straight, low brows, close bound for beauty,
With beaten gold and burning gem,
And the small asp, upreared for striking,
Afront the quaint old diadem.
So richly worn, so darkly splendid,
Looks out her face from shadowland,
Some night methinks I scarce should wonder
To see a living presence stand
Just in the shaft of light thrown dimly
From this old swinging lamp—to hear
A voice that speaks the tongue of Rameses
Fall sweet and strange upon my ear.”
Pen, pencil, brush, and I may add imagination, have depicted for us the
royal surroundings. The reigning queen had, like all sovereigns, her
tasks to perform. Reports from all parts of the kingdom to receive,
the regulation of laws, the commerce and the domestic affairs of her
dominions. Luxury surrounded her, attendants and slaves waited upon her
bidding. Gold, silver, precious stones and valuable stuffs composed her
furniture, her table-service and her attire. Scribes indited at her
dictation and royal papyrus bore the impress of her signet, upon which
vermilion was rubbed from a small cushion, while blue and a somewhat
different stamp was used in religious matters. She dwelt among columns,
statues and sphinxes, and, always adorned with flowers and jewels,
wore over her shoulders, when in the character of a priestess, the
leopard skin of the sacrificer. As special honor to any subject she
would bestow upon him a chain of gold and put a ring on his finger. Her
throne of ivory was sometimes said to have been so finely carved that a
breath would move the foliage represented upon it.
Such in general outline was the position of the Egyptian Queen. But
when we approach the individual the difficulties in the study of
personality are manifold. Frequently hundreds of years pass and no
queen’s name appears—the roll of dynasty after dynasty is searched in
vain. In most cases this is enhanced by many names being applied to
the same individual, as they are derived from ancient Egyptian, Greek,
Persian, or other sources. To this one adds what is called the “Ka”
name, a sort of religious addition to the original cognomen.
A parallel to all this might be found in the case of the Duke of
Argyle, date 1734, who was also known as John Campbell, MacCallum More,
and Ian Roy Cean. The titular, family, and by, or nick-name, signifying
“red-headed.” A person searching the archives of Scotland a thousand
years hence might be as bewildered in such a case as the Egyptian
student is now.
Different authorities give dates hundreds of years apart, different
names to the same person, and different spelling to the same name. Some
of the queens were taken for men, and only in later and more exhaustive
researches was their sex and position ascertained. Nor is this to be
wondered at, when the various parts of speech applied to them are of
the male gender. Yet here and there a fragment is discovered and we
learn something, at least, of many of them.
The partial list extends from the earliest times to the Roman period.
Late discoveries give us fragmentary remains from the First Dynasty,
but Mertytefs of the Fourth seems the first distinct personality, and
the roll, virtually beginning with her, ends with the last and most
celebrated Cleopatra. Two of these figures at least stand out with
wonderful clearness, the great Hatasu, of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and
this same Cleopatra, and while of many others we know much less, we in
some cases possess their veritable jewels and ornaments, and in others
their actual mummies.
We are working, as it were, to restore a mutilated mosaic. Some of the
pieces are altogether gone, many others broken and discolored. From
here and there we gather a fragment for our task of restoration. They
may vary in shape, they may vary in tint, the recompleted whole is
diverse from the original, but it approximates—it gives us an idea of
what the perfect design has been, and with that, for the present, we
must rest content.
CHAPTER THIRD.
MERTYTEFS.
Year by year the patient research of the archeologist unearths new
discoveries, confirming or contradicting those already made, and
translating, as it were, into actual fact much that had previously been
considered legendary. And still, year by year, till the whole history
is laid bare, the process is likely to continue. Comparatively late
discoveries at Abydos have converted the mythical kings of the First
Dynasty into real human beings, living and dying thousands of years
ago. Their burial places have been found, and Menes, Aha-Mena, is no
longer a suppositious, but a real character. Weapons, furniture, vases,
drinking vessels, jewelry, etc., with the names of various kings upon
them, have been dug up and may now be seen at Abydos, in the University
Museum in London, in that of the University of Pennsylvania, and in
other places.
Among these we come upon the first memorial of a queen. From out of
the darkness of the centuries stretches forth a woman’s arm laden with
bracelets, and tells of the common humanity which unites us. It is thus
described: “The most important piece of gold work discovered consists
of the bracelets of the Queen of Zer. The queen’s arm had been broken
off long ago, when the tomb was originally plundered, and hidden in a
hole in the wall. There it had been overlooked alike by the builders
of the Osiris shrine, by the Coptic destroyers, and by the Arabs
employed by the French mission, until it was discovered by Professor
Petrie’s workmen, with the four bracelets in their original order. Each
is made in a different and somewhat elaborate design, partly in gold
and partly in beads of amethyst, turquoise or lazuli.” These “finds”
also include the tomb of a young girl, “Bener-Ab” (Sweet of Heart),
whom some fancied to be the daughter of Ment, which contained an ivory
figure dressed in flowing robes. And still another “find” includes some
plaited locks and a fringe of curly false hair.
The early Egyptian comes upon the historic stage very much decorated
as to head, very decollete as to garments. No Indian with war paint
and feathers was more elaborately gotten up. So that his peruke hung
in curled or braided locks about him, or, if of royal blood, he wore
his crown or double crown, all else seemed of minor importance. We can
imagine him lightly attired, treading the streets of modern London
and straying into the law courts, where he would encounter judges and
barristers in their wigs of office. Doubtless he would bow and touch
his head significantly, intimating that a common bond of taste united
them.
So important were these coiffures that one of the earliest offices
of which we find record is that of “Superintendent of Wigs and
Head-dresses,” and among the treasures of various museums are specimens
of these belongings of royalty.
Reproduced in almost every book on Egypt are those most ancient
portrait statues of General Ra-hotep and his wife, the Princess Nefert.
One authority assigns them to the Third Dynasty, and already the wig
was in full flow. The gentleman wears a comparatively modest head
covering, but the lady’s was of portentous size and thickness, falling
in curls on either side of her face, with its artless, unaffected
expression. Doubtless the fashionable world of that day thought the
wig gave “a presence”—as an English dame said of caps—to the wearer.
General Ra-hotep had married a lady of rank, of royal blood, his
superior in that respect, but both were deemed important enough to have
their massive statues cut, sitting in the usual ceremonial attitude,
bolt upright, the knees and feet closely pressed together. “A statue of
dignity culminating in a bust of beneficence.”
The Egyptian ideal was a studied dignity of posture. The Greeks, aiming
at the grace and beauty of nature, sculptured their figures in the
various attitudes of the human form, as also, in a degree, did the
Romans. While we see on coins and in old manuscripts the Saxon and
early Norman kings with knees and feet wide apart, and this also is the
ceremonial Chinese attitude.
But even with a formal prescribed position of the figure the early
Egyptian faces were evidently true to nature to an extent not the case
in later times. There is an individuality about them which makes us
feel that we see a truthful personification. In the Old Empire the
realistic school is found side by side with conventional art. In the
Fourth Dynasty especially we see conventional figures and portrait
heads, while in the Fifth all is more natural. To this last belongs
the fine limestone statue of a scribe now in the Louvre. A slender but
powerful figure, square in the shoulders, with slight legs and long,
flat feet, seated in an Oriental manner and writing on a parchment
unrolled on his knee. The flesh tints a pale red, a false beard, bronze
for the brows, eyes enamelled alabaster and crystal, and a nail for the
pupil.
Another portrait statue of great celebrity is that of the “wooden
man” reproduced in a plaster cast in almost every museum. It is half
life-size, probably the foreman of a gang of laborers, is called “Ra
Emka,” and was found at the Sakkarah pyramid. Its age has been said to
be six thousand years. It had originally eyes of opaque white quartz,
pupils of rock crystal, bronze eyelids, and arms made separately,
with a staff of office in one hand, and was once covered with linen,
plastered and painted. The Arabs called it “Sheikel Belel, or Belud,”
“Village Chief.” A mutilated statue of his wife was found beside him,
only the head and trunk being entire. The face was of the common
Egyptian type, with rather a peevish expression, in contrast to the
husband’s more urbane and amiable look. Statues of a certain Sepi and
his wife, attributed to the Third Dynasty, are also in the Louvre.
The outline of the physiognomy of General Ra-hotep and Ra-Emka are not
unlike in type. The Princess Nefert has buff flesh tints, her husband’s
are somewhat darker, and both have the crystal eyes which impart such a
lifelike appearance. A dignified and portly pair, who gaze steadily out
above the head of the sight-seer in the Gizeh museum. This collection,
first gathered at Boulak and later removed to Gizeh, is the youngest
but the richest in portrait statues of private individuals. Most are in
what is called the hieratic attitude, with the left arm close to the
body, the left hand holding a roll of papyrus, the right leg advanced,
the right hand raised, as if grasping a staff, or perhaps, as at the
Resurrection, holding the Book of the Dead. With Menes the first
distinct record of dynasties begins, so far as yet discovered, and
mooted points remain for the student as to which reigned simultaneously
and which in succession. The first two dynasties were Thinites, from
Tini, Greek This, near Abydos, in Upper Egypt, seat of the worship
of Osiris, where their tombs and various remains, as above referred
to, have been found. One of the most ancient is a fragment of jewelry
bearing the name of Mena, who is said to have founded Memphis, to have
turned aside the course of the river to build his city, to have reigned
sixty-two years, and, finally, to have been killed by a hippopotamus
or crocodile. Zer, or Teta, understood medicine and wrote astronomical
books; of others it is said that one wrote the sacred books, another
introduced animal worship, and another was a giant. Of this first
dynasty there seem to have been some seven or eight kings.
As early as the Second Dynasty, under Binothris, a law was passed
admitting women to sovereignty, and thereafter, from time to time, as
guardian, regent, or independent ruler, a woman held sway. As goddesses
above, so the woman below had her share of authority. The queen by
incantations protected the king when in his priestly robe he offered
sacrifices, played the sistrum (a sort of religious instrument) to
drive away evil spirits, offered libations, poured perfumes and cast
flowers. She walked behind the king in processions, gave audiences
with him and governed for him, as the goddess Isis for Osiris, in
his absence. The worship of the bull Apis, destined to so wide a
popularity, was also introduced in this dynasty.