exceptions, can be found in the writers on Egypt, but here and there
we come across the mention of certain names and brief stories or
conflicting statements in regard to them. Several are spoken of by
Maspero in his account of these earliest times. But to Mertytefs or
Mertitifsi chiefly clings any sort of history which can vitalize her
for us. We read of Mirisonku, daughter of Kheops and sister and wife
of Khephren, of Mirtitifsi, of Khuit, of Miriri-ankh-nas, and of
Meri-s-ankh, of the Sixth Dynasty, worshipper of the gods. Another
writer gives Meri-s-ankh as the queen of Sneferu or Khafra, and Hentsen
as Kufu’s daughter, says that Hatshepset made scarabs of Menkaura,
and mentions a statue of Ra-en-usa, of the Fifth Dynasty. A stele in
Gizeh, found at Abydos and of the Fifth Dynasty, represents the royal
spouse Pepi-ankhnes and the “chef” Aou seated on each side of a table
of offerings. The city of This gave its name to the yet earliest known
kings, but Memphis, “The Haven of the Good,” was the great metropolis
in the time of Mertitefs.
Queen Mertitefs is said to have been first the wife of King Seneferu,
“the Betterer,” whose mother is given by one authority as Queen
Hapunimait. Mertytefs was, some say, of the Third, some of the
Fourth Dynasty. In a limestone group in the Leyden Museum (among the
oldest portrait statues in the world) sit the queen, the mysterious
Ka, which may be briefly described as the embodied spirit, and her
secretary, a priest named Kenun. Without a secretary or scribe no royal
personage’s list of attendants was complete. It was hardly the private
correspondence which occupied their time, as in later days, though the
habit of letter writing then existed, but so many items had to be noted
down. The queen and her Ka sit side by side, with black hair and buff
flesh tints just alike.
Seneferu, founder of the Fourth Dynasty, is the first king of whom we
have contemporary monuments, and the Fourth is sometimes called the
“pyramid dynasty.” During this reign the kingdom was prosperous, the
arts flourished, and foreign conquests were made. The king left a good
name, and was worshipped till the Ptolemaic period.
Diodorus stated that in the marriage contracts the wife was to control
her husband. Be that as it may, she was doubtless, as in modern times,
the ruler of the household. Mertytefs was young, some say fourteen,
and probably beautiful, when she married Seneferu, whom she survived,
and, possessing the usual charm of widows, she again married the Cheops
of Herodotus, the Khufu of Manetho, of whom a small ivory has been
recently found by Professor Petrie at Abydos, the builder of the Great
Pyramid. Marriette assigns the date 4234 B. C., and Brugsch 3733 B. C.
to this period, while Petrie gives from the time of the First Dynasty
to the Sixth 4777 B. C. to 3503 B. C. Some writers interpolate a
certain Ratatef, sometimes said to be the son, sometimes the brother of
Khufu.
The building of a pyramid as his sepulchre was one of the chief
occupations, might almost say the amusements or pleasures, of a king,
as the building of a house in modern times affords constant study and
entertainment to the constructor, and day after day he goes to watch
its progress. The thought of death had no terror for the Egyptians—to
the king it was simply a new world, peopled with gods and goddesses,
among whom he would take an honored place. His pyramid was the book,
the autobiography, often an illustrated one, that he published, filled
with accounts of his deeds and prowess and certain to give him name and
fame with posterity. The word pyramid is said to mean “king’s grave,”
and thus reveals its purpose.
So, slowly, under the eyes of Queen Mertytefs rose these gigantic and
marvellous structures. What matter, if the object were accomplished,
that hundreds of lives were sacrificed in the ceaseless and laborious
toil under a tropic sun. Herodotus says it took one hundred thousand,
Pliny three hundred thousand, men twenty years in the building. We
can imagine the queen from time to time going in state to view the
progress of the work and helping it on with her suggestions. Some
traditions tell that Khufu was specially tyrannical and cruel, and even
stopped praying to the gods to press on his great enterprise. The rock
testimony styles him brave and a conqueror.
“Egypt is the monumental land of the earth, as the Egyptians are the
monumental people,” says Bunsen. The history of Egypt goes, as it were,
against the stream; the earliest monuments are between Cairo and Siout,
in Lower Egypt, the latest temples in Nubia, Upper Egypt.
The pyramids, whose entrances pointed to the North star, and which
were perhaps two thousand years old when Abraham was born, looked
from a distance like isolated mountain peaks or faint blue triangles
outlined against the sky, and the clear air made them seem nearer than
they were. They occupied the whole horizon as one advanced beyond the
plain of tombs. “Anear,” says Miss Edwards, “a mighty shadow, sharp and
distinct, divided the sunlight where it fell, as its great original
divided the sunlight in the upper air and darkened the space it covered
like an eclipse—registering sixty centuries of history.” In the early
times the three large pyramids were probably almost central in the
embrace of the city, which stretched away westward from the Nile in “a
succession of gardens, squares, palaces and monuments, girdling the
lake with beautiful villages and climbing, with its terraces, grottoes,
shrines and marble pavilions, the very sides of the cliffs two leagues
from the Nile. From the top of the great pyramid of Cheops to-day one
views the broad domes and the minarets of Cairo, the hills beyond and a
palm grove on the site of ancient Memphis,” says Bayard Taylor. “Over
the rich palm trees the blue streak of the river and the plain beyond
you see the phantoms of two pyramids in the haze which still curtains
the Libyan desert. Northward, beyond the parks and palaces of Shoba,
the Nile stretches his two great arms towards the sea, dotted far into
the distance with sails that flash in the sun.” Many other pyramids
are in sight, while higher than St. Peter’s, Rome, St. Paul’s, London,
or the Capitol at Washington, the greatest of them, this enormous
structure of past ages still dominates the plain. A modern poet has
said of them:
“Amid the deserts of a mystic land,
Like Sibyls waiting for a doom far-seen,
Apart in awful solitude they stand,
With thoughts unending caravan between.”
Even then it was probably a magnificent city in which Queen Mertytefs
dwelt. Colossal gateways, with the disk and extended wings above,
pillars on which lights burned at night, avenues of sphinxes, palaces
along the river bank, columns with carved capitals, with the lotus in
bud and bloom, as well as other plants, and gorgeously painted shafts,
temples of red sandstone, with forests of pillars, lakes surrounded
with trees and flowering shrubs, oranges, scarlet pomegranates, olives,
figs, vines, and everywhere crowds of freemen and troops of slaves.
The Sphinx, previously sculptured, doubtless underwent some work of
restoration at this time, and is said by certain authorities to bear
the features of Chephren aggrandized, by others that it was in the
image of the god Harmachis. The Arabs named it “Abuthol, Father of
Terrors.” Its present state called forth from an illiterate voyager of
modern times the caustic remark, “They keep it in shocking repair!”
Maspero believed the Sphinx belonged to the period of the Horshesu,
“Followers of Horus,” chiefs of the clans gathered into one kingdom
under Menes.
The Book of the Dead, which laid down rules, as we may say, both for
the dead and the living, belonged to the Fourth Dynasty, and the
fragments of it which have descended to us are the source of much of
our information about this ancient land and people.
Besides the serious business of pyramid building, the kings and queens
had their amusements of other sorts. The harp and flute were known in
the Fourth Dynasty, and music, singing and dancing no doubt date from
the Garden of Eden. Dwarfs were favorite pets, and a story is told of
a frolic of King Seneferu’s, who, for diversion, kept a boat manned
with girls whose airy costumes consisted of network. Perchance he may
not have been so sober-minded a person as his successor in the queen’s
affections. Khufu built the Great Pyramid, and perhaps rebuilt the
temple of Isis near the Sphinx, also a temple at Denderah, added to
or restored later, first by Thothmes IV and afterwards by some of the
Ptolemies.
Mertytefs or Khufu’s sons and daughters are spoken of by Rawlinson,
and a daughter, Hents or Hentsen, was buried under a small pyramid
near her father. There is a tradition that he sold his daughter for
money to carry on the building of his pyramid, while she, sharing in
the profits, built one for herself. The king consecrated gold and
copper statues to Isis in honor of his daughter. Other stories tell
of treasures buried in the pyramids which were appropriated by the
sovereigns of other centuries.
Tutors, or “nurses,” as they were called, were appointed for the royal
children, and possibly the queen’s secretary, Kenun, may have held
this position. Record is made of a certain Shap-siska-fankhu, who was
governor of the “House of the Royal Children,” in the Fifth Dynasty.
Shafra or Khafra was thought to be son-in-law to Khufu and his wife;
Meri-ankh-s, or Meri-s-ankh, whose tomb is at Sakkarah, was a priestess
of the god Thoth. She was high in confidence and favor, and bore at
least two sons. Her husband, or another son of Khufu, was high priest
at Heliopolis.
Mertytefs was evidently a lady of great vigor, capacity and attraction,
for two reigns did not exhaust her powers, and under the succeeding
king, Kafra or Chafra, probably son-in-law or nephew, and builder of
the second pyramid of Gizeh, she still in a measure held sway. The
name signified “beloved of her father,” but she was evidently beloved
of fortune also, for her sun sinks in splendor as the “Administrator
of the Great Hall of the Palace,” where she had probably innumerable
slaves to oversee and do her bidding, “Mistress of the Royal Wardrobe”
and “Superintendent of the Chamber of Wigs and Head-dresses”—three
important offices. Yet are women of forty on the Nile said to be as
old as those of sixty in Europe. Not this lady surely, else were her
brilliant career briefly run. To account for this singular history
one commentator allows her a hundred and six years, another a hundred
and thirty. A lady’s age is always a mystery. Perhaps she never told
it, but “let concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on her damask
cheek,” and after these lapses of centuries it may be we shall never be
set right on this point.
The statue of King Chefren, with his novel head-dress, serene
expression, and paucity of underwear, is familiar, but the upper class
figures were always more conventional, the lower more realistic. A
new king meant usually a new city, a new palace, and a new tomb, and
architecture flourished in these distant periods.
The duties of the Queen Dowager were doubtless arduous. “Administrator
of the Great Hall” probably included the direction and control of a
large retinue of servants and the preparations for feast and audiences.
“Mistress of the Royal Wardrobe” was perhaps a less onerous position,
owing to the brevity of the then fashionable costume. At some periods
men wore but two garments, women but one—a sort of narrow chemise of
fine linen, through which the limbs could be plainly seen, with or
without a strap over the shoulders. Another costume was a light skirt
with long shoulder straps and bound by a girdle, the ends falling in
front. Over this usually a full skirt of fine linen, with sleeves below
the elbows and broad skirt falling to the ground.
Both men and women adorned themselves with necklaces and bracelets,
and used stibium to darken under the eyelids—while the nails, hands
and feet were stained with henna, which gave them an orange tint.
Occasionally, also, an added decoration was a line drawn from the
corner of the eye to the temple. In the earliest times foot covering
was seldom worn indoors.
But to be “Superintendent of the Chamber of Wigs and Head-dresses”
could have been no sinecure. Wigs! Wigs! Wigs! We can imagine them
in the room devoted to them, on shelves, in boxes, and on stands.
Upon this department of his wardrobe the Egyptian spent much time
and care. With head closely shaven, and frequently the chin also
divested of all natural endowment, he had unlimited opportunity to add
what he considered improvement of an artificial character. He wore a
manufactured beard, caps of a striped material, and wigs made both
of human hair and sheep’s wool. The wigs consisted of rows of little
curls beginning at different points and cut round and square. The
shorter covered the head or neck, and the longer lay on the shoulders;
a wig in the Berlin museum shows both short curls and long. In other
instances braids and plaits were preferred to curls. The peculiarity
of the Egyptian head was a prominent back, and this doubtless had to
be considered in the shape of the wig selected. The pages who served
the king and queen in their private apartments often wore a crown of
natural flowers.
The women appear usually to have worn the wigs over their own hair,
which sometimes escaped below. It also hung down in two tresses on the
breast, and the young princes wore a side lock before the ear, as did
the youthful god Horus. So much pride did females take in their hair
that an especially fine lock was sometimes cut off and buried with them.
It was all deemed an important subject. A certain Shapsesre of later
time, superintendent at court, a wig-maker by profession, had four
statues of himself made for his tomb, each with a different style of
wig!
The king wore a sort of handkerchief, a cap, or a helmet. The white
crown of Upper Egypt was a curious, high, white, conical cap; that
of Lower Egypt was red, had a high, narrow back and a metal ornament
bent obliquely forward. They were, after a time, worn together. The
upreared uraeus or asp was the sign of royalty. The goddess Ra-nu was
represented with the asp which was worn by the queen, with the addition
of the vulture with drooping or outspread wings, the winged sum disk
and other costly head-dresses.
A great stele found at the pyramid of Gizeh is dedicated to the memory
of a princess who, after being a great favorite in the court of
Seneferu and Khufu, was subsequently attached to the private house of
Kafra, and her history seems to run strangely parallel with that of the
queen—if she herself be not intended.
Four or five thousand years before Christ are the dates assigned
to this period. We must grope and work somewhat at random in the
reconstruction of our mosaic. Yet does Queen Mertytefs stand out with a
certain lifelikeness. Imagination plays around her active figure, and
she looks out at us from the shadows, not with languorous, soft glances
and gentle movements, but with vivacity and power in her black eyes and
an attractive and capable face. None but a woman of power and capacity,
we may be sure, could have been “Administrator of the Great Hall.”
CHAPTER FOURTH.
NITOCRIS.
The Sixth Dynasty is illustrated by the name of Queen Nitocris. Famed,
and it may be fabled, the obliterating touch of the centuries has yet
spared something of her personality. The “most beautiful and spirited
woman of her time” is the record that comes down to us from very
ancient sources, and “rosy-cheeked” the epithet applied to her. She was
the last sovereign of her dynasty, but first we must glance at a few,
less noted, that preceded her.
Dynasty after dynasty was named according to the great cities of the
provinces, and to the Fifth by some, or by others to the Sixth, was
applied the term Elephantines, from the city of Elephantine, in Syene.
According to certain authorities, the First, Second and Third Dynasties
of Manetho were ruling at This, while his Fourth and Sixth held sway
at Memphis, and during a portion of the time his Fifth at Elephantine,
Ninth at Heliopolis and Eleventh at Thebes or Diospolis. It is almost
impossible to tell which of the families or monarchs were contemporary,
or which ruled in succession. To unravel this tangled skein of history
is beyond the sphere of the present work.
With Manetho’s Second and Fourth Dynasty we reach the testimony of
the monuments, which is perhaps the chief source of information. The
Egyptians painted everything but the hardest and most valuable stone,
and both brush and chisel have furnished something of our partial and
fragmentary story. Our princesses lived in a blaze of color, in radiant
sunshine, and amid rainbow tints, sheltered by walls “lined throughout
with Oriental alabaster and stained with the orange flush of Egyptian
sunsets.”
The winged sun disk, as a symbol, makes its appearance for the first
time on monuments of the Fifth Dynasty, a simple disk between two wings
inclining downward. Under the Sixth it was more conventionalized,
the wings were straightened out and the asp added. At one place Pepi
I appears protected on one side by a flying hawk and on the other
by a disk, evidently regarded as equivalent. To the Fifth Dynasty
also belong the precepts of Patah-hotep, which were found in what is
called the “Prisse” papyrus in Paris. “This,” says the script, “is the
teaching of the governor Patah-hotep, under his Majesty, King Assa—long
may he live.” This monarch appears to have been the first Pharaoh of
the Fifth Dynasty and the first who had the two names, the throne
and the ordinary name. The last, Unas, constructed a great truncated
pyramid, now called Mastaba, or “Pharaoh’s seat,” north of the pyramids
of Dahshour.
King Shepseskaf, near or at the close of the Fifth Dynasty, who had
been adopted by King Mencheres, gave to a highly favored page in his
household the hand of his eldest daughter, the Princess Maat-kha. Less
frequently than in modern times were foreign alliances sought, and thus
the husband often mounted to a higher rung on the social ladder, or
even to the throne itself, assisted by the hand of his wife.
The first female name that attracts attention in the Sixth Dynasty is
that of Queen Shesh, mother of the king Tete or Pepe. This name occurs
in the Hindoo mythology as that of the king of serpents. Whether she
showed the wisdom attributed to the serpent or not may be questioned.
At any rate we do not find her occupied with matters of state;
essentially her interest lay in domestic affairs, but, even so, her
name has come down to posterity. She invented a world-famed pomade,
since, after the lapse of centuries, we can still read of it. The usual
ingredients were the tooth of a donkey boiled with dog’s foot and
dates; but the royal lady struck out boldly and substituted the hoof
for the tooth of the former beast. And who knows the saving virtues
or beautifying qualities of this compound, which perhaps entitled her
majesty to the honors of a Lydia Pinkham, a blessing to all her sex.
In the Sixth Dynasty were several kings of the name of Pepi or Pepy,
and the long reign of one of them, Pepi-Merira, is much celebrated.
According to the Greeks, it lasted a hundred years. Of his first wife,
Antes, we know nothing but her name; perchance she died early, and
probably bore no sons. His second wife and queen, Merera-Ankes, is more
noted; even the names of her parents have been preserved. Her father
Khua, her mother Neke-bit, and her two sons, Merenra and Nofer-ka-ra,
while among the more extensive ruins is a tomb at Abydos, the last
resting place of this queen.
To “go to Abydos” was the equivalent of speaking of a death. It was the
sacred place of the Egyptians, the tomb of Osiris, around which the
Isis and Osiris legends gathered; where Mena of This, the founder of
Memphis, and all the succeeding monarchs of his dynasty were buried.
The Step pyramid at Sakkarah, said to be the oldest, is thought to
belong to the First Dynasty, Medoom to the Third, and Gizeh to the
Fourth. The Fifth Dynasty seems to have been priestly. The oldest dated
papyrus of this period was, in 1893, found at Sakkarah, while the
figure of Menkahor was found at the Serapeum. The Sixth Dynasty was
said to be more limited in power, and some of the minor principalities
to have recovered their independence, while in the latter part of the
time civil strife broke out, and it was followed by a new race till the
Eleventh, though some of the native princes are believed to have still
ruled at Memphis.
But to return to the queens. One authority speaks of Queen Amitsi,
“great spouse of the king,” and her mother, the Princess Nibit, who,
of royal blood, transmitted rights to her daughter, which would have
made her heir to the throne in the early part of the Sixth Dynasty.
The brief mention of this queen and of Queen Merera-anknes are not
altogether reconcilable, but may perhaps apply to the same person.
Queen Merera-anknes is said not to have been of royal blood, or if
it be the same lady her claim to high lineage probably came from the
mother’s side. Whatever her origin, she was evidently well appreciated,
since even the names of her relatives were preserved. She at first
bore some other cognomen, but after coronation adopted that by which
she is known in history, and which couples, in a measure, her own and
her husband’s. The inscription on her tomb—on the tablet on which is
a figure of Pepi—reads “royal wife of Merira, great in all things,
companion of Horus, mother of Meren-ra.” There can be little doubt that
she was specially devoted to the service of the gods, and the priests
were glad to hand down in laudatory inscriptions her name and fame to
later generations.
There is a mention of Pepi-Merira who “executed works to Hathor” at
Denderah, a temple which shows traces of the hand of various kings
from the earliest to the latest period. The end of this reign was also
distinguished by a festival inaugurating a new period of years, called
“Hib-set, the Festival of the Tail,” on the principle, perhaps, on
which the close of college exercises is called “Commencement,” in which
we may be sure Queen Merari-Anknes bore a distinguished part.
The eldest son, Meren-ra, succeeded his father, but him also his mother
survived, for in the reign of the second son, Nofer-ka-ra, she takes a
prominent position, if not a distinct share in the government, and her
name on the monuments seems to occupy as important a place as does that
of the king.
A sort of Nestor among these royal personages was a certain Una, or
U’ne, a favorite minister of more than one of the sovereigns. He
was highly trusted and employed on various important embassies. His
records, saved from destruction, form a valuable link in the historic
chain. He speaks of Pepi in terms now used by the faithful of the
Pope, as “his Holiness.” He chronicles foreign wars for the extension
of territory, expeditions in search of stone and other materials for
the usual duty and pleasure, the building of the king’s tomb; and
last, perhaps most interesting of all in connection with the queens,
the private trial of one of these rulers. Entese, queen of one of
the Pepys, was the person in question. The king evidently wished not
to spread the scandal, whatever it might be, and Una and one other
official were alone present. It is the autobiography of this somewhat
voluble minister which gives us the fragment of the story, that, like
many others, lacks its termination. Perhaps he did not dare to write
the conclusion; perhaps that part of the work has disappeared, or
perhaps when the matter ceased to include himself he lost interest. We
wish, if our final supposition is correct, that this had not been the
case, and we wish also that, knowing so much, we knew a little more;
whether the lady was found innocent or guilty, and whether she was
forgiven or met with a tragic fate.