and we cannot doubt the whole matter was of much interest to the queen
also. The god Harmaehis appeared to the king in a dream and promised
him his special favor if he would dig out the Sphinx which bore his
image and lay half buried in the sand. The monarch obeyed, restored and
repaired the grand monument and built a temple at its base. This stands
between the two extended paws, on one of which the king’s name has been
found inscribed. It was an open temple with an altar and on the breast
of the colossus was the memorial stone with the king’s name, made of
red granite.
Dreams seem to have borne a special art in the family history. The
queen also had a noted dream. It was said that she was sleeping in the
most beautiful room in the palace and awoke and saw her husband by her
side. Then a few moments after the figure of the god Amen appeared
and, when she cried out in alarm, he predicted the birth of her son
and vanished in clouds of sweet perfume. Hence the young king was
considered in a sense the son of the god. Mautamua is elsewhere called
a princess of Mitanni and seems to have been won with difficulty by the
young Egyptian prince or kin. One of the tablets found says: “When the
father of Nimmuriya (Tahutmes IV) sent to Artotama my grandfather and
asked for his daughter to wife, my grandfather refused his request,
and though he sent the fifth time and the sixth time he would not give
her to him. It was only after he had sent the seventh time that he
gave her to him, being compelled for many reasons.” This was among the
noted collection of the Tel-el-Amarna tablets and is believed by late
authorities to refer to Queen Maut-amua, who is also spoken of as the
divine wife and mother.
The queen’s home was in Thebes, which had succeeded Memphis as the
great city of the Empire, standing, it is said, to Ethiopia and Egypt
“in the relation occupied by Rome to Mediæval Christianity, the
capital sacerdotal city of all who worshipped the god Amen.” On the
wall of what is called the “Birth Room” at the temple of Luxor are
various reliefs relating to the birth of Amenophis III, showing Queen
Maut-a-mua, the nurses, the goddess Isis and others. In one the Queen,
after the birth of her son (Ra-ma-neb), is seen kneeling on a kind of
dais. The goddess Hathor kneels facing her with the babe in her arms.
The Ka of both are repeated, making double figures, and the sacred
cow suckles the child. For some reason, not given, Amenophis III was
particularly rich in Ka names, for he had seven. Another relief shows
Hathor presenting the child to the goddess Safekh, and to Amen-Ra,
the god of Thebes. Behind Amen-Ra stands the god Nilus and behind him
another carrying three ankhs or life signs for the family, throne and
Ka name. Safekh dips her pen in ink to record his birth; the royal and
Ka ovals are inscribed above. Says Miss Edwards: “Each sovereign on
succeeding to the throne not only assumed a throne name, but took also
a name for his Ka. The throne name was enclosed in a royal oval, or
cartouch, like the family name, but the Ka name was represented as if
inscribed above the false doorway, just where the name of a deceased
person would be inscribed above the actual door of his sepulchre.”
As the goddess Safekh was the patron deity of libraries we may judge
that the king had intellectual tastes, though we know him to have been
something of an athlete and a great sportsman. Indeed, it was to this
last that he owed his wife, for it was on a hunting expedition that
he encountered and fell in love with her. Queen Maut-amua and her
daughter-in-law, Ti or Thi, were associated much together, as were
Queen Aahotep and her daughter-in-law, Nefertari-Aahmes, though not so
generally considered divinities as were the founders of the race.
Maut-a-mua must have been a woman of intellect, capacity and attraction
since she was her son’s guardian, and probably regent, and his
attachment to her seems to have been strong and enduring. She lived
many years after her husband, whose reign was brief, lasting not more
than eight or nine years.
The likenesses of these various kings and queens are often found among
the wall pictures in the tombs and are reproduced in many of the books
on Egypt. The bas-reliefs and statues which decorated temples and tombs
were mostly painted. Says Maspero: “That the Egyptians studied from
Nature is proved by the facility with which they seized likenesses and
drew the appropriate movements of animals. These figures are strange,
but they live and have a certain charm.” To paint men brown and women
yellow was the rule, but to this there were occasional exceptions. At
Sackuarah, in the time of the Fifth Dynasty, the flesh tint of the men
is yellow, while at Istamboul, or Abu Simbel, it is red, as also in the
tombs of the epoch of Thotmosis IV.
The early Egyptian is said to have had a fine forehead, small, aquiline
nose and a well-formed chin. The picture preserved of Queen Maut-a-mua,
with the royal asp above her forehead, gives a long, slightly aquiline
nose and a small, well-shaped chin. It is rather startling, in turning
to her daughter-in-law, Ti, to find this face repeated in a sort of
caricature, devoid of beauty. As in most cases, doctors differ as to
the amount of reliance that can be placed upon the verisimilitude of
the portraits and statues of these various kings and queens that have
come down to us. Some authorities maintain that there existed an ideal
conventional type, to which the actual bore little or no resemblance,
and point out how each is but the modification of the other. Some again
claim for them considerable authenticity. Perhaps a middle ground may
come nearest to the truth. The conventional type no doubt dominated
the painter’s or sculptor’s mind. But when the statues are proved to
have been executed in the lifetime of the original it seems likely that
some resemblance was aimed at, and the differences that exist go to
show this. Also in many cases they belonged to the same family, and may
well have had features common to all; as in later times the Hapsburgh
jaw was handed down from generation to generation. How hard we have
found it to reconcile the picture in the various galleries with the
reputation of the charming, beautiful and unhappy Mary Stuart, Queen of
Scots, and yet doubtless there was a resemblance. How often, too, the
photograph of a near and dear friend has an utterly unfamiliar aspect.
So that we may fairly admit that even in these ancient times statues
and pictures (at least in some cases) a suggestion of the original may
remain to us.
The head of Tahutmes IV, which is preserved in a statue or statuette,
gives a pleasing face, with an amiable expression. At Luxor, Queen
Maut-a-mua appears without the king, but with her son, whose paternity
is ascribed to Amen. There is also a picture of the king, smiting some
negroes, and behind is a queen called Ai’at who is spoken of as royal
daughter, sister and wife, but it is thought this may be intended for
an ideograph of the “goddess queen,” Maut-a-mua, as there is no other
trace of her. On one private tomb is a picture of Amenophis III and his
mother, and there are also various small remains in the way of scarabs,
rings, etc. In one of the reliefs in the “Birth Room,” before referred
to, the god Amen and the queen are seated upon the hieroglyphic symbol
for heaven and supported by the goddesses Selqet and Neith.
King Amenophis III did not resemble his mother. It is quite a different
face, with good features and a resolute, though pensive expression.
The forehead is high, the eyes full, the nose long but rounded at the
end, the upper lip short, and the chin prognathous. He is described as
amiable and generous, and showed deference and strong affection both
for mother and wife. He seems among the most pleasing of the Egyptian
kings. Engaged in wars, devoted to hunting, especially the chase of
the lion, which led him far afield, he was yet, as were many of his
predecessors, deeply interested in architectural enterprises and the
era is noted for the spirit and beauty of its sculpture. Court and
colonnade at Karnak were of his building, and on the walls of various
apartments are pictures of the coronation of the king and other details
of his life.
He is best known to us, and his fame rests chiefly on the marvellous
colossi which he erected, “the grandest the world has ever seen.” They
are sixty feet high, and when they wore the crown of an Egyptian king,
which has since been destroyed, towered seventy feet into the air, a
solid block of sandstone. Miss Martineau, a traveller of comparatively
modern times, thus describes the impression they made upon her. “There
they sit, together yet apart, in the midst of the plain, serene and
vigilant, still keeping their untired watch over the lapse of ages
and the eclipse of Europe. I can never believe that anything else so
majestic as this pair has been conceived of by the imagination of Art,
nothing certainly, even in Nature, ever affected me so unspeakably. The
pair, sitting alone amid the expanse of verdure, with islands of ruins
behind them, grow more striking to us every day. The impression of
sublime tranquility which they convey, when seen from distant points,
is confirmed by a nearer approach. There they sit, keeping watch, hands
on knees, gazing straight forward, seeming, though so much of the
face is gone, to be looking over to the monumental piles on the other
side of the river, which became gorgeous temples after these throne
seats were placed here—the most immovable thrones that have ever been
established on the earth.”
It is rarely that the name of an Egyptian sculptor is preserved, but
this case is an exception. An inscription records his name and his
naturally proud and exultant feelings at the completion of his work. He
was called Amen-hotep or Amen-hept, and thus speaks: “I immortalized
the name of the king and no one has done the like of me in my works.
I executed two portrait statues of the king, astonishing for their
breadth and height, their completed form dwarfed the temple tower;
forty cubits was their measure: they were cut in the splendid sandstone
mountain, on either side the eastern and the western, I caused to
be built lightships whereon the statues were carried up the river;
they were emplaced in their sublime temple; they will last as long
as heaven. A joyful event was it when they were landed at Thebes and
raised up in their place.”
The stone is of a yellowish brown color and very difficult to work.
Both statues represent the king and stood before a temple which he
built, but of which the veriest fragments remain. We are reminded
somewhat by the sculptor’s triumphant pæan of the good Un’e, who was
minister to Pepi VI and so exulted in his work and position. Fond
as Amenophis was of both his mother and his foreign wife, for whose
pleasure and diversion he constructed a great lake, neither of them
sit beside him or share the honor of so majestic a statue, as we might
suppose, especially as regards his wife, would have been the case;
he immortalizes himself alone. Two figures of queens, Maut-a-mua and
Ti, are, however sculptured at the base of the statues; they measure
eighteen feet in height, but appear small beside the colossi. Says
one visitor, the surface of the statues was originally beautifully
polished. The thrones on which they are seated are covered with
sculptures; the god Hapi (the Nile) is weaving together the lotus lily
and papyrus plant, implying the rule of the monarch over Upper and
Lower Egypt.
Homer calls Amenophis III, the Memnon of the Greeks, “the most stately
of living men,” and according to a later legend he was the son of
Aurora. It was during the Roman imperial epoch that they were taken for
the statues of Memnon, who slew Nestor’s son, Antiochus, in the Trojan
war, and was himself slain by Achilles, and to explain the fact that
the Trojan hero should thus appear in Egypt a legend was invented. The
so-called “vocal Memnon,” the more Eastern of the statues, greeted his
mother, Eos, with musical sounds and the morning dews were supposed to
be the tears which the goddess shed upon her beloved child. The two
statues stood at the end of an avenue of gigantic figures, leading to
the temple of Amen, and from the river to the temple, a mile in length,
went the Strada Regia, the royal street of Thebes.
Says our own Curtis, who has written so charmingly of his Egyptian
experiences: “Yearly comes the Nile humbly to his feet, and leaving
them pays homage. Then receding slowly leaves water plants wreathed
around the throne, on which he is sculptured as a good genius
harvesting the lotus, and brings a hundred travellers to perpetuate the
homage. These sublime sketches in stone are an artist’s work. In those
earlier days Art was not content with the grace of Nature, but coped
with its proportions. Vain attempts, but glorious!” The fact of this
musical note being heard from “the darling of the dawn” is recorded on
the base of the statue, and is mentioned by Strabo, the elder Pliny and
many others. Sandy beaches sometimes emit musical sounds and something
in the structure of the rock, warmed by the rays of the rising sun, may
have caused the sounds to be heard, or they may have been produced by
artificial means, at the instance of the priests, striving to impress
the people. The true origin of the mystery was never discovered,
though its existence seems well attested, and eventually the sounds
ceased, probably as the result of an earthquake or the restoration of
the figures which was undertaken by a later king. Another theory lays
the injury of the statues at the door of Cambyses, who was credited
with all possible crimes, and a sculptured inscription reads: “I wrote
after having heard Memnon. Cambyses has wounded me. A stone cut into
the image of the sun-king. I had once the sweet voice of Memnon, but
Cambyses has deprived me of the accents which express joy and grief.”
The sounds are said by some authorities to have been heard during a
period of two hundred and twenty years. Travellers in ancient times
(like the modern vandal) were very fond of scribbling their names on
monuments, which should be held in more respect, and a number of these,
including some of their remarks and silly verses, have been found on
the base of the statue and refer to the sounds. At the time of their
erection the level of the Nile was evidently different from that of the
present day for its waters, as Curtis has said, now occasionally leave
the feet of the giant pair.
Amenophis III began quarrying stone for his numerous architectural
works in the first and second years of his reign from quarries near
Silseleh, and his palace was said to resemble that subsequently built
by his son at Tel-el-Amarna in some respects. Scarabs bearing the name
of this king are to be seen in our own New York Museum, as also in
various other places, but those of Tahutmes III are still more frequent
here. The tomb of Amenophis III was found in the west valley of the
Tombs of the Kings by a French expedition.
Queen Maut-a-mua had the pleasure, we may believe, of seeing a number
of grandchildren, as Amenophis III had four sons and three daughters,
if not others unmentioned, and so kindly seem to have been the family
relations that we may perhaps picture her with her son’s wife in the
midst of the home circle spoiling them quite like a modern grandmother.
Up to this period the men of the family appear to have been a stalwart,
good-looking race, while the women probably possessed more beauty
than their pictures would lead us to infer. Of the general outline
of their history we have some knowledge, but seldom or never can we
definitely place the day of their birth or that of their death. So at
what exact period Queen Maut-a-mua passed away we cannot state, only
we may believe she was watched over by filial affection to the last,
was buried amid tears and lamentations, and had all due funeral rites
observed, even if she was not numbered among those royalties who were
specially regarded as divinities, the founders of the race, and to whom
divine honors were subsequently paid, yet is she occasionally spoken of
as “the goddess queen.”
CHAPTER ELEVENTH.
TYI.
With Queen Tyi (or as her name is variously spelled, Ti, Tai, Tity,
Tii, Teye, Tuaa, Thua) we again consider the story of a woman of
unusual power, and though not leaving such indelible impression upon
the page of history as did Queen Hatasu, her influence was strongly
felt. Both as wife and mother we see the traces of her ideas and wishes
on the actions of husband and son; both, evidently, turned to her
for counsel and each in his own way showed her devoted affection. So
potent was her sway over the latter that to it is largely attributed
the religious and political revolution which occurred in the lifetime
of Amenophis IV. Though its effects were comparatively temporary and
passed away during the reign of his successors for the time being it
convulsed Egypt to its centre and the records of it have not been
obliterated by the lapse of centuries.
Amenophis III, son of Tahutmes IV and Maut-a-mua, was, we judge, an
attractive youth. He had a fine presence, an agreeable expression and
an amiable and generous disposition, while his love story holds more
of romance than usually falls to the lot of kings or queens. He is
credited with a number of wives or less reputable connections. Perhaps
they included the errors of the “sowing of wild oats,” and at any rate
seem to have been relegated to or kept in the background by a devoted
affection for the lady who became pre-eminently his legal wife. These
various wives are given as a sister and two daughters of Kalima-Sin,
King of Karaduniyash, and a sister and daughter of Tushratta, King of
Mittani, none of whom, it is said, were acknowledged queen of Egypt,
while other records seem to imply that Queen Tyi was the daughter of
Tushratta of Dushratta, King of Mittanni. A letter to Babylon seems
to show that Amenophis III had married a Babylonish princess, and
that her brother, Kali-masin, was not satisfied about her safety, but
was reassured by Amenophis. A match between another princess of that
country and the Egyptian sovereign seems to have failed for lack of
sufficient gold on the lady’s part. Wars also interfered with connubial
arrangements.
Another account says that Amenophis III haughtily refused when the
King of Mesopotamia, Kalima-Sin, wished to marry one of the Egyptian
princesses, saying that the daughter of the king of the Land of Egypt
had never been given to a “nobody.” This, of course, occurred later,
if at all, and it seems not quite reasonable that the king himself
should take a princess as his wife from the same family to which he
refused his daughter. The sovereign of great Egypt evidently viewed
with contempt the claims of these petty princes to be considered in any
way his equal. Yet one letter in the collection found at Tel-el-Amarna
shows that Tahutmes III, Tahutmes IV and Amenophis IV all married
Mitannian princesses. After such a lapse of time and among conflicting
statements it is hard to arrive at the absolute facts, but as our
present concern is chiefly with Queen Tyi it matters the less. She
alone of these various ladies has a distinct personality and takes a
prominent place.
Hunting was, with Amenophis III, a passion, the hunting of the lion
a royal sport, for the sake of which he journeyed far and no doubt
underwent many enforced privations. It must have been in the heyday
of youth and manly vigor that, on one of his long expeditions, he
encountered the foreign princess who at once won his heart and probably
reciprocated to a more than ordinary degree the affection she inspired.
Spite of the rather unattractive effigies which bear her name, we must
believe that she was beautiful and winning, since for her sake he cast
aside the so frequent custom of marriage with a sister or some home
dignitary and invited her to share his throne.
Probably then, or later, the queen participated in the favorite
amusement of her husband, not wanting in courage for the perils or
hardships involved, nor did she shrink as a more sensitive female of
later times might have done from what was painful, cruel or revolting
in the death throes of the mighty beast.
Scarabs, so often used by the Egyptians to record events which they
considered of importance, have been found, bearing such inscriptions
as this: “Amenhotep, prince of Thebes, giver of life, and royal spouse
Thi. In respect of lions, brought Majesty his from shooting his own,
beginning from year first to year tenth, lions fierce 102.”
These scarabs, giving the names of gods, kings and singers are often
most valuable in filling gaps in other records. The most frequently
found are those of Tahutmes III, of which there are a number in the
Metropolitan Museum in New York; Amenophis III, Seti I and Rameses
II, and they are inscribed with the names of kings from Mena to the
Roman Emperor Antoninus. Hence on those known to be of a particular
period and found with the royal mummies, the name of much earlier kings
are frequently traced. Scarabs were copied by the Phoenicians and
are imitated in these modern times in Egypt. The work, at first very
clumsy, has gradually become better executed, while the real ones have,
of course, grown dearer as well as rarer.
A brief enumeration of some of the scarabs relating to these periods
to be seen in the New York Museum may not be without interest. One of
Tahutmes or Thothmes III has the figure of the god Bes in the centre,
flanked by cartouches of the king a winged scarab below and obscure
ornamentation above. The color of the composition of which it is made
a faded reddish brown. Another of soft blue stone or paste has the
pre-nomen of the same king called “subduer of foreigners in all lands.”
One of green porcelain, beautifully executed, shows a squatting figure
with extended arms, upholding the divine boat, and above, the pre-nomen
of King Thothmes. Inscriptions are “the good god” and “lord of both
lands,” while the ankh, or life sign, is both behind the body and
attached to the knees. On another of grey composition, above a horse,
chariot and charioteer, is the pre-nomen of the king, in a cartouch,
with the ends reversed. A bead or seal of hard, green stone has on
the one side the pre-nomen of Thothmes III, with the Tet sign below,
each flanked by uraei, and on the reverse a Hathor-headed sistrum
also flanked by uraei. A cartouch of Amenophis III and the symbol of
“truth” is on a scarab of green and brown pottery. Another has “Praise
of Amenophis III.” His cartouch and “lord of might” is on one of green
pottery, while a scarab in grey composition, beautifully executed bears
the pre-nomen of the king on both sides, with a winged beetle and disk
flanked by uraei and a human headed sphinx with the words, “Living god
Tum.” Most interesting of all, however, in connection with the present
chapter, is a green pottery scaraboid, symbolic eye, bearing the words
“The royal wife Tii,” wife of Amenohotep III.