Khu-n-aten’s death, and not the queen. She survived her husband for
years. Her palace had a court, or harim, with glazed tiles, the walls
painted with scenes, and the floor with pools, birds, cattle and
wild plants. In the court was a fine well with a canopy on carved
columns, and round coping, and an inscription with the queen’s titles.
In the temple offerings of flowers were made and hymns sung to the
accompaniment of harps, it was perhaps a return to the practice of the
earliest times, and one writer suggests that its simplicity points to
the Vedism of India. The queen and her daughters are shown waiting
on the king in his illness. There is a fine fragment of a statue of
the queen at Amherst college, and a gold ring and some other personal
belongings at other places. With the death mask of the king in the
University of Pennsylvania are some fragments from Tel-el-Amarna giving
the names and title of Queen Nefertiti. Khu-n-aten is thought by late
discoveries to have reigned seventeen or eighteen years.
As usual authorities differ, some giving Ai as the immediate successor
of Khu-n-aten, others placing before him several kings, and numbering
him just before Horem-heb, Horem-hib or Horus, the last monarch of the
Eighteenth Dynasty. Some again refuse to recognize the heretic king and
his descendants at all, and consider Horem-hib, who had returned to the
polytheistic creed, as the true and direct successor of Amenophis III.
It seems likely, however, that the eldest daughter, Mut-aten, born in
the fourth year of her father’s reign was married just before his death
to Re’smenkh’ka and that her husband was, for a time, co-regent. Both
his and her name have been found on a tomb, these tomb inscriptions
always throwing great light on this history of the time to which they
refer. If, as estimated, she was thirteen at the time of her marriage
and twenty-five at her husband’s death, he reigned over twelve years.
The second daughter, Mak-aten, died before her father, between her
ninth and eleventh years; her tomb is in a side chapel of her father’s
and the family are shown mourning for her, but she appears in the
picture of the six princesses. Anknes-aten or Ankh s’en’pa’aten was
born in the eighth year of her father’s reign and was ten years of age
at his death. In her sister’s reign she was married to Tut-ankh’aten
and changed her name to Ankh’s’en’amen, “her life is from Amen,”
showing that already the changes her father had made were discarded.
A few rings belonging to her remain, but with the exception of these
relics nothing more is known of the other daughters, also nothing is
known beyond figures and names on general monuments. Of Ras’ Ra’smenka
or Ra’smenkh’ka’ser’kheperu, husband of the eldest daughter of Queen
Nefertiti it is believed that he abandoned the palace in his third year
of sovereignty and perhaps went to Thebes; there are few remains of
him, but the dates are estimated as 1368-1358 B. C.
Tut’ankh-Amon or Twet-Ankh-Amon, “the living image of Aman” and husband
of Anknes-amon, transferred his residence to Thebes (which, after
all, had suffered little from the rivalry of Tel-el-Amarna), hastily
finished the great hall and had it decorated with reliefs, representing
the great festival which occurred at Luxor on New Year’s Day, when the
sacred boats were brought up in procession, on the Nile, from Karnak,
and carried into the temple. In these reliefs, of course, the king’s
name largely figured, but, in the not uncommon fashion of these various
monarchs, his brother-in-law, who later succeeded him, King Horem-heb,
freely substituted his own name. A picture of King Tut’ankh Amon
holding court and receiving a negro queen, either as a visitor or as
offering tribute, was found on the wall of a tomb. The royal lady was
depicted in a chariot, drawn by oxen and surrounded by her servants, a
prototype of a later visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon. From
the north also came the ruddy princes of the land of Ruthen, with curly
black hair and in rich dresses. The two governors of the South and
North, Hi and Amenhotep, also came; they had served under Amenophis III
and must have been of ripe years. Brugsch calls it “a large and lively
picture of the manners and riches of the South and of the North in the
fifteenth century, before Christ.” All bring rich gifts and ask for
peace and friendship between themselves and the great Pharaoh.
King Ai was probably husband of one of the daughters, though his
wife is elsewhere spoken of as the foster-mother of King Khu-n-aten,
which seems rather hopelessly to mix up the chronology. In this case
she is spoken of as Thi, the beloved name of that king’s own mother.
They are also called respectively “the dressers of the king,” and
“the high nurse, the nourishing mother of the godlike one.” Ai’s fine
tomb at Tel-el-Amarna gives an account of his marriage. The tomb was
never entirely finished; it is described by one traveller as having
a sepulchral hall, beautifully painted, with colors still fresh and
brilliant, with the sarcophagus standing in the middle, among the
pictures, the king painted red and the queen of a pale yellow, are
shown gathering lotus flowers; also the king being presented by the
goddesses Mat and Hathor to Osiris. Perhaps two wives shared the honor
of sovereignty with King Ai, or the second may have been espoused after
the death of the first, and it seems likely the latter was much her
husband’s junior.
Maspero gives a description of the palace of King Ai, also pictured
on the walls of the Tel-el-Amarna tombs. He calls him the son-in-law
of Khu-en-aten. “An oblong tank with sloping sides and two descending
flights of steps, faces the entrance. The building is rectangular, the
width being somewhat greater than the depth. A large doorway opens in
the front, and gives access to a court planted with trees, and flanked
by storehouses, fully stocked with provisions. Two small courts, placed
symmetrically in the two further corners, contain the staircases,
which lead up to the terrace. This first building, however, is but the
frame which surrounds the owner’s dwelling. The two frontages are much
adorned with a pillared portico and a pylon. Passing the outer door,
one enters a sort of central passage, divided by two walls, pierced
with doorways, so as to form three successive courts. The inside court
is bordered by chambers, the two others open to right and left upon two
smaller courts, whence flights of steps lead up to the terraced roof.
This central building is called the ‘Akhonuti,’ or private dwelling
of kings and nobles, to which only the family or intimate friends had
access.”
All this, of course, varied in different cases with the taste of the
owner, and the long, straight wall in front was sometimes divided and
ornamented with colonnades and towers.
The old religion was resuming its sway, and the priests of
Amon regaining their lost influence. They accepted the rule of
Tut’ankh-Amon, whose monuments are said to extend only from Memphis
to Thebes, and still more that of Ay, who was a true worshipper of
the old gods. His reign, however, is spoken of as “feeble,” and the
principal monument of the time is a shrine, high up in the face of
cliffs, behind Ekhmin. King Ay seemed to have a special passion for
tomb building, as there are no less than three attributed to him. The
first at Tel-el-Amarna, the last at Thebes, coincident probably with
his complete change of religious views and associations.
Ay died and left no children, and was succeeded by Horem-heb, or
Horem-hib, who then was, or subsequently became, his uncle by a
marriage with the Princess Notem-Mut, or Nezem-Mut, sister of Queen
Nefertiti. The history of this time is, as yet, far from clear, and
dates which fit in approximately to one set of theories, refuse to
combine with others; some hold that Queen Nefertiti had been originally
sent to Egypt to be the bride of Amenophis III, and that his death
occurring before her arrival, she then became the wife of his son. This
last arrangement, judging by the probable years of the parties, was
more natural, and the union seemed to have proved a most happy one,
as all the pictures show complete concord of interest and sentiment
between the two. Defaced pictures of both Queen Tyi and Queen Nefertiti
are found in the tombs, and the mummy of King Khu-n-aten was found in
the tomb of Amenophis II, where it had, probably been removed to avoid
spoliation, his tomb having been originally elsewhere.
King Horem-heb seems first to have been a renowned general in the
army, and though not of royal birth, his horoscope foretold for him
great success. The earlier histories of him say that he was a special
favorite of King Khu-n-aten, who made him guardian of the kingdom,
which position, so near the throne, suggests opportunities to win the
heart of the princess. The god Amon, it is said, brought her to him,
“the crown prince Horem-hib,” and the inscription adds, “she bowed
herself and embraced his pleasant form, and placed herself before him.”
Was it perchance on account of this kind service of the god that they
both espoused his religion so fervently, or did the priests tamper with
the princess and she inspire her lover with enthusiasm for the old
beliefs?
This romantic history, however, loses somewhat of its glamour under the
realistic touches and conclusions of later students. The princess was
a priestess of Amon, and the marriage of the two, it is claimed, was
merely a political one, both king and queen being between fifty and
sixty at the time of their union. The kind offices of the god may be,
so to speak, mythologically considered. The long account which gives
an exultant story of his coronation, prejudges the fact that both the
king and queen were zealous supporters of the ancient religion, and
again Thebes became the royal city. The work of Khu-n-aten there was
destroyed and a new temple built. At Karnak, as was frequently the
wont of the kings, Horem-hib built with materials taken from a ruined
temple of Amenophis II. He also built a rock temple at Silsilis, where
inscriptions certify to his victories.
The pictures of this king and his mother Sonit, at a banquet, where
some of the company were of the living, some of the dead, has been
described in an earlier chapter, as also the statues of himself and
his wife, he with a handsome, melancholy face, she also handsome, but
with a touch of sarcasm in her smile. Her likeness has been ascribed to
other queens.
The group of Horem-hib and the god Amon, in the Turin Museum, is
pronounced to be “dry in treatment,” while the colossi in red granite,
against his pylon at Karnak, the bas-reliefs at Silsilis, and the
portrait statue just referred to are deemed by the same critic
“faultless.” Other wall decorations show the king conferring the
insignia of the Golden Collar upon a certain Nefer-hotep of Thebes. He
is sometimes improperly called Horus, while Manetho by this name refers
to Khu-n-aten.
Of Queen Nezem-mut there are not many remains, and these may be briefly
enumerated. She figures in the tomb of Ay in a family group; there
is the statue of her with the King at Turin; she appears as a female
sphinx as given by Rosellini, there is a scarab at Berlin, and a
frog with her name at Abydos. Since, with the reign of Horem-hib the
eighteenth dynasty concludes, and so little is to be found as regards
his wife, we have included her brief history with that of her sister,
Queen Nefertiti, in the present chapter. A new dynasty, the nineteenth,
succeeded, while some authorities maintain that the early members of
the Ramesside family were contemporary with Horem-hib.
CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.
TUAA.
Probably years after Queen Tyi, or Tuaa, wife of Amenophis III and
mother of the heretic King Khu-n-aten, was laid in her grave, her
grand-daughter and namesake became the consort of the reigning monarch.
The Eighteenth Dynasty had passed away and a new race held sway.
They seem to have had no hereditary title to the crown, but may have
claimed Hyksos ancestry. Might, however, often makes right, and they
were a noted and powerful succession of monarchs. After King Horem-hib
and Queen Notem-Mut came in Rameses I, of the Nineteenth Dynasty, of
whose wife we at present know nothing, though future discoveries may
reveal her identity. After a short reign the king was succeeded by his
son Seti, or Sety I, called Merenptah or Mereptah, “Son of Ptah,” who
strengthened his position by marrying a descendant of the preceding
royal line. She brought him as her dower, in addition to whatever else
she might have been mistress of, the valuable possession of the true
“blue blood,” which she conferred upon her son, Rameses II, “born of
Ra,” and thus made his claim to the crown indisputable.
Queen Ti, Thy, Tyi, Tui, or Tuaa, as her name is variously spelled,
did not have so romantic a love story as did her great ancestress, but
neither would it be quite fair to set down her marriage with Set I as
purely one of convenience, no matter how much each might have gained by
the union. Their opportunities of meeting, since Egyptian women are not
so cloistered as other Eastern nations, may have been frequent, and it
is possible the connection may have been one of feeling, as well as of
state policy. Of her early life, however, we know nothing, nor are we
assured of the name of her parents. In marrying her Seti I conformed
to the usual but not invariable custom of these monarchs, in uniting
themselves with a princess of Egyptian lineage.
The priests acknowledged the new queen as of the blood royal, the
true Theban line, hence there could be no dispute as to the rights of
her children. Her experiences were different from those of her great
predecessor of the name; she did not journey from a far country to meet
her husband, in all probability, as did her great-grandmother, nor did
she share with him as did her grandmother, in the effort to promulgate
a new religion, constantly pictured beside him in all his occupations.
She was both the wife and mother of a warrior, and life must of
necessity have passed much a part from them.
To us Queen Tuaa is but a shadowy form, chiefly known as the mother of
perhaps the greatest king in the long Egyptian line. Some of her traits
of character, some of her features, may have descended to this haughty
scion of the race, but they are now beyond our power of specification.
He did not show her, apparently, the devotion the first Tyi received
from her son, and in his attention to his father’s tomb there is no
record of any special care of his mother’s, though doubtless it was not
neglected. “On the walls of one of the temples,” says one traveler,
“the youthful Rameses is being suckled by the goddesses; on the one
side by Anek (or Anouka) ‘his divine mother, Lady of Elephantine’;
on the other by Hathor, with a similar inscription, the features are
so much alike that they probably represent those of his own mother.”
As a child even Rameses must have been freed, in great measure, from
his mother’s guidance, since, to establish himself more firmly on the
throne, Seti made his son co-ruler with himself, and, to some extent, a
sharer in the cares of state and knowledge of warfare.
It is said that Queen Tuaa acted as regent for husband or son during a
Syrian campaign. She must have been proud of her talented and precious
child, but state etiquette doubtless separated her much from him, and
there may have been more outlet for motherly care and tenderness among
her other children; of these we do not find much record, save one
brother, to whom Rameses was greatly attached. This brother was called
Khamus. Tuaa is not recorded as having shared her queenly honors or her
husband’s affection with other wives, at any rate, she was the legal
consort.
Lady Duff Gordon speaks of Egypt as “the palimpsest in which the Bible
is written over Herodotus, and the Koran over that.” At this period it
was in the middle stage of this classification. The modern Copt most
resembles the ancient Egyptian; the nose and eyes are the same as in
the profiles in the tombs and temples. The fellah woman of the present,
it is said, walks around the ancient statues in order to have children,
and the customs at birth and burial are the same as in ancient times.
Of marriage customs of the past less is known, as we have to bear in
mind, than of their funeral ceremonies. The genuine Egyptian had a
bronze colored skin, recognizing a brother countryman at a glance and
despising black, yellow and even white skins; the queen herself, being
of ancient race, may have indulged this feeling; certainly it was most
apparent in her haughty son.
Was Queen Tuaa beautiful, good looks being usually thought an important
part of the claims of a royal bride to her position, a picture, often
flattered, being the only means a royal suitor had to judge of his
future wife? Curtis thus describes a beautiful Egyptian: “The Greek
Venus was sea born, but our Egyptian is sun born. The brown blood of
the sun burns along her veins—the soul of the sun streams shaded from
her eyes.” Fascinating are the almond-eyes of Egyptian women, bordered
black with the kohl, whose intensity accords with the sumptuous passion
that mingles moist and languid with their light; Eastern eyes are full
of moonlight. Eastern beauty is a dream of passionate possibility. Was
the queen perchance of this temperament: “I am of a silent disposition.
I never tell what I see. I spoil not the sweetness of my fruits by vain
tattling.” For posterity, at least, she has proved so, for we know
little of her.
The chief, if not the only picture of Queen Tuaa, is in the temple
of Goornah or El Kurn-neh, which is described as a memorial edifice,
like the Medici Chapel in Florence. Begun by Seti I, as a memorial to
Rameses I, it was completed by Rameses II. They were handsome men of
a Dantesque type, and their mothers and wives probably fair women,
the men, especially, different in appearance from the preceding race.
Rameses I was the tutelary deity of the shrine. He stands swathed and
crowned like Osiris, with the pointed and upturned beard peculiar to
the gods, worshipped, in one picture, by his own son, Seti I, and in
another by his grandson, Rameses II.
“In Egypt every man,” especially if he were of royal birth, “received,
after death, by courtesy, the title of Osiris, because it was hoped he
had attained blessedness in the bosom of the god.”
Queen Tuaa stands behind her husband, and Miss Edwards finds in her
delicate but slightly angular profile a resemblance to some of the
portraits of Queen Elizabeth. In Rameses II she says “the beauty of the
race culminates. The artists of the Egyptian Renaissance, always great
in profile portraits, are nowhere seen to better advantage than in this
series.”
A statue of the Lady Nai, in the Louvre, may give some idea of the
dress of this period, the nineteenth dynasty. She wears a long wig,
with a band round her head, a tight garment of linen, not unlike the
modern chemise, only narrower, and a strip of linen hanging down in
front.
This temple of El Kurneh is at the entrance of the valley of the Tombs
of the Kings, and the cutting is called by the Arabs Bab-el-Molook,
“gate of the Sultan.” The road is narrow and stony, its desert sands
dazzling in the brilliant sunshine, leading to a lonely and sepulchral
glen, honeycombed with the tombs of past dignitaries, nobles, priests
and monarchs.
Here and there, as we study the history of Egypt, is a link with the
Bible story, though nothing very definite has yet been discovered. It
is believed by some writers that Moses and Aaron lived in the age of
Seti I, and that Moses was brought up with the youthful Rameses II.
Others make the time somewhat later, and think that the princess who
rescued the deliverer of the Israelites from the water was one of the
many daughters of the great Sesostris.
Thebes was probably Queen Tuaa’s principal residence, and the palace
saw many partings, since with warriors for husband, sons and grandsons,
if the queen survived so long, they must have been frequently absent,
and she must needs have passed some anxious hours. But so essentially
was war the trade of the monarchs of ancient times, and in the lives of
their female relatives so much a matter of course, that it would seem
as if the feminine heart must have become somewhat hardened. Doubtless
the royal lady looked forward to receiving a victor laden with spoils.
We almost seem to hear the burden of the refrain, “Have they not sped,
have they not divided the prey, to every man a damsel or two, to Sisera
a prey of diverse colors of needlework on both sides, meet for the
necks of them that take the spoil?” What matter to the conqueror, or
even to his consort, if thousands of lives paid the price?
Seti I was “a man of blood,” and is spoken of as “a jackal which rushes
leaping through the land, a grim lion that frequents the more hidden
paths of all regions, a powerful bull with a sharpened pair of horns.”
His chariot horses were called “Amon gives him strength.” But if, in
Scripture language, he chastised the people “with whips,” Rameses II,
his son, “chastised them with scorpions.”
Side by side with his father fought the youthful hero, and we are
reminded by them of a similar pair in more modern history, Edward III
of England and the Black Prince. Chief among the wars was that against
Khita, or Hittites, from which, as Queen Tuaa anticipated, Seti I
returned victorious. He came laden with rich booty, silver, gold, blue,
green, red and other precious stones. At the frontier the priests,
nobles and great men met him with gifts and flowers—conqueror, as he
was reported to be, of thirteen peoples and many cities. And we cannot
doubt that the palace, too, by Queen Tuaa’s orders, was specially
beautified and decorated with plants and flowers in honor of the
victor’s return. Booty and prisoners were dedicated to the god Amon,
his wife Mut, and his son Khonsu.
Little, perhaps, did Queen Tuaa then imagine that one of her
daughters-in-law, a princess of Khita, would be from among the
conquered people. But so it proved, when Rameses II formed an alliance
with the King of Khita and took his daughter to wife; but Queen Tuaa
may not have lived to see the union, since Rameses II in earlier times
had probably already provided himself with a wife.
Queen Tuaa must have viewed with interest, as did Queen Mertytefs of
the fourth dynasty, the magnificent architectural works of her husband.
In one case a temple of the gods, which yet recorded the king’s own
power, and in the other the tomb or monument which should keep before
the eyes of all future generations the name of its builder. The temple
lies largely in ruins, but the older structure has withstood to a much
greater degree the ravages of time and the wanton destruction of man.
The city of Thebes was magnificent with temples and palaces, and was
built on both sides of the Nile, the flat plain stretched away to the
mountains, and against the blue of the cloudless sky rose its towers
and pylons, its colossal columns and statues. Clusters or avenues
of palms lent a light but grateful shade from the sun’s unveiled
brightness, and added a touch of living green to the azure of the
firmament and creamy whiteness of some of the buildings. Others were of
different colors, giving a jewel-like effect at a distance in the rays
of the brilliant sun. In some instances the trade or profession of the
owner was pictured on the front walls. The streets were crowded with
people; beasts of burden, heavily laden, made their way slowly along.
Vendors of all sorts lined the sides of the street, and a hubbub of
voices rose constantly. In the grander objects Nature had furnished the
model, the mountain summits suggested the form of the pyramid and the
caves of the Nile valley the temples.
The temple of Luxor, or El Uksor, was near the river, but faced from it
toward that of Karnak, and a long avenue of sphinxes, a mile in extent,
connected the two. What one king began, another added to, and a third,
perhaps, finished; thus Seti I, and his, in some respects, greater son,
are, in their architectural works, constantly associated, together. The
sculpture of Siti, however, is considered the finer. The interiors of
the temples were often gloomy and dim, but at the summer solstice the
sun penetrated to the inner sanctuary of Karnak.