built by Seti I for the celebration of religious festivals, in which
Queen Tuaa may have taken part, is, even in its ruined state, one of
the wonders of the world. In recent times some of the columns have
fallen. The temple was one hundred and seventy feet in length, three
hundred and twenty-nine in width, and supported by one hundred and
thirty-four columns, as large in circumference, though not so high,
as the Vendome column in Paris. The central lines are seventy feet in
height and twelve in diameter, while those on either side are forty
in height and nine in diameter. The effect of the great hall with its
forest of columns is awe-inspiring; one writer after another describes
himself as empty of words and dumb before it. No matter how familiar
one may be with the place from descriptions of it, previously read,
this remains true, just as the Taj Mahal, in India, is to the eye
of each new gazer a dream of beauty. Says one writer: “Karnak is to
Egyptian architecture what the Parthenon is to Greek, the Pantheon to
Roman, and Notre Dame in Paris to Medieval; but it is far grander than
them all.”
Seti’s battles and Seti’s victories have passed away, but Seti’s
temple stands, eternal almost as the mountains. Walls and columns were
decorated with sculptures, begun by the father, finished by the son,
those of Seti on the north, of Rameses on the south wall. Those of
Seti are the finer, and represent the king in his chariot doing battle
with his enemies, while on the columns both monarchs are presenting
offerings to the gods. The statues and the sacred lakes, which formed
part of the temple adjuncts, correspond in size. At the present time
this great temple is spoken of as the greatest ruin in the world, the
crowning triumph of Egyptian art.
The winged disk, symbolizing the victory of Horus over Typhon, was, by
command of the god Thoth, placed over all entrances. At the gate of the
temple of Karnak was a representation of the coronation of Rameses I,
father of a celebrated son and more celebrated grandson. The winter of
1897-8 saw the discovery of the tomb of Osiris, and the god kings Horus
and Set, remains from the time of Seti I.
The name of the architect of the magnificent Hypostile Hall is
preserved, and the Glyptohek in Munich possesses a statute of this
Michael Angelo of his time, as Miss Edwards calls him. An old man with
a beard, in a loose robe, sitting upon the ground, lost in meditation.
High priest and first prophet of Amon under Seti, he became, under
Rameses, the chief architect of the Thebaid, and royally commissioned
to embellish the temples. He was called Bak-en-Khonsu.
The oldest map in existence is said to be that of a gold mine worked
by Seti I, which furnished perhaps some of the means for his great
architectural undertakings, but which was worked to still better
advantage by his son.
Seti I reigned about twenty-seven years, was buried with great honors,
and his memory was kept fresh by the devotion of his son; but Queen
Ti, or Tuaa, though described on the monuments as “royal wife, royal
mother, and heiress and sharer of the throne,” seems to fade out of
sight, perhaps dying before him, and the profile on the wall remains to
us the strongest image of her.
Seven hundred ushebti were said to have been buried with Seti, images
of slaves who were to accompany and wait upon him in the land of
Amenti. A curious little dialogue between master and servants is
preserved. The deceased says, “O ye figures, be ye ever watchful to
work, to plough, to sow the fields, to water the canals and to carry
sand from the east and from the west.” The figures reply, “Here am I
when thou callest.”
Seti’s name is given as “Ra-user-Kheperu-meri-Amen
Seb-Ra-Seti-Mer-en-ptah,” His tomb was discovered by Belzoni in 1817,
and is one of the most beautiful ever found, the sarcophagus, in
which the body was originally placed, being of the finest alabaster,
delicately sculptured both outside and within. This was eventually
purchased by an Englishman and rests in the Sloan Museum. Seti is
spoken of as the “justified,” and hence had successfully passed the
great tribunal to which all the departed were subjected.
But the grave afforded no permanent resting-place for the great
monarch, warrior and builder. His mummy, his veritable self, with
that of his son and many other kings and queens, is in the museum at
Gizeh. Even from these withered remains we can judge that Seti was an
unusually handsome man. The Louvre contains a full-length portrait of
Seti I, cut out bodily from the walls of the sepulchre in the Tombs of
the Kings. Placed in a tomb, from which he was removed to that of Queen
Ansera, for fear of robbers, it was eventually broken into, and after
other like journeys and removals he is now the object of the curious or
interested gaze of the passing traveler. The mummy is said to be one
of the finest ever found, and clearly shows his claim to beauty, even
preserving to a certain degree the expression of his face.
There is a figure of Seti I in the British Museum, and smaller
memorials of him in other collections, among them the Metropolitan
Museum of New York. Of one of the paintings in his tomb, Lady Duff
Gordon says: “The face of the goddess of the Western shore Amenti.
Athar or Hecate is ravishing, and she welcomes the king to her regions;
death was never painted so lovely.” Was it possible that with the
artist’s conception of the goddess might mingle a memory of the dead
Queen Tuaa, with whom her royal spouse had now joined company; we can
but surmise.
Turn we next to the consideration of the wives of that much married
man, Rameses II.
CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.
NOFRITARI-MINIMUT.
With the exception of Cleopatra, one or two Ptolemy queens, Hatasu,
and possibly Nitocris, the history of Egypt which has come down to us
deals principally with the kings, and not with the queens. The latter
are mentioned incidentally, or not at all, though holding a very
different place from the female sovereigns of other Eastern nations,
and the student explorer who endeavors to vitalize these fragmentary
and scattered outlines has not an easy task.
In no case is the above more true than in that of the wife or wives of
Rameses II, the Sesostris of the Greeks who waged tedious wars against
the Hittites, with whom he made peace in the twenty-first year of his
reign, and of whom Herodotus speaks. It is the king whose striking and
heroic figure in childhood, youth and manhood, occupies the foreground
of the canvas, dwarfing into comparative insignificance all who stand
near him, and leaving the details as regards female relationships but
as accessories and background.
[Illustration: NOFRITARI MINIMUT.]
Says an ardent Egyptologist, “One of the handsomest of men, we come in
time to recognize his face, with its haughty beauty, just as we do that
of Henry VIII or Louis XIV.” Curtis speaks thus on the general subject:
“Oriental masculine beauty is so mild and feminine that the men are
like statues of men seen in the most mellowing and azure atmosphere.
The forms of the face have a surprising grace and perfection. They are
not statues and gods so seen, but the budding beauty of the Antinous
when he, too, had been in the soft climate, the ripening rounding lip,
the arched brow, the heavy, drooping lid, the crushed, closed eye, like
a bud bursting with voluptuous beauty, the low broad brow; these I
remember at Asyoot and remember forever.”
Much of this, perhaps, constituted the charm of the youthful Rameses
face, but to it must be added something of the strength and intellect
which were often lacking.
From his mother, Queen Tuaa, Rameses II, of the nineteenth dynasty,
received the heritage of royal ancestry; his father, Seti I, belonged
to a new family, who, in view of descent, had no claim to the throne.
So say most authorities, though some dispute it. As a child, his father
made him co-ruler with himself. An inscription of Rameses II reads, “I
was a boy in his lap,” referring to his father, “and he spoke thus,
‘I will have him crowned as king, for I desire to behold his grandeur
while I am still alive.’” Officers then came forward to place the
crown on his head, and Seti said: “Place the royal circlet on his
brow.” After this ceremony, however, he was still left in the house of
the women and royal concubines, but was put in command of a band of
Amazons, “maidens who wore a harness of leather.” So that soldier and
conqueror though he so early became, his associations from childhood up
were constantly with women, and for the sex in general his subsequent
conduct may lead us to infer he had a special weakness.
Another inscription reads, “when thou wast a boy with the youth locks
of hair, no monument saw the light without thy command, no business
was conducted without thy knowledge.” He laid foundation stones even
in childhood. Little wonder that no prouder monarch ever held sway and
that we associate the idea of unwonted magnificence with him and his
queens.
“Rameses the Great, if he was as much like his portraits as they are
like each other, must have been one of the handsomest men, not only of
his own day, but of all history,” says the enthusiastic Miss Edwards.
There is a bas-relief of him during his first campaign as a beautiful
youth with “a delicate, Dantesque face.” Some years later we see him at
Abydos in the temple of Seti I with a boyish beard. The likeness with
which we become most familiar, in the prime of life, is thus described:
“The face is oval, the eyes are long, prominent and heavy-lidded, the
nose slightly aquiline and characteristically depressed at the tip. The
nostrils are open and sensitive, the under lip projects, the chin is
short and square.”
It seems likely that it was true of Rameses II as is said of the
sailor, that he had a “sweetheart in every port.” No woman could boast
that she alone reigned in his heart. Two, if not three, wives were made
his legal consorts, and he had numerous concubines. The king’s name was
branded on female slaves that they could not escape undiscovered.
Little or nothing is known of the queen’s previous history; she may be
said to have had no childhood or youth as regards our story. As the
wife of Rameses II and the mother of his children she first becomes
known to us. Queen Nofritari seems to have been his earliest consort,
probably his sister or the daughter of some Egyptian noble. One writer,
Pollard, gives authority for considering her the princess who rescued
Moses, the daughter of the king, whom he subsequently married; but as
the king doubtless married in his youth, and she is the first queen
of whom we find record, this seems unlikely. Says the same writer,
speaking of the temple of Luxor, “Rameses the Great, some two hundred
and thirty years afterwards, added another large court, which was
surrounded by a double row of columns; between these are gigantic
statues of this monarch, more or less perfect. One on the left of the
court is very beautiful, in most perfect condition, and represents him
as a young man. The expression of the countenance is very pleasing.
By his side, her head reaching to his knee, stands the diminutive but
beautiful form of his beloved Nefert-ari.”
The queen’s name, as usual, is variously spelled
Nofritari-Minimut, Nefertari, Nofertuit-Meri-en Mut, and Nofruari,
and means, as did that of Queen Nefertari-Aahmes, “good or beautiful
companion.” She shared her honors with a Khi-tan princess, whose brief
story is told in a later chapter, and with another lady, Isis-Nefer.
Rameses II even lies under the suspicion of having married two of his
own daughters, Honuttani and Bint-Antha, the latter whom Baedaker
speaks of as queen under the title of Bint-Anat, and of a small statue
of her standing by the knee of a larger one of Rameses II, of whom he
was known to be especially fond. It is this princess who is made the
heroine of Ebers’ story of “Uarda,” but she is here provided with a
more suitable lover, while Rameses himself is depicted as a more noble
character than is perhaps quite warranted by the historical records. So
true, however, are Professor Ebers’ stories to the ascertained facts
in each case, that, as a rule, they may, serve as admirable historical
studies, quite aside from any merit they may possess as artistic works
of fiction.
Jewish tradition mentions a certain Princess Moeris (which some writers
have believed to be one of Rameses II’s youngest children, the Princess
Meri) as the one who rescued Moses in infancy, as above referred to.
Pictures and inscriptions give the number of Rameses II’s children as
sixty sons and fifty-nine daughters, and one enumeration even reaches
to one hundred and seventy-one children. Some of Rameses’ daughters
were Meri Amun, Beken-Mut, Noferari, Nebtani and Isiemkheb, of whom
Meri-Amun and Neb-tani, in addition to Houttani, and Bint-Antha are
marked as queens in the family list, probably the wives of their
brothers or near relatives.
On the walls of the temple at Deir Champollion found an imperfect list
of these sons and daughters. As a curiosity one may cite the different
dates assigned by historians as the beginning of the reign of Rameses
II: Brugsch, B. C. 1407; Mariette, 1405; Lepsius, 1388; Bunson, 1352,
and Poole, 1283.
Since his son was of the blood royal, it was the policy of Seti I
to unite him with himself, as has been shown, in the government of
the kingdom, thus pacifying all adherents to the old regime, and
Queen Tuaa, from whom Rameses II derived his “blue blood,” appears
in the family group. The attachment between this father and son is
an attractive feature of their joint reigns, and reminds one of the
similar bond between Thothmes I and his daughter Hatasu. In peace and
war Seti and Rameses were ever side by side. Together they governed,
together they took their pleasure and rode forth, each in his royal
chariot, to fight and to conquer.
At Abydos, Karnak and other places are pictures of the prince; in
one of them, adorned with the priestly panther skin, he is pouring
libations on the altar in front of him, while his father holds a
censor; according to these same representations and many inscriptions
in the various temples adorned with his statues, the youthful Rameses
performed prodigies of valor in the field. In the little temple of
Betel-Wali are shown, on the right wall, the victories of Rameses II
over the Libyans and Syrians, and on the left, over the Ethiopians. He
was a “Black Prince” for whom the hand of fate did not lay out a brief
career. The delight of his father’s heart, he lived to assume the full
government and to pay royal honors in that beloved parent.
Like his ancestor Amenophis III, Rameses II seems to have had a passion
for lions, not so much for the sport of hunting them as to train them
for pets or instruments of warfare. Doubtless there was something that
specially ministered to the pride of the haughty monarch in these
favorites, known as the lion has ever been as “the king of beasts,” the
“monarch of the forest,” etc.
Whether the queen shared his partiality we are not told, but since they
were his playthings and his companions, she must have accepted them
in a measure, if with a trembling heart. His favorite lion lay at the
door of the king’s tent and went forth with him to the battlefield,
probably at times even set loose to slay and destroy the enemy. The
wall paintings show the king’s lions in various places.
There is something both attractive and repellant in this figure of
the proud, handsome, vainglorious monarch, in the full vigor of his
manhood, accompanied by this dangerous ally and slave. The tale of the
lion and the mouse, Esop’s well known fable, is said to be of Egyptian
origin, and within the last forty or fifty years many romantic stories
and many love tales of the Egyptians have come to light.
A more modern character, Sir Henry Rawlinson, who wrote much on Egypt
and also a great authority on Persian inscriptions, shared with this
ancient king his taste for barbarous pets. He brought up a young lion
who followed him around like a dog and lay at his feet when he wrote
and studied. He also made such a pet of a leopard that it knew him
after long separation, and displayed pleasure at his presence, when he
visited the Zoological Garden in England, to which he had given it. The
story goes that he put his hand into the cage when the keeper, who did
not know him, exclaimed: “Take your hand out of the cage! The animal is
very savage and will bite you!”
“I don’t think he will bite me,” said Sir Henry, “will you Fahad?”
and the beast answered with a purr and would hardly let the hand be
withdrawn.
Queen Nefritare-Minimut was the first, the chief, and the best beloved,
there seems little question, of the wives of Rameses II, since it is
her picture that appears with that of the king in various places and
she is termed “Beloved Companion.” Maspero gives a picture of her in
her chariot, following the king and says, “Still a young woman with
delicate, regular features already faded and wrinkled under her powder.
Like her husband she wears a long robe, its folds, through the rapid
motion, floating behind her.” There is a large escort and every one
stands in a chariot driven by a groom. This queen was the mother of a
number of children, who, in the temple of Abou Simbel, elsewhere called
Ibsamboul, are grouped with her. We may accord her some charm of beauty
since the monarch of that time selected his wife, not from a list of
foreign princesses of suitable rank, but from among the children of his
own nobles, or relatives, with whose attractions he could become more
readily acquainted. More than one writer speaks of the queen’s figure
being full of grace and her features refined and attractive in her
pictures.
There are two temples at Abou Simbel, translated “Father of the Corn”
or “Father of the Sickle,” excavated in the solid rock. The larger
has statues chiefly of the king, though there are smaller ones of his
mother, wife and some of his children. The smaller, of the queen also
of equal size with her husband, and smaller ones of some of their sons
and daughters. These are the most familiar effigies of Rameses II and
Nofritare-Minimut together, the male figure being full of spirit, the
female of grace. “Rameses, the Strong in Truth, the beloved of Amen,”
says the outer legend, “made this divine abode for his wife, Nefertari,
whom he loves.” Within the words are “his royal wife, who loves him,
Nefertari, the beloved of Maut, constructed for him this abode in the
mountain of Pure Waters.”
Curtis says, “In these faces of Rameses, seven feet long, is a godlike
grandeur and beauty which the Greeks never reached—the mind cannot
escape the feeling that they were conceived by colossal minds. Such
only cherish the idea of repose so profound—their beauty is steeped in
a placid passion that seems passionless. In those earlier days Art was
not content with the grace of Nature, but coped with its proportions.
Vain attempt, but glorious!”
Miss Edwards was present and took part in the discovery of some
portions of this edifice and describes the occurrences and her
sensations with her usual picturesqueness and enthusiasm.
On the inner north wall there is a picture, presumably of Queen
Nofritari, with a blue head-dress and disk, in her right hand the ankh
or life sign and in her left a jackal-headed sceptre. Vases of a blue
color stand on a table of offerings near.
It is at this temple that we know Rameses best, fifteen or twenty years
later than the pictures of him before described. Here, to quote from
the same author, he has “outlived the rage of early youth and become
implacable. God-like serenity, superhuman pride, immutable will breathe
from the stone. He has learned to believe his power irresistible and
himself divine.”
The queen wears the plumes and disk of Hathor and has her daughters
with her. She has much sweetness and grace if not positive beauty.
The colossi are difficult to see but the southernmost may be best
viewed in profile on a sand slope level with the beard. Even the great
cast in the British Museum cannot be well seen. The temple at Abou
Simbel has one hall and many large chambers. The colossi are placed
two to the right and two to left of the door; they are sixty feet high
without the platform and measure across the chest twenty-five feet four
inches. The figures are sealed, but if standing would be eighty-three
feet high. Little dimples giving sweetness to the corners of the
mouth and, tiny depressions in the lobe of the ear, are as large as
saucers. The most southward statue is best preserved. The next statue
is shattered to the waist, the head lying in the sand, at its feet.
The third is nearly perfect. The fourth has lost beard, uraeus and
arms, and has a hole in front. The heads are worked out, the bodies
generalized. The figures are naked to the waist, and clothed below in
the usual striped tunic. They wear the double crown, rich collars,
no sandals or bracelets, and there are holes in the stone which may
have held bronze or gold belts. The cartouches of the king are on his
breast, and arm, having been probably tatooed upon his person. The
statues are executed in a light vein of rock and were, it is likely,
not painted, like those of Siva’s temple in Elephantine, in India.
Above the door is a twenty-foot statue of Ra and on either side a
portrait of the king in bas relief.
The smaller temple has six statues, three on each side of the door,
over thirty feet high, the King and Queen Nofritari. The king is
crowned with the pashent, and uraeus and wears a fantastic helmet,
adorned with plumes and horns. He has some of his sons, she her
daughters with her, ten feet in height, reaching to the knees of their
parents. The names of the royal consorts appear on every pillar and on
every wall, with the statement that affection unites them. The queen is
seen on the facade as the mother of six children and adorned with the
attributes of a goddess. The king is attended by captives of different
nations. The temple seems to have been left unfinished. The larger
temple is within twenty-five yards of the brink of the river, the
smaller within as many feet. They are of different shades of yellow.
In some of the pictures the figures wear pectoral ornaments and a
rich necklace, with alternate vermilion and black drops, and a golden
yellow belt, studded with red and black stones. The throne is on a
blue platform, painted in stripes, red, blue and white. The platform
is decorated with gold colored stars and tan crosses, picked out
with red. Amon-Ra, the god whom they worship, is here represented
with a blue-black complexion, a corselet of gold chain, armor, and a
head-dress of towering plumes. On the altar is a blue lotus with a red
stalk, and a vessel with a spout like a coffee pot. There are as many
varieties of this god in Egypt as of the Madonna in Italy and Spain.
An earthquake in the time of Rameses II may have accounted for the
partial overthrow of the statues on the outside of the temple. The cast
of a stele in the Louvre states that Rameses II made artesian wells in
the desert.
In one of the pictures of the queen she advances with two sistra, the
sacred instrument introduced in the Fourth Dynasty, time of Mertytefs.
This consists of a frame, somewhat oval in shape, with bars across,
strung with rings, which slipped up and down. We can fancy the music
produced to be rather Chinese in character and not such as would appeal
to Western ears as charming. The priestess of the god was the “divine
wife,” or the “divine handmaid,” a position of great honor, even for
the queen. The handle of the sistrum in the oldest times was always
cow-eared and ornamented with the head of Hathor, the Egyptian Venus.
One of the goddesses to whom the queen is paying honor is Ta-ur-t, who
has the face of a woman on the body of a hippopotamus. She wears a wig,
and a robe of state with five capes, described as a cross between that
of a Lord Chancellor and a coachman. Behind the goddess stand the gods
Thoth and Nut.