our knowledge of the country being in so large a part derived from the
Greeks. Tanis also was so named by the Greeks. This formerly great
city, of which now only mounds, ruins, etc., remain, was variously
known as Tanis, Zoan, or San, the last of Arab designation. It is
believed by some authorities to be the Zoan of the Bible, where the
miracles were performed. Its history is now told by broken statues,
mounds, tombs and hieroglyphics. Scarcely one stone remains upon
another. It is in the Delta of the Nile and is called in some of the
inscriptions, “The Place of the Leg,” “The Winged Disk of the North,”
and “The Cradle of Lower Egypt.” It was an old city when Rameses II
occupied and embellished it. He never hesitated to pull down and use
the materials with which his predecessors had builded, nor to smooth
out their cartouches and replace them with his own. Why should he, the
greatest monarch the world had ever known, as he doubtless thought
himself, shrink from taking his full rights or even obliterating the
name and fame of some more insignificant ancestor. And devoted as
he seemed to have been to his father’s memory, he even did the like
occasionally with his father’s signature.
The monumental history of Tanis, it is said, begins with the Twelfth
Dynasty, a fine broken statue of Amenemhat I having been found. Then
follow memorials of later times. Superb statues of the Hyksos period
have also been discovered. Of the work of Rameses II it is quoted
that “he found the place given over to the abomination of desolation,
he left it one of the most magnificent of Egyptian cities.” For this
purpose he laid all Egypt under contribution, red granite and black
from Syene, and the Valley of Hammamat, sandstone and limestone from
Silsilis and Toorah. His great temples to the gods were but as the
parchment on which he inscribed the story of his own victories. It was
the spirit of the Pharisee which said, ‘I am not as other men are.’
Wars and fires at different times have done much to obliterate Tanis
and its records as well as to destroy all traces of it. Mr. Petrie,
who, like many archeologists, spares neither strength nor effort to
bring to light the history of the past, with the true lover’s fervency
in his favorite pursuit, which is to be a gain not to himself, but to
the world, and Miss Edwards, who to a close study of the old ruins and
remains, adds a charming power of picturesque description, have both
told much of Tanis. We condense their accounts of the city at this past
era. The Nile was alive with vessels, the banks bordered with towns and
villas, the land beyond occupied by villages. The great temple, which
looked like a fortress, was half a mile from the shore, and approached
by a fine road, in part bordered by sphinxes and the city entered by a
massive gateway. Gigantic statues of the king alternated with sphinxes,
the last statue being fourteen times the size of a man. There was a
grand avenue bordered by columns, thirty-six feet in height. Pylons,
statues, obelisks, a very forest of them—the tribute of the previous
centuries, many of them, to the present king. Through these passed
many processions, the king, his son and officials, his warriors and
his captives. He, with the double crown on his head, and glittering
with jewels, the leopard skin over his shoulders, to be received by the
priests, with divine honors, amid the plaudits and adulation of the
people. All to the sound of the harp and flute, cimbals and sistrum.
The queen doubtless looking, from some gorgeously decorated point of
vantage when she did not personally share in the pageant.
This was the home of the young queen, these the magnificent sights to
which her eyes were accustomed. Parts of private letters on parchment
and on pottery have been found, telling familiarly of the feasts and
festivals, the expenses and the daily incidents of the life of this
period. And the love stories and other fragments of fiction which have,
come down to us also give their share of local color.
The last forty-six years of Rameses II’s long reign (which is said
to have lasted sixty-seven) were peaceful, and says one author, “It
became his passion and his pride to found new cities, to raise dykes,
to dig canals, to build fortresses, to multiply statues, obelisks and
inscriptions, and to erect the most costly temples in which man ever
worshipped.”
His eldest sons appear to have died before him, or been passed over in
the succession, for it was his thirteenth son, Meremptah, who shared
his authority and eventually succeeded him. He is believed to have
been the Pharaoh of the Exodus, as Rameses II of the oppression of the
Israelites.
In strange contrast to the life of Rameses II was the disposition of
his body after death; there is a story told of the mummy of one of
the Pharaohs, that in order to obtain entrance into Cairo, with his
prize, Bruch Bey was obliged to pay octroi duty on “dead fish,” as the
officials refused to admit it free of duty and the register contained
no directions as to mummies. Doubtless Rameses II received magnificent
burial, but in later reigns many royal tombs were rifled and his
among them; the empty tomb now remains, but only filled with rubbish,
the body of the king, with those of many others, being removed.
Inscriptions record that this occurred more than once. In the sixteenth
year of the reign of Pinotem I it was placed in the tomb of Amenophis
I, so that even in death sometimes “uneasy lies the head that wears a
crown.” It is said that in 1880 his mummy was offered for sale to an
American gentleman, who, doubting its genuineness, refused to purchase.
In 1881 the wonderful discovery of the shaft containing so many royal
mummies was made, and their removal to the museum of Gizeh is thus
described, “Already it was known, far and wide, that these kings and
queens of ancient times were being conveyed to Cairo, and for more
than fifty miles below Thebes the villages turned out en masse, not
merely to stare at the piled decks, as the steamer went by, but to
show respect to the illustrious dead. Women, running along the banks
and shrieking the death wail; men, ranged in solemn silence and firing
their guns in the air, greeted the Pharaohs as they passed.”
And so after change of burial place and even of coffin, one of the most
celebrated of human monarchs lies in a museum, for the inspection of
every careless passerby; a strong commentary on human greatness and
human pride.
The mummy was unrolled, by Maspero, June, 1886, and was found to be
five feet six inches in length. The head was small and long; the hair,
apparently white at the time of death, was made yellow with drugs; the
forehead, low and narrow; the eyebrows, arched and bushy; the eyes,
small and close to the thin-hooked nose; the temples were hollow,
the cheek bones prominent and the ears wearing rings were round. The
expression he calls intelligent, but slightly sensual, proud, obstinate
and majestic, even in death.
And what of Queen Urmaa-nofrura? As the bride alone, young and fair,
she comes before us, and we find no record of her further history,
or of her death. Was it in her power, as in that of the fair Queen
Esther of Scripture, to do aught for the people of her native land or
to influence in any way for good the haughty sovereign to whom she was
allied? Perhaps, and perhaps only.
CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.
TAUSERT.
As Queen Urma-nofru-Ra may be considered the bride of life, so we
may call Queen Tausert the bride of the tomb, since it is from her
tomb alone that we learn anything of her history, and even there the
information is most meagre. Her name is mentioned as Ta-ursr, Tauser,
Tausert or Taosiri, and it makes her somewhat distinctive among the
various Neferts and Tis. She is called “the great queen and the lady of
the land, the princess of Upper and Lower Egypt.”
She is noteworthy chiefly as being of the blood royal and thus
conferring dignity upon her husband, Siptah, or Si-Ptah, her name
taking precedence of his on the monuments, as did that of Queen Ti,
wife of Seti I. Also she was the last queen of the great Nineteenth
Dynasty, of which Seti I and Rameses II were such renounced monarchs,
and of whose queens Ti, Nofritari Mini-mut and Urma-nofru-Ra we have
already given outline sketches. To this Dynasty, called Diospolites,
Lepsius gives the date beginning 1443 B. C., and Wilkinson 1340 B. C.,
and one division makes it the Middle Empire.
The earliest Egyptian monarchs of whom we have any record built for
themselves tombs which seemed destined to last till eternity, the
Pyramids, which some one has finely described as “stony tents where
innumerable centuries have encamped, which time in vain seeks to drive
from the field,” and which seem more like Druidical remains than
specimens of architecture.
Says Lady Duff Gordon, in her charming “Letters:” “There is such a
curious sight of a crowd of men carrying huge blocks of stone up out
of a boat. One sees exactly how the stones were carried in ancient
times; they sway their bodies all together like one great lithe animal,
with many legs, and hum a low chant to keep time. It is quite unlike
carrying heavy weights in Europe.”
Later kings spent their energies differently. They built palaces and
temples and chose to be buried in caverns in the natural rocks through
which they honeycombed innumerable passages, hewed out great halls, or
constructed pits in which their mortal remains could be hidden from the
light of day.
Rameses II lived to a ripe old age, his wives perhaps dying before
him, as many of his children certainly did. Of their lives we know
little, of their death nothing. The sacred books say of one Pharaoh,
perhaps of Rameses II, that in heaven he will, at his pleasure, take
wives from their husbands, so idolatrous was the worship accorded to
these haughty, and often tyrannical kings. Seti I had, as we have
seen, in early years united his son, Rameses, with himself in the
government of his kingdom, and Rameses II adopted the same plan,
making his thirteenth son, Meremptah, co-ruler, with himself. In the
government of the kingdom. The elder sons, of whom Khamus is known to
have been an especial favorite of his father (as was Bint-Antha among
the daughters), died before him, or there was some other reason which
prevented their following in natural succession. The consensus of
opinion seems to be that Rameses II was the oppressor of the Hebrews,
and Meneptah the monarch from whom they escaped.
The Israelites are believed to have toiled on the temples, palaces
and other architectural works at Tanis, and on the treasure city
of Paten or Pithom. They are mentioned in a triumphal inscription,
found by Petrie, near the temple of Medinet Aboo, opposite Thebes. It
was engraved on an old slab, originally polished, inscribed and put
in place in a temple, by Amen-hotep III, which Meremptah, with the
ruthlessness of many of the kings, took and also inscribed on the back,
or rougher side, to glorify himself. Part of it reads, “The Hittites
are quieted. Taken is Askelon. The Israelites are
(Transcriber’s Note: A line (or more) seems to be missing here from the
original.)
tions, who had invaded Egypt. Petrie also found, among the ruins of
a funeral temple at Thebes, a bust of this king, in grey granite,
which has “a firm and rather dogged expression, not untinged with
melancholy.” The wife of Meremptah is given as Ast-Nefert or Isis
Nefert, but of her personal history we know nothing. The mummy of a
certain Queen Anhipu, said to belong to the Nineteenth Dynasty, was
found, but no details of her life.
Amenmesses “Mighty Bull, beloved of Maat,” is, by some authorities,
said to have usurped the throne after Meremptah; his mother is given as
Taak Taakhat, “divine mother, royal mother, great Lady,” and his wife
as “royal spouse, the great one, lady of the two lands.” He built a
tomb in the Valley of the Kings, and he, with his mother and wife, are
buried there. It has three corridors and two chambers, and in one his
mother and in another his wife are making offerings to the gods.
Another list commonly given is as follows, Rameses II, then Meremptah,
Seti II, his grandson, and Siptah, his great-grandson, perhaps by
marriage. Reproductions of the pictures of Seti II and Siptah are
given in Petrie’s articles, in Miss Edward’s “Pharaohs, Fellahs and
Explorers,” as well doubtless as in other places, and she claims for
each of them the distinctive features of the Rammeside family, long
heads, long noses, long bodies and long legs. Photographs have been
taken of Siptah and others from the bas-reliefs in the Valley of the
Tombs of the Kings, at Thebes. Ebers, in his romance of “Joshua,”
mentions Siptah as the nephew of Meremptah and as intriguing to
supplant him.
Queen Tausert’s husband is elsewhere spoken of as Meremptah Siptah, the
son of an usurper, giving color to the idea that it was she and not he
who was the descendant of Rameses II. Among ordinary people the tomb
was often prepared for husband and wife together, and occasionally the
mummy of the first who died was kept in the house till the death of the
second, a constant suggestion that they might soon be reunited, and in
pictures they are often betrayed with the arm of one around the neck
or waist of the other, showing that affectionate relations were usual.
Death and the future life appear to have occupied so large a share in
the thoughts of the ancients that their daily life was a sort of Appian
Way, lined with tombs, and we know much more of their funerals than of
their marriages and other festivities.
The Egyptians were among the earliest, if not the earliest nation to
regard literature, to write books (the inscribed papyrus roll being
their printed page, to be handed down to posterity) and to preserve and
value them.
The Book of the Dead, of which sections belonging to different
periods have been found, was a sort of Bible, for which the Egyptians
entertained the most profound respect and whose maxims they seem to
have used, both as a guide in life and in their preparation of the dead
for the tomb. The papyrus containing the tale of “The Two Brothers,” in
which the younger was unjustly accused of wrongdoing towards his elder
brother’s wife, bears some resemblance to the Bible story of Joseph’s
experiences, and belongs to the period of Seti II.
Diodorus speaks of a sacred library which he said was inscribed
“Dispensary of the Mind,” and belonged to the period of Rameses III;
some ruins believed to have been this building have been found. There
was a great hall and several smaller rooms, supported by columns. “On
the jamb of one of the smaller rooms,” says Kendrick, “was sculptured
Thoth, the inventor of Letters, and the goddess Saf, his companion,
with the title of ‘Lady of Letters and President of the Hall of Books,’
accompanied, the former with an emblem of the sense of sight, the
latter with that of hearing.”
Treaties with foreign nations were often inscribed, like that of
Rameses II and the father of Queen Urma-nofrura, on tablets of silver
or other metal, while accounts, letters and more trivial matters, were
written on pottery, fragments of which have come down to our own day.
In these times, or even earlier, the Greeks made their way into Egypt,
and through them, as well as from the monuments, we have derived much
of our knowledge of the Egyptians.
A late writer on Egypt, Isaac Meyer, draws a parallel between
Christianity and the old Egyptian religion, and advances a theory, more
ingenious than reliable, that Christ may have been in Egypt later than
in his infancy. The “Book of the Dead,” said to be the great storehouse
of Egyptian theology, shows refined and ethical ideas. Horus, the
sun-god, the victorious of the resurrection from the dead to eternal
life, is found chief among the deities there represented, wearing the
Osirian crown, and with an endless serpent, symbolic of eternity.
Chapters of this book were found in isolated places, and at different
times, “a collection of preceptus and maxims on the conduct of life.”
Many had fragments of the revered volume buried beside them or engraved
on scarabeii as ornaments and decorations. In later times than those
which we are now considering the mummy of a young girl was found, with
part of Homer in her coffin, having in life probably been devoted to
his poetry.
Some archeologists and students see traces of original monotheism
in the religion of the Egyptians, one central idea of deity perhaps
under many forms, but the idea is not supported by general testimony.
“Deities,” says one writer, “were merged into one another, qualities of
one were attributed to another till the pantheon resembled the shifting
pictures of the kaleidoscope.”
Some of the Egyptian precepts and maxims are not without their value in
modern times, such as “If thou humblest thyself in obeying a superior,
thy conduct is wholly good before God. Knowing who ought to obey and
who ought to command, lift not thy heart against the latter.” And
again, “If thou desirest thy conduct to be good and preserved from
evil, keep thyself from attacks of bad temper. It is wrong to fly in a
passion with one’s neighbor to the point of not knowing how to manage
one’s words.”
Siptah is sometimes spoken of as an anti-king, regarded as an usurper,
rather than a rightful heir, and his name is occasionally omitted
from the list of kings. His Horus name is said to mean Horus rising
in Khebit; he added nothing important to the temples and, though
depicted in relief in Silsila and other places, it is probably only
commemorative of small repairs. Buried in his wife’s tomb, he was
removed, in the troublous times of the Twentieth Dynasty, to the tomb
of Amenhetep II. The original tomb has three or four corridors and
several chambers. A picture of the queen, offering gifts to the gods,
was plastered over by Sek-nebta, who usurped the tomb. The remains of
the funeral temple of the king and queen were excavated by Professor
Petrie in 1896. Her temple was between those of Meren-Ptah and Thothmes
IV, and his north of the temple of Amenhetep II.
Another suggestion as regards Siptah is that he may have ruled over
one part of Egypt—the rightful king over another. But, whatever the
ambiguity of his earlier history, it is known that he was buried with
his wife in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, Queen Tausert taking
her place with her husband, and not among the Tombs of the Queens where
so many of the royal ladies were laid.
There were probably revolutions and counter revolutions, till the reins
of government were once more finally in the hands of Rameses III.
Whether from the ambition of an usurper to be laid with the true line
of kings, or from a deep affection, Siptah and Tausert shared their
tomb, the queen probably having died first, and the king subsequently,
no doubt by special order being laid beside her. The tomb was
elaborately painted and inscribed, but much is faded by time and the
light and air admitted by explorers. Champoleon believed, we are told,
that he had discovered a cartouch of Seti-Nekht, engraved above that of
Seti II, and the latter above that of Tausert and Siptah; but “there is
no visible trace of this superposition which would assign to Siptah a
date anterior to Seti II.”
One writer says of Tausert that who the queen was is unknown; she
may have been a queen dowager, with special rights as daughter of a
Pharaoh, and may have been the widow of Seti I and mother of the Prince
of Cush, if so Siptah was her husband’s brother and child’s uncle. She
is also spoken of as “hereditary daughter—exalted.”
Belzone made a close investigation of these tombs, discovering various
points of interest which had escaped the notice of earlier explorers.
The tombs were cut in the face of the limestone rock, with passages,
steps and doorways, and a pit at the end, probably to discourage
intruders. He broke through a wall which gave a hollow sound when
struck, and discovered several more pillared halls and passages. The
body, which, by embalming, was converted into a mummy, was, especially
in the case of royalty and other distinguished people, most carefully
preserved. First placed in a casket of cedar or other wood elaborately
painted with figures of the gods, this again in an outer casket of
wood, more roughly decorated, and finally in a stone sarcophagus.
Reference has been made before to a sort of court or trial which was
held at the entrance to the grave to decide if the deceased was worthy
to enter the presence of Osiris.
In a modern Arab funeral a number of men walk first, chanting a ritual.
The bier, with a high peak in front, like the prow of a Nile boat, is
carried by friends and comes next, and upon the bier a tin horn is
placed if the corpse is a man, a shawl and jewelry and other ornaments,
if a woman, and a red shawl indicates youth. A more minute description
of this is given by Pollard, in the “Land of the Monuments.” The
funerals take place within a few hours of death. Different from the
old Egyptian custom, the body in its winding sheet is covered with
shawls, and the procession is closed by the chief mourners, followed by
friends, sometimes walking hand in hand.
Details as regards the tomb of Tausert and Siptah are to be found
in the guide books, but the passing traveller will probably glance
hastily at pictures and inscriptions and hurry on; only the student has
leisure or inclination for minute or accurate investigation. The tomb
represents the royal couple absorbed in religious exercises, offering
to the various gods and goddesses their prayers, praises and gifts.
The queen stands before Harmachus, “god of the morning,” and Anubis,
“the god of the dead,” and Ne-fer-tum-Hor, and again before Ptah, “the
Opener,” and Ma, “goddess of Truth.” All representations of this last
goddess are said to be “refined, calm and peaceful” in expression and
worthy of the character of the goddess of Truth.
Then the king stands before Isis, “the mother,” and Horns, “the son,”
and in other pictures the royal consorts are together before some god,
perhaps carrying or crowned with flowers. And again the queen before
Harmachus, Hathor, the Egyptian Venus, and Nepthys, “lady of the
house.” The sarcophagus of Tausert bears her likeness, between Isis
and Nepthys, a conventional idea of what a goddess was or should be,
setting the pattern.
The tomb has also other pictures of some of the lesser gods, armed
with knives, keeping guard over a chapel, to ward off evil ones,
Hathor standing in the doorway. Again the king and the high priest,
sacrificing to Osiris and the winged goddess Ma in the doorway of a
chapel, signifying that only Truth may enter. Here is what is called
the act of opening the mouth of the royal likeness in the Hall of Gold.
The high priest appears with his staff and panther skin, the Kereb and
lower priests, who take part in the ceremony, and the people as “those
who come to the tomb,” offering incense. Various rooms are carved and
ornamented with pictures of numerous gods, Thoth with the moon upon his
head, Ma with outspread wings, serpents, boats and other symbols.
Mrs. Stevenson, who has made an especial study of Egyptian symbols,
says that most of the Egyptian goddesses may be said, broadly speaking,
to represent either luminous space, or the activity of the god with
whom they are associated, and their common attributes make it easy
for the Egyptians to reduce them to one type. Sekhet, “the striker”;
Neith, who “shoots”; Hat-Hor, meaning “the home of Horus,” the mother
of Horus; one of those designations is “the mighty striker,” son of
Hat-Hor, and who, at Dendereh, where she was especially worshipped
as the “holy one,” is expressly called Sekhet-Neith, while all are
called “Eye of Ra.” “There are,” she continues, “exceptions, such as
Maut, who represents abstract truth and justice, Safekh, etc.; and in
certain localities where the goddess stood alone, like Neith at Sais,
she included all the attributes of divinity, but her place in the local
triad is as indicated above.”