Ancient speculators, when they could not derive a people definitely from
any other, took refuge in the statement, or the figment, that they were
the children of the soil which they had always occupied. Modern
theorists may say, if it please them, that they were evolved out of the
monkeys that had their primitive abode on that particular portion of the
earth's surface. Monkeys, however, are not found everywhere; and we have
no evidence that in Egypt they were ever indigenous, though, as pets,
they were very common, the Egyptians delighting in keeping them. Such
evidence as we have reveals to us the man as anterior to the monkey in
the land of Mizraim Thus we are thrown back on the original
question--Where did the man, or race of men, that is found in Egypt at
the dawn of history come from?
It is generally answered that they came from Asia; but this is not much
more than a conjecture. The physical type of the Egyptians is different
from that of any known Asiatic nation. The Egyptians had no traditions
that at all connected them with Asia. Their language, indeed, in
historic times was partially Semitic, and allied to the Hebrew, the
Phœnician, and the Aramaic; but the relationship was remote, and may be
partly accounted for by later intercourse, without involving original
derivation. The fundamental character of the Egyptian in respect of
physical type, language, and tone of thought, is Nigritic. The Egyptians
were not negroes, but they bore a resemblance to the negro which is
indisputable. Their type differs from the Caucasian in exactly those
respects which when exaggerated produce the negro. They were darker, had
thicker lips, lower foreheads, larger heads, more advancing jaws, a
flatter foot, and a more attenuated frame. It is quite conceivable that
the negro type was produced by a gradual degeneration from that which we
find in Egypt. It is even conceivable that the Egyptian type was
produced by gradual advance and amelioration from that of the negro.
Still, whencesoever derived, the Egyptian people, as it existed in the
flourishing times of Egyptian history, was beyond all question a mixed
race, showing diverse affinities. Whatever the people was originally, it
received into it from time to time various foreign elements, and those
in such quantities as seriously to affect its physique--Ethiopians from
the south, Libyans from the west, Semites from the north-east, where
Africa adjoined on Asia. There are two quite different types of Egyptian
form and feature, blending together in the mass of the nation, but
strongly developed, and (so to speak) accentuated in individuals. One is
that which we see in portraits of Rameses III, and in some of Rameses
II.--a moderately high forehead, a large, well-formed aquiline nose, a
well-shaped mouth with lips not over full, and a delicately rounded
chin. The other is comparatively coarse--forehead low, nose depressed
and short, lower part of the face prognathous and sensual-looking, chin
heavy, jaw large, lips thick and projecting. The two types of face are
not, however, accompanied by much difference of frame. The Egyptian is
always slight in figure, wanting in muscle, flat in foot, with limbs
that are too long, too thin, too lady-like. Something more of
muscularity appears, perhaps, in the earlier than in the later forms;
but this is perhaps attributable to a modification of the artistic
ideal.
As Egypt presents us with two types of physique, so it brings before us
two strongly different types of character. On the one hand we see, alike
in the pictured scenes, in the native literary remains, and in the
accounts which foreigners have left us of the people, a grave and
dignified race, full of serious and sober thought, given to speculation
and reflection, occupied rather with the interests belonging to another
world than with those that attach to this present scene of existence,
and inclined to indulge in a gentle and dreamy melancholy. The first
thought of a king, when he began his reign, was to begin his tomb. The
desire of the grandee was similar. It is a trite tale how at feasts a
slave carried round to all the guests the representation of a mummied
corpse, and showed it to each in turn, with the solemn words--"Look at
this, and so eat and drink; for be sure that one day such as this thou
shalt be." The favourite song of the Egyptians, according to Herodotus,
was a dirge. The "Lay of Harper," which we subjoin, sounds a key-note
that was very familiar, at any rate, to large numbers among the
Egyptians.
The Great One[4] has gone to his rest,
Ended his task and his race;
Thus men are aye passing away,
And youths are aye taking their place.
As Ra rises up every morn,
And Turn every evening doth set,
So women conceive and bring forth,
And men without ceasing beget.
Each soul in its turn draweth breath--
Each man born of woman sees Death.
Take thy pleasure to-day,
Father! Holy One! See,
Spices and fragrant oils,
Father, we bring to thee.
On thy sister's bosom and arms
Wreaths of lotus we place;
On thy sister, dear to thy heart,
Aye sitting before thy face.
Sound the song; let music be played
And let cares behind thee be laid.
Take thy pleasure to-day;
Mind thee of joy and delight!
Soon life's pilgrimage ends,
And we pass to Silence and Night.
Patriarch perfect and pure,
Nefer-hotep, blessed one! Thou
Didst finish thy course upon earth,
And art with the blessed ones now.
Men pass to the Silent Shore,
And their place doth know them no more.
They are as they never had been,
Since the sun went forth upon high;
They sit on the banks of the stream
That floweth in stillness by.
Thy soul is among them; thou
Dost drink of the sacred tide,
Having the wish of thy heart--
At peace ever since thou hast died.
Give bread to the man who is poor,
And thy name shall be blest evermore.
* * * * *
Take thy pleasure to-day,
Nefer-hotep, blessed and pure.
What availed thee thy other buildings?
Of thy tomb alone thou art sure.
On the earth thou hast nought beside,
Nought of thee else is remaining;
And when thou wentest below,
Thy last sip of life thou wert draining.
Even they who have millions to spend,
Find that life comes at last to an end.
Let all, then, think of the day
Of departure without returning--
'Twill then be well to have lived,
All sin and injustice spurning.
For he who has loved the right,
In the hour that none can flee,
Enters upon the delight
Of a glad eternity.
Give freely from out thy store,
And thou shalt be blest evermore.
On the other hand, there is evidence of a lightsome, joyous, and even
frolic spirit as pervading numbers, especially among the lower classes
of the Egyptians. "Traverse Egypt," says a writer who knows more of the
ancient country than almost any other living person, "examine the scenes
sculptured or painted on the walls of the chapels attached to tombs,
consult the inscriptions graven on the rocks or traced with ink on the
papyrus rolls, and you will be compelled to modify your mistaken notion
of the Egyptians being a nation of philosophers. I defy you to find
anything more gay, more amusing, more freshly simple, than this
good-natured Egyptian people, which was fond of life and felt a profound
pleasure in its existence. Far from desiring death, they addressed
prayers to the gods to preserve them in life, and to give them a happy
old age--an old age that should reach, if possible, to the 'perfect term
of no years.' They gave themselves up to pleasures of every kind; they
sang, they drank, they danced, they delighted in making excursions into
the country, where hunting and fishing were occupations reserved
especially for the nobility. In conformity with this inclination towards
pleasure, sportive proposals, a pleasantry that was perhaps over-free,
witticisms, raillery, and a mocking spirit, were in vogue among the
people, and fun was allowed entrance even into the tombs. In the large
schools the masters had a difficulty in training the young and keeping
down their passion for amusements. When oral exhortation failed of
success, the cane was used pretty smartly in its place; for the wise men
of the land had a saying that 'a boy's ears grow on his back.'"[5]
Herodotus tells us how gaily the Egyptians kept their festivals,
thousands of the common people--men, women, and children
together--crowding into the boats, which at such times covered the Nile,
the men piping, and the women clapping their hands or striking their
castanets, as they passed from town to town along the banks of the
stream, stopping at the various landing-places, and challenging the
inhabitants to a contest of good-humoured Billingsgate. From the
monuments we see how the men sang at their labours--here as they trod
the wine-press or the dough-trough, there as they threshed out the corn
by driving the oxen through the golden heaps. In one case the words of a
harvest-song have come down to us:
"Thresh for yourselves," they sang, "thresh for yourselves,
O oxen, thresh for yourselves, for yourselves--
Bushels for yourselves, bushels for your masters!"
Their light-hearted drollery sometimes found vent in caricature. The
grand sculptures wherewith a king strove to perpetuate the memory of his
warlike exploits were travestied by satirists, who reproduced the scenes
upon papyrus as combats between cats and rats. The amorous follies of
the monarch were held up to derision by sketches of a harem interior,
where the kingly wooer was represented by a lion, and his favourites of
the softer sex by gazelles. Even in serious scenes depicting the trial
of souls in the next world, the sense of humour breaks out, where the
bad man, transformed into a pig or a monkey, walks off with a comical
air of surprise and discomfiture.
It does not, however, help us much towards the true knowledge of a
people to scan their frames or study their facial angle, or even to
contemplate the outer aspect of their daily life. We want to know their
thoughts, their innermost feelings, their hopes, their fears--in a word,
their belief. Nothing tells the character of a people so much as their
religion; and we are only dealing superficially with the outward shows
of things until we get down to the root of their being, the conviction,
or convictions, held in the recesses of a people's heart. What, then,
was the Egyptian religion? What did they worship? What did they
reverence? What future did they look forward to?
Enter the huge courts of an Egyptian temple, or temple-palace, and you
will see portrayed upon its lofty walls row upon row of deities. Here
the king makes his offering to Ammon, Maut, Khons, Neith, Mentu, Shu,
Seb, Nut, Osiris, Set, Horus; there he pours a libation to Phthah,
Sekhet, Tum, Pasht, Anuka, Thoth, Anubis; elsewhere, it may be, he pays
his court to Sati, Khem, Isis, Nephthys, Athor, Harmachis, Nausaas, and
Nebhept. One monarch erects an altar to Satemi, Tum, Khepra, Shu,
Tefnut, Seb, Netpe, Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys, Horus, and Thoth,
mentioning on the same monument Phthah, Num, Sabak, Athor, Pasht, Mentu,
Neith, Anubis, Nishem, and Kartak. Another represents himself on a
similar object as offering adoration to Ammon, Khem, Phthah-Sokari, Seb,
Nut, Thoth, Khons, Osiris, Isis, Horus, Athor, Uat (Buto), Neith,
Sekhet, Anata, Nuneb, Nebhept, and Hapi. All these deities are
represented by distinct forms, and have distinct attributes. Nor do they
at all exhaust the Pantheon. One modern writer enumerates seventy-three
divinities, and gives their several names and forms. Another has a list
of sixty-three "_principal_ deities," and notes that there were "others
which personified the elements, or presided over the operations of
nature, the seasons, and events." The Egyptians themselves speak not
unfrequently of "the _thousand_ gods," sometimes further qualifying
them, as "the gods male, the gods female, those which belong to the land
of Egypt." Practically, there were before the eyes of worshippers some
scores, if not some hundreds, of deities, who invited their approach and
challenged their affections.
Nor was this the whole, or the worst. The Egyptian was taught to pay a
religious regard to animals. In one place goats, in another sheep, in a
third hippopotami, in a fourth crocodiles, in a fifth vultures, in a
sixth frogs, in a seventh shrew-mice, were sacred creatures, to be
treated with respect and honour, and under no circumstances to be slain,
under the penalty of death to the slayer. And besides this local
animal-cult, there was a cult which was general. Cows, cats, dogs,
ibises, hawks, and cynocephalous apes, were sacred throughout the whole
of Egypt, and woe to the man who injured them! A Roman who accidentally
caused the death of a cat was immediately "lynched" by the populace.
Inhabitants of neighbouring villages would attack each other with the
utmost fury if the native of one had killed or eaten an animal held
sacred in the other. In any house where a cat or a dog died, the inmates
were expected to mourn for them as for a relation. Both these and the
other sacred animals were carefully embalmed after death, and their
bodies were interred in sacred repositories.
The animal-worship reached its utmost pitch of grossness and absurdity
when certain individual brute beasts were declared to be incarnate
deities, and treated accordingly. At Memphis, the ordinary capital,
there was maintained, at any rate from the time of Aahmes I. (about B.C.
1650), a sacred bull, known as Hapi or Apis, which was believed to be an
actual incarnation of the god Phthah, and was an object of the highest
veneration. The Apis bull dwelt in a temple of his own near the city,
had his train of attendant priests, his harem of cows, his meals of the
choicest food, his grooms and currycombers who kept his coat clean and
beautiful, his chamberlains who made his bed, his cup-bearers who
brought him water, &c., and on fixed days was led in a festive
procession through the main streets of the town, so that the inhabitants
might see him, and come forth from their dwellings and make obeisance.
When he died he was carefully embalmed, and deposited, together with
magnificent jewels and statuettes and vases, in a polished granite
sarcophagus, cut out of a single block, and weighing between sixty and
seventy tons! The cost of an Apis funeral amounted sometimes, as we are
told, to as much as £20,000. To contain the sarcophagi, several long
galleries were cut in the solid rock near Memphis, from which arched
lateral chambers went off on either side, each constructed to hold one
sarcophagus. The number of Apis bulls buried in the galleries was found
to be sixty-four.
Nor was this the only incarnate god of which Egypt boasted. Another
bull, called Mnevis, was maintained in the great temple of the Sun at
Heliopolis, and, being regarded as an incarnation of Ra or Tum, was as
much reverenced by the Heliopolites as Apis by the Memphites, A third,
called Bacis or Pacis, was kept at Hermonthis, which was also an
incarnation of Ra. And a white cow at Momemphis was reckoned an
incarnation of Athor. Who can wonder that foreign nations ridiculed a
religion of this kind--one that "turned the glory" of the Eternal
Godhead "into the similitude of a calf that eateth hay"?
The Egyptians had also a further god incarnate, who was not shut up out
of sight like the Apis and Mnevis and Bacis bulls and the Athor cow, but
was continually before their eyes, the centre of the nation's life, the
prime object of attention. This was the monarch, who for the time being
occupied the throne. Each king of Egypt claimed not only to be "son of
the Sun," but to be an actual incarnation of the sun--"the living
Horus." And this claim was, from an early date, received and allowed.
"Thy Majesty," says a courtier under the twelfth dynasty, "is the good
God ... the great God, the equal of the Sun-God. ... I live from the
breath which thou givest" Brought into the king's presence, the courtier
"falls on his belly," amazed and confounded. "I was as one brought out
of the dark; my tongue was dumb; my lips failed me; my heart was no
longer in my body to know whether I was alive or dead;" and this,
although "the god" had "addressed him mildly." Another courtier
attributes his long life to the king's favour. Ambassadors, when
presented to the king, "raised their arms in adoration of the good god,"
and declared to him--"Thou art like the Sun in all that thou doest: thy
heart realizes all its wishes; shouldest thou wish to make it day during
the night, it is so forthwith.... If thou sayest to the water, 'Come
from the rock,' it will come in a torrent suddenly at the words of thy
mouth. The god Ra is like thee in his limbs, the god Khepra in creative
force. Truly thou art the living image of thy father, Tum.... All thy
words are accomplished daily." Some of the kings set up their statues in
the temples by the side of the greatest of the national deities, to be
the objects of a similar worship.
Amid this wealth of gods, earthly and heavenly, human, animal, and
divine, an Egyptian might well feel puzzled to make a choice. In his
hesitation he was apt to turn to that only portion of his religion which
had the attraction that myth possesses--- the introduction into a
supramundane and superhuman world of a quasi-human element. The chief
Egyptian myth was the Osirid saga, which ran somewhat as follows: "Once
upon a time the gods were tired of ruling in the upper sphere, and
resolved to take it in turns to reign over Egypt in the likeness of men.
So, after four of them had in succession been kings, each for a long
term of years, it happened that Osiris, the son of Seb and Nut, took the
throne, and became monarch of the two regions, the Upper and the Lower.
Osiris was of a good and bountiful nature, beneficent in will and words:
he set himself to civilize the Egyptians, taught them to till the fields
and cultivate the vine, gave them law and religion, and instructed them
in various useful arts. Unfortunately, he had a wicked brother, called
Set or Sutekh, who hated him for his goodness, and resolved to compass
his death. This he effected after a while, and, having placed the body
in a coffin, he threw it into the Nile, whence it floated down to the
sea. Isis, the sister and widow of Osiris, together with her sister
Nephthys, vainly sought for a long time her lord's remains, but at last
found them on the Syrian shore at Byblus, where they had been cast up by
the waves. She was conveying the corpse for embalmment and interment to
Memphis, when Set stole it from her, and cut it up into fourteen pieces,
which he concealed in various places. The unhappy queen set forth in a
light boat made of the papyrus plant, and searched Egypt from end to
end, until she had found all the fragments, and buried them with due
honours. She then called on her son, Horus, to avenge his father, and
Horus engaged him in a long war, wherein he was at last victorious and
took Set prisoner. Isis now relented, and released Set, who be it
remembered, was her brother; which so enraged Horus that he tore off her
crown, or (according to some) struck off her head, which injury Thoth
repaired by giving her a cow's head in place of her own. Horus then
renewed the war with his uncle, and finally slew him with a long spear,
which he drove into his head." The gods and goddesses of the Osirid
legend, Seb, Nut or Netpe, Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Set, and Horus or
Harmachis, were those which most drew towards them the thoughts of the
Egyptians, the greater number being favourite objects of worship, while
Set was held in general detestation.
It was a peculiar feature of the Egyptian religion, that it contained
distinctively evil and malignant gods. Set was not, originally, such a
deity; but he became such in course of time, and was to the later
Egyptians the very principle of evil--Evil personified. Another evil
deity was Taour or Taourt, who is represented as a hippopotamus standing
on its hind-legs, with the skin and tail of a crocodile dependent down
its back, and a knife or a pair of shears in one hand. Bes seems also to
have been a divinity of the same class. He was represented as a hideous
dwarf, with large outstanding ears, bald, or with a plume of feathers on
his head, and with a lion-skin down his back, often carrying in his two
hands two knives. Even more terrible than Bes was Apep, the great
serpent, with its huge and many folds, who helped Set against Osiris,
and was the adversary and accuser of souls. Savak, a god with the head
of a crocodile, seems also to have belonged to the class of malignant
beings, though he was a favourite deity with some of the Ramesside
kings, and a special object of worship in the Fayoum.
[Illustrations: FIGURES OF TAOURT.]
The complex polytheism of the monuments and the literature was not,
however, the practical religion of many Egyptians. Local cults held
possession of most of the nomes, and the ordinary Egyptian, instead of
dissipating his religious affections by distributing them among the
thousand divinities of the Pantheon, concentrated them on those of his
nome. If he was a Memphite, he worshipped Phthah Sekhet, and Tum; if a
Theban, Ammon-Ra, Maut, Khons, and Neith; if a Heliopolite, Tum, Nebhebt
and Horus; if a Elephantinite, Kneph, Sati, Anuka, and Hak; and so on.
The Egyptian Pantheon was a gradual accretion, the result of
amalgamating the various local cults; but these continued predominant in
their several localities; and practically the only deities that obtained
anything like a general recognition were Osiris, Isis, Horus, and the
Nile-god, Hapi.
[Illustration: FIGURE OF BES.]
Besides the common popular religion, the belief of the masses, there was
another which prevailed among the priests and among the educated. The
primary doctrine of this esoteric religion was the real essential unity
of the Divine Nature. The sacred texts, known only to the priests and to
the initiated, taught that there was a single Being, "the sole producer
of all things both in heaven and earth, himself not produced of any,"
"the only true living God, self-originated," "who exists from the
beginning," "who has made all things, but has not himself been made."
This Being seems never to have been represented by any material, even
symbolical, form. It is thought that he had no name, or, if he had, that
it must have been unlawful to pronounce or write it. He was a pure
spirit, perfect in every respect--all-wise, almighty, supremely good. It
is of him that the Egyptian poets use such expressions as the following:
"He is not graven in marble; he is not beheld; his abode is not known;
no shrine is found with painted figures of him; there is no building
that can contain him;" and, again: "Unknown is his name in heaven; he
doth not manifest his forms; vain are all representations;" and yet
again: "His commencement is from the beginning; he is the God who has
existed from old time; there is no God without him; no mother bore him;
no father hath begotten him; he is a god-goddess, created from himself;
all gods came into existence when he began."
The other gods, the gods of the popular mythology were understood in
the esoteric religion to be either personified attributes of the Deity,
or parts of the nature which he had created, considered as informed and
inspired by him. Num or Kneph represented the creative mind, Phthah the
creative hand, or act of creating; Maut represented matter, Ra the sun,
Khons the moon, Seb the earth, Khem the generative power in nature, Nut
the upper hemisphere of the heavens, Athor the lower world or under
hemisphere; Thoth personified the Divine Wisdom, Ammon perhaps the
Divine mysteriousness or incomprehensibility, Osiris the Divine
Goodness. It is difficult in many cases to fix on the exact quality,
act, or part of nature intended; but the principle admits of no doubt.
No educated Egyptian conceived of the popular gods as really separate
and distinct beings. All knew that there was but One God, and understood
that, when worship was offered to Khem, or Kneph, or Maut, or Thoth, or
Ammon, the One God was worshipped under some one of his forms or in some
one of his aspects. He was every god, and thus all the gods' names were
interchangeable, and in one and the same hymn we may find a god, say
Ammon, addressed also as Ra and Khem and Turn and Horus and Khepra; or
Hapi, the Nile-god, invoked as Ammon and Phthah; or Osiris as Ra and
Thoth; or, in fact, any god invoked as almost any other. If there be a
limit, it is in respect of the evil deities, whose names are not given
to the good ones.