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[Illustration: FRONTISPIECE. A statue of the hawk-god Horus in front of
the temple of Edfu. The author stands
beside it.]
[_Photo by N. Macnaghten._
The Treasury of
Ancient Egypt
Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient
Egyptian History and Archæology
BY
ARTHUR E.P.B. WEIGALL
INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF UPPER EGYPT, DEPARTMENT OF ANTIQUITIES
AUTHOR OF 'TRAVELS IN THE UPPER EGYPTIAN DESERTS,' 'THE LIFE AND
TIMES OF AKHNATON, PHARAOH OF EGYPT,' 'A GUIDE TO THE
ANTIQUITIES OF UPPER EGYPT,' ETC., ETC.
RAND McNALLY & COMPANY
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK
1912
_TO
ALAN H. GARDINER, ESQ.,
M.A., D.LITT.
LAYCOCK STUDENT OF EGYPTOLOGY AT WORCESTER
COLLEGE, OXFORD,
THIS BOOK,
WHICH WILL RECALL SOME SUMMER NIGHTS UPON
THE THEBAN HILLS,
IS DEDICATED._
PREFACE.
No person who has travelled in Egypt will require to be told that it is
a country in which a considerable amount of waiting and waste of time
has to be endured. One makes an excursion by train to see some ruins,
and, upon returning to the station, the train is found to be late, and
an hour or more has to be dawdled away. Crossing the Nile in a
rowing-boat the sailors contrive in one way or another to prolong the
journey to a length of half an hour or more. The excursion steamer will
run upon a sandbank, and will there remain fast for a part of the day.
The resident official, travelling from place to place, spends a great
deal of time seated in railway stations or on the banks of the Nile,
waiting for his train or his boat to arrive; and he has, therefore, a
great deal of time for thinking. I often try to fill in these dreary
periods by jotting down a few notes on some matter which has recently
been discussed, or registering and elaborating arguments which have
chanced lately to come into the thoughts. These notes are shaped and
"written up" when next there is a spare hour, and a few books to refer
to; and ultimately they take the form of articles or papers, some of
which find their way into print.
This volume contains twelve chapters, written at various times and in
various places, each dealing with some subject drawn from the great
treasury of Ancient Egypt. Some of the chapters have appeared as
articles in magazines. Chapters iv., v., and viii. were published in
'Blackwood's Magazine'; chapter vii. in 'Putnam's Magazine' and the
'Pall Mall Magazine'; and chapter ix. in the 'Century Magazine.' I have
to thank the editors for allowing me to reprint them here. The remaining
seven chapters have been written specially for this volume.
LUXOR, UPPER EGYPT,
_November_ 1910.
CONTENTS.
PART I.--THE VALUE OF THE TREASURY.
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE VALUE OF ARCHÆOLOGY 3
II. THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE 26
III. THE NECESSITY OF ARCHÆOLOGY TO THE GAIETY OF
THE WORLD 55
PART II.--STUDIES IN THE TREASURY.
IV. THE TEMPERAMENT OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 81
V. THE MISFORTUNES OF WENAMON 112
VI. THE STORY OF THE SHIPWRECKED SAILOR 138
PART III.--RESEARCHES IN THE TREASURY.
VII. RECENT EXCAVATIONS IN EGYPT 165
VIII. THE TOMB OF TIY AND AKHNATON 185
IX. THE TOMB OF HOREMHEB 209
PART IV.--THE PRESERVATION OF THE TREASURY.
X. THEBAN THIEVES 239
XI. THE FLOODING OF LOWER NUBIA 262*
XII. ARCHÆOLOGY IN THE OPEN 281**
* Transcriber's note: Original text incorrectly lists page number "261".
**Transcriber's note: Original text incorrectly lists page number "282".
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PLATE PAGE
A STATUE OF THE HAWK-GOD HORUS IN FRONT OF
THE TEMPLE OF EDFU. THE AUTHOR STANDS
BESIDE IT _Frontispiece_
I. THE MUMMY OF RAMESES II. OF DYNASTY XIX. 10
II. WOOD AND ENAMEL JEWEL-CASE DISCOVERED IN THE
TOMB OF YUAA AND TUAU. AN EXAMPLE OF
THE FURNITURE OF ONE OF THE BEST PERIODS
OF ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ART 17
III. HEAVY GOLD EARRINGS OF QUEEN TAUSERT OF
DYNASTY XX. AN EXAMPLE OF THE WORK
OF ANCIENT EGYPTIAN GOLDSMITHS 22
IV. IN THE PALM-GROVES NEAR SAKKÂRA, EGYPT 36
V. THE MUMMY OF SETY I. OF DYNASTY XIX. 48
VI. A RELIEF UPON THE SIDE OF THE SARCOPHAGUS
OF ONE OF THE WIVES OF KING MENTUHOTEP III.,
DISCOVERED AT DÊR EL BAHRI (THEBES).
THE ROYAL LADY IS TAKING SWEET-SMELLING
OINTMENT FROM AN ALABASTER VASE. A
HANDMAIDEN KEEPS THE FLIES AWAY WITH
A BIRD'S-WING FAN. 62
VII. LADY ROUGING HERSELF: SHE HOLDS A MIRROR
AND ROUGE-POT 71
DANCING GIRL TURNING A BACK SOMERSAULT 71
VIII. TWO EGYPTIAN BOYS DECKED WITH FLOWERS AND
A THIRD HOLDING A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.
THEY ARE STANDING AGAINST THE OUTSIDE
WALL OF THE DENDEREH TEMPLE 82
IX. A GARLAND OF LEAVES AND FLOWERS DATING FROM
ABOUT B.C. 1000. IT WAS PLACED UPON THE
NECK OF A MUMMY 94
X. A RELIEF OF THE SAITIC PERIOD, REPRESENTING
AN OLD MAN PLAYING UPON A HARP, AND A
WOMAN BEATING A DRUM. OFFERINGS OF
FOOD AND FLOWERS ARE PLACED BEFORE
THEM 100
XI. AN EGYPTIAN NOBLE OF THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY
HUNTING BIRDS WITH A BOOMERANG AND
DECOYS. HE STANDS IN A REED-BOAT WHICH
FLOATS AMIDST THE PAPYRUS CLUMPS, AND A
CAT RETRIEVES THE FALLEN BIRDS. IN THE
BOAT WITH HIM ARE HIS WIFE AND SON 108
XII. A REED BOX FOR HOLDING CLOTHING, DISCOVERED
IN THE TOMB OF YUAA AND TUAU 118
XIII. A FESTIVAL SCENE OF SINGERS AND DANCERS FROM
A TOMB-PAINTING OF DYNASTY XVII. 133
XIV. A SAILOR OF LOWER NUBIA AND HIS SON 144
XV. A NILE BOAT PASSING THE HILLS OF THEBES 159
XVI. THE EXCAVATIONS ON THE SITE OF THE CITY OF
ABYDOS 166
XVII. EXCAVATING THE OSIREION AT ABYDOS. A CHAIN
OF BOYS HANDING UP BASKETS OF SAND TO
THE SURFACE 175
XVIII. THE ENTRANCE OF THE TOMB OF QUEEN TIY, WITH
EGYPTIAN POLICEMAN STANDING BESIDE IT. ON
THE LEFT IS THE LATER TOMB OF RAMESES X. 186
XIX. TOILET-SPOONS OF CARVED WOOD, DISCOVERED IN
TOMBS OF THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. THAT
ON THE RIGHT HAS A MOVABLE LID 192
XX. THE COFFIN OF AKHNATON LYING IN THE TOMB OF
QUEEN TIY 207
XXI. HEAD OF A GRANITE STATUE OF THE GOD KHONSU,
PROBABLY DATING FROM ABOUT THE PERIOD
OF HOREMHEB 217
XXII. THE MOUTH OF THE TOMB OF HOREMHEB AT THE
TIME OF ITS DISCOVERY. THE AUTHOR IS
SEEN EMERGING FROM THE TOMB AFTER THE
FIRST ENTRANCE HAD BEEN EFFECTED. ON
THE HILLSIDE THE WORKMEN ARE GROUPED 229
XXIII. A MODERN THEBAN FELLAH-WOMAN AND HER CHILD 240
XXIV. A MODERN GOURNAWI BEGGAR 250
XXV. THE ISLAND AND TEMPLES OF PHILÆ WHEN THE
RESERVOIR IS EMPTY 269
XXVI. A RELIEF REPRESENTING QUEEN TIY, FROM THE
TOMB OF USERHAT AT THEBES. THIS RELIEF
WAS STOLEN FROM THE TOMB, AND FOUND ITS
WAY TO THE BRUSSELS MUSEUM, WHERE IT IS
SHOWN IN THE DAMAGED CONDITION SEEN IN
PL. XXVII. 282
XXVII. A RELIEF REPRESENTING QUEEN TIY, FROM THE
TOMB OF USERHAT, THEBES. (SEE PL. XXVI.) 293
PART I
THE VALUE OF THE TREASURY.
"History no longer shall be a dull book. It shall walk
incarnate in every just and wise man. You shall not tell
me by languages and titles a catalogue of the volumes you
have read. You shall make me feel what periods you have
lived. A man shall be the Temple of Fame. He shall walk,
as the poets have described that goddess, in a robe
painted all over with wonderful events and
experiences.... He shall be the priest of Pan, and bring
with him into humble cottages the blessing of the morning
stars, and all the recorded benefits of heaven and
earth."
EMERSON.
CHAPTER I.
THE VALUE OF ARCHÆOLOGY.
The archæologist whose business it is to bring to light by pick and
spade the relics of bygone ages, is often accused of devoting his
energies to work which is of no material profit to mankind at the
present day. Archæology is an unapplied science, and, apart from its
connection with what is called culture, the critic is inclined to judge
it as a pleasant and worthless amusement. There is nothing, the critic
tells us, of pertinent value to be learned from the Past which will be
of use to the ordinary person of the present time; and, though the
archæologist can offer acceptable information to the painter, to the
theologian, to the philologist, and indeed to most of the followers of
the arts and sciences, he has nothing to give to the ordinary layman.
In some directions the imputation is unanswerable; and when the
interests of modern times clash with those of the past, as, for example,
in Egypt where a beneficial reservoir has destroyed the remains of early
days, there can be no question that the recording of the threatened
information and the minimising of the destruction, is all that the
value of the archæologist's work entitles him to ask for. The critic,
however, usually overlooks some of the chief reasons that archæology can
give for even this much consideration, reasons which constitute its
modern usefulness; and I therefore propose to point out to him three or
four of the many claims which it may make upon the attention of the
layman.
In the first place it is necessary to define the meaning of the term
"Archæology." Archæology is the study of the facts of ancient history
and ancient lore. The word is applied to the study of all ancient
documents and objects which may be classed as antiquities; and the
archæologist is understood to be the man who deals with a period for
which the evidence has to be excavated or otherwise discovered. The age
at which an object becomes an antiquity, however, is quite undefined,
though practically it may be reckoned at a hundred years; and ancient
history is, after all, the tale of any period which is not modern. Thus
an archæologist does not necessarily deal solely with the remote ages.
Every chronicler of the events of the less recent times who goes to the
original documents for his facts, as true historians must do during at
least a part of their studies, is an archæologist; and, conversely,
every archæologist who in the course of his work states a series of
historical facts, becomes an historian. Archæology and history are
inseparable; and nothing is more detrimental to a noble science than
the attitude of certain so-called archæologists who devote their entire
time to the study of a sequence of objects without proper consideration
for the history which those objects reveal. Antiquities are the relics
of human mental energy; and they can no more be classified without
reference to the minds which produced them than geological specimens can
be discussed without regard to the earth. There is only one thing worse
than the attitude of the archæologist who does not study the story of
the periods with which he is dealing, or construct, if only in his
thoughts, living history out of the objects discovered by him; and that
is the attitude of the historian who has not familiarised himself with
the actual relics left by the people of whom he writes, or has not, when
possible, visited their lands. There are many "archæologists" who do not
care a snap of the fingers for history, surprising as this may appear;
and there are many historians who take no interest in manners and
customs. The influence of either is pernicious.
It is to be understood, therefore, that in using the word Archæology I
include History: I refer to history supplemented and aggrandised by the
study of the arts, crafts, manners, and customs of the period under
consideration.
As a first argument the value of archæology in providing a precedent for
important occurrences may be considered. Archæology is the structure of
ancient history, and it is the voice of history which tells us that a
Cretan is always a Cretan, and a Jew always a Jew. History, then, may
well take her place as a definite asset of statecraft, and the law of
Precedent may be regarded as a fundamental factor in international
politics. What has happened before may happen again; and it is the hand
of the archæologist that directs our attention to the affairs and
circumstances of olden times, and warns us of the possibilities of their
recurrence. It may be said that the statesman who has ranged in the
front of his mind the proven characteristics of the people with whom he
is dealing has a perquisite of the utmost importance.
Any archæologist who, previous to the rise of Japan during the latter
half of the nineteenth century, had made a close study of the history of
that country and the character of its people, might well have predicted
unerringly its future advance to the position of a first-class power.
The amazing faculty of imitation displayed by the Japanese in old times
was patent to him. He had seen them borrow part of their arts, their
sciences, their crafts, their literature, their religion, and many of
their customs from the Chinese; and he might have been aware that they
would likewise borrow from the West, as soon as they had intercourse
with it, those essentials of civilisation which would raise them to
their present position in the world. To him their fearlessness, their
tenacity, and their patriotism, were known; and he was so well aware of
their powers of organisation, that he might have foreseen the rapid
development which was to take place.
What historian who has read the ancient books of the Irish--the Book of
the Dun Cow, the Book of Ballymote, the Book of Lismore, and the
like--can show either surprise or dismay at the events which have
occurred in Ireland in modern times? Of the hundreds of kings of Ireland
whose histories are epitomised in such works as that of the old
archæologist Keating, it would be possible to count upon the fingers
those who have died in peace; and the archæologist, thus, knows better
than to expect the descendants of these kings to live in harmony one
with the other. National characteristics do not change unless, as in the
case of the Greeks, the stock also changes.
In the Jews we have another example of the persistence of those national
characteristics which history has made known to us. The Jews first
appear in the dimness of the remote past as a group of nomad tribes,
wandering over southern Palestine, Egypt, and the intervening deserts;
and at the present day we see them still homeless, scattered over the
face of the globe, the "tribe of the wandering foot and weary breast."
In no country has the archæologist been more active than in Egypt during
the last half century, and the contributions which his spade and pick
have offered to history are of first-rate importance to that study as a
whole. The eye may now travel down the history of the Nile Valley from
prehistoric days to the present time almost without interruption; and
now that the anthropologist has shown that the modern Egyptians,
Mussulman and Copt, peasant and townsman, belong to one and the same
race of ancient Egyptians, one may surely judge to-day's inhabitants of
the country in the light of yesterday's records. In his report for the
year 1906, Lord Cromer, questioning whether the modern inhabitants of
the country were capable of governing their own land, tells us that we
must go back to the precedent of Pharaonic days to discover if the
Egyptians ever ruled themselves successfully.
In this pregnant remark Lord Cromer was using information which the
archæologist and historian had made accessible to him. Looking back over
the history of the country, he was enabled, by the study of this
information, to range before him the succession of foreign occupations
of the Nile Valley and to assess their significance. It may be worth
while to repeat the process, in order to give an example of the bearing
of history upon modern polemics, though I propose to discuss this matter
more fully in another chapter.
Previous to the British occupation the country was ruled, as it is now,
by a noble dynasty of Albanian princes, whose founder was set upon the
throne by the aid of Turkish and Albanian troops. From the beginning of
the sixteenth century until that time Egypt had been ruled by the
Ottoman Government, the Turk having replaced the Circassian and other
foreign "Mamlukes" who had held the country by the aid of foreign troops
since the middle of the thirteenth century. For a hundred years previous
to the Mamluke rule Egypt had been in the hands of the Syrian and
Arabian dynasty founded by Saladdin. The Fatimides, a North African
dynasty, governed the country before the advent of Saladdin, this family
having entered Egypt under their general, Jauhar, who was of Greek
origin. In the ninth century Ahmed ibn Tulun, a Turk, governed the land
with the aid of a foreign garrison, his rule being succeeded by the
Ikhshidi dynasty of foreigners. Ahmed had captured Egypt from the
Byzantines who had held it since the days of the Roman occupation.
Previous to the Romans the Ptolemies, a Greek family, had governed the
Nile Valley with the help of foreign troops. The Ptolemies had followed
close upon the Greek occupation, the Greeks having replaced the Persians
as rulers of Egypt. The Persian occupation had been preceded by an
Egyptian dynasty which had been kept on the throne by Greek and other
foreign garrisons. Previous to this there had been a Persian occupation,
which had followed a short period of native rule under foreign
influence. We then come back to the Assyrian conquest which had followed
the Ethiopian rule. Libyan kings had held the country before the
Ethiopian conquest. The XXIst and XXth Dynasties preceded the Libyans,
and here, in a disgraceful period of corrupt government, a series of
so-called native kings are met with. Foreigners, however, swarmed in the
country at the time, foreign troops were constantly used, and the
Pharaohs themselves were of semi-foreign origin. One now comes back to
the early XIXth and XVIIIth Dynasties which, although largely tinged
with foreign blood, may be said to have been Egyptian families. Before
the rise of the XVIIIth Dynasty the country was in foreign hands for the
long period which had followed the fall of the XIIth Dynasty, the
classical period of Egyptian history (about the twentieth century B.C.),
when there were no rivals to be feared. Thus the Egyptians may be said
to have been subject to foreign occupation for nearly four thousand
years, with the exception of the strong native rule of the XVIIIth
Dynasty, the semi-native rule of the three succeeding dynasties, and a
few brief periods of chaotic government in later times; and this is the
information which the archæologist has to give to the statesman and
politician. It is a story of continual conquest, of foreign occupations
following one upon another, of revolts and massacres, of rapid
retributions and punishments. It is the story of a nation which, however
ably it may govern itself in the future, has only once in four
thousand years successfully done so in the past.
[Illustration: PL. I. The mummy of Rameses II. of Dynasty XIX.
--CAIRO MUSEUM.]
[_Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha._
Such information is of far-reaching value to the politician, and to
those interested, as every Englishman should be, in Imperial politics. A
nation cannot alter by one jot or tittle its fundamental
characteristics; and only those who have studied those characteristics
in the pages of history are competent to foresee the future. A certain
Englishman once asked the Khedive Ismail whether there was any news that
day about Egyptian affairs. "That is so like all you English," replied
his Highness. "You are always expecting something new to happen in Egypt
day by day. To-day is here the same as yesterday, and to-morrow will be
the same as to-day; and so it has been, and so it will be, for thousands
of years."[1] Neither Egypt nor any other nation will ever change; and
to this it is the archæologist who will bear witness with his stern law
of Precedent.
[Footnote 1: E. Dicey. 'The Story of the Khedivate,' p. 528.]
I will reserve the enlarging of this subject for the next chapter: for
the present we may consider, as a second argument, the efficacy of the
past as a tonic to the present, and its ability to restore the vitality
of any age that is weakened.
In ancient Egypt at the beginning of the XXVIth Dynasty (B.C. 663) the
country was at a very low ebb. Devastated by conquests, its people
humiliated, its government impoverished, a general collapse of the
nation was imminent. At this critical period the Egyptians turned their
minds to the glorious days of old. They remodelled their arts and crafts
upon those of the classical periods, introduced again the obsolete
offices and titles of those early times, and organised the government
upon the old lines. This movement saved the country, and averted its
collapse for a few more centuries. It renewed the pride of workmanship
in a decadent people; and on all sides we see a revival which was the
direct result of an archæological experiment.
The importance of archæology as a reviver of artistic and industrial
culture will be realised at once if the essential part it played in the
great Italian Renaissance is called to mind. Previous to the age of
Cimabue and Giotto in Florence, Italian refinement had passed steadily
down the path of deterioration. Græco-Roman art, which still at a high
level in the early centuries of the Christian era, entirely lost its
originality during Byzantine times, and the dark ages settled down upon
Italy in almost every walk of life. The Venetians, for example, were
satisfied with comparatively the poorest works of art imported from
Constantinople or Mount Athos: and in Florence so great was the poverty
of genius that when Cimabue in the thirteenth century painted that
famous Madonna which to our eyes appears to be of the crudest
workmanship, the little advance made by it in the direction of
naturalness was received by the city with acclamations, the very street
down which it was carried being called the "Happy Street" in honour of
the event. Giotto carried on his master's teachings, and a few years
later the Florentines had advanced to the standard of Fra Angelico, who
was immediately followed by the two Lippis and Botticelli. Leonardo da
Vinci, artist, architect, and engineer, was almost contemporaneous with
Botticelli, being born not much more than a hundred years after the
death of Giotto. With him art reached a level which it has never
surpassed, old traditions and old canons were revived, and in every
direction culture proceeded again to those heights from which it had
fallen.
The reader will not need to be reminded that this great renaissance was
the direct result of the study of the remains of the ancient arts of
Greece and Rome. Botticelli and his contemporaries were, in a sense,
archæologists, for their work was inspired by the relics of ancient
days.
Now, though at first sight it seems incredible that such an age of
barbarism as that of the later Byzantine period should return, it is
indeed quite possible that a relatively uncultured age should come upon
us in the future; and there is every likelihood of certain communities
passing over to the ranks of the absolute Philistines. Socialism run
mad would have no more time to give to the intellect than it had during
the French Revolution. Any form of violent social upheaval means
catalepsy of the arts and crafts, and a trampling under foot of old
traditions. The invasions and revolts which are met with at the close of
ancient Egyptian history brought the culture of that country to the
lowest ebb of vitality. The fall of Greece put an absolute stop to the
artistic life of that nation. The invasions of Italy by the inhabitants
of less refined countries caused a set-back in civilisation for which
almost the whole of Europe suffered. Certain of the French arts and
crafts have never recovered from the effects of the Revolution.
A national convulsion of one kind or another is to be expected by every
country; and history tells us that such a convulsion is generally
followed by an age of industrial and artistic coma, which is brought to
an end not so much by the introduction of foreign ideas as by a
renascence of the early traditions of the nation. It thus behoves every
man to interest himself in the continuity of these traditions, and to
see that they are so impressed upon the mind that they shall survive all
upheavals, or with ease be re-established.
There is no better tonic for a people who have weakened, and whose arts,
crafts, and industries have deteriorated than a return to the conditions
which obtained at a past age of national prosperity; and there are few
more repaying tasks in the long-run than that of reviving an interest in
the best periods of artistic or industrial activity. This can only be
effected by the study of the past, that is to say by archæology.
It is to be remembered, of course, that the sentimental interest in
antique objects which, in recent years, has given a huge value to all
ancient things, regardless of their intrinsic worth, is a dangerous
attitude, unless it is backed by the most expert knowledge; for instead
of directing the attention only to the best work of the best periods, it
results in the diminishing of the output of modern original work and the
setting of little of worth in its place. A person of a certain
fashionable set will now boast that there is no object in his room less
than two hundred years old: his only boast, however, should be that the
room contains nothing which is not of intrinsic beauty, interest, or
good workmanship. The old chairs from the kitchen are dragged into the
drawing-room--because they are old; miniatures unmeritoriously painted
by unknown artists for obscure clients are nailed in conspicuous
places--because they are old; hideous plates and dishes, originally made
by ignorant workmen for impoverished peasants, are enclosed in glass
cases--because they are old; iron-bound chests, which had been cheaply
made to suit the purses of farmers, are rescued from the cottages of
their descendants and sold for fabulous sums--because they are old.
A person who fills a drawing-room with chairs, tables, and ornaments,
dating from the reign of Queen Anne, cannot say that he does so because
he wishes it to look like a room of that date; for if this were his
desire, he would have to furnish it with objects which appeared to be
newly made, since in the days of Queen Anne the first quality noticeable
in them would have been their newness. In fact, to produce the desired
effect everything in the room, with very few exceptions, would have to
be a replica. To sit in this room full of antiques in a frock-coat would
be as bad a breach of good taste as the placing of a Victorian
chandelier in an Elizabethan banqueting-hall. To furnish the room with
genuine antiquities because they are old and therefore interesting would
be to carry the museum spirit into daily life with its attending
responsibilities, and would involve all manner of incongruities and
inconsistencies; while to furnish in this manner because antiques were
valuable would be merely vulgar. There are, thus, only three
justifications that I can see for the action of the man who surrounds
himself with antiquities: he must do so because they are examples of
workmanship, because they are beautiful, or because they are endeared to
him by family usage. These, of course, are full and complete
justifications; and the value of his attitude should be felt in the
impetus which it gives to conscientious modern work. There are periods
in history at which certain arts, crafts, or industries reached an
extremely high level of excellence; and nothing can be more valuable to
modern workmen than familiarity with these periods. Well-made replicas
have a value that is overlooked only by the inartistic. Nor must it be
forgotten that modern objects of modern design will one day become
antiquities; and it should be our desire to assist in the making of the
period of our lifetime an age to which future generations will look back
for guidance and teaching. Every man can, in this manner, be of use to a
nation, if only by learning to reject poor work wherever he comes upon
it--work which he feels would not stand against the criticism of Time;
and thus it may be said that archæology, which directs him to the best
works of the ancients, and sets him a standard and criterion, should be
an essential part of his education.
[Illustration: PL. II Wood and enamel jewel-case discovered in the tomb
of Yuaa and Tuau. An example of the furniture of
one of the best periods of ancient Egyptian art.
--CAIRO MUSEUM.]
[_Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha._
The third argument which I wish to employ here to demonstrate the value
of the study of archæology and history to the layman is based upon the
assumption that patriotism is a desirable ingredient in a man's
character. This is a premise which assuredly will be admitted. True
patriotism is essential to the maintenance of a nation. It has taken the
place, among certain people, of loyalty to the sovereign; for the armies
which used to go to war out of a blind loyalty to their king, now do so
from a sense of patriotism which is shared by the monarch (if they
happen to have the good fortune to possess one).
Patriotism is often believed to consist of a love of one's country, in
an affection for the familiar villages or cities, fields or streets, of
one's own dwelling-place. This is a grievous error. Patriotism should be
an unqualified desire for the welfare of the race as a whole. It is not
really patriotic for the Englishman to say, "I love England": it is only
natural. It is not patriotic for him to say, "I don't think much of
foreigners": it is only a form of narrowness of mind which, in the case
of England and certain other countries, happens sometimes to be rather a
useful attitude, but in the case of several nations, of which a good
example is Egypt, would be detrimental to their own interests. It was
not unqualified patriotism that induced the Greeks to throw off the
Ottoman yoke: it was largely dislike of the Turks. It is not patriotism,
that is to say undiluted concern for the nation as a whole, which leads
some of the modern Egyptians to prefer an entirely native government to
the Anglo-Egyptian administration now obtaining in that country: it is
restlessness; and I am fortunately able to define it thus without the
necessity of entering the arena of polemics by an opinion as to whether
that restlessness is justified or not justified.
If patriotism were but the love of one's tribe and one's dwelling-place,
then such undeveloped or fallen races as, for example, the American
Indians, could lay their downfall at the door of that sentiment; since
the exclusive love of the tribe prevented the small bodies from
amalgamating into one great nation for the opposing of the invader. If
patriotism were but the desire for government without interference, then
the breaking up of the world's empires would be urged, and such
federations as the United States of America would be intolerable.
Patriotism is, and must be, the desire for the progress and welfare of
the whole nation, without any regard whatsoever to the conditions under
which that progress takes place, and without any prejudice in favour
either of self-government or of outside control. I have no hesitation in
saying that the patriotic Pole is he who is in favour of Russian or
German control of his country's affairs; for history has told him quite
plainly that he cannot manage them himself. The Nationalist in any
country runs the risk of being the poorest patriot in the land, for his
continuous cry is for self-government, without any regard to the
question as to whether such government will be beneficial to his nation
in the long-run.
The value of history to patriotism, then, is to be assessed under two
headings. In the first place, history defines the attitude which the
patriot should assume. It tells him, in the clear light of experience,
what is, and what is not, good for his nation, and indicates to him how
much he may claim for his country. And in the second place, it gives to
the patriots of those nations which have shown capacity and ability in
the past a confidence in the present; it permits in them the indulgence
of that enthusiasm which will carry them, sure-footed, along the path
of glory.
Archæology, as the discovery and classification of the facts of history,
is the means by which we may obtain a true knowledge of what has
happened in the past. It is the instrument with which we may dissect
legend, and extract from myth its ingredients of fact. Cold history
tells the Greek patriot, eager to enter the fray, that he must set
little store by the precedent of the deeds of the Trojan war. It tells
the English patriot that the "one jolly Englishman" of the old rhyme is
not the easy vanquisher of the "two froggy Frenchmen and one Portugee"
which tradition would have him believe. He is thus enabled to steer a
middle course between arrant conceit and childish fright. History tells
him the actual facts: history is to the patriot what "form" is to the
racing man.
In the case of the English (Heaven be praised!) history opens up a
boundless vista for the patriotic. The Englishman seldom realises how
much he has to be proud of in his history, or how loudly the past cries
upon him to be of good cheer. One hears much nowadays of England's
peril, and it is good that the red signals of danger should sometimes be
displayed. But let every Englishman remember that history can tell him
of greater perils faced successfully; of mighty armies commanded by the
greatest generals the world has ever known, held in check year after
year, and finally crushed by England; of vast fleets scattered or
destroyed by English sailors; of almost impregnable cities captured by
British troops. "There is something very characteristic," writes
Professor Seeley,[1] "in the indifference which we show towards the
mighty phenomenon of the diffusion of our race and the expansion of our
state. We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world
in a fit of absence of mind."
[Footnote 1: 'The Expansion of England,' p. 10.]
The history of England, and later of the British Empire, constitutes a
tale so amazing that he who has the welfare of the nation as a whole at
heart--that is to say, the true patriot--is justified in entertaining
the most optimistic thoughts for the future. He should not be
indifferent to the past: he should bear it in mind all the time.
Patriotism may not often be otherwise than misguided if no study of
history has been made. The patriot of one nation will wish to procure
for his country a freedom which history would show him to have been its
very curse; and the patriot of another nation will encourage a
nervousness and restraint in his people which history would tell him was
unnecessary. The English patriot has a history to read which, at the
present time, it is especially needful for him to consider; and, since
Egyptology is my particular province, I cannot better close this
argument than by reminding the modern Egyptians that their own history
of four thousand years and its teaching must be considered by them when
they speak of patriotism. A nation so talented as the descendants of the
Pharaohs, so industrious, so smart and clever, should give a far larger
part of its attention to the arts, crafts, and industries, of which
Egyptian archæology has to tell so splendid a story.
As a final argument for the value of the study of history and archæology
an aspect of the question may be placed before the reader which will
perhaps be regarded as fanciful, but which, in all sincerity, I believe
to be sober sense.
In this life of ours which, under modern conditions, is lived at so
great a speed, there is a growing need for a periodical pause wherein
the mind may adjust the relationship of the things that have been to
those that are. So rapidly are our impressions received and assimilated,
so individually are they shaped or classified, that, in whatever
direction our brains lead us, we are speedily carried beyond that
province of thought which is common to us all. A man who lives alone
finds himself, in a few months, out of touch with the thought of his
contemporaries; and, similarly, a man who lives in what is called an
up-to-date manner soon finds himself grown unsympathetic to the sober
movement of the world's slow round-about.
Now, the man who lives alone presently developes some of the recognised
eccentricities of the recluse, which, on his return to society, cause
him to be regarded as a maniac; and the man who lives entirely in the
present cannot argue that the characteristics which he has developed are
less maniacal because they are shared by his associates. Rapidly he,
too, has become eccentric; and just as the solitary man must needs come
into the company of his fellows if he would retain a healthy mind, so
the man who lives in the present must allow himself occasional
intercourse with the past if he would keep his balance.
[Illustration: PL. III. Heavy gold earrings of Queen Tausert of Dynasty
XX. An example of the work of ancient Egyptian
goldsmiths.
--CAIRO MUSEUM.]
[_Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha._
Heraclitus, in a quotation preserved by Sextus Empiricus,[1] writes: "It
behoves us to follow the common reason of the world; yet, though there
is a common reason in the world, the majority live as though they
possessed a wisdom peculiar each unto himself alone." Every one of us
who considers his mentality an important part of his constitution should
endeavour to give himself ample opportunities of adjusting his mind to
this "common reason" which is the silver thread that runs unbroken
throughout history. We should remember the yesterdays, that we may know
what the pother of to-day is about; and we should foretell to-morrow not
by to-day but by every day that has been.
[Footnote 1: Bywater: 'Heracliti Ephesii Reliquiæ,' p. 38.]
Forgetfulness is so common a human failing. In our rapid transit through
life we are so inclined to forget the past stages of the journey. All
things pass by and are swallowed up in a moment of time. Experiences
crowd upon us; the events of our life occur, are recorded by our busy
brains, are digested, and are forgotten before the substance of which
they were made has resolved into its elements. We race through the
years, and our progress is headlong through the days.
Everything, as it is done with, is swept up into the basket of the past,
and the busy handmaids, unless we check them, toss the contents, good
and bad, on to the great rubbish heap of the world's waste. Loves,
hates, gains, losses, all things upon which we do not lay fierce and
strong hands, are gathered into nothingness, and, with a few exceptions,
are utterly forgotten.
And we, too, will soon have passed, and our little brains which have
forgotten so much will be forgotten. We shall be throttled out of the
world and pressed by the clumsy hands of Death into the mould of that
same rubbish-hill of oblivion, unless there be a stronger hand to save
us. We shall be cast aside, and left behind by the hurrying crowd,
unless there be those who will see to it that our soul, like that of
John Brown, goes marching along. There is only one human force stronger
than death, and that force is History, By it the dead are made to live
again: history is the salvation of the mortal man as religion is the
salvation of his immortal life.
Sometimes, then, in our race from day to day it is necessary to stop the
headlong progress of experience, and, for an hour, to look back upon the
past. Often, before we remember to direct our mind to it, that past is
already blurred, and dim. The picture is out of focus, and turning from
it in sorrow instantly the flight of our time begins again. This should
not be. "There is," says Emerson, "a relationship between the hours of
our life and the centuries of time." Let us give history and archæology
its due attention; for thus not only shall we be rendering a service to
all the dead, not only shall we be giving a reason and a usefulness to
their lives, but we shall also lend to our own thought a balance which
in no otherwise can be obtained, we shall adjust ourselves to the true
movement of the world, and, above all, we shall learn how best to serve
that nation to which it is our inestimable privilege to belong.
CHAPTER II.
THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE.
"History," says Sir J. Seeley, "lies before science as a mass of
materials out of which a political doctrine can be deduced.... Politics
are vulgar when they are not liberalised by history, and history fades
into mere literature when it loses sight of its relation to practical
politics.... Politics and history are only different aspects of the same
study."[1]
[Footnote 1: 'The Expansion of England.']
These words, spoken by a great historian, form the keynote of a book
which has run into nearly twenty editions; and they may therefore be
regarded as having some weight. Yet what historian of old Egyptian
affairs concerns himself with the present welfare and future prospects
of the country, or how many statesmen in Egypt give close attention to a
study of the past? To the former the Egypt of modern times offers no
scope for his erudition, and gives him no opportunity of making
"discoveries," which is all he cares about. To the latter, Egyptology
appears to be but a pleasant amusement, the main value of which is the
finding of pretty scarabs suitable for the necklaces of one's lady
friends. Neither the one nor the other would for a moment admit that
Egyptology and Egyptian politics "are only different aspects of the same
study." And yet there can be no doubt that they are.
It will be argued that the historian of ancient Egypt deals with a
period so extremely remote that it can have no bearing upon the
conditions of modern times, when the inhabitants of Egypt have altered
their language, religion, and customs, and the Mediterranean has ceased
to be the active centre of the civilised world. But it is to be
remembered that the study of Egyptology carries one down to the
Muhammedan invasion without much straining of the term, and merges then
into the study of the Arabic period at so many points that no real
termination can be given to the science; while the fact of the
remoteness of its beginnings but serves to give it a greater value,
since the vista before the eyes is wider.
It is my object in this chapter to show that the ancient history of
Egypt has a real bearing on certain aspects of the polemics of the
country. I need not again touch upon the matters which were referred to
on page 8 in order to demonstrate this fact. I will take but one
subject--namely, that of Egypt's foreign relations and her wars in other
lands. It will be best, for this purpose, to show first of all that the
ancient and modern Egyptians are one and the same people; and,
secondly, that the political conditions, broadly speaking, are much the
same now as they have been throughout history.
Professor Elliot Smith, F.R.S., has shown clearly enough, from the study
of bones of all ages, that the ancient and modern inhabitants of the
Nile Valley are precisely the same people anthropologically; and this
fact at once sets the matter upon an unique footing: for, with the
possible exception of China, there is no nation in the world which can
be proved thus to have retained its type for so long a period. This one
fact makes any parallel with Greece or Rome impossible. The modern
Greeks have not much in common, anthropologically, with the ancient
Greeks, for the blood has become very mixed; the Italians are not the
same as the old Romans; the English are the result of a comparatively
recent conglomeration of types. But in Egypt the subjects of archaic
Pharaohs, it seems certain, were exactly similar to those of the modern
Khedives, and new blood has never been introduced into the nation to an
appreciable extent, not even by the Arabs. Thus, if there is any
importance in the bearing of history upon politics, we have in Egypt a
better chance of appreciating it than we have in the case of any other
country.
It is true that the language has altered, but this is not a matter of
first-rate importance. A Jew is not less typical because he speaks
German, French, or English; and the cracking of skulls in Ireland is
introduced as easily in English as it was in Erse. The old language of
the Egyptian hieroglyphs actually is not yet quite dead; for, in its
Coptic form, it is still spoken by many Christian Egyptians, who will
salute their friends in that tongue, or bid them good-morning or
good-night. Ancient Egyptian in this form is read in the Coptic
churches; and God is called upon by that same name which was given to
Amon and his colleagues. Many old Egyptian words have crept into the
Arabic language, and are now in common use in the country; while often
the old words are confused with Arabic words of similar sound. Thus, at
Abydos, the archaic fortress is now called the _Shunet es Zebib_, which
in Arabic would have the inexplicable meaning "the store-house of
raisins"; but in the old Egyptian language its name, of similar sound,
meant "the fortress of the Ibis-jars," several of these sacred birds
having been buried there in jars, after the place had been disused as a
military stronghold. A large number of Egyptian towns still bear their
hieroglyphical names: Aswan, (Kom) Ombo, Edfu, Esneh, Keft, Kus, Keneh,
Dendereh, for example. The real origin of these being now forgotten,
some of them have been given false Arabic derivations, and stories have
been invented to account for the peculiar significance of the words thus
introduced. The word _Silsileh_ in Arabic means "a chain," and a place
in Upper Egypt which bears that name is now said to be so called
because a certain king here stretched a chain across the river to
interrupt the shipping; but in reality the name is derived from a
mispronounced hieroglyphical word meaning "a boundary." Similarly the
town of Damanhur in Lower Egypt is said to be the place at which a great
massacre took place, for in Arabic the name may be interpreted as
meaning "rivers of blood," whereas actually the name in Ancient Egyptian
means simply "the Town of Horus." The archæological traveller in Egypt
meets with instances of the continued use of the language of the
Pharaohs at every turn; and there are few things that make the science
of Egyptology more alive, or remove it further from the dusty atmosphere
of the museum, than this hearing of the old words actually spoken by the
modern inhabitants of the land.
The religion of Ancient Egypt, like those of Greece and Rome, was killed
by Christianity, which largely gave place, at a later date, to
Muhammedanism; and yet, in the hearts of the people there are still an
extraordinary number of the old pagan beliefs. I will mention a few
instances, taking them at random from my memory.
In, ancient days the ithiphallic god Min was the patron of the crops,
who watched over the growth of the grain. In modern times a degenerate
figure of this god Min, made of whitewashed wood and mud, may be seen
standing, like a scarecrow, in the fields throughout Egypt. When the
sailors cross the Nile they may often be heard singing _Ya Amuni, Ya
Amuni_, "O Amon, O Amon," as though calling upon that forgotten god for
assistance. At Aswan those who are about to travel far still go up to
pray at the site of the travellers' shrine, which was dedicated to the
gods of the cataracts. At Thebes the women climb a certain hill to make
their supplications at the now lost sanctuary of Meretsegert, the
serpent-goddess of olden times. A snake, the relic of the household
goddess, is often kept as a kind of pet in the houses of the peasants.
Barren women still go to the ruined temples of the forsaken gods in the
hope that there is virtue in the stones; and I myself have given
permission to disappointed husbands to take their childless wives to
these places, where they have kissed the stones and embraced the figures
of the gods. The hair of the jackal is burnt in the presence of dying
people, even of the upper classes, unknowingly to avert the jackal-god
Anubis, the Lord of Death. A scarab representing the god of creation is
sometimes placed in the bath of a young married woman to give virtue to
the water. A decoration in white paint over the doorways of certain
houses in the south is a relic of the religious custom of placing a
bucranium there to avert evil. Certain temple-watchmen still call upon
the spirits resident in the sanctuaries to depart before they will enter
the building. At Karnak a statue of the goddess Sekhmet is regarded
with holy awe; and the goddess who once was said to have massacred
mankind is even now thought to delight in slaughter. The golden barque
of Amon-Ra, which once floated upon the sacred lake of Karnak, is said
to be seen sometimes by the natives at the present time, who have not
yet forgotten its former existence. In the processional festival of
Abu'l Haggag, the patron saint of Luxor, whose mosque and tomb stand
upon the ruins of the Temple of Amon, a boat is dragged over the ground
in unwitting remembrance of the dragging of the boat of Amon in the
processions of that god. Similarly in the _Mouled el Nebi_ procession at
Luxor, boats placed upon carts are drawn through the streets, just as
one may see them in the ancient paintings and reliefs. The patron gods
of Kom Ombo, Horur and Sebek, yet remain in the memories of the peasants
of the neighbourhood as the two brothers who lived in the temple in the
days of old. A robber entering a tomb will smash the eyes of the figures
of the gods and deceased persons represented therein, that they may not
observe his actions, just as did his ancestors four thousand years ago.
At Gurneh a farmer recently broke the arms of an ancient statue, which
lay half-buried near his fields, because he believed that they had
damaged his crops. In the south of Egypt a pot of water is placed upon
the graves of the dead, that their ghost, or _ka_, as it would have been
called in old times, may not suffer from thirst; and the living will
sometimes call upon the name of the dead, standing at night in the
cemeteries.
The ancient magic of Egypt is still widely practised, and many of the
formulæ used in modern times are familiar to the Egyptologist. The
Egyptian, indeed, lives in a world much influenced by magic and thickly
populated by spirits, demons, and djins. Educated men holding Government
appointments, and dressing in the smartest European manner, will
describe their miraculous adventures and their meetings with djins. An
Egyptian gentleman holding an important administrative post, told me the
other day how his cousin was wont to change himself into a cat at night
time, and to prowl about the town. When a boy, his father noticed this
peculiarity, and on one occasion chased and beat the cat, with the
result that the boy's body next morning was found to be covered with
stripes and bruises. The uncle of my informant once read such strong
language (magically) in a certain book that it began to tremble
violently, and finally made a dash for it out of the window. This same
personage was once sitting beneath a palm-tree with a certain magician
(who, I fear, was also a conjurer), when, happening to remark on the
clusters of dates twenty feet or so above his head, his friend stretched
his arms upwards and his hands were immediately filled with the fruit.
At another time this magician left his overcoat by mistake in a railway
carriage, and only remembered it when the train was a mere speck upon
the horizon; but, on the utterance of certain words, the coat
immediately flew through the air back to him.
I mention these particular instances because they were told to me by
educated persons; but amongst the peasants even more incredible stories
are gravely accepted. The Omdeh, or headman, of the village of Chaghb,
not far from Luxor, submitted an official complaint to the police a
short time ago against an _afrit_ or devil which was doing much mischief
to him and his neighbours, snatching up oil-lamps and pouring the oil
over the terrified villagers, throwing stones at passers-by, and so
forth. Spirits of the dead in like manner haunt the living, and often do
them mischief. At Luxor, lately, the ghost of a well-known robber
persecuted his widow to such an extent that she finally went mad. A
remarkable parallel to this case, dating from Pharaonic days, may be
mentioned. It is the letter of a haunted widower to his dead wife, in
which he asks her why she persecutes him, since he was always kind to
her during her life, nursed her through illnesses, and never grieved her
heart.[1]
[Footnote 1: Maspero: 'Études egyptologiques,' i. 145.]
These instances might be multiplied, but those which I have quoted will
serve to show that the old gods are still alive, and that the famous
magic of the Egyptians is not yet a thing of the past. Let us now turn
to the affairs of everyday life.
An archæological traveller in Egypt cannot fail to observe the
similarity between old and modern customs as he rides through the
villages and across the fields. The houses, when not built upon the
European plan, are surprisingly like those of ancient days. The old
cornice still survives, and the rows of dried palm stems, from which its
form was originally derived, are still to be seen on the walls of
gardens and courtyards. The huts or shelters of dried corn-stalks, so
often erected in the fields, are precisely the same as those used in
prehistoric days; and the archaic bunches of corn-stalks smeared with
mud, which gave their form to later stone columns, are set up to this
day, though their stone posterity are now in ruins. Looking through the
doorway of one of these ancient houses, the traveller, perhaps, sees a
woman grinding corn or kneading bread in exactly the same manner as her
ancestress did in the days of the Pharaohs. Only the other day a native
asked to be allowed to purchase from us some of the ancient millstones
lying in one of the Theban temples, in order to re-use them on his farm.
The traveller will notice, in some shady corner, the village barber
shaving the heads and faces of his patrons, just as he is seen in the
Theban tomb-paintings of thousands of years ago; and the small boys who
scamper across the road will have just the same tufts of hair left for
decoration on their shaven heads as had the boys of ancient Thebes and
Memphis. In another house, where a death has occurred, the mourning
women, waving the same blue cloth which was the token of mourning in
ancient days, will toss their arms about in gestures familiar to every
student of ancient scenes. Presently the funeral will issue forth, and
the men will sing that solemn yet cheery tune which never fails to call
to mind the far-famed _Maneros_--that song which Herodotus describes as
a plaintive funeral dirge, and which Plutarch asserts was suited at the
same time to festive occasions. In some other house a marriage will be
taking place, and the singers and pipers will, in like manner, recall
the scenes upon the monuments. The former have a favourite gesture--the
placing of the hand behind the ear as they sing--which is frequently
shown in ancient representations of such festive scenes. The dancing
girls, too, are here to be seen, their eyes and cheeks heavily painted,
as were those of their ancestresses; and in their hands are the same
tambourines as are carried by their class in Pharaonic paintings and
reliefs. The same date-wine which intoxicated the worshippers of the
Egyptian Bacchus goes the round of this village company, and the same
food stuff, the same small, flat loaves of bread, are eaten.
Passing out into the fields the traveller observes the ground raked into
the small squares for irrigation which the prehistoric farmer made; and
the plough is shaped as it always was. The _shadoof_, or water-hoist,
is patiently worked as it has been for thousands of years; while the
cylindrical hoist employed in Lower Egypt was invented and introduced in
Ptolemaic times. Threshing and winnowing proceed in the manner
represented on the monuments, and the methods of sowing and reaping have
not changed. Along the embanked roads, men, cattle, and donkeys file
past against the sky-line, recalling the straight rows of such figures
depicted so often upon the monuments. Overhead there flies the vulture
goddess Nekheb, and the hawk Horus hovers near by. Across the road ahead
slinks the jackal, Anubis; under one's feet crawls Khepera, the scarab;
and there, under the sacred tree, sleeps the horned ram of Amon. In all
directions the hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians pass to and fro, as
though some old temple-inscription had come to life. The letter _m_, the
owl, goes hooting past. The letter _a_, the eagle, circles overhead; the
sign _ur_, the wagtail, flits at the roadside, chirping at the sign
_rekh_, the peewit. Along the road comes the sign _ab_, the frolicking
calf; and near it is _ka_, the bull; while behind them walks the sign
_fa_, a man carrying a basket on his head. In all directions are the
figures from which the ancients made their hieroglyphical script; and
thus that wonderful old writing at once ceases to be mysterious, a thing
of long ago, and one realises how natural a product of the country it
was.
[Illustration: PL. IV. In the palm-groves near Sakkâra, Egypt.]
[_Photo by E. Bird._
In a word, ancient and modern Egyptians are fundamentally similar. Nor
is there any great difference to be observed between the country's
relations with foreign powers in ancient days and those of the last
hundred years. As has been seen in the last chapter, Egypt was usually
occupied by a foreign power, or ruled by a foreign dynasty, just as at
the present day; and a foreign army was retained in the country during
most of the later periods of ancient history. There were always numerous
foreigners settled in Egypt, and in Ptolemaic and Roman times Alexandria
and Memphis swarmed with them. The great powers of the civilised world
were always watching Egypt as they do now, not always in a friendly
attitude to that one of themselves which occupied the country; and the
chief power with which Egypt was concerned in the time of the Ramesside
Pharaohs inhabited Asia Minor and perhaps Turkey, just as in the middle
ages and the last century. Then, as in modern times, Egypt had much of
her attention held by the Sudan, and constant expeditions had to be made
into the regions above the cataracts. Thus it cannot be argued that
ancient history offers no precedent for modern affairs because all
things have now changed. Things have changed extremely little, broadly
speaking; and general lines of conduct have the same significance at the
present time as they had in the past.
I wish now to give an outline of Egypt's relationship to her most
important neighbour, Syria, in order that the bearing of history upon
modern political matters may be demonstrated; for it would seem that the
records of the past make clear a tendency which is now somewhat
overlooked. I employ this subject simply as an example.
From the earliest historical times the Egyptians have endeavoured to
hold Syria and Palestine as a vassal state. One of the first Pharaohs
with whom we meet in Egyptian history, King Zeser of Dynasty III., is
known to have sent a fleet to the Lebanon in order to procure cedar
wood, and there is some evidence to show that he held sway over this
country. For how many centuries previous to his reign the Pharaohs had
overrun Syria we cannot now say, but there is no reason to suppose that
Zeser initiated the aggressive policy of Egypt in Asia. Sahura, a
Pharaoh of Dynasty V., attacked the Phoenician coast with his fleet, and
returned to the Nile Valley with a number of Syrian captives. Pepi I. of
the succeeding dynasty also attacked the coast-cities, and Pepi II. had
considerable intercourse with Asia. Amenemhat I., of Dynasty XII.,
fought in Syria, and appears to have brought it once more under Egyptian
sway. Senusert I. seems to have controlled the country to some extent,
for Egyptians lived there in some numbers. Senusert III. won a great
victory over the Asiatics in Syria; and a stela and statue belonging to
Egyptian officials have been found at Gezer, between Jerusalem and the
sea. After each of the above-mentioned wars it is to be presumed that
the Egyptians held Syria for some years, though little is now known of
the events of these far-off times.
During the Hyksos dynasties in Egypt there lived a Pharaoh named Khyan
who was of Semitic extraction; and there is some reason to suppose that
he ruled from Baghdad to the Sudan, he and his fathers having created a
great Egyptian Empire by the aid of foreign troops. Egypt's connection
with Asia during the Hyksos rule is not clearly defined, but the very
fact that these foreign kings were anxious to call themselves "Pharaohs"
shows that Egypt dominated in the east end of the Mediterranean. The
Hyksos kings of Egypt very probably held Syria in fee, being possessed
of both countries, but preferring to hold their court in Egypt.
We now come to the great Dynasty XVIII., and we learn more fully of the
Egyptian invasions of Syria. Ahmosis I. drove the Hyksos out of the
Delta and pursued them through Judah. His successor, Amenhotep I.,
appears to have seized all the country as far as the Euphrates; and
Thutmosis I., his son, was able to boast that he ruled even unto that
river. Thutmosis III., Egypt's greatest Pharaoh, led invasion after
invasion into Syria, so that his name for generations was a terror to
the inhabitants. From the Euphrates to the fourth cataract of the Nile
the countries acknowledged him king, and the mighty Egyptian fleet
patrolled the seas. This Pharaoh fought no less than seventeen campaigns
in Asia, and he left to his son the most powerful throne in the world.
Amenhotep II. maintained this empire and quelled the revolts of the
Asiatics with a strong hand. Thutmosis IV., his son, conducted two
expeditions into Syria; and the next king, Amenhotep III., was
acknowledged throughout that country.
That extraordinary dreamer, Akhnaton, the succeeding Pharaoh, allowed
the empire to pass from him owing to his religious objections to war;
but, after his death, Tutankhamen once more led the Egyptian armies into
Asia. Horemheb also made a bid for Syria; and Seti I. recovered
Palestine. Rameses II., his son, penetrated to North Syria; but, having
come into contact with the new power of the Hittites, he was unable to
hold the country. The new Pharaoh, Merenptah, seized Canaan and laid
waste the land of Israel. A few years later, Rameses III. led his fleet
and his army to the Syrian coast and defeated the Asiatics in a great
sea-battle. He failed to hold the country, however, and after his death
Egypt remained impotent for two centuries. Then, under Sheshonk I., of
Dynasty XXII., a new attempt was made, and Jerusalem was captured.
Takeloth II., of the same dynasty, sent thither an Egyptian army to help
in the overthrow of Shalmaneser II.
From this time onwards the power of Egypt had so much declined that the
invasions into Syria of necessity became more rare. Shabaka of Dynasty
XXV. concerned himself deeply with Asiatic politics, and attempted to
bring about a state of affairs which would have given him the
opportunity of seizing the country. Pharaoh Necho, of the succeeding
dynasty, invaded Palestine and advanced towards the Euphrates. He
recovered for Egypt her Syrian province, but it was speedily lost again.
Apries, a few years later, captured the Phoenician coast and invaded
Palestine; but the country did not remain for long under Egyptian rule.
It is not necessary to record all the Syrian wars of the Dynasty of the
Ptolemies. Egypt and Asia were now closely connected, and at several
periods during this phase of Egyptian history the Asiatic province came
under the control of the Pharaohs. The wars of Ptolemy I. in Syria were
conducted on a large scale. In the reign of Ptolemy III. there were
three campaigns, and I cannot refrain from quoting a contemporary record
of the King's powers if only for the splendour of its wording:--
"The great King Ptolemy ... having inherited from his father the royalty
of Egypt and Libya and Syria and Phoenicia and Cyprus and Lycia and
Caria and the Cyclades, set out on a campaign into Asia with infantry
and cavalry forces, a naval armament and elephants, both Troglodyte and
Ethiopic.... But having become master of all the country within the
Euphrates, and of Cilicia and Pamphylia and Ionia and the Hellespont
and Thrace, and of all the military forces and elephants in these
countries, and having made the monarchs in all these places his
subjects, he crossed the Euphrates, and having brought under him
Mesopotamia and Babylonia and Susiana and Persis and Media, and all the
rest as far as Bactriana ... he sent forces through the canals----"
(Here the text breaks off.)
Later in this dynasty Ptolemy VII. was crowned King of Syria, but the
kingdom did not remain long in his power. Then came the Romans, and for
many years Syria and Egypt were sister provinces of one empire.
There is no necessity to record the close connection between the two
countries in Arabic times. For a large part of that era Egypt and Syria
formed part of the same empire; and we constantly find Egyptians
fighting in Asia. Now, under Edh Dhahir Bebars of the Baharide Mameluke
Dynasty, we see them helping to subject Syria and Armenia; now, under
El-Mansur Kalaun, Damascus is captured; and now En Nasir Muhammed is
found reigning from Tunis to Baghdad. In the Circassian Mameluke Dynasty
we see El Muayyad crushing a revolt in Syria, and El Ashraf Bursbey
capturing King John of Cyprus and keeping his hand on Syria. And so the
tale continues, until, as a final picture, we see Ibrahim Pasha leading
the Egyptians into Asia and crushing the Turks at Iconium.
Such is the long list of the wars waged by Egypt in Syria. Are we to
suppose that these continuous incursions into Asia have suddenly come to
an end? Are we to imagine that because there has been a respite for a
hundred years the precedent of six thousand years has now to be
disregarded? By the recent reconquest of the Sudan it has been shown
that the old political necessities still exist for Egypt in the south,
impelling her to be mistress of the upper reaches of the Nile. Is there
now no longer any chance of her expanding in other directions should her
hands become free?
The reader may answer with the argument that in early days England made
invasion after invasion into France, yet ceased after a while to do so.
But this is no parallel. England was impelled to war with France because
the English monarchs believed themselves to be, by inheritance, kings of
a large part of France; and when they ceased to believe this they ceased
to make war. The Pharaohs of Egypt never considered themselves to be
kings of Syria, and never used any title suggesting an inherited
sovereignty. They merely held Syria as a buffer state, and claimed no
more than an overlordship there. Now Syria is still a buffer state, and
the root of the trouble, therefore, still exists. Though I must disclaim
all knowledge of modern politics, I am quite sure that it is no
meaningless phrase to say that England will most carefully hold this
tendency in check prevent an incursion into Syria; but, with a strong
controlling hand relaxed, it would require more than human strength to
eradicate an Egyptian tendency--nay, a habit, of six thousand years'
standing. Try as she might, Egypt, as far as an historian can see, would
not be able to prevent herself passing ultimately into Syria again. How
or when this would take place an Egyptologist cannot see, for he is
accustomed to deal in long periods of time, and to consider the
centuries as others might the decades. It might not come for a hundred
years or more: it might come suddenly quite by accident.
In 1907 there was a brief moment when Egypt appeared to be, quite
unknowingly, on the verge of an attempted reconquest of her lost
province. There was a misunderstanding with Turkey regarding the
delineation of the Syrio-Sinaitic frontier; and, immediately, the
Egyptian Government took strong action and insisted that the question
should be settled. Had there been bloodshed the seat of hostilities
would have been Syria; and supposing that Egypt had been victorious, she
would have pushed the opposing forces over the North Syrian frontier
into Asia Minor, and when peace was declared she would have found
herself dictating terms from a point of vantage three hundred miles
north of Jerusalem. Can it be supposed that she would then have desired
to abandon the reconquered territory?
However, matters were settled satisfactorily with the Porte, and the
Egyptian Government, which had never realised this trend of events, and
had absolutely no designs upon Syria, gave no further consideration to
Asiatic affairs. In the eyes of the modern onlookers the whole matter
had developed from a series of chances; but in the view of the historian
the moment of its occurrence was the only chance about it, the _fact_ of
its occurrence being inevitable according to the time-proven rules of
history. The phrase "England in Egypt" has been given such prominence of
late that a far more important phrase, "Egypt in Asia," has been
overlooked. Yet, whereas the former is a catch-word of barely thirty
years' standing, the latter has been familiar at the east end of the
Mediterranean for forty momentous centuries at the lowest computation,
and rings in the ears of the Egyptologist all through the ages. I need
thus no justification for recalling it in these pages.
Now let us glance at Egypt's north-western frontier. Behind the deserts
which spread to the west of the Delta lies the oasis of Siwa; and from
here there is a continuous line of communication with Tripoli and Tunis.
Thus, during the present winter (1910-11), the outbreak of cholera at
Tripoli has necessitated the despatch of quarantine officials to the
oasis in order to prevent the spread of the disease into Egypt. Now, of
late years we have heard much talk regarding the Senussi fraternity, a
Muhammedan sect which is said to be prepared to declare a holy war and
to descend upon Egypt. In 1909 the Egyptian Mamur of Siwa was murdered,
and it was freely stated that this act of violence was the beginning of
the trouble. I have no idea as to the real extent of the danger, nor do
I know whether this bogie of the west, which is beginning to cause such
anxiety in Egypt in certain classes, is but a creation of the
imagination; but it will be interesting to notice the frequent
occurrence of hostilities in this direction, since the history of
Egypt's gateways is surely a study meet for her guardians.
When the curtain first rises upon archaic times, we find those far-off
Pharaohs struggling with the Libyans who had penetrated into the Delta
from Tripoli and elsewhere. In early dynastic history they are the chief
enemies of the Egyptians, and great armies have to be levied to drive
them back through Siwa to their homes. Again in Dynasty XII., Amenemhat
I. had to despatch his son to drive these people out of Egypt; and at
the beginning of Dynasty XVIII., Amenhotep I. was obliged once more to
give them battle. Seti I. of Dynasty XIX. made war upon them, and
repulsed their invasion into Egypt. Rameses II. had to face an alliance
of Libyans, Lycians, and others, in the western Delta. His son Merenptah
waged a most desperate war with them in order to defend Egypt against
their incursions, a war which has been described as the most perilous in
Egyptian history; and it was only after a battle in which nine thousand
of the enemy were slain that the war came to an end. Rameses III.,
however, was again confronted with these persistent invaders, and only
succeeded in checking them temporarily. Presently the tables were
turned, and Dynasty XXII., which reigned so gloriously in Egypt, was
Libyan in origin. No attempt was made thenceforth for many years to
check the peaceful entrance of Libyans into Egypt, and soon that nation
held a large part of the Delta. Occasional mention is made of troubles
upon the north-west frontier, but little more is heard of any serious
invasions. In Arabic times disturbances are not infrequent, and certain
sovereigns, as for example, El Mansur Kalaun, were obliged to invade the
enemy's country, thus extending Egypt's power as far as Tunis.
There is one lesson which may be learnt from the above facts--namely,
that this frontier is somewhat exposed, and that incursions from North
Africa by way of Siwa are historic possibilities. If the Senussi
invasion of Egypt is ever attempted it will not, at any rate, be without
precedent.
When England entered Egypt in 1882 she found a nation without external
interests, a country too impoverished and weak to think of aught else
but its own sad condition. The reviving of this much-bled, anæmic
people, and the reorganisation of the Government, occupied the whole
attention of the Anglo-Egyptian officials, and placed Egypt before their
eyes in only this one aspect. Egypt appeared to be but the Nile Valley
and the Delta; and, in truth, that was, and still is, quite as much
as the hard-worked officials could well administer. The one task of the
regeneration of Egypt was all absorbing, and the country came to be
regarded as a little land wherein a concise, clearly-defined, and
compact problem could be worked out.
[Illustration: PL. V. The mummy of Sety I. of Dynasty XIX.
--CAIRO MUSEUM.]
[_Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha._
Now, while this was most certainly the correct manner in which to face
the question, and while Egypt has benefited enormously by this
singleness of purpose in her officials, it was, historically, a false
attitude. Egypt is not a little country: Egypt is a crippled Empire.
Throughout her history she has been the powerful rival of the people of
Asia Minor. At one time she was mistress of the Sudan, Somaliland,
Palestine, Syria, Libya, and Cyprus; and the Sicilians, Sardinians,
Cretans, and even Greeks, stood in fear of the Pharaoh. In Arabic times
she held Tunis and Tripoli, and even in the last century she was the
foremost Power at the east end of the Mediterranean. Napoleon when he
came to Egypt realised this very thoroughly, and openly aimed to make
her once more a mighty empire. But in 1882 such fine dreams were not to
be considered: there was too much work to be done in the Nile Valley
itself. The Egyptian Empire was forgotten, and Egypt was regarded as
permanently a little country. The conditions which we found here we took
to be permanent conditions. They were not. We arrived when the country
was in a most unnatural state as regards its foreign relations; and we
were obliged to regard that state as chronic. This, though wise, was
absolutely incorrect. Egypt in the past never has been for more than a
short period a single country; and all history goes to show that she
will not always be single in the future.
With the temporary loss of the Syrian province Egypt's need for a navy
ceased to exist; and the fact that she is really a naval power has now
passed from men's memory. Yet it was not much more than a century ago
that Muhammed Ali fought a great naval battle with the Turks, and
utterly defeated them. In ancient history the Egyptian navy was the
terror of the Mediterranean, and her ships policed the east coast of
Africa. In prehistoric times the Nile boats were built, it would seem,
upon a seafaring plan: a fact that has led some scholars to suppose that
the land was entered and colonised from across the waters. We talk of
Englishmen as being born to the sea, as having a natural and inherited
tendency towards "business upon great waters"; and yet the English navy
dates from the days of Queen Elizabeth. It is true that the Plantagenet
wars with France checked what was perhaps already a nautical bias, and
that had it not been for the Norman conquest, England, perchance would
have become a sea power at an earlier date. But at best the tendency is
only a thousand years old. In Egypt it is seven or eight thousand years
old at the lowest computation. It makes one smile to think of Egypt as
a naval power. It is the business of the historian to refrain from
smiling, and to remark only that, absurd as it may sound, Egypt's future
is largely upon the water as her past has been. It must be remembered
that she was fighting great battles in huge warships three or four
hundred feet in length at a time when Britons were paddling about in
canoes.
One of the ships built by the Pharaoh Ptolemy Philopator was four
hundred and twenty feet long, and had several banks of oars. It was
rowed by four thousand sailors, while four hundred others managed the
sails. Three thousand soldiers were also carried upon its decks. The
royal dahabiyeh which this Pharaoh used upon the Nile was three hundred
and thirty feet long, and was fitted with state rooms and private rooms
of considerable size. Another vessel contained, besides the ordinary
cabins, large bath-rooms, a library, and an astronomical observatory. It
had eight towers, in which there were machines capable of hurling stones
weighing three hundred pounds or more, and arrows eighteen feet in
length. These huge vessels were built some two centuries before Cæsar
landed in Britain.[1]
[Footnote 1: Athenæus, v. 8.]
In conclusion, then, it must be repeated that the present Nile-centred
policy in Egypt, though infinitely best for the country at this
juncture, is an artificial one, unnatural to the nation except as a
passing phase; and what may be called the Imperial policy is absolutely
certain to take its place in time, although the Anglo-Egyptian
Government, so long as it exists, will do all in its power to check it.
History tells us over and over again that Syria is the natural dependant
of Egypt, fought for or bargained for with the neighbouring countries to
the north; that the Sudan is likewise a natural vassal which from time
to time revolts and has to be reconquered; and that Egypt's most exposed
frontier lies on the north-west. In conquering the Sudan at the end of
the nineteenth century the Egyptians were but fulfilling their destiny:
it was a mere accident that their arms were directed against a Mahdi. In
discussing seriously the situation in the western oases, they are
working upon the precise rules laid down by history. And if their
attention is not turned in the far future to Syria, they will be defying
rules even more precise, and, in the opinion of those who have the whole
course of Egyptian history spread before them, will but be kicking
against the pricks. Here surely we have an example of the value of the
study of a nation's history, which is not more nor less than a study of
its political tendencies.
Speaking of the relationship of history to politics, Sir J. Seeley
wrote: "I tell you that when you study English history, you study not
the past of England only but her future. It is the welfare of your
country, it is your whole interest as citizens, that is in question when
you study history." These words hold good when we deal with Egyptian
history, and it is our business to learn the political lessons which the
Egyptologist can teach us, rather than to listen to his dissertations
upon scarabs and blue glaze. Like the astronomers of old, the
Egyptologist studies, as it were, the stars, and reads the future in
them; but it is not the fashion for kings to wait upon his
pronouncements any more! Indeed he reckons in such very long periods of
time, and makes startling statements about events which probably will
not occur for very many years to come, that the statesman, intent upon
his task, has some reason to declare that the study of past ages does
not assist him to deal with urgent affairs. Nevertheless, in all
seriousness, the Egyptologist's study is to be considered as but another
aspect of statecraft, and he fails in his labours if he does not make
this his point of view.
In his arrogant manner the Egyptologist will remark that modern politics
are of too fleeting a nature to interest him. In answer, I would tell
him that if he sits studying his papyri and his mummies without regard
for the fact that he is dealing with a nation still alive, still
contributing its strength to spin the wheel of the world around, then
are his labours worthless and his brains misused. I would tell him that
if his work is paid for, then is he a robber if he gives no return in
information which will be of practical service to Egypt in some way or
another. The Egyptian Government spends enormous sums each year upon
the preservation of the magnificent relics of bygone ages--relics for
which, I regret to say, the Egyptians themselves care extremely little.
Is this money spent, then, to amuse the tourist in the land, or simply
to fulfil obligations to ethical susceptibilities? No; there is but one
justification for this very necessary expenditure of public
money--namely, that these relics are regarded, so to speak, as the
school-books of the nation, which range over a series of subjects from
pottery-making to politics, from stone-cutting to statecraft. The future
of Egypt may be read upon the walls of her ancient temples and tombs.
Let the Egyptologist never forget, in the interest and excitement of his
discoveries, what is the real object of his work.
CHAPTER III.
THE NECESSITY OF ARCHÆOLOGY TO THE GAIETY OF THE WORLD.
When a great man puts a period to his existence upon earth by dying, he
is carefully buried in a tomb, and a monument is set up to his glory in
the neighbouring church. He may then be said to begin his second life,
his life in the memory of the chronicler and historian. After the lapse
of an æon or two the works of the historian, and perchance the tomb
itself, are rediscovered; and the great man begins his third life, now
as a subject of discussion and controversy amongst archæologists in the
pages of a scientific journal. It may be supposed that the spirit of the
great man, not a little pleased with its second life, has an extreme
distaste for his third. There is a dead atmosphere about it which sets
him yawning as only his grave yawned before. The charm has been taken
from his deeds; there is no longer any spring in them. He must feel
towards the archæologist much as a young man feels towards his
cold-blooded parent by whom his love affair has just been found out.
The public, too, if by chance it comes upon this archæological journal,
finds the discussion nothing more than a mental gymnastic, which, as the
reader drops off to sleep, gives him the impression that the writer is a
man of profound brain capacity, but, like the remains of the great man
of olden times, as dry as dust.
There is one thing, however, which has been overlooked. This scientific
journal does not contain the ultimate results of the archæologist's
researches. It contains the researches themselves. The public, so to
speak, has been listening to the pianist playing his morning scales, has
been watching the artist mixing his colours, has been examining the
unshaped block of marble and the chisels in the sculptor's studio. It
must be confessed, of course, that the archæologist has so enjoyed his
researches that often the ultimate result has been overlooked by him. In
the case of Egyptian archæology, for example, there are only two
Egyptologists who have ever set themselves to write a readable
history,[1] whereas the number of books which record the facts of the
science is legion.
[Footnote 1: Professor J.H. Breasted and Sir Gaston Maspero.]
The archæologist not infrequently lives, for a large part of his time,
in a museum, a somewhat dismal place. He is surrounded by rotting
tapestries, decaying bones, crumbling stones, and rusted or corroded
objects. His indoor work has paled his cheek, and his muscles are not
like iron bands. He stands, often, in the contiguity to an ancient
broadsword most fitted to demonstrate the fact that he could never use
it. He would probably be dismissed his curatorship were he to tell of
any dreams which might run in his head--dreams of the time when those
tapestries hung upon the walls of barons' banquet-halls, or when those
stones rose high above the streets of Camelot.
Moreover, those who make researches independently must needs contribute
their results to scientific journals, written in the jargon of the
learned. I came across a now forgotten journal, a short time ago, in
which an English gentleman, believing that he had made a discovery in
the province of Egyptian hieroglyphs, announced it in ancient Greek.
There would be no supply of such pedantic swagger were there not a
demand for it.
Small wonder, then, that the archæologist is often represented as
partaking somewhat of the quality of the dust amidst which he works. It
is not necessary here to discuss whether this estimate is just or not: I
wish only to point out its paradoxical nature.
More than any other science, archæology might be expected to supply its
exponents with stuff that, like old wine, would fire the blood and
stimulate the senses. The stirring events of the Past must often be
reconstructed by the archæologist with such precision that his
prejudices are aroused, and his sympathies are so enlisted as to set him
fighting with a will under this banner or under that. The noise of the
hardy strife of young nations is not yet silenced for him, nor have the
flags and the pennants faded from sight. He has knowledge of the state
secrets of kings, and, all along the line, is an intimate spectator of
the crowded pageant of history. The caravan-masters of the elder days,
the admirals of the "great green sea" the captains of archers, have
related their adventures to him; and he might repeat to you their
stories. Indeed, he has such a tale to tell that, looking at it in this
light, one might expect his listeners all to be good fighting men and
noble women. It might be supposed that the archæologist would gather
around him only men who have pleasure in the road that leads over the
hills, and women who have known the delight of the open. One has heard
so often of the "brave days of old" that the archæologist might well be
expected to have his head stuffed with brave tales and little else.
His range, however, may be wider than this. To him, perhaps, it has been
given to listen to the voice of the ancient poet, heard as a far-off
whisper; to breathe in forgotten gardens the perfume of long dead
flowers; to contemplate the love of women whose beauty is all perished
in the dust; to hearken to the sound of the harp and the sistra, to be
the possessor of the riches of historical romance. Dim armies have
battled around him for the love of Helen; shadowy captains of sea-going
ships have sung to him through the storm the song of the sweethearts
left behind them; he has feasted with sultans, and kings' goblets have
been held to his lips; he has watched Uriah the Hittite sent to the
forefront of the battle.
Thus, were he to offer a story, one might now suppose that there would
gather around him, not the men of muscle, but a throng of sallow
listeners, as improperly expectant as were those who hearkened under the
moon to the narrations of Boccaccio, or, in old Baghdad, gave ear to the
tales of the thousand and one nights. One might suppose that his
audience would be drawn from those classes most fondly addicted to
pleasure, or most nearly representative, in their land and in their
time, of the light-hearted and not unwanton races of whom he had to
tell. For his story might be expected to be one wherein wine and women
and song found countenance. Even were he to tell of ancient tragedies
and old sorrows, he would still make his appeal, one might suppose, to
gallants and their mistresses, to sporting men and women of fashion,
just as, in the mournful song of Rosabelle, Sir Walter Scott is able to
address himself to the "ladies gay," or Coleridge in his sad "Ballad of
the Dark Ladie" to "fair maids."
Who could better arrest the attention of the coxcomb than the
archæologist who has knowledge of silks and scents now lost to the
living world? To the gourmet who could more appeal than the archæologist
who has made abundant acquaintance with the forgotten dishes of the
East? Who could so surely thrill the senses of the courtesan than the
archæologist who can relate that which was whispered by Anthony in the
ear of Cleopatra? To the gambler who could be more enticing than the
archæologist who has seen kings play at dice for their kingdoms? The
imaginative, truly, might well collect the most highly disreputable
audience to listen to the tales of the archæologist.
But no, these are not the people who are anxious to catch the pearls
which drop from his mouth. Do statesmen and diplomatists, then, listen
to him who can unravel for them the policies of the Past? Do business
men hasten from Threadneedle Street and Wall Street to sit at his feet,
that they may have instilled into them a little of the romance of
ancient money? I fear not.
Come with me to some provincial town, where this day Professor Blank is
to deliver one of his archæological lectures at the Town Hall. We are
met at the door by the secretary of the local archæological society: a
melancholy lady in green plush, who suffers from St Vitus's dance.
Gloomily we enter the hall and silently accept the seats which are
indicated to us by an unfortunate gentleman with a club-foot. In front
of us an elderly female with short hair is chatting to a very plain
young woman draped like a lay figure. On the right an emaciated man with
a very bad cough shuffles on his chair; on the left two old grey-beards
grumble to one another about the weather, a subject which leads up to
the familiar "Mine catches me in the small of the back"; while behind
us the inevitable curate, of whose appearance it would be trite to
speak, describes to an astonished old lady the recent discovery of the
pelvis of a mastodon.
The professor and the aged chairman step on to the platform; and, amidst
the profoundest gloom, the latter rises to pronounce the prefatory
rigmarole. "Archæology," he says, in a voice of brass, "is a science
which bars its doors to all but the most erudite; for, to the layman who
has not been vouchsafed the opportunity of studying the dusty volumes of
the learned, the bones of the dead will not reveal their secrets, nor
will the crumbling pediments of naos and cenotaph, the obliterated
tombstones, or the worm-eaten parchments, tell us their story. To-night,
however, we are privileged; for Professor Blank will open the doors for
us that we may gaze for a moment upon that solemn charnel-house of the
Past in which he has sat for so many long hours of inductive
meditation."
And the professor by his side, whose head, perhaps, was filled with the
martial music of the long-lost hosts of the Lord, or before whose eyes
there swayed the entrancing forms of the dancing-girls of Babylon,
stares horrified from chairman to audience. He sees crabbed old men and
barren old women before him, afflicted youths and fatuous maidens; and
he realises at once that the golden keys which he possesses to the gates
of the treasury of the jewelled Past will not open the doors of that
charnel-house which they desire to be shown. The scent of the king's
roses fades from his nostrils, the Egyptian music which throbbed in his
ears is hushed, the glorious illumination of the Palace of a Thousand
Columns is extinguished; and in the gathering gloom we leave him
fumbling with a rusty key at the mildewed door of the Place of Bones.
Why is it, one asks, that archæology is a thing so misunderstood? Can it
be that both lecturer and audience have crushed down that which was in
reality uppermost in their minds: that a shy search for romance has led
these people to the Town Hall? Or perchance archæology has become to
them something not unlike a vice, and to listen to an archæological
lecture is their remaining chance of being naughty. It may be that,
having one foot in the grave, they take pleasure in kicking the moss
from the surrounding tombstones with the other; or that, being denied,
for one reason or another, the jovial society of the living, like Robert
Southey's "Scholar" their hopes are with the dead.
[Illustration: PL. VI. A relief upon the side of the sarcophagus of one
of the wives of King Mentuhotep III., discovered
at Dêr el Bahri (Thebes). The royal lady is taking
sweet-smelling ointment from an alabaster vase.
A handmaiden keeps the flies away with a
bird's-wing fan.
--CAIRO MUSEUM.]
[_Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha._
Be the explanation what it may, the fact is indisputable that archæology
is patronised by those who know not its real meaning. A man has no more
right to think of the people of old as dust and dead bones than he has
to think of his contemporaries as lumps of meat. The true archæologist
does not take pleasure in skeletons as skeletons, for his whole effort
is to cover them decently with flesh and skin once more, and to put
some thoughts back into the empty skulls. He sets himself to hide again
the things which he would not intentionally lay bare. Nor does he
delight in ruined buildings: rather he deplores that they are ruined.
Coleridge wrote like the true archæologist when he composed that most
magical poem "Khubla Khan"--
"In Xanadu did Khubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."
And those who would have the pleasure-domes of the gorgeous Past
reconstructed for them must turn to the archæologist; those who would
see the damsel with the dulcimer in the gardens of Xanadu must ask of
him the secret, and of none other. It is true that, before he can
refashion the dome or the damsel, he will have to grub his way through
old refuse heaps till he shall lay bare the ruins of the walls and
expose the bones of the lady. But this is the "dirty work"; and the
mistake which is made lies here: that this preliminary dirty work is
confused with the final clean result. An artist will sometimes build up
his picture of Venus from a skeleton bought from an old Jew round the
corner; and the smooth white paper which he uses will have been made
from putrid rags and bones. Amongst painters themselves these facts are
not hidden, but by the public they are most carefully obscured. In the
case of archæology, however, the tedious details of construction are so
placed in the foreground that the final picture is hardly noticed at
all. As well might one go to Rheims to see men fly, and be shown nothing
else but screws and nuts, steel rods and cog-wheels. Originally the
fault, perhaps, lay with the archæologist; now it lies both with him and
with the public. The public has learnt to ask to be shown the works, and
the archæologist is often so proud of them that he forgets to mention
the purpose of the machine.
A Roman statue of bronze, let us suppose, is discovered in the Thames
valley. It is so corroded and eaten away that only an expert could
recognise that it represents a reclining goddess. In this condition it
is placed in the museum, and a photograph of it is published in 'The
Graphic.' Those who come to look at it in its glass case think it is a
bunch of grapes, or possibly a monkey: those who see its photograph say
that it is more probably an irregular catapult-stone or a fish in
convulsions.
The archæologist alone holds its secret, and only he can see it as it
was. He alone can know the mind of the artist who made it, or interpret
the full meaning of the conception. It might have been expected, then,
that the public would demand, and the archæologist delightedly furnish,
a model of the figure as near to the original as possible; or, failing
that, a restoration in drawing, or even a worded description of its
original beauty. But no: the public, if it wants anything, wants to see
the shapeless object in all its corrosion; and the archæologist forgets
that it is blind to aught else but that corrosion. One of the main
duties of the archæologist is thus lost sight of: his duty as
Interpreter and Remembrancer of the Past.
All the riches of olden times, all the majesty, all the power, are the
inheritance of the present day; and the archæologist is the recorder of
this fortune. He must deal in dead bones only so far as the keeper of a
financial fortune must deal in dry documents. Behind those documents
glitters the gold, and behind those bones shines the wonder of the
things that were. And when an object once beautiful has by age become
unsightly, one might suppose that he would wish to show it to none save
his colleagues or the reasonably curious layman. When a man makes the
statement that his grandmother, now in her ninety-ninth year, was once a
beautiful woman, he does not go and find her to prove his words and
bring her tottering into the room: he shows a picture of her as she was;
or, if he cannot find one, he describes what good evidence tells him was
her probable appearance. In allowing his controlled and sober
imagination thus to perform its natural functions, though it would never
do to tell his grandmother so, he becomes an archæologist, a
remembrancer of the Past.
In the case of archæology, however, the public does not permit itself so
to be convinced. In the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford excellent facsimile
electrotypes of early Greek weapons are exhibited; and these have far
more value in bringing the Past before us than the actual weapons of
that period, corroded and broken, would have. But the visitor says,
"These are shams," and passes on.
It will be seen, then, that the business of archæology is often
misunderstood both by archæologists and by the public; and that there is
really no reason to believe, with Thomas Earle, that the real
antiquarian loves a thing the better for that it is rotten and stinketh.
That the impression has gone about is his own fault, for he has exposed
too much to view the mechanism of his work; but it is also the fault of
the public for not asking of him a picture of things as they were.
Man is by nature a creature of the present. It is only by an effort that
he can consider the future, it is often quite impossible for him to give
any heed at all to the Past. The days of old are so blurred and remote
that it seems right to him that any relic from them should, by the
maltreatment of Time, be unrecognisable. The finding of an old sword,
half-eaten by rust, will only please him in so far as it shows him once
more by its sad condition the great gap between those days and these,
and convinces him again of the sole importance of the present. The
archæologist, he will tell you, is a fool if he expects him to be
interested in a wretched old bit of scrap-iron. He is right. It would be
as rash to suppose that he would find interest in an ancient sword in
its rusted condition as it would be to expect the spectator at Rheims to
find fascination in the nuts and screws. The true archæologist would
hide that corroded weapon in his workshop, where his fellow-workers
alone could see it. For he recognises that it is only the sword which is
as good as new that impresses the public; it is only the Present that
counts. That is the real reason why he is an archæologist. He has turned
to the Past because he is in love with the Present. He, more than any
man, worships at the altar of the goddess of To-day; and he is so
desirous of extending her dominion that he has adventured, like a
crusader, into the lands of the Past in order to subject them to her.
Adoring the Now, he would resent the publicity of anything which so
obviously suggested the Then as a rust-eaten old blade. His whole
business is to hide the gap between Yesterday and To-day; and, unless a
man is initiate, he would have him either see the perfect sword as it
was when it sought the foeman's bowels, or see nothing. The Present is
too small for him; and it is therefore that he calls so insistently to
the Past to come forth from the darkness to augment it. The ordinary
man lives in the Present, and he will tell one that the archæologist
lives in the Past. This is not so. The layman, in the manner of the
Little Englander, lives in a small and confined Present; but the
archæologist, like a true Imperialist, ranges through all time, and
calls it not the Past but the Greater Present.
The archæologist is not, or ought not to be, lacking in vivacity. One
might say that he is so sensible to the charms of society that, finding
his companions too few in number, he has drawn the olden times to him to
search them for jovial men and agreeable women. It might be added that
he has so laughed at jest and joke that, fearing lest the funds of
humour run dry, he has gathered the laughter of all the years to his
enrichment. Certainly he has so delighted in noble adventure and
stirring action that he finds his newspaper insufficient to his needs,
and fetches to his aid the tales of old heroes. In fact, the
archæologist is so enamoured of life that he would raise all the dead
from their graves. He will not have it that the men of old are dust: he
would bring them to him to share with him the sunlight which he finds so
precious. He is so much an enemy of Death and Decay that he would rob
them of their harvest; and, for every life the foe has claimed, he would
raise up, if he could, a memory that would continue to live.
The meaning of the heading which has been given to this chapter is now
becoming clear, and the direction of the argument is already apparent.
So far it has been my purpose to show that the archæologist is not a
rag-and-bone man, though the public generally thinks he is, and he often
thinks he is himself. The attempt has been made to suggest that
archæology ought not to consist in sitting in a charnel-house amongst
the dead, but rather in ignoring that place and taking the bones into
the light of day, decently clad in flesh and finery. It has now to be
shown in what manner this parading of the Past is needful to the gaiety
of the Present.
Amongst cultured people whose social position makes it difficult for
them to dance in circles on the grass in order to express or to
stimulate their gaiety, and whose school of deportment will not permit
them to sing a merry song of sixpence as they trip down the streets,
there is some danger of the fire of merriment dying for want of fuel.
Vivacity in printed books, therefore, has been encouraged, so that the
mind at least, if not the body, may skip about and clap its hands. A
portly gentleman with a solemn face, reading his 'Punch' in the club,
is, after all, giving play to precisely those same humours which in
ancient days might have led him, like Georgy Porgy, to kiss the girls or
to perform any other merry joke. It is necessary, therefore, ever to
enlarge the stock of things humorous, vivacious, or rousing, if thoughts
are to be kept young and eyes bright in this age of restraint. What
would Yuletide be without the olden times to bolster it? What would the
Christmas numbers do without the pictures of our great-grandparents'
coaches snow-bound, of huntsmen of the eighteenth century, of jesters at
the courts of the barons? What should we do without the 'Vicar of
Wakefield,' the 'Compleat Angler,' 'Pepys' Diary,' and all the rest of
the ancient books? And, going back a few centuries, what an amount we
should miss had we not 'Æsop's Fables,' the 'Odyssey,' the tales of the
Trojan War, and so on. It is from the archæologist that one must expect
the augmentation of this supply; and just in that degree in which the
existing supply is really a necessary part of our equipment, so
archæology, which looks for more, is necessary to our gaiety.
[Illustration: PL. VII. Lady rouging herself: she holds a mirror and
rouge-pot.
--FROM A PAPYRUS, TURIN.]
[Illustration: Dancing girl turning a back somersault.--NEW KINGDOM.]
In order to keep his intellect undulled by the routine of his dreary
work, Matthew Arnold was wont to write a few lines of poetry each day.
Poetry, like music and song, is an effective dispeller of care; and
those who find Omar Khayyam or "In Memoriam" incapable of removing the
of burden of their woes, will no doubt appreciate the "Owl and the
Pussy-cat," or the Bab Ballads. In some form or other verse and song are
closely linked with happiness; and a ditty from any age has its
interests and its charm.
"She gazes at the stars above:
I would I were the skies,
That I might gaze upon my love
With such a thousand eyes!"
That is probably from the Greek of Plato, a writer who is not much
read by the public at large, and whose works are the legitimate property
of the antiquarian. It suffices to show that it is not only to the
moderns that we have to look for dainty verse that is conducive to a
light heart. The following lines are from the ancient Egyptian:--
"While in my room I lie all day
In pain that will not pass away,
The neighbours come and go.
Ah, if with them my darling came
The doctors would be put to shame:
_She_ understands my woe."
Such examples might be multiplied indefinitely; and the reader will
admit that there is as much of a lilt about those which are here quoted
as there is about the majority of the ditties which he has hummed to
himself in his hour of contentment. Here is Philodemus' description of
his mistress's charms:--
"My lady-love is small and brown;
My lady's skin is soft as down;
Her hair like parseley twists and turns;
Her voice with magic passion burns...."
And here is an ancient Egyptian's description of not very dissimilar
phenomena:--
"A damsel sweet unto the sight,
A maid of whom no like there is;
Black are her tresses as the night,
And blacker than the blackberries."
Does not the archæologist perform a service to his contemporaries by
searching out such rhymes and delving for more? They bring with them,
moreover, so subtle a suggestion of bygone romance, they are backed by
so fair a scene of Athenian luxury or Theban splendour, that they
possess a charm not often felt in modern verse. If it is argued that
there is no need to increase the present supply of such ditties, since
they are really quite unessential to our gaiety, the answer may be given
that no nation and no period has ever found them unessential; and a
light heart has been expressed in this manner since man came down from
the trees.
Let us turn now to another consideration. For a man to be light of heart
he must have confidence in humanity. He cannot greet the morn with a
smiling countenance if he believes that he and his fellows are slipping
down the broad path which leads to destruction. The archæologist never
despairs of mankind; for he has seen nations rise and fall till he is
almost giddy, but he knows that there has never been a general
deterioration. He realises that though a great nation may suffer defeat
and annihilation, it is possible for it to go down in such a thunder
that the talk of it stimulates other nations for all time. He sees, if
any man can, that all things work together for happiness. He has
observed the cycle of events, the good years and the bad; and in an evil
time he is comforted by the knowledge that the good will presently roll
round again. Thus the lesson which he can teach is a very real
necessity to that contentment of mind which lies at the root of all
gaiety.
Again, a man cannot be permanently happy unless he has a just sense of
proportion. He who is too big for his boots must needs limp; and he who
has a swollen head is in perpetual discomfort. The history of the lives
of men, the history of the nations, gives one a fairer sense of
proportion than does almost any other study. In the great company of the
men of old he cannot fail to assess his true value: if he has any
conceit there is a greater than he to snub him; if he has a poor opinion
of his powers there is many a fool with whom to contrast himself
favourably. If he would risk his fortune on the spinning of a coin,
being aware of the prevalence of his good-luck, archæology will tell him
that the best luck will change; or if, when in sore straits, he asks
whether ever a man was so unlucky, archæology will answer him that many
millions of men have been more unfavoured than he. Archæology provides a
precedent for almost every event or occurrence where modern inventions
are not involved; and, in this manner, one may reckon their value and
determine their trend. Thus many of the small worries which cause so
leaden a weight to lie upon the heart and mind are by the archæologist
ignored; and many of the larger calamities by him are met with serenity.
But not only does the archæologist learn to estimate himself and his
actions: he learns also to see the relationship in which his life stands
to the course of Time. Without archæology a man may be disturbed lest
the world be about to come to an end: after a study of history he knows
that it has only just begun; and that gaiety which is said to have
obtained "when the world was young" is to him, therefore, a present
condition. By studying the ages the archæologist learns to reckon in
units of a thousand years; and it is only then that that little unit of
threescore-and-ten falls into its proper proportion. "A thousand ages in
Thy sight are like an evening gone," says the hymn, but it is only the
archæologist who knows the meaning of the words; and it is only he who
can explain that great discrepancy in the Christian faith between the
statement "Behold, I come quickly" and the actual fact. A man who knows
where he is in regard to his fellows, and realises where he stands in
regard to Time, has learnt a lesson of archæology which is as necessary
to his peace of mind as his peace of mind is necessary to his gaiety.
It is not needful, however, to continue to point out the many ways in
which archæology may be shown to be necessary to happiness. The reader
will have comprehended the trend of the argument, and, if he be in
sympathy with it, he will not be unwilling to develop the theme for
himself. Only one point, therefore, need here be taken up. It has been
reserved to the end of this chapter, for, by its nature, it closes all
arguments. I refer to Death.
Death, as we watch it around us, is the black menace of the heavens
which darkens every man's day; Death, coming to our neighbour, puts a
period to our merry-making; Death, seen close beside us, calls a halt in
our march of pleasure. But let those who would wrest her victory from
the grave turn to a study of the Past, where all is dead yet still
lives, and they will find that the horror of life's cessation is
materially lessened. To those who are familiar with the course of
history, Death seems, to some extent, but the happy solution of the
dilemma of life. So many men have welcomed its coming that one begins to
feel that it cannot be so very terrible. Of the death of a certain
Pharaoh an ancient Egyptian wrote: "He goes to heaven like the hawks,
and his feathers are like those of the geese; he rushes at heaven like a
crane, he kisses heaven like the falcon, he leaps to heaven like the
locust"; and we who read these words can feel that to rush eagerly at
heaven like the crane would be a mighty fine ending of the pother.
Archæology, and especially Egyptology, in this respect is a bulwark to
those who find the faith of their fathers wavering; for, after much
study, the triumphant assertion which is so often found in Egyptian
tombs--"Thou dost not come dead to thy sepulchre, thou comest
living"--begins to take hold of the imagination. Death has been the
parent of so much goodness, dying men have cut such a dash, that one
looks at it with an awakening interest. Even if the sense of the
misfortune of death is uppermost in an archæologist's mind, he may find
not a little comfort in having before him the example of so many good,
men, who, in their hour, have faced that great calamity with squared
shoulders.
"When Death comes," says a certain sage of ancient Egypt, "it seizes the
babe that is on the breast of its mother as well as he that has become
an old man. When thy messenger comes to carry thee away, be thou found
by him _ready_." Why, here is our chance; here is the opportunity for
that flourish which modesty, throughout our life, has forbidden to us!
John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, when the time came for him to lay his
head upon the block, bade the executioner smite it off with three
strokes as a courtesy to the Holy Trinity. King Charles the Second, as
he lay upon his death-bed, apologised to those who stood around him for
"being an unconscionable time adying." The story is familiar of
Napoleon's aide-de-camp, who, when he had been asked whether he were
wounded, replied, "Not wounded: killed," and thereupon expired. The Past
is full of such incidents; and so inspiring are they that Death comes to
be regarded as a most stirring adventure. The archæologist, too, better
than any other, knows the vastness of the dead men's majority; and if,
like the ancients, he believes in the Elysian fields, where no death is
and decay is unknown, he alone will realise the excellent nature of the
company into which he will there be introduced.
There is, however, far more living going on in the world than dying; and
there is more happiness (thanks be!) than sorrow. Thus the archæologist
has a great deal more of pleasure than of pain to give to us for our
enrichment. The reader will here enter an objection. He will say: "This
may be true of archæology in general, but in the case of Egyptology,
with which we are here mostly concerned, he surely has to deal with a
sad and solemn people." The answer will be found in the next chapter. No
nation in the world's history has been so gay, so light-hearted as the
ancient Egyptians; and Egyptology furnishes, perhaps, the most
convincing proof that archæology is, or should be, a merry science, very
necessary to the gaiety of the world. I defy a man suffering from his
liver to understand the old Egyptians; I defy a man who does not
appreciate the pleasure of life to make anything of them. Egyptian
archæology presents a pageant of such brilliancy that the archæologist
is often carried along by it as in a dream, down the valley and over the
hills, till, Past blending with Present, and Present with Future, he
finds himself led to a kind of Island of the Blest, where death is
forgotten and only the joy of life, and life's good deeds, still remain;
where pleasure-domes, and all the ancient "miracles of rare device,"
rise into the air from above the flowers; and where the damsel with the
dulcimer beside the running stream sings to him of Mount Abora and of
the old heroes of the elder days. If the Egyptologist or the
archæologist could revive within him one-hundredth part of the elusive
romance, the delicate gaiety, the subtle humour, the intangible
tenderness, the unspeakable goodness, of much that is to be found in his
province, one would have to cry, like Coleridge--
"Beware, beware!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise."
PART II.
STUDIES IN THE TREASURY.
"And I could tell thee stories that would make thee laugh
at all thy trouble, and take thee to a land of which thou
hast never even dreamed. Where the trees have ever
blossoms, and are noisy with the humming of intoxicated
bees. Where by day the suns are never burning, and by
night the moonstones ooze with nectar in the rays of the
camphor-laden moon. Where the blue lakes are filled with
rows of silver swans, and where, on steps of lapis
lazuli, the peacocks dance in agitation at the murmur of
the thunder in the hills. Where the lightning flashes
without harming, to light the way to women stealing in
the darkness to meetings with their lovers, and the
rainbow hangs for ever like an opal on the dark blue
curtain of the cloud. Where, on the moonlit roofs of
crystal palaces, pairs of lovers laugh at the reflection
of each other's love-sick faces in goblets of red wine,
breathing, as they drink, air heavy with the fragrance of
the sandal, wafted on the breezes from the mountain of
the south. Where they play and pelt each other with
emeralds and rubies, fetched at the churning of the ocean
from the bottom of the sea. Where rivers, whose sands are
always golden, flow slowly past long lines of silent
cranes that hunt for silver fishes in the rushes on the
banks. Where men are true, and maidens love for ever, and
the lotus never fades."
F.W. BAIN: _A Heifer of the Dawn_.