* Cedar-wood must have been continually imported into Egypt.

It is mentioned in the Pyramid texts; in the tomb of Ti, and

in the other tombs of Saqqâra or Gîzeh, workmen are

represented making furniture of it. Chips of wood from the

coffins of the VIth dynasty, detached in ancient times and

found in several mastabas at Saqqâra, have been pronounced

to be, some cedar of Lebanon, others a species of pine which

still grows in Cilicia and in the north of Syria.

[Illustration: 219.jpg PASSENGER VESSEL UNDER SAIL]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-

Bey; the picture is taken from one of the walls of the tomb

of Api, discovered at Saqqâra, and now preserved in the

Gîzeh Museum (VIth dynasty). The man standing at the bow is

the fore-pilot, whose duty it is to take soundings of the

channel, and to indicate the direction of the vessel to the

pilot aft, who works the rudder-oars.

Beads of amber are still found near Abydos in the tombs of the oldest

necropolis, and we may well ask how many hands they had passed through

before reaching the banks of the Nile from the shores of the Baltic.*

The tin used to alloy copper for making bronze,** and perhaps bronze

itself, entered doubtless by the same route as the amber.

* I have picked up in the tombs of the VIth dynasty at Kom-

es-Sultan, and in the part of the necropolis of Abydos

containing the tombs of the XIth and XIIth dynasties, a

number of amber beads, most of which were very small.

Mariette, who had found some on the same site, and who had

placed them in the Boulaq Museum, mistook them for corroded

yellow or brown glass beads. The electric properties which

they still possess have established their identity.

** I may recall the fact that the analysis of some objects

discovered at Mèdûm by Professor Petrie proved that they

were made of bronze, and contained 9.l per cent, of tin; the

Egyptians, therefore, used bronze from the IVth dynasty

downwards, side by side with pure copper.

The tribes of unknown race who then peopled the coasts of the Ægean Sea,

were amongst the latest to receive these metals, and they transmitted

them either directly to the Egyptians or Asiatic intermediaries, who

carried them to the Nile Valley. Asia Minor had, moreover, its treasures

of metal as well as those of wood--copper, lead, and iron, which

certain tribes of miners and smiths, had worked from the earliest times.

Caravans plied between Egypt and the lands of Chaldæan civilization,

crossing Syria and Mesopotamia, perhaps even by the shortest desert

route, as far as Ur and Babylon. The communications between nation and

nation were frequent from this time forward, and very productive, but

their existence and importance are matters of inference, as we have no

direct evidence of them. The relations with these nations continued to

be pacific, and, with the exception of Sinai, Pharaoh had no desire to

leave the Nile Valley and take long journeys to pillage or subjugate

countries from whence came so much treasure. The desert and the sea

which protected Egypt on the north and east from Asiatic cupidity,

protected Asia with equal security from the greed of Egypt.

On the other hand, towards the south, the Nile afforded an easy means

of access to those who wished to penetrate into the heart of Africa. The

Egyptians had, at the outset, possessed only the northern extremity of

the valley, from the sea to the narrow pass of Silsileh; they had then

advanced as far as the first cataract, and Syene for some time marked

the extreme limit of their empire. At what period did they cross this

second frontier and resume their march southwards, as if again to seek

the cradle of their race? They had approached nearer and nearer to the

great bend described by the river near the present village of Korosko,*

but the territory thus conquered had, under the Vth dynasty, not as yet

either name or separate organization: it was a dependency of the fiefdom

of Elephantine, and was under the immediate authority of its princes.

* This appears to follow from a passage in the inscription

of Uni. This minister was raising troops and exacting wood

for building among the desert tribes whose territories

adjoined at this part of the valley: the manner in which the

requisitions were effected shows that it was not a question

of a new exaction, but a familiar operation, and

consequently that the peoples mentioned had been under

regular treaty obligations to the Egyptians, at least for

some time previously.

Those natives who dwelt on the banks of the river appear to have offered

but a slight resistance to the invaders: the desert tribes proved more

difficult to conquer. The Nile divided them into two distinct bodies. On

the right side, the confederation of the Uaûaiu spread in the direction

of the Bed Sea, from the district around Ombos to the neighbourhood of

Korosko, in the valleys now occupied by the Ababdehs: it was bounded on

the south by the Mâzaiû tribes, from whom our contemporary Mâazeh have

probably descended. The Amamiu were settled on the left bank opposite

to the Mâzaiû, and the country of Iritît lay facing the territory of the

Uaûaiu. None of these barbarous peoples were subject to Egypt, but

they all acknowledged its suzerainty,--a somewhat dubious one, indeed,

analogous to that exercised over their descendants by the Khedives of

to-day. The desert does not furnish them with the means of subsistence:

the scanty pasturages of their wadys support a few flocks of sheep and

asses, and still fewer oxen, but the patches of cultivation which they

attempt in the neighbourhood of springs, yield only a poor produce of

vegetables or dourah. They would literally die of starvation were they

not able to have access to the banks of the Nile for provisions. On

the other hand, it is a great temptation to them to fall unawares on

villages or isolated habitations on the outskirts of the fertile lands,

and to carry off cattle, grain, and male and female slaves; they would

almost always have time to reach the mountains again with their spoil

and to protect themselves there from pursuit, before even the news

of the attack could reach the nearest police station. Under treaties

concluded with the authorities of the country, they are permitted to

descend into the plain in order to exchange peaceably for corn and

dourah, the acacia-wood of their forests, the charcoal that they make,

gums, game, skins of animals, and the gold and precious stones which

they get from their mines: they agree in return to refrain from any

act of plunder, and to constitute a desert police, provided that they

receive a regular pay.

[Illustration: 223.jpg MAP OF NUBIA IN THE TIME OF THE MEMPHITE EMPIRE]

The same arrangement existed in ancient times. The tribes hired

themselves out to Pharaoh. They brought him beams of “sont” at the first

demand, when he was in need of materials to build a fleet beyond the

first cataract. They provided him with bands of men ready armed, when

a campaign against the Libyans or the Asiatic tribes forced him to seek

recruits for his armies: the Mâzaiû entered the Egyptian service in such

numbers, that their name served to designate the soldiery in general,

just as in Cairo porters and night watchmen are all called Berberines.

Among these people respect for their oath of fealty yielded sometimes

to their natural disposition, and they allowed themselves to be carried

away to plunder the principalities which they had agreed to defend: the

colonists in Nubia were often obliged to complain of their exactions.

When these exceeded all limits, and it became impossible to wink at

their misdoings any longer, light-armed troops were sent against

them, who quickly brought them to reason. As at Sinai, these were easy

victories. They recovered in one expedition what the Ûaûaiû had

stolen in ten, both in flocks and fellahîn, and the successful general

perpetuated the memory of his exploits by inscribing, as he returned,

the name of Pharaoh on some rock at Syene or Elephantine: we may surmise

that it was after this fashion that Usirkaf, Nofiririkerî, and Unas

carried on the wars in Nubia. Their armies probably never went beyond

the second cataract, if they even reached so far: further south the

country was only known by the accounts of the natives or by the few

merchants who had made their way into it. Beyond the Mâzaiû, but still

between the Nile and the Red Sea, lay the country of Pûanît, rich in

ivory, ebony, gold, metals, gums, and sweet-smelling resins. When some

Egyptian, bolder than his fellows, ventured to travel thither, he could

choose one of several routes for approaching it by land or sea. The

navigation of the Red Sea was, indeed, far more frequent than is usually

believed, and the same kind of vessels in which the Egyptians coasted

along the Mediterranean, conveyed them, by following the coast of

Africa, as far as the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. They preferred, however,

to reach it by land, and they returned with caravans of heavily laden

asses and slaves.

[Illustration: 225.jpg HEAD OF AN INHABITANT OF PÛANÎT]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Professor

Petrie. This head was taken from the bas-relief at Karnak,

on which the Pharaoh Harmhabi of the XVIIIth dynasty

recorded his victories over the peoples of the south of

Egypt.

All that lay beyond Pûanît was held to be a fabulous region, a kind

of intermediate boundary land between the world of men and that of the

gods, the “Island of the Double,” “Land of the Shades,” where the living

came into close contact with the souls of the departed. It was inhabited

by the Dangas, tribes of half-savage dwarfs, whose grotesque faces and

wild gestures reminded the Egyptians of the god Bîsû (Bes). The chances

of war or trade brought some of them from time to time to Pûanît, or

among the Amamiû: the merchant who succeeded in acquiring and bringing

them to Egypt had his fortune made. Pharaoh valued the Dangas highly,

and was anxious to have some of them at any price among the dwarfs with

whom he loved to be surrounded; none knew better than they the dance

of the god--that to which Bîsû unrestrainedly gave way in his merry

moments. Towards the end of his reign Assi procured one which a certain

Biûrdidi had purchased in Pûanît. Was this the first which had made its

appearance at court, or had others preceded it in the good graces of

the Pharaohs? His wildness and activity, and the extraordinary positions

which he assumed, made a lively impression upon the courtiers of the

time, and nearly a century later there were still reminiscences of him.

A great official born in the time of Shopsiskaf, and living on to a

great age into the reign of Nofiririkerî, is described on his tomb as

the “Scribe of the House of Books.” This simple designation, occurring

incidentally among two higher titles, would have been sufficient

in itself to indicate the extraordinary development which Egyptian

civilization had attained at this time. The “House of Books” was

doubtless, in the first place, a depository of official documents, such

as the registers of the survey and taxes, the correspondence between

the court and the provincial governors or feudal lords, deeds of gift

to temples or individuals, and all kinds of papers required in the

administration of the State. It contained I also, however, literary

works, many of which even at this early date were already old, prayers

drawn up during the first dynasties, devout poetry belonging to times

prior to the misty personage called Mini--hymns to the gods of light,

formulas of black magic, collections of mystical works, such as the

“Book of the Dead” * and the “Ritual of the Tomb;” scientific treatises

on medicine, geometry, mathematics, and astronomy; manuals of practical

morals; and lastly, romances, or those marvellous stories which preceded

the romance among Oriental peoples.

* The “Book of the Dead” must have existed from

prehistoric times, certain chapters excepted, whose

relatively modern origin has been indicated by those who

ascribe the editing of the work to the time of the first

human dynasties.

All these, if we had them, would form “a library much more precious to

us than that of Alexandria;” unfortunately up to the present we have

been able to collect only insignificant remains of such rich stores. In

the tombs have been found here and there fragments of popular songs.

The pyramids have furnished almost intact a ritual of the dead which

is distinguished by its verbosity, its numerous pious platitudes, and

obscure allusions to things of the other world; but, among all this

trash, are certain portions full of movement and savage vigour, in which

poetic glow and religious emotion reveal their presence in a mass of

mythological phraseology. In the Berlin Papyrus we may read the end of

a philosophic dialogue between an Egyptian and his soul, in which the

latter applies himself to show that death has nothing terrifying to man.

“I say to myself every day: As is the convalescence of a sick person,

who goes to the court after his affliction, such is death.... I say to

myself every day: As is the inhaling of the scent of a perfume, as a

seat under the protection of an outstretched curtain, on that day, such

is death.... I say to myself every day: As the inhaling of the odour

of a garden of flowers, as a seat upon the mountain of the Country of

Intoxication, such is death.... I say to myself every day: As a road

which passes over the flood of inundation, as a man who goes as a

soldier whom nothing resists, such is death.... I say to myself every

day: As the clearing again of the sky, as a man who goes out to catch

birds with a net, and suddenly finds himself in an unknown district,

such is death.” Another papyrus, presented by Prisse d’Avennes to the

_Bibliothèque Nationale_, Paris, contains the only complete work of

their primitive wisdom which has come down to us. It was certainly

transcribed before the XVIIIth dynasty, and contains the works of two

classic writers, one of whom is assumed to have lived under the

IIIrd and the other under the Vth dynasty; it is not without reason,

therefore, that it has been called “the oldest book in the world.” The

first leaves are wanting, and the portion preserved has, towards

its end, the beginning of a moral treatise attributed to Qaqimnî, a

contemporary of Hûni. Then followed a work now lost: one of the

ancient possessors of the papyrus having effaced it with the view of

substituting for it another piece, which was never transcribed.

The last fifteen pages are occupied by a kind of pamphlet, which has

had a considerable reputation, under the name of the “Proverbs of

Phtahhotpû.”

This Phtahhotpû, a king’s son, flourished under Menkaûhorû and Assi: his

tomb is still to be seen in the necropolis of Saqqâra. He had sufficient

reputation to permit the ascription to him, without violence to

probability, of the editing of a collection of political and moral

maxims which indicate a profound knowledge of the court and of men

generally. It is supposed that he presented himself, in his declining

years, before the Pharaoh Assi, exhibited to him the piteous state to

which old age had reduced him, and asked authority to hand down for the

benefit of posterity the treasures of wisdom which he had stored up in

his long career. The nomarch Phtahhotpû says: “‘Sire, my lord, when

age is at that point, and decrepitude has arrived, debility comes and

a second infancy, upon which misery falls heavily every day: the eyes

become smaller, the ears narrower, strength is worn out while the heart

continues to beat; the mouth is silent and speaks no more; the heart

becomes darkened and no longer remembers yesterday; the bones become

painful, everything which was good becomes bad, taste vanishes entirely;

old age renders a man miserable in every respect, for his nostrils close

up, and he breathes no longer, whether he rises up or sits down. If the

humble servant who is in thy presence receives an order to enter on a

discourse befitting an old man, then I will tell to thee the language

of those who know the history of the past, of those who have heard

the gods; for if thou conductest thyself like them, discontent shall

disappear from among men, and the two lands shall work for thee!’ The

majesty of this god says: ‘Instruct me in the language of old times, for

it will work a wonder for the children of the nobles; whosoever enters

and understands it, his heart weighs carefully what it says, and it does

not produce satiety.’” We must not expect to find in this work any great

profundity of thought. Clever analyses, subtle discussions, metaphysical

abstractions, were not in fashion in the time of Phtahhotpû. Actual

facts were preferred to speculative fancies: man himself was the subject

of observation, his passions, his habits, his temptations and his

defects, not for the purpose of constructing a system therefrom, but in

the hope of reforming the imperfections of his nature and of pointing

out to him the road to fortune. Phtahhotpû, therefore, does not show

much invention or make deductions. He writes down his reflections just

as they occur to him, without formulating them or drawing any conclusion

from them as a whole. Knowledge is indispensable to getting on in the

world; hence he recommends knowledge. Gentleness to subordinates is

politic, and shows good education; hence he praises gentleness. He

mingles advice throughout on the behaviour to be observed in the various

circumstances of life, on being introduced into the presence of a

haughty and choleric man, on entering society, on the occasion of dining

with a dignitary, on being married. “If thou art wise, thou wilt go

up into thine house, and love thy wife at home; thou wilt give her

abundance of food, thou wilt clothe her back with garments; all that

covers her limbs, her perfumes, is the joy of her life; as long as thou

lookest to this, she is as a profitable field to her master.” To analyse

such a work in detail is impossible: it is still more impossible to

translate the whole of it. The nature of the subject, the strangeness of

certain precepts, the character of the style, all tend to disconcert the

reader and to mislead him in his interpretations. From the very earliest

times ethics has been considered as a healthy and praiseworthy subject

in itself, but so hackneyed was it, that a change in the mode of

expressing it could alone give it freshness. Phtahhotpû is a victim

to the exigencies of the style he adopted. Others before him had given

utterance to the truths he wished to convey: he was obliged to clothe

them in a startling and interesting form to arrest the attention of his

readers. In some places he has expressed his thought with such subtlety,

that the meaning is lost in the jingle of the words. The art of the

Memphite dynasties has suffered as much as the literature from the

hand of time, but in the case of the former the fragments are at least

numerous and accessible to all. The kings of this period erected temples

in their cities, and, not to speak of the chapel of the Sphinx, we find

in the remains still existing of these buildings chambers of granite,

alabaster and limestone, covered with religious scenes like those of

more recent periods, although in some cases the walls are left bare.

Their public buildings have all, or nearly all, perished; breaches have

been made in them by invading armies or by civil wars, and they have

been altered, enlarged, and restored scores of times in the course of

ages; but the tombs of the old kings remain, and afford proof of the

skill and perseverance exhibited by the architects in devising and

carrying out their plans. Many of the mastabas occurring at intervals

between Gîzeh and Mêdûm have, indeed, been hastily and carelessly built,

as if by those who were anxious to get them finished, or who had an eye

to economy; we may observe in all of them neglect and imperfection,--all

the trade-tricks which an unscrupulous jerry-builder then, as now, could

be guilty of, in order to keep down the net cost and satisfy the natural

parsimony of his patrons without lessening his own profits.* Where,

however, the master-mason has not been hampered by being forced to work

hastily or cheaply, he displays his conscientiousness, and the choice of

materials, the regularity of the courses, and the homogeneousness of the

building leave nothing to be desired; the blocks are adjusted with such

precision that the joints are almost invisible, and the mortar between

them has been spread with such a skilful hand that there is scarcely an

appreciable difference in its uniform thickness.**

* The similarity of the materials and technicalities of

construction and decoration seem to me to prove that the

majority of the tombs were built by a small number of

contractors or corporations, lay or ecclesiastical, both at

Memphis, under the Ancient, as well as at Thebes, under the

New Empire.

** Speaking of the Great Pyramid and of its casing,

Professor Petrie says: “Though the stones were brought as

close as [--] inch, or, in fact, into contact, and the mean

opening of the joint was but [--] inch, yet the builders

managed to fill the joint with cement, despite the great

area of it, and the weight of the stone to be moved--some 16

tons. To merely place such stones in exact contact at the

sides would be careful work; but to do so with cement in the

joint seems almost impossible.”

The long low flat mass which the finished tomb presented to the eye

is wanting in grace, but it has the characteristics of strength and

indestructibility well suited to an “eternal house.” The façade,

however, was not wanting in a certain graceful severity: the play of

light and shade distributed over its surface by the stelæ, niches, and

deep-set doorways, varied its aspect in the course of the day, without

lessening the impression of its majesty and serenity which nothing

could disturb. The pyramids themselves are not, as we might imagine,

the coarse and ill-considered reproduction of a mathematical figure

disproportionately enlarged. The architect who made an estimate for that

of Kheops, must have carefully thought out the relative value of the

elements contained in the problem which had to be solved--the vertical

height of the summit, the length of the sides on the ground line,

the angle of pitch, the inclination of the lateral faces to one

another--before he discovered the exact proportions and the arrangement

of lines which render his monument a true work of art, and not merely a

costly and mechanical arrangement of stones.*

* Cf. Borchardt’s article, _Wie wurden die Boschungen der

Pyramiden bestimmt?_ in which the author--an architect by

profession as well as an Egyptologist--interprets the

theories and problems of the _Rhind mathematical Papyrus_ in

a new manner, comparing the result with his own

calculations, made from measurements of pyramids still

standing, and in which he shows, by an examination of the

diagrams discovered on the wall of a mastaba at Mêdûm, that

the Egyptian contractors of the Memphite period were, at

that early date, applying the rules and methods of procedure

which we find set forth in the Papyri of Theban times.

The impressions which he desired to excite, have been felt by all who

came after him when brought face to face with the pyramids. From a great

distance they appear like mountain-peaks, breaking the monotony of the

Libyan horizon; as we approach them they apparently decrease in size,

and seem to be merely unimportant inequalities of ground on the surface

of the plain. It is not till we reach their bases that we guess their

enormous size. The lower courses then stretch seemingly into infinity to

right and left, while the summit soars up out of our sight into the sky.

“The effect is gained by majesty and simplicity of form, in the contrast

and disproportion between the stature of man and the immensity of his

handiwork: the eye fails to take it in; it is even difficult for the

mind to grasp it. We see, we may touch hundreds of courses formed of

blocks, two hundred cubic feet in size,... and thousands of others

scarcely less in bulk, and wo are at a loss to know what force has

moved, transported, and raised so great a number of colossal stones, how

many men were needed for the work, what amount of time was required

for it, what machinery they used; and in proportion to our inability to

answer these questions, we increasingly admire the power which regarded

such obstacles as trifles.”

We are not acquainted with the names of any of the men who conceived

these prodigious works. The inscriptions mention in detail the princes,

nobles, and scribes who presided over all the works undertaken by the

sovereign, but they have never deigned to record the name of a single

architect.*

* The title “mir kaûtû nîbû nîti sûton,” frequently met

with under the Ancient Empire, does not designate the

architects, as many Egyptologists have thought: it signifies

“director of all the king’s works,” and is applicable to

irrigation, dykes and canals, mines and quarries, and all

branches of an engineer’s profession, as well as to those of

the architect’s. The “directors of all the king’s works ”

were dignitaries deputed by Pharaoh to take the necessary

measurements for the building of temples, for dredging

canals, for quarrying stone and minerals; they were

administrators, and not professionals possessing the

technical knowledge of an architect or engineer.

[Illustrations: 234a.jpg Avenue of Sphinxes--Karnak]

[Illustrations: 234a-text.jpg]

They were people of humble extraction, living hard lives under fear of

the stick, and their ordinary assistants, the draughtsmen, painters, and

sculptors, were no better off than themselves; they were looked upon

as mechanics of the same social status as the neighbouring shoemaker or

carpenter. The majority of them were, in fact, clever mechanical workers

of varying capability, accustomed to chisel out a bas-relief or set a

statue firmly on its legs, in accordance with invariable rules which

they transmitted unaltered from one generation to another: some were

found among them, however, who displayed unmistakable genius in

their art, and who, rising above the general mediocrity, produced

masterpieces. Their equipment of tools was very simple--iron picks with

wooden handles, mallets of wood, small hammers, and a bow for boring

holes. The sycamore and acacia furnished them with a material of a

delicate grain and soft texture, which they used to good advantage:

Egyptian art has left us nothing which, in purity of Hue and delicacy of

modelling, surpasses the panels of the tomb of Hosi, with their seated

or standing male figures and their vigorously cut hieroglyphs in the

same relief as the picture. Egypt possesses, however, but few trees of

suitable fibre for sculptural purposes, and even those which were

fitted for this use were too small and stunted to furnish blocks of any

considerable size. The sculptor, therefore, turned by preference to the

soft white limestone of Turah.

[Illustration: 236.jpg ONE OF THE WOODEN PANELS OF HOSI, IN THE GÎZEH

MUSEUM]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey. The

original is now in the Gîzeh Museum.

He quickly detached the general form of his statue from the mass of

stone, fixed the limits of its contour by means of dimension guides

applied horizontally from top to bottom, and then cut away the angles

projecting beyond the guides, and softened off the outline till he made

his modelling correct. This simple and regular method of procedure was

not suited to hard stone: the latter had to be first chiselled, but when

by dint of patience the rough hewing had reached the desired stage, the

work of completion was not entrusted to metal tools. Stone hatchets

were used for smoothing off the superficial roughnesses, and it was

assiduously polished to efface the various tool-marks left upon

its surface. The statues did not present that variety of gesture,

expression, and attitude which we aim at to-day. They were, above

all things, the accessories of a temple or tomb, and their appearance

reflects the particular ideas entertained with regard to their nature.

The artists did not seek to embody in them the ideal type of male

or female beauty: they were representatives made to perpetuate the

existence of the model.

[Illustration: 237.jpg A SCULPTOR’s STUDIO, AND EGYPTIAN PAINTERS AT

WORK]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a chromolithograph by Prisse

d’Avennes, _Histoire de l’Art Égyptien_. The original is in

the tomb of Rakhmirî, who lived at Thebes under the XVIIIth

dynasty. The methods which were used did not differ from

those employed by the sculptors and painters of the Memphite

period more than two thousand years previously.

The Egyptians wished the double to be able to adapt itself easily to

its image, and in order to compass that end, it was imperative that the

stone presentment should be at least an approximate likeness, and should

reproduce the proportions and peculiarities of the living prototype

for whom it was meant. The head had to be the faithful portrait of the

individual: it was enough for the body to be, so to speak, an average

one, showing him at his fullest development and in the complete

enjoyment of his physical powers. The men were always represented in

their maturity, the women never lost the rounded breast and slight hips

of their girlhood, but a dwarf always preserved his congenital ugliness,

for his salvation in the other world demanded that it should be so. Had

he been given normal stature, the double, accustomed to the deformity of

his members in this world, would have been unable to accommodate himself

to an upright carriage, and would not have been in a fit condition to

resume his course of life.

[Illustration: 238.jpg CELLARER COATING A JAR WITH PITCH]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey. The

original is now in the Gîzeh Museum.

The particular pose of the statue was dependent on the social position

of the person. The king, the nobleman, and the master are always

standing or sitting: it was in these postures they received the homage

of their vassals or relatives. The wife shares her husband’s seat,

stands upright beside him, or crouches at his feet as in daily life. The

son, if his statue was ordered while he was a child, wears the dress of

childhood; if he had arrived to manhood, he is represented in the dress

and with the attitude suited to his calling. Slaves grind the grain,

cellarers coat their amphoræ with pitch, bakers knead their dough,

mourners make lamentation and tear their hair. The exigencies of rank

clung to the Egyptians in temple and tomb, wherever their statues were

placed, and left the sculptor who represented them scarcely any liberty.

He might be allowed to vary the details and arrange the accessories

to his taste; he might alter nothing in the attitude or the general

likeness without compromising the end and aim of his work. The statues

of the Memphite period may be counted at the present day by hundreds.

[Illustration: 239.jpg BAKER KNEADING HIS DOUGH]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Béchard. The original

is now in the Gîzeh Museum.

Some are in the heavy and barbaric style which has caused them to be

mistaken for primaeval monuments: as, for instance, the statues of Sapi

and his wife, now in the Louvre, which are attributed to the beginning

of the IIIrd dynasty or even earlier. Groups exactly resembling these in

appearance are often found in the tombs of the Vth and VIth dynasties,

which according to this reckoning would be still older than that of

Sapi: they were productions of an inferior studio, and their supposed

archaism is merely the want of skill of an ignorant sculptor. The

majority of the remaining statues are not characterized either by

glaring faults or by striking merits: they constitute an array of

honest good-natured folk, without much individuality of character and

no originality. They may be easily divided into five or six groups, each

having a style in common, and all apparently having been executed on the

lines of a few chosen models; the sculptors who worked for the mastaba

contractors were distributed among a very few studios, in which a

traditional routine was observed for centuries. They did not always

wait for orders, but, like our modern tombstone-makers, kept by them a

tolerable assortment of half-finished statues, from which the purchaser

could choose according to his taste. The hands, feet, and bust lacked

only the colouring and final polish, but the head was merely rough-hewn,

and there were no indications of dress; when the future occupant of

the tomb or his family had made their choice, a few hours of work were

sufficient to transform the rough sketch into a portrait, such as it

was, of the deceased they desired to commemorate, and to arrange his

garment according to the latest fashion. If, however, the relatives or

the sovereign* declined to be satisfied with these commonplace images,

and demanded a less conventional treatment of body for the double of him

whom they had lost, there were always some among the assistants to be

found capable of entering into their wishes, and of seizing the lifelike

expression of limbs and features.

* It must not be forgotten that the statues were often, like

the tomb itself, given by the king to the man whose services

he desired to reward. His burying-place then bore the

formulary, “By the favour of the king,” as I have mentioned

previously.

[Illustration: 241.jpg THE SHEIKH-EL BELED IN THE GIZEH MUSEUM]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey.

We possess at the present day, scattered about in museums, some score of

statues of this period, examples of consummate art,--the Khephrens, the

Kheops, the Anû, the Nofrît, the Râhotpû I have already mentioned, the

“Sheîkh-el-Beled” and his wife, the sitting scribe of the Louvre and

that of Gîzeh, and the kneeling scribe. Kaâpirû, the “Sheîkh-el-Beled,”

was probably one of the directors of the corvée employed to build the

Great Pyramid.* He seems to be coming forward to meet the beholder, with

an acacia staff in his hand. He has the head and shoulders of a bull,

and a common cast of countenance, whose vulgarity is not wanting in

energy. The large, widely open eye has, by a trick of the sculptor, an

almost uncanny reality about it.

* It was discovered by Mariette at Saqqâra. “The head,

torso, arms, and even the staff, were intact; but the

pedestal and legs were hopelessly decayed, and the statue

was only kept upright by the sand which surrounded it.” The

staff has since been broken, and is replaced by a more

recent one exactly like it. In order to set up the figure,

Mariette was obliged to supply new feet, which retain the

colour of the fresh wood. By a curious coincidence, Kaâpirû

was an exact portrait of one of the “Sheikhs el-Beled,” or

mayors of the village of Saqqâra: the Arab workmen, always

quick to see a likeness, immediately called it the “Sheikh

el-Beled,” and the name has been retained ever since.

[Illustration: 242.jpg THE KNEELING SCRIBE IN THE GIZEH MUSEUM]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-

Bey.

[Illustration: 242b.jpg THE SITTING SCRIBE IN THE GÎZEH MUSEUM]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey.

This scribe was discovered at Saqqâra, by M. de Morgan, in

the beginning of 1893.

The socket which holds it has been hollowed out and filled with an

arrangement of black and white enamel; a rim of bronze marks the outline

of the lids, while a little silver peg, inserted at the back of the

pupil, reflects the light and gives the effect of the sparkle of a

living glance. The statue, which is short in height, is of wood, and one

would be inclined to think that the relative plasticity of the material

counts for something in the boldness of the execution, were it not that

though the sitting scribe of the Louvre is of limestone, the sculptor

has not shown less freedom in its composition. We recognize in this

figure one of those somewhat flabby and heavy subordinate officials of

whom so many examples are to be seen in Oriental courts. He is squatting

cross-legged on the pedestal, pen in hand, with the outstretched leaf of

papyrus conveniently placed on the right: he waits, after an interval

of six thousand years, until Pharaoh or his vizier deigns to resume the

interrupted dictation. His colleague at the Gîzeh Museum awakens in us

no less wonder at his vigour and self-possession; but, being younger,

he exhibits a fuller and firmer figure with a smooth skin, contrasting

strongly with the deeply wrinkled appearance of the other, aggravated as

it is by his flabbiness. The “kneeling scribe” preserves in his pose

and on his countenance that stamp of resigned indecision and monotonous

gentleness which is impressed upon subordinate officials by the

influence of a life spent entirely under the fear of the stick. Banofir,

on the contrary, is a noble lord looking upon his vassals passing in

file before him: his mien is proud, his head disdainful, and he has

that air of haughty indifférence which is befitting a favourite of the

Pharaoh, possessor of generously bestowed sinecures, and lord of a score

of domains. The same haughtiness of attitude distinguishes the

director of the granaries, Nofir. We rarely encounter a small statue

so expressive of vigour and energy. Sometimes there may be found among

these short-garmented people an individual wrapped and almost smothered

in an immense _abayah_; or a naked man, representing a peasant on his

way to market, his bag on his left shoulder, slightly bent under the

weight, carrying his sandals in his other hand, lest they should be

worn out too quickly in walking. Everywhere we observe the traits of

character distinctive of the individual and his position, rendered

with a scrupulous fidelity: nothing is omitted, no detail of the

characteristics of the model is suppressed. Idealisation we must not

expect, but we have here an intelligent and sometimes too realistic

fidelity. Portraits have been conceived among other peoples and in other

periods in a different way: they have never been better executed.

[Illustration: 246.jpg PEASANT GOING TO MARKET]

* Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Béchard. The

original is at Gizeh.--Vth dynasty.

The decoration of the sepulchres provided employment for scores of

draughtsmen, sculptors, and painters, whose business it was to multiply

in these tombs scenes of everyday life which were indispensable to the

happiness or comfort of the double. The walls are sometimes decorated

with isolated pictures only, each one of which represents a distinct

operation; more frequently we find traced upon them a single subject

whose episodes are superimposed one upon the other from the ground to

the ceiling, and represent an Egyptian panorama from the Nile to the

desert. In the lower portion, boats pass to and fro, and collide with

each other, while the boatmen come to blows with their boat-hooks within

sight of hippopotami and crocodiles. In the upper portions we see a band

of slaves engaged in fowling among the thickets of the river-bank, or

in the making of small boats, the manufacture of ropes, the scraping and

salting of fish. Under the cornice, hunters and dogs drive the gazelle

across the undulating plains of the desert. Every row represents one of

the features of the country; but the artist, instead of arranging the

pictures in perspective, separated them and depicted them one above the

other.

[Illustration: 247.jpg KOFIR, THE DIRECTOR OF GRANARIES]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey.

original is in the Gîzeh Museum.--Vth dynasty.

The groups are repeated in one tomb after another; they are always

the same, but sometimes they are reduced to two or three individuals,

sometimes increased in number, spread out and crowded with figures and

inscriptions. Each chief draughtsman had his book of subjects and texts,

which he combined in various ways, at one time bringing them close

together, at another duplicating or extending them according to the

means put at his disposal or the space he had to cover. The same

men, the same animals, the same features of the landscape, the same

accessories, appear everywhere: it is industrial and mechanical art at

its highest. The whole is, however, harmonious, agreeable to the eye,

and instructive. The conventionalisms of the drawing as well as those

of the composition are very different from ours. Whether it is man or

beast, the subject is invariably presented in outline by the brush, or

by the graving tool in sharp relief upon the background; but the animals

are represented in action, with their usual gait, movement, and play of

limbs distinguishing each species. The slow and measured walk of the ox,

the short step, meditative ears, and ironical mouth of the ass, the calm

strength of the lion at rest, the grimaces of the monkeys, the slender

gracefulness of the gazelle and antelope, are invariably presented with

a consummate skill in drawing and expression. The human figure is the

least perfect: every one is acquainted with those strange figures, whose

heads in profile, with the eye drawn in full face, are attached to a

torso seen from the front and supported by limbs in profile. These are

truly anatomical monsters, and yet the appearance they present to us

is neither laughable nor grotesque. The defective limbs are so deftly

connected with those which are normal, that the whole becomes natural:

the correct and fictitious lines are so ingeniously blent together

that they seem to rise necessarily from each other. The actors in these

dramas are constructed in such a paradoxical fashion that they could not

exist in this world of ours; they live notwithstanding, in spite of the

ordinary laws of physiology, and to any one who will take the trouble to

regard them without prejudice, their strangeness will add a charm which

is lacking in works more conformable to nature. A layer of colour spread

over the whole heightens and completes them. This colouring is never

quite true to nature nor yet entirely false. It approaches reality as

far as possible, but without pretending to copy it in a servile way. The

water is always a uniform blue, or broken up by black zigzag lines; the

skin of the men is invariably brown, that of the women pale yellow.

[Illustration: 249.jpg BAS-RELIEF IN IVORY]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Bouriant. The

original is in private possession.

The shade befitting each being or object was taught in the workshops,

and once the receipt for it was drawn up, it was never varied in

application. The effect produced by these conventional colours, however,

was neither discordant nor jarring. The most brilliant colours were

placed alongside each other with extreme audacity, but with a perfect

knowledge of their mutual relations and combined effect. They do not

jar with, or exaggerate, or kill each other: they enhance each other’s

value, and by their contact give rise to half-shades which harmonize

with them. The sepulchral chapels, in cases where their decoration had

been completed, and where they have reached us intact, appear to us as

chambers hung with beautifully luminous and interesting tapestry, in

which rest ought to be pleasant during the heat of the day to the soul

which dwells within them, and to the friends who come there to hold

intercourse with the dead.

The decoration of palaces and houses was not less sumptuous than that of

the sepulchres, but it has been so completely destroyed that we should

find it difficult to form an idea of the furniture of the living if we

did not see it frequently depicted in the abode of the double. The great

armchairs, folding seats, footstools, and beds of carved wood, painted

and inlaid, the vases of hard stone, metal, or enamelled ware, the

necklaces, bracelets, and ornaments on the walls, even the common

pottery of which we find the remains in the neighbourhood of the

pyramids, are generally distinguished by an elegance and grace

reflecting credit on the workmanship and taste of the makers.* The

squares of ivory which they applied to their linen-chests and their

jewel-cases often contained actual bas-reliefs in miniature of as bold

workmanship and as skilful execution as the most beautiful pictures in

the tombs: on these, moreover, were scenes of private life--dancing or

processions bringing offerings and animals.**

* The study of the alabaster and diorite vases found near

the pyramids has furnished Petrie with very ingenious views

on the methods among the Egyptians of working hard stone.

Examples of stone toilet or sacrificial bottles are not

unfrequent in our museums: I may mention those in the Louvre

which bear the cartouches of Dadkerî Assi (No. 343), of Papi

I., and of Papi II., the son of Papi I.; not that they are

to be reckoned among the finest, but because the cartouches

fix the date of their manufacture. They came from the

pyramids of these sovereigns, opened by the Arabs at the

beginning of this century: the vase of the VIth dynasty,

which is in the Museum at Florence, was brought from Abydos.

** M. Grébaut bought at the Great Pyramids, in 1887, a

series of these ivory sculptures of the Ancient Empire. They

are now at the Gîzeh Museum. Others belonging to the same

find are dispersed among private collections: one of them is

reproduced on p. 249 of this History.

[Illustration: 252.jpg STELE OF THE DAUGHTER OF KHEOPS]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Bochard.

One would like to possess some of those copper and golden statues which

the Pharaoh Kheops consecrated to Isis in honour of his daughter: only

the representation of them upon a stele has come down to us; and the

fragments of sceptres or other objects which too rarely have reached us,

have unfortunately no artistic value.

A taste for pretty things was common, at least among the upper classes,

including not only those about the court, but also those in the most

distant nomes of Egypt. The provincial lords, like the courtiers of

the palace, took a pride in collecting around them in the other world

everything of the finest that the art of the architect, sculptor, and

painter could conceive and execute. Their mansions as well as their

temples have disappeared, but we find, here and there on the sides of

the hills, the sepulchres which they had prepared for themselves in

rivalry with those of the courtiers or the members of the reigning

family. They turned the valley into a vast series of catacombs, so that

wherever we look the horizon is bounded by a row of historic tombs.

Thanks to their rock-cut sepulchres, we are beginning to know the

Nomarchs of the Gazelle and the Hare, those of the Serpent-Mountain, of

Akhmîm, Thinis, Qasr-es-Sayad, and Aswan,--all the scions, in fact, of

that feudal government which preceded the royal sovereignty on the

banks of the Nile, and of which royalty was never able to entirely

disembarrass itself. The Pharaohs of the IVth dynasty had kept them in

such check that we can hardly find any indications during their reigns

of the existence of these great barons; the heads of the Pharaonic

administration were not recruited from among the latter, but from the

family and domestic circle of the sovereign. It was in the time of the

kings of the Vth dynasty, it would appear, that the barons again

entered into favour and gradually gained the upper hand; we find them

in increasing numbers about Anû, Menkaûhorû, and Assi. Did Unas, who was

the last ruler of the dynasty of Elephantine, die without issue, or were

his children prevented from succeeding him by force? The Egyptian annals

of the time of the Ramessides bring the direct line of Menés to an end

with this king. A new line of Memphite origin begins after him.

[Illustration: 253.jpg THE PHARAOH MENKAUHORÛ]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Faucher-Gudin. The

original, which came from Mariette’s excavations at the

Serapeum, is in the Louvre.

It is almost certain that the transmission of power was not accomplished

without contention, and that there were many claimants to the crown. One

of the latter, Imhotpû, whose legitimacy was always disputed, has

left hardly any traces of his accession to power,* but Ati established

himself firmly on the throne for a year at least:** he pushed on

actively the construction of his pyramid, and sent to the valley of

Hammamât for the stone of his sarcophagus.

* The monuments furnish proof that their contemporaries

considered these ephemeral rulers as so many illegitimate

pretenders. Phtahshopsîsû and his son Sabû-Abibi, who

exercised important functions at the court, mention only

Unas and Teti III.; Uni, who took office under Teti III.,

mentions after this king only Papi I. and Mihtimsaûf I. The

official succession was, therefore, regulated at this epoch

in the same way as we afterwards find it in the table of

Saqqâra, Unas, Teti III., Papi I., Mihtimsaûf I., and in the

Royal Canon of Turin, without the intercalation of any other

king.

** Brugsch, in his Histoire d’Egypte, pp. 44, 45, had

identified this king with the first Metesouphis of Manetho:

E. de Rougé prefers to transfer him to one of the two

Memphite series after the VIth dynasty, and his opinion has

been adopted by Wiedemann. The position occupied by his

inscription among those of Hamraamât has decided me in

placing him at the end of the Vth or beginning of the VIth

dynasty: this E. Meyer has also done.

We know not whether revolution or sudden death put an end to his

activity: the “Mastabat-el-Faraun” of Saqqâra, in which he hoped to

rest, never exceeded the height which it has at present.* His name was,

however, inscribed in certain official lists,** and a tradition of the

Greek period maintained that he had been assassinated by his guards.***

Teti III. was the actual founder of the VIth dynasty,**** historians

representing him as having been the immediate successor of Unas.

* Ati is known only from the Hammamât, inscription dated in

the first year of his reign. He was identified by Brugsch

with the Othoes of Manetho, and this identification has been

generally adopted. M. de Rougé is inclined to attribute to

him as _prænomen_ the cartouche Usirkeri, which is given in

the Table of Abydos between those of Teti III. and Papi I.

Mariette prefers to recognize in Urikeri an independent

Pharaoh of short reign. Several blocks of the Mastabat-el-

Faraun at Saqqâra contain the cartouche of Unas, a fact

which induced Mariette to regard this as the tomb of the

Pharaoh. The excavations of 1881 showed that Unas was

entombed elsewhere, and the indications are in favour of

attributing the mastaba to Ati. We know, indeed, the

pyramids of Teti III., of the two Papis, and of Metesouphis

I.; Ati is the only prince of this period with whose tomb we

are unacquainted. It is thus by elimination, and not by

direct evidence, that the identification has been arrived

at: Ati may have drawn upon the workshops of his predecessor

Unas, which fact would explain the presence on these blocks

of the cartouche of the latter.

** Upon that of Abydos, if we agree with E. de Rougé that

the cartouche Usirkeri contains his prænomen; upon that

from which Manetho borrowed, if we admit his identification

with Othoes.

*** Manetho (Unger’s edition, p. 101), where the form of the

name is Othoes.

**** He is called Teti Menephtah, with the cartouche

prænomen of Seti I., on a monument of the early part of the

XIXth dynasty, in the Museum at Marseilles: we see him in

his pyramid represented as standing. This pyramid was opened

in 1881, and its chambers are covered with long funerary

inscriptions. It is a work of the time of Seti I., and not a

contemporary production of the time of Menkaûhorû.

He lived long enough to build at Saqqâra a pyramid whose internal

chambers are covered with inscriptions,* and his son succeeded him

without opposition. Papi I. reigned at least twenty years.**

* The true pronunciation of this name would be Pipi, and of

the one before it Titi. The two other Tetis are Teti I. of

the Ist dynasty, and Zosir-Teti, or Teti II., of the IIIrd.

** From fragment 59 of the Royal Canon of Turin, An

inscription in the quarries of Hât-nûbû bears the date of

the year 24: if it has been correctly copied, the reign must

have been four years at least longer than the chronologists

of the time of the Ramessides thought.

[Illustration: 255.jpg THE MASTABAT-EL-FARAUN, LOOKING TOWARDS THE WEST

FAÇADE]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Béchard.

He manifested his activity in all corners of his empire, in the nomes

of the Said as well as in those of the Delta, and his authority extended

beyond the frontiers by which the power of his immediate predecessors

had been limited. He owned sufficient territory south of Elephantine to

regard Nubia as a new kingdom added to those which constituted ancient

Egypt: we therefore see him entitled in his preamble “the triple

Golden Horus,” “the triple Conqueror-Horus,” “the Delta-Horus,” “the

Said-Horus,” “the Nubia-Horus.” The tribes of the desert furnished him,

as was customary, with recruits for his army, for which he had need

enough, for the Bedouin of the Sinaitic Peninsula were on the move, and

were even becoming dangerous. Papi, aided by Uni, his prime minister,

undertook against them a series of campaigns, in which he reduced them

to a state of helplessness, and extended the sovereignty of Egypt for

the time over regions hitherto unconquered.

Uni began his career under Teti.* At first a simple page in the

palace,** he succeeded in obtaining a post in the administration of the

treasury, and afterwards that of inspector of the woods of the royal

domain.***

* The beginning of the first line is wanting, and I have

restored it from other inscriptions of the same kind: “I

was born under Unas.” Uni could not have been born before

Unas; the first office that he filled under Teti III. was

while he was a child or youth, while the reign of Unas

lasted thirty years.

** Literally, “crown-bearer.” This was a title applied

probably to children who served the king in his private

apartments, and who wore crowns of natural flowers on their

heads: the crown was doubtless of the same form as those

which we see upon the brows of women on several tombs of the

Memphite epoch.

*** The word “Khoniti” probably indicates lands with

plantations of palms or acacias, the thinly wooded forests

of Egypt, and also of the vines which belonged to the

personal domain of the Pharaoh.

Papi took him into his friendship at the beginning of his reign, and

conferred upon him the title of “friend,” and the office of head of

the cabinet, in which position he acquitted himself with credit. Alone,

without other help than that of a subordinate scribe, he transacted all

the business and drew up all the documents connected with the harem and

the privy council. He obtained an ample reward for his services. Pharaoh

granted to him, as a proof of his complete satisfaction, the furniture

of a tomb in choice white limestone; one of the officials of the

necropolis was sent to obtain from the quarries at Troiû the blocks

required, and brought back with him a sarcophagus and its lid, a

door-shaped stele with its setting and a table of offerings. He affirms

with much self-satisfaction that never before had such a thing happened

to any one; moreover, he adds, “my wisdom charmed his Majesty, my zeal

pleased him, and his Majesty’s heart was delighted with me.” All this

is pure hyperbole, but no one was surprised at it in Egypt; etiquette

required that a faithful subject should declare the favours of his

sovereign to be something new and unprecedented, even when they

presented nothing extraordinary or out of the common. Gifts of

sepulchral furniture were of frequent occurrence, and we know of more

than one instance of them previous to the VIth dynasty--for example,

the case of the physician Sokhît-niônkhû, whose tomb still exists at

Saqqâra, and whom Pharaoh Sahurî rewarded by presenting him with a

monumental stele in stone from Turah. Henceforth Uni could face without

apprehension the future which awaited him in the other world; at the

same time, he continued to make his way no less quickly in this, and was

soon afterwards promoted to the rank of “sole friend” and superintendent

of the irrigated lands of the king. The “sole friends” were closely

attached to the person of their master. In all ceremonies, their

appointed place was immediately behind him, a place of the highest

honour and trust, for those who occupied it literally held his life

in their hands. They made all the arrangements for his processions and

journeys, and saw that the proper ceremonial was everywhere observed,

and that no accident was allowed to interrupt the progress of his train.

Lastly, they had to take care that none of the nobles ever departed from

the precise position to which his birth or office entitled him. This was

a task which required a great deal of tact, for questions of precedence

gave rise to nearly as many heart-burnings in Egypt as in modern courts.

Uni acquitted himself so dexterously, that he was called upon to act

in a still more delicate capacity. Queen Amîtsi was the king’s chief

consort. Whether she had dabbled in some intrigue of the palace, or had

been guilty of unfaithfulness in act or in intention, or had been mixed

up in one of those feminine dramas which so frequently disturb the peace

of harems, we do not know. At any rate, Papi considered it necessary to

proceed against her, and appointed Uni to judge the case. Aided only

by his secretary, he drew up the indictment and decided the action so

discreetly, that to this day we do not know of what crime Amîtsi was

accused or how the matter ended. Uni felt great pride at having been

preferred before all others for this affair, and not without reason,

“for,” says he, “my duties were to superintend the royal forests, and

never before me had a man in my position been initiated into the secrets

of the Royal Harem; but his Majesty initiated me into them because my

wisdom pleased his Majesty more than that of any other of his lieges,

more than that of any other of his mamelukes, more than that of any

other of his servants.” These antecedents did not seem calculated to

mark out Uni as a future minister of war; but in the East, when a man

has given proofs of his ability in one branch of administration, there

is a tendency to consider him equally well fitted for service in any

of the others, and the fiat of a prince transforms the clever scribe of

to-day into the general of to-morrow. No one is surprised, not even

the person promoted; he accepts his new duties without flinching, and

frequently distinguishes himself as much in their performance as though

he had been bred to them from his youth up. When Papi had resolved to

give a lesson to the Bedouin of Sinai, he at once thought of Uni, his

“sole friend,” who had so skilfully conducted the case of Queen

Amîtsi. The expedition was not one of those which could be brought to

a successful issue by the troops of the frontier nomes; it required a

considerable force, and the whole military organization of the country

had to be brought into play. “His Majesty raised troops to the number of

several myriads, in the whole of the south from Elephantine to the nome

of the Haunch, in the Delta, in the two halves of the valley, in each

fort of the forts of the desert, in the land of Iritît, among the blacks

of the land of Maza, among the blacks of the land of Amamît, among the

blacks of the land of Ûaûait, among the blacks of the land of Kaaû,

among the blacks of To-Tamû, and his Majesty sent me at the head of this

army. It is true, there were chiefs there, there were mamelukes of the

king there, there were sole friends of the Great House there, there

were princes and governors of castles from the south and from the north,

‘gilded friends,’ directors of the prophets from the south and the

north, directors of districts at the head of troops from the south and

the north, of castles and towns that each one ruled, and also blacks

from the regions which I have mentioned, but it was I who gave them

their orders--although my post was only that of superintendent of the

irrigated lands of Pharaoh,--so much so that every one of them obeyed

me like the others.” It was not without much difficulty that he brought

this motley crowd into order, equipped them, and supplied them with

rations. At length he succeeded in arranging everything satisfactorily;

by dint of patience and perseverance, “each one took his biscuit and

sandals for the march, and each one of them took bread from the towns,

and each one of them took goats from the peasants.” He collected his

forces on the frontier of the Delta, in the “Isle of the North,” between

the “Gate of Imhotpû” and the “Tell of Horû nib-mâît,” and set out into

the desert. He advanced, probably by Gebel Magharah and Gebel Helal,

as far as Wady-el-Arîsh, into the rich and populous country which lay

between the southern slopes of Gebel Tîh and the south of the Dead Sea:

once there he acted with all the rigour permitted by the articles of

war, and paid back with interest the ill usage which the Bedouin had

inflicted on Egypt. “This army came in peace, it completely destroyed

the country of the Lords of the Sands. This army came in peace, it

pulverized the country of the Lords of the Sands. This army came in

peace, it demolished their ‘douars.’ This army came in peace, it cut

down their fig trees and their vines. This army came in peace, it burnt

the houses of all their people. This army came in peace, it slaughtered

their troops to the numbers of many myriads. This army came in peace, it

brought back great numbers of their people as living captives, for which

thing his Majesty praised me more than for aught else.” * As a matter of

fact, these poor wretches were sent off as soon as taken to the quarries

or to the dockyards, thus relieving the king from the necessity of

imposing compulsory labour too frequently on his Egyptian subjects.

* The locality of the tribes against which Uni waged war

can, I think, be fixed by certain details of the campaign,

especially the mention of the oval or circular enclosures

“ûanît” within which they entrenched themselves. These

enclosures, or ndars, correspond to the nadami which are

mentioned by travellers in these regions, and which are

singularly characteristic. The “Lords of the Sands”

mentioned by Uni occupied the naûami country, i.e. the Negeb

regions situated on the edge of the desert of Tih, round

about Aîn-Qadis, and beyond it as far as Akabah and the Dead

Sea. Assuming this hypothesis to be correct, the route

followed by Uni must have been the same as that which was

discovered and described nearly twenty years ago, by

Holland.

“His Majesty sent me five times to lead this army in order to penetrate

into the country of the Lords of the Sands, on each occasion of their

revolt against this army, and I bore myself so well that his Majesty

praised me beyond everything.” The Bedouin at length submitted, but

the neighbouring tribes to the north of them, who had no doubt assisted

them, threatened to dispute with Egypt the possession of the territory

which it had just conquered. As these tribes had a seaboard on the

Mediterranean, Uni decided to attack them by sea, and got together a

fleet in which he embarked his army. The troops landed on the coast of

the district of Tiba, to the north of the country of the Lords of the

Sands, thereupon “they set out. I went, I smote all the barbarians, and

I killed all those of them who resisted.” On his return, Uni obtained

the most distinguished marks of favour that a subject could receive,

the right to carry a staff and to wear his sandals in the palace in the

presence of Pharaoh.

These wars had occupied the latter part of the reign; the last of them

took place very shortly before the death of the sovereign. The domestic

administration of Papi I. seems to have been as successful in its

results, as was his activity abroad. He successfully worked the mines

of Sinai, caused them to be regularly inspected, and obtained an unusual

quantity of minerals from them; the expedition he sent thither, in the

eighteenth year of his reign, left behind it a bas-relief in which are

recorded the victories of Uni over the barbarians and the grants

of territory made to the goddess Hâthor. Work was carried on

uninterruptedly at the quarries of Hatnûbû and Kohanû; building

operations were carried on at Memphis, where the pyramid was in course

of erection, at Abydos, whither the oracle of Osiris was already

attracting large numbers of pilgrims, at Tanis, at Bubastis, and

at Heliopolis. The temple of Dendera was falling into ruins; it was

restored on the lines I of the original plans which were accidentally

discovered, and this piety displayed towards one of the most honoured

deities was rewarded, as it deserved to be, by the insertion of the

title of “son of Hâthor” in the royal cartouche. The vassals rivalled

their sovereign in activity, and built new towns on all sides to serve

them as residences, more than one of which was named after the Pharaoh.

The death of Papi I. did nothing to interrupt this movement; the elder

of his two sons by his second wife, Mirirî-ônkhnas, succeeded him

without opposition. Mirnirî Mihtimsaûf I. (Metesouphis) was almost a

child when he ascended the throne. The recently conquered Bedouin gave

him no trouble; the memory of their reverses was still too recent to

encourage them to take advantage of his minority and renew hostilities.

Uni, moreover, was at hand, ready to recommence his campaigns at the

slightest provocation. Metesouphis had retained him in all his offices,

and had even entrusted him with new duties. “Pharaoh appointed me

governor-general of Upper Egypt, from Elephantine in the south to

Letopolis in the north, because my wisdom was pleasing to his Majesty,

because my zeal was pleasing to his Majesty, because the heart of his

Majesty was satisfied with me.... When I was in my place I was above all

his vassals, all his mamelukes, and all his servants, for never had

so great a dignity been previously conferred upon a mere subject. I

fulfilled to the satisfaction of the king my office as superintendent of

the South, so satisfactorily, that it was granted to me to be second in

rank to him, accomplishing all the duties of a superintendent of works,

judging all the cases which the royal administration had to judge in

the south of Egypt as second judge, to render judgment at all hours

determined by the royal administration in this south of Egypt as second

judge, transacting as a governor all the business there was to do in

this south of Egypt.” The honour of fetching the hard stone blocks

intended for the king’s pyramid fell to him by right: he proceeded to

the quarries of Abhaît, opposite Sehel, to select the granite for

the royal sarcophagus and its cover, and to those of Hatnûbû for the

alabaster for the table of offerings. The transport of the table was a

matter of considerable difficulty, for the Nile was low, and the stone

of colossal size: Uni constructed on the spot a raft to carry it, and

brought it promptly to Saqqâra in spite of the sandbanks which obstruct

navigation when the river is low.*

* Prof. Petrie has tried to prove from the passage which

relates to the transport, that the date of the reign of Papi

I. must have been within sixty years of 3240 B.C.; this date

I believe to be at least four centuries too late. It is,

perhaps, to this voyage of Uni that the inscription of the

Vth year of Metesouphis I. refers, given by Blackden-Frazer

in A Collection of Hieratic Graffiti from the Alabaster

Quarry of Rat-nub, pl. xv. 2.

This was not the limit of his enterprise: the Pharaohs had not as yet a

fleet in Nubia, and even if they had had, the condition of the channel

was such as to prevent it from making the passage of the cataract.

He demanded acacia-wood from the tribes of the desert, the peoples

of Iritit and Uaûaît, and from the Mâzaiû, laid down his ships on the

stocks, built three galleys and two large lighters in a single year;

during this time the river-side labourers had cleared five channels

through which the flotilla passed and made its way to Memphis with

its ballast of granite. This was Uni’s last exploit; he died shortly

afterwards, and was buried in the cemetery at Abydos, in the sarcophagus

which had been given him by Papi I.

[Illustration: 265.jpg THE ISLAND OF ELEPHANTINE]

Plan drawn up by Thuillier, from the Map of the _Commission

d’Egypte._

Was it solely to obtain materials for building the pyramid that he

had re-established communication by water between Egypt and Nubia? The

Egyptians were gaining ground in the south every day, and under their

rule the town of Elephantine was fast becoming a depot for trade with

the Soudan.*

* The growing importance of Elephantine is shown by the

dimensions of the tombs which its princes had built for

themselves, as well as by the number of graffiti

commemorating the visits of princes and functionaries, and

still remaining at the present day.

The town occupied only the smaller half of a long narrow island, which

was composed of detached masses of granite, formed gradually into a

compact whole by accumulations of sand, and over which the Nile, from

time immemorial, had deposited a thick coating of its mud. It is now

shaded by acacias, mulberry trees, date trees, and dôm palms, growing in

some places in lines along the pathways, in others distributed in groups

among the fields. Half a dozen saqiyehs, ranged in a line along the

river-bank, raise water day and night, with scarcely any cessation of

their monotonous creaking. The inhabitants do not allow a foot of their

narrow domain to lie idle; they have cultivated wherever it is possible

small plots of durra and barley, bersim and beds of vegetables.

[Illustration: 266.jpg THE ISLAND OF ELAPHANTINE SEEN FROM THE RUINS OF

SYENNE]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato. In the

foreground are the ruins of the Roman mole built of brick,

which protected the entrance to the harbour of Syene; in the

distance is the Libyan range, surmounted by the ruins of

several mosques and of a Coptic monastery. Cf. the woodcut

on p. 275 of the present work.

A few scattered buffaloes and cows graze in corners, while fowls and

pigeons without number roam about in flocks on the look-out for what

they can pick up. It is a world in miniature, tranquil and pleasant,

where life is passed without effort, in a perpetually clear atmosphere

and in the shade of trees which never lose their leaf. The ancient city

was crowded into the southern extremity, on a high plateau of granite

beyond the reach of inundations. Its ruins, occupying a space half a

mile in circumference, are heaped around a shattered temple of Khnûrnû,

of which the most ancient parts do not date back beyond the sixteenth

century before our era.

[Illustration: 267.jpg THE FIRST CATARACT]

Map by Thuillier, from _La Description de l’Egypte, Ant_.,

vol. i. pl. 30, 1. I have added the ancient names in those

cases where it has been possible to identify them with the

modern localities.

It was surrounded with walls, and a fortress of sun-dried brick perched

upon a neighbouring island to the south-west, gave it complete com-mand

over the passages of the cataract. An arm of the river ninety yards wide

separated it from Sûanît, whose closely built habitations were

ranged along the steep bank, and formed, as it were, a suburb. Marshy

pasturages occupied the modern site of Syene; beyond these were gardens,

vines, furnishing wine celebrated throughout the whole of Egypt, and a

forest of date palms running towards the north along the banks of the

stream. The princes of the nome of Nubia encamped here, so to speak,

as frontier-posts of civilization, and maintained frequent but variable

relations with the people of the desert. It gave the former no trouble

to throw, as occasion demanded it, bodies of troops on the right or left

sides of the valley, in the direction of the Red Sea or in that of the

Oasis; however little they might carry away in their raids--of oxen,

slaves, wood, charcoal, gold dust, amethysts, cornelian or green felspar

for the manufacture of ornaments--it was always so much to the good, and

the treasury of the prince profited by it. They never went very far in

their expeditions: if they desired to strike a blow at a distance,

to reach, for example, those regions of Pûanît of whose riches the

barbarians were wont to boast, the aridity of the district around the

second cataract would arrest the advance of their foot-soldiers, while

the rapids of Wady Haifa would offer an almost impassable barrier to

their ships. In such distant operations they did not have recourse to

arms, but disguised themselves as peaceful merchants. An easy road led

almost direct from their capital to Ras Banât, which they called the

“Head of Nekhabît,” on the Red Sea; arrived at the spot where in later

times stood one of the numerous Berenices, and having quickly put

together a boat from the wood of the neighbouring forest, they made

voyages along the coast, as far as the Sinaitic peninsula and the

Hirû-Shâîtû on the north, as well as to the land of Pûânît itself on

the south. The small size of these improvised vessels rendered such

expeditions dangerous, while it limited their gain; they preferred,

therefore, for the most part the land journey.

[Illustration: 269.jpg SMALL WADY, FIVE HOURS BEYOND ED-DOUEÎG, ON THE

ROAD TO THE RED SEA]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Golénischeff.

It was fatiguing and interminable: donkeys--the only beast of burden

they were acquainted with, or, at least, employed--could make but short

stages, and they spent months upon months in passing through countries

which a caravan of camels would now traverse in a few weeks.*

* The _History of the Peasant_, in the Berlin Papyri Nos.

ii. and iv., affords us a good example of the use made of

pack-asses; the hero was on his way across the desert, from

the “Wady Natrûn” to Henasieh, with a quantity of merchandise

which he intended to sell, when an unscrupulous artisan,

under cover of a plausible pretext, stole his train of pack-

asses and their loads. Hirkhûf brought back with him a

caravan of three hundred asses from one of his journeys; cf.

p. 278 of the present work.

The roads upon which they ventured were those which, owing to the

necessity for the frequent watering of the donkeys and the impossibility

of carrying with them adequate supplies of water, were marked out at

frequent intervals by wells and springs, and were therefore necessarily

of a tortuous and devious character. Their choice of objects for barter

was determined by the smallness of their bulk and weight in comparison

with their value. The Egyptians on the one side were provided with

stocks of beads, ornaments, coarse cutlery, strong perfumes, and rolls

of white or coloured cloth, which, after the lapse of thirty-five

centuries, are objects still coveted by the peoples of Africa. The

aborigines paid for these articles of small value, in gold, either

in dust or in bars, in ostrich feathers, lions’ and leopards’ skins,

elephants’ tusks, cowrie shells, billets of ebony, incense, and gum

arabic. Considerable value was attached to cynocephali and green

monkeys, with which the kings or the nobles amused themselves, and which

they were accustomed to fasten to the legs of their chairs on days of

solemn reception; but the dwarf, the Danga, was the rare commodity which

was always in demand, but hardly ever attainable.*

* Domichen, _Geographische Inschriften_, vol. i. xxxi. 1. 1,

where the dwarfs and pigmies who came to the court of the

king, in the period of the Ptolemies, to serve in his

household, are mentioned. Various races of diminutive

stature, which have since been driven down to the upper

basin of the Congo, formerly extended further northward, and

dwelt between Darfûr and the marshes of Bahr-el-Ghazâl. As

to the Danga, cf. what has been said on p. 226 of the

present work.

[Illustration: 270.jpg THE ROCKS OF THE ISLAND OF SEHÊL, WITH SOME OF

THE VOTIVE INSCRIPTIONS]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken by Dévèria in 1864.

Partly by commerce, and partly by pillage, the lords of Elephantine

became rapidly wealthy, and began to play an important part among the

nobles of the Said: they were soon obliged to take serious precautions

against the cupidity which their wealth excited among the tribes of

Konusît. They entrenched themselves behind a wall of sun-dried brick,

some seven and a half miles long, of which the ruins are still an object

of wonder to the traveller. It was flanked towards the north by the

ramparts of Syene, and followed pretty regularly the lower course of the

valley to its abutment at the port of Mahatta opposite Philas: guards

distributed along it, kept an eye upon the mountain, and uttered a

call to arms, when the enemy came within sight. Behind this bulwark

the population felt quite at ease, and could work without fear at the

granite quarries on behalf of the Pharaoh, or pursue in security their

callings of fishermen and sailors. The inhabitants of the village of

Satît and of the neighbouring islands claimed from earliest times the

privilege of piloting the ships which went up and down the rapids,

and of keeping clear the passages which were used for navigation.

They worked under the protection of their goddesses Anûkît and Satît:

travellers of position were accustomed to sacrifice in the temple of the

goddesses at Sehêl, and to cut on the rock votive inscriptions in their

honour, in gratitude for the prosperous voyage accorded to them. We meet

their scrawls on every side, at the entrance and exit of the cataract,

and on the small islands where they moored their boats at nightfall

during the four or five days required for the passage; the bank of

the stream between Elephantine and Philæ is, as it were, an immense

visitors’ book, in which every generation of Ancient Egypt has in turn

inscribed itself. The markets and streets of the twin cities must have

presented at that time the same motley blending of types and costumes

which we might have found some years back in the bazaars of modern

Syene. Nubians, negroes of the Soudan, perhaps people from Southern

Arabia, jostled there with Libyans and Egyptians of the Delta. What the

princes did to make the sojourn of strangers agreeable, what temples

they consecrated to their god Khnûmû and his companions, in gratitude

for the good things he had bestowed upon them, we have no means of

knowing up to the present. Elephantine and Syene have preserved for us

nothing of their ancient edifices; but the tombs which they have left

tell us their history. They honeycomb in long lines the sides of the

steep hill which looks down upon the whole extent of the left bank of

the Nile opposite the narrow channel of the port of Aswan. A rude flight

of stone steps led from the bank to the level of the sepulchres. The

mummy having been carried slowly on the shoulders of the bearers to the

platform, was deposited for a moment at the entrance cf the chapel.

The decoration of the latter was rather meagre, and was distinguished

neither by the delicacy of its execution nor by the variety of the

subjects. More care was bestowed upon the exterior, and upon the walls

on each side of the door, which could be seen from the river or from the

streets of Elephantine. An inscription borders the recess, and boasts

to every visitor of the character of the occupant: the portrait of the

deceased, and sometimes that of his son, stand to the right and left:

the scenes devoted to the offerings come next, when an artist of

sufficient skill could be found to engrave them.

[Illustration: 275.jpg THE MOUNTAIN OF ASWAN AND THE TOMBS OF THE

PRINCES OF ELEPHANTINE]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger. The

entrance to the tombs are halfway up; the long trench,

cutting the side of the mountain obliquely, shelters the

still existing steps which led to the tombs of Pharaonic

times. On the sky-line may be noted the ruins of several

mosques and Coptic monasteries.

The expeditions of the lords of Elephantine, crowned as they frequently

were with success, soon attracted the attention of the Pharaohs:

Metesouphis deigned to receive in person at the cataract the homage of

the chiefs of Ûaûaît and Iritît and of the Màzaiû during the early days

of the fifth year of his reign.*

* The words used in the inscription, “The king himself went

and returned, ascending the mountain to see what there was

on the mountain,” prove that Metesouphis inspected the

quarries in person. Another inscription, discovered in 1893,

gives the year V. as the date of his journey to Elephantine,

and adds that he had negotiations with the heads of the four

great Nubian races.

The most celebrated caravan guide at this time was Hirkhûf, own cousin

to Mikhû, Prince of Elephantine. He had entered upon office under the

auspices of his father Iri, “the sole friend.” A king whose name he does

not mention, but who was perhaps Unas, more probably Papi I., despatched

them both to the country of the Amamît. The voyage occupied seven

months, and was extraordinarily successful: the sovereign, encouraged by

this unexpected good fortune, resolved to send out a fresh expedition.

Hirkhûf had the sole command of it; he made his way through Iritît,

explored the districts of Satir and Darros, and retraced his steps

after an absence of eight months. He brought back with him a quantity

of valuable commodities, “the like of which no one had ever previously

brought back.” He was not inclined to regain his country by the ordinary

route: he pushed boldly into the narrow wadys which furrow the territory

of the people of Iritît, and emerged upon the region of Situ, in the

neighbourhood of the cataract, by paths in which no official traveller

who had visited the Amamît had up to this time dared to travel. A third

expedition which started out a few years later brought him into regions

still less frequented. It set out by the Oasis route, proceeded towards

the Amamît, and found the country in an uproar. The sheikhs had convoked

their tribes, and were making preparations to attack the Timihû “towards

the west corner of the heaven,” in that region where stand the pillars

which support the iron firmament at the setting sun. The Timihû were

probably Berbers by race and language. Their tribes, coming from beyond

the Sahara, wandered across the frightful solitudes which bound the Nile

Valley on the west. The Egyptians had constantly to keep a sharp look

out for them, and to take precautions against their incursions; having

for a long time acted only on the defensive, they at length took the

offensive, and decided, not without religious misgivings, to pursue

them to their retreats. As the inhabitants of Mendes and of Busiris

had relegated the abode of their departed to the recesses of the

impenetrable marshes of the Delta, so those of Siût and Thinis had at

first believed that the souls of the deceased sought a home beyond the

sands: the good jackal Anubis acted as their guide, through the gorge

of the Cleft or through the gate of the Oven, to the green islands

scattered over the desert, where the blessed dwelt in peace at a

convenient distance from their native cities and their tombs. They

constituted, as we know, a singular folk, those _uiti_ whose members

dwelt in coffins, and who had put on the swaddling clothes of the dead;

the Egyptians called the Oasis which they had colonised, the land of the

shrouded, or of mummies, _ûît_, and the name continued to designate

it long after the advance of geographical knowledge had removed this

paradise further towards the west. The Oases fell one after the other

into the hands of frontier princes--that of Bahnesa coming under the

dominion of the lord of Oxyrrhynchus, that of Dakhel under the lords of

Thinis. The Nubians of Amamît had relations, probably, with the Timihû,

who owned the Oasis of Dush--a prolongation of that of Dakhel, on the

parallel of Elephantine. Hirkhûf accompanied the expedition to the

Amamît, succeeded in establishing peace among the rival tribes, and

persuaded them “to worship all the gods of Pharaoh:” he afterwards

reconciled the Iritît, Amamît, and Ûaûaît, who lived in a state of

perpetual hostility to each other, explored their valleys, and collected

from them such quantities of incense, ebony, ivory, and skins that three

hundred asses were required for their transport.

[Illustration: 278.jpg HIRKHÛF RECEIVING POSTHUMOUS HOMAGE AT THE DOOR

OF HIS TOMB FROM HIS SON]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph, taken in 1892, by

Alexander Gayet.

He was even fortunate enough to acquire a Danga from the land of ghosts,

resembling the one brought from Pûanît by Biûrdidi in the reign of Assi

eighty years before. Metesouphis, in the mean time, had died, and his

young brother and successor, Papi II., had already been a year upon the

throne. The new king, delighted to possess a dwarf who could perform

“the dance of the god,” addressed a rescript to Hirkhuf to express his

satisfaction; at the same time he sent him a special messenger, Uni, a

distant relative to Papi I.’s minister, who was to invite him to come

and give an account of his expedition. The boat in which the explorer

embarked to go down to Memphis, also brought the Danga, and from that

moment the latter became the most important personage of the party. For

him all the royal officials, lords, and sacerdotal colleges hastened to

prepare provisions and means of conveyance; his health was of greater

importance than that of his protector, and he was anxiously watched

lest he should escape. “When he is with thee in the boat, let there be

cautious persons about him, lest he should fall into the water; when he

rests during the night, let careful people sleep beside him, in case of

his escaping quickly in the night-time. For my Majesty desires to see

this dwarf more than all the treasures which are being imported from

the land of Pûanît.” Hirkhûf, on his return to Elephantine, engraved the

royal letter and the detailed account of his journeys to the lands of

the south, on the façade of his tomb.

These repeated expeditions produced in course of time more important

and permanent results than the capture of an accomplished dwarf, or the

acquisition of a fortune by an adventurous nobleman. The nations which

these merchants visited were accustomed to hear so much of Egypt, its

industries, and its military force, that they came at last to entertain

an admiration and respect for her, not unmingled with fear: they learned

to look upon her as a power superior to all others, and upon her king as

a god whom none might resist. They adopted Egyptian worship, yielded to

Egypt their homage, and sent the Egyptians presents: they were won over

by civilization before being subdued by arms. We are not acquainted

with the manner in which Nofirkiri-Papi II. turned these friendly

dispositions to good account in extending his empire to the south. The

expeditions did not all prove so successful as that of Hirkhûf, and one

at least of the princes of Elephantine, Papinakhîti, met with his death

in the course of one of them. Papi II. had sent him on a mission, after

several others, “to make profit out of the Ûaûaiû and the Iritît.” He

killed considerable numbers in this raid, and brought back great spoil,

which he shared with Pharaoh; “for he was at the head of many warriors,

chosen from among the bravest,” which was the cause of his success in

the enterprise with which his Holiness had deigned to entrust him. Once,

however, the king employed him in regions which were not so familiar to

him as those of Nubia, and fate was against him. He had received orders

to visit the Amu, the Asiatic tribes inhabiting the Sinaitic Peninsula,

and to repeat on a smaller scale in the south the expedition which Uni

had led against them in the north; he proceeded thither, and his sojourn

having come to an end, he chose to return by sea. To sail towards

Pûanît, to coast up as far as the “Head of Nekhabît,” to land there

and make straight for Elephantine by the shortest route, presented no

unusual difficulties, and doubtless more than one traveller or general

of those times had safely accomplished it; Papinakhîti failed miserably.

As he was engaged in constructing his vessel, the Hirû-Shâîtû fell

upon him and massacred him, as well as the detachment of troops who

accompanied him: the remaining soldiers brought home his body, which was

buried by the side of the other princes in the mountain opposite Syene.

Papi II. had ample leisure to avenge the death of his vassal and to

send fresh expeditions to Iritît, among the Amamît and even beyond, if,

indeed, as the author of the chronological Canon of Turin asserts,* he

really reigned for more than ninety years; but the monuments are almost

silent with regard to him, and give us no information about his possible

exploits in Nubia. An inscription of his second year proves that he

continued to work the Sinaitic mines, and that he protected them from

the Bedouin.

* The fragments of Manetho and the Canon of Eratosthenes

agree in assigning to him a reign of a hundred years--a fact

which seems to indicate that the missing unit in the Turin

list was nine: Papi II. would have thus died in the hundreth

year of his reign. A reign of a hundred years is impossible:

Mihtimsaûf I. having reigned fourteen years, it would be

necessary to assume that Papi II., son of Papi I., should

have lived a hundred and fourteen years at the least, even

on the supposition that he was a posthumous child. The

simplest solution is to suppose (1) that Papi II. lived a

hundred years, as Ramses II. did in later times, and that

the years of his life were confounded with the years of his

reign; or (2) that, being the brother of Mihtimsaûf I., he

was considered as associated with him on the throne, and

that the hundred years of his reign, including the fourteen

of the latter prince, were identified with the years of his

life. We may, moreover, believe that the chronologists, for.

lack of information on the VIth dynasty, have filled the

blanks in their annals by lengthening the reign of Papi II.,

which in any case must have been very long.

On the other hand, the number and beauty of the tombs in which mention

is made of him, bear witness to the fact that Egypt enjoyed continued

prosperity. Recent discoveries have done much to surround this king and

his immediate predecessors with an air of reality which is lacking in

many of the later Pharaohs.

[Illustration: 282.jpg HEAD OF THE MUMMY OF METESOUPHIS I]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey. The

mummy is now in the Gîzeh Museum (cf. Maspero, _Guide au

Musée de Boulaq_, pp. 347, 348, No. 5250).

Their pyramids, whose familiar designations we have deciphered in the

texts, have been uncovered at Saqqâra, and the inscriptions which they

contain, reveal to us the names of the sovereigns who reposed within.

Unas, Teti III., Papi I., Mete-souphis I., and Papi II. now have as

clearly defined a personality for us as Ramses II. or Seti I.; even the

mummy of Metesouphis has been discovered near his sarcophagus, and can

be seen under glass in the Gîzeh Museum. The body is thin and slender;

the head refined, and ornamented with the thick side-lock of boyhood;

the features can be easily distinguished, although the lower jaw has

disappeared and the pressure of the bandages has flattened the nose.

All the pyramids of the dynasty are of a uniform-type, the model being

furnished by that of Unas. The entrance is in the centre of the northern

façade, underneath the lowest course, and on the ground-level.

An inclined passage, obstructed by enormous stones, leads to an

antechamber, whose walls are partly bare, and partly covered with long

columns of hieroglyphs: a level passage, blocked towards the middle by

three granite barrier, ends in a nearly square chamber; on the left are

three low cells devoid of ornament, and on the right an oblong chamber

containing the sarcophagus.

[Illustration: 283.jpg PLAN OF THE PYRAMID OF UNAS]

From drawings by Maspero, _La Pyramide d’Ounas_, in the

_Recueil de Travaux_, vol. iv. p. 177.

These two principal rooms had high-pitched roofs. They were composed of

large slabs of limestone, the upper edges of which leaned one against

the other, while the lower edges rested on a continuous ledge which ran

round the chamber: the first row of slabs was surmounted by a second,

and that again by a third, and the three together effectively protected

the apartments of the dead against the thrust of the superincumbent

mass, or from the attacks of robbers. The wall-surfaces close to the

sarcophagus in the pyramid of Unas are decorated with many-coloured

ornaments and sculptured and painted doors representing the front of

a house: this was, in fact, the dwelling of the double, in which he

resided with the dead body.

[Illustration: 284.jpg THE SEPULCHRAL CHAMBER IN THE PYRAMID OF UNAS,

AND HIS SARCOPHAOUS]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph, taken in 1881, by Émil

Brugsch-Bey.

The inscriptions, like the pictures in the tombs, were meant to furnish

the sovereign with provisions, to dispel serpents and malevolent

divinities, to keep his soul from death, and to lead him into the bark

of the sun or into the Paradise of Osiris. They constitute a portion of

a vast book, whose chapters are found scattered over the monuments of

subsequent periods. They are the means of restoring to us, not only the

religion but the most ancient language of Egypt: the majority of the

formulas contained in them were drawn up in the time of the earliest

human kings, perhaps even before Menés.

The history of the VIth dynasty loses itself in legend and fable.

Two more kings are supposed to have succeeded Papi Nofirkeri, Mirnirî

Mihtimsaût (Metesouphis II.) and Nîtaûqrît (Nitokris). Metesouphis II.

was killed, so runs the tale, in a riot, a year after his accession.*

* Manetho does not mention this fact, but the legend given

by Herodotus says that Nitokris wished to avenge the king,

her brother and predecessor, who was killed in a revolution;

and it follows from the narrative of the facts that this

anonymous brother was the Metesouphis of Manetho. The Turin

Papyrus assigns a reign of a year and a month to Mihtimsaul-

Metesouphis II.

His sister, Nitokris, the “rosy-cheeked,” to whom, as was the custom, he

was married, succeeded him and avenged his death. She built an immense

subterranean hall; under pretext of inaugurating its completion, but in

reality with a totally different aim, she then invited to a great feast,

and received in this hall, a considerable number of Egyptians from among

those whom she knew to have been instigators of the crime. During the

entertainment, she diverted the waters of the Nile into the hall by means

of a canal which she had kept concealed. This is what is related of her.

They add, that “after this, the queen, of her own will, threw herself

into a great chamber filled with ashes, in order to escape punishment.”

She completed the pyramid of Mykerinos, by adding to it that costly

casing of Syenite which excited the admiration of travellers; she

reposed in a sarcophagus of blue basalt, in the very centre of the

monument, above the secret chamber where the pious Pharaoh had hidden

his mummy.*

* The legend which ascribes the building of the third

pyramid to a woman has been preserved by Herodotus: E. de

Bunsen, comparing it with the observations of Vyse, was

inclined to attribute to Nitokris the enlarging of the

monument, which appears to me to have been the work of

Mykerinos himself.

The Greeks, who had heard from their dragomans the story of the

“Rosy-cheeked Beauty,” metamorphosed the princess into a courtesan,

and for the name of Nitokris, substituted the more harmonious one of

Rhodopis, which was the exact translation of the characteristic epithet

of the Egyptian queen. One day while she was bathing in the river, an

eagle stole one of her gilded sandals, carried it off in the

direction of Memphis, and let it drop in the lap of the king, who was

administering justice in the open air. The king, astonished at the

singular occurrence, and at the beauty of the tiny shoe, caused a search

to be made throughout the country for the woman to whom it belonged:

Rhodopis thus became Queen of Egypt, and could build herself a pyramid.

Even Christianity and the Arab conquest did not entirely efface the

remembrance of the courtesan-princess.

[Illustration: 286.jpg THE ENTRANCE TO THE PYRAMID OF UNAS AT SAQQÀRA]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.

It is said that the spirit of the Southern Pyramid never appears abroad,

except in the form of a naked woman, who is very beautiful, but whose

manner of acting is such, that when she desires to make people fall

in love with her, and lose their wits, she smiles upon them, and

immediately they draw near to her, and she attracts them towards her,

and makes them infatuated with love; so that they at once lose their

wits, and wander aimlessly about the country. Many have seen her moving

round the pyramid about midday and towards sunset. It is Nitokris still

haunting the monument of her shame and her magnificence.*

* The lists of the VIth dynasty, with the approximate dates

of the kings, are as follows:--

[Illustration: 289.jpg TABLE OF THE DATES OF THE KINGS VITH DYNASTY]

After her, even tradition is silent, and the history of Egypt remains

a mere blank for several centuries. Manetho admits the existence of

two other Memphite dynasties, of which the first contains seventy kings

during as many days. Akhthoës, the most cruel of tyrants, followed next,

and oppressed his subjects for a long period: he was at last the victim

of raving madness, and met with his death from the jaws of a crocodile.

It is related that he was of Heracleopolite extraction, and the

two dynasties which succeeded him, the IXth and the Xth, were also

Heracleopolitan. The table of Abydos is incomplete, and the Turin

Papyrus, in the absence of other documents, too mutilated to furnish

us with any exact information; the contemporaries of the Ptolemies were

almost entirely ignorant of what took place between the end of the VIth

and the beginning of the XIIth dynasty; and Egyptologists, not finding

any monuments which they could attribute to this period, thereupon

concluded that Egypt had passed through some formidable crisis out of

which she with difficulty extricated herself.*

* Marsham (_Canon Chronicus_, edition, of Leipzig, 1676, p.

29) had already declared in the seventeenth century that he

felt no hesitation in considering the Heracleopolites as

identical with the successors of Menes-Misraîm, who reigned

over the Mestraea, that is, over the Delta only. The idea of

an Asiatic invasion, analogous to that of the Hyksos, which

was put forward by Mariette, and accepted by Fr. Lenormant,

has found its chief supporters in Germany. Bunsen made of

the Heracleopolitan two subordinate dynasties reigning

simultaneously in Lower Egypt, and originating at

Heracleopolis in the Delta: they were supposed to have been

contemporaries of the last Memphite and first Theban

dynasties. Lepsius accepted and recognized in the

Heracleopolitans of the Delta the predecessors of the

Hyksos, an idea defended by Ebers, and developed by Krall in

his identification of the unknown invaders with the Hirû-

Shâîtû: it has been adopted by Ed. Meyer, and by Petrie.

The so-called Heracleopolites of Manetho were assumed to have been the

chiefs of a barbaric people of Asiatic origin, those same “Lords of the

Sands” so roughly handled by Uni, but who are considered to have invaded

the Delta soon after, settled themselves in Heracleopolis Parva as their

capital, and from thence held sway over the whole valley. They appeared

to have destroyed much and built nothing; the state of barbarism into

which they sank, and to which they reduced the vanquished, explaining

the absence of any monuments to mark their occupation. This hypothesis,

however, is unsupported by any direct proof: even the dearth of

monuments which has been cited as an argument in favour of the

theory, is no longer a fact. The sequence of reigns and details of the

revolutions are wanting; but many of the kings and certain facts in

their history are known, and we are able to catch a glimpse of the

general course of events. The VIIth and VIIIth dynasties are Memphite,

and the names of the kings themselves would be evidence in favour of

their genuineness, even if we had not the direct testimony of Manetho:

the one recurring most frequently is that of Nofirkerî, the prenomen of

Papi II., and a third Papi figures in them, who calls himself Papi-Sonbû

to distinguish himself from his namesakes. The little recorded of them

in Ptolemaic times, even the legend of the seventy Pharaohs reigning

seventy days, betrays a troublous period and a rapid change of rulers.*

* The explanation of Prof. Lauth, according to which Manetho

is supposed to have made an independent dynasty of the five

Memphite priests who filled the interregnum of seventy days

during the embalming of Nitokris, is certainly very

ingenious, but that is all that can be said for it. The

legendary source from which Manetho took his information

distinctly recorded seventy successive kings, who reigned in

all seventy days, a king a day.

We know as a fact that the successors of Nitokris, in the Royal Turin

Papyrus, scarcely did more than appear upon the throne. Nofirkerî

reigned a year, a month, and a day; Nofîrûs, four years, two months,

and a day; Abu, two years, one month, and a day. Each of them hoped,

no doubt, to enjoy the royal power for a longer period than his

predecessors, and, like the Ati of the VIth dynasty, ordered a pyramid

to be designed for him without delay: not one of them had time to

complete the building, nor even to carry it sufficiently far to leave

any trace behind. As none of them had any tomb to hand his name down to

posterity, the remembrance of them perished with their contemporaries.

By dint of such frequent changes in the succession, the royal authority

became enfeebled, and its weakness favoured the growing influence of the

feudal families and encouraged their ambition. The descendants of those

great lords, who under Papi I. and II. made such magnificent tombs for

themselves, were only nominally subject to the supremacy of the reigning

sovereign; many of them were, indeed, grandchildren of princesses of the

blood, and possessed, or imagined that they possessed, as good a right

to the crown as the family on the throne. Memphis declined, became

impoverished, and dwindled in population. Its inhabitants ceased to

build those immense stone mastabas in which they had proudly displayed

their wealth, and erected them merely of brick, in which the decoration

was almost entirely confined to one narrow niche near the sarcophagus.

Soon the mastaba itself was given up, and the necropolis of the city was

reduced to the meagre proportions of a small provincial cemetery. The

centre of that government, which had weighed so long and so heavily upon

Egypt, was removed to the south, and fixed itself at Heracleopolis the

Great.

Volume II., Part .

_THE FIRST THEBAN EMPIRE_

_THE TWO HERACLEOPOLITAN DYNASTIES AND THE TWELFTH DYNASTY--THE CONQUEST

OF ETHIOPIA, AND THE MAKING OF GREATER EGYPT BY THE THEBAN KINGS._

_The principality of Heracleopolis: Achthoës-Khîti and the

Heracleopolitan dynasties--Supremacy of the great barons: the feudal

fortresses, El-Kab and Abydos; ceaseless warfare, the army--Origin of

the Theban principality: the principality of Sidt, and the struggles of

its lords against the princes of Thebes--The kings of the XIth dynasty

and their buildings: the brick pyramids of Abydos and Thebes, and the

rude character of early Theban art._

_The XIIth dynasty: Amenemdidît I., his accession, his wars; he shares

his throne with his son Usirtasen I., and the practice of a coregnancy

prevails among his immediate successors--The relations of Egypt

with Asia: the Amû in Egypt and the Egyptians among the Bedouin; the

Adventures of Sinûhît--The mining settlements in the Sinaitic peninsula:

Sarbût-el-Khddim and its chapel to Hâthor._

_Egyptian policy in the Nile Valley--Nubia becomes part of Egypt: works

of the Pharaohs, the gold-mines and citadel of Kubân--Defensive

measures at the second cataract: the two fortresses and the Nilometer

of Semnêh--The vile Kush and its inhabitants: the wars against Kûsh

and their consequences; the gold-mines--Expeditions to Pûanît, and

navigation along the coasts of the Bed Sea: the Story of the Shipwrecked

Sailor._

_Public works and new buildings--The restoration of the temples of the

Delta: Tanis and the sphinxes of Amenemhâît III., Bubastis, Heliopolis,

and the temple of Usirtasen I.--The increasing importance of Thebes

and Abydos--Heracleopolis and the Fayûm: the monuments of Begig and of

Biahmil, the fields and water-system of the Fayûm; preference shown by

the Pharaohs for this province--The royal pyramids of Dashdr, Lisht,

Ulahûn, and Haiodra._

_The part played by the feudal lords under the XIIth dynasty--History of

the princes of Mondît-Khûfûi: Khnûmhotpil, Khîti, Amoni-Amenemhâît--The

lords of Thébes, and the accession of the XIIIth dynasty: the Sovkhotpûs

and the Nfirhotpûs--Completion of the conquest of Nubia; the XIVth

dynasty_.

[Illustration: 295.jpg PAGE IMAGE]