The History of Man is the record of a hungry creature in search of food.
Wherever food was plentiful and easily gathered, thither man travelled
to make his home.
The fame of the Nile valley must have spread at an early date. From far
and wide, wild people flocked to the banks of the river. Surrounded on
all sides by desert or sea, it was not easy to reach these fertile
fields and only the hardiest men and women survived.
We do not know who they were. Some came from the interior of Africa and
had woolly hair and thick lips.
Others, with a yellowish skin, came from the desert of Arabia and the
broad rivers of western Asia.
They fought each other for the possession of this wonderful land.
They built villages which their neighbors destroyed and they rebuilt
them with the bricks they had taken from other neighbors whom they in
turn had vanquished.
Gradually a new race developed. They called themselves "remi," which
means simply "the Men." There was a touch of pride in this name and they
used it in the same sense that we refer to America as "God's
own country."
Part of the year, during the annual flood of the Nile, they lived on
small islands within a country which itself was cut off from the rest of
the world by the sea and the desert. No wonder that these people were
what we call "insular," and had the habits of villagers who rarely come
in contact with their neighbors.
They liked their own ways best. They thought their own habits and
customs just a trifle better than those of anybody else. In the same
way, their own gods were considered more powerful than the gods of other
nations. They did not exactly despise foreigners, but they felt a mild
pity for them and if possible they kept them outside of the Egyptian
domains, lest their own people be corrupted by "foreign notions."
They were kind-hearted and rarely did anything that was cruel. They were
patient and in business dealings they were rather indifferent Life came
as an easy gift and they never became stingy and mean like northern
people who have to struggle for mere existence.
When the sun arose above the blood-red horizon of the distant desert,
they went forth to till their fields. When the last rays of light had
disappeared beyond the mountain ridges, they went to bed.
They worked hard, they plodded and they bore whatever happened with
stolid unconcern and profound patience.
They believed that this life was but a short preface to a new existence
which began the moment Death had entered the house. Until at last, the
life of the future came to be regarded as more important than the life
of the present and the people of Egypt turned their teeming land into
one vast shrine for the worship of the dead.
[Illustration: THE LAND OF THE DEAD.]
And as most of the papyrus-rolls of the ancient valley tell stories of a
religious nature we know with great accuracy just what gods the
Egyptians revered and how they tried to assure all possible happiness
and comfort to those who had entered upon the eternal sleep. In the
beginning each little village had possessed a god of its own.
Often this god was supposed to reside in a queerly shaped stone or in
the branch of a particularly large tree. It was well to be good friends
with him for he could do great harm and destroy the harvest and prolong
the period of drought until the people and the cattle had all died of
thirst. Therefore the villages made him presents--offered him things to
eat or a bunch of flowers.
When the Egyptians went forth to fight their enemies the god must needs
be taken along, until he became a sort of battle flag around which the
people rallied in time of danger.
But when the country grew older and better roads had been built and the
Egyptians had begun to travel, the old "fetishes," as such chunks of
stone and wood were called, lost their importance and were thrown away
or were left in a neglected corner or were used as doorsteps or chairs.
Their place was taken by new gods who were more powerful than the old
ones had been and who represented those forces of nature which
influenced the lives of the Egyptians of the entire valley.
First among these was the Sun which makes all things grow.
Next came the river Nile which tempered the heat of the day and brought
rich deposits of clay to refresh the fields and make them fertile.
Then there was the kindly Moon which at night rowed her little boat
across the arch of heaven and there was Thunder and there was Lightning
and there were any number of things which could make life happy or
miserable according to their pleasure and desire.
Ancient man, entirely at the mercy of these forces of nature, could not
get rid of them as easily as we do when we plant lightning rods upon our
houses or build reservoirs which keep us alive during the summer months
when there is no rain.
On the contrary they formed an intimate part of his daily life--they
accompanied him from the moment he was put into his cradle until the day
that his body was prepared for eternal rest.
Neither could he imagine that such vast and powerful phenomena as a bolt
of lightning or the flood of a river were mere impersonal things. Some
one--somewhere--must be their master and must direct them as the
engineer directs his engine or a captain steers his ship.
A God-in-Chief was therefore created, like the commanding general of an
army.
A number of lower officers were placed at his disposal.
Within their own territory each one could act independently.
In grave matters, however, which affected the happiness of all the
people, they must take orders from their master.
The Supreme Divine Ruler of the land of Egypt was called Osiris, and all
the little Egyptian children knew the story of his wonderful life.
Once upon a time, in the valley of the Nile, there lived a king called
Osiris.
He was a good man who taught his subjects how to till their fields and
who gave his country just laws. But he had a bad brother whose name
was Seth.
Now Seth envied Osiris because he was so virtuous and one day he invited
him to dinner and afterwards he said that he would like to show him
something. Curious Osiris asked what it was and Seth said that it was a
funnily shaped coffin which fitted one like a suit of clothes. Osiris
said that he would like to try it. So he lay down in the coffin but no
sooner was he inside when bang!--Seth shut the lid. Then he called for
his servants and ordered them to throw the coffin into the Nile.
Soon the news of his terrible deed spread throughout the land. Isis, the
wife of Osiris, who had loved her husband very dearly, went at once to
the banks of the Nile, and after a short while the waves threw the
coffin upon the shore. Then she went forth to tell her son Horus, who
ruled in another land, but no sooner had she left than Seth, the wicked
brother, broke into the palace and cut the body of Osiris into
fourteen pieces.
[Illustration: A PYRAMID.]
When Isis returned, she discovered what Seth had done. She took the
fourteen pieces of the dead body and sewed them together and then Osiris
came back to life and reigned for ever and ever as king of the lower
world to which the souls of men must travel after they have left
the body.
As for Seth, the Evil One, he tried to escape, but Horus, the son of
Osiris and Isis, who had been warned by his mother, caught him and
slew him.
This story of a faithful wife and a wicked brother and a dutiful son who
avenged his father and the final victory of virtue over wickedness
formed the basis of the religious life of the people of Egypt.
Osiris was regarded as the god of all living things which seemingly die
in the winter and yet return to renewed existence the next spring. As
ruler of the Life Hereafter, he was the final judge of the acts of men,
and woe unto him who had been cruel and unjust and had oppressed
the weak.
As for the world of the departed souls, it was situated beyond the high
mountains of the west (which was also the home of the young Nile) and
when an Egyptian wanted to say that someone had died, he said that he
"had gone west."
Isis shared the honors and the duties of Osiris with him. Their son
Horus, who was worshipped as the god of the Sun (hence the word
"horizon," the place where the sun sets) became the first of a new line
of Egyptian kings and all the Pharaohs of Egypt had Horus as their
middle name.
Of course, each little city and every small village continued to worship
a few divinities of their own. But generally speaking, all the people
recognized the sublime power of Osiris and tried to gain his favor.
This was no easy task, and led to many strange customs. In the first
place, the Egyptians came to believe that no soul could enter into the
realm of Osiris without the possession of the body which had been its
place of residence in this world.
[Illustration: HOW THE PYRAMIDS GREW.]
Whatever happened, the body must be preserved after death, and it must
be given a permanent and suitable home. Therefore as soon as a man had
died, his corpse was embalmed. This was a difficult and complicated
operation which was performed by an official who was half doctor and
half priest, with the help of an assistant whose duty it was to make the
incision through which the chest could be filled with cedar-tree pitch
and myrrh and cassia. This assistant belonged to a special class of
people who were counted among the most despised of men. The Egyptians
thought it a terrible thing to commit acts of violence upon a human
being, whether dead or living, and only the lowest of the low could be
hired to perform this unpopular task.
Afterwards the priest took the body again and for a period of ten weeks
he allowed it to be soaked in a solution of natron which was brought for
this purpose from the distant desert of Libya. Then the body had become
a "mummy" because it was filled with "Mumiai" or pitch. It was wrapped
in yards and yards of specially prepared linen and it was placed in a
beautifully decorated wooden coffin, ready to be removed to its final
home in the western desert.
The grave itself was a little stone room in the sand of the desert or a
cave in a hill-side.
After the coffin had been placed in the center the little room was well
supplied with cooking utensils and weapons and statues (of clay or wood)
representing bakers and butchers who were expected to wait upon their
dead master in case he needed anything. Flutes and fiddles were added to
give the occupant of the grave a chance to while away the long hours
which he must spend in this "house of eternity."
Then the roof was covered with sand and the dead Egyptian was left to
the peaceful rest of eternal sleep.
But the desert is full of wild creatures, hyenas and wolves, and they
dug their way through the wooden roof and the sand and ate up the mummy.
This was a terrible thing, for then the soul was doomed to wander
forever and suffer agonies of a man without a home. To assure the corpse
all possible safety a low wall of brick was built around the grave and
the open space was filled with sand and gravel. In this way a low
artificial hill was made which protected the mummy against wild animals
and robbers.
Then one day, an Egyptian who had just buried his Mother, of whom he had
been particularly fond, decided to give her a monument that should
surpass anything that had ever been built in the valley of the Nile.
He gathered his serfs and made them build an artificial mountain that
could be seen for miles around. The sides of this hill he covered with a
layer of bricks that the sand might not be blown away.
People liked the novelty of the idea.
Soon they were trying to outdo each other and the graves rose twenty and
thirty and forty feet above the ground.
At last a rich nobleman ordered a burial chamber made of solid stone.
On top of the actual grave where the mummy rested, he constructed a pile
of bricks which rose several hundred feet into the air. A small
passage-way gave entrance to the vault and when this passage was closed
with a heavy slab of granite the mummy was safe from all intrusion.
The King of course could not allow one of his subjects to outdo him in
such a matter. He was the most powerful man of all Egypt who lived in
the biggest house and therefore he was entitled to the best grave.
What others had done in brick he could do with the help of more costly
materials.
Pharaoh sent his officers far and wide to gather workmen. He constructed
roads. He built barracks in which the workmen could live and sleep (you
may see those barracks this very day). Then he set to work and made
himself a grave which was to endure for all time.