_TOMBS_.
The Egyptians regarded man as composed of various different entities, each
having its separate life and functions. First, there was the body; then the
_Ka_ or double, which was a less solid duplicate of the corporeal form--a
coloured but ethereal projection of the individual, reproducing him feature
for feature. The double of a child was as a child; the double of a woman
was as a woman; the double of a man was as a man. After the double (_Ka_)
came the Soul (_Bi_ or _Ba_), which was popularly represented as a human-
headed bird; after the Soul came the "_Khû_," or "the Luminous," a spark
from the divine fire. None of these elements were in their own natures
imperishable. Left to themselves, they would hasten to dissolution, and the
man would thus die a second time; that is to say, he would be annihilated.
The piety of the survivors found means, however, to avert this catastrophe.
By the process of embalmment, they could for ages suspend the decomposition
of the body; while by means of prayer and offerings, they saved the Double,
the Soul, and the "Luminous" from the second death, and secured to them all
that was necessary for the prolongation of their existence. The Double
never left the place where the mummy reposed: but the Soul and the "_Khû_"
went forth to follow the gods. They, however, kept perpetually returning,
like travellers who come home after an absence. The tomb was therefore a
dwelling-house, the "Eternal House" of the dead, compared with which the
houses of the living were but wayside inns; and these Eternal Houses were
built after a plan which exactly corresponded to the Egyptian idea of the
after-life. The Eternal House must always include the private rooms of the
Soul, which were closed on the day of burial, and which no living being
could enter without being guilty of sacrilege. It must also contain the
reception rooms of the Double, where priests and friends brought their
wishes or their offerings; the two being connected by a passage of more or
less length. The arrangement of these three parts[26] varied according to
the period, the place, the nature of the ground, and the caprice of each
person. The rooms accessible to the living were frequently built above
ground, and formed a separate edifice. Sometimes they were excavated in the
mountain side, as well as the tomb itself. Sometimes, again, the vault
where the mummy lay hidden, and the passages leading to that vault, were in
one place, while the place of prayer and offering stood far off in the
plain. But whatever variety there may be found as to detail and
arrangement, the principle is always the same. The tomb is a dwelling, and
it is constructed in such wise as may best promote the well-being, and
ensure the preservation, of the dead.
[26] These three parts are (l) the chapel, (2) the passage, or shaft, (3)
the sepulchral vault. If the latter was below the level of the chapel,
as in the time of the Ancient Empire, the communication was by a
sloping or vertical shaft.--A.B.E.
I.--Mastabas.
The most ancient monumental tombs are found in the necropolis of Memphis,
between Abû Roash and Dahshûr, and in that of Medûm;[27] they belong to the
mastaba type (Note 12). The mastaba (fig. 113) is a quadrangular building,
which from a distance might be taken for a truncated pyramid. Many mastabas
are from 30 to 40-feet in height, 150 feet in length, and 80 feet in width;
while others do not exceed 10 feet in height or 15 feet in length. The
faces are symmetrically inclined and generally smooth, though sometimes the
courses retreat like steps. The materials employed are stone or brick. The
stone is limestone, cut in blocks about two and a half feet long, two feet
high, and twenty inches thick. Three sorts of limestone were employed: for
the best tombs, the fine white limestone of Tûrah, or the compact siliceous
limestone of Sakkarah; for ordinary tombs, the marly limestone of the
Libyan hills. This last, impregnated with salt and veined with crystalline
gypsum, is a friable material, and unsuited for ornamentation. The bricks
are of two kinds, both being merely sun-dried. The most ancient kind, which
ceased to be used about the time of the Sixth Dynasty, is small (8.7 X 4.3
X 5.5 inches), yellowish, and made of nothing but sand, mixed with a little
clay and grit.
[Illustration: Fig. 113.--A Mastaba.]
The later kind is of mud mixed with straw, black, compact, carefully
moulded, and of a fair size (15.0 X 7.1 X 5.5 inches). The style of the
internal construction differs according to the material employed by the
architect. In nine cases out of ten, the stone mastabas are but outwardly
regular in construction. The core is of roughly quarried rubble, mixed with
rubbish and limestone fragments hastily bedded in layers of mud, or piled
up without any kind of mortar. The brick mastabas are nearly always of
homogeneous construction. The facing bricks are carefully mortared, and the
joints inside are filled up with sand. That the mastaba should be
canonically oriented, the four faces set to the four cardinal points, and
the longer axis laid from north and south, was indispensable; but,
practically, the masons took no special care about finding the true north,
and the orientation of these structures is seldom exact. At Gizeh, the
mastabas are distributed according to a symmetrical plan, and ranged in
regular streets. At Sakkarah, at Abûsîr, and at Dahshûr, they are scattered
irregularly over the surface of the plateau, crowded in some places, and
wide apart in others. The Mussulman cemetery at Siût perpetuates the like
arrangement, and enables us to this day to realise the aspect of the
Memphite necropolis towards the close of the ancient empire.
[Illustration: Fig. 114.--False door in mastaba, from Mariette's _Les
Mastabahs_.]
[Illustration: Fig. 115.--Plan of forecourt of mastaba of Kaâpir.]
A flat, unpaved platform, formed by the top course of the core (Note 13),
covers the top of the mass of the mastaba. This platform is scattered over
with terracotta vases, nearly buried in the loose rubbish. These lie
thickly over the hollow interior, but are more sparsely deposited
elsewhere. The walls are bare. The doors face to the eastward side. They
occasionally face towards the north or south side, but never towards the
west. In theory, there should be two doors, one for the dead, the other for
the living. In practice, the entrance for the dead was a mere niche, high
and narrow, cut in the eastward face, near the north-east corner. At the
back of this niche are marked vertical lines, framing in a closed space.
Even this imitation of a door was sometimes omitted, and the soul was left
to manage as best it might. The door of the living was made more or less
important, according to the greater or less development of the chamber to
which it led. The chamber and door are in some cases represented by only a
shallow recess decorated with a stela and a table of offerings (fig. 114).
This is sometimes protected by a wall which projects from the façade, thus
forming a kind of forecourt open to the north. The forecourt is square in
the tomb of Kaâpir (fig. 114), and irregular in that of Neferhotep at
Sakkarah (fig. 116). When the plan includes one or more chambers, the door
sometimes opens in the middle of a small architectural façade (fig. 117),
or under a little portico supported by two square pillars without either
base or abacus (fig. 118). The doorway is very simple, the two jambs being
ornamented with bas-reliefs representing the deceased, and surmounted by a
cylindrical drum engraved with his name and titles. In the tomb of Pohûnika
at Sakkarah the jambs are two pilasters, each crowned with two lotus
flowers; but this example is, so far, unique.
[Illustration: Fig. 116.--Plan of forecourt, mastaba of Neferhotep.]
[Illustration: Fig. 117.--Door in façade of mastaba.]
[Illustration: Fig. 118.--Portico and door, from Mariette's _Les
Mastabahs_.]
[Illustration: Fig. 119.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of Khabiûsokari, Fourth
Dynasty.]
[Illustration: Fig. 120.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of Ti, Fifth Dynasty.]
[Illustration: Fig. 121.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of Shepsesptah, Fourth
Dynasty.]
[Illustration: Fig. 122.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of Affi, Sakkarah,
Fourth Dynasty.]
The chapel was usually small, and lost in the mass of the building (fig.
119), but no precise rule determined its size. In the tomb of Ti there is
first a portico (A), then a square ante-chamber with pillars (B), then a
passage (C) with a small room (D) on the right, leading to the last chamber
(E) (fig. 120). There was room enough in this tomb for many persons, and,
in point of fact, the wife of Ti reposed by the side of her husband. When
the monument belonged to only one person, the structure was less
complicated. A short and narrow passage led to an oblong chamber upon which
it opened at right angles, so that the place is in shape of a T (fig. 121).
The end wall is generally smooth; but sometimes it is recessed just
opposite the entrance passage, and then the plan forms a cross, of which
the head is longer or shorter (fig. 122). This was the ordinary
arrangement, but the architect was free to reject it, if he so pleased.
Here, a chapel consists of two parallel lobbies connected by a cross
passage (fig. 123). Elsewhere, the chamber opens from a corner of the
passage (fig. 124). Again, in the tomb of Ptahhotep, the site was hemmed in
by older buildings, and was not large enough. The builders therefore joined
the new mastaba to the older one in such wise as to give them one entrance
in common, and thus the chapel of the one is enlarged by absorbing the
whole of the space occupied by the other (fig. 125).
[Illustration: Fig. 123.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of Thenti II., Fourth
Dynasty, Sakkarah.]
[Illustration: Fig. 124.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of the _Red Scribe_,
Fourth Dynasty, Sakkarah.]
The chapel was the reception room of the Double. It was there that the
relations, friends, and priests celebrated the funerary sacrifices on the
days prescribed by law; that is to say, "at the feasts of the commencement
of the seasons; at the feast of Thoth on the first day of the year; at the
feast of Ûaga; at the great feast of Sothis; on the day of the procession
of the god Min; at the feast of shew-bread; at the feasts of the months and
the half months, and the days of the week." Offerings were placed in the
principal room, at the foot of the west wall, at the exact spot leading to
the entrance of the "eternal home" of the dead. Unlike the _Kiblah_ of the
mosques, or Mussulman oratories, this point is not always oriented towards
the same quarter of the compass, though often found to the west. In the
earliest times it was indicated by a real door, low and narrow, framed and
decorated like the door of an ordinary house, but not pierced through. An
inscription graven upon the lintel in large readable characters,
commemorated the name and rank of the owner. His portrait, either sitting
or standing, was carved upon the jambs; and a scene, sculptured or painted
on the space above the door, represented him seated before a small round
table, stretching out his hand towards the repast placed upon it. A flat
slab, or offering table, built into the floor between the two uprights of
the doorway, received the votive meats and drinks.
[Illustration: Fig. 125.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of Ptahhotep, Fifth
Dynasty, Sakkarah.]
[Illustration: Fig. 126.--Stela in tomb of Merrûka (Fifth Dynasty, Abûsir):
a false doorway containing the statue of the deceased.]
The general appearance of the recess is that of a somewhat narrow doorway.
As a rule it was empty, but occasionally it contained a portrait statue of
the dead standing with one foot forward as though about to cross the gloomy
threshold of his tomb, descend the few steps before him, advance into his
reception room or chapel, and pass out into the sunlight (fig. 126). As a
matter of fact, the stela symbolised the door leading to the private
apartments of the dead, a door closed and sealed to the living. It was
inscribed on door-posts and lintels, and its inscription was no mere
epitaph for the information of future generations; all the details which it
gave as to the name, rank, functions, and family of the deceased were
intended to secure the continuity of his individuality and civil status in
the life beyond death. A further and essential object of its inscriptions
was to provide him with food and drink by means of prayers or magic
formulae constraining one of the gods of the dead--Osiris or Anubis--to act
as intermediary between him and his survivors and to set apart for his use
some portion of the provisions offered for his sake in sacrifice to one or
other of these deities. By this agency the _Kas_ or Doubles of these
provisions were supposed to be sent on into the next world to gladden and
satisfy the human _Ka_ indicated to the divine intermediary. Offerings of
real provisions were not indispensable to this end; any chance visitor in
times to come who should simply repeat the formula of the stela aloud would
thereby secure the immediate enjoyment of all the good things enumerated to
the unknown dead whom he evoked.
[Illustration: Fig. 127.--Wall scene of funerary offerings, from mastaba of
Ptahhotep, Fifth Dynasty.]
[Illustration: Fig. 128.--Wall-painting, funeral voyage; mastaba of Urkhuû,
Gizeh, Fourth Dynasty.]
[Illustration: Fig. 129.--Wall-scene from mastaba of Ptahhotep, Fifth
Dynasty.]
The living having taken their departure, the Double was supposed to come
out of his house and feed. In principle, this ceremony was bound to be
renewed year by year, till the end of time; but the Egyptians ere long
discovered that this could not be. After two or three generations, the dead
of former days were neglected for the benefit of those more recently
departed. Even when a pious foundation was established, with a revenue
payable for the expenses of the funerary repasts and of the priests whose
duty it was to prepare them, the evil hour of oblivion was put off for only
a little longer. Sooner or later, there came a time when the Double was
reduced to seek his food among the town refuse, and amid the ignoble and
corrupt filth which lay rejected on the ground. Then, in order that the
offerings consecrated on the day of burial might for ever preserve their
virtues, the survivors conceived the idea of drawing and describing them on
the walls of the chapel (fig. 127). The painted or sculptured reproduction
of persons and things ensured the reality of those persons and things for
the benefit of the one on whose account they were executed. Thus the Double
saw himself depicted upon the walls in the act of eating and drinking, and
he ate and drank. This notion once accepted, the theologians and artists
carried it out to the fullest extent. Not content with offering mere
pictured provisions, they added thereto the semblance of the domains which
produced them, together with the counterfeit presentment of the herds,
workmen, and slaves belonging to the same. Was a supply of meat required to
last for eternity? It was enough, no doubt, to represent the several parts
of an ox or a gazelle--the shoulder, the leg, the ribs, the breast, the
heart, the liver, the head, properly prepared for the spit; but it was
equally easy to retrace the whole history of the animal--its birth, its
life in the pasture-lands, its slaughter, the cutting up of the carcass,
and the presentation of the joints. So also as regarded the cakes and
bread-offerings, there was no reason why the whole process of tillage,
harvesting, corn-threshing, storage, and dough-kneading should not be
rehearsed. Clothing, ornaments, and furniture served in like manner as a
pretext for the introduction of spinners, weavers, goldsmiths, and cabinet-
makers. The master is of superhuman proportions, and towers above his
people and his cattle. Some prophetic tableaux show him in his funeral
bark, speeding before the wind with all sail set, having started on his way
to the next world the very day that he takes possession of his new abode
(fig. 128). Elsewhere, we see him as actively superintending his imaginary
vassals as formerly he superintended his vassals of flesh and blood (fig.
129). Varied and irregular as they may appear, these scenes are not placed
at random upon the walls. They all converge towards that semblance of a
door which was supposed to communicate with the interior of the tomb. Those
nearest to the door represent the sacrifice and the offering; the earlier
stages of preparation and preliminary work being depicted in retrograde
order as that door is left farther and farther behind. At the door itself,
the figure of the master seems to await his visitors and bid them welcome.
[Illustration: Fig. 130. Plan of serdab in mastaba at Gizeh, Fourth
Dynasty.]
The details are of infinite variety. The inscriptions run to a less or
greater length according to the caprice of the scribe; the false door loses
its architectural character, and is frequently replaced by a mere stela
engraved with the name and rank of the master; yet, whether large or small,
whether richly decorated or not decorated at all, the chapel is always the
dining-room--or, rather, the larder--to which the dead man has access when
he feels hungry.
[Illustration: Fig. 131.--Plan of serdab and chapel in mastaba of Rahotep
at Sakkarah, Fourth Dynasty.]
[Illustration: Fig. 132.--Plan of serdab and chapel in mastaba of Thenti I.
at Sakkarah, Fourth Dynasty.]
On the other side of the wall was constructed a hiding-place in the form of
either a high and narrow cell, or a passage without outlet. To this hiding-
place archaeologists have given the Arab name of "_serdab_." Most mastabas
contain but one; others contain three or four (fig. 130). These _serdabs_
communicated neither with each other nor with the chapel; and are, as it
were, buried in the masonry (fig. 131). If connected at all with the outer
world, it is by means of an aperture in the wall about as high up as a
man's head (fig. 132), and so small that the hand can with difficulty pass
through it. To this orifice came the priests, with murmured prayers and
perfumes of incense. Within lurked the Double, ready to profit by these
memorial rites, or to accept them through the medium of his statues. As
when he lived upon earth, the man needed a body in which to exist. His
corpse, disfigured by the process of embalmment, bore but a distant
resemblance to its former self. The mummy, again, was destructible, and
might easily be burned, dismembered, scattered to the winds. Once it had
disappeared, what was to become of the Double? The portrait statues walled
up inside the _serdab_ became, when consecrated, the stone, or wooden,
bodies of the defunct. The pious care of his relatives multiplied these
bodies, and consequently multiplied the supports of the Double. A single
body represented a single chance of existence for the Double; twenty bodies
represented twenty such chances. For the same reason, statues also of his
wife, his children, and his servants were placed with the statues of the
deceased, the servants being modelled in the act of performing their
domestic duties, such as grinding corn, kneading dough, and applying a coat
of pitch to the inside surfaces of wine-jars. As for the figures which were
merely painted on the walls of the chapel, they detached themselves, and
assumed material bodies inside the _serdab_. Notwithstanding these
precautions, all possible means were taken to guard the remains of the
fleshly body from natural decay and the depredations of the spoiler. In the
tomb of Ti, an inclined passage, starting from the middle of the first
hall, leads from the upper world to the sepulchral vault; but this is
almost a solitary exception. Generally, the vault is reached by way of a
vertical shaft constructed in the centre of the platform (fig. 133), or,
more rarely, in a corner of the chapel. The depth of this shaft varies from
10 to 100 feet. It is carried down through the masonry: it pierces the
rock; and at the bottom, a low passage, in which it is not possible to walk
upright, leads in a southward direction to the vault. There sleeps the
mummy in a massive sarcophagus of limestone, red granite, or basalt.
Sometimes, though rarely, the sarcophagus bears the name and titles of the
deceased. Still more rarely, it is decorated with ornamental sculpture.
Some examples are known which reproduce the architectural decoration of an
Egyptian house, with its doors and windows.[28] The furniture of the vault
is of the simplest character,--some alabaster perfume vases; a few cups
into which the priest had poured drops of the various libation liquids
offered to the dead; some large red pottery jars for water; a head-rest of
wood or alabaster; a scribe's votive palette. Having laid the mummy in the
sarcophagus and cemented the lid, the workmen strewed the floor of the
vault with the quarters of oxen and gazelles which had just been
sacrificed. They next carefully walled up the entrance into the passage,
and filled the shaft to the top with a mixture of sand, earth, and stone
chips. Being profusely watered, this mass solidified, and became an almost
impenetrable body of concrete. The corpse, left to itself, received no
visits now, save from the Soul, which from time to time quitted the
celestial regions wherein it voyaged with the gods, and came down to re-
unite itself with the body. The sepulchral vault was the abode of the Soul,
as the funerary chapel was the abode of the Double.
[Illustration: Fig. 133.--Section showing shaft and vault of mastaba at
Gizeh, Fourth Dynasty.]
[Illustration: Fig. 134.--Section of mastaba, Sakkarah, Sixth Dynasty.]
[Illustration: Fig. 135.--Wall painting of funerary offerings, from mastaba
of Nenka, Sakkarah, Sixth Dynasty.]
Up to the time of the Sixth Dynasty, the walls of the vault are left bare.
Once only did Mariette find a vault containing half-effaced inscriptions
from _The Book of the Dead_. In 1881, I however discovered some tombs at
Sakkarah, in which the vault is decorated in preference to the chapel.
These tombs are built with large bricks, a niche and a stela sufficing for
the reception of sacrificial offerings. In place of the shaft, they contain
a small rectangular court, in the western corner of which was placed the
sarcophagus. Over the sarcophagus was erected a limestone chamber just as
long and as wide as the sarcophagus itself, and about three and a half feet
high. This was roofed in with flat slabs. At the end, or in the wall to the
right, was a niche, which answered the purpose of a _serdab_; and above the
flat roof was next constructed an arch of about one foot and a half radius,
the space above the arch being filled in with horizontal courses of
brickwork up to the level of the platform. The chamber occupies about two-
thirds of the cavity, and looks like an oven with the mouth open. Sometimes
the stone walls rest on the lid of the sarcophagus, the chamber having
evidently been built after the interment had taken place (fig. 134).
Generally speaking, however, these walls rest on brick supports, so that
the sarcophagus may be opened or closed when required. The decoration,
which is sometimes painted, sometimes sculptured, is always the same. Each
wall was a house stocked with the objects depicted or catalogued upon its
surface, and each was, therefore, carefully provided with a fictitious
door, through which the Double had access to his goods. On the left wall he
found a pile of provisions (fig. 135)[29] and a table of offerings; on the
end wall a store of household utensils, as well as a supply of linen and
perfumes, the name and quantity of each being duly registered. These
paintings more briefly sum up the scenes depicted in the chapels of
ordinary mastabas. Transferred from their original position to the walls of
an underground cellar, they were the more surely guaranteed against such
possible destruction as might befall them in chambers open to all comers;
while upon their preservation depended the length of time during which the
dead man would retain possession of the property which they represented.
[27] For an account of the necropolis of Medûm, see W.M.F. Petrie's
_Medum_.
[28] The sarcophagus of Menkara, unfortunately lost at sea when on its way
to England, was of this type. See illustration No. 19, Chapter III.,
in Sir E. Wilson's _Egypt of the Past_.--A.B.E.
[29] This wall scene is from the tomb of Nenka, near Sakkarah. For a
coloured facsimile on a large scale, see Professor Maspero's article
entitled "Trois Années de Fouilles," in _Mémoires de la Mission
Archéologique Française du Caire_, Pl. 2. 1884.--A.B.E.
2.--THE PYRAMIDS.
[For the following translation of this section of Professor Maspero's book
I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. W.M. Flinders Petrie, whose work on
_The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_, published with the assistance of a
grant from the Royal Society in 1883, constitutes our standard authority on
the construction of these Pyramids.--A.B.E.]
The royal tombs have the form of pyramids with a square base, and are the
equivalent in stone or brick of the tumulus of heaped earth which was piled
over the body of the warrior chief in prehistoric times (Note 14). The same
ideas prevailed as to the souls of kings as about those of private men; the
plan of the pyramid consists, therefore, of three parts, like the mastaba,
--the chapel, the passage, and the sepulchral vault.
The chapel is always separate. At Sakkarah no trace of it has been found;
it was probably, as later on at Thebes, in a quarter nearer to the town. At
Medûm, Gizeh, Abûsîr, and Dahshûr, these temples stood at the east or north
fronts of the pyramids. They were true temples, with chambers, courts, and
passages. The fragments of bas-reliefs hitherto found show scenes of
sacrifice, and prove that the decoration was the same as in the public
halls of the mastabas. The pyramid, properly speaking, contained only the
passages and sepulchral vault. The oldest of which the texts show the
existence, north of Abydos, is that of Sneferû; the latest belong to the
princes of the Twelfth Dynasty. The construction of these monuments was,
therefore, a continuous work, lasting for thirteen or fourteen centuries,
under government direction. Granite, alabaster, and basalt for the
sarcophagus and some details were the only materials of which the use and
the quantity was not regulated in advance, and which had to be brought from
a distance. To obtain them, each king sent one of the great men of his
court on a mission to the quarries of Upper Egypt; and the quickness with
which the blocks were brought back was a strong claim upon the sovereign's
favour. The other material was not so costly. If mainly brick, the bricks
were moulded on the spot with earth taken from the foot of the hill. If of
stone, the nearest parts of the plateau provided the common marly limestone
in abundance (Note 15). The fine limestone of Tûrah was usually reserved
for the chambers and the casing, and this might be had without even sending
specially for it to the opposite side of the Nile; for at Memphis there
were stores always full, upon which they continually drew for public
buildings, and, therefore, also for the royal tombs. The blocks being taken
from these stores, and borne by boats to close below the hill, were raised
to their required places along gently sloping causeways. The internal
arrangement of the pyramids, the lengths of the passages and their heights,
were very variable; the pyramid of Khûfû (Cheops) rose to 475 feet above
the ground, the smallest was not 30 feet high. The difficulty of imagining
now what motives determined the Pharaohs to choose such different
proportions has led some to think that the mass built was in direct
proportion to the time occupied in building; that is to say, to the length
of each reign. Thus it was supposed that the king would begin by hastily
erecting a pyramid large enough to contain the essential parts of a tomb;
and then, year by year, would add fresh layers around the first core, until
the time when his death for ever arrested the growth of the monument. But
the facts do not justify this hypothesis. The smallest of the pyramids of
Sakkarah is that of Ûnas, who reigned thirty years; while the two imposing
pyramids of Gizeh were raised by Khûfû and Khafra (Chephren), who governed
Egypt, the one for twenty-four, and the other for twenty-three years.
Merenra, who died very young, had a pyramid as large as that of Pepi II.,
whose reign lasted more than ninety years (Note 16). The plan of each
pyramid was laid down, once for all, by the architect, according to the
instructions which he had received, and the resources placed at his
disposal. He then followed it out to the end of the work, without
increasing or reducing the scale (Note 17).
[Illustration: Fig. 136.--Section of the Great Pyramid.[30]]
The pyramids were supposed to have their four faces to the four cardinal
points, like the mastabas; but, either from bad management or neglect, the
greater part are not oriented exactly, and many vary distinctly from the
true north (Note 18). Without speaking of the ruins of Abû Roash or Zowyet
el Aryan, which have not been studied closely enough, they naturally form
six groups, distributed from north to south on the border of the Libyan
plateau, from Gizeh to the Fayûm, by Abûsîr, Sakkarah, Dahshûr, and Lisht.
The Gizeh group contains nine, including those of Khûfû, Khafra, and
Menkara, which were anciently reckoned among the wonders of the world. The
ground on which the pyramid of Khûfû stands was very irregular at the time
of construction. A small rocky height which rose above the surface was
roughly cut (fig. 136) and enclosed in the masonry, the rest being smoothed
and covered with large slabs, some of which still remain (Note 19). The
pyramid itself was 481 feet high and 755 feet wide, dimensions which the
injuries of time have reduced to 454 feet and 750 feet respectively. It
preserved, until the Arab conquest, a casing of stones of different colours
(Note 20), so skilfully joined as to appear like one block from base to
summit. The casing work was begun from the top, and the cap placed on
first, the steps being covered one after the other, until they reached the
bottom (Note 21). In the inside all was arranged so as to hide the exact
place of the sarcophagus, and to baffle any spoilers whom chance or
perseverance had led aright. The first point was to discover the entrance
under the casing, which masked it. It was nearly in the middle of the north
face (fig. 136), but at the level of the eighteenth course, at about forty-
five feet from the ground. When the block which closed it was displaced, an
inclined passage, 41.2 inches wide and 47.6 inches high, was revealed, the
lower part of which was cut in the rock. This descended for 317 feet,
passed through an unfinished chamber, and ended sixty feet farther in a
blind passage. This would be a first disappointment to the spoilers. If,
however, they were not discouraged, but examined the passage with care,
they would find in the roof, sixty-two feet distant from the door, a block
of granite (Note 22) among the surrounding limestone. It was so hard that
the seekers, after having vainly tried to break or remove it, took the
course of forcing a way through the softer stone around (Note 23). This
obstacle past, they came into an ascending passage which joins the first at
an angle of 120° (Note 24), and is divided into two branches. One branch
runs horizontally into the centre of the pyramid, and ends in a limestone
chamber with pointed roof, which is called, without any good reason, "The
Queen's Chamber." The other, continuing upward, changes its form and
appearance. It becomes a gallery 148 feet long and 28 feet high, built of
Mokattam stone, so polished and finely wrought that it is difficult to put
a "needle or even a hair" into the joints (Note 25). The lower courses are
vertical; the seven others "corbel" forwards, until at the roof they are
only twenty-one inches apart. A fresh obstacle arose at the end of this
gallery. The passage which led to the chamber of the sarcophagus was closed
by a slab of granite (Note 26); farther on was a small vestibule divided in
equal spaces by four portcullises of granite (Note 27), which would need to
be broken. The royal sepulchre is a granite chamber with a flat roof,
nineteen feet high, thirty-four feet long, and seventeen feet wide. Here
are neither figures nor inscriptions; nothing but a granite sarcophagus,
lidless and mutilated. Such were the precautions taken against invaders;
and the result showed that they were effectual, for the pyramid guarded its
deposit during more than four thousand years (Note 28). But the very weight
of the materials was a more serious danger. To prevent the sepulchral
chamber from being crushed by the three hundred feet of stone which stood
over it, five low hollow spaces, one over the other, were left above it.
The last is sheltered by a pointed roof, formed of two enormous slabs (Note
29) leaning one against the other. Thanks to this device, the central
pressure was thrown almost entirely on the side faces, and the chamber was
preserved. None of the stones which cover it have been crushed; none have
yielded a fraction since the day when the workmen cemented them into their
places (Note 30).
[Illustration: Fig. 137.--The Step Pyramid of Sakkarah.]
The pyramids of Khafra and Menkara were built on a different plan inside to
that of Khûfû. Khafra's had two entrances, both to the north, one from the
platform before the pyramid, the other fifty feet above the ground.
Menkara's still preserves the remains of its casing of red granite (Note
31). The entrance passage descends at an angle of twenty-six degrees, and
soon runs into the rock. The first chamber is decorated with panels
sculptured in the stone, and was closed at the further end by three
portcullises of granite. The second chamber appears to be unfinished, but
this was a trap to deceive the spoilers. A passage cut in the floor, and
carefully hidden, gave access to a lower chamber. There lay the mummy in a
sarcophagus of sculptured basalt. The sarcophagus was still perfect at the
beginning of this century. Removed thence by Colonel Howard Vyse, it
foundered on the Spanish coast with the ship which was bearing it to
England.
[Illustration: Fig. 138.--Plan and Section of the Pyramid of Ûnas.]
[Illustration: Fig. 139.--Portcullis and passage, pyramid of Ûnas.]
The same variety of arrangement prevails in the groups of Abûsîr, and in
one part of the Sakkarah group. The great pyramid of Sakkarah is not
oriented with exactness. The north face is turned 4° 21' E. of the true
north. It is not a perfect square, but is elongated from east to west, the
sides being 395 and 351 feet. It is 196 feet high, and is formed of six
great steps with inclined faces, each retreating about seven feet; the step
nearest the ground is thirty-seven and a half feet high, and the top one is
twenty-nine feet high (fig. 137). It is built entirely of limestone,
quarried from the neighbouring hills. The blocks are small and badly cut,
and the courses are concave, according to a plan applied both to quays and
to fortresses. On examining the breaches in the masonry, it is seen that
the outer face of each step is coated with two layers, each of which has
its regular casing (Note 32). The mass is solid, the chambers being cut in
the rock below the pyramid. It has four entrances, the main one being in
the north; and the passages form a perfect labyrinth, which it is perilous
to enter. Porticoes with columns, galleries, and chambers, all end in a
kind of pit, in the bottom of which a hiding place was contrived, doubtless
intended to contain the most precious objects of the funeral furniture.
The pyramids which surround this extraordinary monument have been nearly
all built on one plan, and only differ in their proportions. The door (fig.
138, A) opens close below the first course, about the middle of the north
face, and the passage (B) descends by a gentle slope between two walls of
limestone. It is plugged up all along by large blocks (Note 33), which
needed to be broken up before the first chamber could be entered (C).
Beyond this chamber, it is carried for some way through the limestone rock;
then it passes between walls, ceiling and floor of polished syenite; after
which the limestone re-appears, and the passage opens into the vestibule
(E). The part built of granite is interrupted thrice, at intervals of two
to two and a half feet, by three enormous portcullises of granite (D).
Above each of these a hollow is left, in which the portcullis stone could
be held up by props, and thus leave a free passage (fig. 139). The mummy
once placed inside, the workmen, as they left, removed the supports, and
the portcullises fell into place, cutting off all communication with the
outside. The vestibule was flanked on the east by a flat-roofed _serdab_
(F) divided into three niches, and encumbered with chips of stone swept
hastily in by the workmen when they cleared the chambers to receive the
mummy. The pyramid of Ûnas has all three niches preserved; but in the
pyramids of Teti and of Merenra, the separating walls have been neatly cut
away in ancient times, without leaving any trace but a line of attachment,
and a whiter colour in the stone where it had been originally covered. The
sarcophagus chamber (G) extends west of the vestibule; the sarcophagus was
placed there along the west wall, feet to the south, head to the north. The
roof over the two main chambers was pointed (fig. 140). It was formed of
large beams of limestone, joined at the upper ends, and supported below
upon a low bench (1) which surrounded the chamber outside (Note 34). The
first beams were covered by two others, and these by two more; and the six
together (J) thoroughly protected the vestibule of the vault.
[Illustration: Fig. 140.--Section of the Pyramid of Ûnas.]
The pyramids of Gizeh belonged to the Pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty, and
those of Abûsir to the Pharaohs of the Fifth. The five pyramids of
Sakkarah, of which the plan is uniform, belonged to Ûnas and to the first
four kings of the Sixth Dynasty, Teti, Pepi I., Merenra, and Pepi II., and
are contemporary with the mastabas with painted vaults which I have
mentioned above (p. 129). It is, therefore, no matter of surprise to find
them inscribed and decorated. The ceilings are covered with stars, to
represent the night-sky. The rest of the decoration is very simple. In the
pyramid of Ûnas, which is the most ornamented, the decoration occupies only
the end wall of the sepulchral chamber; the part against the sarcophagus
was lined with alabaster, and engraved to represent great monumental doors,
through which the deceased was supposed to enter his storerooms of
provisions. The figures of men and of animals, the scenes of daily life,
the details of the sacrifice, are not here represented, and, moreover,
would not be in keeping; they belong to those places where the Double lived
his public life, and where visitors actually performed the rites of
offering; the passages and the vault in which the soul alone was free to
wander needed no ornamentation except that which related to the life of the
soul. The texts are of two kinds. One kind--of which there are the fewest--
refer to the nourishment of the Double, and are literal transcriptions of
the formulae by which the priests ensured the transmission of each object
to the other world; this was a last resource for him, in case the real
sacrifices should be discontinued, or the magic scenes upon the chapel
walls be destroyed. The greater part of the inscriptions were of a
different kind. They referred to the soul, and were intended to preserve it
from the dangers which awaited it, in heaven and on earth. They revealed to
it the sovereign incantations which protected it against the bites of
serpents and venomous animals, the passwords which enabled it to enter into
the company of the good gods, and the exorcisms which counteracted the
influence of the evil gods. The destiny of the Double was to continue to
lead the shadow of its terrestrial life, and fulfil it in the chapel; the
destiny of the Soul was to follow the sun across the sky, and it,
therefore, needed the instructions which it read on the walls of the vault.
It was by their virtue that the absorption of the dead into Osiris became
complete, and that they enjoyed hereafter all the immunity of the divine
state. Above, in the chapel, they were men, and acted as men; here they
were gods, and acted as gods.
[Illustration: Fig. 141.--Mastabat el Faraûn.]
[Illustration: Fig. 142.--Pyramid of Medûm.]
The enormous rectangular mass which the Arabs call _Mastabat el Faraûn_,
"the seat of Pharaoh" (fig. 141), stands beside the pyramid of Pepi II.
Some have thought it to be an unfinished pyramid, some a tomb surmounted by
an obelisk; in reality it is a pyramid which was left unfinished by its
builder, King Ati of the Sixth Dynasty. Recent excavations have, on the
other hand, shown that the brick pyramids of Dahshûr probably belonged to
the Twelfth Dynasty. The stone pyramids of that group, which may be older,
furnish a curious variation from the usual type. One of these stone
pyramids has the lower half inclined at 54° 41', while the upper part
changes sharply to 42° 59'; it might be called a mastaba (Note 35) crowned
by a gigantic attic. At Lisht, where the two pyramids now standing are of
the same period (one of them was erected by Ûsertesen I.), the structure is
again changed. The sloping passage ends in a vertical shaft, at the bottom
of which open chambers now filled by the infiltration of the Nile. The
pyramids of Illahûn and Hawara, which contained the remains of Ûsertesen
II. and Amenemhat III., are of the same type as those at Lisht. Their rooms
are now filled with water. The pyramid of Medûm is empty, having been
violated before the Ramesside age. It consists of three square towers (Note
36) with sides slightly sloping, placed in retreating stages one over the
other (fig. 142). The entrance is on the north, at about 53 feet above the
sand. After 60 feet, the passage goes into the rock; at 174 feet it runs
level; at 40 feet farther it stops, and turns perpendicularly towards the
surface, opening in the floor of a vault twenty-one feet higher (fig. 143).
A set of beams and ropes still in place above the opening show that the
spoilers drew the sarcophagus out of the chamber in ancient times. Its
small chapel, built against the eastern slope of the pyramid, with
courtyard containing a low flat altar between two standing stelae nearly 14
feet high, was found intact. The walls of the chapel were uninscribed, and
bare; but the _graffiti_ found there prove that the place was much visited
during the times of the Eighteenth Dynasty by scribes, who recorded their
admiration of the beauty of the monument, and believed that King Sneferû
had raised it for himself and for his queen Meresankhû.
[Illustration: Fig. 143.--Section of passage and vault in pyramid of
Medûm.]
The custom of building pyramids did not end with the Twelfth Dynasty; there
are later pyramids at Manfalût, at Hekalli to the south of Abydos, and at
Mohammeriyeh to the south of Esneh. Until the Roman period, the semi-
barbarous sovereigns of Ethiopia held it as a point of honour to give the
pyramidal form to their tombs. The oldest, those of Nûrri, where the
Pharaohs of Napata sleep, recall by their style the pyramids of Sakkarah;
the latest, those of Meroë, present fresh characteristics. They are higher
than they are wide, are built of small blocks, and are sometimes decorated
at the angles with rounded borderings. The east face has a false window,
surmounted by a cornice, and is flanked by a chapel, which is preceded by a
pylon. These pyramids are not all dumb. As in ordinary tombs, the walls
contain scenes borrowed from the "Ritual of Burial," or showing the
vicissitudes of the life beyond the grave.
[30] This section is reproduced, by permission of Mr. W.M.F. Petrie, from
Plate VII. of his "_Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_." The vertical
shaft sunk by Perring is shown going down from the floor of the
subterranean unfinished chamber. The lettering along the base of the
pyramid, though not bearing upon the work of Professor Maspero, has
been preserved for the convenience of readers who may wish to consult
Mr. Petrie's work for more minute details and measurements. This
lettering refers to that part of Mr. Petrie's argument which disproves
the "accretion theory" of previous writers (see "_Pyramids and
Temples of Gizeh_" chap, xviii., p. 165).--A.B.E.
3.--THE TOMBS OF THE THEBAN EMPIRE.
_Excavated Tombs_.
Two subsequent systems replaced the mastaba throughout Egypt. The first
preserved the chapel constructed above ground, and combined the pyramid
with the mastaba; the second excavated the whole tomb in the rock,
including the chapel.
[Illustration: Fig. 144.--Section of "vaulted" brick pyramid, Abydos.]
[Illustration: Fig. 145.--Section of "vaulted" tomb, Abydos.]
[Illustration: Fig. 146.--Plan of tomb, at Abydos.]
[Illustration: Fig. 147.--Theban tomb, with pyramidion, from scene in a
tomb at Sheikh Abd el Gûrneh.]
[Illustration: Fig. 148.--Theban tomb with pyramidion, from wall-painting.]
The necropolis quarter of Abydos, in which were interred the earlier
generations of the Theban Empire, furnishes the most ancient examples of
the first system. The tombs are built of large, black, unbaked bricks, made
without any mixture of straw or grit. The lower part is a mastaba with a
square or oblong rectangular base, the greatest length of the latter being
sometimes forty or fifty feet. The walls are perpendicular, and are seldom
high enough for a man to stand upright inside the tomb. On this kind of
pedestal was erected a pointed pyramid of from 12 to 30 feet in height,
covered externally with a smooth coat of clay painted white. The defective
nature of the rock below forbade the excavation of the sepulchral chamber;
there was no resource, therefore, except to hide it in the brickwork. An
oven-shaped chamber with "corbel" vault was constructed in the centre (fig.
144); but more frequently the sepulchral chamber is found to be half above
ground in the mastaba and half sunk in the foundations, the vaulted space
above being left only to relieve the weight (fig. 145). In many cases there
was no external chapel; the stela, placed in the basement, or set in the
outer face, alone marking the place of offering. In other instances a
square vestibule was constructed in front of the tomb where the relations
assembled (fig. 146). Occasionally a breast-high enclosure wall surrounded
the monument, and defined the boundaries of the ground belonging to the
tomb. This mixed form was much employed in Theban cemeteries from the
beginning of the Middle Empire. Many kings and nobles of the Eleventh
Dynasty were buried at Drah Abû'l Neggeh, in tombs like those of Abydos
(fig. 147). The relative proportion of mastaba and pyramid became modified
during the succeeding centuries. The mastaba--often a mere insignificant
substructure--gradually returned to its original height, while the pyramid
as gradually decreased, and ended by being only an unimportant pyramidion
(fig. 148). All the monuments of this type which ornamented the Theban
necropolis during the Ramesside period have perished, but contemporary
tomb-paintings show many varieties, and the chapel of an Apis which died
during the reign of Amenhotep III. still remains to show that this fashion
extended as far as Memphis. Of the pyramidion, scarcely any traces remain;
but the mastaba is intact. It is a square mass of limestone, raised on a
base, supported by four columns at the corners, and surmounted by an
overhanging cornice; a flight of five steps leads up to the inner chamber
(fig. 149).
[Illustration: Fig. 149.--Section of Apis tomb, _tempo_ Amenhotep III.]
The earliest examples of the second kind are those found at Gizeh among the
mastabas of the Fourth Dynasty, and these are neither large nor much
ornamented. They begin to be carefully wrought about the time of the Sixth
Dynasty, and in certain distant places, as at Bersheh, Sheîkh Saîd, Kasr es
Saîd, Asûan, and Negadeh. The rock-cut tomb did not, however, attain its
full development until the times of the last Memphite kings and the early
kings of the Theban line.
In these rock-cut tombs we find all the various parts of the mastaba. The
designer selected a prominent vein of limestone, high enough in the cliff
side to risk nothing from the gradual rising of the soil, and yet low
enough for the funeral procession to reach it without difficulty. The
feudal lords of Minieh slept at Beni Hasan; those of Khmûnû at Bersheh;
those of Siût and Elephantine at Siût and in the cliff opposite Asûan (fig.
150). Sometimes, as at Siût, Bersheh, and Thebes, the tombs are excavated
at various levels; sometimes, as at Beni Hasan, they follow the line of the
stratum, and are ranged in nearly horizontal terraces.[31] A flight of
steps, rudely constructed in rough-hewn stones, leads up from the plain to
the entrance of the tomb. At Beni Hasan and Thebes, these steps are either
destroyed or buried in sand; but recent excavations have brought to light a
well-preserved example leading up to a tomb at Asûan.[32]
[Illustration: Fig. 150.--Tombs in cliff opposite Asûan.]
[Illustration: Fig. 151.--Façade of tomb of Khnûmhotep, at Beni Hasan,
Twelfth Dynasty.]
[Illustration: Fig. 152.--Façade of tomb, Asûan.]
The funeral procession, having slowly scaled the cliff-side, halted for a
moment at the entrance to the chapel. The plan was not necessarily uniform
throughout any one group of tombs. Several of the Beni Hasan tombs have
porticoes, the pillars, bases, and entablatures being all cut in the rock;
those of Ameni and Khnûmhotep have porticoes supported on two polygonal
columns (fig. 151). At Asûan (fig. 152), the doorway forms a high and
narrow recess cut in the rock wall, but is divided, at about one-third of
its height, by a rectangular lintel, thus making a smaller doorway in the
doorway itself. At Siût, the tomb of Hapizefa was entered by a true porch
about twenty-four feet in height, with a "vaulted" roof elegantly
sculptured and painted. More frequently the side of the mountain was merely
cut away, and the stone dressed over a more or less extent of surface,
according to the intended dimensions of the tomb. This method ensured the
twofold advantage of clearing a little platform closed in on three sides in
front of the tomb, and also of forming an upright façade which could be
decorated or left plain, according to the taste of the proprietor. The
door, sunk in the middle of this façade, has sometimes no framework;
sometimes, however, it has two jambs and a lintel, all slightly projecting.
The inscriptions, when any occur, are very simple, consisting of one or two
horizontal lines above, and one or two vertical lines down each side, with
the addition perhaps of a sitting or standing figure. These inscriptions
contain a prayer, as well as the name, titles, and parentage of the
deceased. The chapel generally consists of a single chamber, either square
or oblong, with a flat or a slightly vaulted ceiling. Light is admitted
only through the doorway. Sometimes a few pillars, left standing in the
rock at the time of excavation, give this chamber the aspect of a little
hypostyle hall. Four such pillars decorate the chapels of Ameni and
Khnûmhotep at Beni Hasan (fig. 153). Other chapels there contain six or
eight, and are very irregular in plan. One tomb, unfinished, was in the
first instance a simple oblong hall, with a barrel roof and six columns.
Later on, it was enlarged on the right side, the new part forming a kind of
flat-roofed portico supported on four columns (fig. 154).
[Illustration: Fig. 153.--Plan of tomb of Khnûmhotep, at Beni Hasan.]
[Illustration: Fig. 154.--Plan of unfinished tomb, Beni Hasan.]
[Illustration: Fig. 155.--Funeral processions and ceremonies from wall-
painting in tomb of Manna, Thebes, Nineteenth Dynasty.]
To form a _serdab_ in the solid rock was almost impossible; while on the
other hand, movable statues, if left in a room accessible to all comers,
would be exposed to theft or mutilation. The _serdab_, therefore, was
transformed, and combined with the stela of the ancient mastabas. The false
door of the olden time became a niche cut in the end wall, almost always
facing the entrance. Statues of the deceased and his wife, carved in the
solid rock, were there enthroned. The walls were decorated with scenes of
offerings, and the entire decoration of the tomb converged towards the
niche, as that of the mastaba converged towards the stela. The series of
tableaux is, on the whole, much the same as of old, though with certain
noteworthy additions. The funeral procession, and the scene where the
deceased enters into possession of his tomb, both merely indicated in the
mastaba, are displayed in full upon the walls of the Theban sepulchre. The
mournful _cortège_ is there, with the hired mourners, the troops of
friends, the bearers of offerings, the boats for crossing the river, and
the catafalque drawn by oxen. It arrives at the door of the tomb. The
mummy, placed upright upon his feet, receives the farewell of his family;
and the last ceremonies, which are to initiate him into the life beyond the
grave, are duly represented (fig. 155). The sacrifices, with all the
preliminary processes, as tillage, seed-growing, harvesting, stock-
breeding, and the practice of various kinds of handicraft, are either
sculptured or painted, as before. Many details, however, which are absent
from tombs of the earlier dynasties are here given, while others which are
invariably met with in the neighbourhood of the pyramids are lacking.
Twenty centuries work many changes in the usages of daily life, even in
conservative Egypt. We look almost in vain for herds of gazelles upon the
walls of the Theban tombs, for the reason that these animals, in Ramesside
times, had ceased to be bred in a state of domestication. The horse, on the
other hand, had been imported into the valley of the Nile, and is depicted
pawing the ground where formerly the gazelle was seen cropping the
pasturage. The trades are also more numerous and complicated; the workmen's
tools are more elaborate; the actions of the deceased are more varied and
personal. In former times, when first the rules of tomb decoration were
formulated, the notion of future retribution either did not exist, or was
but dimly conceived. The deeds which he had done here on earth in no wise
influenced the fate which awaited the man after death. Whether good or bad,
from the moment when the funeral rites were performed and the necessary
prayers recited, he was rich and happy. In order to establish his identity,
it was enough to record his name, his title, and his parentage; his past
was taken for granted. But when once a belief in rewards and punishments to
come had taken possession of men's minds, they bethought them of the
advisability of giving to each dead man the benefit of his individual
merits. To the official register of his social status, they now therefore
added a brief biographical notice. At first, this consisted of only a few
words; but towards the time of the Sixth Dynasty (as where Ûna recounts his
public services under four kings), these few words developed into pages of
contemporary history. With the beginning of the New Empire, tableaux and
inscriptions combine to immortalise the deeds of the owner of the tomb.
Khnûmhotep of Beni Hasan records in full the origin and greatness of his
ancestors. Khetî displays upon his walls all the incidents of a military
life--parades, war-dances, sieges, and sanguinary battle scenes. In this
respect, as in all others, the Eighteenth Dynasty perpetuated the tradition
of preceding ages. Aï, in his fine tomb at Tell el Amarna, recounts the
episode of his marriage with the daughter of Khûenaten. Neferhotep of
Thebes, having received from Horemheb the decoration of the Golden Collar,
complacently reproduces every little incident of his investiture, the words
spoken by the king, as also the year and the day when this crowning reward
was conferred upon him. Another, having conducted a survey, is seen
attended by his subordinates with their measuring chains; elsewhere he
superintends a census of the population, just as Ti formerly superintended
the numbering of his cattle. The stela partakes of these new
characteristics in wall-decoration. In addition to the usual prayers, it
now proclaims the praises of the deceased, and gives a summary of his life.
This is too seldom followed by a list of his honours with their dates.
When space permitted, the vault was excavated immediately below the chapel.
The shaft was sometimes sunk in a corner of one of the chambers, and
sometimes outside, in front of the door of the tomb. In the great
cemeteries, as for instance at Thebes and Memphis, the superposition of
these three parts--the chapel, the shaft, and the vault--was not always
possible. If the shaft were carried to its accustomed depth, there was
sometimes the risk of breaking into tombs excavated at a lower level. This
danger was met either by driving a long passage into the rock, and then
sinking the shaft at the farther end, or by substituting a slightly sloping
or horizontal disposition of the parts for the old vertical arrangement of
the mastaba model. The passage in this case opens from the centre of the
end wall, its average length being from 20 to 130 feet. The sepulchral
vault is always small and plain, as well as the passage. Under the Theban
dynasties, as under the Memphite kings, the Soul dispensed with
decorations; but whenever the walls of the vault are decorated, the figures
and inscriptions are found to relate chiefly to the life of the Soul, and
very slightly to the life of the Double. In the tomb of Horhotep, which is
of the time of the Ûsertesens, and in similar rock-cut sepulchres, the
walls (except on the side of the door) are divided into two registers. The
upper row belongs to the Double, and contains, besides the table of
offerings, pictured representations of the same objects which are seen in
certain mastabas of the Sixth Dynasty; namely, stuffs, jewels, arms, and
perfumes, all needful to Horhotep for the purpose of imparting eternal
youth to his limbs. The lower register belonged to both the Soul and the
Double, and is inscribed with extracts from a variety of liturgical
writings, such as _The Book of the Dead_, the _Ritual of Embalmment_, and
the _Funeral Ritual_, all of which were possessed of magic properties which
protected the Soul and supported the Double. The stone sarcophagus, and
even the coffin, are also covered with closely-written inscriptions.
Precisely as the stela epitomised the whole chapel, so did the sarcophagus
and coffin epitomise the sepulchral chamber, thus forming, as it were, a
vault within a vault. Texts, tableaux, all thereon depicted, treat of the
life of the Soul, and of its salvation in the world to come.
At Thebes, as at Memphis, the royal tombs are those which it is most
necessary to study, in order to estimate the high degree of perfection to
which the decoration of passages and sepulchral chambers was now carried.
The most ancient were situated either in the plain or on the southern
slopes of the western mountain; and of these, no remains are extant. The
mummies of Amenhotep I., and Thothmes III., of Sekenenra, and Aahhotep have
survived the dwellings of solid stone designed for their protection.
Towards the middle of the Eighteenth Dynasty, however, all the best places
were taken up, and some unoccupied site in which to establish a new royal
cemetery had to be sought. At first they went to a considerable distance,
namely, to the end of the valley (known as the Western Valley), which
opens from near Drah Abû'l Neggeh. Amenhotep III., Aï, and perhaps others,
were there buried. Somewhat later, they preferred to draw nearer to the
city of the living. Behind the cliff which forms the northern boundary of
the plain of Thebes, there lay a kind of rocky hollow closed in on every
side, and accessible from the outer world by only a few perilous paths. It
divides into two branches, which cross almost at right angles. One branch
turns to the south-east, while the other, which again divides into
secondary branches, turns to the south-west. Westward rises a mountain
which recalls upon a gigantic scale the outline of the great step-pyramid
of Sakkarah (fig. 137). The Egyptian engineers of the time observed that
this hollow was separated from the ravine of Amenhotep III. by a mere
barrier some 500 cubits in thickness. In this there was nothing to dismay
such practised miners. They therefore cut a trench some fifty or sixty
cubits deep through the solid rock, at the end of which a narrow passage
opens like a gateway into the hidden valley beyond. Was it in the time of
Horemheb, or during the reign of Rameses I., that this gigantic work was
accomplished? Rameses I. is, at all events, the earliest king whose tomb
has as yet been found in this spot. His son, Seti I., then his grandson,
Rameses II., came hither to rest beside him. The Ramesside Pharaohs
followed one after the other. Herhor may perhaps have been the last of the
series. These crowded catacombs caused the place to be called "The Valley
of the Tombs of the Kings,"--a name which it retains to this day.
These tombs are not complete. Each had its chapel; but those chapels stood
far away in the plain, at Gûrneh, at the Ramesseum, at Medinet Habû; and
they have already been described. The Theban rock, like the Memphite
pyramid, contained only the passages and the sepulchral chamber. During the
daytime, the pure Soul was in no serious danger; but in the evening, when
the eternal waters which flow along the vaulted heavens fall in vast
cascades adown the west and are engulfed in the bowels of the earth, the
Soul follows the bark of the Sun and its escort of luminary gods into a
lower world bristling with ambuscades and perils. For twelve hours, the
divine squadron defiles through long and gloomy corridors, where numerous
genii, some hostile, some friendly, now struggle to bar the way, and now
aid it in surmounting the difficulties of the journey. Great doors, each
guarded by a gigantic serpent, were stationed at intervals, and led to an
immense hall full of flame and fire, peopled by hideous monsters and
executioners whose office it was to torture the damned. Then came more dark
and narrow passages, more blind gropings in the gloom, more strife with
malevolent genii, and again the joyful welcoming of the propitious gods. At
midnight began the upward journey towards the eastern regions of the world;
and in the morning, having reached the confines of the Land of Darkness,
the sun emerged from the east to light another day. The tombs of the kings
were constructed upon the model of the world of night. They had their
passages, their doors, their vaulted halls, which plunged down into the
depths of the mountain. Their positions in the valley were determined by no
consideration of dynasty or succession.
[Illustration: Fig. 156.--Plan of tomb of Rameses IV.]
[Illustration: Fig. 157.--Plan of tomb of Rameses IV., from Turin papyrus.]
[Illustration: Fig. 158.--Plan of tomb of Seti I.]
Each king attacked the rock at any point where he might hope to find a
suitable bed of stone; and this was done with so little regard for his
predecessors, that the workmen were sometimes obliged to change the
direction of the excavation in order not to invade a neighbouring catacomb.
The designer's plan was a mere sketch, to be modified when necessary, and
which was by no means intended to be strictly carried out. Hence the plan
and measurement of the actual tomb of Rameses IV. (fig. 156) differ in the
outline of the sides and in the general arrangement from the plan of that
same tomb which is preserved on a papyrus in the Turin Museum (fig. 153).
Nothing, however, could be more simple than the ordinary distribution of
the parts. A square door, very sparingly ornamented, opened upon a passage
leading to a chamber of more or less extent. From the further end of this
chamber opened a second passage leading to a second chamber, and thence
sometimes to more chambers, the last of which contained the sarcophagus. In
some tombs, the whole excavation is carried down a gently inclined plane,
broken perhaps by only one or two low steps between the entrance and the
end. In others, the various parts follow each other at lower and lower
levels. In the catacomb of Seti I. (fig. 158) a long and narrow flight of
stairs and a sloping corridor (A) lead to a little antechamber and two
halls (B) supported on pillars. A second staircase (C) leads through a
second antechamber to another pillared hall (D), which was the hiding-place
of the sarcophagus. The tomb did not end here. A third staircase (E)
opening from the end of the principal hall was in progress, and would no
doubt have led to more halls and chambers, had not the work been stopped by
the death of the king.[33] If we go from catacomb to catacomb, we do not
find many variations from this plan. The entrance passage in the tomb of
Rameses III. is flanked by eight small lateral chambers. In almost every
other instance, the lesser or greater length of the passages, and the
degree of finish given to the wall paintings, constitute the only
differences between one tomb and another. The smallest of these catacombs
comes to an end at fifty-three feet from the entrance; that of Seti I.,
which is the longest, descends to a distance of 470 feet, and there remains
unfinished. The same devices to which the pyramid builders had recourse, in
order to mislead the spoiler, were adopted by the engineers of the Theban
catacombs. False shafts were sunk which led to nothing, and walls
sculptured and painted were built across the passages. When the burial was
over, the entrance was filled up with blocks of rock, and the natural slope
of the mountain side was restored as skilfully as might be.
[Illustration: Fig. 159.--Wall-painting of the Fields of Aalû, tomb of
Rameses III.]
The most complete type of this class of catacomb is that left to us by Seti
I.; figures and hieroglyphs alike are models of pure design and elegant
execution. The tomb of Rameses III. already points to decadence. It is for
the most part roughly painted. Yellow is freely laid on, and the raw tones
of the reds and blues are suggestive of the early daubs of our childhood.
Mediocrity ere long reigned supreme, the outlines becoming more feeble, the
colour more and more glaring, till the latest tombs are but caricatures of
those of Seti I. and Rameses III. The decoration is always the same, and is
based on the same principles as the decoration of the pyramids. At Thebes
as at Memphis, the intention was to secure to the Double the free enjoyment
of his new abode, and to usher the Soul into the company of the gods of the
solar cycle and the Osirian cycle, as well as to guide it through the
labyrinth of the infernal regions. But the Theban priests exercised their
ingenuity to bring before the eyes of the deceased all that which the
Memphites consigned to his memory by means of writing, thus enabling him to
see what he had formerly been obliged to read upon the walls of his tomb.
Where the texts of the pyramid of Ûnas relate how Ûnas, being identified
with the sun, navigates the celestial waters or enters the Fields of Aalû,
the pictured walls of the tomb of Seti I. show Seti sailing in the solar
bark, while a side chamber in the tomb of Rameses III. shows Rameses III.
in the Fields of Aalû (fig. 159). Where the walls of the pyramid of Ûnas
give the prayers recited over the mummy to open his mouth, to restore the
use of his limbs, to clothe, to perfume, to feed him, the walls of Seti's
catacomb contain representations of the actual mummy, of the Ka statues
which are the supports of his Double, and of the priests who open their
mouths, who clothe them, perfume them, and offer them the various meats and
drinks of the funeral feast. The ceilings of the pyramid chambers were
sprinkled over with stars to resemble the face of the heavens; but there
was nothing to instruct the Soul as to the names of those heavenly bodies.
On the ceilings of some of the Theban catacombs, we not only find the
constellations depicted, each with its personified image, but astronomical
tables giving the aspect of the heavens fortnight by fortnight throughout
the months of the Egyptian year, so that the Soul had but to lift its eyes
and see in what part of the firmament its course lay night after night.
Taken as a series, these tableaux form an illustrated narrative of the
travels of the sun and the Soul throughout the twenty-four hours of the day
and night. Each hour is represented, as also the domain of each hour with
its circumscribed boundary, the door of which is guarded by a huge serpent.
These serpents have their various names, as "Fire-Face," "Flaming Eye,"
"Evil Eye," etc. The fate of Souls was decided in the third hour of the
day. They were weighed by the god Thoth, who consigned them to their future
abode according to the verdict of the scales. The sinful Soul was handed
over to the cynocephalous-ape assessors of the infernal tribunal, who
hunted and scourged it, after first changing it into a sow, or some other
impure animal. The righteous Soul, on the contrary, passed in the fifth
hour into the company of his fellows, whose task it was to cultivate the
Fields of Aalû and reap the corn of the celestial harvest, after which they
took their pleasure under the guardianship of the good genii. After the
fifth hour, the heavenly ocean became a vast battlefield. The gods of
light pursued, captured, and bound the serpent Apapi, and at the
twelfth hour they strangled him. But this triumph was not of long duration.
Scarcely had the sun achieved this victory when his bark was borne by the
tide into the realm of the night hours, and from that moment he was
assailed, like Virgil and Dante at the Gates of Hell, by frightful sounds
and clamourings. Each circle had its voice, not to be confounded with the
voices of other circles. Here the sound was as an immense humming of wasps;
yonder it was as the lamentations of women for their husbands, and the
howling of she-beasts for their mates; elsewhere it was as the rolling of
the thunder. The sarcophagus, as well as the walls, was covered with these
scenes of joyous or sinister import. It was generally of red or black
granite. As it was put in hand last of all, it frequently happened that the
sculptors had not time to finish it. When finished, however, the scenes and
texts with which it was covered contained an epitome of the whole
catacomb.[34] Thus, lying in his sarcophagus, the dead man found his future
destinies depicted thereon, and learned to understand the blessedness of
the gods. The tombs of private persons were not often so elaborately
decorated. Two tombs of the period of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty--that of
Petamenoph at Thebes and that of Bakenrenf at Memphis--compete in this
respect, however, with the royal catacombs. Their walls are not only
sculptured with the text (more or less complete) of _The Book of the Dead_,
but also with long extracts from _The Book of the Opening of the Mouth_ and
the religious formulae found in the pyramids.
As every part of the tomb had its special decoration, so also it had its
special furniture. Of the chapel furniture few traces have been preserved.
The table of offerings, which was of stone, is generally all that remains.
The objects placed in the _serdab_, in the passages, and in the sepulchral
chamber, have suffered less from the ravages of time and the hand of man.
During the Ancient Empire, the funerary portrait statues were always
immured in the _serdab_. The sepulchral vault contained, besides the
sarcophagus, head-rests of limestone or alabaster; geese carved in stone;
sometimes (though rarely) a scribe's palette; generally some terra-cotta
vases of various shapes: and lastly a store of food-cereals, and the bones
of the victims sacrificed on the day of burial. Under the Theban Dynasties,
the household goods of the dead were richer and more numerous. The Ka
statues of his servants and family, which in former times were placed in
the _serdab_ with those of the master, were now consigned to the vault, and
made on a smaller scale. On the other hand, many objects which used to be
merely depicted on the walls were now represented by models, or by actual
specimens. Thus we find miniature funeral boats, with crew, mummy,
mourners, and friends complete; imitation bread-offerings of baked clay,
erroneously called "funerary cones," stamped with the name of the deceased;
bunches of grapes in glazed ware; and limestone moulds wherewith the
deceased was supposed to make pottery models of oxen, birds, and fish,
which should answer the purpose of fish, flesh, and fowl. Toilet and
kitchen utensils, arms, and instruments of music abound. These are mostly
broken--piously slain, in order that their souls should go hence to wait
upon the soul of the dead man in the next world. Little statuettes in
stone, wood, and enamel--blue, green, and white--are placed by hundreds,
and even by thousands, with these piles of furniture, arms, and provisions.
Properly speaking, they are reduced _serdab_-statues, destined, like their
larger predecessors, to serve as bodies for the Double, and (by a later
conception) for the Soul. They were at first represented clothed like the
individual whose name they bore. As time went on, their importance
dwindled, and their duties were limited to merely answering for their
master when called by Thoth to the _corvée_, and acting as his substitutes
when he was summoned by the gods to work in the Fields of Aalû. Thenceforth
they were called "Respondents" (_Ûshabtiû_), and were represented with
agricultural implements in their hands. No longer clothed as the man was
clothed when living, they were made in the semblance of a mummified corpse,
with only the face and hands unbandaged. The so-called "canopic vases,"
with lids fashioned like heads of hawks, cynocephali, jackals, and men,
were reserved from the time of the Eleventh Dynasty for the viscera, which
were extracted from the body by the embalmers. As for the mummy, it
continued, as time went on, to be more and more enwrapped in _cartonnage_,
and more liberally provided with papyri and amulets; each amulet forming an
essential part of its magic armour, and serving to protect its limbs and
soul from destruction.
Theoretically, every Egyptian was entitled to an eternal dwelling
constructed after the plan which I have here described with its successive
modifications; but the poorer folk were fain to do without those things
which were the necessities of the wealthier dead. They were buried wherever
it was cheapest--in old tombs which had been ransacked and abandoned; in
the natural clefts of the rock; or in common pits. At Thebes, in the time
of the Ramessides, great trenches dug in the sand awaited their remains.
The funeral rites once performed, the grave-diggers cast a thin covering of
sand over the day's mummies, sometimes in lots of two or three, and
sometimes in piles which they did not even take the trouble to lay in
regular layers. Some were protected only by their bandages; others were
wrapped about with palm-branches, lashed in the fashion of a game-basket.
Those most cared for lie in boxes of rough-hewn wood, neither painted nor
inscribed. Many are huddled into old coffins which have not even been
altered to suit the size of the new occupant, or into a composite
contrivance made of the fragments of three or four broken mummy-cases. As
to funerary furniture, it was out of the question for such poor souls as
these. A pair of sandals of painted cardboard or plaited reeds; a staff for
walking along the heavenly highways; a ring of enamelled ware; a bracelet
or necklace of little blue beads; a tiny image of Ptah, of Osiris, of
Anubis, of Hathor, or of Bast; a few mystic eyes or scarabs; and, above
all, a twist or two of cord round the arm, the neck, the leg, or the body,
intended to preserve the corpse from magical influences,--are the only
possessions of the pauper dead.
[31] For a full account of the Twelfth Dynasty tombs at Beni Hasan and El
Bersheh see the first memoirs of the _Archaeological Survey of the
Egypt Exploration Fund_.
[32] The steps are shown in fig. 150. They were discovered by General Sir
F. Grenfell in 1885. Noting the remains of two parallel walls running
up from the water's edge to a part of the cliff which had evidently
been escarped and presented a vertical face, General Grenfell caused
the sand to be cleared, thus disclosing the entrances to several rock-
cut tombs dating from the Sixth and Twelfth Dynasties, as well as two
flights of steps on either side of an inclined plane leading from the
Nile bank to the door of one of the tombs. The distance between the
two walls is ten feet. The steps are eighteen inches deep, and 250 in
number. The steps were for the haulers, the mummies and sarcophagi
being dragged up the inclined plane. (See p. 209.)--A.B.E.
[33] M. Léfébure has lately produced a superb and elaborate volume on this
tomb, with the whole of the texts and the wall decorations faithfully
reproduced: _Mémoires publiés par les Membres de la Mission du
Caire_, Vol. II., fasc. I.--A.B.E.
[34] We have in this country two very fine specimens of inscribed
sarcophagi; namely, that of Seti I., of beautiful alabaster, in the
Soane collection (xixth Dyn.), and that of Queen Ankhnesraneferab
(xxvith Dyn.) in the British Museum.--A.B.E.