Gradually the romance of ancient Egypt is being revealed by the
graves of those who died in remote times, yet to read the romance at
first hand requires exceptional ability that is possessed by only
a few men. Little bits of evidence of no importance to the casual
onlooker are fraught with immense importance to the scientific seeker.
The most wonderful tombs in the world are to be found in Egypt in
the shape of the Pyramids, and as the centuries recede the tombs
gradually become simpler until they arrive back at the simplest of
all—just a shallow hole scooped out of the ground, in which the dead
man rests on a skin.
Consequently the graves of Egypt reveal the rise of Egypt’s
civilizations; they indicate how man’s ideas have changed, how
primitive customs have slowly passed away and given rise to the most
remarkable practices connected with the dead of which we have any
trace. The later stone tombs needed no seeking; they were plain to
every traveller who journeyed up the Nile. Earlier tombs built of
brick were found, revealing a more ancient state of civilization,
when men were ignorant of the ways of working stone, or found it too
difficult to devote their energies to shaping stone to be built into
a tomb. Going back and back, the brick tombs get smaller and smaller,
until they disappear, and only the grave remains in which the dead
lie doubled up. These were the things that years of work taught, but
the earliest graves of all long eluded the eyes of modern workers.
One day Professor Flinders Petrie came across remains. The greatest
care was exercised in digging, so that every shred of evidence could
be collected, and as the sand and soil were drawn aside he saw it
was a very ancient grave, older than anything ever dreamed of in
connection with Egypt. No one had any idea that Egypt was inhabited
so long ago, but here was proof that men lived in the Nile valley in
the dark ages of Time.
The evidence goes to show that a crude civilization existed there ten
thousand years ago, and that men may have lived in the Nile valley
over twenty thousand years ago. Whether any relics will ever be found
to throw any light on this epoch of Egyptian history remains to be
seen, but it would not be astonishing if something did eventually
appear, for the country has powers of preservation which even to-day
are only faintly recognized, and the earth can hide things so
cunningly that human beings may search for centuries and never find
them again. The fact that they are not found is no proof that they
never existed.
When this ancient man hunted on the banks of the Nile, he gazed upon
a very different land from that which exists to-day. The river was
wider and shallower. It overflowed its banks for greater distances.
The banks of gravel which show where the waters of the river lapped
in bygone centuries still exist, but they are far removed from the
river, and a hundred feet or so higher.
In all the thousands of years that have elapsed since then, the Nile
has been cutting a deeper and deeper channel for itself. In all the
years that it has been bringing down the mud in solution, flowing
over the land, some of the mud has sunk to the bottom and remained;
much of it has been carried from the Delta to the sea. The mud that
sank has got deeper and deeper. The river has added to the deposit
inch by inch, until there is now a wonderful layer of alluvial soil:
just the mud of the Nile, between 30 and 40 feet thick on each side
of the stream.
This deposit itself has helped to give scientists an idea of the age
of the earliest human remains that have been found. The rate at which
the river leaves the mud behind has been carefully measured, and men
have learned that in a century the Nile will add 4 inches of soil to
the fields by flooding. Test holes have revealed the present depth
of the alluvial, and if roughly about a yard of deposition is allowed
for one thousand years, and about 10 or 12 yards are allowed for the
depth, then the age of the deposit is fixed at ten or twelve thousand
years.
In some quarters this time is considered as absolutely accurate and
definitely fixed, but there are so many factors to be taken into
account that we should hesitate to regard them as unalterable. The
Nile, it is true, has been depositing mud at the rate of 4 inches to
the century in modern times, but this is no proof that it has always
deposited mud at this rate, and there may have been considerable
changes in the rate at which the mud banks have grown on each side
of the stream. We know the floods vary considerably, and the rate of
deposition must vary similarly. There seems at least the possibility
that it took twice as long as the accepted estimate to deposit the
mud on each side of the river, that is twenty thousand years. For
aught we know, it may have taken two hundred thousand years.
It will be seen how difficult it is in dealing with the lapse of
such ages to mention any definite dates. This is why the men who are
digging up the past in Egypt refer to Dynasties, starting with the
First Dynasty, and working up to the last or Thirtieth Dynasty.
A great deal has been done towards discovering the names of the
various kings in the different Dynasties, but there are still many
gaps to fill in. Most of our information in this respect has been
given us by a list of names compiled by a priest named Manetho, who
lived about two thousand one hundred years ago. Manetho undoubtedly
based his names of kings on more ancient lists which have totally
disappeared, but that he was fairly accurate is borne out by the
Turin papyrus so far as it has been translated. The difficulty with
this papyrus is that it was discovered in a number of fragments, and
some parts of it are missing. However, the parts that remain have
been most carefully pieced together, and seem to verify Manetho’s
list, which starts with Menes, who is looked upon as the first king
of the First Dynasty, and is thought to have reigned about seven
thousand years ago.
Throughout the ages that followed the reign of Menes, there grew up
those religious beliefs and quaint burial customs which have done so
much to unfold to us the life of the past. At first sight there seems
to be no reason for all the statues, the tiny figures, and wonderful
wall inscriptions to be found in the ancient tombs of Egypt. It seems
incomprehensible that the dead should be buried with food and flowers
beside them, that all this artistic talent should be wasted in this
manner. Yet some such customs exist in all lands, and survive to
this day, for we still place wreaths of flowers on the graves of our
departed in memory of them, but actually the giving of a wreath is
based on a custom that recedes so far back that all trace of it has
been lost.
The Egyptians believed that there was another world, to which the
soul journeyed after death. But the journey was long and hazardous,
and the soul faced many perils on the way. In order to protect the
soul from danger, the Egyptians used to paint an image of the Sun God
within the tomb, thus placing the soul directly under the protection
of the god, and the soul would wander over the heavens in the company
of the god, immune from all harm, so long as the daylight lasted.
Directly darkness fell, all the evil spirits would come forth from
their retreats, and try to trap the soul as it stumbled blindly
through the labyrinths of the lower regions. All night the soul
would fight against these perils, struggling continually towards the
dawn. Then, as the sun came up, the soul would escape from the evil
demons, and wander free of danger through the heavens once more until
darkness fell.
Every human being was also considered to possess a perfect duplicate,
a double, and the Egyptians were taught that the life of this double
depended on the survival of the body, and if the double had no body
to return to, the double would become extinct and die for good.
Such a thing was too terrible to contemplate, and had it happened
it would have signified eternal disgrace to the living, as well as
obliteration to the dead. Consequently the body was embalmed, so
that it would be preserved for all time as a place of refuge for the
double.
There was the risk, however, that despite all precautions, something
might happen to the embalmed body, that it might be destroyed by some
accident quite unforeseen and unforeseeable. The Egyptians must have
considered this danger long and earnestly before they arrived at a
method of averting it.
The method was simplicity itself. What could serve the purpose better
than a statue of the deceased? If the mummy became damaged, there was
always the likeness in stone for the double to inhabit. Then somebody
decided that two statues would provide two chances for the double to
survive in case of accident to the mummy, and once the idea was fully
established the number of statues multiplied until there was a dozen
or more, all the same, carved in stone, to represent the dead man. To
avoid the possibility of the double making any mistake, the likeness
of the dead man was portrayed. This accounts for the finding of so
many statues of kings; each statue gave the king a chance in the
afterlife.
To provide sustenance for the double before it reached the Egyptian
equivalent of Paradise, jars of water, meat and bread were buried
with the mummy. It would not do for the dead to go hungry.
Theoretically the foodstuffs should have been replenished from time
to time, and no doubt for long this was done, but the Egyptians
finally found that it was difficult enough to provide for the living,
without toiling to feed the dead.
There is no doubt that the offerings to the dead became somewhat of
a drain on the resources of these ancient Nile dwellers, so again
they solved the problem in quite a simple way. If they painted all
the offerings on the walls of the tombs, and prayed to the gods to
provide the departed with the things needed in the afterworld, such
painted offerings would last for ever, and relieve the living of
the demands on their foodstuffs. Consequently, all over the tombs,
these pictures of offerings may be found, to serve the deceased if he
should need food during his wanderings to the Egyptian Paradise.
The little images known as Ushabti were placed in the tomb, in case
the deceased were called upon to work in the next world. They were
his servants, who would labour for him and save their master from
performing menial tasks. The boats or barges that are found were
to ferry the dead man over the sacred waters to the Fields of the
Blessed.
The Egyptians, indeed, considered that everything required in this
life would be needed in the next. It is well for us that they had
these ideas, for they have resulted in many remarkable relics being
found in the tombs, relics which help the scientists to reconstruct
the life of these wonderful ancients, to revive the romance of their
lost civilization.
In order that the dead man might not lose his identity, his name was
graven within the tomb, and in time the outstanding features of his
life were also mentioned, so that the gods should be conversant with
all he had done. Some of these notes are short, others long, but
all of them are of importance as showing us what happened while the
dead man was alive. We have our own National Biography printed on
paper, and carefully bound to place on our shelves, but the National
Biography of Ancient Egypt is carved upon mountains of stones in the
tombs of the land. They are the books of the distant past, but there
is the possibility that they will survive when many of our modern
books have perished utterly from the earth.
[Illustration:
_By courtesy of the British Museum_
A SCENE FROM THE FAMOUS BOOK OF THE DEAD, PAINTED 3,000 YEARS AGO ON
PAPYRUS, SHOWING KING HER-HERU AND QUEEN NETCHEMET PRAYING TO OSIRIS
WHILE THE HEART OF THE QUEEN IS BEING WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE]
The commonest of all the ancient manuscripts that have survived to
our day is the well-known Book of the Dead. It is another relic which
serves to indicate the thought devoted by the Egyptians to life in
the next world. The Book of the Dead is a sacred book, which tells
the dead man what to say to the gods when he meets them, how to
answer their questions. Osiris is the Judge who weighs the man’s
heart, and considers if he be worthy to enter the Realms of Bliss.
And the departed is instructed what to say. “I have not played the
hypocrite,” he avers. “I have not stolen,” is another answer he must
make. “I have not lied. I have not committed adultery. I am no slayer
of men.”
There are forty-two of these Confessions in the Book of the Dead, and
it is astounding how they resemble the Ten Commandments upon which
are based the Christian religion. In the replies just quoted may be
traced three commandments: “Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not
commit adultery. Thou shalt do no murder.”
Who can say after this whence the wisdom of the Bible sprang? The
religion of the ancient Egyptians seems false to our eyes, but
underlying it are many fine principles, and much of the truth that is
eternal.
Even in those remote times, however, there were people who were
ever ready to take advantage of the grief of the relatives of the
departed. A Book of the Dead was essential to the well-being of the
departed, once he came into the presence of the gods, and the living
would go to the scribe and acquire the finest copy of the Book that
lay within their means. The wonderfully painted Books were only for
the wealthy and the nobles. The poor people had to be satisfied with
something that was much inferior, from which a great deal of the text
was missing.
The poorer classes were, of course, unable to read the sacred
script, and would therefore be unaware that much of the text was
missing; that the Book was, in fact, so much abridged, that they
were acquiring a garbled version, bearing little resemblance to the
full Book. They would have the body embalmed, and see the sacred
Book placed within reach of the mummy’s hand, so that it could be
consulted directly it was required, little knowing that the Book upon
which they relied was but an imitation of the genuine sacred Book.
In fact, in those days, it was more or less the same as it is to-day.
The scribe scamped the work of the Book that he was poorly paid for,
and took more pains with the Book for which he received a better
price.
Discoveries seem to indicate that although the people had faith in
the Book of the Dead, the scribes themselves were inclined to be
unbelievers. It is fairly evident that they had no compunction in
defrauding the relatives, for when the scribe had sold a beautiful
copy to place with one of the departed, he would very often slip in
a blank papyrus along with the mummy, and abstract the fine Book,
knowing full well that his fraud would never be found out. Probably
he reasoned that it was rather a waste to place such a fine specimen
of his work where it would be lost for ever. It is quite likely that
some of the scribes devoted a vast amount of time and skill to making
a wonderful copy of the Book of the Dead that they could show to
relatives to get their order, with the intention of substituting an
inferior work, or even a blank. Thus their one fine copy would be a
source of income to them, and they would never part with it if they
could possibly avoid it.
Judging from the blanks and poor copies that have been recovered,
there is little doubt that the Egyptians of old were quite as guilty
of sharp practices as are some of the people of to-day.