MEDUM.
1891.
After having sampled the civilization of each of the great periods of
Egyptian history, back to the twelfth dynasty, as described in preceding
chapters, I longed more than ever to discover the beginning of things.
For this Medum offered the best chance for reaching back. The
presumption was that it belonged to the beginning of the fourth dynasty;
and here we might perhaps find something still undeveloped, and be able
to gauge our way in the unknown. Could we there see the incipient
stages, or at least their traces? Could we learn how conventional forms
and ideas had arisen? Could we find Egypt not yet full grown, still in
its childhood?
I called together a selected lot of my old workers from Illahun, and we
went over and made a camp at the cemetery of Medum; there we lived over
four months, and I unravelled what could be traced on the questions that
await us. Broadly, it may be said, that we learned more of our ignorance
than our knowledge: the beginning seems as remote as ever, for nearly
all the conventions are already perfected there; but many new questions
have been opened, and we at least see more of the road, though the goal
is still out of view.
The first question to settle was that of the age of the pyramid and
cemetery. All the indications pointed to as early an age as we knew, but
not before Seneferu, the first king of the fourth dynasty, and
predecessor of Khufu. Yet the theory that the pyramids were built in
chronological order, from north to south, had led some to suppose that
this was of the twelfth dynasty.
The most promising means of ascertaining the age, was to search for any
remains of the pyramid temple; on the chance of inscriptions, such as I
had found of Khafra at Gizeh, and of Usertesen II at Illahun. But where
was the temple? No sign of such a building could be seen anywhere to the
east of the pyramid, and some holes I sunk in the space within the
pyramid enclosure showed nothing. I hesitated for some days, while other
work was going on, looking at the great bank of rubbish against the side
of the pyramid, rubbish accumulated by the destruction of its upper
part. At last I determined on the large excavation needful, for I felt
that we must solve the matter if possible. So, marking out a space which
would have held two or three good-sized London houses, and knowing that
we must go as deep as a tall house before we could get any result, I
began a work of several weeks, with as many men as could be efficiently
put into the area. At first it was easy enough, but soon we found large
blocks, which we could scarcely move; and these slipped away and rolled
down all the stages of our work, upsetting all our regular cutting. But
they all had to be got out of the way, by lifting, rolling or breaking
up. At last we had a hole that could be seen for miles off across the
valley, and so deep that the sides looked perilously high on either hand
when one stood in the bottom. The pavement was reached, and we found at
one end of our great excavation a wall, and one side of a large stele
just showing.
We needed then to lengthen the pit, and the falls from our fresh work
soon buried all that we had found. A fresh trouble came with a strong
gale, which blew away the sand, and let the loose stones come rattling
down from the rubbish which formed the sides of our hole. One great fall
came near burying us in the bottom of the work: and it was three weeks
before I again saw the building. At last we uncovered the court-yard,
and found two steles; and moreover instead of a mere court there
appeared a doorway on the east side, and crawling in I found a chamber
and passage still roofed over and quite perfect. We had, in fact, found
an absolutely complete, though small, temple; not a stone was missing,
nor a piece knocked off; the steles and the altar between them stood
just as when they were set up; and the oldest dated building in the land
has stood unimpaired amidst all the building and the destruction that
has gone on in Egypt throughout history.
The question about the age was settled indirectly. The original
construction had no ornament or inscriptions. But numerous mentions of
Seneferu, both during the ages near his own, and of the eighteenth
dynasty, showed plainly what the Egyptians knew about the builder.
[Illustration: 109. COURT OF TEMPLE.]
The pyramid of Medum differs from nearly all the others. It is really
the primitive tomb-building or mastaba, such as often is found with
successive coats added around it in the cemetery here; but this was
enlarged by seven coats of masonry, widening and heightening it, until a
final coat over all covered the slope from top to bottom at one angle.
It is thus the final stage of complication of the mastaba tomb, and the
first type of the pyramid. Later kings saved the intermediate stages,
and built pyramids all at one design, without any additions. This
architectural feature is another proof of the early age of this pyramid.
And it is remarkably akin to the pyramid of Khufu which follows it. Both
have the same angle; and therefore the ratio of height to circuit, being
that of a radius to its circle, holds good. The approximate ratio
adopted was 7 to 44; the dimensions of the pyramid of Seneferu are 7 and
44 times a length of 25 cubits; those of Khufu are 7 and 44 times a
length of 40 cubits. Hence the design of the size of the great pyramid
of Gizeh was made by Khufu on the lines of the pyramid of Medum, which
was built by his predecessor. Fragments of Seneferu’s wooden coffin were
found inside the pyramid; but the place had long since been plundered.
[Illustration: 110. SECTION OF PYRAMID. 1: 2000.]
The tombs at Medum proved of great interest.
[Illustration: 111. COLUMNS OF THIRD DYNASTY.]
One of the largest was built on a very irregular foundation; and below
the ground level I found the walls by which the builders had guided
their work. Outside of each corner a wall was built up to the ground
level; the sloping profile of the side was drawn on it; and then the
wall was founded and built in line between the profiles. But the most
attractive matter was the study of the inscriptions on the tombs, which
show us the earliest forms of the hieroglyphs yet known. To preserve and
examine their record I made a full-sized copy of the whole, and then
published that reduced by photo-lithography. The evidence is the most
valuable that we can yet obtain, on the earliest traceable civilization
of the Egyptians. We have no remains certainly dated older than these;
and the objects used as hieroglyphs here must have been already long
familiar for them to have been used for signs. They therefore lead us
back to the third dynasty, or even earlier times; and they show us
various objects which are as yet quite unknown to us till much later
ages.
We can thus estimate the architecture of the pre-pyramid period. There
were columns with spreading capitals and abaci, set up in rows to
support the roof. There were papyrus columns, with a curious bell-top on
the flower, the source of the heavier conventional form of later times;
these were probably carved in wood, and originated from a wooden tent
pole. There were octagonal fluted columns tapering to the top, and
painted with a black dado, a white ornamental band, and red above. There
was the cornice of uraeus serpents, which is so familiar in later times.
And the granaries were already built with sloping sides, as seen on
later tombs. In short, all the essentials of an advanced architecture
seem to have been quite familiar to the Egyptians; and we must cease to
argue from the simplicity of the religious buildings which we know--such
as the granite temples of Gizeh, or the limestone temple of Medum--for
deciding on the architecture of the fourth and third dynasties. We seem
to be as far from a real beginning as ever.
The animals drawn here show that the domestication of various species
was no uncommon thing; apes, monkeys, many kinds of horned cattle,
ibexes, &c., and various birds, all appear familiarly in this age. And
of the wild birds the eagle, owl, and wag-tail, are admirably figured,
far better than in later times. The Libyan race was already a civilized
ally of Egypt, using bows and arrows much as we see them subsequently.
The tools employed were of the established types; the adze and the
chisel of bronze; the sickle of flint teeth set in wood; the axe of
stone; the head of the bow drill--all these are shown us. And the
exactitude of the standards of measure was a matter of careful concern;
the cubit here does not differ from the standard of later times more
than the thickness of a bit of stout card. The draught-board was exactly
the same as that which is found down to Greek times.
Some matters, however, point to a stage which passed away soon after.
The sign for a seal is not a scarab, or a ring, but a cylinder of
jasper, set in gold ends, and turning on a pin attached to a necklace of
stone beads. Cylinders are often met with in early times, but died out
of use almost entirely by the eighteenth dynasty. This points to a
connection with Babylonia in early times. The numerals are all derived
from various lengths of rope; pointing to an original reckoning on
knotted ropes, as in many other countries. And some suggestion of the
original home of Egyptian culture near the sea, is made by the signs for
water being all black or dark blue-green. This is a colour that no one
living on the muddy Nile would ever associate with water; rather should
we suppose it to have originated from the clear waters of the Red Sea.
Another glimpse of the prehistoric age in Egypt is afforded by the
burials at Medum. The later people always buried at full length, and
with some provision for the body, such as food, head-rests, &c. Such
burials are found among the nobles at Medum. But most of the people
there buried in a contracted form, nose and knees, or at least with the
thigh bent square with the body and heels drawn up. And moreover, no
food-vessels or other objects are put in. Yet there was no mere
indifference shown; the bodies are in deep well tombs, often placed in
large wooden boxes, which must have been valuable in Egypt, and always
lying with the head to the north, facing the east. Here is clearly a
total difference in beliefs, and probably also in race. We know that two
races, the aquiline-nosed and the snouty, can be distinguished in early
times; and it seems that the aborigines used the contracted burial, and
the dynastic race the extended burial, which--with its customs--soon
became the national mode.
Is it likely that the bulk of the people should have resisted this
change for some 800 years, and then have suddenly adopted it in two or
three generations? Does not this rapid adoption of the upper-class
custom, between the beginning of the fourth dynasty and the immediately
succeeding times, suggest that the dynastic race did not enter Egypt
till shortly before we find their monuments? At least, the notion that
the stages preceding the known monuments should be sought outside of
Egypt, and that this is the explanation of the dearth of objects before
the fourth dynasty, is strengthened by the change of custom and belief
which we then find.
The mutilations and diseases that come to light are remarkable. One man
had lost his left leg below the knee; another had his hand cut off and
put in the tomb; others seem to have had bones excised, and placed
separately with the body. In one case acute and chronic inflammation and
rheumatism of the back had united most of the vertebrae into a solid
mass down the inner side. In another case there had been a rickety
curvature of the spine. To find so many peculiarities in only about
fifteen skeletons which I collected, is strange. These are all in the
Royal College of Surgeons now, for study.
Medum has, then, led us some way further back than we had reached before
in the history of Egyptian civilization; but it has shown how vastly our
information must be increased before the problems are solved.