shown by Professor Revillout in his “Seconde Mémoire sur les Blemmys,”
was the common property of the Egyptians and Nubians, or rather of that
obscure nation called the Blemmys, who, with the Nobades and Megabares,
were collectively classed at that time as “Ethiopians.” The Blemmys
(ancestors of the present Barabras) were a stalwart and valiant race,
powerful enough to treat on equal terms with the Roman rulers of Egypt.
They were devout adorers of Isis, and it is interesting to learn that
in the treaty of Maximin with this nation, it is expressly provided
that, “according to the old law,” the Blemmys were entitled to take
the statue of Isis every year from the sanctuary of Philæ to their own
country for a visit of a stated period. A graffito at Philæ, published
by Letronne, states that the writer was at Philæ when the image of the
goddess was brought back from one of these periodical excursions, and
that he beheld the arrival of the sacred boats “containing the shrines
of the divine statues.” From this it would appear that other images
than that of Isis had been taken to Ethiopia; probably those of Osiris
and Horus, and possibly also that of Hathor, the divine nurse. [Note to
second edition.]
[60] The Emperor Justinian is credited with the mutilation of the
sculptures of the large temple; but the ancient worship was probably
only temporarily suspended in his time.
[61] These and the following particulars about the Christians of
Nubia are found in the famous work of Makrizi, an Arab historian of
the fifteenth century, who quotes largely from earlier writers. See
Burckhardt’s “Travels in Nubia,” 4to, 1819, Appendix iii. Although
Belak is distinctly described as an island in the neighborhood of the
cataract, distant four miles from Assûan, Burckhardt persisted in
looking for it among the islets below Mahatta, and believed Philæ to be
the first Nubian town beyond the frontier. The hieroglyphic alphabet,
however, had not then been deciphered. Burckhardt died at Cairo in
1817, and Champollion’s discovery was not given to the world till 1822.
[62] This inscription, which M. About considers the most interesting
thing in Philæ, runs as follows: “A’ An VI de la République, le 15
Messidor, une Armée Française commandée par Bonaparte est descendue
a Alexandrie. L’Armée ayant mis, vingt jours après, les Mamelouks en
fuite aux Pyramides, Desaix, commandant la première division, les a
poursuivis au dela des Cataractes, ou il est arrivé le 18 Ventôse de
l’an VII.”
[63] About two-and-sixpence English.
[64] See previous note, p. 181.
[65] The story of Osiris--the beneficent god, the friend of man, slain
and dismembered by Typhon, buried in a score of graves: sought by
Isis; recovered limb by limb; resuscitated in the flesh; transferred
from earth to reign over the dead in the world of shades--is one of
the most complex of Egyptian legends. Osiris under some aspects is the
Nile. He personifies abstract good, and is entitled Unnefer, or “The
Good Being.” He appears as a myth of the solar year. He bears a notable
likeness to Prometheus and to the Indian Bacchus.
“Osiris, dit-on, était autrefois descendu sur la terre. Étre
bon par excellence, il avait adouci les mœurs des hommes par la
persuasion et la bienfaisance. Mais il avait succombé sous les
embûches de Typhon, son frère, le génie du mal, et pendant que ses
deux sœurs, Isis et Nephthys, recueillaient son corps qui avait
été jeté dans le fleuve, le dieu ressuscitait d’entre les morts
et apparaissait à son fils Horus, qu’il instituait son vengeur.
C’est ce sacrifice qu’il avait autrefois accompli en faveur des
hommes qu’ Osiris renouvelle ici eu faveur de l’âme dégagée de
ses liens terrestres. Non seulement il devient son guide, mais
il s’identifie à elle; il l’absorbe en son propre sein. C’est
lui alors qui, devenu le défunt lui même, se soumet à toutes les
épreuves que celui-ci doit subir avant d’être proclamé juste; c’est
lui qui, à chaque âme qu’il doit sauver, fléchit les gardiens des
demeures infernales et combat les monstres compagnons de la nuit
et de la mort; c’est lui enfin qui, vainqueur des ténèbres, avec
l’assistance d’Horus, s’assied au tribunal de la suprême justice et
ouvre à l’âme déclarée pure les portes du séjour éternel. L’image
de la mort aura été empruntée au soleil qui disparait à l’horizon
du soir: le soleil resplendissant du matin sera la symbole de cette
seconde naissance à une vie qui, cette fois, ne connaîtra pas la
mort.
“Osiris est donc le principe du bien.... Chargé de sauver les
âmes de la mort définitive, il est l’intermédiaire entre l’homme
et Dieu; il est le type et le sauveur de l’homme.”--“Notice des
Monuments à Boulaq”--Aug. Mariette Bey, 1872, pp. 105 _et seq._
[It has always been taken for granted by Egyptologists that Osiris was
originally a local god of Abydos, and that Abydos was the cradle of
the Osirian myth. Professor Maspero, however, in some of his recent
lectures at the Collége de France, has shown that the Osirian cult
took its rise in the Delta; and, in point of fact, Osiris, in certain
ancient inscriptions, is styled the King Osiris, “Lord of Tattu”
(Busiris), and has his name inclosed in a royal oval. Up to the time
of the Græco-Roman rule the only two cities of Egypt in which Osiris
reigned as the principal god were Busiris and Mendes.]
“Le centre terrestre du culte d’Osiris, était dans les cantons
nord-est du Delta, situés entre la branche Sébennytique et la
branche Pélusiaque, comme le centre terrestre du culte de Sit, le
frère et le meurtrier d’Osiris: les deux dieux étaient limitrophes
l’un de l’autre, et des rivalités de voisinage expliquent peut-être
en partie leurs querelles.... Tous les traits de la tradition
Osirienne ne sont pas également anciens: le fond me parait être
d’une antiquité incontestable. Osiris y réunit les caractères
des deux divinités qui se partageaient chaque nome: il est le
dieu des vivants et le dieu des morts en même temps; le dieu qui
nourrit et le dieu qui détruit. Probablement, les temps où, saisi
de pitié pour les mortels, il leur ouvrit l’accès de son royaume,
avaient été précédés d’autres temps où il était impitoyable et
ne songeait qu’à les anéantir. Je crois trouver un souvenir de
ce rôle destructeur d’Osiris dans plusieurs passages des textes
des Pyramides, où l’on promet au mort que Harkhouti viendra vers
lui, ‘déliant ses liens, brisant ses chaines pour le délivrer de
la ruine; _il ne le livrera pas à Osiris, si bien qu’il ne mourra
pas_, mais il sera glorieux dans l’horizon, solide comme le Did
dans la ville de Didou.’ L’Osiris farouche et cruel fut absorbé
promptement par l’Osiris doux et bienveillant. L’Osiris qui domine
toute la religion Égyptienne dès le début, c’est l’Osiris Onnofris,
l’Osiris Éntre bon, que les Grecs ont connu. Commes ses parents,
Sibou et Nouit, Osiris Onnofris appartient à la classe des dieux
généraux qui ne sont pas confinés en un seul canton, mais qui sont
adorés par un pays entier.” See “Les Hypogées Royaux de Thèbes”
(Bulletin critique de la religion Égyptienne) par Professeur G.
Maspero, “Revue de l’Histoire des Religions,” 1888. [Note to second
edition.]
“The astronomical and physical elements are too obvious to be mistaken.
Osiris and Isis are the Nile and Egypt. The myth of Osiris typifies the
solar year--the power of Osiris is the sun in the lower hemisphere, the
winter solstice. The birth of Horus typifies the vernal equinox--the
victory of Horus, the summer solstice--the inundation of the Nile.
Typhon is the autumnal equinox.”--“Egypt’s Place in Universal History,”
Bunsen, 1st ed., vol. i, p. 437.
“The Egyptians do not all worship the same gods, excepting Isis and
Osiris.”--Herodotus, book ii.
[66] “These vases, made of alabaster, calcareous stone, porcelain,
terra-cotta, and even wood, were destined to hold the soft part or
viscera of the body, embalmed separately and deposited in them. They
were four in number, and were made in the shape of the four genii of
the Karneter, or Hades, to whom were assigned the four cardinal points
of the compass.” Birch’s “Guide to the First and Second Egyptian
Rooms,” 1874, p. 89. See also Birch’s “History of Ancient Pottery,”
1873, p. 23 _et seq._
[67] Thus depicted, he is called “the germinating Osiris.” [Note to
second edition.]
[68] See M. P. J. de Horrack’s translation of “The Lamentations of Isis
and Nephthys. Records of the Past,” vol. ii, p. 117 _et seq._
[69] “Operations Carried On at the Pyramids of Ghizeh.”--Col. Howard
Vyse, London, 1840, vol. i, p. 63.
[70] A city of Ethiopia, identified with the ruins at Gebel Barkel.
The worship of Amen was established at Napata toward the end of
the twentieth dynasty, and it was from the priests of Thebes who
settled at that time in Napata that the Ethiopian conquerors of Egypt
(twenty-third dynasty) were descended.
[71] The men hereabout can nearly all speak Arabic; but the women of
Nubia know only the Kensee and Berberee tongues, the first of which is
spoken as far as Korosko.
[72] _Lepsius’ Letters from Egypt, Ethiopia_, etc. Letter xviii, p.
184. Bohn’s ed., A.D. 1853.
[73] See the interesting account of funereal rites and ceremonies in
Sir G. Wilkinson’s “Ancient Egyptians,” vol. ii, ch. x, Lond., 1871.
Also wood-cuts Nos. 493 and 494 in the same chapter of the same work.
[74] _Abshek_: The hieroglyphic name of Abou Simbel. _Gr._ Aboccis.
[75] In the present state of Egyptian chronology it is hazardous to
assign even an approximate date to events which happened before the
conquest of Cambyses. The Egyptians, in fact, had no chronology in the
strict sense of the word. Being without any fixed point of departure,
such as the birth of Christ, they counted the events of each reign from
the accession of the sovereign. Under such a system error and confusion
were inevitable. To say when Rameses II was born and when he died is
impossible. The very century in which he flourished is uncertain.
Mariette, taking the historical lists of Manetho for his basis,
supposes the nineteenth dynasty to have occupied the interval comprised
within B.C. 1462 and 1288; according to which computation (allowing
fifty-seven years for the reigns of Rameses I and Seti I) the reign
of Rameses II would date from B.C. 1405. Brugsch gives him from B.C.
1407 to B.C. 1341; and Lepsius places his reign in the sixty-six years
lying between B.C. 1388 and B.C. 1322; these calculations being both
made before the discovery of the stella of Abydos. Bunsen dates his
accession from B.C. 1352. Between the highest and the lowest of these
calculations there is, as shown by the following table, a difference of
fifty-five years:
Rameses II began to reign B.C.
{ Brugsch 1407
According { Mariette 1405
to { Lepsius 1388
{ Bunsen 1352
[76] See chap. viii, foot note, p. 126.
[77] See “Essai sur l’Inscription Dédicatoire du Temple d’Abydos et la
Jeunesse de Sesotris.”--G. Maspero, Paris, 1867.
[78] See chap, viii, p. 125.
[79] _i. e._ Prince of the Hittites; the Kheta being now identified
with that people.
[80] This invaluable record is sculptured on a piece of wall built
out, apparently, for the purpose, at right angles to the south wall
of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. The treaty faces to the west, and is
situated about half-way between the famous bas-relief of Sheshonk and
his captives and the Karnak version of the poem of Pentaur. The former
lies to the west of the southern portal; the latter to the east. The
wall of the treaty juts out about sixty feet to the east of the portal.
This south wall and its adjunct, a length of about two hundred feet in
all, is perhaps the most precious and interesting piece of sculptured
surface in the world.
[81] See “Treaty of Peace Between Rameses II and the Hittites,”
translated by C. W. Goodwin, M. A. “ Records of the Past,” vol. iv, p.
25.
[82] Since this book was written, a further study of the subject has
led me to conjecture that not Seti I, but Queen Hatshepsu (Hatasu) of
the eighteenth dynasty, was the actual originator of the canal which
connected the Nile with the Red Sea. The inscriptions engraved upon the
walls of her great temple at Dayr-el-Baharî expressly state that her
squadron sailed from Thebes to the land of Punt and returned from Punt
to Thebes, laden with the products of that mysterious country which
Mariette and Maspero have conclusively shown to have been situated on
the Somali coast-line between Bab-el-Mandeb and Cape Guardafui. Unless,
therefore, some water-way existed at that time between the Nile and
the Red Sea, it follows that Queen Hatshepsu’s squadron of discovery
must have sailed northward from Thebes, descended the Nile to one of
its mouths, traversed the whole length of the Mediterranean sea, gone
out through the pillars of Hercules, doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and
arrived at the Somali coast by way of the Mozambique Channel and the
shores of Zanzibar. In other words, the Egyptian galleys would twice
have made the almost complete circuit of the African continent. This
is obviously an untenable hypothesis; and there remains no alternative
route except that of a canal, or chain of canals, connecting the
Nile with the Red Sea. The old Wady Tûmilât canal has hitherto been
universally ascribed to Seti I, for no other reason than that a canal
leading from the Nile to the ocean is represented on a bas-relief
of his reign on the north outer wall of the great temple of Karnak;
but this canal may undoubtedly have been made under the preceding
dynasty, and it is not only probable, but most likely, that the
great woman-Pharaoh, who first conceived the notion of venturing her
ships upon an unknown sea, may also have organized the channel of
communication by which those ships went forth. According to the second
edition of Sir J. W. Dawson’s “Egypt and Syria,” the recent surveys
conducted by Lieut.-Col. Ardagh, Maj. Spaight and Lieut. Burton, all of
the royal engineers, “render it certain that this valley [_i. e._ the
Wady Tûmilât] once carried a branch up the Nile which discharged its
waters into the Red Sea” (see chap. iii. p. 55); and in such case, if
that branch were not already navigable, Queen Hatshepsu would only have
needed to canalize it, which is what she probably did. [Note to second
edition.]
[83] “Les circonstances de l’histoire hebraïque s’appliquent ici d’une
manière on ne peut plus satisfaisante. Les Hébreux opprimés batissaient
une ville du nom de Ramsès. Ce récit ne peut donc s’appliquer qu’à
l’époque où la famille de Ramsès était sur le trône. Moïse, contraint
de fuir la colère du rois après le meurtre d’un Égyptien, subit un
long exil, parceque le roi ne mourut _qu’après un temps fort long_;
Ramsès II regna en effet plus de 67 ans. Aussitôt après le retour de
Moïse commença la lutte qui se termina par le célèbre passage de la
Mer Rouge. Cet événement eut donc lieu sous le fils de Ramsès II, ou
tout au plus tard pendant l’époque de troubles quit suivit son règne.
Ajoutons que la rapidité des derniers événements ne permet pas de
supposer que le roi eût sa résidence à Thèbes dans cet instant. Or,
Merenptah a précisément laissé dans la Basse-Egypte, et spécialement à
Tanis, des preuves importantes de son séjour.”--De Rougé, “Notice des
Monuments Égyptiennes du Rez de Chaussée du Musée du Louvre,” Paris,
1857, p. 22.
“Il est impossible d’attribuer ni à Meneptah I, ni à Seti II, ni à
Siptah, ni à Amonmesès, un règne même de vingt années; à plus forte
raison de cinquante ou soixante Seul le règne de Ramsès II remplit les
conditions indispensables. Lors même que nous ne saurions pas que ce
souverain a occupé les Hébreux à la construction de la ville de Ramsès,
nous serions dans l’impossibilité de placer Moïse à une autre époque, à
moins de faire table rase des renseignements bibliques.”--“Recherches
pour servir à l’Histoire de la XIX dynastie.” F. Chabas, Paris, 1873,
p. 148.
[84] The Bible narrative, it has often been observed, invariably
designates the king by this title, than which none, unfortunately, can
be more vague for purposes of identification. “Plus généralement,”
says Brugsch, writing of the royal titles, “sa personne se cache sous
une série d’expressions qui toutes ont le sens de la ‘_grande maison_’
ou du ‘_grand_ palais,’ quelquefois au duel, des ‘_deux grandes
maisons_,’ par rapport à la division de l’Égypte en deux parties. C’est
du titre très frequent Per-aa, ‘la grande maison,’ ‘la haute porte,’
qu’on a heureusement dérivé le nom biblique _Pharao_ donné aux rois
d’Égypte.”--“Histoire d’Égypte,” Brugsch, second edition, Part I, p.
35; Leipzig, 1875.
* * * * *
This probably is the only title under which it was permissible for the
plebeian class to speak or write of the sovereign. It can scarcely have
escaped Herr Brugsch’s notice that we even find it literally translated
in Genesis, 1. 4, where it is said that “when the days of his mourning
were past, Joseph spake _unto the house_ of Pharaoh, saying: ‘If now
I have found grace in your eyes,’” etc. etc. If Moses, however, had
but once recorded the cartouche name of either of his three Pharaohs,
archæologists and commentators would have been spared a great deal of
trouble.
[85] This remarkable manuscript relates the journey made by a
female pilgrim of French birth, _circa_ A.D. 370, to Egypt,
Mesopotamia and the holy land. The manuscript is copied from an older
original and dates from the tenth or eleventh century. Much of the
work is lost, but those parts are yet perfect which describe the
pilgrim’s progress through Goshen to Tanis and thence to Jerusalem,
Edessa and the Haran. Of Pithom it is said: “Pithona etiam civitas
quam œdificaverunt filii Israel ostensa est nubis in ipso itinere;
in eo tamen loco ubi jam fines Egypti intravimus, religentes jam
terras Saracenorum. Nam et ipsud nunc Pithona castrum est. Heroun
autem civitas quæ fuit illo tempere, id est ubi occurit Joseph patri
suo venienti, sicut scriptum est in libro Genesis nunc est comes sed
grandis quod nos dicimus vicus ... nam ipse vicus nunc appellatur
Hero.” See a letter on “Pithom-Heroöpolis” communicated to “The
Academy” by M. Naville, March 22, 1884. See also M. Naville’s memoir,
entitled “The Store-City of Pithom and the Route of the Exodus” (third
edition); published by order of the committee of the Egypt Exploration
Fund, 1888.
[86] See M. Naville’s memoir, entitled “Goshen and the Shrine of
Saft-el-Henneh,” published by order of the committee of the Egypt
Exploration Fund, 1887.
[87] Kadesh, otherwise Katesh or Kades. A town on the Orontes. See a
paper entitled “The Campaign of Ramesis II in His Fifth Year Against
Kadesh on the Orontes,” by the Rev. G. H. Tomkins, in the “Proceedings
of the Society of Biblical Archæology,” 1881, 1882; also in the
“Transactions” of the society, vol. viii.
[88] Anastasi Papyri, No. III, Brit. Mus.
[89] See “Mélanges Égyptologiques,” by F. Chabas, 1 Série, 1862.
There has been much discussion among Egyptologists on the subject of
M. Chabas’ identification of the Hebrews. The name by which they are
mentioned in the papyri here quoted, as well as in an inscription
in the quarries of Hamamat, is _Aperi-u_. A learned critic in the
“Revue Archéologique” (vol. v, 2d series, 1862) writes as follows: “La
découverte du nom des Hébreux dans les hiéroglyphes serait un fait
de la dernière importance; mais comme aucun autre point historique
n’offre peut-être une pareille séduction, il faut aussi se méfier des
illusions avec un soin méticuleux. La confusion des sons R et L dans
la langue Égyptienne, et le voisinage des articulations B et P nuisent
un peu, dans le cas particular, à la rigueur des conclusions quon
peut tirér de la transcription. Néanmoins, il y a lieu de prendre en
considération ce fait que les _Aperiu_, dans les trois documents qui
nous parlent d’eux, sent montrés employés à des travaux de même espèce
que ceux auxquels, selon l’Ecriture, les Hébreux furent assujettis
par les Égyptiens. La circonstance que les papyrus mentionnant ce nom
ont été trouvés à Memphis, plaide encore en faveur de l’assimilation
proposée--découverte importante qu’il est à désirer de voir confirmée
dar d’autres monuments.” It should be added that the Aperiu also
appear in the inscription of Thothmes III at Karnak and were supposed
by Mariette to be the people of Ephon. It is, however, to be noted
that the inscriptions mention two tribes of Aperiu--a greater and a
lesser, or an upper and a lower tribe. This might perhaps consist with
the establishment of Hebrew settlers in the delta and others in the
neighborhood of Memphis. The Aperiu, according to other inscriptions,
appear to have been horsemen, or horse-trainers, which certainly tells
against the probability of their identity with the Hebrews.
[90] See the famous wall painting of the Colossus on the Sledge
engraved in Sir G. Wilkinson’s “Ancient Egyptians;” frontispiece to
vol. ii, ed. 1871.
[91] In a letter written by a priest who lived during this reign
(Rameses II), we find an interesting account of the disadvantages and
hardships attending various trades and pursuits, as opposed to the ease
and dignity of the sacerdotal office. Of the mason he says: “It is the
climax of his misery to have to remove a block of ten cubits by six,
a block which it takes a month to drag by the private ways among the
houses.”--Sallier Pap. No. II, Brit. Musæ.
[92] “Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as
heretofore; let them go and gather straw for themselves.”
“And the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall
lay upon them; ye shall not diminish ought thereof.--Exodus, chap. v,
7, 8.
M. Chabas says: “Cese détails sont complètement conformes aux
habitudes Égyptiennes. Le mélange de paille et d’argile dans les
briques antiques a été parfaitement reconnu. D’un autre côté, le
travail à la tâche est mentionne dans un texte écrit an revers d’un
papyrus célébrant la splendeur de la ville de Ramsès, et datant,
selon toute vraisemblance, du règne de Meneptah I. En voici la
transcription: ‘Compte des maçons, 12; en outre des hommes à mouler
la brique dans leurs villes, amenés aux travaux de la maison. Eux
à faire leur nombre de briques journellesment; non ils sont à se
relâcher des travaux dans la maison neuve; c’est ainsi que j’ai
obéi au mandat donné par mon maître.’” See “Recherches pour servir
à l’Histoire de la XIX Dynastie,” par F. Chabas. Paris: 1873, p.
149.
The curious text thus translated into French by M. Chabas is written
on the back of the papyrus already quoted (_i. e._ Letter of Panbesa,
Anastasi Papyri, No. III), and is preserved in the British Museum. The
wall-painting in a tomb of the eighteenth dynasty at Thebes, which
represents foreign captives mixing clay, molding, drying, and placing
bricks, is well known from the illustration in Sir G. Wilkinson’s
“Ancient Egyptians,” ed. of 1871, vol. ii, p. 196. Cases sixty-one and
sixty-two in the first Egyptian room, British Museum, contain bricks of
mixed clay and straw stamped with the name of Rameses II.
[93] “Les affaires de la cour et de l’administration du pays sont
expédiées par les ‘chefs’ ou les ‘intendants,’ par les ‘secretaires’
et par la nombreuse classe des scribes.... Le trésor rempli d’or et
d’argent, et le divan des depenses et des recettes avaient leurs
intendants à eux. La chambre des comptes ne manque pas. Les domaines,
les propriétés, les palais, et même les lacs du roi sont mis sous
la garde d’inspecteurs. Les architectes du Pharaon s’occupent de
bâtisses d’après l’ordre du Pharaon. Les carrières, à partir de celles
du Mokattam (le Toora de nos jours) jusqu’à celles d’Assouan, se
trouvent exploitées par des chefs qui surveillent le transport des
pierres taillés a la place de deur destination. Finalement la corvée
est dirigée par les chefs des travaux publics.”--“Histoire d’Égypte,”
Brugsch; second edition, 1875; chap, v, pp. 34 and 35.
[94] The Pa-Rameses of the Bible narrative was not the only Egyptian
city of that name. There was a Pa-Rameses near Memphis, and another
Pa-Remeses at Abou Simbel; and there may probably have been many more.
[95] “The remains were apparently those of a large hall paved with
white alabaster slabs. The walls were covered with a variety of
bricks and encaustic tiles; many of the bricks were of most beautiful
workmanship, the hieroglyphs in some being inlaid in glass. The
capitals of the columns were inlaid with brilliant colored mosaics,
and a pattern in mosaics ran round the cornice. Some of the bricks
are inlaid with the oval of Rameses III.” See “Murray’s Hand-book for
Egypt,” route 7, p. 217.
Case D, in the second Egyptian room at the British Museum, contains
several of these tiles and terra-cottas, some of which are painted
with figures of Asiatic and negro captives, birds serpents, etc.; and
are extremely beautiful both as regards design and execution. Murray
is wrong, however, in attibuting the building to Rameses II. The
cartouches are those of Rameses III. The discovery was made by some
laborers in 1870.
NOTE TO SECOND EDITION.--This mound was excavated last year (1887)
by M. Naville, acting as before for the Egypt Exploration Fund.
See supplementary sheet to _The Illustrated London News_, 17th
September, 1887, containing a complete account of the excavations at
Tel-el-Yahoodeh, etc., with illustrations.
[96] This tablet is votive, and contains in fact a long Pharisaic
prayer offered to Osiris by Rameses IV in the fourth year of his reign.
The king enumerates his own virtues and deeds of piety, and implores
the god to grant him length of days. See “Sur une Stèle inédite
d’Abydos,” par P. Pierret. “Revue Archéologique, vol. xix, p. 273.
[97] M. Mariette, in his great work on Abydos, has argued that Rameses
II was designated during the lifetime of his father by a cartouche
signifying only _Ra-User-Ma_; and that he did not take the additional
_Setp-en-Ra_ till after the death of Seti I. The Louvre, however,
contains a fragment of bas-relief representing the infant Rameses with
the full title of his later years. This important fragment is thus
described by M. Paul Pierret: “Ramesés II enfant, représenté assis
sur le signe des montagnes _du_: c’est une assimilation au soleil
levant lorsqu’il émerge à l’horizon céleste. Il porte la main gauche
à sa bouche, en signe d’enfance. La main droite pend sur les genoux.
Il est vétu d’une longue robe. La tresse de l’enfance pend sur son
épaule. Un diadème relie ses cheveux, et un uræus se dresse sur son
front. Voici la traduction de la courte légende qui accompagne cette
représentation. ‘Le roi de la Haute et de la Basse Égypte, maitre des
deux pays, _Ra-User-Ma Setp-en-Ra_, vivificateur, éternel comme le
soleil.’”--“Catalogue de la Salle Historique.” P. Pierret. Paris, 1873,
p. 8.
* * * * *
M. Maspero is of opinion that this one fragment establishes the
disputed fact of his actual sovereignty from early childhood, and so
disposes of the entire question. See “L’Inscription dédicatoire du
Temple d’Abydos, suivi d’un Essai Sur la jeunesse de Sesostris.” G.
Maspero. 4º Paris, 1867. See also chap. viii (foot note), p. 126.
[98] “Le métier d’architecte se trouvait confié aux plus hauts
dignitaires de la cour Pharaonique. Les architectes du roi,
les _Murket_, se recrutaient assez souvent parmi le nombre des
princes.”--“Histoire d’Egypte:” Brugsch, second edition, 1875, chap. v,
p. 34.
[99] See “L’Inscription dédicatoire du Temple d’Abydos,” etc., by G.
Maspero.
[100] See Rosellini, _Monumenti Storici_, pl. lxxi.
[101] “A la nouvelle de la mort de son père, Ramsès II désormais seul
roi, quitta l’Éthiopie et ceignit la couronne à Thebes. Il était alors
dans la plénitude de ses forces, et avait autour de lui un grand nombre
d’enfants, dont quelques-uns étaient assez âgés pour combattre sous ses
ordres.”--“Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient,” par G. Maspero,
chap. v, p. 220. 4th edition, 1886.
[102] “Comme Ramsès II regna 66 ans, le règne de son successeur sous
lequel la sortie des Juifs eut lieu, embrassa la durée de 20 ans; et
comme Moïse avait l’age de 80 ans au temps de la sortie, il en résulte
évidemment que les enfants d’Israël quittèrent l’Égypte une des ces
dernèires six années du règne de Menepthah; c’est à dire entre 1327 et
1331 avant l’ère chrétienne. Si nous admettons que ce Pharaon périt
dans la mer, selon le rapport biblique, Moïse sera né 80 ans avant
1321, ou 1401 avant J. Chr., la _sixième_ année de règne de Ramsès
II.”--“Histoire d’Égypte,” Brugsch, chap. viii, p. 157. First edition,
Leipzig, 1859.
[103] If the exodus took place, however, during the opening years of
the reign of Menepthah, it becomes necessary either to remove the birth
of Moses to a correspondingly earlier date, or to accept the amendment
of Bunsen, who says “we can hardly take literally the statement as to
the age of Moses at the exodus, _twice over_ forty years.” Forty years
is the mode of expressing a generation, from thirty to thirty-three
years. “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” Bunsen, London, 1859,
vol. iii, p. 184. That Meneptah did not himself perish with his host,
seems certain. The final oppression of the Hebrews and the miracles
of Moses, as narrated in the Bible, give one the impression of having
all happened within a comparatively short space of time; and cannot
have extended over a period of twenty years. Neither is it stated that
Pharaoh perished. The tomb of Menepthah, in fact, is found in the
valley of the tombs of the kings (tomb No. 8).
[104] Herodotus, book ii.
[105] Rosellini, for instance, carries hero-worship to its extreme
limit when he not only states that Rameses the Great had, by his
conquests, filled Egypt with luxuries that contributed alike to the
graces of every-day life and the security of the state, but (accepting
as sober fact the complimentary language of a triumphal tablet) adds,
that “universal peace even secured to him the love of the vanquished”
(l’universal pace assicurata dall’ amore dei vinti stessi pel
Faraone).--“Mon. Storici,” vol. iii, part ii, p. 294. Bunsen, equally
prejudiced in the opposite direction, can see no trait of magnanimity
or goodness in one whom he loves to depict as “an unbridled despot, who
took advantage of a reign of almost unparalleled length, and of the
acquisitions of his father and ancestors, in order to torment his own
subjects and strangers to the utmost of his power, and to employ them
as instruments of his passion for war and building.”--“Egypt’s Place in
Universal History,” Bunsen, vol. iii, book iv, part ii, p. 184.
[106] “Souvent il s’introduit lui-même dans les triades divines
auxquelles il dédie les temples. _Le soleil de Ramsès Meïamoun_ qu’on
aperçoit sur leur murailles, n’est autre chose que le roi lui-même
déifié de son vivant.”--“Notice des Monuments Égyptiennes au Musée du
Louvre.” De Rougé, Paris, 1875, p. 20.
[107] See _Hymn to Pharaoh_ (Menepthah), translated by C. W. Goodwin,
M. A. “Records of the Past,” vol. vi, p. 101.
[108] The late Vicomte E. de Rougé, in a letter to M. Guigniaut on
the discoveries at Tanis, believes that he detects the Semitic type
in the portraits of Rameses II and Seti I; and even conjectures that
the Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty may have descended from Hyksos
ancestors: “L’origine de la famille des Ramsès nous est jusqu’ ici
complétement inconnue; sa prédilection pour le dieu _Set_ ou _Sutech_,
qui éclate des l’abord par le nom de Seti I (_Sethos_), ainsi que
d’autres indices, pouvaient déjà engager à la reporter vers la Basse
Égypte. Nous savions même que Ramsès II avait épousé une fille du
Prince de Khet, quand le traité de l’an 22 eut ramené la paix entre les
deux pays. Le profil très-décidément sémitique de Séti et de Ramsès
se distinguait nettement des figures ordinal res de nos Pharaons
Thébains.” (See “Revue Archéologique”, vol. ix, A.D.
1864.) In the course of the same letter, M. de Rougé adverts to the
magnificent restoration of the temple of Sutech at Tanis (San), by
Rameses II and to the curious fact that the god is there represented
with the peculiar head-dress worn elsewhere by the Prince of Kheta.
It is to be remembered, however, that the patron deity of Rameses II
was Amen-Ra. His homage of Sutech (which might possibly have been a
concession to his Khetan wife) seems to have been confined almost
exclusively to Tanis, where Ma-at-iri-neferu-Ra may be supposed to have
resided.
[109] “_L’absence de points fouillés_, la simplification voulue, la
restriction desdétails et des ornements à quelques sillons plus ou
moins hardis, l’engorgement de toutes les parties délicates, démontrent
que les Égyptiens étaient loin d’avoir des procédés et des facilités
inconnus.”--“La Scripture Égyptienne,” par Emile Soldi, p. 48.
“Un fait qui nous parait avoir dû entraver les progrès de la
sculpture, c’est l’habitude probable des sculpteurs ou entrepreneurs
Égyptiens d’entre prendre le travail à même sur la pierre, sans avoir
préalablement cherché le modèle en terre glaise, comme on le fait de
nos jours. Une fois le modèle fini, on le moule et on le reproduit
mathematiquement définitive. Ce procédé a toujours été employé dans les
grandes époques de l’art; et il ne nous a pas semblé qu’il ait jamais
été en usage en Egypte.”--Ibid, p. 82.
M. Soldi is also of opinion that the Egyptian sculptors were ignorant
of many of the most useful tools known to the Greek, Roman, and modern
sculptors, such as the emery-tube, the diamond-point, etc.
[110] On the left leg of this colossus is the famous Greek inscription
discovered by Messrs. Bankes and Salt. It dates from the reign of
Psamatichus I, and purports to have been cut by a certain Damearchon,
one of the two hundred and forty thousand Egyptian troops of whom
it is related by Herodotus (book ii, chaps. xxix and xxx) that they
deserted because they were kept in garrison at Syene for three years
without being relieved. The inscription, as translated by Colonel
Leake, is thus given in Rawlingson’s “Herodotus” (vol. ii, p. 37);
“King Psamatichus having come to Elephantine, those who were with
Psamatichus, the son of Theocles, wrote this: ‘They sailed, and came
to above Kerkis, to where the river rises ... the Egyptian Amasis....’
The writer is Damearchon, the son of Amœbichus, and Pelephus (Pelekos),
the son of Udamus.” The king Psamatichus here named has been identified
with the Psamtik I of the inscriptions. It was in his reign, and not as
it has sometimes been supposed, in the reign of Psamatichus II, that
the great military defection took place.
[111] _Ra_, the principal solar divinity, generally represented with
the head of a hawk and the sun-disk on his head. “_Ra_ vent dire
_faire_, _disposer_; c’est, en effet, le dieu Ra qui a disposié organsé
le monde, dont la matière lui a été donnée par Ptah.”--P. Pierret:
“Dictionaire d’Archéologie Égyptienne.”
“Ra est une autre des intelligence démiurgiques. Ptah avait créé le
soleil; le soleil, a son tour, est _le créateur des êtres, animaux
et hommes_. Il est à l’hémisphère supérieure ce qu’Osiris est à
l’hémisphère inferieure. Ra s’incarne à Heliopis.”--A. Mariette:
“Notice des Monuments à Boulak,” p. 123.
[112] An instance occurs, however, in a small inscription sculptured on
the rocks of the Island of Sehayl in the first cataract, which records
the second panegyry of the reign of Rameses II.--See “Récuil des
Monuments, etc.:” Brugsch, vol. ii, Planche lxxxii, Inscription No. 6.
[113] Though dedicated by Rameses to Nefertari, and by Nefertari to
Rameses, this temple was placed, primarily, under the patronage of
Hathor, the supreme type of divine maternity. She is represented
by Queen Nefertari, who appears on the façade as the mother of six
children and adorned with the attributes of the goddess. A temple to
Hathor would also be, from a religious point of view, the fitting
pendant to a temple of Ra. M. Mariette, in his “Notice des Monuments à
Boulak,” remarks of Hathor that her functions are still but imperfectly
known to us. “Peutêtre était-elle à Ra ce que Maut est à Ammon, le
récipient où le dieu s’engendre lui-même pour l’éternité.”
[114] It is not often that one can say of a female head in an Egyptian
wall painting that it is beautiful; but in these portraits of the
queen, many times repeated upon the walls of the first hall of the
Temple of Hathor, there is, if not positive beauty according to our
western notions, much sweetness and much grace. The name of Nefertari
means perfect, good, or beautiful companion. That the word “Nefer”
should mean both good and beautiful--in fact, that beauty and goodness
should be synonymous terms--is not merely interesting as it indicates
a lofty philosophical standpoint, but as it reveals, perhaps, the
latent germ of that doctrine which was hereafter to be taught with such
brilliant results in the Alexandrian schools. It is remarkable that the
word for truth and justice (_Ma_) was also one and the same.
There is often a quaint significance about Egyptian proper names which
reminds one of the names that came into favor in England under the
commonwealth. Take, for instance, _Bak-en-Khonsu_, Servant-of-Khons;
_Pa-ta-Amen_, the Gift of Ammon; _Renpitnefer_, Good-year;
_Nub-en Tekh_, Worth-Her-Weight-in-Gold (both women’s names); and
_Hor-mes-out’-a-Shu_, Horus Son-of-the-Eye-of Shu--which last, as
a tolerably long compound, may claim relationship with Praise-God
Barebones, Hew-Agag-in-Pieces-before-the-Lord, etc.
[115] Ra Harmachis, in Egyptian Har-em-Khou-ti, personifies the sun
rising upon the eastern horizon.
[116] See chap. viii, p. 126, also chap. xxi.
[117] In Egyptian, _Aaranatu_.
[118] In Egyptian, _Kateshu_. “Aujourdhui encore il existe une ville
de Kades près d’une courbe de l’Oronte dans le voisinage de Homs.”
_Leçons de M. de Rougé, Professées au Collége de France_. See “Mélanges
d’Archéologie,” Egyp. and Assyr., vol. ii, p. 269. Also a valuable
paper, entitled “The Campaign of Rameses II Against Kadesh,” by the
Rev. G. H. Tomkins, “Trans. of the Soc. of Bib. Arch., vol. viii, part
3, 1882. The bend of the river is actually given in the bas-reliefs.
[119] “La légion _S’ardana_ de l’armée de Ramsès II provenait d’une
premiére descente de ces peuples en Égypte. ‘Les _S’ardana_, qui
étaient des prisonniers de sa majesté,’ dit expressément le texte
de Karnak, au commencement du poëme de _Pentaur_. Les archéologues
ont remarqué la richesse de leur costume et de leurs armures. Les
principales pièces de leur vêtements semblent couvertes de broderies.
Leur bouchier est une rondache: ils portent une longue et large
épée de forme ordinaire, mais on remarque aussi dans leurs mains
une épée d’une longueur démesurée. Le casque des S’ardana est très
caracterisque; sa forme est arrondie, mais il est surmonté d’une tige
qui supporte une boule de métal. Cet ornament est accompagné de deux
cornes en forme de croissant.... Les S’ardana de l’armée Égyptienne ont
seulement des favoris et des moustaches coupés très courts.”--“Memoire
sur les Attaques Dirigées contre l’Égypte,” etc. E. de Rougé. “Revue
Archéologique,” vol. xvi, pp. 90, 91.
[120] A rich treasure of gold and silver rings was found by Ferlini,
in 1834, immured in the wall of one of the pyramids of Meröe, in Upper
Nubia. See _Lepsius’ Letters_, translated by L. and J. Horner, Bohn,
1858, p. 151.
[121] This cast, the property of the British Museum, is placed over
a door leading to the library at the end of the northern vestibule,
opposite the staircase. I was informed by the late Mr. Bonomi that the
mold was made by Mr. Hay, who had with him an Italian assistant picked
up in Cairo. They took with them some barrels of plaster and a couple
of ladders, and contrived, with such spars and poles as belonged to
the dahabeeyah, to erect a scaffolding and a matted shelter for the
plasterman. The colossus was at this time buried up to its chin in
sand, which made the task so much the easier. When the mold of the head
was brought to England, it was sent to Mr. Bonomi’s studio, together
with a mold of the head of the colossus at Mitrahenny, a mold of the
apex of the fallen obelisk at Karnak, and molds of the wall-sculptures
at Bayt-et-Welly. Mr. Bonomi superintended the casting and placing
of all these in the museum about three years after the molds were
made. This was at the time when Mr. Hawkins held the post of keeper
of antiquities. I mention these details, not simply because they have
a special interest for all who are acquainted with Abou Simbel, but
because a good deal of misapprehension has prevailed on the subject,
some travelers attributing the disfigurement of the head to Lepsius,
others to the Crystal Palace Company, and so forth. Even so careful
a writer as the late Miss Martineau ascribes it, on hearsay, to
Champollion.
[122] “A castle, resembling in size and form that of Ibrim; it bears
the name of Kalat Adda; it has been abandoned many years, being
entirely surrounded by barren rocks. Part of its ancient wall, similar
in construction to that of Ibrim, still remains. The habitations are
built partly of stone and partly of brick. On the most elevated spot in
the small town, eight or ten gray granite columns of small dimensions
lie on the ground, with a few capitals near them of clumsy Greek
architecture.”--Burckhardt’s “Travels in Nubia,” 1819, p. 38.
In a curious Arabic history of Nubia written in the tenth century A.D.
by one Abdallah Ben Ahmed Ben Solaïm of Assûan, fragments of which
are preserved in the great work of Makrizy, quoted by Burckhardt and
E. Quatremere (see foot note, p. 202), there occurs the following
remarkable passage: “In this province (Nubia) is situated the city of
Bedjrasch, capital of Maris, the fortress of Ibrim, and another place
called Adwa, which has a port, and is, they say, the birthplace of the
sage Lokman and of Dhoul Noun. There is to be seen there a magnificent
Birbeh.” (“On y voit un _Berba_ magnifique.”)--“Mémoires Géographiques
sur l’Égypte,” etc. E. Quatremere, Paris, 1811; vol. ii, p. 8.
If Adwa and Adda are one and the same, it is possible that in this
passage we find preserved the only comparatively modern indication
of some great rock-cut temple, the entrance to which is now entirely
covered by the sand. It is clear that neither Abou Simbel (which is
on the opposite bank, and some three or four miles north of Adda)
nor Ferayg (which is also some way off, and quite a small place) can
here be intended. That another temple exists somewhere between Abou
Simbel and Wady Halfeh, and is yet to be discovered, seems absolutely
certain from the tenor of a large stela sculptured on the rock a few
paces north of the smaller temple at Abou Simbel. This stela, which is
one of the most striking and elaborate there, represents an Egyptian
gateway surmounted by the winged globe, and shows Rameses II enthroned
and receiving the homage of a certain prince whose name, as translated
by Rosellini, is Rameses-Neniseti-Habai. The inscription, which is in
sixteen columns and perfectly preserved, records the titles and praises
of the king, and states how “he had made a monumental abode for Horus,
his father, Lord of Ha’m, excavating in the bowels of the Rock of Ha’m
to make him a habitation of many ages.” We know nothing of the Rock of
Ha’m (rendered Sciam by Rosellini), but it should no doubt be sought
somewhere between Abou Simbel and Wady Halfeh. “Qual sito precisamente
dinotisi in questo nome di Sciam, io non saprei nel presente stato
delle cose determinare: credo peraltro secondo varie loughi delle
iscrizioni che lo ricordano, che fosse situato sull’ una o l’altra
sponda del Nilo, nel paese compreso tra Wadi-halfa e Ibsambul, o poco
oltre. E qui dovrebbe trovarsi il nominato speco di Horus, fino al
presente occulto a noi.”--Rosellini Letterpress to “Monumenti Storici,”
vol. iii, part ii, p. 184. It would hence appear that the Rock of Ha’m
is mentioned in other inscriptions.
The distance between Abou Simbel and Wady Halfeh is only forty miles,
and the likely places along the banks are but few. Would not the
discovery of this lost temple be an enterprise worthier the ambition of
tourists, than the extermination of such few crocodiles as yet linger
north of the second cataract
[123] See foot note page 265.
[124] “Un second temple, plus grand, mais tout aussi détruit que le
précédent, existe un peu plus au sud, c’était le grand temple de la
villa Égyptienne de _Béhéni_, qui exista sur cet emplacement, et
qui d’après l’étendu des débris de poteries répandus sur la plaine
aujourdhui déserte, parait avoir été assez grande.”--Champollion,
_Lettres écrites d’Égypte_, etc., ed. 1868; Letter ix.
[125] Mount Fogo, as shown upon Keith Johnston’s map of Egypt and
Nubia, would seem to be identical with the Ali Bersi of Lepsius.
[126] On referring to Col. H. Vyse’s “Voyage into Upper Egypt,” etc. I
see that he also opened one of these tumuli, but “found no indication
of an artificial construction.” I can only conclude that he did not
carry his excavation low enough. As it is difficult to suppose the
tumuli made for nothing, I cannot help believing that they would repay
a more systematic investigation.
[127] The inclosure-wall of the great Temple of Tanis is eighty feet
thick. See “Tanis,” Part 1, by W. M. F. Petrie; published by the
Committee of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1885. [Note to second edition.]
[128] It was long believed that the Egyptians were ignorant of the
principle of the arch. This, however, was not the case. There are brick
arches of the time of Rameses II behind the Ramesseum at Thebes and
elsewhere. Still, arches are rare in Egypt. We filled in and covered
the arch again, and the greater part of the staircase in order to
preserve the former.
[129] Commonly known as Belzoni’s tomb.
[130] I write of these walls, for convenience, as north, south, east
and west, as one is so accustomed to regard the position of buildings
parallel with the river; but the present monument, as it is turned
slightly southward round the angle of the rock, really stands southeast
by east, instead of east and west like the large temple.
[131] Horus Aroëris.--“Celui-ci, qui semble avoir été frère d’Osiris,
porte une tête d’épervier coiffée du pschent. Il est presque
complètement identifié avec le soleil dans la plupart des lieux où
il était adoré, et il en est de même très souvent pour Horus, fils
d’Isis.”--“Notice Sommaire des Monuments du Louvre,” 1873. De Rougé. In
the present instance, this god seems to have been identified with Ra.
[132] “Le sceptre à tête de lévier, nommé à tort sceptre à tête de
concoupha, était porté par les dieux.”--“Dic. d’Arch. Égyptienne:” P.
Pierret; Paris, 1875.
[133] Amen of the blue complexion is the most ancient type of this god.
Here he represents divine royalty, in which character his title is:
“Lord of the Heaven, of the earth, of the waters and of the mountains.”
“Dans ce rôle de roi du monde, Amon a les chairs peintes en bleu pour
indiquer sa nature céleste; et lorsqu’il porte le titre de Seigneur
des Trônes, il est représenté assis, la couronne en tête: d’ordinaire
il est debout.”--“Étude des Monuments de Karnak.” De Rougé. “Mélanges
d’Archeologie,” vol. i, 1873.
There were almost as many varieties of Amen in Egypt as there are
varieties of the Madonna in Italy or Spain. There was an Amen of
Thebes, an Amen of Elephantine, an Amen of Coptos, an Amen of Chemmis
(Panopolis), an Amen of the Resurrection, Amen of the Dew, Amen of the
Sun (Amen-Ra), Amen Self-created, etc. Amen and Khem were doubtless
identical. It is an interesting fact that our English words, chemical,
chemist, chemistry, etc., which the dictionaries derive from the Arabic
_al-kimia_, may be traced back a step farther to the Panopolitan name
of this most ancient god of the Egyptians, Khem (Gr. Pan; Latin,
Priapus), the deity of plants and herbs and of the creative principle.
A cultivated Egyptian would, doubtless, have regarded all these Amens
as merely local or symbolical types of a single deity.
[134] The material of this blue helmet, so frequently depicted on
the monuments, _may_ have been the Homeric Kuanos, about which so
much doubt and conjecture have gathered, and which Mr. Gladstone
supposes to have been a metal. (See “Juventus Mundi,” chap. xv, p.
532.) A paragraph in _The Academy_ (June 8, 1876) gives the following
particulars of certain perforated lamps of a “blue metallic substance,”
discovered at Hissarlik by Dr. Schliemann, and there found lying under
the copper shields to which they had probably been attached. “An
analytical examination by Landerer (Berg., _Hüttenm. Zeitung_, xxxix,
430) has shown them to be sulphide of copper. The art of coloring
the metal was known to the coppersmiths of Corinth, who plunged the
heated copper into the fountain of Peirene. It appears not impossible
that this was a sulphur spring, and that the blue color may have been
given to the metal by plunging it in a heated state into the water and
converting the surface into copper sulphide.”
It is to be observed that the Pharaohs are almost always represented
wearing this blue helmet in the battle pieces and that it is frequently
studded with gold rings. It must, therefore, have been of metal. If
not of sulphureted copper, it may have been made of steel, which, in
the well known instance of the butcher’s sharpener, as well as in
representations of certain weapons, is always painted blue upon the
monuments.
[135] “This eye, called _uta_, was extensively used by the Egyptians
both as an ornament and amulet during life, and as a sepulchral
amulet. They are found in the form of right eyes and left eyes, and
they symbolize the eyes of Horus, as he looks to the north and south
horizons in his passage from east to west, _i. e._, from sunrise to
sunset.”
M. Grebaut, in his translation of a hymn to Amen-Ra, observes: “Le
soleil marchant d’Orient en Occident éclaire de ses deux yeux les deux
régions du Nord et du Midi.”--“Révue Arch.,” vol. xxv, 1873; p. 387.
[136] This inscription was translated for the first edition of this
book by the late Dr. Birch; for the present translation I am indebted
to the courtesy of E. A. Wallis Budge, Esq.
[137] _Sesennu_--Eshmoon or Hermopolis.
[138] _Amenheri_--Gebel Addeh.
[139] These jubilees, or festivals of thirty years, were religious
jubilees in celebration of each _thirtieth_ anniversary of the
accession of the reigning Pharaoh.
[140] There are, in the British Museum, some bottles and vases of this
description, dating from the eighteenth dynasty; see Case E, Second
Egyptian Room. They are of dark-blue translucent glass, veined with
waving lines of opaque white and yellow.
[141] _Kenus_--Nubia.
[142] Governors of Ethiopia bore this title, even though they did not
themselves belong to the family of Pharaoh.
It is a curious fact that one of the governors of Ethiopia during the
reign of Rameses II was called Mes, or Messou, signifying son, or
child--which is in fact _Moses_. Now the Moses of the Bible was adopted
by Pharaoh’s daughter, “became to her as a son,” was instructed in the
wisdom of the Egyptians, and married a Kushite woman, black but comely.
It would perhaps be too much to speculate on the possibility of his
having held the office of Governor, or Royal Son of Kush.
[143] _i. e._ Ammon Ra, the sun god, in conjunction or identification
with Har-em-a x u, of Horus-on-the-Horizon, another solar deity.
[144] The primæval god.
[145] Inner place, or sanctuary.
[146] Ethiopia.
[147] At about an equal distance to the north of the great temple, on
the verge of the bank, is a shapeless block of brick ruin, which might
possibly, if investigated, turn out to be the remains of a second pylon
corresponding to this which we partially uncovered to the south.
[148] He may, however, be represented on the north wall, where it is
covered by the sand-heap.
[149] Letter xiv, p. 235. “Nouvelle Ed.,” Paris, 1868.
[150] That this shock of earthquake occurred during the lifetime of
Rameses II seems to be proved by the fact that, where the Osiride
column is cracked across, a wall has been built up to support the
two last pillars to the left at the upper end of the great hall, on
which wall is a large stela covered with an elaborate hieroglyphic
inscription, dating from the thirty-fifth year, and the thirteenth
day of the month of Tybi, _of the reign of Rameses II_. The right arm
of the external colossus, to the right of the great doorway, has also
been supported by the introduction of an arm to his throne, built
up of square blocks; this being the only arm to any of the thrones.
Miss Martineau detected a restoration of part of the lower jaw of the
northernmost colossus, and also a part of the dress of one of the
Osiride statues in the great hall. I have in my possession a photograph
taken at a time when the sand was several feet lower than at present,
which shows that the right leg of the northernmost colossus is also a
restoration on a gigantic scale, being built up, like the throne-arm,
in great blocks, and finished, most probably, afterward.
[151] This refers to the ex-khedive, Ismail Pasha, who ruled Egypt at
the time when this book was written and published. [Note to second
edition.]
[152] There are tombs in some of the ravines behind the temples, which,
however, we did not see.
[153] Tosko is on the eastern bank, and not, as in Keith Johnston’s
map, on the west.
[154] This is one of the temples erected by Rameses the Great, and,
I believe, not added to by any of his successors. The colossi, the
Osiride columns, the sphinxes (now battered out of all human semblance)
were originally made in his image. The cartouches are all his, and in
one of the inner chambers there is a list of his little family. All
these chambers were accessible till three or four years ago, when a
party of German travelers carried off some sculptured tablets of great
archæological interest; after which act of spoliation the entrance
was sanded up by order of Mariette Bey. See, also, with regard to the
probable date of the earthquake at this place, chap. xviii, p. 321.
[155] Not only near this nameless town, but in many other parts between
Abou Simbel and Philæ, we found the old alluvial soil lying as high as
from twenty to thirty feet above the level of the present inundations.
[156] Ar. _Birbeh_, temple.
[157] “The Nile receives its last tributary, the Atbara, in Lat. 17°
42’ north, at the northern extremity of the peninsular tract anciently
called the Island of Meröe, and thence flows north (a single stream
without the least accession) through twelve degrees of latitude; or,
following its winding course, at least twelve hundred miles to the
sea.”--“Blackie’s Imperial Gazetteer,” 1861. A careful survey of the
country would probably bring to light the dry beds of many more such
tributaries as the one described above.
[158] Of this wall, Burckhardt notices that “it has fallen down,
apparently from some sudden and violent concussion, as the stones are
lying on the ground in layers, as when placed in the wall; a proof that
they must have fallen all at once.”--“Travels in Nubia:” Ed. 1819,
p. 100. But he has not observed the inscription which is in large
characters, and consists of three lines on three separate layers, of
stones. The idle man copied the original upon the spot, which copy has
since been identified with an ex-voto of a Roman soldier published in
Boeckh’s “Corpus Inscr. Græc.,” of which the following is a translation:
“The vow of Verecundus the soldier, and his most pious parents, and
Gaius his little brother, and the rest of his brethren.”
[159] A clew, however, might possibly be found to the date. There is a
rudely sculptured tableau--the only piece of sculpture in the place--on
a detached wall near the standing columns. It represents Isis worshiped
by a youth in a short toga. Both figures are lumpish and ill-modeled;
and Isis, seated under a conventional fig-tree, wears her hair erected
in stiff rolls over her forehead, like a diadem. It is the face and
stiffly dressed hair of Marciana, the sister of Trajan, as shown upon
the well-known coin engraved in Smith’s “Dic. of Greek and Roman
Biography,” vol. ii, p. 939. Maharrakeh is the Hiera Sycaminos, or
place of the sacred fig-tree, where ends the Itinerary of Antoninus.
[160] _See The Scarabæus Sacer_, by C. Woodrooffe, B. A.--a paper
(based on notes by the late Rev. C. Johns) read before the Winchester
and Hampshire Scientific and Literary Society, Nov. 8, 1875. _Privately
printed._
[161] See chap. x, p. 163. Dakkeh (the Pselcis of the Greeks and
Romans, the Pselk of the Egyptians) was at one time regarded as the
confine of Egypt and Ethiopia, and would seem to have been a great
military station. The inscribed potsherds here are chiefly receipts and
accounts of soldiers’ pay. The walls of the temple outside, and of the
chambers within, abound also in free-hand graffiti, most of which are
written in red ink. We observed some that appeared to be trilingual.
[162] “Less than a quarter of a mile to the south are the ruins of a
small sandstone temple with clustered columns; and on the way, near
the village, you pass a stone stela of Amenemhat III, mentioning his
eleventh year.”--“Murray’s Hand-book for Egypt,” p. 481. M. Maspero,
writing of Thothmes III, says: “Sons fils et successeur, Amenhotep III,
fit construire en face de Pselkis une forteresse importante.”--“Hist.
Ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient,” chap, iii, p. 113.
At Kobban also was found the famous stela of Rameses II, called the
Stela of Dakkeh; see chap. xv, p. 238. In this inscription, a cast from
which is at the Louvre, Rameses II is stated to have caused an artesian
well to be made in the desert between this place and Gebel Oellaky, in
order to facilitate the working of the gold mines of those parts.
[163] “According to Ptolemy, Metachompso should be opposite Pselcis,
where there are extensive brick ruins. If so, Metachompso and Contra
Pselcis must be the same town.”--“Topography of Thebes,” etc.; Sir
G. Wilkinson. Ed. 1835, p. 488. M. Vivien de St. Martin is, however,
of opinion that the Island of Derar, near Maharrakeh, is the true
Metachompso. See “Le Nord de l’Afrique,” section vi, p. 161. Be this
as it may, we at all events know of one great siege that this fortress
sustained, and of one great battle fought beneath its walls. “The
Ethiopians,” says Strabo, “having taking advantage of the withdrawal
of part of the Roman forces, surprised and took Syene, Elephantine and
Philæ, enslaved the inhabitants, and threw down the statues of Cæsar.
But Petronius, marching with less than ten thousand infantry and eight
hundred horse against an army of thirty thousand men, compelled them to
retreat to Pselcis. He then sent deputies to demand restitution of what
they had taken and the reason which had induced them to begin the war.
On their alleging that they had been ill treated by the monarchs, he
answered that these were not the sovereigns of the country--but Cæsar.
When they desired three days for consideration and did nothing which
they were bound to do, Petronius attacked and compelled them to fight.
They soon fled, being badly commanded and badly armed, for they carried
large shields made of raw hides, and hatchets for offensive weapons.
Part of the insurgents were driven to the city, others fled into the
uninhabited country, and such as ventured upon the passage of the river
escaped to a neighboring island, where there were not many crocodiles,
on account of the current.... Petronius then attacked Pselcis, and took
it.”--Strabo’s “Geography,” Bohn’s translation, 1857, vol. iii, pp.
267-268. This island to which the insurgents fled may have been the
large sand island which here still occupies the middle of the river and
obstructs the approach to Dakkeh. Or they may have fled to the Island
of Derar, seven miles higher up. Strabo does not give the name of the
island.
[164] “C’est un ouvrage non achevé du temps de l’Empereur Auguste.
Quoique peu important par son étendue, ce monument m’a beaucoup
interessé, puisqu’il est entièrement relatif à l’incarnation d’Osiris
sous forme humaine, sur la terre.”--_Lettres écrites d’Égypte_, etc.:
Champollion. Paris, 1868; p. 126.
[165] I observed mauve here, for the first and only time, and very
brilliant ultramarine. There are also traces of gilding on many of the
figures.
[166] See chap. xii, p. 199.
[167] Talmis: (_Kalabsheh_).
[168] Taphis: (_Tafah_).
[169] Blemyes: The Blemeys were a nomadic race of Berbers, supposed to
be originally of the tribe of Bilmas of Tibbous in the central desert,
and settled as early as the time of Eratosthenes in that part of the
Valley of the Nile which lies between the first and second cataracts.
See “Le Nord de l’Afrique,” by M. V. de St. Martin. Paris, 1863,
section iii, p. 73.
[170] See “The Habitations of Man in All Ages.” V. le Duc. Chap. ix, p.
93.
[171] They probably mark the site of a certain Coptic monastery
described in an ancient Arabic manuscript quoted by E. Quatremere,
which says that “in the town of Tafah there is a fine monastery called
the monastery of Ansoun. It is very ancient; but so solidly built,
that after so great a number of years it still stands uninjured. Near
this monastery, facing the mountain, are situated fifteen villages.”
See “Mémoires Hist. et Géographiques sur l’Égypte et le Nubia,” par E.
Quatremere. Paris, 1811, vol. ii, p. 55.
The monastery and the villages were, doubtless, of Romano-Egyptian
construction in the first instance, and may originally have been a
sacred college, like the sacred college of Philæ.
[172] “The peasants of Tafah relate that they are the descendants of
the few Christian inhabitants of the city who embraced the Mohammadan
faith when the country was conquered by the followers of the prophet;
the greater part of the brethren having either fled or been put to
death on the event taking place. They are still called Oulad el Nusara,
or the Christian progeny.”--“Travels in Nubia:” Burckhardt. London,
1819, p. 121.
[173] In these secret chambers (the entrance to which was closed by a
block of masonry so perfectly fitted as to defy detection) were kept
the images of gold and silver and lapis lazuli, the precious vases, the
sistrums, the jeweled collars, and all the portable treasures of the
temples. We saw a somewhat similar pit and small chamber in a corner of
the Temple of Dakkeh, and some very curious crypts and hiding-places
under the floor of the dark chamber to the east of the sanctuary at
Philæ, all of course long since broken open and rifled. But we had
strong reason to believe that the painter discovered the whereabouts of
a hidden chamber or passage to the west of the sanctuary, yet closed,
with all its treasures probably intact. We had, however, no means of
opening the wall, which is of solid masonry.
[174] Ar. _Tambooshy_--_i. e._, saloon skylight.
[175] “Sebek est un dieu solaire. Dans un papyrus de boulak, il est
appelé fils d’Isis, et il combat les enemis d’Osiris; c’est une
assimilation complète à Horus, et c’est à ce titre qu’il était adoré à
Ombos.”--“Dic. Arch.” P. Pierret. Paris, 1875.
[176] See chap. xi, p. 184.
[177] “Le point de départ de la mythologie Égyptienne est une Triade.”
Champollion, _Letters d’Égypte_, etc., XI Lettre. Paris, 1868. These
Triads are best studied at Gerf Hossayn and Kalabsheh.
[178] “L’un (paroi du sud) représente une déesse nourissant de son lait
divin le roi Horus, encore enfant. L’Égypte n’a jamais, comme la Grèce,
atteint l’idéal du beau ... mais en tant qu’art Égyptien, le bas-relief
du Spéos de Gebel-Silsileh est une des plus belles œuvres que l’on
puisse voir. Nulle part, en effet, la ligne n’est plus pure, et il
règne dans ce tableau une certaine douceur tranquille qui charme et
étonne à la fois.”--“Itinéraire de la Haut Égypte.” A Mariette: 1872,
p. 246.
[179] See “Sallier Papyrus No. 2.” Hymn to the Nile--translation by C.
Maspero. 4to Paris, 1868.
[180] _Ta-ur-t_, or Apet the Great. “Cette Déesse à corps d’hippopotame
debout et à mamelles pendantes, paraît être une sorte de déesse
nourrice. Elle semble, dans le bas temps, je ne dirai pas se substituer
à Maut, mais compléter le rôle de cette déesse. Elle est nommée la
grande nourrice; et présidait aux chambres où étaient représentées les
naissances des jeunes divinités.”--“Dict. Arch. P. Pierret. Paris, 1875.
“In the Heavens, this goddess personified the constellation Ursa Major,
or the Great Bear.”--“Guide to the First and Second Egyptian Rooms.” S.
Birch. London, 1874.
[181] For a highly interesting account of the rock-cut inscriptions,
graffiti, and quarry-marks at Silsilis, in the desert between Assûan
and Philæ, and in the valley called Soba Rigolah, see Mr. W. M. F.
Petrie’s recent volume entitled “A Season’s Work in Egypt,” 1877.
[182] Letter of M. Mariette to Vicomte E. de Rougé: “Révue
Archéologique,” vol. ii, p. 33, 1860.
[183] Edfu is the elder temple; Denderah the copy. Where the architect
of Denderah has departed from his model it has invariably been for the
worse.
[184] _Horus_:--“Dieu adoré dans plusieurs nomes de la basse Égypte.
Le personnage d’Horus se rattache sous des noms différents, à deux
generations divines. Sous le nom de Haroëris il est né de Seb et Nout,
et par consequent frère d’Osiris, dont il est le fils sous un autre
nom.... Horus, armé d’un dard avec lequel il transperce les ennemis
d’Osiris, est appelé Horus le Justicier.”--“Dict. Arch.,” P. Pierret,
article “_Horus_.”
[185] _Hathor_:--“Elle est, comme Neith, Naut, et Nout, la
personnification de l’espace dans lequel se meut le soleil, dont
Horus symbolize le lever: aussi son nom, Hat-hor, signifie-t-il
litteralement, _l’habitation d’Horus_.”--“Ibid.,” article “Hathor.”
[186] “Rapport sur line Mission en Égypte.” Vicomte E. de Rougé. See
“Révue Arch. Nouvelle Série,” vol. x, p. 63.
[187] “Textes Géographiques du Temple d’Edfou,” by M. J. de Rougé.
“Révue Arch.,” vol. xii, p. 209.
[188] See Professor Revillout’s “Seconde Mémoire sur les Blemmyes,”
1888, for an account of how the statues of Isis and other deities were
taken once a year from the temples of Philæ for a trip into Ethiopia.
[189] See Appendix III, “Religious Belief of the Ancient Egyptians.”
[190] Not only the names of the chambers, but their dimensions in
cubits and subdivisions of cubits are given. See “Itinéraire de la
Haute Égypte.” A. Marietta Bey. 1872, p. 241.
[191] This was, no doubt, an interment of the period of the
twenty-third or twenty-fourth dynasty, the style of which is thus
described by Marietta: “Succèdent les caisses à fond blanc. Autour de
celles çi court une légende en hiéroglyphes de toutes couleurs. Le
devant du couvercle est divisé horizontalement en tableaux où alternent
les représentations et les textes tracés en hiéroglyphes verdâtres. La
momie elle-même est hermétiquement enfermée dans un cartonnage cousu
par derrière et peint de couleurs tranchantes.”--“Notice des Monuments
à Boulak. p. 46. Paris, 1872.
[192] Diodorus, “Biblioth Hist.,” Bk. i, chap. iv. The fault of
inaccuracy ought, however, to be charged to Hecatæus, who was the
authority followed here by Diodorus.
[193] Possibly the Smendes of Manetho, and the Ba-en-Ded whose
cartouche is found by Brugsch on a sarcophagus in the museum at Vienna;
see “Hist. d’Égypte,” chap, x, p. 213, ed. 1859. Another claimant to
this identification is found in a king named Se-Mentu, whose cartouches
were found by Mariette on some small gold tablets at Tanis.
[194] Letter xiv, p. 235, _Lettres d’Égypte_; Paris, 1868. See also
chap. xviii, of the present work; p. 319.
[195] See Champollion, Letter xiv, foot note, p. 418.
[196] The sitting colossus of the Ramesseum was certainly the largest
perfect statue in Egypt when Diodorus visited the Valley of the Nile,
for the great standing colossus of Tanis had long before his time been
cut up by Sheshonk III for building purposes; but that the Tanite
colossus much exceeded the colossus of Ramesseum in height and bulk is
placed beyond doubt by the scale of the fragments discovered by Mr.
Petrie in the course of his excavations in 1884. According to his very
cautious calculations, the figure alone of the Tanite was nine hundred
inches, or seventy-five feet, high; or somewhere between seventy and
eighty feet. “To this,” says Mr. Petrie, “we must add the height of the
crown, which would proportionately be some fourteen and one-half feet.
To this again must be added the base of the figure, which was thinner
than the usual scale, being only twenty-seven inches thick. Thus the
whole block appears to have been about one thousand one hundred inches,
or say ninety-two feet, high. This was, so far as is known, the largest
statue ever executed.” The weight of the figure is calculated by Mr.
Petrie at about nine hundred tons; _i. e._, one hundred tons more than
the colossus of the Ramesseum. That it stood upon a suitable pedestal
cannot be doubted; and with the pedestal, which can scarcely have been
less than eighteen or twenty feet in height, the statue must have
towered some one hundred and twenty feet above the level of the plain.
See “Tanis,” part i, pp. 22, 23. [Note to second edition.]
[197] The syenite colossus, of which the British Museum possesses
the head, and which is popularly known as the Young Memnon, measured
twenty-four feet in height before it was broken up by the French.
[198] See wood-cut No. 340 in Sir G. Wilkinson’s “Manners and Custums
of the Ancient Egyptians,” vol. i, ed. 1871.
[199] Among these are _Abot_, or abode; meaning the abode of Amen;
_Ta-Uaboo_, the mound; _Ta-Api_, the head or capital, etc. See
“Recherches sur le nom Égyptien de Thèbes.” Chabas: 1863; “Textes
Géographiques d’Edfoo,” J. de Rougé: “Revue Arch. Nouvelle Série,” vol.
xii, 1865; etc.
[200] The “Great Harris Papyrus” is described by Dr. Birch as “one of
the finest, best written and best preserved that has been discovered in
Egypt. It measures one hundred and thirty-three feet long by sixteen
and three-quarter inches broad, and was found with several others in
a tomb behind Medinet Habu. Purchased soon after by the late A. C.
Harris of Alexandria, it was subsequently unrolled and divided into
seventy-nine leaves and laid down on cardboard. With the exception of
some small portions which are wanting in the first leaf, the text is
complete throughout.” The papyrus purports to be a post mortem address
of the king, Rameses III, recounting the benefits he had conferred
upon Egypt by his administration, and by his delivery of the country
from foreign subjection. It also records the immense gifts which he
had conferred on the temples of Egypt, of Amen at Thebes, Tum at
Heliopolis, and Ptah at Memphis, etc. “The last part is addressed to
the officers of the army, consisting partly of Sardinian and Libyan
mercenaries, and to the people of Egypt, in the thirty-second year
of his reign, and is a kind of posthumous panegyrical discourse, or
political will, like that of Augustus discovered by Ancyra. The papyrus
itself consists of the following divisions, three of which are preceded
by large colored plates or vignettes: Introduction; donations to the
Thebau deities; donations to the gods of Heliopolis; donations to the
gods of Memphis; donations to the gods of the north and south; summary
of donations; historical speech and conclusion. Throughout the monarch
speaks in the first person, the list excepted.” Introduction to “Annals
of Rameses III;” S. Birch. “Records of the Past,” vol. vi, p. 21; 1876.
[201] “Rameses III was one of the most remarkable monarchs in the
annals of Egypt. A period of political confusion and foreign conquest
of the country preceded his advent to the throne. His father,
Setnecht, had indeed succeeded in driving out the foreign invaders and
re-establishing the native dynasty of the Theban kings, the twentieth
of the list of Manetho. But Rameses had a great task before him, called
to the throne at a youthful age.... The first task of Rameses was to
restore the civil government and military discipline. In the fifth
year he defeated the Maxyes and Libyans with great slaughter when they
invaded Egypt, led by five chiefs; and in the same year he had also to
repulse the Satu, or eastern foreigners who had attacked Egypt. The
maritime nations of the west, it appears, had invaded Palestine and
the Syrian coast in his eighth year, and, after taking Carchemish, a
confederation of the _Pulusata_, supposed by some to be the Pelasgi,
_Tekkaru_ or Teucri, _Sakalusa_ or Siculi, _Tanau_ or Daunians, if not
Danai, and Uasasa or Osci, marched to the conquest of Egypt. It is
possible that they reached the mouth of the eastern branch of the Nile.
But Rameses concentrated an army at Taha, in Northern Palestine, and
marched back to defend the Nile. Assisted by his mercenary forces, he
inflicted a severe defeat on the confederated west, and returned with
his prisoners to Thebes. In his eleventh year the Mashuasha or Maxyes,
assisted by the Tahennu or Libyans, again invaded Egypt, to suffer a
fresh defeat, and the country seems from this period to have remained
in a state of tranquillity.... The vast temple at Medinet Habu, his
palaces and treasury, still remain to attest his magnificence and
grandeur; and if his domestic life was that of an ordinary Egyptian
monarch, he was as distinguished in the battlefield as the palace.
Treason, no doubt, disturbed his latter days, and it is not known
how he died; but he expired after a reign of thirty-one years and
some months, and left the throne to his son, it is supposed, about
B.C. 1200.” See “Remarks Upon the Cover of the Granite
Sarcophagus of Rameses III:” S. Birch, LL.D., Cambridge, 1876.
[202] “There is reason to believe that this is only a fragment of the
building, and foundations exist which render it probable that the
whole was originally a square of the width of the front, and had other
chambers, probably in wood or brick, besides those we now find. This
would hardly detract from the playful character of the design, and when
colored, as it originally was, and with its battlements or ornaments
complete, it must have formed a composition as pleasing as it is unlike
our usual conceptions of Egyptian art.”--“Hist. of Architecture,” by J.
Fergusson, Bk. i, ch. iv, p. 118, Lond., 1865.
[203] Medinet Habu continued, up to the period of the Arab invasion, to
be inhabited by the Coptic descendants of its ancient builders. They
fled, however, before Amr and his army, since which time the place has
been deserted. It is not known whether the siege took place at the time
of the Arab invasion, or during the raid of Cambyses; but, whenever it
was, the place was evidently forced by the besiegers. The author of
Murray’s “Hand-book” draws attention to the fact that the granite jambs
of the doorway leading to the smaller temple are cut through exactly at
the place where the bar was placed across the door.
[204] Herodotus, Bk. ii, chap. 122.
[205] “A Medinet Habou, dans son palais, il s’est fait représenter
jouant aux dames avec des femmes qui, d’après certaines copies,
semblent porter sur la tête les fleurs symboliques de l’Égypte
supérieure et inférieure, comme les deésses du monde supérieur et
inférieur, ou du ciel et de la terre. Cette dualité des deésses, qui
est indiquée dans les scènes religieuses et les textes sacrés par
la réunion de Satis et Anoucis, Pasht et Bast, Isis et Nephthys,
etc., me fait penser que les tableaux de Medinet Habou peuvent avoir
été considérés dans les légendes populaires comme offrant aux yeux
l’allégorie de la scène du jeu de dames entre le roi et la deésse Isis,
dont Hérodote a fait la Déméter Égyptienne, comme il a fait d’Osiris le
Dionysus du même peuple.”--“Le Roi Rhampsinite et le Jeu des Dames,”
par S. Birch. “Revue Arch: Nouvelle Série,” vol. xii, p. 58, Paris:
1865.
[206] Baal, written sometimes Bar, was, like Sutekh, a god borrowed
from the Phœnician mythology. The worship of Baal seems to have been
introduced into Egypt during the nineteenth dynasty. The other god here
mentioned, Mentu or Month, was a solar deity adored in the Thebaid,
and especially worshiped at Hermonthis, now Erment; a modern town of
some importance, the name of which is still almost identical with
the Per-Mentu of ancient days. Mentu was the Egyptian, and Baal the
Phœnician, god of war.
[207] From one of the inscriptions at Medinet Habu, quoted by Chabas.
See “Antiquité Historique,” ch. iv, p. 238. Ed. 1873.
[208] It is a noteworthy fact (and one which has not, so far as I
know, been previously noticed) that while the Asiatic and African
chiefs represented in these friezes are insolently described in the
accompanying hieroglyphic inscriptions as “the vile Libyan,” “the vile
Kushite,” “the vile Mashuasha,” and so forth, the European leaders,
though likewise prostrate and bound, are more respectfully designated
as “the Great of Sardinia,” “the Great of Sicily,” “the Great of
Etruria,” etc. May this be taken as an indication that their strength
as military powers was already more formidable than that of the
Egyptians’ nearer neighbors?
[209] The grand blue of the ceiling of the colonnade of the Great
Hypæthral Court is also very remarkable for brilliancy and purity of
tone; while to those interested in decoration the capital and abacus
of the second column to the right on entering this court-yard, offers
an interesting specimen of polychrome ornamentation on a gold-colored
ground.
[210] Inscriptions at Medinet Habu. See Chabas’ “Antiquité Historique,”
chap. iv. Paris: 1876.
[211] The whole of this chronicle is translated by M. Chabas in
“L’Antiquité Historique,” chap. iv, p. 246 _et seq._ It is also
engraved in full in Rosellini (“Monumenti Storici”); and has been
admirably photographed by both M. Hammerschmidt and Signor Beata.
[212] These two statues--the best-known, probably, of all Egyptian
monuments--have been too often described, painted, engraved and
photographed, to need more than a passing reference. Their featureless
faces, their attitude, their surroundings, are familiar as the
pyramids, even to those who know not Egypt. We all know that they
represent Amenhotep, or Amunoph III; and that the northernmost
was shattered to the waist by the earthquake of B.C. 27.
Being heard to give out a musical sound during the first hour of the
day, the statue was supposed by the ancients to be endowed with a
miraculous voice. The Greeks, believing it to represent the fabled son
of Tithonus and Aurora, gave it the name of Memnon; notwithstanding
that the Egyptians themselves claimed the statues as portraits of
Amenhotep III. Prefects, consuls, emperors and empresses, came “to hear
Memnon,” as the phrase then ran. Among the famous visitors who traveled
thither on this errand, we find Strabo, Germanicus, Hadrian and the
Empress Sabina. Opinion is divided as to the cause of this sound. There
is undoubtedly a hollow space inside the throne of this statue, as
may be seen by all who examine it from behind; and Sir G. Wilkinson,
in expressing his conviction that the musical sound was a piece of
priestly jugglery, represents the opinion of the majority. The author
of a carefully considered article in the _Quarterly Review_, No. 276,
April, 1875, coincides with Sir D. Brewster in attributing the sound
to a transmission of rarefied air through the crevices of the stone,
caused by the sudden change of temperature consequent on the rising
of the sun. The statue, which, like its companion, was originally one
solid monolith of gritstone, was repaired with sandstone during the
reign of Septimius Severus.
[213] This deification of the dead was not deification in the Roman
sense; neither was it canonization in the modern sense. The Egyptians
believed the justified dead to be assimilated, or rather identified, in
the spirit with Osiris, the beneficient judge and deity of the lower
world. Thus, in their worship of ancestry, they adored not mortals
immortalized, but the dead in Osiris, and Osiris in the dead.
It is worth noting, by the way, that notwithstanding the subsequent
deification of Seti I, Rameses I remained, so to say, the tutelary
saint of the temple. He alone is represented with the curious pointed
and upturned beard, like a chamois horn reversed, which is the peculiar
attribute of deity.
[214] There is among the funereal tablets of the Boulak collection
a small bas-relief sculpture representing the arrival of a family
of mourners at the tomb of a deceased ancestor. The statue of the
defunct sits at the upper end. The mourners are laden with offerings.
One little child carries a lamb; another a goose. A scribe stands
by, waiting to register the gifts. The tablet commemorates one
Psamtik-nefar-Sam, a hierogrammate under some king of the twenty-sixth
dynasty. The natural grace and simple pathos with which this little
frieze is treated lift it far above the level of ordinary Egyptian art,
and bear comparison with the class of monuments lately discovered on
the Eleusinian road at Athens.
[215] “Une dignité tout à fait particulier est celle que les
inscriptions hiéroglyphiques désignent par le titre ‘prophète de la
pyramide, de tel Pharaon.’ Il parait qu’après sa mort chaque roi était
vénéré par un culte spécial.” “Histoire d’Egypte:” Brugsch. 2d ed.,
chap, v., p. 35. Leipzig: 1875.
[216] There is a very curious window at the end of this sanctuary, with
grooves for the shutter, and holes in which to slip and drop the bar by
which it was fastened.
[217] The Gate of the King.
[218] These funerary statues are represented each on a stand or
platform, erect, with one foot advanced, as if walking, the right hand
holding the ankh, or symbol of life, the left hand grasping a staff.
The attitude is that of the wooden statue at Boulak; and it is worth
remark that the figures stand detached, with no support at the back,
which was never the case with those carved in stone or granite. There
can be no doubt that this curious series of funerary statues represent
those which were actually placed in the tomb; and that the ceremonies
here represented were actually performed before them, previous to
closing the mouth of the sepulcher. One of these very wooden statues,
from this very tomb, was brought to England by Belzoni, and is now in
the British Museum (No. 854, Central Saloon). The wood is much decayed,
and the statue ought undoubtedly to be placed under glass. The tableaux
representing the above ceremonies are well copied in Rosellini, “Mon.
del Culto,” plates 60-63.
[219] A remarkable inscription in this tomb, relating the wrath of Ra
and the destruction of mankind, is translated by M. Naville, vol. iv,
Pt. i, “Translations of the Biblical Arch. Society.” In this singular
myth, which bears a family resemblance to the Chaldæan record of the
flood, the deluge is a deluge of human blood. The inscription covers
the walls of a small chamber known as the Chamber of the Cow.
[220] The longest tomb in the valley, which is that of Seti I, measures
four hundred and seventy feet in length to the point where it is closed
by the falling in of the rock; and the total depth of its descent
is about one hundred and eighty feet. The tomb of Rameses III (No.
11) measures in length four hundred and five feet, and descends only
thirty-one feet. The rest average from about three hundred and fifty to
one hundred and fifty feet in length, and the shortest is excavated to
a distance of only sixty-five feet.
We visited, however, one tomb in the Assaseef, which in extent far
exceeds any of the tombs of the kings. This astonishing excavation,
which consists of a bewildering labyrinth of halls, passages,
staircases, pits and chambers, is calculated at twenty-three thousand
eight hundred and nine square feet. The name of the occupant was
Petamunap, a priest of uncertain date.
[221] Apophis, in Egyptian _Apap_; the great serpent of darkness, over
whom Ra must triumph after he sets in the west, and before he again
rises in the east.
[222] Kheper, the scarab deity. See chap. vi, p. 90.
[223] Symbolical of darkness.
[224] The crocodile represents Sebek. In one of the Boulak papyri, this
god is called the son Isis, and combats the enemies of Osiris. Here he
combats Apophis in behalf of Ra.
[225] The tomb numbered three in the first small ravine to the left as
one rides up the valley bears the cartouches of Rameses II. The writer
crawled in as far as the choked condition of the tomb permitted, but
the passage becomes quite impassable after the first thirty or forty
yards.
[226] When first seen by Sir G. Wilkinson, these harpers were still
in such good preservation that he reported of one, at least, if not
both, as obviously blind. The harps are magnificent, richly inlaid and
gilded, and adorned with busts of the king. One has eleven strings, the
other fourteen.
[227] The sarcophagus of Seti I, which was brought to England by
Belzoni, is in Sir J. Soane’s Museum. It is carved from a single block
of the finest alabaster, and is covered with incised hieroglyphic
texts and several hundred figures, descriptive of the passage of the
sun through the hours of the night. See “Le Sarcophage de Seti I.”
P. Pierret. “Révue Arch.,” vol. xxi, p. 285: 1870. The sarcophagus
of Rameses III is in the Fitz-William Museum, Cambridge, and the lid
thereof is in the Egyptian collection of the Louvre. See “Remarks on
the Sarcophagus of Rameses III.” S. Birch, LL.D.; Cambridge, 1876. Also
“Notice Sommaire des Monuments Égyptiens du Louvre.” E. De Rougé, p.
51: Paris, 1873.
[228] Abbot Papyrus, British Museum. This papyrus, which has been
translated by M. Chabas (“Mélanges Égyptologiques,” 3d Serie: Paris and
Chalon, 1870), gives a list of royal tombs inspected by an Egyptian
Commission in the month of Athyr (year unknown) during the reign
of Rameses IX. Among the tombs visited on this occasion mention is
especially made of “the funeral monument of the king En-Aa, which is
at the north of the Amenophium of the terrace. The monument is broken
into from the back, at the place where the stela is placed before the
monument, and having the statue of the king upon the front of the
stela, with his hound, named Bahuka, between his legs. Verified this
day, and found intact.” Such was the report of the writer of this
papyrus of 3000 years ago. And now comes one of the wonders of modern
discovery. It was but a few years ago that Mariette, excavating in that
part of the Necropolis called the Assaseef, which lies to the north of
the ruins of the Amenophium, discovered the remains of the tomb of this
very king, and the broken stela bearing upon its face a full-length
bas-relief of King En-Aa (or Entef-Aa), with three dogs before him and
one between his legs; the dog Bahuka having his name engraved over his
back in hieroglyphic characters. See “Tablet of Antefaa II.” S. Birch,
LL.D. “Transactions of the Biblical Arch. Society.” vol. iv, part i, p.
172.
[229] The beautiful jewels found upon the mummy of Queen Aah-Hotep show
how richly the royal dead were adorned, and how well worth plundering
their sepulchers must have been. These jewels have been so often
photographed, engraved and described, that they are familiar to even
those who have not seen them in the Boulak Museum. The circumstances
of the discovery were suspicious, the mummy (in its inner mummy-case
only) having been found by Marietta’s diggers in the loose sand but
a few feet below the surface, near the foot of the hillside known as
Drah Abu’l Neggah, between Gournah and the opening to the Valley of
the Tombs of the Kings. When it is remembered that the great outer
sarcophagus of this queen was found in 1881 in the famous vault
at Dayr-el-Bahari, where so many royal personages and relics were
discovered “at one fell swoop;” and when to this is added the curious
fact that the state ax of Prince Kames, and a variety of beautiful
poniards and other miscellaneous objects of value were found laid
in the loose folds of this queen’s outer wrappings, it seems to me
that the mystery of her unsepulchered burial is susceptible of a very
simple explanation. My own conviction is that Queen Aah-Hotep’s mummy
had simply been brought thither from the depths of the said vault
by the Arabs who had for so many years possessed the secret of that
famous hidding-place, and that it was temporarily buried in the sand
till a convenient opportunity should occur for transporting to Luxor.
Moreover, it is significant that no jewels were found upon the royal
mummies in the Dayr-el-Bahari vault, for the reason, no doubt, that
they had long since been taken out and sold. The jewels found with
Aah-Hotep may, therefore, have represented the final clearance, and
have been collected from a variety of other royal mummy-cases. That
the state ax of Prince Kames was among them does not, I imagine, prove
that Prince Kames was the husband of Queen Aah-Hotep, but only that he
himself was also a tenant of that historic vault. The actual proof that
he was her husband lies in the fact that the bracelets on her wrists,
the diadem on her head, and the pectoral ornament on her breast, were
engraved, or inlaid, with the cartouches of that prince. [Note to
second edition.]
[230] There is in one of the papyri of the Louvre a very curious
illustration, representing--first, the funeral procession of one
Neb-Set, deceased; second, the interior of the sepulcher, with the
mummy, the offerings, and the furniture of the tomb, elaborately drawn
and colored. Among the objects here shown are two torches, three vases,
a coffer, a mirror, a Kohl bottle, a pair of sandals, a staff, a vase
for ointment, a perfume bottle and an ablution jar. “These objects,
all belonging to the toilette (for the coffer would have contained
clothing), were placed in the tomb for that day of waking which the
popular belief promised to the dead. The tomb was, therefore, furnished
like the abodes of the living.”--Translated from T. Devéria, “Catalogue
des Manuscrits Égyptiens du Louvre:” Paris, 1875, p. 80. The plan of
the sepulcher of Neb-Set is also drawn upon this papyrus; and the soul
of the deceased, represented as a human-headed bird, is shown flying
down toward the mummy. A fine sarcophagus in the Boulak Museum (No. 84)
is decorated in like manner with a representation of the mummy on its
bier being visited, or finally rejoined, by the soul. I have also in my
own collection a funeral papyrus vignetted on one side with this same
subject; and bearing on the reverse side an architectural elevation of
the monument erected over the sepulcher of the deceased.
[231] “King Rhampsinitus (Rameses III) was possessed, they said,
of great riches in silver, indeed, to such an amount that none
of the princes, his successors, surpassed or even equaled his
wealth.”--Herodotus, Book ii, chap. 121.
[232] Impossible from the Egyptian point of view. “That the body should
not waste or decay was an object of anxious solicitude; and for this
purpose various bandlets and amulets, prepared with certain magical
preparations, and sanctified with certain spells or prayers, of even
offerings and small sacrifices, were distributed over various parts of
the mummy. In some mysterious manner the immortality of the body was
deemed as important as the passage of the soul; and at a later period
the growth or natural reparation of the body was invoked as earnestly
as the life or passage of the soul to the upper regions.”--See
“Introduction to the Funereal Ritual,” S. Birch, LL.D., in vol. v, of
Bunsen’s “Egypt:” Lond. 1867.
[233] “The Ancient Egyptians,” Sir G. Wilkinson; vol. i, chap. ii,
wood-cut No. 92. Lond., 1871.
[234] The old French House is now swept away, with the rest of the
modern Arab buildings which encumbered the ruins of the Temple of Luxor
(see foot note, pp. 130, 131).
[235] Mehemet Ali gave this house to the French, and to the French it
belonged till pulled down three years ago by Professor Maspero. [Note
to second edition.]
[236] _Samak_: a large flat fish, rather like a brill.
[237] _Dall_: roast shoulder of lamb.
[238] _Kebobs_: small lumps of meat grilled on skewers.
[239] _Kuftah_: broiled mutton.
[240] _Pilaff_: boiled rice, mixed with a little butter, and seasoned
with salt and pepper.
[241] _Mish-mish_: apricots (preserved).
[242] _Kunáfah_: a rich pudding made of rice, almonds, cream, cinnamon,
etc.
[243] _Rus Blebban_: rice cream.
[244] _Totleh_: sweet jelly, incrusted with blanched almonds.
[245] The kemengeh is a kind of small two-stringed fiddle, the body of
which is made of half a cocoanut shell. It has a very long neck, and a
long foot that rests upon the ground, like the foot of a violoncello;
and it is played with a bow about a yard in length. The strings are of
twisted horsehair.
[246] “The Copts are Christians of the sect called Jacobites,
Eutychians, Monophysites and Monothelites, whose creed was condemned
by the Council of Chalcedon in the reign of the Emperor Marcian. They
received the appellation of ‘Jacobites,’ by which they are generally
known, from Jacobus Baradæus, a Syrian, who was a chief propagator of
the Eutychian doctrines.... The religious orders of the Coptic church
consist of a patriarch, a metropolitan of the Abyssinians, bishops,
arch-priests, priests, deacons and monks. In Abyssinia, Jacobite
Christianity is still the prevailing religion.” See “The Modern
Egyptians,” by E. W. Lane. Supplement 1, p. 531, London: 1860.
[247] The bishop was for the most part right. The Coptic _is_
the ancient Egyptian language (that is to say, it is late and
somewhat corrupt Egyptian) written in Greek characters instead of
in hieroglyphs. For the abolition of the ancient writing was, next
to the abolition of the images of the gods, one of the first great
objects of the early church in Egypt. Unable to uproot and destroy
the language of a great nation, the Christian fathers took care so to
reclothe it that every trace of the old symbolism should disappear
and be forgotten. Already, in the time of Clement of Alexandria (A.D.
211), the hieroglyphic style had become obsolete. The secret of reading
hieroglyphs, however, was not lost till the time of the fall of the
Eastern empire. How the lost key was recovered by Champollion is told
in a quotation from Mariette Bey, in the foot note to p. 191, chapter
xii, of this book. Of the relation of Coptic to Egyptian, Champollion
says: “La Lange Égyptienne antique ne différait en rien de la langue
appelée vulgairement Copte ou Cophte.... Les mots Égyptiens écrits
en caractères hieroglyphiques sur les monuments les plus anciens de
Thèbes, et en caractères Grecs dans les livres Coptes, ne différent
en général que par l’absence de certaines voyelles médiales omises,
selon la méthode orientale, dans l’orthographe primitive.”--“Grammaire
Égyptiene,” p. 18.
The bishop, though perfectly right in stating that Coptic and Egyptian
were one, and that the Coptic was a distinct language having no
affinity with the Greek, was, however, entirely wrong in that part
of his explanation which related to the alphabet. So far from eight
Greek letters having been added to the Coptic alphabet upon the
introduction of Christianity into Egypt, there was no such thing as
a Coptic alphabet previous to that time. The Coptic alphabet is the
Greek alphabet as imposed upon Egypt by the fathers of the early Greek
church; and that alphabet being found insufficient to convey all the
sounds of the Egyptian tongue, eight new characters were borrowed from
the demotic to supplement the deficiency.
[248] This machine is called the Nóreg.
[249] The number of pigeons kept by the Egyptian fellahin is
incredible. Mr. Zincke says on this subject that “the number of
domestic pigeons in Egypt must be several times as great as the
population,” and suggests that if the people kept pigs they would
keep less pigeons. But it is not as food chiefly that the pigeons are
encouraged. They are bred and let live in such ruinous numbers for the
sake of the manure they deposit on the land. M. About has forcibly
demonstrated the error of this calculation. He shows that the pigeons
do thirty million francs’ worth of damage to the crop in excess of any
benefit they may confer upon the soil.
[250] The Arabic name of the modern village, Arabát-el-Madfûneh, means
literally Arabat the Buried.
[251] _Teni_, or more probably Tini, called by the Greeks This or
Thinis. It was the capital of the Eighth Nome. “Quoique nous ayons
très-peu de chose à rapporter sur l’histoire de la ville de Teni qui
à la basse époque sous la domination romaine, n’était connue que
parses teinturiers en pourpre, elle doit avoir jouri d’une très grande
renommée chez les anciens Égyptiens. Encore an temps du XIX dynastie
les plus hauts fonctionnaires de sang royal étaient distingués par le
titre de ‘Princes de Teni.’”--“Hist. d’Égypte. Brugsch, vol. i. chap.
v, p. 29; Leipzig, 1874.
NOTE TO SECOND EDITION.--“Des monuments trouvés il y a deux ans, me
portent a croire que Thini était située assez loin a l’Est au village
actuel de Aoulad-Yahia.” Letter of Prof. G. Maspero to the author,
April, 1878.
[252] The ancient name of Egypt was _Kem_, _Khem_, or _Kam_, signifying
Black, or the Black Land; in allusion to the color of the soil.
[253] “Mena, tel que nous le presente la tradition, est le type le
plus complet du monarque Égyptian. Il est à la fois constructeur et
législateur; il fonde le grande temple de Phtah à Memphis et régle le
culte des dieux. Il est guerrier, et conduit les expéditions hors de
ses frontières.”--“Hist. Ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient.” G. Maspero.
Chap. ii, p. 55: Paris, 1876.
“N’oublions pas qu’avant Ménès l’Égypte était divisée en petits
royaumes indépendants que Ménès réunit le premier sous un sceptre
unique. Il n’est pas impossible que des monuments de cette antique
période de l’histoire Égyptienne subsistent encore.”--“Itinéraire de la
Haute Égypte.” A Mariette Bey. Avant Propos, p. 40. Alexandrie, 1872.
[254] See opening address of Professor R. Owen, C. B., etc., “Report
of Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Orientalists,
Ethnological Section;” London, 1874. Also a paper on “The Ethnology of
Egypt,” by the same, published in the “Journal of the Anthropological
Institute,” vol. iv, No. 1, p. 246: Lond., 1874.
[255] M. Mariette, in his great work on the excavations at Abydus,
observes that these seven vaulted sanctuaries resemble sarcophagi of
the form most commonly in use; namely, oblong boxes with vaulted lids.
Two sarcophagi of this shape are shown in cut 496 of Sir G. Wilkinson’s
second volume (see figures 1 and 6), “A Popular Account of the Ancient
Egyptians,” vol. ii, chap. x; Lond., 1871. Of the uses and purport
of the temple, he also says: “What do we know of the _dée mère_ that
presided at its construction? What was done in it? Is it consecrated
to a single divinity, who would be Osiris; or to seven gods, who
would be the seven gods of the seven vaulted chambers; or to the nine
divinities enumerated in the lists of deities dispersed in various
parts of the temple?... One leaves the temple in despair, not at being
unable to make out its secret from the inscriptions, but on finding
that its secret has been kept for itself alone, and not trusted to the
inscriptions.”--“Description des Fouilles d’Abydos.” Mariette Bey.
Paris, 1869. “Les sept chambres voûtées du grand temple d’Abydos sont
relatifs aux cérémonies que le roi devait y célébrer successivement.
Le roi se présentait au côté droit de la porte, parcourait la salle
dans tout son pourtour et sortait par le côté gauche. Des statues
étaient disposées dans la chambre. Le roi ouvrait la porte ou naos où
elles étaient enfermées. Dès que la statue apparaissait è ses yeux
il lui offrait l’encens, il enlevait le vêtement qui la couvrait,
il lui imposait les mains, il la parfumait, il la recouvrait de son
vêtement,” etc. Mariette Bey. “Itinéraire de la Haute Égypte: Avant
Propos, p. 62. Alex. 1872. There is at the upper end of each of these
seven sanctuaries a singular kind of false door, or recess, conceived
in a style of ornament more Indian than Egyptian, the cutting being
curiously square, deep, and massive, the surface of the relief-work
flattened, and the whole evidently intended to produce its effect by
depths of shadow in the incised portions rather than by sculpturesque
relief. These recesses, or imitation doors, may have been designed to
serve as backgrounds to statues, but are not deep enough for niches.
There is a precisely similar recess sculptured on one of the walls of
the westernmost chamber in the Temple of Gournah.
[256] These are all representations of minor gods commonly figured in
the funereal papyri, but very rarely seen in the temple sculptures.
The frog Goddess, for instance, is Hek, and symbolizes eternity. She
is a very ancient divinity, traces of her being found in monuments
of the fifth dynasty. The goose-headed god is Seb, another very old
god. The object called the Nilometer was a religious emblem signifying
stability, and probably stands in this connection as only a deified
symbol.
[257] Rameses II is here shown with the side-lock of youth. This
temple, founded by Seti I, was carried on through the time when Rameses
the Prince was associated with his father upon the throne, and was
completed by Rameses the King, after the death of Seti I. The building
is strictly coeval in date and parallel in style with the Temple of
Gournah and the Specs of Bayt-el-Welly.
[258] These seventy-six Pharaohs (represented by their cartouches)
were probably either princes born of families originally from Abydus,
or were sovereigns who had acquired a special title to veneration at
this place on account of monuments or pious foundations presented by
them to the holy city. A similar tablet, erected apparently on the
same principles though not altogether to the same kings, was placed by
Thothmes III in a side chamber of the Great Temple at Karnak, and is
now in the Louvre.
The great value of the present monument consists in its chronological
arrangement. It is also of the most beautiful execution, and in perfect
preservation. “Comme perfection de gravure, comme conservation, comme
étendue, il est peu de monuments qui la depassent.” See “La Nouvelle
Table d’Abydos,” par A. Mariette Bey: “Révue Arch.,” vol. vii.
“Nouvelle Série,” p. 98. This volume of the “Review” also contains an
engraving in outline of the tablet.
[259] See “Itinéraire de la Haute Égypte:” A. Mariette Bey: p. 147.
Alex. 1872.
[260] “Ibid,” p. 148. The hope here expressed was, however, not
fulfilled; tombs of the fourth or fifth dynasties being, I believe, the
earliest discovered. [Note to second edition.]
[261] “It is said that these persons, as well as the sheik, make use
of certain words (that is, repeat prayers and invocations) on the day
preceding this performance, to enable them to endure without injury the
tread of the horse; and that some not thus prepared, having ventured
to lie down to be ridden over, have, on more than one occasion, been
either killed or severely injured. The performance is considered as
a miracle vouchsafed through supernatural power, and which has been
granted to every successive sheik of the Saädiyeh.” See Lane’s “Modern
Egyptians,” chap. xxiv, p. 453. Lond., 1860.
[262] This barbarous rite has been abolished by the present khedive.
[Note to second edition.]
[263] See “Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Khedive,” J. B. Zincke, chap.
ix, p. 72. Lond., 1873. Also “La Sculpture Égyptienne,” par E. Soldi,
p. 57. Paris, 1876. Also “The Ethnology of Egypt,” by Professor Owen,
C. B. “Journal of Anthropological Institute,” vol. iv, 1874, p. 227.
The name of this personage was Ra-em-ka.
[264] It is in the great vestibule that we find the statue of Ti. See
chap. iv, p. 55.
[265] There is no evidence to show that the statues of Sepa and Nesa in
the Louvre are older than the fourth dynasty.
[266] “Enfin nous signalerons l’importance des statues de Meydoum au
point de vue ethnographique. Si la race Égyptienne était à cette époque
celle dout les deux statues nous offrent le type, il faut convenir
qu’elle ne ressemblait en rien à la race qui habitait le nord de
l’Égypte quelques années seulement après Snefrou.”--“Cat. du Musée de
Boulaq.” A. Mariette Bey. P. 277; Paris. 1872.
Of the heads of these two statues Professor Owen remarks that “the
brain-case of the male is a full oval, the parietal bosses feebly
indicated; in vertical contour the fronto parietal part is little
elevated, rather flattened than convex; the frontal sinuses are
slightly indicated; the forehead is fairly developed but not prominent.
The lips are fuller than in the majority of Europeans; but the mouth
is not prognathic.... The features of the female conform in type to
those of the male, but show more delicacy and finish.... The statue
of the female is colored of a lighter tint than that of the male,
indicating the effects of better clothing and less exposure to the sun.
And here it may be remarked that the racial character of complexion is
significantly manifested by such evidences of the degree of tint due
to individual exposure.... The primitive race-tint of the Egyptians
is perhaps more truly indicated by the color of the princes in these
painted portrait-statues than by that of her more scantily clad husband
or male relative.”--“The Ethnology of Egypt,” by Sir Richard Owen, K.
C. B. “Journal of Anthropological Institute,” vol. iv, Lond., 1874; p.
225 _et seq._
[267] The word _pyramid_, for which so many derivations have been
suggested, is shown in the geometrical papyrus of the British Museum to
be distinctly Egyptian, and is written _Per-em-us_.
[268] “On sait par une stèle du musée de Boulaq, que le grand
Sphinx antérieur au Rois Chéops de la IV Dynastie.”--“Dic. d’Arch.
Égyptienne:” Article _Sphinx_. P. Pierret. Paris, 1875.
[It was the opinion of Mariette, and it is the opinion of Professor
Mapero, that the sphinx dates from the inconceivable remote period of
the _Horshesu_, or “followers of Horus;” that is to say, from those
prehistoric times when Egypt was ruled by a number of petty chieftains,
before Mena welded the ancient principalities into a united kingdom.
Those principalities then became the nomes, or provinces, of historic
times; and the former local chieftains became semi-independent
feudatories, such as we find surviving with undiminished authority and
importance during the twelfth dynasty.--[Note to second edition.]
A long-disputed question as to the meaning of the sphinx has of
late been finally solved. The sphinx is shown by M. J. de Rougé,
according to an inscription at Edfu, to represent a transformation
of Horus, who in order to vanquish Set (Typhon) took the shape of a
human-headed lion. It was under this form that Horus was adored in the
Nome Leontopolites. In the above-mentioned stela of Boulak, known as
the stone of Cheops, the Great Sphinx is especially designated as the
Sphinx of Hor-em-Khou, or Horus-on-the-Horizon. This is evidently in
reference to the orientation of the figure. It has often been asked
why the sphinx is turned to the east. I presume the answer would be,
because Horus, avenger of Osiris, looks to the east, awaiting the
return of his father from the lower world. As Horus was supposed to
have reigned over Egypt, every Pharaoh took the title of Living Horus,
Golden Hawk, etc. Hence the features of the reigning king were always
given to the sphinx form when architecturally employed, as at Karnak,
Wady Sabooah, Tanis, etc.
[269] It is certainly not a temple. It may be a mastaba, or votive
chapel. It looks most like a tomb. It is entirely built of plain and
highly polished monoliths of alabaster and red granite, laid square
and simply, like a sort of costly and magnificent Stonehenge; and it
consists of a forecourt, a hall of pillars, three principal chambers,
some smaller chambers, a secret recess, and a well. The chambers
contain horizontal niches which it is difficult to suppose could have
been intended for anything but the reception of mummies; and at the
bottom of the well were found three statues of King Khafra (Chephren);
one of which is the famous diorite portrait-statue of the Boulak
Museum. In an interesting article contributed to the “Révue Arch.”
(vol. xxvi. Paris, 1873), M. du Barry-Merval has shown, as it seems,
quite clearly, that the Temple of the Sphinx is in fact a dependency
of the second pyramid. It is possible that the niches may have been
designed for the queen and family of Khafra, whose own mummy would of
course be buried in his pyramid.
[270] This letter appeared in _The Times_ of March 18, 1874.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
AMELIA BLANDFORD EDWARDS.=> AMELIA BLANFORD EDWARDS. {pg}
Shegered-Durr, a beautiul Turkish=> Shegered-Durr, a beautiful Turkish
{fn 6}
cut a sorroy figure=> cut a sorry figure {pg 46}
But the must amazing=> But the most amazing {pg 46}
low perdendicular cliffs=> low perpendicular cliffs {pg 46}
This colussus is now raised=> This colossus is now raised {fn 19}
it place in history=> its place in history {pg 62}
and murmnr’d “bakhshîsh!”=> and murmur’d “bakhshîsh!” {pg 63}
certain amount of insistance=> certain amount of insistence {pg 66}
is supended a goat-skin bucket=> is suspended a goat-skin bucket {fn 22}
a shoal of medicant monks=> a shoal of mendicant monks {pg 75}
and most suble gradations=> and most subtle gradations {pg 77}
régulièrement trios enfants sur cinq=> régulièrement troos enfants sur
cinq {fn 24}
to downs-tairs=> to down-stairs {pg 83}
fifty colored lanters outlined=> fifty colored lanterns outlined {pg 84}
for contemplatation=> for contemplation {pg 91}
nomarch of the Lycopolite nome=> monarch of the Lycopolite nome {pg 95}
the twelth dynasty=> the twelfth dynasty {pg 26}
reputation for unusal sanctity=> reputation for unusual sanctity {fn 31}
effect of afterg-low=> effect of after-glow {pg 105}
towed by goverment=> towed by government {pg 106}
the precints=> the precincts {pg 111}
these gloomy threshelds=> these gloomy thresholds {pg 118}
the Triad worshiped=> the Triad worshipped {fn 44}
La culta de Bes parait=> La culte de Bes parait {fn 45}
but quite preceptibly=> but quite perceptibly {pg 147}
for which purpuse=> for which purpose {pg 147}
expressive pantomine=> expressive pantomime {pg 148 x 2}
of more that doubtful=> of more than doubtful {pg 148}
incapable of oevenge=> incapable of revenge {pg 150}
his bad cnes=> his bad ones {pg 150}
much better rharacter=> much better character {pg 150}
the usual attemps=> the usual attempts {pg 160}
the judical susceptibilities=> the judicial susceptibilities {pg 161}
we found ourselvelves=> we found ourselves {pg 170}
his next two successsors=> his next two successors {fn 54}
following succint account=> following succinct account {fn 56}
on the righ road to Thebes=> on the high road to Thebes {pg 197}
in the precints=> in the precincts {pg 199}
supended in his time=> suspended in his time {fn 60}
and believd Philæ to=> and believed Philæ to {fn 61}
when Burkhardt went up=> when Burckhardt went up {pg 202}
their tale intelligbly=> their tale intelligibly {pg 208}
is as audidle=> is as audible {pg 209}
ancient blue porcelian=> ancient blue porcelain {pg 216}
but found them to much defaced=> but found them too much defaced {pg
233}
But with he second Rameses=> But with the second Rameses {pg 236}
through Westminister Abbey=> through Westminster Abbey {pg 237}
sharer of the thorne=> sharer of the throne {pg 238}
it has often deen observed=> it has often been observed {fn 84}
A similiar document=> A similar document {pg 247}
colored mosaice=> colored mosaics {pg 95}
Marray is wrong=> Murray is wrong {pg 95}
almost unparalelled length=> almost unparalleled length {pg 105}
the ninteenth dynasty=> the nineteenth dynasty {fn 108}
were wont to speak of them as=> were wont to speak of them as as {pg
181}
size or of portaiture=> size or of portraiture {pg 260}
From the southermost colossus=> From the southernmost colossus {pg 261}
the hieroglypic character=> the hieroglyphic character {pg 266}
gloomy magnificance=> gloomy magnificence {pg 271}
the besigers’ camp=> the besiegers’ camp {pg 272}
to represents water=> to represent water {pg 274}
is almst Panathenaic=> is almost Panathenaic {pg 274}
the city of the beseiged=> the city of the besieged {pg 274}
a sort of Egyption Iliad=> a sort of Egyptian Iliad {pg 274}
Archilles is left out=> Achilles is left out {pg 275}
there is no vendure=> there is no verdure {pg 284}
north of the second contract=> north of the second cataract {pg 284}
jewels, and papiry=> jewels, and papyri {pg 304}
at once fell swoop=> at one fell swoop {pg 305}
Governor of Ethiopia=> Govornor of Ethiopia {pg 316}
in conjuction or identification=> in conjunction or identification {fn
143}
ordrer of Mariette Bey=> order of Mariette Bey {pg 154}
towered, loop-hooled=> towered, loop-holed {pg 334}
little flanking off=> little flaking off {pg 374}
The wall scuptures=> The wall sculptures {pg 381}
and more respectfully designated=> are more respectfully designated {fn
208}
wholly pontomimic=> wholly pantomimic {pg 413}
schoolmaster--come round=> schoolmaster--came round {pg 416}
were introdouced from=> were introduced from {pg 448}
is appearent to every=> is apparent to every {pg 451}
been cherised by=> been cherished by {pg 452}
The decrepancies between these=> The discrepancies between these {pg
452}
Twefth dynasty=> Twelfth dynasty {pg 454}
some being addressed=> some beng addressed {pg 454}