was not without anxiety as to the consequences which might follow this
execution should Gilukhîpa desire to avenge the victim, and to this end
stir up the anger of the suzerain against him. Dushratta, therefore,
wrote a humble epistle, showing that he had received provocation, and
that he had found it necessary to strike a decisive blow to save his own
life; the tablet was accompanied by various presents to the royal pair,
comprising horses, slaves, jewels, and perfumes. Gilukhîpa, however,
bore Dushratta no ill-will, and the latters anxieties were allayed.
The so-called expeditions of Amenôthes to the Syrian provinces
must constantly have been merely visits of inspection, during which
amusements, and especially the chase, occupied nearly as important
a place as war and politics. Amenôthes III. took to heart that
pre-eminently royal duty of ridding the country of wild beasts, and
fulfilled it more conscientiously than any of his predecessors. He had
killed 112 lions during the first ten years of his reign, and as it was
an exploit of which he was remarkably proud, he perpetuated the memory
of it in a special inscription, which he caused to be engraved on
numbers of large scarabs of fine green enamel. Egypt prospered under his
peaceful government, and if the king made no great efforts to extend
her frontiers, he spared no pains to enrich the country by developing
industry and agriculture, and also endeavoured to perfect the military
organisation which had rendered the conquest of the East so easy a
matter.
A census, undertaken by his minister Amenôthes, the son of Hâpi,
ensured a more correct assessment of the taxes, and a regular scheme of
recruiting for the army.
[Illustration: 056.jpg SCARAB OF THE HUNT]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the photograph published in
Mariette.
Whole tribes of slaves were brought into the country by means of the
border raids which were always taking place, and their opportune arrival
helped to fill up the vacancies which repeated wars had caused among
the rural and urban population; such a strong impetus to agriculture
was also given by this importation, that when, towards the middle of the
reign, the minister Khâmhâîfc presented the tax-gathers at court, he
was able to boast that he had stored in the State granaries a larger
quantity of corn than had been gathered in for thirty years. The traffic
carried on between Asia and the Delta by means of both Egyptian and
foreign ships was controlled by customhouses erected at the mouths of
the Nile, the coast being protected by cruising vessels against the
attacks of pirates. The fortresses of the isthmus and of the Libyan
border, having been restored or rebuilt, constituted a check on the
turbulence of the nomad tribes, while garrisons posted at intervals
at the entrance to the Wadys leading to the desert restrained the
plunderers scattered between the Nile and the Red Sea, and between the
chain of Oases and the unexplored regions of the Sahara.* Egypt was at
once the most powerful as well as the most prosperous kingdom in the
world, being able to command more labour and more precious metals for
the embellishment of her towns and the construction of her monuments
than any other.
All this information is gathered from the inscription on the
statue of Amenôthes, the son of Hâpi.
Public works had been carried on briskly under Thûtmosis III. and his
successors. The taste for building, thwarted at first by the necessity
of financial reforms, and then by that of defraying the heavy expenses
incurred through the expulsion of the Hyksôs and the earlier foreign
wars, had free scope as soon as spoil from the Syrian victories began to
pour in year by year. While the treasure seized from the enemy provided
the money, the majority of the prisoners were used as workmen, so that
temples, palaces, and citadels began to rise as if by magic from one end
of the valley to the other.*
* For this use of prisoners of war, cf. the picture from the
tomb of Rakhmirî on p. 58 of the present work, in which most
of the earlier Egyptologists believed they recognised the
Hebrews, condemned by Pharaoh to build the cities of Ramses
and Pithom in the Delta.
Nubia, divided into provinces, formed merely an extension of the
ancient feudal Egypt--at any rate as far as the neighbourhood of the
Tacazzeh--though the Egyptian religion had here assumed a peculiar
character.
[Illustration: 058.jpg A GANG Of SYRIAN PRISONERS MAKING BRICK FOR THE
TEMPLE OF AMON]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the chromolithograph in Lepsius.
The conquest of Nubia having been almost entirely the work of the Theban
dynasties, the Theban triad, Amon, Maût, and Montû, and their immediate
followers were paramount in this region, while in the north, in witness
of the ancient Elephantinite colonisation, we find Khnûmû of the
cataract being worshipped, in connexion with Didûn, father of
the indigenous Nubians. The worship of Amon had been the means of
introducing that of Eâ and of Horus, and Osiris as lord of the dead,
while Phtah, Sokhît, Atûmû, and the Memphite and Heliopolitan gods were
worshipped only in isolated parts of the province. A being, however,
of less exalted rank shared with the lords of heaven the favour of the
people. This was the Pharaoh, who as the son of Amon was foreordained to
receive divine honours, sometimes figuring, as at Bohani, as the third
member of a triad, at other times as head of the Ennead. Ûsirtasen
III. had had his chapels at Semneh and at Kûmmeh, they were restored by
Thûtmosis III., who claimed a share of the worship offered in them,
and whose son, Amenôthes II., also assumed the symbols and functions of
divinity.
[Illustration: 059.jpg ONE OF THE RAMS OF AMENÔTHES III]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Mons. de Mertens.
Amenôthes I. was venerated in the province of Kari, and Amenôthes III.,
when founding the fortress Hâît-Khâmmâît* in the neighbourhood of a
Nubian village, on a spot now known as Soleb, built a temple there, of
which he himself was the protecting genius.**
* The name signifies literally the Citadel of Khâmmâît,
and it is formed, as Lepsius recognised from the first, from
the name of the Sparrow-hawk Khâmmâît, Mait rising as
Goddess, which Amenôthes had assumed on his accession.
** Lepsius recognised the nature of the divinity worshipped
in this temple; the deified statue of the king, his living
statue on earth, which represented the god of the temple,
is there named Nibmâûrî, lord of Nubia. Thûtmosis III. had
already worked at Soleb.
The edifice was of considerable size, and the columns and walls
remaining reveal an art as perfect as that shown in the best monuments
at Thebes. It was approached by an avenue of ram-headed sphinxes, while
colossal statues of lions and hawks, the sacred animals of the district,
adorned the building. The sovereign condescended to preside in person
at its dedication on one of his journeys to the southern part of his
empire, and the mutilated pictures still visible on the façade show the
order and detail of the ceremony observed on this occasion. The king,
with the crown upon his head, stood before the centre gate, accompanied
by the queen and his minister Amenôthes, the son of Hâpi, who was better
acquainted than any other man of his time with the mysteries of the
ritual.*
* On Amenôthes, the son of Hâpi, see p. 56 of the present
volume; it will be seen in the following chapter, in
connection with the Egyptian accounts of the Exodus, what
tradition made of him.
The king then struck the door twelve times with his mace of white stone,
and when the approach to the first hall was opened, he repeated the
operation at the threshold of the sanctuary previous to entering and
placing his statue there. He deposited it on the painted and gilded
wooden platform on which the gods were exhibited on feast-days,
and enthroned beside it the other images which were thenceforth to
constitute the local Ennead, after which he kindled the sacred fire
before them. The queen, with the priests and nobles, all bearing
torches, then passed through the halls, stopping from time to time
to perform acts of purification, or to recite formulas to dispel evil
spirits and pernicious influences; finally, a triumphal procession was
formed, and the whole _cortege_ returned to the palace, where a banquet
brought the days festivities to a close.* It was Amenôthes III.
himself, or rather one of his statues animated by his double, who
occupied the chief place in the new building. Indeed, wherever we come
across a temple in Nubia dedicated to a king, we find the homage of the
inhabitants always offered to the image of the founder, which spoke to
them in oracles. All the southern part of the country beyond the
second cataract is full of traces of Amenôthes, and the evidence of
the veneration shown to him would lead us to conclude that he played an
important part in the organisation of the country. Sedeinga possessed
a small temple under the patronage of his wife Tîi. The ruins of a
sanctuary which he dedicated to Anion, the Sun-god, have been discovered
at Gebel-Barkal; Amenôthes seems to have been the first to perceive the
advantages offered by the site, and to have endeavoured to transform
the barbarian village of Napata into a large Egyptian city. Some of the
monuments with which he adorned Soleb were transported, in later times,
to Gebel-Barkal, among them some rams and lions of rare beauty. They lie
at rest with their paws crossed, the head erect, and their expression
suggesting both power and repose.** As we descend the Nile, traces of
the work of this king are less frequent, and their place is taken by
those of his predecessors, as at Sai, at Semneh, at Wady Haifa, at
Amada, at Ibrîm, and at Dakkeh. Distant traces of Amenôthes again
appear in the neighbourhood of the first cataract, and in the island of
Elephantine, which he endeavoured to restore to its ancient splendour.
* Thus the small temple of Sarrah, to the north of Wady
Haifa, is dedicated to the living statue of Ramses II. in
the land of Nubia, a statue to which his Majesty gave the
name of Usirmârî Zosir-Shâfi.
** One of the rams was removed from Gebel-Barkal by Lepsius,
and is now in the Berlin Museum, as well as the pedestal of
one of the hawks. Prisse has shown that these two monuments
originally adorned the temple of Soleb, and that they were
afterwards transported to Napata by an Ethiopian king, who
engraved his name on the pedestal of one of them.
[Illustration: 062.jpg ONE OF THE LIONS OF GEBEL-BARKAL]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the two lions of Gebel-
Barkal in the British Museum
Two of the small buildings which he there dedicated to Khnûmû, the local
god, were still in existence at the beginning of the present century.
That least damaged, on the south side of the island, consisted of
a single chamber nearly forty feet in length. The sandstone walls,
terminating in a curved cornice, rested on a hollow substructure
raised rather more than six feet above the ground, and surrounded by
a breast-high parapet. A portico ran round the building, having seven
square pillars on each of its two sides, while at each end stood two
columns having lotus-shaped capitals; a flight of ten or twelve steps
between two walls of the same height as the basement, projected in
front, and afforded access to the cella. The two columns of the façade
were further apart than those at the opposite end of the building, and
showed a glimpse of a richly decorated door, while a second door opened
under the peristyle at the further extremity. The walls were covered
with the half-brutish profile of the good Khnûmû, and those of his
two companions, Anûkît and Satît, the spirits of stormy waters. The
treatment of these figures was broad and simple, the style free, light,
and graceful, the colouring soft; and the harmonious beauty of the whole
is unsurpassed by anything at Thebes itself. It was, in fact, a kind of
oratory, built on a scale to suit the capacities of a decaying town, but
the design was so delicately conceived in its miniature proportions that
nothing more graceful can be imagined.*
* Amenôthes II. erected some small obelisks at Elephantine,
one of which is at present in England. The two buildings of
Amenôthes III. at Elephantine were still in existence at the
beginning of the present century. They have been described
and drawn by French scholars; between 1822 and 1825 they
were destroyed, and the materials used for building barracks
and magazines at Syene.
Ancient Egypt and its feudal cities, Ombos, Edfû,* Nekhabît, Esneh,**
Medamôt,*** Coptos,**** Denderah, Abydos, Memphis,^ and Heliopolis,
profited largely by the generosity of the Pharaohs.
* The works undertaken by Thûtmosis III. in the temple of
Edfû are mentioned in an inscription of the Ptolemaic
period; some portions are still to be seen among the ruins
of the town.
** An inscription of the Roman period attributes the
rebuilding of the great temple of Esneh to Thûtmosis III.
Grébaut discovered some fragments of it in the quay of the
modern town.
*** Amenôthes II. appears to have built the existing temple.
**** The temple of Hâthor was built by Thûtmosis III. Some
fragments found in the Ptolemaic masonry bear the cartouche
of Thûtmosis IV.
^ Amenôthes II. certainly carried on works at Memphis, for
he opened a new quarry at Tûrah, in the year IV. Amenôthes
III. also worked limestone quarries, and built at Saqqârah
the earliest chapels of the Serapeum which are at present
known to us.
Since the close of the XIIth dynasty these cities had depended entirely
on their own resources, and their public buildings were either in ruins,
or quite inadequate to the needs of the population, but now gold from
Syria and Kûsh furnished them with the means of restoration. The Delta
itself shared in this architectural revival, but it had suffered too
severely under the struggle between the Theban kings and the Shepherds
to recover itself as quickly as the remainder of the country. All
effort was concentrated on those of its nomes which lay on the Eastern
frontier, or which were crossed by the Pharaohs in their journeys into
Asia, such as the Bubastite and Athribite nomes; the rest remained sunk
in their ancient torpor.*
* Mariette and E. de Rougé, attribute this torpor, at least as far as
Tanis is concerned, to the aversion felt by the Pharaohs of Egyptian
blood for the Hyksôs capital, and for the provinces where the invaders
had formerly established themselves in large numbers.
Beyond the Red Sea the mines were actively worked, and even the oases of
the Libyan desert took part in the national revival, and buildings rose
in their midst of a size proportionate to their slender revenues. Thebes
naturally came in for the largest share of the spoils of war. Although
her kings had become the rulers of the world, they had not, like the
Pharaohs of the XIIth and XIIIth dynasties, forsaken her for some more
illustrious city: here they had their ordinary residence as well as
their seat of government, hither they returned after each campaign to
celebrate their victory, and hither they sent the prisoners and the
spoil which they had reserved for their own royal use. In the course
of one or two generations Thebes had spread in every direction, and had
enclosed within her circuit the neighbouring villages of Ashîrû, the
fief of Maiit, and Apît-rîsîfc, the southern Thebes, which lay at the
confluence of the Nile with one of the largest of the canals which
watered the plain. The monuments in these two new quarters of the town
were unworthy of the city of which they now formed part, and Amenôthes
III. consequently bestowed much pains on improving them. He entirely
rebuilt the sanctuary of Maût, enlarged the sacred lake, and collected
within one of the courts of the temple several hundred statues in black
granite of the Memphite divinity, the lioness-headed Sokhît, whom he
identified with his Theban goddess. The statues were crowded together so
closely that they were in actual contact with each other in places, and
must have presented something of the appearance of a regiment drawn up
in battle array. The succeeding Pharaohs soon came to look upon this
temple as a kind of storehouse, whence they might provide themselves
with ready-made figures to decorate their buildings either at Thebes or
in other royal cities. About a hundred of them, however, still remain,
most of them without feet, arms, or head; some over-turned on the
ground, others considerably out of the perpendicular, from the earth
having given way beneath them, and a small number only still perfect and
in situ.
[Illustration: 065.jpg THE TEMPLE AT ELEPHANTINE, AS IT WAS IN 1799]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the _Description de lEgypte,
Ant_., vol. i p. 35. A good restoration of it, made from
the statements in the _Description_, is to be found in
Pekrot-Cuipiez, _Histoire de lArt dans lAntiquité_, vol.
i. pp. 402, 403.
[Illustration: 066.jpg THE GREAT COURT OF THE TEMPLE OF LUXOR DURING THE
INUNDATION]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato.
[Illustration: 067.jpg PART OF THE AVENUE OF RAMS, BETWEEN THE TEMPLES
OF AMON AND MAÛT]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato.
At Luxor Amenôthes demolished the small temple with which the sovereigns
of the XIIth and XIIIth dynasties had been satisfied, and replaced it by
a structure which is still one of the finest yet remaining of the times
of the Pharaohs. The naos rose sheer above the waters of the Nile,
indeed its cornices projected over the river, and a staircase at the
south side allowed the priests and devotees to embark directly from
the rear of the building. The sanctuary was a single chamber, with an
opening on its side, but so completely shut out from the daylight by the
long dark hall at whose extremity it was placed as to be in perpetual
obscurity. It was flanked by narrow, dimly lightly chambers, and was
approached through a pronaos with four rows of columns, a vast court
surrounded with porticoes occupying the foreground. At the present time
the thick walls which enclosed the entire building are nearly level
with the ground, half the ceilings have crumbled away, air and light
penetrate into every nook, and during the inundation the water flowing
into the courts, transformed them until recently into lakes, whither the
flocks and herds of the village resorted in the heat of the day to bathe
or quench their thirst. Pictures of mysterious events never meant for
the public gaze now display their secrets in the light of the sun, and
reveal to the eyes of the profane the supernatural events which preceded
the birth of the king. On the northern side an avenue of sphinxes and
crio-sphinxes led to the gates of old Thebes. At present most of these
creatures are buried under the ruins of the modern town, or covered by
the earth which overlies the ancient road; but a few are still visible,
broken and shapeless from barbarous usage, and hardly retaining any
traces of the inscriptions in which Amenôthes claimed them boastingly as
his work.
[Illustration: 069.jpg THE PYLONS OF THÛTMOSIS III. AND HARMHABÎ AT
KAKNAK]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato.
Triumphal processions passing along this route from Luxor to Karnak
would at length reach the great court before the temple of Amon, or, by
turning a little to the right after passing the temple of Maût, would
arrive in front of the southern façade, near the two gilded obelisks
whose splendour once rejoiced the heart of the famous Hâtshopsîtû.
Thûtmosis III. was also determined on his part to spare no expense to
make the temple of his god of proportions suitable to the patron of
so vast an empire. Not only did he complete those portions which his
predecessors had merely sketched out, but on the south side towards
Ashîrû he also built a long row of pylons, now half ruined, on which he
engraved, according to custom, the list of nations and cities which he
had subdued in Asia and Africa. To the east of the temple he rebuilt
some ancient structures, the largest of which served as a halting-place
for processions, and he enclosed the whole with a stone rampart. The
outline of the sacred lake, on which the mystic boats were launched on
the nights of festivals, was also made more symmetrical, and its margin
edged with masonry.
[Illustration: 070.jpg SACRED LAKE AKD THE SOUTHERN PART OF THE TEMPLE
OF KARNAK.]
Drawn by Boucher, from a photograph by Boato: the building
near the centre of the picture is the covered walk
constructed by Thûtmosis III.
By these alterations the harmonious proportion between the main
buildings and the façade had been destroyed, and the exterior wall was
now too wide for the pylon at the entrance. Amenôthes III. remedied this
defect by erecting in front a fourth pylon, which was loftier, larger,
and in all respects more worthy to stand before the enlarged temple.
Its walls were partially covered with battle-scenes, which informed all
beholders of the glory of the conqueror.*
* Portions of the military bas-reliefs which covered the
exterior face of the pylon are still to be seen through the
gaps in the wall at the end of the great Hall of Pillars
built by Seti I. and Ramses II.
Progress had been no less marked on the left bank of the river. As long
as Thebes had been merely a small provincial town, its cemeteries had
covered but a moderate area, including the sandy plain and low mounds
opposite Karnak and the valley of Deîr el-Baharî beyond; but now that
the city had more than doubled its extent, the space required for the
dead was proportionately greater. The tombs of private persons began to
spread towards the south, and soon reached the slopes of the Assassîf,
the hill of Sheikh-Abd-el-Qurnah and the district of Qûrnet-Mûrraî--in
fact, all that part which the people of the country called the Brow
of Thebes. On the borders of the cultivated land a row of chapels and
mastabas with pyramidal roofs sheltered the remains of the princes and
princesses of the royal family. The Pharaohs themselves were buried
either separately under their respective brick pyramids or in groups in
a temple, as was the case with the first three Thûtmosis and Hâtshopsîtû
at Deîr el-Baharî. Amenôthes II. and Thûtmosis IV. could doubtless have
found room in this crowded necropolis,* although the space was becoming
limited, but the pride of the Pharaohs began to rebel against this
promiscuous burial side by side with their subjects. Amenôthes III.
sought for a site, therefore, where he would have ample room to display
his magnificence, far from the vulgar crowd, and found what he desired
at the farther end of the valley which opens out behind the village of
Qurnah. Here, an hours journey from the bank of the Nile, he cut for
himself a magnificent rock-tomb with galleries, halls, and deep pits,
the walls being decorated with representations of the Voyage of the Sun
through the regions which he traverses during the twelve hours of his
nocturnal course.
* The generally received opinion is that these sovereigns of
the XVIIIth dynasty were buried in the Bibân el-Molûk, but I
have made several examinations of this valley, and cannot
think that this was the case. On the contrary, the scattered
notices in the fragments of papyrus preserved at Turin seem
to me to indicate that Amenôthes II. and Thûtmosis IV. must
have been buried in the neighbourhood of the Assassîf or of
Deîr el-Baharî.
A sarcophagus of red granite received his mummy, and _Ushabtis_ of
extraordinary dimensions and admirable workmanship mounted guard around
him, so as to release him from the corvée in the fields of Ialû.
The chapel usually attached to such tombs is not to be found in the
neighbourhood. As the road to the funeral valley was a difficult one,
and as it would be unreasonable to condemn an entire priesthood to live
in solitude, the king decided to separate the component parts which had
hitherto been united in every tomb since the Memphite period, and
to place the vault for the mummy and the passages leading to it some
distance away in the mountains, while the necessary buildings for
the cultus of the statue and the accommodation of the priests were
transferred to the plain, and were built at the southern extremity of
the lands which were at that time held by private persons. The divine
character of Amenôthes, ascribed to him on account of his solar origin
and the co-operation of Amon-Râ at his birth, was, owing to this
separation of the funerary constituents, brought into further
prominence. When once the body which he had animated while on earth
was removed and hidden from sight, the people soon became accustomed
to think only of his Double enthroned in the recesses of the sanctuary:
seeing him receive there the same honours as the gods themselves, they
came naturally to regard him as a deity himself.
[Illustration: 073.jpg THE TWO COLOSSI OF MEMNON IN THE PLAIN OF THEBES]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato. The
Vocal Statue of Memon is that on the right-hand side of
the illustration.
The arrangement of his temple differed in no way from those in which
Amon, Maût, and Montû were worshipped, while it surpassed in size and
splendour most of the sanctuaries dedicated to the patron gods of the
chief towns of the nomes. It contained, moreover, colossal statues,
objects which are never found associated with the heavenly gods. Several
of these figures have been broken to pieces, and only a few scattered
fragments of them remain, but two of them still maintain their positions
on each side of the entrance, with their faces towards the east. They
are each formed of a single block of red breccia from Syenê,* and are
fifty-three feet high, but the more northerly one was shattered in the
earthquake which completed the ruin of Thebes in the year 27 B.C. The
upper part toppled over with the shock, and was dashed to pieces on the
floor of the court, while the lower half remained in its place. Soon
after the disaster it began to be rumoured that sounds like those
produced by the breaking of a harp-string proceeded from the pedestal at
sunrise, whereupon travellers flocked to witness the miracle, and legend
soon began to take possession of the giant who spoke in this marvellous
way. In vain did the Egyptians of the neighbourhood declare that the
statue represented the Pharaoh Amenôthes; the Greeks refused to believe
them, and forthwith recognised in the colossus an image of Memnon the
Ethiopian, son of Tithonus and Aurora, slain by their own Achilles
beneath the walls of Troy--maintaining that the music heard every
morning was the clear and harmonious voice of the hero saluting his
mother.
* It is often asserted that they are made of rose granite,
but Jollois and Devilliers describe them as being of a
species of sandstone breccia, composed of a mass of agate
flint, conglomerated together by a remarkably hard cement.
This material, being very dense and of a heterogeneous
composition, presents to the sculptor perhaps greater
difficulties than even granite.
Towards the middle of the second century of our era, Hadrian undertook a
journey to Upper Egypt, and heard the wonderful song; sixty years later,
Septimus Severus restored the statue by the employment of courses of
stones, which were so arranged as to form a rough representation of a
human head and shoulders. His piety, however, was not rewarded as he
expected, for Memnon became silent, and his oracle fell into oblivion.
The temple no longer exists, and a few ridges alone mark the spot where
it rose; but the two colossi remain at their post, in the same condition
in which they were left by the Roman Cæsar: the features are quite
obliterated, and the legs and the supporting female figures on either
side are scored all over with Greek and Latin inscriptions expressing
the appreciation of ancient tourists. Although the statues tower high
above the fields of corn and _bersîm_ which surround them, our first
view of them, owing to the scale of proportion observed in their
construction, so different from that to which we are accustomed, gives
us the impression that they are smaller than they really are, and it
is only when we stand close to one of them and notice the insignificant
appearance of the crowd of sightseers clustered on its pedestal that we
realize the immensity of the colossi.
The descendants of Ahmosis had by their energy won for Thebes not only
the supremacy over the peoples of Egypt and of the known world, but had
also secured for the Theban deities pre-eminence over all their rivals.
The booty collected both in Syria and Ethiopia went to enrich the god
Amon as much as it did the kings themselves; every victory brought him
the tenth part of the spoil gathered on the field of battle, of the
tribute levied on vassals, and of the prisoners taken as slaves. When
Thûtmosis IIL, after having reduced Megiddo, organised a systematic
plundering of the surrounding country, it was for the benefit of Amon-Eâ
that he reaped the fields and sent their harvest into Egypt; if during
his journeys he collected useful plants or rare animals, it was that he
might dispose of them in the groves or gardens of Amon as well as in his
own, and he never retained for his personal use the whole of what he won
by arms, but always reserved some portion for the sacred treasury.
[Illustration: 076.jpg A PARTY OF TOURISTS AT THE FOOT OF THE VOCAL
STATUE OF MEMNOK]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger.
His successors acted in a similar manner, and in the reigns of Amenôthes
II., Thût-mosis IV., and Amenôthes III., the patrimony of the Theban
priesthood continued to increase. The Pharaohs, perpetually called upon
as they were to recompense one or other of their servants, were never
able to retain for long their share of the spoils of war. Gold and
silver, lands, jewels, and slaves passed as quickly out of their hands
as they had fallen into them, and although then fortune was continually
having additions made to it in every fresh campaign, yet the increase
was rarely in proportion to the trouble expended. The god, on the
contrary, received what he got for all time, and gave back nothing in
return: fresh accumulations of precious metals were continually being
added to his store, his meadows were enriched by the addition of
vineyards, and with his palm forests he combined fish-ponds full of
fish; he added farms and villages to those he already possessed, and
each reign saw the list of his possessions increase. He had his own
labourers, his own tradespeople, his own fishermen, soldiers, and
scribes, and, presiding over all these, a learned hierarchy of divines,
priests, and prophets, who administered everything. This immense domain,
which was a kind of State within the State, was ruled over by a single
high priest, chosen by the sovereign from among the prophets. He was the
irresponsible head of it, and his spiritual ambition had increased
step by step with the extension of his material resources. As the human
Pharaoh showed himself entitled to homage from the lords of the earth,
the priests came at length to the conclusion that Amon had a right
to the allegiance of the lords of heaven, and that he was the Supreme
Being, in respect of whom the others were of little or no account, and
as he was the only god who was everywhere victorious, he came at length
to be regarded by them as the only god in existence. It was impossible
that the kings could see this rapid development of sacerdotal power
without anxiety, and with all their devotion to the patron of their
city, solicitude for their own authority compelled them to seek
elsewhere for another divinity, whose influence might in some degree
counterbalance that of Amon. The only one who could vie with him at
Thebes, either for the antiquity of his worship or for the rank which he
occupied in the public esteem, was the Sun-lord of Heliopolis, head of
the first Ennead. Thûtmosis IV. owed his crown to him, and displayed
his gratitude in clearing away the sand from the Sphinx, in which
the spirit of Harmakhis was considered to dwell; and Amenôthes
III., although claiming to be the son of Amon himself, inherited the
disposition shown by Thûtmosis in favour of the Heliopolitan religions,
but instead of attaching himself to the forms most venerated by
theologians, he bestowed his affection on a more popular deity--Atonû,
the fiery disk. He may have been influenced in his choice by private
reasons. Like his predecessors, he had taken, while still very young,
wives from among his own family, but neither these reasonable ties, nor
his numerous diplomatic alliances with foreign princesses, were enough
for him. From the very beginning of his reign he had loved a maiden who
was not of the blood of the Pharaohs, Tîi, the daughter of Iûîa and his
wife Tûîa.*
* For the last thirty years Queen Tîi has been the subject of many
hypotheses and of much confusion. The scarabasi engraved under Amenôthes
III. say explicitly that she was the daughter of two personages, Iûîa
and Tûîa, but these names are not accompanied by any of the signs which
are characteristic of foreign names, and were considered Egyptian by
contemporaries. Hincks was the first who seems to have believed her
to be a Syrian; he compares her fathers name with that of Levi, and
attributes the religious revolution which followed to the influence of
her foreign education. This theory has continued to predominate; some
prefer a Libyan origin to the Asiatic one, and latterly there has
been an attempt to recognise in Tîi one of the princesses of Mitanni
mentioned in the correspondence of Tel el-Amarna. As long ago as 1877, I
showed that Tîi was an Egyptian of middle rank, probably of Heliopolitan
origin.
Connexions of this kind had been frequently formed by his ancestors,
but the Egyptian women of inferior rank whom they had brought into their
harems had always remained in the background, and if the sons of these
concubines were ever fortunate enough to come to the throne, it was in
default of heirs of pure blood. Amenôthes III. married Tîi, gave her
for her dowry the town of Zâlû in Lower Egypt, and raised her to the
position of queen, in spite of her low extraction. She busied herself
in the affairs of State, took precedence of the princesses of the solar
family, and appeared at her husbands side in public ceremonies, and was
so figured on the monuments. If, as there is reason to believe, she was
born near Heliopolis, it is easy to understand how her influence may
have led Amenôthes to pay special honour to a Heliopolitan divinity.
He had built, at an early period of his reign, a sanctuary to Atonû at
Memphis, and in the Xth year he constructed for him a chapel at Thebes
itself,* to the south of the last pylon of ïhûtmosis III., and endowed
this deity with property at the expense of Anion.
* This temple seems to have been raised on the site of the
building which is usually attributed to Amenôthes II. and
Amenôthes III. The blocks bearing the name of Amenôthes II.
had been used previously, like most of those which bear the
cartouches of Amenôthes III. The temple of Atonû, which was
demolished by Harmhabî or one of the Ramses, was
subsequently rebuilt with the remains of earlier edifices,
and dedicated to Amon.
[Illustration: 079.jpg MARRIAGE SCARABÆUS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph of the scarabaeus
preserved at Gîzeh.
He had several sons;* but the one who succeeded him, and who, like
him, was named Amenôthes, was the most paradoxical of all the Egyptian
sovereigns of ancient times.**
* One of them, Thûtmosis, was high priest of Phtah, and we
possess several monuments erected by him in the temple of
Memphis; another, Tûtonkhamon, subsequently became king. He
also had several daughters by Tîi--Sîtamon.
** The absence of any cartouches of Amenôthes IV. or his
successors in the table of Abydos prevented Champollion and
Rosellini from classifying these sovereigns with any
precision. Nestor Lhôte tried to recognise in the first of
them, whom he called _Bakhen-Balchnan_, a king belonging to
the very ancient dynasties, perhaps the Hyksôs Apakhnan, but
Lepsius and Hincks showed that he must be placed between
Amenôthes III. and Harmhabî, that he was first called
Amenôthes like his father, but that he afterwards took the
name of Baknaten, which is now read Khûnaten or Khûniaton.
His singular aspect made it difficult to decide at first
whether a man or a woman was represented. Mariette, while
pronouncing him to be a man, thought that he had perhaps
been taken prisoner in the Sudan and mutilated, which would
have explained his effeminate appearance, almost like that
of an eunuch. Recent attempts have been made to prove that
Amenôthes IV. and Khûniaton were two distinct persons, or
that Khûniaton was a queen; but they have hitherto been
rejected by Egyptologists.
He made up for the inferiority of his birth on account of the plebeian
origin of his mother Tîî,* by his marriage with Nofrîtîti, a princess
of the pure solar race.** Tîi, long accustomed to the management of
affairs, exerted her influence over him even more than she had done over
her husband. Without officially assuming the rank, she certainly for
several years possessed the power, of regent, and gave a definite
Oriental impress to her sons religious policy. No outward changes were
made at first; Amenôthes, although showing his preference for Heliopolis
by inscribing in his protocol the title of prophet of Harmakhis,
which he may, however, have borne before his accession, maintained his
residence at Thebes, as his father had done before him, continued to
sacrifice to the Theban divinities, and to follow the ancient paths and
the conventional practices.***
* The filiation of Amenôthes IV. and Tîi has given rise to
more than one controversy. The Egyptian texts do not define
it explicitly, and the title borne by Tîi has been
considered by some to prove that Amenôthes IV. was her son,
and by others that she was the mother of Queen Nofrîtîti.
The Tel el-Amarna correspondence solves the question,
however, as it gives a letter from Dushratta to Khûniaton,
in which Tîi is called thy mother.
** Nofrîtîti, the wife of Amenôthes IV., like all the
princesses of that time, has been supposed to be of Syrian
origin, and to have changed her name on her arrival in
Egypt. The place which she holds beside her husband is the
same as that which belongs to legitimate queens, like
Nofritari, Ahmosis, and Hâtshopsîtû, and the example of
these princesses is enough to show us what was her real
position; she was most probably a daughter of one of the
princesses of the solar blood, perhaps of one of the sisters
of Amenôthes III., and Amenôthes IV. married her so as to
obtain through her the rights which were wanting to him
through his mother Tîi.
*** The tomb of Ramses, governor of Thebes and priest of
Mâît, shows us in one part of it the king, still faithful to
his name of Amenôthes, paying homage to the god Amon, lord
of Karnak, while everywhere else the worship of Atonû
predominates. The cartouches on the tomb of Pari, read by
Bouriant Akhopîrûrî, and by Scheil more correctly
Nofirkhopîrûrî, seem to me to represent a transitional form
of the protocol of Amenôthes IV., and not the name of a new
Pharaoh; the inscription in which they are to be found bears
the date of his third year.
He either built a temple to the Theban god, or enlarged the one which
his father had constructed at Karnak, and even opened new quarries at
Syene and Silsileh for providing granite and sandstone for the adornment
of this monument. His devotion to the invincible Disk, however, soon
began to assert itself, and rendered more and more irksome to him the
religious observances which he had constrained himself to follow. There
was nothing and no one to hinder him from giving free course to his
inclinations, and the nobles and priests were too well trained in
obedience to venture to censure anything he might do, even were it to
result in putting the whole population into motion, from Elephantine to
the sea-coast, to prepare for the intruded deity a dwelling which should
eclipse in magnificence the splendour of the great temple. A few
of those around him had become converted of their own accord to his
favourite worship, but these formed a very small minority. Thebes had
belonged to Amon so long that the king could never hope to bring it
to regard Atonû as anything but a being of inferior rank. Each
city belonged to some god, to whom was attributed its origin, its
development, and its prosperity, and whom it could not forsake without
renouncing its very existence. If Thebes became separated from Amon it
would be Thebes no longer, and of this Amenôthes was so well aware that
he never attempted to induce it to renounce its patron. His residence
among surroundings which he detested at length became so intolerable,
that he resolved to leave the place and create a new capital elsewhere.
The choice of a new abode would have presented no difficulty to him had
he been able to make up his mind to relegate Atonû to the second rank of
divinities; Memphis, Heracleopolis, Siût, Khmûnû, and, in fact, all the
towns of the valley would have deemed themselves fortunate in securing
the inheritance of their rival, but not one of them would be false to
its convictions or accept the degradation of its own divine founder,
whether Phtah, Harshafîtû, Anubis, or Thot. A newly promoted god
demanded a new city; Amenôthes, therefore, made selection of a broad
plain extending on the right bank of the Nile, in the eastern part of
the Hermopolitan nome, to which he removed with all his court about the
fourth or fifth year of his reign.*
* The last date with the name of Amenôthes is that of the
year V., on a papyrus from the Payilm; elsewhere we find
from the year VI. the name of Khûniaton, by the side of
monuments with the cartouche of Amenôthes; we may conclude
from this that the foundation of the town dates from the
year IV. or V. at the latest, when the prince, having
renounced the worship of Amon, left Thebes that he might be
able to celebrate freely that of Atonû.
He found here several obscure villages without any historical or
religious traditions, and but thinly populated; Amenôthes chose one
of them, the Et-Tel of the present day, and built there a palace
for himself and a temple for his god. The temple, like that of Eâ at
Heliopolis, was named _Haît-Banbonû_, the Mansion of the Obelisk. It
covered an immense area, of which the sanctuary, however, occupied an
inconsiderable part; it was flanked by brick storehouses, and the whole
was surrounded by a thick wall. The remains show that the temple was
built of white limestone, of fine quality, but that it was almost
devoid of ornament, for there was no time to cover it with the usual
decorations.*
* The opinion of Brugsch, that the arrangement of the
various parts differed from that of other temples, and was
the effect of foreign influence, has not been borne out by
the excavations of Prof. Pétrie, the little which he has
brought to light being entirely of Egyptian character. The
temple is represented on the tomb of the high priest Mariri.
[Illustration: 084.jpg Map]
The palace was built of brick; it was approached by a colossal gateway,
and contained vast halls, interspersed with small apartments for the
accommodation of the household, and storehouses for the necessary
provisions, besides gardens which had been hastily planted with rare
shrubs and sycamores. Fragments of furniture and of the roughest of the
utensils contained in the different chambers are still unearthed from
among the heaps of rubbish, and the cellars especially are full of
potsherds and cracked jars, on which we can still see written an
indication of the reign and the year when the wine they once contained
was made. Altars of massive masonry rose in the midst of the courts,
on which the king or one of his ministers heaped offerings and burnt
incense morning, noon, and evening, in honour of the three decisive
moments in the life of Atonû.*
* Naville discovered at Deîr el-Baharî a similar altar,
nearly intact. No other example was before known in any of
the ruined towns or temples, and no one had any idea of the
dimensions to which these altars, attained.
A few painted and gilded columns supported the roofs of the principal
apartments in which the Pharaoh held his audiences, but elsewhere the
walls and pillars were coated with cream-coloured stucco or whitewash,
on which scenes of private life were depicted in colours. The pavement,
like the walls, was also decorated. In one of the halls which seems to
have belonged to the harem, there is still to be seen distinctly
the picture of a rectangular piece of water containing fish and
lotus-flowers in full bloom; the edge is adorned with water-plants and
flowering shrubs, among which birds fly and calves graze and gambol; on
the right and left were depicted rows of stands laden with fruit, while
at each end of the room were seen the grinning faces of a gang of negro
and Syrian prisoners, separated from each other by gigantic arches. The
tone of colouring is bright and cheerful, and the animals are treated
with great freedom and facility. The Pharaoh, had collected about him
several of the best artists then to be found at Thebes, placing
them under the direction of Baûki, the chief of the corporation
of sculptors,* and probably others subsequently joined these from
provincial studios.
* Baûki belonged to a family of artists, and his father Mani
had filled before him the post of chief of the sculptors.
The part played by these personages was first defined by
Brugsch, with perhaps some exaggeration of their artistic
merit and originality of talent.
Work for them was not lacking, for houses had to be built for all the
courtiers and government officials who had been obliged to follow the
king, and in a few years a large town had sprung up, which was called
Khûîtatonû, or the Horizon of the Disk. It was built on a regular
plan, with straight streets and open spaces, and divided into two
separate quarters, interspersed with orchards and shady trellises.
Workmen soon began to flock to the new city--metal-founders,
glass-founders, weavers; in fine, all who followed any trade
indispensable to the luxury of a capital. The king appropriated a
territory for it from the ancient nome of the Hare, thus compelling the
god Thot to contribute to the fortune of Atonû; he fixed its limits by
means of stelæ placed in the mountains, from Gebel-Tûnah to Deshlûît on
the west, and from Sheikh-Said to El-Hauata on the eastern bank;* it was
a new nome improvised for the divine _parvenu_.
* We know at present of fourteen of these stelæ. A certain
number must still remain to be discovered on both banks of
the Nile.
[Illustration: 082.jpg THE DECORATED PAVEMENT OF THE PALACE]
Atonû was one of the forms of the Sun, and perhaps the most material one
of all those devised by the Egyptians. He was defined as the good god
who rejoices in truth, the lord of the solar course, the lord of the
disk, the lord of heaven, the lord of earth, the living disk which
lights up the two worlds, the living Harmakhis who rises on the horizon
bearing his name of Shû, which is disk, the eternal infuser of life.
His priests exercised the same functions as those of Heliopolis, and his
high priest was called Oîrimaû, like the high priest of Râ in Aunû.
This functionary was a certain Marirl, upon whom the king showered his
favours, and he was for some time the chief authority in the State after
the Pharaoh himself. Atonû was represented sometimes by the ordinary
figure of Horus,* sometimes by the solar disk, but a disk whose rays
were prolonged towards the earth, like so many arms ready to lay
hold with their little hands of the offerings of the faithful, or to
distribute to mortals the _crux ansata_, the symbol of life. The other
gods, except Amon, were sharers with humanity in his benefits. Atonû
proscribed him, and tolerated him only at Thebes; he required, moreover,
that the name of Amon should be effaced wherever it occurred, but he
respected Râ and Horus and Harmakhis--all, in fact, but Amon: he was
content with being regarded as their king, and he strove rather to
become their chief than their destroyer.**
* It was probably this form of Horus which had, in the
temple at Thebes, the statue called the red image of Atonû
in Paatoml.
** Prisse dAvennes has found at Karnak, on fragments of the
temple, the names of other divinities than Atonû worshipped
by Khûniatonû.
His nature, moreover, had nothing in it of the mysterious or ambiguous;
he was the glorious torch which gave light to humanity, and which
was seen every day to flame in the heavens without ever losing its
brilliance or becoming weaker. When he hides himself the world rests in
darkness, like those dead who lie in their rock-tombs, with their heads
swathed, their nostrils stuffed up, their eyes sightless, and whose
whole property might be stolen from them, even that which they have
under their head, without their knowing it; the lion issues from his
lair, the serpent roams ready to bite, it is as obscure as in a dark
room, the earth is silent whilst he who creates everything dwells in his
horizon. He has hardly arisen when Egypt becomes festal, one awakens,
one rises on ones feet; when thou hast caused men to clothe themselves,
they adore thee with outstretched hands, and the whole earth attends
to its work, the animals betake themselves to their herbage, trees
and green crops abound, birds fly to their marshy thickets with wings
outstretched in adoration of thy double, the cattle skip, all the birds
which were in their nests shake themselves when thou risest for them;
the boats come and go, for every way is open at thy appearance, the
fish of the river leap before thee as soon as thy rays descend upon the
ocean. It is not without reason that all living things thus rejoice at
his advent; all of them owe their existence to him, for he creates the
female germ, he gives virility to men, and furnishes life to the infant
in its mothers womb; he calms and stills its weeping, he nourishes it
in the maternal womb, giving forth the breathings which animate all that
he creates, and when the infant escapes from the womb on the day of
its birth, thou openest his mouth for speech, and thou satisfiest his
necessities. When the chick is in the egg, a cackle in a stone, thou
givest to it air while within to keep it alive; when thou hast caused
it to be developed in the egg to the point of being able to break it, it
goes forth proclaiming its existence by its cackling, and walks on its
feet from the moment of its leaving the egg. Atonû presides over the
universe and arranges within it the lot of human beings, both Egyptians
and foreigners. The celestial Nile springs up in Hades far away in the
north; he makes its current run down to earth, and spreads its waters
over the fields during the inundation in order to nourish his creatures.
He rules the seasons, winter and summer; he constructed the far-off sky
in order to display himself therein, and to look down upon his works
below. From the moment that he reveals himself there, cities, towns,
tribes, routes, rivers--all eyes are lifted to him, for he is the
disk of the day upon the earth. * The sanctuary in which he is invoked
contains only his divine shadow;** for he himself never leaves the
firmament.
* These extracts are taken from the hymns of Tel el-Amarna.
** In one of the tombs at Tel el-Amarna the king is depicted
leading his mother Tîi to the temple of Atonû in order to
see the Shadow of Râ, and it was thought with some reason
that the Shadow of Râ was one of the names of the temple.
I think that this designation applied also to the statue or
symbol of the god; the _shadow_ of a god was attached to the
statue in the same manner as the double, and transformed
it into an animated body.
His worship assumes none of the severe and gloomy forms of the Theban
cults: songs resound therein, and hymns accompanied by the harp or
flute; bread, cakes, vegetables, fruits, and flowers are associated
with his rites, and only on very rare occasions one of those bloody
sacrifices in which the other gods delight. The king made himself
supreme pontiff of Atonu, and took precedence of the high priest. He
himself celebrated the rites at the altar of the god, and we see him
there standing erect, his hands outstretched, offering incense and
invoking blessings from on high.* Like the Caliph Hakim of a later age,
he formed a school to propagate his new doctrines, and preached them
before his courtiers: if they wished to please him, they had to accept
his teaching, and show that they had profited by it. The renunciation of
the traditional religious observances of the solar house involved also
the rejection of such personal names as implied an ardent devotion to
the banished god; in place of Amenôthes, he to whom Amon is united,
the king assumed after a time the name of Khûniatonû, the Glory of the
Disk, and all the members of his family, as well as his adherents
at court, whose appellations involved the name of the same god, soon
followed his example. The proscription of Amon extended to inscriptions,
so that while his name or figure, wherever either could be got at, was
chiselled out, the vulture, the emblem of Mût, which expressed the idea
of mother, was also avoided.**
* The altar on which the king stands upright is one of those
cubes of masonry of which Naville discovered such a fine
example in the temple of Hâtshopsîtû at Deîr el-Baharî.
** We find, however, some instances where the draughtsman,
either from custom or design, had used the vulture to
express the word mailt, the mother, without troubling
himself to think whether it answered to the name of the
goddess.
The king would have nothing about him to suggest to eye or ear the
remembrance of the gods or doctrines of Thebes. It would consequently
have been fatal to them and their pretensions to the primacy of Egypt
if the reign of the young king had continued as long as might naturally
have been expected. After having been for nearly two centuries almost
the national head of Africa, Amon was degraded by a single blow to the
secondary rank and languishing existence in which he had lived before
the expulsion of the Hyksôs. He had surrendered his sceptre as king of
heaven and earth, not to any of his rivals who in old times had enjoyed
the highest rank, but to an individual of a lower order, a sort of
demigod, while he himself had thus become merely a local deity, confined
to the corner of the Said in which he had had his origin. There was not
even left to him the peaceful possession of this restricted domain,
for he was obliged to act as host to the enemy who had deposed him:
the temple of Atonû was erected at the door of his own sanctuary, and
without leaving their courts the priests of Amon could hear at the hours
of worship the chants intoned by hundreds of heretics in the temple of
the Disk. Amons priests saw, moreover, the royal gifts flowing into
other treasuries, and the gold of Syria and Ethiopia no longer came
into their hands. Should they stifle their complaints, and bow to this
insulting oppression, or should they raise a protest against the action
which had condemned them to obscurity and a restricted existence? If
they had given indications of resistance, they would have been obliged
to submit to prompt repression, but we see no sign of this. The bulk
of the people--clerical as well as lay--accepted the deposition with
complacency, and the nobles hastened to offer their adherence to that
which afterwards became the official confession of faith of the Lord
King.* The lord of Thebes itself, a certain Ramses, bowed his head to
the new cult, and the bas-reliefs of his tomb display to our eyes the
proofs of his apostasy: on the right-hand side Amon is the only subject
of his devotion, while on the left he declares himself an adherent of
Atonû. Religious formularies, divine appellations, the representations
of the costume, expression, and demeanour of the figures are at issue
with each other in the scenes on the two sides of the door, and if we
were to trust to appearances only, one would think that the two pictures
belonged to two separate reigns, and were concerned with two individuals
strangers to each other.**
* The political character of this reaction against the
growing power of the high priests and the town of Amon was
pointed out for the first time by Masporo in 1878. Ed. Meyer
and Tiele blond with the political idea a monotheistic
conception which does not seem to me to be fully justified,
at least at present, by anything in the materials we
possess.
** His tomb was discovered in 1878 by Villiers-Stuart.
The rupture between the past and the present was so complete, in
fact, that the sovereign was obliged to change, if not his face and
expression, at least the mode in which they were represented.
[Illustration: 095.jpg THE MASK OF KIHÛNIATONÛ]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Petrie. Petrie
thinks that the monument discovered by him, which is of fine
plaster, is a cast of the dead king, executed possibly to
enable the sculptors to make _Ushabtu_, Respondents, for
him.
The name and personality of an Egyptian were so closely allied that
interference with one implied interference with the other. Khûniatonû
could not continue to be such as he was when Amenôthes, and, in fact,
their respective portraits differ from each other to that degree that
there is some doubt at moments as to their identity. Amenôthes is
hardly to be distinguished from his father: he has the same regular and
somewhat heavy features, the same idealised body and conventional shape
as those which we find in the orthodox Pharaohs. Khûniatonû affects a
long and narrow head, conical at the top, with a retreating forehead,
a large aquiline and pointed nose, a small mouth, an enormous chin
projecting in front, the whole being supported by a long, thin neck.
His shoulders are narrow, with little display of muscle, but his breasts
are so full, his abdomen so prominent, and his hips so large, that one
would think they belonged to a woman. Etiquette required the attendants
upon the king, and those who aspired to his favour, to be portrayed in
the bas-reliefs of temples or tombs in all points, both as regards face
and demeanour, like the king himself. Hence it is that the majority of
his contemporaries, after having borne the likeness of Amenôthes,
came to adopt, without a break, that of Khûniatonû. The scenes at Tel
el-Amarna contain, therefore, nothing but angular profiles, pointed
skulls, ample breasts, flowing figures, and swelling stomachs. The
outline of these is one that lends itself readily to caricature, and the
artists have exaggerated the various details with the intention, it
may be, of rendering the representations grotesque. There was nothing
ridiculous, however, in the king, their model, and several of his
statues attribute to him a languid, almost valetudinarian grace, which
is by no means lacking in dignity.
[Illustration: 096.jpg AMENÔTHES IV., FROM THE STATUETTE IN THE LOUVRE.]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a drawing by Petrie.
[Illustration: 097.jpg Page Image]
He was a good and affectionate man, and was passionately fond of his
wife, Nofrîtîti, associating her with himself in his sovereign acts. If
he set out to visit the temple, she followed him in a chariot; if he was
about to reward one of his faithful subjects, she stood beside him and
helped to distribute the golden necklaces. She joined him in his prayers
to the Solar Disk; she ministered to him in domestic life, when, having
broken away from the worries of his public duties, he sought relaxation
in his harem; and their union was so tender, that we find her on one
occasion, at least, seated in a coaxing attitude on her husbands
knees--a unique instance of such affection among all the representations
on the monuments of Egypt.
[Illustration: 098.jpg KHÛNIATONÛ AND HIS WIFE REWARDING ONE OF THE
GREAT OFFICERS OF THE COURT]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger.
They had six daughters, whom they brought up to live with them on
terms of the closest intimacy: they accompanied their father and mother
everywhere, and are exhibited as playing around the throne while their
parents are engaged in performing the duties of their office. The
gentleness and gaiety of the king were reflected in the life of his
subjects: all the scenes which they have left us consist entirely of
processions, cavalcades, banquets, and entertainments. Khûniatonû was
prodigal in the gifts of gold and the eulogies which he bestowed on
Marirî, the chief priest: the people dance around him while he is
receiving from the king the just recompense of his activity. When Hûîa,
who came back from Syria in the XIIth year of the kings reign, brought
solemnly before him the tribute he had collected, the king, borne in
his jolting palanquin on the shoulders of his officers, proceeded to the
temple to return thanks to his god, to the accompaniment of chants and
the waving of the great fans. When the divine father Aï had married the
governess of one of the kings daughters, the whole city gave itself
up to enjoyment, and wine flowed freely during the wedding feast.
Notwithstanding the frequent festivals, the king found time to watch
jealously over the ordinary progress of government and foreign affairs.
The architects, too, were not allowed to stand idle, and without taking
into account the repairs of existing buildings, had plenty to do in
constructing edifices in honour of Atonû in the principal towns of the
Nile valley, at Memphis, Heliopolis, Hermopolis, Hermonthis, and in
the Fayûm. The provinces in Ethiopia remained practically in the
same condition as in the time of Amenôthes III.;* Kûsh was pacified,
notwithstanding the raids which the tribes of the desert were accustomed
to make from time to time, only to receive on each occasion rigorous
chastisement from the kings viceroy.
* The name and the figure of Khûniatonû are met with on the
gate of the temple of Soleb, and he received in his
XIIth year the tributes of Kûsh, as well as those of Syria.
The sudden degradation of Amon had not brought about any coldness
between the Pharaoh and his princely allies in Asia. The aged Amenôthes
had, towards the end of his reign, asked the hand of Dushrattas
daughter in marriage, and the Mitannian king, highly flattered by the
request, saw his opportunity and took advantage of it in the interest
of his treasury. He discussed the amount of the dowry, demanded a
considerable sum of gold, and when the affair had been finally arranged
to his satisfaction, he despatched the princess to the banks of the
Nile. On her arrival she found her affianced husband was dead, or, at
all events, dying. Amenôthes IV., however, stepped into his fathers
place, and inherited his bride with his crown.
[Illustration: 100.jpg THE DOOR OF A TOMB AT TEL EL-AMARNA]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger.
The new kings relations with other foreign princes were no less
friendly; the chief of the Khâti (Hittites) complimented him on his
accession, the King of Alasia wrote to him to express his earnest desire
for a continuance of peace between the two states. Burnaburiash of
Babylon had, it is true, hoped to obtain an Egyptian princess in
marriage for his son, and being disappointed, had endeavoured to pick a
quarrel over the value of the presents which had been sent him, together
with the notice of the accession of the new sovereign. But his kingdom
lay too far away to make his ill-will of much consequence, and his
complaints passed unheeded. In Coele-Syria and Phoenicia the situation
remained unchanged. The vassal cities were in a perpetual state
of disturbance, though not more so than in the past. Azîru, son of
Abdashirti, chief of the country of the Amorites, had always, even
during the lifetime of Amenôthes III., been the most turbulent of
vassals. The smaller states of the Orontes and of the coast about Arvad
had been laid waste by his repeated incursions and troubled by his
intrigues. He had taken and pillaged twenty towns, among which were
Simyra, Sini, Irqata, and Qodshû, and he was already threatening Byblos,
Berytus, and Sidon. It was useless to complain of him, for he always
managed to exculpate himself to the royal messengers. Khaî, Dûdû,
Amenemaûpît had in turn all pronounced him innocent. Pharaoh himself,
after citing him to appear in Egypt to give an explanation of his
conduct, had allowed himself to be won over by his fair speaking, and
had dismissed him uncondemned. Other princes, who lacked his cleverness
and power, tried to imitate him, and from north to south the whole of
Syria could only be compared to some great arena, in which fighting
was continually carried on between one tribe or town and another--Tyre
against Sidon, Sidon against Byblos, Jerusalem against Lachish. All
of them appealed to Khûniatonû, and endeavoured to enlist him on their
side. Their despatches arrived by scores, and the perusal of them at
the present day would lead us to imagine that Egypt had all but lost
her supremacy. The Egyptian ministers, however, were entirely unmoved
by them, and continued to refuse material support to any of the numerous
rivals, except in a few rare cases, where a too prolonged indifference
would have provoked an open revolt in some part of the country.
Khûniatonû died young, about the XVIIIth year of his reign.* He was
buried in the depths of a ravine in the mountain-side to the east of
the town, and his tomb remained unknown till within the last few years.
Although one of his daughters who died before her father had been
interred there, the place seems to have been entirely unprepared for the
reception of the kings body. The funeral chamber and the passages
are scarcely even rough-hewn, and the reception halls show a mere
commencement of decoration.** The other tombs of the locality are
divided into two groups, separated by the ravine reserved for the
burying-place of the royal house. The noble families possessed each
their own tomb on the slopes of the hillside; the common people were
laid to rest in pits lower down, almost on the level of the plain.
The cutting and decoration of all these tombs had been entrusted to a
company of contractors, who had executed them according to two or three
stereotyped plans, without any variation, except in size. Nearly all the
walls are bare, or present but few inscriptions; those tombs only are
completed whose occupants died before the Pharaoh.
* The length of Khûniatonûs reign was fixed by Griffith
with almost absolute certainty by means of the dates written
in ink on the jars of wine and preserves found in the ruins
of the palace.
** The tomb has been found, as I anticipated, in the ravine
which separates the northern after the southern group of
burying-places. The Arabs opened it in 1891, and Grébaut has
since completely excavated it. The scenes depicted in it are
connected with the death and funeral of the Princess
Mâqîtatonû.
[Illustration: 103.jpg INTERIOR OF A TOMB AT TEL EL-AMARNA]
Drawn by Boudier, after a photograph by Insinger.
The façades of the tombs are cut in the rock, and contain, for the most
part, but one door, the jambs of which are covered on both sides by
several lines of hieroglyphs; and it is just possible to distinguish
traces of the adoration of the radiant Disk on the lintels, together
with the cartouches containing the names of the king and god. The chapel
is a large rectangular chamber, from one end of which opens the inclined
passage leading to the coffin. The roof is sometimes supported by
columns, having capitals decorated with designs of flowers or of geese
hung from the abacus by their feet with their heads turned upwards.
The religious teaching at Tel el-Amarna presents no difference in the
main from that which prevailed in other parts of Egypt.* The Double
of Osiris was supposed to reside in the tomb, or else to take wing to
heaven and embark with Atonû, as elsewhere he would embark with Eâ. The
same funerary furniture is needed for the deceased as in other local
cults--ornaments of vitreous paste, amulets, and _Ushabtiu_, or
Respondents, to labour for the dead man in the fields of Ialû. Those
of Khûniatonû were, like those of Amenôthes III., actual statuettes in
granite of admirable workmanship. The dead who reached the divine abode,
retained the same rank in life that they had possessed here below, and
in order to ensure the enjoyment of it, they related, or caused to be
depicted in their tombs, the events of their earthly career.
* The peculiar treatment of the two extremities of the sign
for the sky, which surmounts the great scene on the tomb of
Ahmosis, shows that there had been no change in the ideas
concerning the two horizons or the divine tree found in
them: the aspirations for the soul of Marirî, the high
priest of Atonû, or for that of the sculptor Baûkû, are the
same as those usually found, and the formula on the funerary
stelae differs only in the name of the god from that on the
ordinary stelae of the same kind.
A citizen of Khûîtatonû would naturally represent the manners and
customs of his native town, and this would account for the local
colouring of the scenes in which we see him taking part.
They bear no resemblance to the traditional pictures of the buildings
and gardens of Thebes with which we are familiar; we have instead the
palaces, colonnades, and pylons of the rising city, its courts planted
with sycomores, its treasuries, and its storehouses. The suns disk
hovers above and darts its prehensile rays over every object; its hands
present the _crux ansata_ to the nostrils of the various members of the
family, they touch caressingly the queen and her daughters, they handle
the offerings of bread and cakes, they extend even into the government
warehouses to pilfer or to bless. Throughout all these scenes Khûniatonû
and the ladies of his harem seem to be ubiquitous: here he visits one of
the officers, there he repairs to the temple for the dedication of its
sanctuary. His chariot, followed at a little distance by that of the
princesses, makes its way peaceably through the streets. The police of
the city and the soldiers of the guard, whether Egyptians or foreigners,
run before him and clear a path among the crowd, the high priest Marirî
stands at the gate to receive him, and the ceremony is brought to a
close by a distribution of gold necklaces or rings, while the populace
dance with delight before the sovereign. Meantime the slaves have
cooked the repast, the dancers and musicians within their chambers have
rehearsed for the evenings festival, and the inmates of the house carry
on animated dialogues during their meal. The style and the technique of
these wall-paintings differ in no way from those in the necropolis of
the preceding period, and there can be no doubt that the artists who
decorated these monuments were trained in the schools of Thebes. Their
drawing is often very refined, and there is great freedom in their
composition; the perspective of some of the bas-reliefs almost comes
up to our own, and the movement of animated crowds is indicated with
perfect accuracy. It is, however, not safe to conclude from these
examples that the artists who executed them would have developed
Egyptian art in a new direction, had not subsequent events caused a
reaction against the worship of Atonû and his followers.
[Illustration: 104.jpg PROFILE OF HEAD OF MUMMY (THEBES TOMBS.)]
[Illustration: 106.jpg TWO OF THE DAUGHTERS OF KHÛHI ATONÛ]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Petrie.
Although the tombs in which they worked differ from the generality
of Egyptian burying-places, their originality does not arise from any
effort, either conscious or otherwise, to break through the ordinary
routine of the art of the time; it is rather the result of the
extraordinary appearance of the sovereign whose features they were
called on to portray, and the novelty of several of the subjects which
they had to treat. That artist among them who first gave concrete form
to the ideas circulated by the priests of Atonû, and drew the model
cartoons, evidently possessed a master-hand, and was endowed with
undeniable originality and power. No other Egyptian draughtsman ever
expressed a childs grace as he did, and the portraits which he sketched
of the daughters of Khûniatonû playing undressed at their mothers side,
are examples of a reserved and delicate grace. But these models, when
once composed and finished even to the smallest details, were entrusted
for execution to workmen of mediocre powers, who were recruited not only
from Thebes, but from the neighbouring cities of Hermopolis and Siût.
These estimable people, with a praiseworthy patience, traced bit by bit
the cartoons confided to them, omitting or adding individuals or groups
according to the extent of the wall-space they had to cover, or to the
number of relatives and servants whom the proprietor of the tomb desired
should share in his future happiness. The style of these draughtsmen
betrays the influence of the second-rate schools in which they had
learned their craft, and the clumsiness of their work would often repel
us, were it not that the interest of the episodes portrayed redeems it
in the eyes of the Egyptologist.
Khûniatonû left no son to succeed him; two of his sons-in-law
successively occupied the throne--Sâakerî, who had married his eldest
daughter Marîtatonû, and Tûtankhamon, the husband of Ankhnasaton. The
first had been associated in the sovereignty by his father-in-law;* he
showed himself a zealous partisan of the Disk, and he continued to
reside in the new capital during the few years of his sole reign.** The
second son-in-law was a son of Amenôthes III., probably by a concubine.
He returned to the religion of Amon, and his wife, abjuring the creed
of her father, changed her name from Ankhnasaton to that of Ankhnasamon.
Her husband abandoned Khûitatonû*** at the end of two or three years,
and after his departure the town fell into decadence as quickly as it
had arisen. The streets were unfrequented, the palaces and temples stood
empty, the tombs remained unfinished and unoccupied, and its patron god
returned to his former state, and was relegated to the third or fourth
rank in the Egyptian Pantheon.
* He and his wife are represented by the side of Khûniatonû,
with the protocol and the attributes of royalty. Pétrie
assigns to this double reign those minor objects on which
the kings prenomen Ankhkhopîrûri is followed by the epithet
beloved of Uânirâ, which formed part of the name of
Khûniatonû.
** Pétrie thinks, on the testimony of the lists of Manetho,
which give twelve years to Akenkheres, daughter of Horos,
that Sâakerî reigned twelve years, and only two or three
years as sole monarch without his father-in-law. I think
these two or three years a probable maximum length of his
reign, whatever may be the value we should here assign to
the lists of Manetho.
*** Pétrie, judging from the number of minor objects which
he has found in his excavations at Tel el-Amarna, believes
that he can fix the length of Tûtankhamons sojourn at
Khûîtatonû at six years, and that of his whole reign at nine
years.
The town struggled for a short time against its adverse fate, which
was no doubt retarded owing to the various industries founded in it by
Khûniatonû, the manufactories of enamel and coloured glass requiring the
presence of many workmen; but the latter emigrated ere long to Thebes
or the neighbouring city of Hermopolis, and the Horizon of Atonû
disappeared from the list of nomes, leaving of what might have been the
capital of the Egyptian empire, merely a mound of crumbling bricks with
two or three fellahîn villages scattered on the eastern bank of the
Nile.*
* Pétrie thinks that the temples and palaces were
systematically destroyed by Harmhabî, and the ruins used by
him in the buildings which he erected at different places in
Egypt. But there is no need for this theory: the beauty of
the limestone which Khûniatonû had used sufficiently
accounts for the rapid disappearance of the deserted
edifices.
Thebes, whose influence and population had meanwhile never lessened,
resumed her supremacy undisturbed. If, out of respect for the past,
Tûtankhamon continued the decoration of the temple of Atonû at Karnak,
he placed in every other locality the name and figure of Amon; a little
stucco spread over the parts which had been mutilated, enabled the
outlines to be restored to their original purity, and the alteration was
rendered invisible by a few coats of colour. Tûtankhamon was succeeded
by the divine father Aï, whom Khûniatonû had assigned as husband to one
of his relatives named Tîi, so called after the widow of Amenôthes
III. Aï laboured no less diligently than his predecessor to keep up
the traditions which had been temporarily interrupted. He had been
a faithful worshipper of the Disk, and had given orders for the
construction of two funerary chapels for himself in the mountain-side
above Tel el-Amarna, the paintings in which indicate a complete
adherence to the faith of the reigning king. But on becoming Pharaoh,
he was proportionally zealous in his submission to the gods of Thebes,
and in order to mark more fully his return to the ancient belief, he
chose for his royal burying-place a site close to that in which rested
the body of Amenôthes III.*
* The first tomb seems to have been dug before his marriage,
at the time when he had no definite ambitions; the second
was prepared for him and his wife Tîi.
His sarcophagus, a large oblong of carved rose granite, still lies open
and broken on the spot.
[Illustration: 111.jpg SARCOPHAGUS OF THE PHARAOH AÎ]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after the drawing of Prisse dAvenues.
Figures of goddesses stand at the four angles and extend their winged
arms along its sides, as if to embrace the mummy of the sovereign.
Tûtankhamon and Aï were obeyed from one end of Egypt to the other, from
Napata to the shores of the Mediterranean. The peoples of Syria raised
no disturbances during their reigns, and paid their accustomed tribute
regularly;* if their rule was short, it was at least happy. It would
appear, however, that after their deaths, troubles arose in the state.
The lists of Manetho give two or three princes--Râthôtis, Khebres, and
Akherres--whose names are not found on the monuments.** It is possible
that we ought not to regard them as historical personages, but merely
as heroes of popular romance, of the same type as those introduced so
freely into the history of the preceding dynasties by the chroniclers
of the Saite and Greek periods. They were, perhaps, merely short-lived
pretenders who were overthrown one by the other before either had
succeeded in establishing himself on the seat of Horus. Be that as it
may, the XVIIIth dynasty drew to its close amid strife and quarreling,
without our being able to discover the cause of its overthrow, or the
name of the last of its sovereigns.***
* Tûtankhamon receives the tribute of the Kûshites as well
as that of the Syrians; Aï is represented at Shataûi in
Nubia as accompanied by Paûîrû, the prince of Kûsh.
** Wiedemann has collected six royal names which, with much
hesitation, he places about this time.
*** The list of kings who make up the XVIIIth dynasty can be
established with certainty, with the exception of the order
of the three last sovereigns who succeed Khûniatonû. It is
here given in its authentic form, as the monuments have
permitted us to reconstruct it, and in its Greek form as it
is found in the lists of Manetho:
[Illustration: 112.jpg Table]
Manethos list, as we have it, is a very ill-made extract,
wherein the official kings are mixed up with the legitimate
queens, as well as, at least towards the end, with persons
of doubtful authenticity. Several kings, between Khûniatonû
and Harmhabi, are sometimes added at the end of the list;
some of these I think, belonged to previous dynasties, e.g.
Teti to the VIth, Râhotpû to the XVIIth; several are heroes
of romance, as Mernebphtah or Merkhopirphtah, while the
names of the others are either variants from the cartouche
names of known princes, or else are nicknames, such as was
Sesû, Sestûrî for Ramses II. Dr. Mahler believes that he can
fix, within a few days, the date of the kings of whom the
list is composed, from Ahmosis I. to Aî. I hold to the
approximate date which I have given in vol. iv. p. 153 of
this History, and I give the years 1600 to 1350 as the
period of the dynasty, with a possible error of about fifty
years, more or less.
Scarcely half a century had elapsed between the moment when the XVIIIs
dynasty reached the height of its power under Amenôthes III. and that of
its downfall. It is impossible to introduce with impunity changes of any
kind into the constitution or working of so complicated a machine as an
empire founded on conquest. When the parts of the mechanism have been
once put together and set in motion, and have become accustomed to
work harmoniously at a proper pace, interference with it must not be
attempted except to replace such parts as are broken or worn out, by
others exactly like them. To make alterations while the machine is in
motion, or to introduce new combinations, however ingenious, into any
part of the original plan, might produce an accident or a breakage of
the gearing when perhaps it would be least expected. When the devout
Khûniatonû exchanged one city and one god for another, he thought
that he was merely transposing equivalents, and that the safety of the
commonwealth was not concerned in the operation. Whether it was Amon or
Atonu who presided over the destinies of his people, or whether Thebes
or Tel el-Amarna were the centre of impulse, was, in his opinion, merely
a question of internal arrangement which could not affect the economy
of the whole. But events soon showed that he was mistaken in his
calculations. It is probable that if, on the expulsion of the Hyksôs,
the earlier princes of the dynasty had attempted an alteration in the
national religion, or had moved the capital to any other city they might
select, the remainder of the kingdom would not have been affected by the
change. But after several centuries of faithful adherence to Amon in
his city of Thebes, the governing power would find it no easy matter
to accomplish such a resolution. During three centuries the dynasty had
become wedded to the city and to its patron deity, and the locality had
become so closely associated with the dynasty, that any blow aimed at
the god could not fail to destroy the dynasty with it; indeed, had the
experiment of Khûniatonû been prolonged beyond a few years, it might
have entailed the ruin of the whole country. All who came into contact
with Egypt, or were under her rule, whether Asiatics or Africans,
were quick to detect any change in her administration, and to remark a
falling away from the traditional systems of the times of Thûtmosis III.
and Amenothes II. The successors of the heretic king had the sense to
perceive at once the first symptoms of disorder, and to refrain from
persevering in his errors; but however quick they were to undo his work,
they could not foresee its serious consequences. His immediate followers
were powerless to maintain their dynasty, and their posterity had to
make way for a family who had not incurred the hatred of Amon, or rather
that of his priests. If those who followed them were able by their tact
and energy to set Egypt on her feet again, they were at the same time
unable to restore her former prosperity or her boundless confidence in
herself.
[Illustration: 114.jpg Tailpiece]