_Ramses III.--The Theban city under the Ramessides--Manners and
customs._
As in a former crisis, Egypt once more owed her salvation to a scion
of the old Theban race. A descendant of Seti I. or Ramses II., named
Nakhtûsît, rallied round him the forces of the southern nomes, and
succeeded, though not without difficulty, in dispossessing the Syrian
Arisû. When he arose, he was like Sûtkhû, providing for all the
necessities of the country which, for feebleness, could not stand,
killing the rebels which were in the Delta, purifying the great throne
of Egypt; he was regent of the two lands in the place of Tûmû, setting
himself to reorganise that which had been overthrown, to such good
purpose, that each one recognised as brethren those who had been
separated from him as by a wall for so long a time, strengthening
the temples by pious gifts, so that the traditional rites could be
celebrated at the divine cycles. *
* The exact relationship between Nakhtûsît and Ramses II. is
not known; he was probably the grandson or great-grandson of
that sovereign, though Ed. Meyer thinks he was perhaps the
son of Seti II. The name should be read either Nakhîtsît,
with the singular of the first word composing it, or
Nakhîtûsît, Nakhtûsît, with the plural, as in the analogous
name of the king of the XXXth dynasty, Nectanebo.
Many were the difficulties that he had to encounter before he could
restore to his country that peace and wealth which she had enjoyed under
the long reign of Sesostris. It seems probable that his advancing years
made him feel unequal to the task, or that he desired to guard against
the possibility of disturbances in the event of his sudden death; at
all events, he associated with himself on the throne his eldest son
Ramses--not, however, as a Pharaoh who had full rights to the crown,
like the coadjutors of the Amenemhâîts and Usirtasens, but as a prince
invested with extraordinary powers, after the example of the sons of the
Pharaohs Thûtmosis and Seti I. Ramses recalls with pride, towards the
close of his life, how his father had promoted him to the dignity of
heir-presumptive to the throne of Sibû, and how he had been acclaimed
as the supreme head of Qimît for the administration of the whole earth
united together. * This constituted the rise of a new dynasty on the
ruins of the old--the last, however, which was able to retain the
supremacy of Egypt over the Oriental world. We are unable to ascertain
how long this double reign lasted.
* The only certain monument that we as yet possess of this
double reign is a large stele cut on the rock behind
Medinet-Habû.
[Illustration: 289.jpg NAKHTÛSÎT.]
Nakhtûsît, fully occupied by enemies within the country, had no leisure
either to build or to restore any monuments;* on his death, as no tomb
had been prepared for him, his mummy was buried in that of the usurper
Siphtah and the Queen Tausirît.
* Wiedemann attributes to him the construction of one of the
doors of the temple of Mût at Karnak; it would appear that
there is a confusion in his notes between the prenomen of
this sovereign and that of Seti II., who actually did
decorate one of the doorways of that temple. Nakhûsît must
have also worked on the temple of Phtah at Memphis. His
cartouche is met with on a statue originally dedicated by a
Pharaoh of the XIIth dynasty, discovered at Tell-Nebêsheh.
He was soon forgotten, and but few traces of his services survived him;
his name was subsequently removed from the official list of the kings,
while others not so deserving as he--as, for instance, Siphtah-Minephtah
and Amenmesis--were honourably inscribed in it. The memory of his son
overshadowed his own, and the series of the legitimate kings who formed
the XXth dynasty did not include him. Ramses III. took for his hero his
namesake, Ramses the Great, and endeavoured to rival him in everything.
This spirit of imitation was at times the means of leading him to commit
somewhat puerile acts, as, for example, when he copied certain
triumphal inscriptions word for word, merely changing the dates and
the cartouches,* or when he assumed the prenomen of Usirmârî, and
distributed among his male children the names and dignities of the sons
of Sesostris. We see, moreover, at his court another high priest of
Phtah at Memphis bearing the name of Khâmoîsît, and Marîtûmû, another
supreme pontiff of Râ in Heliopolis. However, this ambition to resemble
his ancestor at once instigated him to noble deeds, and gave him the
necessary determination to accomplish them.
* Thus the great decree of Phtah-Totûnen, carved by Ramses
II. in the year XXXV. on the rocks of Abu Simbel, was copied
by Ramses III. at Medinet-Habû in the year XII.
He began by restoring order in the administration of affairs; he
established truth, crushed error, purified the temple from all crime,
and made his authority felt not only in the length and breadth of the
Nile valley, but in what was still left of the Asiatic provinces.
The disturbances of the preceding years had weakened the prestige of
Amon-Râ, and the kings supremacy would have been seriously endangered,
had any one arisen in Syria of sufficient energy to take advantage of
the existing state of affairs. But since the death of Khâtusaru, the
power of the Khâti had considerably declined, and they retained their
position merely through their former prestige; they were in as much need
of peace, or even more so, than the Egyptians, for the same discords
which had harassed the reigns of Seti II. and his successors had
doubtless brought trouble to their own sovereigns. They had made no
serious efforts to extend their dominion over any of those countries
which had been the objects of the cupidity of their forefathers, while
the peoples of Kharu and Phoenicia, thrown back on their own resources,
had not ventured to take up arms against the Pharaoh. The yoke lay
lightly upon them, and in no way hampered their internal liberty; they
governed as they liked, they exchanged one prince or chief for another,
they waged petty wars as of old, without, as a rule, exposing themselves
to interference from the Egyptian troops occupying the country, or from
the royal messengers. These vassal provinces had probably ceased to
pay tribute, or had done so irregularly, during the years of anarchy
following the death of Siphtah, but they had taken no concerted action,
nor attempted any revolt, so that when Ramses III. ascended the throne
he was spared the trouble of reconquering them. He had merely to claim
allegiance to have it at once rendered him--an allegiance which included
the populations in the neighbourhood of Qodshû and on the banks of the
Nahr el-Kelb. The empire, which had threatened to fall to pieces amid
the civil wars, and which would indeed have succumbed had they continued
a few years longer, again revived now that an energetic prince had been
found to resume the direction of affairs, and to weld together those
elements which had been on the point of disintegration.
One state alone appeared to regret the revival of the Imperial power;
this was the kingdom of Libya. It had continued to increase in size
since the days of Mînephtah, and its population had been swelled by the
annexation of several strange tribes inhabiting the vast area of the
Sahara. One of these, the Mashaûasha, acquired the ascendency among
these desert races owing to their numbers and valour, and together with
the other tribes--the Sabati, the Kaiakasha, the Shaîû, the Hasa, the
Bikana, and the Qahaka*--formed a confederacy, which now threatened
Egypt on the west. This federation was conducted by Didi, Mashaknû,
and Mâraîû, all children of that Mâraîû who had led the first Libyan
invasion, and also by Zamarû and Zaûtmarû, two princes of less important
tribes.** Their combined forces had attacked Egypt for the second time
during the years of anarchy, and had gained possession one after another
of all the towns in the west of the Delta, from the neighbourhood of
Memphis to the town of Qarbîna: the Canopic branch of the Nile now
formed the limit of their dominion, and they often crossed it to
devastate the central provinces.***
* This enumeration is furnished by the summary of the
campaigns of Ramses III. in _The Great Harris Papyrus_. The
Sabati of this text are probably identical with the people
of the Sapudiu or Spudi (Asbytse), mentioned on one of the
pylons of Medinet-Habû.
** The relationship is nowhere stated, but it is thought to
be probable from the names of Didi and Mâraîû, repeated in
both series of inscriptions.
*** The town of Qarbîna has been identified with the Canopus
of the Greeks, and also with the modern Korbani; and the
district of Gautu, which adjoined it, with the territory of
the modern town of Edkô. Spiegel-berg throws doubt on the
identification of Qarbu or Qarbîna, with Canopus. Révillout
prefers to connect Qarbîna with Heracleopolis Parva in Lower
Egypt.
Nakhtûsîti had been unable to drive them out, and Ramses had not
ventured on the task immediately after his accession. The military
institutions of the country had become totally disorganised after the
death of Mînephtah, and that part of the community responsible for
furnishing the army with recruits had been so weakened by the late
troubles, that they were in a worse condition than before the first
Libyan invasion. The losses they had suffered since Egypt began its
foreign conquests had not been repaired by the introduction of fresh
elements, and the hope of spoil was now insufficient to induce members
of the upper classes to enter the army. There was no difficulty in
filling the ranks from the fellahîn, but the middle class and the
aristocracy, accustomed to ease and wealth, no longer came forward in
large numbers, and disdained the military profession. It was the fashion
in the schools to contrast the calling of a scribe with that of a
foot-soldier or a charioteer, and to make as merry over the discomforts
of a military occupation as it had formerly been the fashion to extol
its glory and profitableness. These scholastic exercises represented the
future officer dragged as a child to the barracks, the side-lock over
his ear.--He is beaten and his sides are covered with scars,--he is
beaten and his two eyebrows are marked with wounds,--he is beaten and
his head is broken by a badly aimed blow; he is stretched on the ground
for the slightest fault, and blows fall on him as on a papyrus,--and
he is broken by the stick. His education finished, he is sent away to
a distance, to Syria or Ethiopia, and fresh troubles overtake him. His
victuals and his supply of water are about his neck like the burden of
an ass,--and his neck and throat suffer like those of an ass,--so that
the joints of his spine are broken.--He drinks putrid water, keeping
perpetual guard the while. His fatigues soon tell upon his health
and vigour: Should he reach the enemy,--he is like a bird which
trembles.--Should he return to Egypt,--he is like a piece of old
worm-eaten wood.--He is sick and must lie down, he is carried on an
ass,--while thieves steal his linen,--and his slaves escape. The
charioteer is not spared either. He, doubtless, has a moment of
vain-glory and of flattered vanity when he receives, according to
regulations, a new chariot and two horses, with which he drives at a
gallop before his parents and his fellow-villagers; but once having
joined his regiment, he is perhaps worse off than the foot-soldier.
He is thrown to the ground among thorns:--a scorpion wounds him in
the foot, and his heel is pierced by its sting.--When his kit is
examined,--his misery is at its height. No sooner has the fact been
notified that his arms are in a bad condition, or that some article has
disappeared, than he is stretched on the ground--and overpowered with
blows from a stick. This decline of the warlike spirit in all classes
of society had entailed serious modifications in the organisation of
both army and navy. The native element no longer predominated in most
battalions and on the majority of vessels, as it had done under the
XVIIIth dynasty; it still furnished those formidable companies of
archers--the terror of both Africans and Asiatics--and also the most
important part, if not the whole, of the chariotry, but the main body
of the infantry was composed almost exclusively of mercenaries,
particularly of the Shardana and the Qahaka. Ramses began his reforms
by rebuilding the fleet, which, in a country like Egypt, was always
an artificial creation, liable to fall into decay, unless a strong
and persistent effort were made to keep it in an efficient condition.
Shipbuilding had made considerable progress in the last few centuries,
perhaps from the impulse received through Phoenicia, and the vessels
turned out of the dockyards were far superior to those constructed under
Hâtshopsîtû. The general outlines of the hull remained the same, but
the stem and stern were finer, and not so high out of the water; the
bow ended, moreover, in a lions head of metal, which rose above
the cut-water. A wooden structure running between the forecastle and
quarter-deck protected the rowers during the fight, their heads alone
being exposed. The mast had only one curved yard, to which the sail was
fastened; this was run up from the deck by halyards when the sailors
wanted to make sail, and thus differed from the Egyptian arrangement,
where the sail was fastened to a fixed upper yard. At least half of the
crews consisted of Libyan prisoners, who were branded with a hot iron
like cattle, to prevent desertion; the remaining half was drawn from
the Syrian or Asiatic coast, or else were natives of Egypt. In order
to bring the army into better condition, Ramses revived the system of
classes, which empowered him to compel all Egyptians of unmixed race to
take personal service, while he hired mercenaries from Libya, Phoenicia,
Asia Minor, and wherever he could get them, and divided them into
regular regiments, according to their extraction and the arms that they
bore. In the field, the archers always headed the column, to meet the
advance of the foe with their arrows; they were followed by the Egyptian
lancers--the Shardana and the Tyrseni with their short spears and heavy
bronze swords--while a corps of veterans, armed with heavy maces,
brought up the rear.* In an engagement, these various troops formed
three lines of infantry disposed one behind the other--the light brigade
in front to engage the adversary, the swordsmen and lancers who were to
come into close quarters with the foe, and the mace-bearers in reserve,
ready to advance on any threatened point, or to await the critical
moment when their intervention would decide the victory: as in the times
of Thûtmosis and Ramses II. the chariotry covered the two wings.
* This is the order of march represented during the Syrian
campaign, as gathered from the arrangement observed in the
pictures at Medinet-Habu.
It was well for Ramses that on ascending the throne he had devoted
himself to the task of recruiting the Egyptian army, and of personally
and carefully superintending the instruction and equipment of his men;
for it was thanks to these precautions that, when the confederated
Libyans attacked the country about the Vth year of his reign, he was
enabled to repulse them with complete success. Didi, Mashaknû, Maraîû,
together with Zamarû and Zaûtmarû, had strongly urged them to
attack Egypt and to carry fire before them from one end of it to the
other.--Their warriors confided to each other in their counsels,
and their hearts were full: We will be drunk! and their princes said
within their breasts: We will fill our hearts with violence! But their
plans were overthrown, thwarted, broken against the heart of the god,
and the prayer of their chief, which their lips repeated, was
not granted by the god. They met the Egyptians at a place called
Kamsisû-Khasfi-Timihû (Ramses repulses the Timihû), but their attack
was broken by the latter, who were ably led and displayed considerable
valour. They bleated like goats surprised by a bull who stamps its
foot, who pushes forward its horn and shakes the mountains, charging
whoever seeks to annoy it. They fled afar, howling with fear, and
many of them, in endeavouring to escape their pursuers, perished in the
canals. It is, said they, the breaking of our spines which threatens
us in the land of Egypt, and its lord destroys our souls for ever and
ever. Woe be upon them! for they have seen their dances changed into
carnage, Sokhît is behind them, fear weighs upon them. We march no
longer upon roads where we can walk, but we run across fields, all the
fields! And their soldiers did not even need to measure arms with us in
the struggle! Pharaoh alone was our destruction, a fire against us every
time that he willed it, and no sooner did we approach than the flame
curled round us, and no water could quench it on us. The victory was a
brilliant one; the victors counted 12,535 of the enemy killed,* and
many more who surrendered at discretion. The latter were formed into
a brigade, and were distributed throughout the valley of the Nile in
military settlements. They submitted to their fate with that resignation
which we know to have been a characteristic of the vanquished at that
date.
* The number of the dead is calculated from that of the
hands and phalli brought in by the soldiers after the
victory, the heaps of which are represented at Medinet-Habu.
They regarded their defeat as a judgment from God against which there
was no appeal; when their fate had been once pronounced, nothing
remained to the condemned except to submit to it humbly, and to
accommodate themselves to the master to whom they were now bound by a
decree from on high. The prisoners of one day became on the next the
devoted soldiers of the prince against whom they had formerly fought
resolutely, and they were employed against their own tribes, their
employers having no fear of their deserting to the other side during
the engagement. They were lodged in the barracks at Thebes, or in the
provinces under the feudal lords and governors of the Pharaoh, and
were encouraged to retain their savage customs and warlike spirit. They
intermarried either with the fellahîn or with women of their own tribes,
and were reinforced at intervals by fresh prisoners or volunteers.
Drafted principally into the Delta and the cities of Middle Egypt, they
thus ended by constituting a semi-foreign population, destined by nature
and training to the calling of arms, and forming a sort of warrior
caste, differing widely from the militia of former times, and known for
many generations by their national name of Mashaûasha. As early as the
XIIth dynasty, the Pharaohs had, in a similar way, imported the Mazaîû
from Nubia, and had used them as a military police; Ramses III. now
resolved to naturalise the Libyans for much the same purpose. His
victory did not bear the immediate fruits that we might have expected
from his own account of it; the memory of the exploits of Ramses II.
haunted him, and, stimulated by the example of his ancestor at Qodshû,
he doubtless desired to have the sole credit of the victory over the
Libyans. He certainly did overcome their kings, and arrested their
invasion; we may go so far as to allow that he wrested from them the
provinces which they had occupied on the left bank of the Canopic
branch, from Marea to the Natron Lakes, but he did not conquer them,
and their power still remained as formidable as ever. He had gained a
respite at the point of the sword, but he had not delivered Egypt from
their future attacks.
[Illustration: 299.jpg one of the Libyan chiefs VANQUISHED BY RAMSES
III.]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Champollion.
He might perhaps have been tempted to follow up his success and assume
the offensive, had not affairs in Asia at this juncture demanded the
whole of his attention. The movement of great masses of European tribes
in a southerly and easterly direction was beginning to be felt by the
inhabitants of the Balkans, who were forced to set out in a double
stream of emigration--one crossing the Bosphorus and the Propontis
towards the centre of Asia Minor, while the other made for what was
later known as Greece Proper, by way of the passes over Olympus and
Pindus. The nations who had hitherto inhabited these regions, now found
themselves thrust forward by the pressure of invading hordes, and were
constrained to move towards the south and east by every avenue which
presented itself. It was probably the irruption of the Phrygians into
the high table-land which gave rise to the general exodus of these
various nations--the Pulasati, the Zakkala, the Shagalasha, the Danauna,
and the Uashasha--some of whom had already made their way into Syria and
taken part in campaigns there, while others had as yet never measured
strength with the Egyptians. The main body of these migrating tribes
chose the overland route, keeping within easy distance of the coast,
from Pamphylia as far as the confines of Naharaim.
[Illustration: 300.jpg THE WAGGONS OF THE PULASATI AND THEIR
CONFEDERATES]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Champollion.
They were accompanied by their families, who must have been mercilessly
jolted in the ox-drawn square waggons with solid wheels in which they
travelled. The body of the vehicle was built either of roughly squared
planks, or else of something resembling wicker-work. The round axletree
was kept in its place by means of a rude pin, and four oxen were
harnessed abreast to the whole structure. The children wore no clothes,
and had, for the most part, their hair tied into a tuft on the top of
their heads; the women affected a closely fitting cap, and were wrapped
in large blue or red garments drawn close to the body.* The mens attire
varied according to the tribe to which they belonged. The Pulasati
undoubtedly held the chief place; they were both soldiers and sailors,
and we must recognise in them the foremost of those tribes known to the
Greeks of classical times as the Oarians, who infested the coasts of
Asia Minor as well as those of Greece and the Ægean islands.**
* These details are taken from the battle-scenes at Medinet-
Habu.
** The Pulasati have been connected with the Philistines by
Champollion, and subsequently by the early English
Egyptologists, who thought they recognised in them the
inhabitants of the Shephelah. Chabas was the first to
identify them with the Pelasgi; Unger and Brugsch prefer to
attribute to them a Libyan origin, but the latter finally
returns to the Pelasgic and Philistine hypothesis. They were
without doubt the Philistines, but in their migratory state,
before they settled on the coast of Palestine.
[Illustration: 301.jpg PULASATI]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato.
Crete was at this time the seat of a maritime empire, whose chiefs were
perpetually cruising the seas and harassing the civilized states of
the Eastern Mediterranean. These sea-rovers had grown wealthy through
piracy, and contact with the merchants of Syria and Egypt had awakened
in them a taste for a certain luxury and refinement, of which we find
no traces in the remains of their civilization anterior to this period.
Some of the symbols in the inscriptions found on their monuments recall
certain of the Egyptian characters, while others present an original
aspect and seem to be of Ægean origin. We find in them, arranged in
juxtaposition, signs representing flowers, birds, fish, quadrupeds
of various kinds, members of the human body, and boats and household
implements. From the little which is known of this script we are
inclined to derive it from a similar source to that which has furnished
those we meet with in several parts of Asia Minor and Northern Syria.
It would appear that in ancient times, somewhere in the centre of the
Peninsula--but under what influence or during what period we know not--a
syllabary was developed, of which varieties were handed on from tribe
to tribe, spreading on the one side to the Hittites, Cilicians, and
the peoples on the borders of Syria and Egypt, and on the other to the
Trojans, to the people of the Cyclades, and into Crete and Greece. It
is easy to distinguish the Pulasati by the felt helmet which they wore
fastened under the chin by two straps and surmounted by a crest of
feathers. The upper part of their bodies was covered by bands of leather
or some thick material, below which hung a simple loin-cloth, while
their feet were bare or shod with short sandals. They carried each a
round buckler with two handles, and the stout bronze sword common to
the northern races, suspended by a cross belt passing over the left
shoulder, and were further armed with two daggers and two javelins.
They hurled the latter from a short distance while attacking, and then
drawing their sword or daggers, fell upon the enemy; we find among them
a few chariots of the Hittite type, each manned by a driver and two
fighting men. The Tyrseni appear to have been the most numerous after
the Pulasati, next to whom came the Zakkala. The latter are thought to
have been a branch of the Siculo-Pelasgi whom Greek tradition represents
as scattered at this period among the Cyclades and along the coast of
the Hellespont;* they wore a casque surmounted with plumes like that
of the Pulasati. The Tyrseni may be distinguished by their feathered
head-dress, but the Shaga-lasha affected a long ample woollen cap
falling on the neck behind, an article of apparel which is still worn by
the sailors of the Archipelago; otherwise they were equipped in much the
same manner as their allies. The other members of the confederation,
the Shardana, the Danauna, and the Nashasha, each furnished an
inconsiderable contingent, and, taken all together, formed but a small
item of the united force.**
* The Zakkara, or Zakkala, have been identified with the
Teucrians by Lauth, Chabas, and Fr. Lenormant, with the
Zygritse of Libya by linger and Brugsch, who subsequently
returned to the Teucrian hypothesis; W. Max Millier regards
them as an Asiatic nation probably of the Lydian family. The
identification with the Siculo-Pelasgi of the Ægean Sea was
proposed by Maspero.
** The form of the word shows that it is of Asiatic origin,
Uasasos, Uassos, which refers us to Caria or Lycia.
Their fleet sailed along the coast and kept within sight of the force on
land. The squadrons depicted on the monuments are without doubt those of
the two peoples, the Pulasati and Zakkala. Their ships resembled in many
respects those of Egypt, except in the fact that they had no cut-water.
The bow and stern rose up straight like the neck of a goose or swan; two
structures for fighting purposes were erected above the dock, while a
rail running round the sides of the vessel protected the bodies of the
rowers. An upper yard curved in shape hung from the single mast, which
terminated in a top for the look-out during a battle. The upper yard was
not made to lower, and the top-men managed the sail in the same manner
as the Egyptian sailors. The resemblance between this fleet and that
of Ramses is easily explained. The dwellers on the Ægean, owing to
the knowledge they had acquired of the Phoenician galleys, which
were accustomed to cruise annually in their waters, became experts in
shipbuilding.
[Illustration: 304.jpg A SIHAGALASHA CHIEF]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Petrie.
They copied the lines of the Phoenician craft, imitated the rigging, and
learned to manoeuvre their vessels so well, both on ordinary occasions
and in a battle, that they could now oppose to the skilled eastern
navigators ships as well fitted out and commanded by captains as
experienced as those of Egypt or Asia.
There had been a general movement among all these peoples at the very
time when Ramses was repelling the attack of the Libyans; the isles had
quivered, and had vomited forth their people at once. *
* This campaign is mentioned in the inscription of Medinet-
Habu. We find some information about the war in the _Great
Harris Papyrus_, also in the inscription of Medinet-Habu
which describes the campaign of the year V., and in other
shorter texts of the same temple.
They were subjected to one of those irresistible impulses such as had
driven the Shepherds into Egypt; or again, in later times, had carried
away the Cimmerians and the Scyths to the pillage of Asia Minor: no
country could hold out against their arms, neither Khâti, nor Qodi, nor
Carchemish, nor Arvad, nor Alasia, without being brought to nothing.
The ancient kingdoms of Sapalulu and Khâtusaru, already tottering,
crumbled to pieces under the shock, and were broken up into their
primitive elements. The barbarians, unable to carry the towns by
assault, and too impatient to resort to a lengthened siege, spread
over the valley of the Orontes, burning and devastating the country
everywhere. Having reached the frontiers of the empire, in the country
of the Amorites, they came to a halt, and constructing an entrenched
camp, installed within it their women and the booty they had acquired.
Some of their predatory bands, having ravaged the Bekâa, ended by
attacking the subjects of the Pharaoh himself, and their chiefs dreamed
of an invasion of Egypt. Ramses, informed of their design by the
despatches of his officers and vassals, resolved to prevent its
accomplishment. He summoned his troops together, both indigenous
and mercenary, in his own person looked after their armament and
commissariat, and in the VIIIth year of his reign crossed the frontier
near Zalu. He advanced by forced marches to meet the enemy, whom
he encountered somewhere in Southern Syria, on the borders of the
Shephelah,* and after a stubbornly contested campaign obtained the
victory. He carried off from the field, in addition to the treasures of
the confederate tribes, some of the chariots which had been used for the
transport of their families. The survivors made their way hastily to the
north-west, in the direction of the sea, in order to receive the support
of their navy, but the king followed them step by step.
* No site is given for these battles. E. de Rougé placed the
theatre of war in Syria, and his opinion was accepted by
Brugsch. Chabas referred it to the mouth of the Nile near
Pelusium, and his authority has prevailed up to the present.
The remarks of W. Max Müller have brought me back to the
opinion of the earlier Egyptologists; but I differ from him
in looking for the locality further south, and not to the
mouth of Nahr el-Kelb as the site of the naval battle. It
seems to me that the fact that the Zakkala were prisoners at
Dor, and the Pulasati in the Shephelah, is enough to assign
the campaign to the regions I have mentioned in the text.
It is recorded that he occupied himself with lion-hunting _en route_
after the example of the victors of the XVIIIth dynasty, and that he
killed three of these animals in the long grass on one occasion on the
banks of some river. He rejoined his ships, probably at Jaffa, and made
straight for the enemy. The latter were encamped on the level shore, at
the head of a bay wide enough to offer to their ships a commodious
space for naval evolutions--possibly the mouth of the Belos, in the
neighbourhood of Magadîl. The king drove their foot-soldiers into the
water at the same moment that his admirals attacked the combined fleet
of the Pulasati and Zakkala.
[Illustration: 307.jpg THE ARMY OP RAMSES III. ON THE MARCH, AND THE
LION-HUNT]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato.
Some of the Ægean galleys were capsized and sank when the Egyptian
vessels rammed them with their sharp stems, and the crews, in
endeavouring to escape to land by swimming, were picked off by the
arrows of the archers of the guard who were commanded by Ramses and his
sons; they perished in the waves, or only escaped through the compassion
of the victors. I had fortified, said the Pharaoh, my frontier at
Zahi; I had drawn up before these people my generals, my provincial
governors, the vassal princes, and the best of my soldiers. The mouths
of the river seemed to be a mighty rampart of galleys, barques, and
vessels of all kinds, equipped from the bow to the stern with valiant
armed men. The infantry, the flower of Egypt, were as lions roaring
on the mountains; the charioteers, selected from among the most rapid
warriors, had for their captains only officers confident in themselves;
the horses quivered in all their limbs, and were burning to trample the
nations underfoot. As for me, I was like the warlike Montû: I stood up
before them and they saw the vigour of my arms. I, King Ramses, I was as
a hero who is conscious of his valour, and who stretches his hands over
the people in the day of battle. Those who have violated my frontier
will never more garner harvests from this earth: the period of their
soul has been fixed for ever. My forces were drawn up before them on
the Very Green, a devouring flame approached them at the river mouth,
annihilation embraced them on every side. Those who were on the strand
I laid low on the seashore, slaughtered like victims of the butcher.
I made their vessels to capsize, and their riches fell into the sea.
Those who had not fallen in the fight were caught, as it were, in
the cast of a net. A rapid cruiser of the fleet carried the Egyptian
standard along the coast as far as the regions of the Orontes and
Saros. The land troops, on the other hand, following on the heels of the
defeated enemy, pushed through Coele-Syria, and in their first burst of
zeal succeeded in reaching the plains of the Euphrates. A century had
elapsed since a Pharaoh had planted his standard in this region, and the
country must have seemed as novel to the soldiers of Ramses III. as to
those of his predecessor Thûtmosis.
[Illustration: 308.jpg THE DEFEAT OF THE PEOPLES OF THE SEA]
The Khâti were still its masters; and all enfeebled as they were by
the ravages of the invading barbarians, were nevertheless not slow in
preparing to resist their ancient enemies. The majority of the citadels
shut their gates in the face of Ramses, who, wishing to lose no time,
did not attempt to besiege them: he treated their territory with the
usual severity, devastating their open towns, destroying their harvests,
breaking down their fruit trees, and cutting away their forests. He was
able, moreover, without arresting his march, to carry by assault several
of their fortified towns, Alaza among the number, the destruction of
which is represented in the scenes of his victories. The spoils were
considerable, and came very opportunely to reward the soldiers or to
provide funds for the erection of monuments. The last battalion of
troops, however, had hardly recrossed the isthmus when Lotanû became
again its own master, and Egyptian rule was once more limited to its
traditional provinces of Kharû and Phoenicia. The King of the Khâti
appears among the prisoners whom the Pharaoh is represented as bringing
to his father Amon; Carchemish, Tunipa, Khalabu, Katna, Pabukhu, Arvad,
Mitanni, Mannus, Asi, and a score of other famous towns of this period
appear in the list of the subjugated nations, recalling the triumphs
of Thûtmosis III. and Amenothes II. Ramses did not allow himself to
be deceived into thinking that his success was final. He accepted the
protestations of obedience which were spontaneously offered him, but he
undertook no further expedition of importance either to restrain or to
provoke his enemies: the restricted rule which satisfied his exemplar
Ramses II. ought, he thought, to be sufficient for his own ambition.
Egypt breathed freely once more on the announcement of the victory;
henceforward she was as a bed without anguish. Let each woman now go
to and fro according to her will, cried the sovereign, in describing
the campaign, her ornaments upon her, and directing her steps to any
place she likes! And in order to provide still further guarantees of
public security, he converted his Asiatic captives, as he previously
had his African prisoners, into a bulwark against the barbarians, and
a safeguard of the frontier. The war must, doubtless, have decimated
Southern Syria; and he planted along its coast what remained of the
defeated tribes--the Philistines in the Shephelah, and the Zakkala on
the borders of the great oak forest stretching from Oarmel to Dor.*
* It is in this region that we find henceforward the Hebrews
in contact with the Philistines: at the end of the XXIst
Egyptian dynasty a scribe makes Dor a town of the Zakkala.
Watch-towers were erected for the supervision of this region, and for
rallying-points in case of internal revolts or attacks from without. One
of these, the Migdol of Ramses III., was erected, not far from the scene
of the decisive battle, on the spot where the spoils had been divided.
This living barrier, so to speak, stood between the Nile valley and the
dangers which threatened it from Asia, and it was not long before
its value was put to the proof. The Libyans, who had been saved from
destruction by the diversion created in their favour on the eastern side
of the empire, having now recovered their courage, set about collecting
their hordes together for a fresh invasion. They returned to the attack
in the XIth year of Ramses, under the leadership of Kapur, a prince of
the Mashauasha.*
* The second campaign against the Libyans is known to us
from the inscriptions of the year XI. at Medinet-Habu.
[Illustration: 313.jpg THE CAPTIVE CHIEFS OF RAMSES III. AT
MEDINET-IHABU]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato. The first
prisoner on the left is the Prince of the Khâti (cf. the cut
on p. 318 of the present work), the second is the Prince of
the Amâuru [Amoritos], the third the Prince of the Zakkala,
the fourth that of the Shardana, the fifth that of the
Shakalasha (see the cut on p. 304 of this work), and the
sixth that of the Tursha [Tyrseni].
Their soul had said to them for the second time that they would end
their lives in the nomes of Egypt, that they would till its valleys and
its plains as their own land. The issue did not correspond with their
intentions. Death fell upon them within Egypt, for they had hastened
with their feet to the furnace which consumes corruption, under the
fire of the valour of the king who rages like Baal from the heights of
heaven. All his limbs are invested with victorious strength; with his
right hand he lays hold of the multitudes, his left extends to those who
are against him, like a cloud of arrows directed upon them to destroy
them, and his sword cuts like that of Montû. Kapur, who had come to
demand homage, blind with fear, threw down his arms, and his troops did
the same. He sent up to heaven a suppliant cry, and his son [Mashashalu]
arrested his foot and his hand; for, behold, there rises beside him the
god who knows what he has in his heart: His Majesty falls upon their
heads as a mountain of granite and crushes them, the earth drinks up
their blood as if it had been water...; their army was slaughtered,
slaughtered their soldiers, near a fortress situated on the borders
of the desert called the Castle of Usirmarî-Miamon. They were seized,
they were stricken, their arms bound, like geese piled up in the bottom
of a boat, under the feet of His Majesty. * The fugitives were pursued
at the swords point from the _Castle of Usirmarî-Miamon_ to the _Castle
of the Sands_, a distance of over thirty miles.**
* The name of the son of Kapur, Mashashalu, Masesyla, which
is wanting in this inscription, is supplied from a parallel
inscription.
* The Castle of Usirmarî-Miamon was on the mountain of the
horn of the world, which induces me to believe that we must
seek its site on the borders of the Libyan desert. The royal
title entering into its name being liable to change with
every reign, it is possible that we have an earlier
reference to this stronghold in a mutilated passage of the
Athribis Stele, which relates to the campaigns of Mînephtah;
it must have commanded one of the most frequented routes
leading to the oasis of Amon.
[Illustration: 314.jpg RAMSES III. BINDS THE CHIEFS OF THE LIBYANS]
From a photograph by Beato.
Two thousand and seventy-five Libyans were left upon the ground that
day, two thousand and fifty-two perished in other engagements, while
two thousand and thirty-two, both male and female, were made prisoners.
These were almost irreparable losses for a people of necessarily small
numbers, and if we add the number of those who had succumbed in the
disaster of six years before, we can readily realise how discouraged
the invaders must have been, and how little likely they were to try the
fortune of war once more. Their power dwindled and vanished almost as
quickly as it had arisen; the provisional cohesion given to their forces
by a few ambitious chiefs broke up after their repeated defeats, and
the rudiments of an empire which had struck terror into the Pharaohs,
resolved itself into its primitive elements, a number of tribes
scattered over the desert. They were driven back beyond the Libyan
mountains; fortresses* guarded the routes they had previously followed,
and they were obliged henceforward to renounce any hope of an invasion
_en masse_, and to content themselves with a few raiding expeditions
into the fertile plain of the Delta, where they had formerly found a
transitory halting-place. Counter-raids organised by the local troops
or by the mercenaries who garrisoned the principal towns in the
neighbourhood of Memphis--Hermopolis and Thinisl--inflicted punishment
upon them when they became too audacious. Their tribes, henceforward,
as far as Egypt was concerned, formed a kind of reserve from which the
Pharaoh could raise soldiers every year, and draw sufficient materials
to bring his army up to fighting strength when internal revolt or an
invasion from without called for military activity.
* _The Great Harris Papyrus_ speaks of fortifications
erected in the towns of Anhûri-Shû, possibly Thinis, and of
Thot, possibly Hermopolis, in order to repel the tribes of
the Tihonu who were ceaselessly harassing the frontier.
[Illustration: 318.jpg THE PRINCE OF THE KHATI]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken at Medinet-
Habu.
The campaign of the XIth year brought to an end the great military
expeditions of Ramses III. Henceforward he never took the lead in any
more serious military enterprise than that of repressing the Bedawin of
Seîr for acts of brigandage,* or the Ethiopians for some similar
reason. He confined his attention to the maintenance of commercial and
industrial relations with manufacturing countries, and with the
markets of Asia and Africa. He strengthened the garrisons of Sinai, and
encouraged the working of the ancient mines in that region. He sent a
colony of quarry-men and of smelters to the land of Atika, in order to
work the veins of silver which were alleged to exist there.**
*The Sâîrû of the Egyptian texts have been identified with
the Bedawin of Seîr.
** This is the Gebel-Ataka of our day. All this district is
imperfectly explored, but we know that it contains mines and
quarries some of which were worked as late as in the time of
the Mameluk Sultans.
He launched a fleet on the Red Sea, and sent it to the countries of
fragrant spices. The captains of the sailors were there, together with
the chiefs of the _corvée_ and accountants, to provide provision for
the people of the Divine Lands from the innumerable products of Egypt;
and these products were counted by myriads. Sailing through the great
sea of Qodi, they arrived at Pûântt without mishap, and there collected
cargoes for their galleys and ships, consisting of all the unknown
marvels of Tonûtir, as well as considerable quantities of the perfumes
of Pûâtîn, which they stowed on board by tens of thousands without
number. The sons of the princes of Tonûtir came themselves into Qîmit
with their tributes. They reached the region of Coptos safe and sound,
and disembarked there in peace with their riches. It was somewhere
about Sau and Tuau that the merchants and royal officers landed,
following the example of the expeditions of the XIIth and XVIIIth
dynasties. Here they organised caravans of asses and slaves, which
taking the shortest route across the mountain--that of the valley of
Rahanû--carried the precious commodities to Coptos, whence they were
transferred to boats and distributed along the river. The erection
of public buildings, which had been interrupted since the time of
Mînephtah, began again with renewed activity. The captives in the recent
victories furnished the requisite labour, while the mines, the voyages
to the Somali coast, and the tributes of vassals provided the necessary
money. Syria was not lost sight of in this resumption of peaceful
occupations. The overthrow of the Khâti secured Egyptian rule in this
region, and promised a long tranquillity within its borders. One temple
at least was erected in the country--that of Pa-kanâna--where the
princes of Kharu were to assemble to offer worship to the Pharaoh, and
to pay each one his quota of the general tribute. The Pulasati were
employed to protect the caravan routes, and a vast reservoir was
erected near Aîna to provide a store of water for the irrigation of the
neighbouring country. The Delta absorbed the greater part of the royal
subsidies; it had suffered so much from the Libyan incursions, that the
majority of the towns within it had fallen into a condition as
miserable as that in which they were at the time of the expulsion of the
Shepherds. Heliopolis, Bubastis, Thmuis, Amû, and Tanis still preserved
some remains of the buildings which had already been erected in them
by Ramses; he constructed also, at the place at present called Tel
el-Yahûdîyeh, a royal palace of limestone, granite, and alabaster, of
which the type is unique amongst all the structures hitherto discovered.
Its walls and columns were not ornamented with the usual sculptures
incised in stone, but the whole of the decorations--scenes as well
as inscriptions--consisted of plaques of enamelled terra-cotta set
in cement. The forms of men and animals and the lines of hieroglyphs,
standing out in slight relief from a glazed and warm-coloured
background, constitute an immense mosaic-work of many hues. The few
remains of the work show great purity of design and an extraordinary
delicacy of tone.
[Illustration: 320.jpg SIGNS, ARMS AND INSTRUMENTS]
All the knowledge of the Egyptian painters, and all the technical skill
of their artificers in ceramic, must have been employed to compose such
harmoniously balanced decorations, with their free handling of line and
colour, and their thousands of rosettes, squares, stars, and buttons of
varicoloured pastes.*
* This temple has been known since the beginning of the
nineteenth century, and the Louvre is in possession of some
fragments from it which came from Salts collection; it was
rediscovered in 1870, and some portions of it were
transferred by Mariette to the Boulaq Museum. The remainder
was destroyed by the fellahîn, at the instigation of the
enlightened amateurs of Cairo, and fragments of it have
passed into various private collections. The decoration has
been attributed to Chaldoan influence, but it is a work
purely Egyptian, both in style and in technique.
[Illustration: 321.jpg THE COLOSSAL OSIRIAN FIGURES in THE FIRST COURT
AT MEDINET-HABU]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato.
The difficulties to overcome were so appalling, that when the marvellous
work was once accomplished, no subsequent attempt was made to construct
a second like it: all the remaining structures of Ramses III., whether
at Memphis, in the neighbourhood of Abydos, or at Karnak, were in the
conventional style of the Pharaohs. He determined, nevertheless, to give
to the exterior of the Memnonium, which he built near Medinet-Habu for
the worship of himself, the proportions and appearance of an Asiatic
Migdol, influenced probably by his remembrance of similar structures
which he had seen during his Syrian campaign. The chapel itself is of
the ordinary type, with its gigantic pylons, its courts surrounded by
columns--each supporting a colossal Osirian statue--its hypostyle
hall, and its mysterious cells for the deposit of spoils taken from the
peoples of the sea and the cities of Asia. His tomb was concealed at a
distant spot in the Biban-el-Moluk, and we see depicted on its walls the
same scenes that we find in the last resting-place of Seti I. or Ramses
II., and in addition to them, in a series of supplementary chambers, the
arms of the sovereign, his standards, his treasure, his kitchen, and the
preparation of offerings which were to be made to him. His sarcophagus,
cut out of an enormous block of granite, was brought for sale to Europe
at the beginning of this century, and Cambridge obtained possession of
its cover, while the Louvre secured the receptacle itself.
These were years of profound tranquillity. The Pharaoh intended that
absolute order should reign throughout his realm, and that justice
should be dispensed impartially within it.
[Illustration: 322.jpg THE FIRST PYLON OF THE TEMPLE]
There were to be no more exactions, no more crying iniquities: whoever
was discovered oppressing the people, no matter whether he were court
official or feudal lord--was instantly deprived of his functions,
and replaced by an administrator of tried integrity. Ramses boasts,
moreover, in an idyllic manner, of having planted trees everywhere, and
of having built arbours wherein the people might sit in the shade in the
open air; while women might go to and fro where they would in security,
no one daring to insult them on the way. The Shardanian and Libyan
mercenaries were restricted to the castles which they garrisoned, and
were subjected to such a severe discipline that no one had any cause of
complaint against these armed barbarians settled in the heart of Egypt.
I have, continues the king, lifted up every miserable one out of his
misfortune, I have granted life to him, I have saved him from the mighty
who were oppressing him, and have secured rest for every one in his own
town. The details of the description are exaggerated, but the general
import of it is true. Egypt had recovered the peace and prosperity of
which it had been deprived for at least half a century, that is, since
the death of Mînephtah. The king, however, was not in such a happy
condition as his people, and court intrigues embittered the later years
of his life. One of his sons, whose name is unknown to us, but who is
designated in the official records by the nickname of Pentaûîrît, formed
a conspiracy against him. His mother, Tîi, who was a woman of secondary
rank, took it into her head to secure the crown for him, to the
detriment of the children of Queen Isît. An extensive plot was hatched
in which scribes, officers of the guard, priests, and officials in
high place, both natives and foreigners, were involved. A resort to
the supernatural was at first attempted, and the superintendent of the
Herds, a certain Panhûibaûnû, who was deeply versed in magic, undertook
to cast a spell upon the Pharaoh, if he could only procure certain
conjuring books of which he was not possessed. These were found to be
in the royal library. He managed to introduce himself under cover of the
night into the harem, where he manufactured certain waxen figures, of
which some were to excite the hate of his wives against their husband,
while others would cause him to waste away and finally perish. A traitor
betrayed several of the conspirators, who, being subjected to the
torture, informed upon others, and these at length brought the matter
home to Pentaûîrît and his immediate accomplices. All were brought
before a commission of twelve members, summoned expressly to try the
case, and the result was the condemnation and execution of six women and
some forty men. The extreme penalty of the Egyptian code was reserved
for Pentaûîrît, and for the most culpable,--they died of themselves,
and the meaning of this phrase is indicated, I believe, by the
appearance of one of the mummies disinterred at Deîr el-Baharî.* The
coffin in which it was placed was very plain, painted white and without
inscription; the customary removal of entrails had not been effected,
but the body was covered with a thick layer of natron, which was applied
even to the skin itself and secured by wrappings.
* The translations by Dévéria, Lepage-Renouf, and Erman
agree in making it a case of judicial suicide: there was
left to the condemned a choice of his mode of death, in
order to avoid the scandal of a public execution. It is also
possible to make it a condemnation to death in person, which
did not allow of the substitution of a proxy willing, for a
payment to his family, to undergo death in place of the
condemned; but, unfortunately, no other text is to be found
supporting the existence of such a practice in Egypt.
It makes ones flesh creep to look at it: the hands and feet are tied
by strong bands, and are curled up as if under an intolerable pain;
the abdomen is drawn up, the stomach projects like a ball, the chest is
contracted, the head is thrown back, the face is contorted in a hideous
grimace, the retracted lips expose the teeth, and the mouth is open as
if to give utterance to a last despairing cry. The conviction is
borne in upon us that the man was invested while still alive with the
wrappings of the dead. Is this the mummy of Pentaûîrît, or of some
other prince as culpable as he was, and condemned to this frightful
punishment? In order to prevent the recurrence of such wicked plots,
Pharaoh resolved to share his throne with that one of his sons who had
most right to it. In the XXXIInd year of his reign he called together
his military and civil chiefs, the generals of the foreign mercenaries,
the Shardana, the priests, and the nobles of the court, and presented
to them, according to custom, his heir-designate, who was also called
Ramses. He placed the double crown upon his brow, and seated him beside
himself upon the throne of Horus. This was an occasion for the Pharaoh
to bring to remembrance all the great exploits he had performed during
his reign--his triumphs over the Libyans and over the peoples of the
sea, and the riches he had lavished upon the gods: at the end of the
enumeration he exhorted those who were present to observe the same
fidelity towards the son which they had observed towards the father, and
to serve the new sovereign as valiantly as they had served himself.
[Illustration: 327.jpg THE MUMMY OF RAMSES III.]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a, photograph by Emil Brugsch-
Bey.
The joint reign lasted for only four years. Ramses III. was not
much over sixty years of age when he died. He was still vigorous and
muscular, but he had become stout and heavy. The fatty matter of the
body having been dissolved by the natron in the process of embalming,
the skin distended during life has gathered up into enormous loose
folds, especially about the nape of the neck, under the chin, on the
hips, and at the articulations of the limbs. The closely shaven head and
cheeks present no trace of hair or beard. The forehead, although neither
broad nor high, is better proportioned than that of Ramses II.; the
supra-orbital ridges are less accentuated than his, the cheek-bones not
so prominent, the nose not so arched, and the chin and jaw less massive.
The eyes were perhaps larger, but no opinion can be offered on this
point, for the eyelids have been cut away, and the cleared-out cavities
have been filled with rags. The ears do not stand out so far from the
head as those of Ramses II., but they have been pierced for ear-rings.
The mouth, large by nature, has been still further widened in the
process of embalming, owing to the awkwardness of the operator, who
has cut into the cheeks at the side. The thin lips allow the white and
regular teeth to be seen; the first molar on the right has been either
broken in half, or has worn away more rapidly than the rest. Ramses III.
seems, on the whole, to have been a sort of reduced copy, a little
more delicate in make, of Ramses II.; his face shows more subtlety
of expression and intelligence, though less nobility than that of the
latter, while his figure is not so upright, his shoulders not so
broad, and his general muscular vigour less. What has been said of
his personality may be extended to his reign; it was evidently and
designedly an imitation of the reign of Ramses IL, but fell short of its
model owing to the insufficiency of his resources in men and money. If
Ramses III. did not succeed in becoming one of the most powerful of the
Theban Pharaohs, it was not for lack of energy or ability; the depressed
condition of Egypt at the time limited the success of his endeavours and
caused them to fall short of his intentions. The work accomplished by
him was not on this account less glorious. At his accession Egypt was
in a wretched state, invaded on the west, threatened by a flood
of barbarians on the east, without an army or a fleet, and with no
resources in the treasury. In fifteen years he had disposed of his
inconvenient neighbours, organised an army, constructed a fleet,
re-established his authority abroad, and settled the administration
at home on so firm a basis, that the country owed the peace which it
enjoyed for several centuries to the institutions and prestige which
he had given it. His associate in the government, Ramses IV., barely
survived him. Then followed a series of _rois fainéants_ bearing the
name of Ramses, but in an order not yet clearly determined. It is
generally assumed that Ramses V., brother of Ramses III., succeeded
Ramses IV. by supplanting his nephews--who, however, appear to have
soon re-established their claim to the throne, and to have followed each
other in rapid succession as Ramses VI., Ramses VIL, Ramses VIII., and
Maritûmû.* Others endeavour to make out that Ramses V. was the son of
Ramses IV., and that the prince called Ramses VI. never succeeded to the
throne at all. At any rate, his son, who is styled Ramses VIL, but who
is asserted by some to have been a son of Ramses III., is considered to
have succeeded Ramses V., and to have become the ancestor from whom the
later Ramessides traced their descent.**
* The order of the Ramessides was first made out by
Champollion the younger and by Rosellini. Bunsen and Lepsius
reckon in it thirteen kings; E. de Rougé puts the number at
fifteen or sixteen; Maspero makes the number to be twelve,
which was reduced still further by Setho. Erman thinks that
Ramses IX. and Ramses X. were also possibly sons of Ramses
III.; he consequently declines to recognise King Maritûmû as
a son of that sovereign, as Brugsch would make out.
* The monuments of these later Ramessides are so rare and so
doubtful that I cannot yet see my way to a solution of the
questions which they raise.
The short reigns of these Pharaohs were marked by no events which would
cast lustre on their names; one might say that they had nothing else to
do than to enjoy peacefully the riches accumulated by their forefather.
Ramses IV. was anxious to profit by the commercial relations which
had been again established between Egypt and Puanît, and, in order to
facilitate the transit between Coptos and Kosseir, founded a station,
and a temple dedicated to Isis, in the mountain of Bakhni; by this
route, we learn, more than eight thousand men had passed under the
auspices of the high priest of Amon, Nakh-tû-ramses. This is the only
undertaking of public utility which we can attribute to any of these
kings. As we see them in their statues and portraits, they are heavy
and squat and without refinement, with protruding eyes, thick lips,
flattened and commonplace noses, round and expressionless faces. Their
work was confined to the engraving of their cartouches on the blank
spaces of the temples at Karnak and Medinet-Habu, and the addition of a
few stones to the buildings at Memphis, Abydos, and Heliopolis. Whatever
energy and means they possessed were expended on the construction of
their magnificent tombs.
[Illustration: 331.jpg A RAMSES OF THE XXth DYNASTY]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-
Bey. This is the Ramses VI. of the series now generally
adopted.
These may still be seen in the Biban el-Moluk, and no visitor can
refrain from admiring them for their magnitude and decoration. As to
funerary chapels, owing to the shortness of the reigns of these kings,
there was not time to construct them, and they therefore made up for
this want by appropriating the chapel of their father, which was at
Medinet-Habu, and it was here consequently that their worship was
maintained. The last of the sons of Ramses III. was succeeded by another
and equally ephemeral Ramses; after whom came Ramses X. and Ramses XI.,
who re-established the tradition of more lasting reigns. There was
now no need of expeditions against Kharu or Libya, for these enfeebled
countries no longer disputed, from the force of custom, the authority of
Egypt. From time to time an embassy from these countries would arrive at
Thebes, bringing presents, which were pompously recorded as representing
so much tribute.* If it is true that a people which has no history
is happy, then Egypt ought to be reckoned as more fortunate under the
feebler descendants of Ramses III. than it had ever been under the most
famous Pharaohs.
* The mention of a tribute, for instance, in the time of
Ramses IV. from the Lotanu.
Thebes continued to be the favourite royal residence. Here in its temple
the kings were crowned, and in its palaces they passed the greater part
of their lives, and here in its valley of sepulchres they were laid
to rest when their reigns and lives were ended. The small city of the
beginning of the XVIIIth dynasty had long encroached upon the plain, and
was now transformed into an immense town, with magnificent monuments,
and a motley population, having absorbed in its extension the villages
of Ashirû,* and Madit, and even the southern Apît, which we now call
Luxor. But their walls could still be seen, rising up in the middle of
modern constructions, a memorial of the heroic ages, when the power of
the Theban princes was trembling in the balance, and when conflicts with
the neighbouring barons or with the legitimate king were on the point of
breaking out at every moment.**
* The village of Ashirû was situated to the south of the
temple of Karnak, close to the temple of Mût. Its ruins,
containing the statues of Sokhît collected by Amenôthes III.,
extend around the remains marked X in Mariettes plan.
* These are the walls which are generally regarded as
marking the sacred enclosure of the temples: an examination
of the ruins of Thebes shows us that, during the XXth and
XXIst dynasties, brick-built houses lay against these walls
both on the inner and outer sides, so that they must have
been half hidden by buildings, as are the ancient walls of
Paris at the present day.
The inhabitants of Apît retained their walls, which coincided almost
exactly with the boundary of Nsîttauî, the great sanctuary of Amon;
Ashirû sheltered behind its ramparts the temple of Mût, while Apît-rîsît
clustered around a building consecrated by Amenôthes III. to his divine
father, the lord of Thebes. Within the boundary walls of Thebes extended
whole suburbs, more or less densely populated and prosperous, through
which ran avenues of sphinxes connecting together the three chief
boroughs of which the sovereign city was composed. On every side might
have been seen the same collections of low grey huts, separated from
each other by some muddy pool where the cattle were wont to drink
and the women to draw water; long streets lined with high houses,
irregularly shaped open spaces, bazaars, gardens, courtyards, and
shabby-looking palaces which, while presenting a plain and unadorned
exterior, contained within them the refinements of luxury and the
comforts of wealth. The population did not exceed a hundred thousand
souls,* reckoning a large proportion of foreigners attracted hither by
commerce or held as slaves.
* Letronne, after having shown that we have no authentic
ancient document giving us the population, fixes it at
200,000 souls. My estimate, which is, if anything,
exaggerated, is based on the comparison of the area of
ancient Thebes and that of such modern towns as Shit, Girgeh
and Qina, whose populations are known for the last fifty
years from the census.
[Illustration: 334.jpg MAP: THEBES IN THE XXTH DYNASTY]
The court of the Pharaoh drew to the city numerous provincials, who,
coming thither to seek their fortune, took up their abode there,
planting in the capital of Southern Egypt types from the north and
the centre of the country, as well as from Nubia and the Oases; such a
continuous infusion of foreign material into the ancient Theban stock
gave rise to families of a highly mixed character, in which all the
various races of Egypt were blended in the most capricious fashion. In
every twenty officers, and in the same number of ordinary officials,
about half would be either Syrians, or recently naturalised Nubians, or
the descendants of both, and among the citizens such names as Pakhari
the Syrian, Palamnanî the native of the Lebanon, Pinahsî the negro,
Palasiaî the Alasian, preserved the indications of foreign origin.*
A similar mixture of races was found in other cities, and Memphis,
Bubastis, Tanis, and Siût must have presented as striking an aspect
in this respect as Thebes.** At Memphis there were regular colonies of
Phoenician, Canaanite, and Amorite merchants sufficiently prosperous
to have temples there to their national gods, and influential enough to
gain adherents to their religion from the indigenous inhabitants. They
worshipped Baal, Anîti. Baal-Zaphuna, and Ashtoreth, side by side with
Phtah, Nofîrtûmû, and Sokhit,*** and this condition of things at Memphis
was possibly paralleled elsewhere--as at Tanis and Bubastis.
* Among the forty-three individuals compromised in the
conspiracy against Ramses III. whose names have been
examined by Dévéria, nine are foreigners, chiefly Semites,
and were so recognised by the Egyptians themselves--Adiram,
Balmahara, Garapusa, lunîni the Libyan, Paiarisalama,
possibly the Jerusalemite, Nanaiu, possibly the Ninevite,
Palulca the Lycian, Qadendena, and Uarana or Naramu.
** An examination of the stelæ of Abydos shows the extent of
foreign influence in this city in the middle of the
XVIIIth dynasty.
*** These gods are mentioned in the preamble of a letter
written on the _verso_ of the _Sallier Papyrus_. From the
mode in which they are introduced we may rightly infer that
they had, like the Egyptian gods who are mentioned with
them, their chapels at Memphis. A place in Memphis is called
the district called the district of the Khâtiû is an
inscription of the IIIth year of Aï, and shows that Hittites
were there by the side of Canaanites.
This blending of races was probably not so extensive in the country
districts, except in places where mercenaries were employed as
garrisons; but Sudanese or Hittite slaves, brought back by the soldiers
of the ranks, had introduced Ethiopian and Asiatic elements into many a
family of the fellahîn.*
* One of the letters in the Great Bologna Papyrus treats of
a Syrian slave, employed as a cultivator at Hermopolis, who
had run away from his master.
We have only to examine in any of our museums the statues of the
Memphite and Theban periods respectively, to see the contrast between
the individuals represented in them as far as regards stature and
appearance. Some members of the courts of the Ramessides stand out as
genuine Semites notwithstanding the disguise of their Egyptian names;
and in the times of Kheops and Ûsirtasen they would have been regarded
as barbarians. Many of them exhibit on their faces a blending of the
distinctive features of one or other of the predominant Oriental races
of the time. Additional evidence of a mixture of races is forthcoming
when we examine with an unbiased mind the mummies of the period, and
the complexity of the new elements introduced among the people by the
political movements of the later centuries is thus strongly confirmed.
The new-comers had all been absorbed and assimilated by the country, but
the generations which arose from this continual cross-breeding, while
representing externally the Egyptians of older epochs, in manners,
language, and religion, were at bottom something different, and
the difference became the more accentuated as the foreign elements
increased. The people were thus gradually divested of the character
which had distinguished them before the conquest of Syria; the
dispositions and defects imported from without counteracted to such
an extent their own native dispositions and defects that all marks of
individuality were effaced and nullified. The race tended to become more
and more what it long continued to be afterwards,--a lifeless and inert
mass, without individual energy--endowed, it is true, with patience,
endurance, cheerfulness of temperament, and good nature, but with little
power of self-government, and thus forced to submit to foreign masters
who made use of it and oppressed it without pity.
The upper classes had degenerated as much as the masses. The feudal
nobles who had expelled the Shepherds, and carried the frontiers of
the empire to the banks of the Euphrates, seemed to have expended their
energies in the effort, and to have almost ceased to exist. As long as
Egypt was restricted to the Nile valley, there was no such disproportion
between the power of the Pharaoh and that of his feudatories as to
prevent the latter from maintaining their privileges beside, and, when
occasion arose, even against the monarch. The conquest of Asia, while it
compelled them either to take up arms themselves or to send their
troops to a distance, accustomed them and their soldiers to a passive
obedience. The maintenance of a strict discipline in the army was the
first condition of successful campaigning at great distances from the
mother country and in the midst of hostile people, and the unquestioning
respect which they had to pay to the orders of their general prepared
them for abject submission to the will of their sovereign. To their
bravery, moveover, they owed not only money and slaves, but also
necklaces and bracelets of honour, and distinctions and offices in
the Pharaonic administration. The king, in addition, neglected no
opportunity for securing their devotion to himself. He gave to them
in marriage his sisters, his daughters, his cousins, and any of the
princesses whom he was not compelled by law to make his own wives. He
selected from their harems nursing-mothers for his own sons, and this
choice established between him and them a foster relationship, which
was as binding among the Egyptians and other Oriental peoples as one of
blood. It was not even necessary for the establishment of this relation
that the foster-mothers connexion with the Pharaohs son should be
durable or even effective: the woman had only to offer her breast to
the child for a moment, and this symbol was quite enough to make her his
nurse--his true _monâît_. This fictitious fosterage was carried so far,
that it was even made use of in the case of youths and persons of mature
age. When an Egyptian woman wished to adopt an adult, the law prescribed
that she should offer him the breast, and from that moment he became her
son. A similar ceremony was prescribed in the case of men who wished to
assume the quality of male nurse--_monâî_--or even, indeed, of female
nurse--_monâît_--like that of their wives; according to which they were
to place, it would seem, the end of one of their fingers in the mouth
of the child.* Once this affinity was established, the fidelity of these
feudal lords was established beyond question; and their official duties
to the sovereign were not considered as accomplished when they had
fulfilled their military obligations, for they continued to serve him in
the palace as they had served him on the field. Wherever the necessities
of the government called them--at Memphis, at Ramses, or elsewhere--they
assembled around the Pharaoh; like him they had their palaces at Thebes,
and when they died they were anxious to be buried there beside him.**
* These symbolical modes of adoption were first pointed out
by Maspero. Legend has given examples of them: as, for
instance, where Isis fosters the child of Malkander, King of
Byblos, by inserting the tip of her finger in its mouth.
** The tomb of a prince of Tobûî, the lesser Aphroditopolis,
was discovered at Thebes by Maspero. The rock-out tombs of
two Thinite princes were noted in the same necropolis. These
two were of the time of Thûtmosis III. I have remarked in
tombs not yet made public the mention of princes of El-Kab,
who played an important part about the person of the
Pharaohs down to the beginning of the XXth dynasty.
Many of the old houses had become extinct, while others, owing to
marriages, were absorbed into the royal family; the fiefs conceded to
the relations or favourites of the Pharaoh continued to exist, indeed,
as of old, but the ancient distrustful and turbulent feudality had given
place to an aristocracy of courtiers, who lived oftener in attendance on
the monarch than on their own estates, and whose authority continued to
diminish to the profit of the absolute rule of the king. There would
be nothing astonishing in the count becoming nothing more than a
governor, hereditary or otherwise, in Thebes itself; he could hardly be
anything higher in the capital of the empire.* But the same restriction
of authority was evidenced in all the provinces: the recruiting of
soldiers, the receipt of taxes, most of the offices associated with the
civil or military administration, became more and more affairs of the
State, and passed from the hands of the feudal lord into those of the
functionaries of the Crown. The few barons who still lived on their
estates, while they were thus dispossessed of the greater part of their
prerogatives, obtained some compensation, on the other hand, on the side
of religion. From early times they had been by birth the heads of the
local cults, and their protocol had contained, together with those
titles which justified their possession of the temporalities of the
nome, others which attributed to them spiritual supremacy. The sacred
character with which they were invested became more and more prominent
in proportion as their political influence became curtailed, and we find
scions of the old warlike families or representatives of a new lineage
at Thinis, at Akhmîm,** in the nome of Baalû, at Hierâconpolis,***
at El-Kab,**** and in every place where we have information from the
monuments as to their position, bestowing more concern upon their
sacerdotal than on their other duties.
* Rakhmirî and his son Manakhpirsonbû were both counts of
Thebes under Thûtmosis III., and there is nothing to show
that there was any other person among them invested with the
same functions and belonging to a different family.
** For example, the tomb of Anhûrimôsû, high priest of
Anhuri-Shû and prince of Thinis, under Mînephtah, where the
sacerdotal character is almost exclusively prominent. The
same is the case with the tombs of the princes of Akhmîm in
the time of Khûniatonû and his successors: the few still
existing in 1884-5 have not been published. The stelæ
belonging to them are at Paris and Berlin.
*** Horimôsû, Prince of Hierâconpolis under Thûtmosis III.,
is, above everything else, a prophet of the local Horus.
**** The princes of El-Kab during the XIXth and XXth
dynasties were, before everything, priests of Nekhabit, as
appears from an examination of their tombs, which, lying in
a side valley, far away from the tomb of Pihirî, are rarely
visited.
This transfiguration of the functions of the barons, which had been
completed under the XIXth and XXth dynasties, corresponded with a
more general movement by which the Pharaohs themselves were driven to
accentuate their official position as high priests, and to assign to
their sons sacerdotal functions in relation to the principal deities.
This rekindling of religious fervour would not, doubtless, have
restrained military zeal in case of war;* but if it did not tend to
suppress entirely individual bravery, it discouraged the taste for arms
and for the bold adventures which had characterised the old feudality.
* The sons of Ramses II., Khâmoîsît and Marîtùmû, were bravo
warriors in spite of their being high priests of Phtah at
Memphis, and of Râ at Heliopolis.
The duties of sacrificing, of offering prayer, of celebrating the sacred
rites according to the prescribed forms, and rendering due homage to the
gods in the manner they demanded, were of such an exactingly scrupulous
and complex character that the Pharaohs and the lords of earlier times
had to assign them to men specially fitted for, and appointed to, the
task; now that they had assumed these absorbing functions themselves,
they were obliged to delegate to others an increasingly greater
proportion of their civil and military duties. Thus, while the king
and his great vassals were devoutly occupying themselves in matters of
worship and theology, generals by profession were relieving them of
the care of commanding their armies; and as these individuals were
frequently the chiefs of Ethiopian, Asiatic, and especially of Libyan
bands, military authority, and, with it, predominant influence in the
State were quickly passing into the hands of the barbarians. A sort of
aristocracy of veterans, notably of Shardana or Mashauasha, entirely
devoted to arms, grew up and increased gradually side by side with the
ancient noble families, now by preference devoted to the priesthood.*
* This military aristocracy was fully developed in the XXIst
and XXIInd dynasties, but it began to take shape after
Ramses III. had planted the Shardana and Qahaka in certain
towns as garrisons.
The barons, whether of ancient or modern lineage, were possessed of
immense wealth, especially those of priestly families. The tribute and
spoil of Asia and Africa, when once it had reached Egypt, hardly ever
left it: they were distributed among the population in proportion to the
position occupied by the recipients in the social scale. The commanders
of the troops, the attendants on the king, the administrators of the
palace and temples, absorbed the greater part, but the distribution
was carried down to the private soldier and his relations in town or
country, who received some of the crumbs. When we remember for a moment
the four centuries and more during which Egypt had been reaping the
fruits of her foreign conquest, we cannot think without amazement of
the quantities of gold and other precious metals which must have been
brought in divers forms into the valley of the Nile.* Every fresh
expedition made additions to these riches, and one is at a loss to know
whence in the intervals between two defeats the conquered could procure
so much wealth, and why the sources were never exhausted nor became
impoverished. This flow of metals had an influence upon commercial
transactions, for although trade was still mainly carried on by barter,
the mode of operation was becoming changed appreciably. In exchanging
commodities, frequent use was now made of rings and ingots of a certain
prescribed weight in _tabonû_; and it became more and more the custom
to pay for goods by a certain number of _tabonû_ of gold, silver, or
copper, rather than by other commodities: it was the practice even
to note down in invoices or in the official receipts, alongside the
products or manufactured articles with which payments were made, the
value of the same in weighed metal.**
* The quantity of gold in ingots or rings, mentioned in the
_Annals of Tkutmosis III._, represents altogether a weight
of nearly a ton and a quarter, or in value some £140,000 of
our money. And this is far from being the whole of the metal
obtained from the enemy, for a large portion of the
inscription has disappeared, and the unrecorded amount might
be taken, without much risk of error, at as much as that of
which we have evidence--say, some two and a half tons,
which Thûtmosis had received or brought back between the
years XXIII. and XLII. of his reign--an estimation rather
under than over the reality. These figures, moreover, take
no account of the vessels and statues, or of the furniture
and arms plated with gold. Silver was not received in such
large quantities, but it was of great value, and the like
may be said of copper and lead.
* The facts justifying this position were observed and put
together for the first time by Chabas: a translation is
given in his memoir of a register of the XXth or XXIst
dynasty, which gives the price of butchers meat, both in
gold and silver, at this date. Fresh examples have been
since collected by Spiegelberg, who has succeeded in drawing
up a kind of tariff for the period between the XVIIIth and
XXth dynasties.
This custom, although not yet widely extended, placed at the disposal
of trade enormous masses of metal, which were preserved in the form of
ingots or bricks, except the portion which went to the manufacture of
rings, jewellery, or valuable vessels.*
* There are depicted on the monuments bags or heaps of gold
dust, ingots in the shape of bricks, rings, and vases,
arranged alongside each other.
The general prosperity encouraged a passion for goldsmiths work, and
the use of bracelets, necklaces, and chains became common among classes
of the people who were not previously accustomed to wear them. There was
henceforward no scribe or merchant, however poor he might be, who had
not his seal made of gold or silver, or at any rate of copper gilt. The
stone was sometimes fixed, but frequently arranged so as to turn round
on a pivot; while among people of superior rank it had some emblem
or device upon it, such as a scorpion, a sparrow-hawk, a lion, or
a cynocephalous monkey. Chains occupied the same position among the
ornaments of Egyptian women as rings among men; they were indispensable
decorations. Examples of silver chains are known of some five feet
in length, while others do not exceed two to three inches. There are
specimens in gold of all sizes, single, double, and triple, with large
or small links, some thick and heavy, while others are as slight and
flexible as the finest Venetian lace. The poorest peasant woman, alike
with the lady of the court, could boast of the possession of a chain,
and she must have been in dire poverty who had not some other ornament
in her jewel-case. The jewellery of Queen Âhhotpû shows to what degree
of excellence the work of the Egyptian goldsmiths had attained at the
time of the expulsion of the Nyksôs: they had not only preserved the
good traditions of the best workmen of the XIIth dynasty, but they had
perfected the technical details, and had learned to combine form and
colour with a greater skill. The pectorals of Prince Khâmoîsît and the
Lord Psaru,now in the Louvre, but which were originally placed in the
tomb of the Apis in the time of Ramses II., are splendid examples.
[Illustration: 345.jpg PECTORAL OF RAMSES II.]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the jewel in the Louvre.
The most common form of these represents in miniature the front of a
temple with a moulded or flat border, surmounted by a curved cornice.
In one of them, which was doubtless a present from the king himself, the
cartouche, containing the first name of the Pharaoh-Usirmari, appears
just below the frieze, and serves as a centre for the design within the
frame. The wings of the ram-headed sparrow-hawk, the emblem of Amonrâ,
are so displayed as to support it, while a large urseus and a vulture
beneath embracing both the sparrow-hawk and the cartouche with outspread
wings give the idea of divine protection. Two _didû_, each of them
filling one of the lower corners, symbolise duration. The framework of
the design is made up of divisions marked out in gold, and filled either
with coloured enamels or pieces of polished stone. The general effect is
one of elegance, refinement, and harmony, the three principal elements
of the design becoming enlarged from the top downwards in a deftly
adjusted gradation. The dead-gold of the cartouche in the upper centre
is set off below by the brightly variegated and slightly undulating band
of colours of the sparrow-hawk, while the urseus and vulture, associated
together with one pair of wings, envelope the upper portions in a
half-circle of enamels, of which the shades pass from red through
green to a dull blue, with a freedom of handling and a skill in the
manipulation of colour which do honour to the artist. It was not his
fault if there is still an element of stiffness in the appearance of the
pectoral as a whole, for the form which religious tradition had imposed
upon the jewel was so rigid that no artifice could completely get over
this defect. It is a type which arose out of the same mental concepts
as had given birth to Egyptian architecture and sculpture--monumental in
character, and appearing often as if designed for colossal rather than
ordinary beings. The dimensions, too overpowering for the decoration of
normal men or women, would find an appropriate place only on the breasts
of gigantic statues: the enormous size of the stone figures to which
alone they are adapted would relieve them, and show them in their proper
proportions. The artists of the second Theban empire tried all they
could, however, to get rid of the square framework in which the sacred
bird is enclosed, and we find examples among the pectorals in the Louvre
of the sparrow-hawk only with curved wings, or of the ram-headed hawk
with the wings extended; but in both of them there is displayed the same
brilliancy, the same purity of line, as in the square-shaped jewels,
while the design, freed from the trammels of the hampering enamelled
frame, takes on a more graceful form, and becomes more suitable for
personal decoration.
[Illustration: 347.jpg THE RAM-HEADED SPARROW-HAWK IN THE LOUVRE]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a jewel in the Louvre.
The rams head in the second case excels in the beauty of its
workmanship anything to be found elsewhere in the museums of Europe or
Egypt. It is of the finest gold, but its value does not depend upon the
precious material: the ancient engraver knew how to model it with a bold
and free hand, and he has managed to invest it with as much dignity
as if he had been carving his subject in heroic size out of a block of
granite or limestone. It is not an example of pure industrial art, but
of an art for which a designation is lacking. Other examples, although
more carefully executed and of more costly materials, do not approach it
in value: such, for instance, are the earrings of Ramses XII. at
Gîzeh, which are made up of an ostentatious combination of disks,
filigree-work, chains, beads, and hanging figures of the urseus.
To get an idea of the character of the plate on the royal sideboards, we
must have recourse to the sculptures in the temples, or to the paintings
on the tombs: the engraved gold or silver centrepieces, dishes, bowls,
cups, and amphoras, if valued by weight only, were too precious to
escape the avarice of the impoverished generations which followed the
era of Theban prosperity. In the fabrication of these we can trace
foreign influences, but not to the extent of a predominance over native
art: even if the subject to be dealt with by the artist happened to be a
Phoenician god or an Asiatic prisoner, he was not content with slavishly
copying his model; he translated it and interpreted it, so as to give it
an Egyptian character.
The household furniture was in keeping with these precious objects.
Beds and armchairs in valuable woods, inlaid with ivory, carved, gilt,
painted in subdued and bright colours, upholstered with mattresses
and cushions of many-hued Asiatic stuffs, or of home-made materials,
fashioned after Chaldæan patterns, were in use among the well-to-do,
while people of moderate means had to be content with old-fashioned
furniture of the ancient regime.
[Illustration: 348.jpg DECORATED ARMCHAIR]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of these objects in the
tomb of Ramses III.
The Theban dwelling-house was indeed more sumptuously furnished than the
earliest Memphite, but we find the same general arrangements in both,
which provided, in addition to quarters for the masters, a similar
number of rooms intended for the slaves, for granaries, storehouses, and
stables. While the outward decoration of life was subject to change,
the inward element remained unaltered. Costume was a more complex
matter than in former times: the dresses and lower garments were more
gauffered, had more embroidery and stripes; the wigs were larger and
longer, and rose up in capricious arrangements of curls and plaits.
[Illustration: 349.jpg EGYPTIAN WIG]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by M. de Mertens.
The use of the chariot had now become a matter of daily custom, and
the number of domestics, already formidable, was increased by fresh
additions in the shape of coachmen, grooms, and _saises_, who ran before
their master to clear a way for the horses through the crowded streets
of the city.*
* The pictures at Tel el-Amarna exhibit the king, queen, and
princesses driving in their chariots with escorts of
soldiers and runners. We often find in the tomb-paintings
the chariot and coachman of some dignitary, waiting while
their master inspects a field or a workshop, or while he is
making a visit to the palace for some reward.
As material, existence became more complex, intellectual life partook of
the same movement, and, without deviating much from the lines prescribed
for it by the learned and the scribes of the Memphite age, literature
had become in the mean time larger, more complicated, more exacting,
and more difficult to grapple with and to master. It had its classical
authors, whose writings were committed to memory and taught in the
schools. These were truly masterpieces, for if some felt that they
understood and enjoyed them, others found them almost beyond their
comprehension, and complained bitterly of their obscurity. The later
writers followed them pretty closely, in taking pains, on the one hand
to express fresh ideas in the forms consecrated by approved and ancient
usage, or when they failed to find adequate vehicles to convey new
thoughts, resorting in their lack of imagination to the foreigner for the
requisite expressions. The necessity of knowing at least superficially,
something of the dialect and writings of Asia compelled the Egyptian
scribes to study to some degree the literature of Phonecia and of
Chaldæa.
[Illustration: 350.jpg Page Image with Furniture]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from photographs of the objects in
the Museums of Berlin and Gîzeh.
From these sources they had borrowed certain formulae and incantation,
medical recipes, and devout legends, in which the deities of Assyria
and especially Astartê played the chief part. They appropriated in
this manner a certain number of words and phrases with which they were
accustomed to interlard their discourses and writings. They thought it
polite to call a door no longer by the word _ro_, but the term _tira_,
and to accompany themselves no longer with the harp _bordt_, but with
the same instrument under its new name _kinnôr_, and to make the _salâm_
in saluting the sovereign in place of crying before him, _aaû_. They
were thorough-going Semiticisers; but one is less offended by their
affectation when one considers that the number of captives in the
country, and the intermarriages with Canaanite women, had familiarised a
portion of the community from childhood with the sounds and ideas of the
languages from which the scribes were accustomed to borrow unblushingly.
This artifice, if it served to infuse an appearance of originality into
their writings, had no influence upon their method of composition. Their
poetical ideal remained what it had been in the time of their ancestors,
but seeing that we are now unable to determine the characteristic
cadence of sentences or the mental attitude which marked each generation
of literary men, it is often difficult for us to find out the qualities
in their writings which gave them popularity. A complete library of one
of the learned in the Ramesside period must have contained a strange
mixture of works, embracing, in addition to books of devotion, which
were indispensable to those who were solicitous about their souls,*
collections of hymns, romances, war and love songs, moral and
philosophical treatises, letters, and legal documents.
* There are found in the rubrics of many religious books,
for example that dealing with the unseen world, promises of
health and prosperity to the soul which, while still on
earth, had read and learned them. A similar formula appears
at the end of several important chapters of the _Book of the
Dead._
It would have been similar in character to the literary-possessions of
an Egyptian of the Memphite period,* but the language in which it was
written would not have been so stiff and dry, but would have flowed more
easily, and been more sustained and better balanced.
* The composition of these libraries may be gathered from
the collections of papyri which have turned up from time to
time, and have been sold by the Arabs to Europeans buyers;
e.g. the Sallier Collection, the Anastasi Collections, and
that of Harris. They have found their way eventually into
the British Museum or the Museum at Leyden, and have been
published in the _Select Papyri_ of the former, or in the
_Monuments Égyptiens_ of the latter.
The great odes to the deities which we find in the Theban _papyri_ are
better fitted, perhaps, than the profane compositions of the period,
to give us an idea of the advance which Egyptian genius had made in the
width and richness of its modes of expression, while still maintaining
almost the same dead-level of idea which had characterised it from the
outset. Among these, one dedicated to Harmakhis, the sovereign sun, is
no longer restricted to a bare enumeration of the acts and virtues of
the Disk, but ventures to treat of his daily course and his final
triumphs in terms which might have been used in describing the
victorious campaigns or the apotheosis of a Pharaoh. It begins with his
awakening, at the moment when he has torn himself away from the embraces
of night. Standing upright in the cabin of the divine bark, the fair
boat of millions of years, with the coils of the serpent Mihni around
him, he glides in silence on the eternal current of the celestial
waters, guided and protected by those battalions of secondary deities
with whose odd forms the monuments have made us familiar. Heaven is
in delight, the earth is in joy, gods and men are making festival, to
render glory to Phrâ-Harmakhis, when they see him arise in his bark,
having overturned his enemies in his own time! They accompany him from
hour to hour, they fight the good fight with him against Apopi, they
shout aloud as he inflicts each fresh wound upon the monster: they
do not even abandon him when the west has swallowed him up in its
darkness.* Some parts of the hymn remind us, in the definiteness of
the imagery and in the abundance of detail, of a portion of the poem
of Pentaûîrît, or one of those inscriptions of Ramses III. wherein he
celebrates the defeat of hordes of Asiatics or Libyans.
* The remains of Egyptian romantic literature have been
collected and translated into French by Maspero, and
subsequently into English by Flinders Petrie.
The Egyptians took a delight in listening to stories. They preferred
tales which dealt with the marvellous and excited their imagination,
introducing speaking animals, gods in disguise, ghosts and magic. One
of them tells of a king who was distressed because he had no heir, and
had no sooner obtained the favour he desired from the gods, than the
Seven Hathors, the mistresses of Fate, destroyed his happiness by
predicting that the child would meet with his death by a serpent, a dog,
or a crocodile. Efforts were made to provide against such a fatality by
shutting him up in a tower; but no sooner had he grown to mans estate,
than he procured himself a dog, went off to wander through the world,
and married the daughter of the Prince of Naharaim. His fate meets him
first under the form of a serpent, which is killed by his wife; he is
next assailed by a crocodile, and the dog kills the crocodile, but as
the oracles must be fulfilled, the brute turns and despatches his master
without further consideration. Another story describes two brothers,
Anûpû and Bitiû, who live happily together on their farm till the wife
of the elder falls in love with the younger, and on his repulsing her
advances, she accuses him to her husband of having offered her violence.
The virtue of the younger brother would not have availed him much,
had not his animals warned him of danger, and had not Phrâ-Harmakhis
surrounded him at the critical moment with a stream teeming with
crocodiles. He mutilates himself to prove his innocence, and announces
that henceforth he will lead a mysterious existence far from mankind; he
will retire to the Valley of the Acacia, place his heart on the topmost
flower of the tree, and no one will be able with impunity to steal it
from him. The gods, however, who frequent this earth take pity on his
loneliness, and create for him a wife of such beauty that the Nile falls
in love with her, and steals a lock of her hair, which is carried by its
waters down into Egypt. Pharaoh finds the lock, and, intoxicated by
its scent, commands his people to go in quest of the owner. Having
discovered the lady, Pharaoh marries her, and ascertaining from her
who she is, he sends men to cut down the Acacia, but no sooner has the
flower touched the earth, than Bitiû droops and dies. The elder brother
is made immediately acquainted with the fact by means of various
prodigies. The wine poured out to him becomes troubled, his beer leaves
a deposit. He seizes his shoes and staff and sets out to find the heart.
After a search of seven years he discovers it, and reviving it in a vase
of water, he puts it into the mouth of the corpse, which at once returns
to life. Bitiû, from this moment, seeks only to be revenged. He changes
himself into the bull Apis, and, on being led to court, he reproaches
the queen with the crime she has committed against him. The queen causes
his throat to be cut; two drops of his blood fall in front of the gate
of the palace, and produce in the night two splendid Persea trees,
which renew the accusation in a loud voice. The queen has them cut down,
but a chip from one of them flies into her mouth, and ere long she gives
birth to a child who is none other than a reincarnation of Bitiû. When
the child succeeds to the Pharaoh, he assembles his council, reveals
himself to them, and punishes with death her who was first his wife
and subsequently his mother. The hero moves throughout the tale without
exhibiting any surprise at the strange incidents in which he takes
part, and, as a matter of fact, they did not seriously outrage the
probabilities of contemporary life. In every town sorcerers could be
found who knew how to transform themselves into animals or raise
the dead to life: we have seen how the accomplices of Pentaûîrît had
recourse to spells in order to gain admission to the royal palace when
they desired to rid themselves of Ramses III. The most extravagant
romances differed from real life merely in collecting within a dozen
pages more miracles than were customarily supposed to take place in the
same number of years; it was merely the multiplicity of events, and
not the events themselves, that gave to the narrative its romantic and
improbable character. The rank of the heroes alone raised the tale
out of the region of ordinary life; they are always the sons of kings,
Syrian princes, or Pharaohs; sometimes we come across a vague and
undefined Pharaoh, who figures under the title of Pîrûîâûi or Prûîti,
but more often it is a well-known and illustrious Pharaoh who is
mentioned by name. It is related how, one day, Kheops, suffering from
_ennui_ within his palace, assembled his sons in the hope of learning
from them something which he did not already know. They described to him
one after another the prodigies performed by celebrated magicians under
Kanibri and Snofrûi; and at length Mykerinos assured him that there
was a certain Didi, living then not far from Meîdum, who was capable of
repeating all the marvels done by former wizards. Most of the Egyptian
sovereigns were, in the same way, subjects of more or less wonderful
legends--Sesostris, Amenôthes III., Thûfcmosis III., Amenemhâît I.,
Khîti, Sahûrî, Usirkaf, and Kakiû. These stories were put into literary
shape by the learned, recited by public story-tellers, and received by
the people as authentic history; they finally filtered into the writings
of the chroniclers, who, in introducing them into the annals, filled
up with their extraordinary details the lacunæ of authentic tradition.
Sometimes the narrative assumed a briefer form, and became an apologue.
In one of them the members of the body were supposed to have combined
against the head, and disputed its supremacy before a jury; the parties
all pleaded their cause in turn, and judgment was given in due form.*
* This version of the _Fable of the Members and the Stomach_
was discovered upon a schoolboys tablet at Turin.
Animals also had their place in this universal comedy. The passions or
the weaknesses of humanity were attributed to them, and the narrator
makes the lion, rat, or jackal to utter sentiments from which he draws
some short practical moral. La Fontaine had predecessors on the banks of
the Nile of whose existence he little dreamed.
[Illustration: 357.jpg THE CAT AND THE JACKAL GO OFF TO THE FIELDS WITH
THEIR FLOCKS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lepsius.
As La Fontaine found an illustrator in Granville, so, too, in Egypt
the draughtsman brought his reed to the aid of the fabulist, and by his
cleverly executed sketches gave greater point to the sarcasm of story
than mere words could have conveyed. Where the author had briefly
mentioned that the jackal and the cat had cunningly forced their
services on the animals whom they wished to devour at their leisure, the
artist would depict the jackal and the cat equipped as peasants, with
wallets on their backs, and sticks over their shoulders, marching behind
a troup of gazelles or a flock of fat geese: it was easy to foretell the
fate of their unfortunate charges. Elsewhere it is an ox who brings
up before his master a cat who has cheated him, and his proverbial
stupidity would incline us to think that he will end by being punished
himself for the misdeeds of which he had accused the other. Pusss sly
and artful expression, the ass-headed and important-looking judge, with
the wand and costume of a high and mighty dignitary, give pungency to
the story, and recall the daily scenes at the judgment-seat of the lord
of Thebes. In another place we see a donkey, a lion, a crocodile, and a
monkey giving an instrumental and vocal concert.
[Illustration: 358.jpg THE CAT BEFORE ITS JUDGE]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lepsius.
A lion and a gazelle play a game of chess. A cat of fashion, with a
flower in her hair, has a disagreement with a goose: they have come to
blows, and the excitable puss, who fears she will come off worst in the
struggle, falls backwards in a fright. The draughtsmen having once found
vent for their satire, stopped at nothing, and even royalty itself did
not escape their attacks. While the writers of the day made fun of the
military calling, both in prose and verse, the caricaturists parodied
the combats and triumphal scenes of the Ramses or Thutmosis of the
day depicted on the walls of the pylons. The Pharaoh of all the rats,
perched upon a chariot drawn by dogs, bravely charges an army of cats;
standing in the heroic attitude of a conqueror, he pierces them with
his darts, while his horses tread the fallen underfoot; his legions
meanwhile in advance of him attack a fort defended by tomcats, with the
same ardour that the Egyptian battalions would display in assaulting a
Syrian stronghold.
[Illustration: 359.jpg A CONCERT OF ANIMALS DEVOTED TO MUSIC]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lepsius.
This treatment of ethics did not prevent the Egyptian writers from
giving way to their natural inclinations, and composing large volumes
on this subject after the manner of Kaqîmni or Phtahhotpû. One of their
books, in which the aged Ani inscribes his Instructions to his son,
Khonshotpû, is compiled in the form of a dialogue, and contains the
usual commonplaces upon virtue, temperance, piety, the respect due to
parents from children, or to the great ones of this world from
their inferiors. The language in which it is written is ingenious,
picturesque, and at times eloquent; the work explains much that is
obscure in Egyptian life, and upon which the monuments have thrown no
light. Beware of the woman who goes out surreptitiously in her town, do
not follow her or any like her, do not expose thyself to the experience
of what it costs a man to face an Ocean of which the bounds are
unknown.* The wife whose husband is far from home sends thee letters,
and invites thee to come to her daily when she has no witnesses; if
she succeeds in entangling thee in her net, it is a crime which is
punishable by death as soon as it is known, even if no wicked act has
taken place, for men will commit every sort of crime when under this
temptation alone.
* I have been obliged to paraphrase the sentence
considerably to render it intelligible to the modern reader.
The Egyptian text says briefly: Do not know the man who
braves the water of the Ocean whose bounds are unknown._To
know the man_ means here _know the state of the man_ who
does an action.
Be not quarrelsome in breweries, for fear that thou mayest be denounced
forthwith for words which have proceeded from thy mouth, and of having
spoken that of which thou art no longer conscious. Thou fallest,
thy members helpless, and no one holds out a hand to thee, but thy
boon-companions around thee say: Away with the drunkard! Thou art
wanted for some business, and thou art found rolling on the ground like
an infant. In speaking of what a man owes to his mother, Ani waxes
eloquent: When she bore thee as all have to bear, she had in thee a
heavy burden without being able to call on thee to share it. When thou
wert born, after thy months were fulfilled, she placed herself under a
yoke in earnest, her breast was in thy mouth for three years; in spite
of the increasing dirtiness of thy habits, her heart felt no disgust,
and she never said: What is that I do here? When thou didst go to
school to be instructed in writing, she followed thee every day with
bread and beer from thy house. Now thou art a full-grown man, thou hast
taken a wife, thou hast provided thyself with a house; bear always in
mind the pains of thy birth and the care for thy education that thy
mother lavished on thee, that her anger may not rise up against thee,
and that she lift not her hands to God, for he will hear her complaint!
The whole of the book does not rise to this level, but we find in it
several maxims which appear to be popular proverbs, as for instance: He
who hates idleness will come without being called; A good walker comes
to his journeys end without needing to hasten; or, The ox which
goes at the head of the flock and leads the others to pasture is but an
animal like his fellows. Towards the end, the son Khonshotpû, weary of
such a lengthy exhortation to wisdom, interrupts his father roughly:
Do not everlastingly speak of thy merits, I have heard enough of thy
deeds; whereupon Ani resignedly restrains himself from further speech,
and a final parable gives us the motive of his resignation: This is the
likeness of the man who knows the strength of his arm. The nursling who
is in the arms of his mother cares only for being suckled; but no sooner
has he found his mouth than he cries: Give me bread!
It is, perhaps, difficult for us to imagine an Egyptian in love
repeating madrigals to his mistress,* for we cannot easily realise that
the hard and blackened bodies we see in our museums have once been men
and women loving and beloved in their own day.
* The remains of Egyptian amatory literature have been
collected, translated, and commentated on by Maspero. They
have been preserved in two papyri, one of which is at Turin,
the other in the British Museum. The first of these appears
to be a sort of dialogue in which the trees of a garden
boast one after another of the beauty of a woman, and
discourse of the love-scenes which took place under their
shadow.
The feeling which they entertained one for another had none of the
reticence or delicacy of our love: they went straight to the point, and
the language in which, they expressed themselves is sometimes too coarse
for our taste. The manners and customs of daily life among the Egyptians
tended to blunt in them the feelings of modesty and refinement to which
our civilization has accustomed us. Their children went about without
clothes, or, at any rate, wore none until the age of puberty. Owing to
the climate, both men and women left the upper part of the body more or
less uncovered, or wore fabrics of a transparent nature. In the towns,
the servants who moved about their masters or his guests had merely
a narrow loin-cloth tied round their hips; while in the country, the
peasants dispensed with even this covering, and the women tucked up
their garments when at work so as to move more freely. The religious
teaching and the ceremonies connected with their worship drew the
attention of the faithful to the unveiled human form of their gods, and
the hieroglyphs themselves contained pictures which shock our sense of
propriety. Hence it came about that the young girl who was demanded in
marriage had no idea, like the maiden of to-day, of the vague delights
of an ideal union. The physical side was impressed upon her mind,
and she was well aware of the full meaning of her consent. Her lover,
separated from her by her disapproving parents, thus expresses the grief
which overwhelms him: I desire to lie down in my chamber,--for I am
sick on thy account,--and the neighbours come to visit me.--Ah! if my
sister but came with them,--she would show the physicians what ailed
me,--for she knows my sickness! Even while he thus complains, he sees
her in his imagination, and his spirit visits the places she frequents:
The villa of my sister,--(a pool is before the house),--the door opens
suddenly,--and my sister passes out in wrath.--Ah! why am I not the
porter,--that she might give me her orders!--I should at least hear
her voice, even were she angry,--and I, like a little boy, full of fear
before her! Meantime the young girl sighs in vain for her brother, the
beloved of her heart, and all that charmed her before has now ceased to
please her. I went to prepare my snare, my cage and the covert for
my trap--for all the birds of Puânît alight upon Egypt, redolent with
perfume;--he who flies foremost of the flock is attracted by my worm,
bringing odours from Puânît,--its claws full of incense.--But my heart
is with thee, and desires that we should trap them together,--I with
thee, alone, and that thou shouldest be able to hear the sad cry of
my perfumed bird,--there near to me, close to me, I will make ready
my trap,--O my beautiful friend, thou who goest to the field of the
well-beloved! The latter, however, is slow to appear, the day passes
away, the evening comes on: The cry of the goose resounds--which is
caught by the worm-bait,--but thy love removes me far from the bird, and
I am unable to deliver myself from it; I will carry off my net, and what
shall I say to my mother,--when I shall have returned to her?--Every day
I come back laden with spoil,--but to-day I have not been able to set
my trap,--for thy love makes me its prisoner! The goose flies away,
alights,--it has greeted the barns with its cry;--the flock of birds
increases on the river, but I leave them alone and think only of thy
love,--for my heart is bound to thy heart--and I cannot tear myself
away from thy beauty. Her mother probably gave her a scolding, but she
hardly minds it, and in the retirement of her chamber never wearies
of thinking of her brother, and of passionately crying for him: O my
beautiful friend! I yearn to be with thee as thy wife--and that thou
shouldest go whither thou wishest with thine arm upon my arm,--for then
I will repeat to my heart, which is in thy breast, my supplications.--If
my great brother does not come to-night,--I am as those who lie in the
tomb--for thou, art thou not health and life,--he who transfers the joys
of thy health to my heart which seeks thee? The hours pass away and
he does not come, and already the voice of the turtle-dove speaks,--it
says: Behold, the dawn is here, alas! what is to become of me? Thou,
thou art the bird, thou callest me,--and I find my brother in his
chamber,--and my heart is rejoiced to see him!--I will never go away
again, my hand will remain in thy hand,--and when I wander forth, I will
go with thee into the most beautiful places,--happy in that he makes me
the foremost of women--and that he does not break my heart. We should
like to quote the whole of it, but the text is mutilated, and we are
unable to fill in the blanks. It is, nevertheless, one of those products
of the Egyptian mind which it would have been easy for us to appreciate
from beginning to end, without effort and almost without explanation.
The passion in it finds expression in such sincere and simple language
as to render rhetorical ornament needless, and one can trace in it,
therefore, nothing of the artificial colouring which would limit it to
a particular place or time. It translates a universal sentiment into the
common language of humanity, and the hieroglyphic groups need only to be
put into the corresponding words of any modern tongue to bring home
to the reader their full force and intensity. We might compare it with
those popular songs which are now being collected in our provinces
before the peasantry have forgotten them altogether: the artlessness of
some of the expressions, the boldness of the imagery, the awkwardness
and somewhat abrupt character of some of the passages, communicate to
both that wild charm which we miss in the most perfect specimens of our
modern love-poets.
END OF VOL. V.