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diff --git a/75684-0.txt b/75684-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5738f66 --- /dev/null +++ b/75684-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6821 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75684 *** + + + + + +[Illustration: 1. PORTRAIT STATUE OF THOTHMES III, CAIRO MUSEUM.] + + + + + A + Century of Excavation + in the + Land of the Pharaohs + + + BY + JAMES BAIKIE, F.R.A.S. + + AUTHOR OF “WONDER TALES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD,” + “LANDS AND PEOPLE OF THE BIBLE,” “THE SEA KINGS OF CRETE,” + “THE STORY OF THE PHARAOHS,” ETC. + + + ILLUSTRATED WITH 32 PLATES + SPECIALLY PREPARED FOR THIS VOLUME + + + [Illustration] + + + Fleming H. Revell Company + NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO + + + + + PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN + BY + WILLIAM CLOWES & SONS, LIMITED, + LONDON AND BECCLES. + + + + +PREFACE + + +It is somewhat remarkable that, in spite of the considerable, if +spasmodic, interest which is taken in the results of research in Egypt, +no adequate account of the work of excavation has ever been written. +The student who wishes to learn how, when, and where the facts and +objects which interest him were discovered, has himself to excavate +the desired information from the innumerable volumes of reports issued +by the various exploration societies. It is much to be desired that +someone who is master of the subject, and preferably, someone who has +had actual experience of the work of excavation, should tell the story, +not in a manner suited only to the ears of experts, but so that the +educated public on whom in the long run excavation must depend for its +resources, could appreciate and enjoy a narrative which ought to be as +fascinating as any story of search for buried treasure. + +This volume makes no pretension to the discharge of such a task. All +that it attempts to do is to outline the story of certain aspects of +the great work which has given us back so many of the wonders of the +ancient civilisation of Egypt. Its omissions are, doubtless, many; +but two will be at once conspicuous to anyone who has the slightest +acquaintance with the subject. Nothing is said of the Search for the +Cities, which in the closing years of the nineteenth century created +so much interest, and resulted in so many identifications of sites; and +nothing is said of the great work of Papyrus-hunting which has added +so much to our knowledge of ancient life. These two matters were left +untouched for reasons which seemed valid. In the case of the Cities, +many of the identifications of the ’nineties are at present being +questioned, and it seemed better to leave the matter till something +like agreement is reached. In the case of the Papyri, the subject has +become so specialised, and has developed so large a literature of its +own as to render impossible any attempt to deal with it, on the scale +which it deserves, in such a volume as the present. + +It may be that at some time in the not far distant future, when +controversy has resulted in more or less general agreement as to the +sites, these two aspects of Egyptian excavation may be dealt with in a +volume which may be a sequel and companion to this. My indebtedness to +many authorities is manifest on almost every page of the book; but I +wish specially to acknowledge my debt to Professor Sir W. M. Flinders +Petrie, D.C.L., F.R.S., not only for the kindness which has allowed me +to use the material of several of the plates in the book (7, 9, 10), +but also for the constant inspiration and stimulus which his work has +given to me, as to so many other students of the wonderful civilisation +of Ancient Egypt. + + JAMES BAIKIE. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER I + PAGE + THE STORY OF THE PIONEERS 7 + + CHAPTER II + + MARIETTE AND HIS WORK 18 + + CHAPTER III + + THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MODERN PERIOD 35 + + CHAPTER IV + + THE PYRAMIDS AND THEIR EXPLORERS 48 + + CHAPTER V + + WORK AMONG THE TEMPLES 84 + + CHAPTER VI + + BURIED ROYALTIES 128 + + CHAPTER VII + + TUTANKHAMEN AND HIS SPLENDOURS 177 + + CHAPTER VIII + + LIFE, ARTS, AND CRAFTS IN THE LAND OF THE NILE 213 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PLATE + 1. Portrait Statue of Thothmes III, Cairo Museum _Frontispiece_ + + PAGE + 2. Wall of Chamber, Tomb of Sety I, Valley of the Kings 10 + + 3. Detail of Decoration, Tomb of Sety I 18 + + 4. Temple of Ramses III, Medinet Habu 30 + + 5. Temple of Edfu--The Pylon, and View from the Pylon 40 + + 6. Great Pyramid and Sphinx 52 + + 7. Gold Pectorals of Senusert II and III, XIIth Dynasty 72 + + 8. Diadems of Princess Khnumit, Gold work, XIIth Dynasty 80 + + 9. Hatshepsut’s Temple, Der el-Bahri. General view 88 + + 10. North Colonnade, Der el-Bahri; “Proto-Doric” Columns 92 + + 11. Reliefs, Der el-Bahri 96 + + 12. Karnak, Avenue of Sphinxes 104 + + 13. Karnak, Nave of Hypostyle Hall 112 + + 14. Karnak, Columns of the Side-Aisle, Hypostyle Hall 116 + + 15. Karnak, View from the North; Obelisks of Hatshepsut, and + Thothmes I 120 + + 16. Luxor, Forecourt of Amenhotep III 124 + + 17. Luxor, Papyrus-Bud Columns and Colossi of Ramses II 128 + + 18. Colonnade in Temple of Sety I, Abydos 136 + + 19. Bracelets of 1st Dynasty Queen, Chain and Gold Seal, VIth + Dynasty, with XIIth Dynasty Goldsmith’s Work 144 + + 20. Entrance to the Valley of the Kings, Thebes 148 + + 21. Tomb of Ramses IX, Valley of the Kings 152 + + 22. Granite Head of Tutankhamen, Cairo Museum 178 + + 23. Decoration from a Theban Tomb 184 + + 24. Decoration from a Theban Tomb: Sowing, Reaping, the Vintage 192 + + 25. Head of the Hathor-Cow, Der el-Bahri 200 + + 26. Colossus of Ramses II, Luxor 208 + + 27. Portrait-Statue of Mentuemhat, Cairo Museum 216 + + 28. Vth Dynasty Relief-Work, Tomb of Ptah-Hetep 224 + + 29. XIXth Dynasty Relief-Work, Temple of Sety I, Abydos 228 + + 30. XIXth Dynasty Relief-Work, Temple of Ramses II, Luxor 232 + + 31. XXth Dynasty Relief-Work, Temple of Ramses III, Medinet Habu 236 + + 32. Ptolemaic Relief-Work, Kom Ombos 240 + + + + + A CENTURY OF + EXCAVATION IN + THE LAND OF + THE PHARAOHS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE STORY OF THE PIONEERS + + +The story of the beginnings of research into the wonders of antiquity +in Egypt is unique in at least one point. In no other land does a +conquering army march at the head of the pioneers of exploration; but +the true beginnings of the century and a quarter of research which has +given to us so many wonders from the Land of the Nile are to be found +with that amazing troop of learned camp-followers who accompanied +Napoleon’s army on the expedition of 1798. The wonders of ancient Egypt +had never altogether been blotted from the memory and the interest of +man, as was the case with some of the other lands of the Classic East. +The pages of Herodotus, never fuller or more vivid than when he is +dealing with Egypt, prevented that oblivion; and therefore Herodotus +has some right to be named at the very beginning of the story of the +exploration of ancient Egypt as the pioneer of pioneers. But the world +was first really awakened to the richness of the Treasury of Egypt by +the colossal production, twelve volumes of plates and twenty-four of +text, which was the result of the untiring labours of Vivant Denon and +his collaborators--the famous _Description de l’Egypte_--a work almost +comparable in scale and grandeur with the monuments which it described. +Few armies have left behind them such a memorial of their passage +across a land--the more credit to the man whose inexhaustibly fertile +brain conceived the idea of making even war subserve the interests of +science. + +Unfortunately, however, the tie with international strifes and +jealousies, which had drawn the French savants originally to the Nile +Valley, remained unbroken for many years; and questions of archæology +were continually complicated by questions of national pride and +prestige, so that the early story of Egyptian exploration is not +the story of pure research, conducted for the love of truth and of +antiquity, but very often merely the story of how the representative +of France strove with the representative of Britain or Italy for the +possession of some ancient monument whose capture might bring glory to +his nation, or profit to his own purse. There are few more melancholy +chapters in the story of human frailty than those in which the early +explorers of Egypt (if you can dignify them by such a name) describe +how they wrangled and intrigued, lied and cheated, over relics whose +mutilated antiquity might have taught them enough of the vanity of +human wishes to make them ashamed of their pettiness. + +Dr. Macalister has told us in the Cambridge Ancient History that “it +is impossible to give any complete survey of the history of Egyptian +excavation.” This is true for the later period, because the field +is so vast, and the workers are so many; it is not less true for +the beginnings, because it is impossible to write a history of the +scufflings of kites and crows--or rather, one might say, of ghouls. It +must be almost a nightmare to the modern excavator, with his ingrained +appreciation of the importance of even the very smallest object which +may add to the knowledge of ancient lands and peoples, to think of the +priceless material which was destroyed by the undiscriminating zeal of +men like Belzoni, Drovetti, and their fellows, or if not destroyed, +at least deprived of half its value by being torn from its historical +place and connection. These were the lamentable days when interest in +the antiquities of Egypt had advanced but little beyond that displayed +by the gentleman of Addison’s first _Spectator_, whose Egyptian +researches are thus described by himself--“I made a voyage to Grand +Cairo on purpose to take the measure of a pyramid; and as soon as I had +set myself right in that particular, returned to my native country with +great satisfaction,” or by Lord Charlemont, who according to Johnson +had nothing to tell of his travels except a story of a large serpent +which he had seen in one of the pyramids of Egypt. + +In the early years of the nineteenth century, and, indeed, till +Mariette in 1858 laid his masterful hand upon the key of the great +treasure-house and allowed no one to spoil it but himself, there was a +perfect orgy of spoliation carried on, not in the interests of science, +but partly out of vanity, and partly out of greed. Every important or +noble traveller had to add a few curios from Egypt to his miscellaneous +collection gathered from half a dozen other lands, and sculptures, +inscriptions, and papyri of the greatest value were thus uselessly +dispersed in paltry private collections, where, when they had gratified +a passing curiosity or ministered to a momentary spirit of emulation, +they were allowed to gather dust through years of neglect, till at last +the futile cabinet of curios was dispersed, and its items were lost +sight of altogether. + +Some collections, such as those of Belzoni, Passalacqua, Drovetti, and +a few others, had better fortune, and were finally purchased for one +or other of the great European Museums, which nearly all formed the +nucleus of their Egyptological collections in this fashion; but the +amount of unnecessary loss of what can never now be replaced must have +been deplorable. + +[Illustration: 2. WALL OF CHAMBER, TOMB OF SETY I, VALLEY OF THE KINGS.] + +This “unbridled pillage,” as Maspero justly calls it, in which the +consuls of the various European powers played an ignoble but doubtless +lucrative part, lasted for more than thirty years, in spite of the +protests of men like Champollion, who could understand the irreparable +loss which was being inflicted on the infant science of Egyptology +by this mutilation and confounding of the documents on which its +future depended. Among its practitioners were one or two men who +were distinguished from the vulgar crowd of papyrus, scarab, and +mummy hunters by a certain dim appreciation of the fact that the +treasures with which they were dealing had a value greater than that +of their price in the curio-market, and who have added at least a few +interesting and remarkable items to the mass of Egyptian treasure +which the nineteenth century accumulated, though our gratitude to them +for this must always be qualified by the fact that we have no certain +knowledge of what they lost and destroyed in the process, but can only +judge from their own admissions that it must have been far more than +they preserved. + +Of these men who may be pronounced guilty, but with extenuating +circumstances, the most interesting, and perhaps the least harmful, +was the inimitable Belzoni, to whose unwearying efforts we owe the +opening of the Second Pyramid, the discovery of the tomb of Sety I, +the most perfect example of the rock-hewn tomb of a Pharaoh of the +New Empire, and the magnificent alabaster sarcophagus of Sety which +is one of the treasures of the Soane Museum, London, besides several +of the most important royal statues in the Egyptian Galleries of the +British Museum. No one who wishes to realise what the young science +had to endure at the hands of its first devotees can afford to neglect +the extraordinary farrago of vanity and pomposity, ignorance and +self-seeking, but also of patience and endurance, and a certain inborn +instinct for what was either beautiful or valuable, which Belzoni has +jumbled together under the sounding title--“Narrative of the Operations +and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs, and +Excavations, in EGYPT AND NUBIA.” + +Belzoni’s original object in going to Egypt was simply to get “The +Bashaw” to adopt a hydraulic machine for irrigation work--a project +in which it is almost needless to say that he failed; his knowledge +of the precious material with which he was soon dealing was nothing +at the beginning, and not much more at the end of his “Researches and +Operations”; he had a positive gift for quarrelling with everybody +with whom he came into contact, Egyptian or European, and a mania +for imputing the vilest motives to anyone who coveted any piece of +antiquity on which he had set his own heart; but with it all he had the +_flair_ of the true explorer for a promising site, and could foresee +hidden treasures where his rivals dreamed of nothing, and with all his +petulance he had a patience which was almost inexhaustible. It was +these qualities which have made him the only explorer of those unhappy +days whose name is really remembered, or deserves to be remembered, in +connection with our knowledge of ancient Egypt. + +As to his methods, these, of course, were unspeakable, and the mere +mention of them is enough to turn a modern excavator’s hair white. He +finds the entrance of a royal tomb in the Western Valley of the Kings, +and proceeds to open it--with a battering-ram made of two palm-logs! +As to his reverence for the mighty dead of the past one sentence may +suffice: “Every step I took I crushed a mummy in some part or other.” +Again he describes his journey through a tomb-gallery which the modern +excavator would have given his ears to see as Belzoni saw it. “It was +choked with mummies, and I could not pass without putting my face in +contact with that of some decayed Egyptian; but as the passage inclined +downwards my own weight helped me on; however, I could not avoid being +covered with bones, legs, arms, and heads rolling from above.” + +The object of these ghoulish journeys was simply to plunder the coffins +of their papyri, which, of course, were marketable, though as yet +no one could read them; and there can be little doubt that far more +was destroyed than was preserved by methods which were only a little +above those of the Ramesside tomb-robbers who stripped the mummies +of King Sebek-em-saf and Queen Nub-khas of their jewels, and then +burned them. Such was Egyptian excavation in the first quarter of the +nineteenth century, and in the hands of one of its most distinguished +practitioners, for Belzoni was an angel of light compared with some of +his rivals, native or foreign. + +Fortunately, however, the time for such ignorant and sordid +exploitation of the treasures of the past was not to last for long; +though it lasted far too long for the welfare of Egyptology. By 1822, +Jean François Champollion, working on the material supplied by the +Rosetta Stone and the Philæ Obelisk, and aided to some extent in his +brilliant achievement by the previous labours of Akerblad and Young, +gave to the world the key to the hieroglyphic inscriptions, so that the +Egyptian monuments were no longer dumb. In 1828 came the second great +general survey of the monuments under Rosellini and Champollion. + +It was now possible to read some, at least, of the inscriptions, and +therefore to reach some approach to order in the classification of +the monuments dealt with. The work suffered an irreparable loss by +the early death of Champollion; but the results of the expedition, +presented in the ten volumes of the _Monumenti storichi dell’ Egitto +e della Nubia_ constituted a great enlargement of real knowledge as +opposed to the conjectures which had previously held the field. + +For a time after the Rosellini Expedition, the field was left to +individual workers, of whom the most notable were two Englishmen, F. E. +Perring and Colonel Howard Vyse, whose careful measurements of the +pyramids, especially the great group of Gizeh, laid the foundation for +all subsequent study of these wonderful structures. The work of Perring +and Vyse was done in 1837, and three years later came the important +Prussian Expedition directed by Karl Richard Lepsius, whose name must +always stand among the foremost on the roll of Egyptology. + +Lepsius began with the Pyramid field at Memphis, where his theorising +on the method of erection of the pyramids, though perhaps the part of +his work by which he is most generally known, was of less importance +than his investigation of the Old Kingdom tombs of the nobles in the +necropolis, with its revelation of the life and culture of the Egypt of +3000 B.C. Thence the mission worked southwards, visiting the Fayum, and +carrying out investigations as to the whereabouts of Lake Moeris and +the Labyrinth. + +Passing on up the Nile Valley, Lepsius paid special attention to the +tombs of the Middle Kingdom with their valuable pictures of Egyptian +life a millennium later than the pyramid period, and also visited the +site which has since become so famous as Tell el-Amarna. Not content +with carrying his researches to the limit of the Second Cataract, where +Rosellini had stopped, he pressed on through Nubia as far as Napata +and Meroë, the former seats of that Ethiopian extension of Egyptian +civilisation which gave to Egypt its ill-starred XXVth Dynasty, +while on his return journey he visited the Sinai Peninsula, where +he discovered and published the very valuable inscriptions left by +the Egyptian expeditions which for many centuries were sent to work +the copper mines at the Wady Maghareh and Serabit el-Khadem. He thus +revealed to us the first chapter of the wonderful story of Egyptian +exploring and commercial activity, whose subsequent disclosures have +at last almost succeeded in destroying the time-honoured myth which +represented the ancient Egyptians as a cloistered nation, the Chinese +of the Near East. + +The _Denkmäler aus Ægypten und Æthiopien_, published from 1849 to 1858 +gave to the world the results of the wonderfully fruitful work of +Lepsius, and has scarcely yet been altogether superseded as a source of +illustration of the manners and culture of the ancient Egyptians. “In +the main,” says Dr. Macalister, “the statement may stand, that Lepsius +exhausted the general topographical study of the country.” Subsequent +researches have done no more than to add filling in to the broad +outlines which he drew with such care and certainty. + +But now the period of superficial survey of the wealth of material +which Egypt offers to the student was drawing to a close, and was to be +succeeded by the period in which excavation, conducted with constantly +growing skill and attention to the most minute details, was to do, as +it is still doing, what no amount of superficial cataloguing of the +monuments of the land could ever do, and to give us back, not only +pictures of the life of these ancient days, but the tools and weapons +with which the Egyptian worked, fought, and hunted, the vessels which +he used for all the purposes of life, the jewels with which he and his +women-kind adorned themselves, the books which they read, and the songs +which they sang; all the material from which, if we have the vision and +the insight, we may reconstruct the life of those far-off days; and to +crown its gifts by calling up from the tomb the very men themselves who +ruled and warred in the land of the Nile in the great days when Egypt +was the first of all empires, and her Pharaoh a god incarnate, before +whose golden sandals all the lesser kings of the world bowed in the +dust “seven times and seven times.” The pioneer of this work, surely +the most romantic and interesting, as it has proved not the least +fruitful, in the whole realm of scientific research, was the brilliant +Frenchman, Auguste Mariette. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +MARIETTE AND HIS WORK + + +The story of the life-work of the man who, more than any other, was +responsible for the creation of a genuine interest in the great +works of ancient Egypt, as distinguished from the aimless or sordid +antiquity-grubbing which has been described in the preceding chapter, +is one of the romances of science. Mariette was one of those men who, +in the words of Cromwell, never go so far as when they do not know +whither they are going, and in his early connection with Egypt he was +like Saul the son of Kish, who went out to look for his father’s asses +and found a kingdom. Born in 1821, at Boulogne, and employed as a +teacher in the college of his native town, he was drawn to the study +of ancient Egypt by the fact that the town museum had acquired a fine +Egyptian sarcophagus from the collection of Denon, one of the savants +who had accompanied Napoleon’s Army of Egypt. + +[Illustration: 3. DETAIL OF DECORATION, TOMB OF SETY I.] + +In 1849 he was appointed assistant in the Egyptian Department of the +Louvre, and in the following year he was sent out to Egypt for the +purpose of buying Coptic manuscripts. The mission, a comparatively +trifling one in itself, was one of those trifles which often prove +turning-points in a man’s life; and from the moment when he set foot on +Egyptian soil, Mariette’s future career was marked out for him. + +The thing which determined his fate was a passage from the old +geographer and historian Strabo. The god of Memphis, the most ancient +capital of Egypt, was Ptah, the artificer-god, who was supposed to +become incarnate in the sacred bull Apis. As each successive Apis +died, it was buried with all the reverence and splendour due to an +incarnation of Divinity, in a special necropolis at Saqqara. Later +in the complicated story of Egyptian religion Apis was identified +with the god of the Underworld, Osiris, and was called Osiris-Apis, +and the Greeks speedily corrupted this into Serapis, and called the +burial-place of the Apis bulls the Serapeum. + +Now Strabo, in writing his account of Egypt, inserted the following +passage about this ancient bull-cemetery. “One finds also [at Memphis] +a temple of Serapis in a spot so sandy that the wind causes the sand +to accumulate in heaps, under which we could see many sphinxes, some +of them almost entirely buried, others only partially covered; from +which we may conjecture that the route leading to this temple might be +attended with danger if one were surprised by a sudden gust of wind.” +While Mariette was pursuing his inquiries after Coptic manuscripts, he +noticed in a garden at Alexandria several sphinxes, and shortly after, +when at Cairo, he came across several more of the same type, while +more still were found at Gizeh. It was plain that there was somewhere +not far off some storehouse of sphinxes which was being plundered to +furnish ornaments for the gardens of local officials. The matter lay +in Mariette’s mind until one day when he was at Saqqara he noticed the +head of a similar sphinx sticking up out of the sand. Searching round +about it, he found a libation-tablet, inscribed with a dedication to +Osiris-Apis. At once Strabo’s statement occurred to his mind, and he +realised that he was standing over the avenue of sphinxes which the +ancient writer refers to. + +Coptic manuscripts went to the winds. Without apparently asking +permission of anybody, “almost furtively,” as he says himself, Mariette +gathered a handful of workmen, and began the excavation. “The first +attempts were hard indeed,” he says; “but before very long lions and +peacocks, and the Grecian statues of the dromos, together with the +monumental tablets or _stelæ_ of the temple of Nectanebo, were drawn +out of the sand, and I was able to announce my success to the French +Government, informing them, at the same time, that the funds placed +at my disposal for the researches after the manuscripts were entirely +exhausted, and that a further grant was indispensable. Thus was begun +the discovery of the Serapeum.” + +The passage is entirely characteristic of Mariette, and the calmness +with which he assumes that the Government which had sent him out to buy +manuscripts will be quite pleased to hear that he has spent all their +money on something quite different, and has committed them to a huge +excavation which was to last four years, instead of to the purchase of +a few parchments, is particularly delightful. One wonders what were +the first thoughts of officialdom at Paris when his letter reached the +Louvre, and his chiefs realised the kind of man and the irrepressible +energy which they had let loose in Egypt to spend money on things which +they had never dreamed of. + +His action at the Serapeum was typical of his whole career in Egypt. +When Mariette had once reached the conclusion that a certain object +was desirable, nothing was allowed to stand in the way. He went for +his object, one cannot always say straight, for he had caution as well +as daring, and knew how to use the wisdom of the serpent, but with a +resolute determination which seldom failed in the end to accomplish +its purpose; and if regulations stood in the way, so much the worse +for the regulations. It was this self-reliance and impatience of +restraint which were responsible for a good deal of the wastefulness +which undoubtedly was a marked feature of his Egyptian work; but, on +the other hand, without these same qualities it is difficult to see +how his work could have been accomplished at all, in the face of all +the obstacles which were thrown in his way by Oriental lethargy and +corruption, and by European jealousy and selfishness. + +The great Apis-cemetery which was thus discovered by Mariette’s happy +disregard of the limits of his commission is all that remains of +the original Serapeum. When the place was complete, it comprised an +avenue of sphinxes at least 600 feet in length, leading up to the +great temple of Osiris-Apis. No fewer than 141 of the sphinxes were +discovered, together with the pedestals of others. The temple had +entirely disappeared, having, no doubt, been used as a quarry for +other building operations; but an inclined passage led from one of its +chambers downwards into the vast vaults where for centuries the bodies +of the dead Apis-bulls were given burial with splendours which rival +those of the Pharaohs. + +The vaults belong to three periods. In the first, which belongs to the +XVIIIth Dynasty, the tombs are separate vaults hewn here and there in +the rock; in the second, which is that of Dynasties XXII to XXV, a +long gallery was excavated, on either side of which mortuary chambers +were excavated as needed; in the third (XXVIth Dynasty) the gallery +plan is followed, but on a much larger scale. The total length of the +galleries of the XXVIth Dynasty is 1150 feet, and the great gallery +alone measures 640 feet in length. In the side chambers are the immense +granite coffins, of superb workmanship, which were provided for the +last resting-place of the Apis. Twenty-four of these were found in the +third gallery. They average 13 feet in length, 11 feet in height, and +7 feet 8 inches in breadth, and weigh not less than 65 tons apiece, +magnificent specimens of the engineering skill of the ancient workers +who transported these vast blocks from Aswan to Memphis, a distance of +almost 600 miles. + +The discovery of the Serapeum set the seal on Mariette’s destiny. +Henceforward his life-work was to lie in the excavation and +preservation of the relics of that ancient land to which fate had +brought him; but as yet he occupied no official position in the +country, and was, indeed, looked upon rather as an unauthorised +interloper by the native antiquity-hunters and the foreign officials +who encouraged the constant and shameless pillage which had been going +on for half a century. It was in his struggles with these vampires that +the great explorer acquired the habits of secret and solitary planning +and working which characterised his reign as chief of the Egyptian +Service of Antiquities, and the distrust of all other excavators which +led him to forbid all such work even to the most famous scholars or to +his dearest friends, and to retain the right to excavate exclusively in +his own hands to the day of his death. + +“Forced to struggle for more than three years,” says Maspero in his +vivid sketch of his predecessor, “against the jealousy of the dealers +of the time and the sharp practices of the Egyptian officials, he +was not long in learning and putting into practice all the dodges +which the natives employed to track out their rivals or to cheat the +treasury. No one knew better than he how to conceal a quest, to pack +up the product of it in secret, and to dispatch it without arousing +the suspicion of anyone.” Curious qualifications for the head of a +great Government department; yet they served him well in what was +really a lifelong battle against the rivalry of men of science, who, +instead of encouraging him in his efforts to set Egyptology on a firm +foundation in its native land, did their worst to rob him of the fruits +of his labours; and against the apathy and indifference of his master, +who regarded the antiquities which his untiring servant unearthed as +valuable only because he could gratify a globe-trotting potentate by +the gift of some of them, or in the last resort might raise a loan on +the precious treasures of his Museum. + +Mariette’s appointment as head of the Service of Antiquities was +due, indeed, to a piece of skilful wire-pulling in which de Lesseps +and Prince Napoleon, afterwards Napoleon III, were concerned; and +Said Pasha gave him the post, not because he cared for his royal +predecessors, but because, as Maspero caustically puts it, “he came to +the conclusion that he would be more acceptable to the Emperor if he +made some show of taking pity on the Pharaohs.” + +An appointment due to no higher inspiration than self-interest on the +part of the giver obviously depended largely on how long self-interest +coincided with the interests of the new post; and perhaps the most +arduous part of Mariette’s task consisted in trying to make his +thoroughly Oriental master see that it was his interest to maintain +what he had begun, and in overcoming the whims and caprices, and the +secret intrigues which continually threatened to undermine his position +and destroy the structure which he was so painfully rearing. He never +could get a permanent grant for the work of his department from the +Egyptian Government. When money was needed he had always to ask it +direct from the Khedive, who granted a subsidy or refused it according +to the mood in which he happened to be at the moment. Again and again +Mariette had to close down his excavations because he had unfortunately +approached Said when the Khedive was in a bad temper; but though the +continuance of work under such conditions might have driven the most +phlegmatic of men, let alone a mercurial Frenchman, to despair, he +never for a moment lost sight of his end. Repulsed once, he only waited +a more favourable opportunity to return to the charge, and in the end +he was almost invariably successful. + +When his work is criticised, as it has often, and not unjustly, been, +as hasty and wanting in thoroughness, let it be remembered that, with +all its faults, it was done under conditions which would have driven +most men mad, and that thoroughness and minute care are not precisely +the qualities which are encouraged by the knowledge that the exchequer +is empty, and that there is no prospect of being able to pay the +workmen unless one can catch a wayward prince in a favourable mood. +All things considered, the wonder is, not that so much was overlooked +and left undone, but that so much was actually accomplished under such +maddening conditions. + +His main object was to form such a Museum in Egypt that it would no +longer be possible for the representatives of the European powers to +excuse their spoliation by the suggestion that Egypt was unable to +safeguard her own treasures of antiquity. With this end in view he was +indefatigable in the work of excavation, doing his utmost to gather +from Memphis, Thebes, Abydos, Tanis, and other famous sites, such a +collection of historical monuments as should render the creation of a +permanent home for them a crying necessity. + +Erelong he had so far succeeded that his collection included fine +statues of Ramses II, the well-known Amenartas, the so-called Hyksos +Sphinxes, the Triumphal Stele of Thothmes III, and a great mass of +amulets from the cemeteries of Memphis, Abydos, and Thebes. To house +these treasures he was provided with a set of miserable buildings +which were of no use for any other purpose--a deserted mosque which +was falling into ruin, some filthy sheds, and a dwelling-house alive +with vermin, in which he lived himself. Making the most of this heap +of ruins, he improvised pedestals for the statues and cases for the +amulets, and turned his early training as a drawing-master to account +in the painting of the decorations of his crazy walls. + +The incident which finally determined Said to yield to the importunity +of his energetic Director of Antiquities was highly characteristic, +both of the daring and persistence of Mariette, and the waywardness of +the ruler with whom he had to deal. One of the chief hindrances to the +erection of the Museum was the fact that the excavations, though highly +productive of objects of historic interest, had as yet yielded nothing +in the way of gold or jewellery, and Said, a thorough Oriental, cared +but little for researches which only produced inscribed or sculptured +stones. Early in 1859, Mariette’s workmen at Drah-Abou’l-Neggah, +near Thebes, discovered the splendid gilded sarcophagus of the Queen +Aah-hotep. Mariette sent orders for it to be sent to Cairo at once; but +meanwhile the Mudir of Keneh had laid hands on it, opened it in his +harem, and, throwing aside the mummy, took possession of the fine set +of jewellery which the coffin contained, and hurried off by boat to +present it to the Khedive as an offering from himself. + +Mariette immediately set out on his steamboat, the _Samanoud_, to +meet the robber. Boarding the Mudir’s boat, he tried to persuade him +to give up his ill-gotten goods, and when persuasion failed he passed +to threats, and from threats to blows. Finally he triumphed, and took +possession of the treasure. Knowing the danger which he ran of having +his action represented to the Khedive as sheer robbery of a treasure +addressed to the Royal Palace, Mariette took care to be the first to +tell the story to his royal master, and did so with such effect that +the Khedive thoroughly enjoyed the joke, and laughed heartily at the +spoiling of the spoiler. He kept a gold chain for one of his wives, and +himself wore for awhile a fine scarab which he afterwards returned; +but the rest of the treasure was reserved, as Mariette wished, for his +darling Museum, and the Khedive, now convinced that the collection was +worth housing, gave orders for the erection of a suitable building at +Boulak. + +Thus, by a happy combination of good fortune and daring, the great +explorer succeeded in the attainment of at least a part of his heart’s +desire. The buildings at Boulak, however, were far from satisfactory, +and his heart was always set on a dream-museum, which he did not +live to realise, which indeed has not yet been realised, though the +great Egyptian Museum has known two changes of abode since his time, +and is now preparing for a fresh extension to house the treasures of +Tutankhamen’s tomb. In addition, he had to be continually on his guard +to see that the priceless things which he had gathered with such pains, +and housed at such risk, were not dissipated to gratify his patron’s +passing whims of generosity towards some favourite guests, or sold +_en masse_ to act as security for a loan. Mariette had no intention +of allowing his treasures to be treated as pawnbroker’s pledges; +but it took all his energy and authority to prevent this happening, +for whenever Said was short of money, which happened with unfailing +regularity, his first thought was to raise a loan on the Museum, and it +was only the Director’s personal acceptability with his master which +enabled him to stave off disaster once and again. + +The narrowest escape came just on the heels of what had seemed the +greatest triumph of his life. At the Paris Exhibition of 1867, he had +secured the first adequate representation of Egyptian antiquities. +A small Egyptian temple was built, preceded by a short avenue of +sphinxes; and within the temple were housed the finest specimens of art +and craftsmanship which Egypt could produce. For six months all the +world admired and wondered; then came the blow. Mariette had wrought +too well, and made his treasures look too inviting. The Empress +Eugenie had cast covetous eyes upon them, and the Khedive Ismail was +informed that she desired to have the whole collection offered to her +as a gift. Ismail, taken by surprise, and, as usual, short of cash, did +not dare to refuse; but he had the sense to make his consent subject +to one condition. “There is,” he said to the emissary of the Empress, +“someone at Boulak more powerful than I, and you must address yourself +to him.” It must have been the cruellest of blows to Mariette thus to +be wounded in the house of his friends; but his resolution was proof +against both imperial wiles and threats, and the collection returned in +safety to its native home. The explorer had saved the treasures of the +land of his adoption from the greed of his native land; but it was at +a heavy cost that the victory was gained. The favour of France, which +had always been one of his main supports, was immediately withdrawn, +and for the next two or three years Mariette found himself in disgrace +at the palace, and unable to obtain any support for his schemes. +Curiously enough, it was the downfall of France in 1870 which brought +him into favour once more with the Khedive, and for the last ten years +of his life he saw the work to which he had given himself steadily +growing, though on at least one occasion the proposal to raise a loan +on the Museum was revived, and though Ismail’s grandiose plans for the +extension of the buildings remained only dreams, which came through the +ivory gate. + +In respect to the excavations which he kept so jealously in his +own hands, Mariette’s energy was amazing, though its results were +never so carefully chronicled as they might have been, and were +sometimes scarcely chronicled at all. The two greatest charges to be +brought against him as an excavator are, first, this lack of adequate +publication of his results, a huge mass of precious material being +gathered without anything to tell the student its actual provenance, +or its historical connection, and, second, the craving for big and +imposing results, which led him often to neglect the smaller but often +more important material which would have been of priceless value +to modern workers, but did not appeal to him, and consequently got +overlooked and lost. + +With regard to the latter point, however, we must remember that +the knowledge of the infinite importance of the small game of the +archæologist is a thing of modern growth, and that it is scarcely fair +to blame Mariette for not being a quarter of a century in advance +of his time; and also that the difficulties of his position obliged +him to lay stress on the big and imposing monument, even at the cost +of neglecting what was really of more value to the serious student. +Broken potsherds may mean far more for the reconstruction of history +than intact colossi; but to the men in authority on whom depended the +continuance of the excavator’s work, they were just-broken potsherds. + +[Illustration: 4. TEMPLE OF RAMSES III, MEDINET HABU.] + +Spite of all the defects of his methods, we owe him an infinite debt, +both for what he accomplished and for what he hindered others from +destroying. The chief fruit of his toil, apart from the work at +the Serapeum and in the necropolis at Saqqara, was the unveiling at +Abydos of the noble temple of Sety I, with its exquisite reliefs, which +will always rank among the very finest work of the artists of the New +Empire. Besides the excavation of the temple, he did an immense amount +of work, very imperfectly recorded, alas, in the great necropolis +of Abydos, where he unearthed over 15,000 monuments of one kind or +another. It ought not to be forgotten either, though it often has been, +and though it has been stated that in his work at Abydos he had no idea +of the existence there of any remains of the early dynasties, that it +was Mariette who prophesied both the discovery of Ist Dynasty tombs and +that of the great subterranean “Pool of Osiris,” which is the latest +fruit of M. Naville’s work there. + +Scarcely less important was his work at Thebes, where he for the first +time made some approach to establishing the architectural history of +the great temple of Karnak from its foundation under the Middle Kingdom +down to the close of building under the Ptolemies. To him, also, we owe +the excavation of the great temple of Ramses III at Medinet Habu, and +the first beginnings of that huge piece of work which M. Naville and +his assistants at Der el-Bahri only completed, after thirteen years’ +hard labour, in 1908. + +How many of the visitors to Hatshepsut’s beautiful memorial temple, who +wonder at the patience which unearthed this most exquisite of Egyptian +buildings, remember that it was Mariette who first gave to the world +the most interesting part of the whole building with its reliefs of the +royal expedition to the Land of Punt? + +To tell of all his work at the thirty-seven places in which he +excavated would take a volume, and not a chapter. One of his greatest +successes, though it dealt only with a Ptolemaic building, was +the excavation of the very perfect temple of Edfu. He found it so +completely covered with rubbish that an Arab village had established +itself upon the roof of the ancient sanctuary of Horus. Mariette +succeeded in getting these interlopers cleared away, and was at last +able to reveal the whole of a building, which, while comparatively +modern as Egyptian temples go, is yet one of the most complete and +perfect specimens of Egyptian architecture, showing the almost pure +type of temple architecture as it can be seen only in one or two other +instances in the whole land. + +The great explorer’s work in Egypt lasted for almost exactly thirty +years. Before his death on January 18, 1881, he had the satisfaction +of knowing that the work of which he had so well laid the foundations +would not be interrupted when he had to lay it down. He never, indeed, +saw the accomplishment of his great life-dream, the completion of a +Museum really worthy of the treasures which he had gathered. Sir Gaston +Maspero, his able successor, has told us how that vision hovered round +his death-bed, and cheered his last hours; but even to-day the great +Museum at Cairo is scarcely worthy of the matchless stores which it +holds, and it is becoming more and more doubtful whether Cairo is the +right place for a collection of such priceless value. But at least +Mariette accomplished one thing which will never be undone; he put a +stop to the worst of the pillage of Egyptian antiquities which had +gone on unchecked for half a century, and he established the fact that +the proper place where the historical monuments of a great nation’s +past should be gathered is on national soil, where they are at home, +and where they have a value which could never be theirs if they were +scattered through a score of alien collections. + +A noble statue keeps his memory alive in the Cairo Museum. Maspero +tells us that a great personage who visited the Museum asked whether +this monument was that of a Pharaoh or of a modern individual; and +when he was told that it was the monument of Mariette, the founder of +the Museum, “Mariette,” said he, “I did not know that the founder of +the Museum was a woman!” Such is fame, even in the land where memories +seem to endure longer than in any other spot on earth. But Mariette’s +worth to the world does not depend on monuments, though he had so much +to do with them, nor on great personages, though he suffered so much +at their hands all his life. It lies in this, that he saved the relics +of ancient Egyptian history from the bottomless bog of international +jealousies and greed and insisted that a nation with a great past had +the right and the responsibility to hold the treasures of that past +within its own bounds--in trust for the world. + +“Assuredly,” says Maspero, “Mariette is not a model to be blindly +imitated; and the man who should imitate him to-day would run the risk +of committing irreparable blunders; but let anyone who is tempted to +depreciate him replace himself in spirit in the Egypt of sixty years +ago, and let him ask himself how he would have acted in the midst of +the difficulties which would then have assailed him on all sides; I +believe that, if he is an honest man, he will be forced to admit that +though perhaps he would have handled matters differently, he would not +have come better out of the business. Mariette was the man who fitted +the time.” + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MODERN PERIOD + + +The coming of Mariette in 1850 marked the close of the old and bad +period of reckless pillage in Egypt. His thirty years of ceaseless +struggle against difficulties formed the transition period, in which +the foundations of the modern science of Egyptology were being laid, +but in which its aims and methods were as yet but partially and +imperfectly understood. With his death in 1881, and the beginning of +the reign of his successor, the late Sir Gaston Maspero, we may fairly +be said to reach the dawn of the modern period, in which new men +and new methods have completely revolutionised the whole conception +of archæology, and made it one of the most fruitful aids to the +reconstruction and the comprehension of ancient history, and above all +the indispensable interpreter of the life of ancient peoples. It seems +fitting, therefore, that at this point we should stop for a little to +consider what archæology is, and what are its aims, its methods, and +its materials; for with regard to all these points there is, save in +the case of those who are more or less students of the past, a very +general haziness in the public mind. + +To the average man, archæology might be quite satisfactorily defined +as the study of old stones and old bones, potsherds, and fragments of +corroded metal--a study presupposing, on the part of the student, a +curious and perverted taste for the dry and the dusty and a disregard +for all the things which have in them the true sap and joy of life. +“Your true antiquarian,” it has been said, “loveth a thing the better +for that it is rotten and stinketh”; and this judgment, more pointed +than polite, fairly represents the conception which most people cherish +of the work of the excavator and the interpreter of his results. + +Now and again this crude and summary judgment is shaken for a little +by some wonderful discovery which seems to hint that there is more in +archæology than the man in the street had thought. Some Pharaoh, like +Tutankhamen, is found “lying in glory, in his own house,” as Isaiah +puts it, and the world in general begins to turn in its sleep and dream +for a while of the romance of buried treasure. It may be suspected that +no small part of the interest awakened with regard to Tutankhamen’s +tomb arose from the fact that there was talk of the money value of the +find running into millions sterling. A science which can produce assets +like that must be worth attention. To tell anyone whose interest has +thus been excited that the money value of the find, even if it has +not been ridiculously overestimated, as is most likely the case, is +the least important aspect of it, absolutely negligible in comparison +with its other values, is merely to invite incredulity, polite or +otherwise. In any case the temporary interest of the find soon dies +away, and the public reverts to its old and normal conception of the +archæologist as an amiable and quite harmless lunatic, and of his study +as the dullest and dustiest thing under heaven. + +All this, of course, is just about as wrong, and as stupidly wrong, as +anything well can be. It is, indeed, exactly the opposite of the truth. +The explorer, instead of being inspired with a malignant disregard for +the sap and joy of life, is really so enamoured of these very things +that one of his main objects is to endeavour to make the world realise +them not only in the present, but for the past also. His purpose, and +his business, if he has any real understanding of the end for which +Providence created him (for there are some archæologists who have not, +and who almost justify the worst that the public can believe of their +science), is not the mere gathering of facts, but the reconstruction +by means of these of the life of the past, for the interest, the help, +and the guidance of the present. His work is not complete until he has +presented a picture of that ancient world in which he is interested, +not as it is now, a handful of unrelated fragments of dry bone and +dusty papyrus and mouldering metal, but as it was when the dry bones +were alive, clothed with flesh and inspired with spirit, when the +words on the scroll throbbed with the hopes and fears of a living man +or woman, and the corroded bronze or iron was a sword in the hand of +a mighty man of valour, or a chisel in that of a cunning sculptor. +Unless he keeps this in view as his real object, he is misconceiving +his whole purpose, and substituting means for ends; unless he can to +some extent accomplish this (no man, of course, can do it completely) +he is failing of his aim. + +But we are still waiting for our definition of what archæology is, +and what are the ways in which it is to accomplish this desirable +revivifying of the past. It has been defined by a well-known excavator +and writer as “the study of the facts of ancient history and ancient +lore”--which is very well as far as it goes, but omits, strangely +enough, the very point in which its author has shown himself most +keenly interested. To complete the definition, one would need to add, +“and of ancient life in all aspects.” + +The archæologist deals with ancient history, and may prove helpful to +the historian of the past in many ways; he deals with ancient lore, and +may reveal material which is of the utmost importance for the study +of the knowledge and literature of the past; but his main concern is +always with the life of the past, and his main use to the world is to +enable the present to see and to realise the life of the past as it +really was, to give life again to the men of old so that they shall +no longer be names in a dry text-book, but flesh-and-blood figures, +and to do this for the common man of the past as well as for his +rulers, so that ancient history shall no longer be the chronicle of +the deeds, great or otherwise, of Pharaohs and monarchs of all sorts, +but shall give you the whole many-coloured tapestry of life as it was +in those far-off days with the fates of common men interwoven with the +glittering destinies of their lords and masters. + +“Archæological research,” says Dr. R. A. S. Macalister in the latest +summary of its results, “consists principally in the discovery and the +classification of the common things of daily life, houses, personal +ornaments, domestic utensils, tools, weapons, and the like.” To +have said such a thing fifty years ago would have been to make the +scientific man of those days hold up his hands in horror at such a +degradation of a science whose chief end was the discovery of the great +monuments of great men, and the substantiation or correction of history +by their means. + +To put the change of view in a word, archæology has during the modern +period become human. It has learned that history never existed, and +cannot be viewed, in a vacuum; and that quite as important for its +right apprehension of the facts is the realisation of the medium in +which the facts transpired, and which largely conditioned them. “The +true function of archæological research,” says Dr. Macalister again, +“is to discover the conditions amid which lived such heroes of old +as we have mentioned; to show them, no longer as solitary, more or +less idealised or superhuman, figures, but as men of like passions +to ourselves moving with other men, in a busy world engrossed in its +secular interests, and making daily use of the common things of life.” +To take an illustration from a familiar figure of Egyptian history, +we know, as a fact of history, that the favourite son of the mighty +Ramses II was Setna-Khaemuast, that he fought in his father’s Syrian +wars, that about the middle of the reign he was high-priest of Memphis, +and that he died somewhere before the fifty-fifth year of Ramses; in +other words, so far as the big records of the historical monuments +go, he is to us “magni nominis umbra,” and no more. The real living +interest of the man begins for us with the discovery of a papyrus of +the Ptolemaic period, now in the Cairo Museum, which shows him studying +the old inscriptions at Memphis in search of magic charms, stealing the +roll of Thoth from the tomb of an earlier prince, just like a modern +explorer, and getting into trouble over the theft. + +[Illustration: 5. TEMPLE OF EDFU--THE PYLON, AND VIEW FROM THE PYLON.] + +“The lofty personages,” says Maspero in the Introduction to his +charming _Contes Populaires_, “The lofty personages whose mummies +repose in our museums had a reputation for gravity so thoroughly +established, that nobody suspected them of having ever diverted +themselves with such futilities in those days when they were only +mummies in expectation.” That is just the point. It is not the +impassive mummies, with their reputation for gravity, thoroughly +well-deserved for the last three thousand years, since they became +mummies, that we want to know; it is the folk who were only “mummies +in expectation,” who lived and loved, hated and fought, and made fools +of themselves, like other people. And the business of archæology is +to show you these people, in their habit as they lived, and in the +ordinary medium which conditioned their actions. If it cannot or +does not do that, then it deserves all the vivid abuse which Carlyle +used to hurl at the Dry-as-dusts of the past. + +Now it is the supreme merit of the modern period that it has been +steadily learning the importance of this aspect of its work among the +treasures of the past, till now it can say “nothing human is foreign to +me.” The change of view is set before us very plainly in the contrast +between our modern histories of Egypt and those of our forefathers. + +Take, for instance, Maspero’s _Histoire Ancienne_, or Breasted’s +_History of Egypt_, and compare the brilliant pictures of ancient +Egyptian life which you will find in their pages with the dry summaries +of events which passed for Egyptian history fifty years ago. What +has made the difference? Simply the fact that in the interval the +archæologist has been learning that his business is not only or even +chiefly with the great historical monuments of the land with which +he is dealing, but, above all, with the small things which made the +background of life, “the pots and pans,” as Dr. Macalister puts it, +“which are essential if he is to fill in the picture of the ancient +life of the region.” + +The change of view thus brought about is marked by a corresponding +change of judgment as to what shall constitute the chief object of +search in the excavations which reveal the past to us. In the dawn +of excavation it was the big and imposing monument which was eagerly +and almost exclusively sought for--very naturally, for it was only +by the discovery of such relics that the explorer could hope, in the +existing state of knowledge, to justify his work, and to create the +interest on the part of the public which would provide him with the +funds which were needed for its prosecution. Colossal statues, granite +sarcophaguses, intact burials in Egypt, winged human-headed bulls, +alabaster slabs carved in relief, cuneiform tablets inscribed with +legends of the Creation and the Flood in Mesopotamia; such were the +prizes which rewarded and vindicated the labours of men like Mariette, +Botta, and Layard in the middle of last century. It was all very +natural and inevitable, as things then were; and it is both unjust and +unreasonable to denounce the work of such pioneers because they worked +with the knowledge and under the conditions of their own time. + +The science of excavation and the knowledge of its true objects did +not exist when they did their work; it had to be slowly and painfully +created by experience, and in the process it was inevitable that many +things should suffer and that there should be much loss of material +which a better instructed generation would have known how to value. +These great men would doubtless do their work very differently now; +but it is vain to criticise them for not possessing a knowledge which +nobody possessed in their day. We owe them rather our gratitude for +that they accomplished so much in such unfavourable circumstances. + +There can be no doubt, nevertheless, that the methods of the early +excavators, judged from the modern point of view, were wasteful to +a large degree of the things which we have learned to consider of +supreme importance in the study of the past. In their search for the +big game of excavation they overlooked, too often with fatal loss to +the science of the future, the common things which would have made +the indispensable background to their more imposing discoveries, and +in many instances what they let slip will never be recovered. To-day +the outlook is entirely changed, and the man who should excavate on +the lines of Mariette or Layard would be a hopeless anachronism among +explorers. The excavator goes to his work now, not with the hope of +finding some great monument which will confirm some doubtful statement +of history or disprove some theory of succession, not even with the +hope of discovering some store of tablets which will let new light in +on a dark period. Such things may of course be found, and are welcomed +when they are found; and such discoveries as that of the tomb of +Tutankhamen tell us that the romance of exploration is by no means a +thing of the past. But the modern explorer has learned the infinite +importance of little things, and the results for which he mainly +hopes are such things as would be heartily despised by the casual and +uninstructed beholder. Perhaps the change may be expressed most simply +by saying that while the explorer of two generations back looked for +colossi, his present-day successor looks for crockery. + +It may seem that from a science thus occupied and concerned mainly with +the infinitely little, the romance of the early days of exploration +has departed; but this is to misunderstand the situation. The +explorer’s work was never romantic in the sense in which the average +man understands the word. The idea of the excavator as a man who spends +his days in exploring wonderful underground chambers filled with the +treasures of the past, is just about as true as the picture of the +great detective who is always unravelling the mysteries of crime by +the most amazing strokes of genius, and landing himself incidentally +in the most appalling situations. There never was such an explorer, or +such a detective; and the life of the one as of the other is mainly +one of monotonous drudgery at which most of the folk who talk about +romance would shudder. The great thrilling moments, when a discovery +which will excite the imagination of the world is made, have always +been far between, and the finding of Tutankhamen’s tomb has shown that +they may still come to the modern explorer just as richly as to his +predecessor. But the true romance of modern excavation lies in this, +not that it can reveal the dead monarchs of thirty centuries back +in all their splendour, but that by its patient piecing together of +innumerable small details it can give back to us the actual life of the +period in which the dead monarch lived, and let us see the order of his +court, and what is far more important to our knowledge of the past, +the traffic of the market-place in his cities, and the intercourse of +his land with the nations around it. It is scarcely too much to say +that because of the minute care with which the modern excavator has +treated the minutest fragments of the relics of ancient days we are +better acquainted with the life of the Egypt of the New Empire than we +are with that of the ordinary European nation of the Dark Ages, though +the latter be more than two millenniums nearer us in time. A science +which can accomplish such a miracle of resurrection can never lack the +element of true romance in the eyes of anyone who has a real sense of +the wonder of life. + +It follows from the fact that the modern excavator is called to deal +with such a multitude of matters, each in itself perhaps comparatively +insignificant, but each of importance, as an additional stroke in the +picture of the past which is being slowly built up on the canvas, that +far more extensive qualifications are exacted of him than sufficed for +his predecessor. “Our explorer in Egypt,” says Miss Amelia Edwards, “is +only called upon to be an ‘all-round’ archæologist within the field +of the national history: namely, from the time of Mena, the prototype +of Egyptian royalty, who probably reigned about five thousand years +before Christ, down to the time of the Emperor Theodosius, Anno Domini +379. Yet even within that limit, he has to know about a vast number of +things. He must be familiar with all the styles and periods of Egyptian +architecture, sculpture and decoration; with the forms, patterns and +glazes of Egyptian pottery; with the distinctive characteristics of the +mummy-cases, sarcophagi, methods of embalmment and styles of bandaging +peculiar to interments of various epochs; and with all phases of the +art of writing, hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic. Nor is this all. +He must know by the measurement of a mud brick, by the colour of a +glass bead, by the modelling of a porcelain statuette, by the pattern +of an earring, to what period each should be assigned. He must be +conversant with all the types of all the gods; and last, not least, +he must be able to recognise a forgery at first sight. After this, it +must, I think, be admitted that the explorer, like the poet, is ‘born, +not made’! The wonder perhaps is that he should ever be born at all.” + +It seems, no doubt, a sufficiently formidable catalogue of +qualifications; but to Miss Edwards’ list others would now have to +be added. For the progress of investigation of the inter-relation of +the nations of the ancient east has broken down the limitation which +she imposed upon the knowledge of her imaginary explorer, and the +Egyptian excavator of the present day must be familiar, not only with +all that has been mentioned, but with the related work of Mesopotamia +and Babylonia, with the art of the brilliant Minoan craftsman, with +all that is known of the enigmatic Hittite civilisation, and with the +art, both archaic and mature, of Greece, together with a score of other +related matters! + +All this development of a science which has grown almost within the +lifetime of some of its exponents from a comparatively simple thing +to one of the most complex and exacting of human studies, has, of +course, been the work of many minds and hands. But if the name of any +one man must be associated with modern excavation as that of the +chief begetter of its principles and methods, it must be the name of +Professor Sir W. M. Flinders Petrie. It was he, as one of the most +brilliant of the exponents of his methods has recently stated, who +first called the attention of modern excavators to the importance of +“unconsidered trifles,” as means for the reconstruction of the past. +Above all, it was he who first taught us that for purposes of certainty +in the establishment of the succession of different periods, the +“broken earthenware” of a people may be of far greater value than its +most gigantic monuments. And it has been men trained in the principles +which he established who have during the last generation been doing +the work which has made the past of the Classic East a living thing +to the world of to-day. It remains now to trace the outline of their +accomplishment in Egypt. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE PYRAMIDS AND THEIR EXPLORERS + + +Of all the works of man there is none which has attained such lasting +and universal fame as the group of buildings known as the Pyramids of +Gizeh. For the best part of five thousand years this group of mighty +structures has been one of the wonders of the world, and the theories +which have been framed to account for their existence have been more +numerous than the Pyramids themselves. Egypt has many buildings far +more beautiful, and perhaps as wonderful; but the Pyramids are, to the +great majority of people, the characteristic buildings of the land, and +whenever Egypt is named there rises before the mind at once a vision of +three vast bulks of masonry squatting defiantly on the rising ground +above the Libyan desert, as though challenging Time himself to make +any impression on their stupendous mass. “All things dread Time,” it +has been said, “but Time itself dreads the Pyramids”; and the very +exaggeration testifies to the profound impression which their bulk and +strength have made upon the mind of man. The mere lapse of forty-five +centuries would seemingly of itself have made next to no impression +on them; the vandalism of man has done a little more; but even the +efforts of those who for many centuries have used the vast masses as a +convenient quarry have done little more than show more convincingly the +power and skill of the builders who reared in the beginning these huge +mausoleums around whose bases the workers of succeeding generations +have pottered and scratched like children playing with toy spades in +the sand. + +Yet though the Pyramids may fairly claim to be the most famous and +the best-known buildings in the world, the ignorance in the average +mind with regard to them and the purpose for which they were reared is +still just about as general and widespread as the fame of them; and the +purpose of this chapter is, first, to tell what, and how many, and of +what kind they are; next, what was the end for which they were reared +in the beginning of history; and lastly, to recount something of the +efforts which have taught us what is really known about them. + +To most people the Pyramids mean solely the great group at Gizeh; but +though these are by far the greatest and the most famous, they are by +no means the only pyramids, nor are they even the oldest. The chief +field, known as the Great Pyramid Field, begins almost opposite Cairo, +on the western side of the Nile, at Abu Roash, where is the pyramid of +Dadefra (Razedef) of the IVth Dynasty, and extends south along the bank +of the Nile for a distance of about sixty miles to the Fayum, where +lie the pyramids of the great XIIth Dynasty Pharaohs, the last of the +regular kings of Egypt to build pyramids for themselves. Far to the +south again in the country which we know as the Soudan, there lie two +other pyramid fields, the one at Gebel Barkal or Napata, near to the +Fourth Cataract, the other at Begarawiyah, the ancient Meroë, between +the Fifth and Sixth Cataracts, and a little more than a hundred miles +north of Khartoum. These two fields have neither the greatness of scale +nor the historic importance and interest of the Great Pyramid Field, +for they belong to the Ethiopian kings, some of whom, for a time, +reigned over Egypt in the days of its decline. The Napata group belongs +to the earlier Ethiopian monarchs, who founded the XXVth Egyptian +Dynasty, which was finally driven out of Egypt by the Assyrians in the +reign of Tanutamen, and to their successors, who after the disasters +of 661 B.C. maintained the old Ethiopian sovereignty in the south; the +Meroë group belongs to the later Ethiopian kings who reigned after 300 +B.C. As things go in Egypt, therefore, these southern pyramids are +quite modern, nor do they belong to the most interesting period of +Egyptian history, and though they have been long known, they are only +now in process of being investigated by the Harvard-Boston Expedition +under G. A. Reisner, whose work at Begarawiyah is still unfinished. Our +attention, therefore, may be given solely to the Great Pyramid Field. + +Beginning with Abu Roash, the next site of importance is Gizeh itself, +with all its wonders of IVth Dynasty work. Passing southwards, we +come to Abusir, with its remains of the pyramids and temples of the +Sun-worshipping Pharaohs of the Vth Dynasty, lately excavated by +the German expedition; beyond these again comes the great field of +Saqqara, with remains dating over a long period of Egyptian history. +The Step-Pyramid of King Zeser of the IIIrd Dynasty is, of course, +the most important and imposing monument; but besides, there are +pyramids dating from the latter part of the Vth Dynasty, a number of +VIth Dynasty ones, and the splendid tombs of many of the nobles of the +early dynastic period, so that, though the Saqqara portion of the field +cannot compare with Gizeh in the size of its monuments, it is only +second to its northern rival, and surpasses it in the variety and the +pictorial interest of its minor tombs. Still travelling southwards, we +pass in succession Dahshur and Lisht with their pyramids of the great +Pharaohs of the XIIth Dynasty, Medum, with its remarkable pyramid of +King Seneferu of the IIIrd Dynasty, rising in three stages, like a +Mesopotamian Ziggurat, to a height of 114 feet, and Illahun, where +Senusert II had his pyramid, and where the exquisite jewellery of some +of the royal princesses was found recently, and reach the last of the +series at Hawara, where Amenemhat III, one of the greatest and noblest +of the long line of Egyptian Pharaohs, had his last resting-place. +In later days there were pyramid tombs at Thebes and Abydos; but the +pyramid part of these structures was comparatively unimportant, and +they have, in any case, left few traces behind. Indeed, after the +XIIth Dynasty the fashion of pyramid-burial seems to have gradually +died out, though we know from the revelations of the Abbott Papyrus +that in the XXth Dynasty there were in the Theban necropolis at least +ten royal pyramids belonging to kings of the XIIIth to the XVIIIth +Dynasty. Altogether there must be at present in Egypt something like +seventy pyramids of greater or less importance, without reckoning the +later and less important groups of Napata and Meroë. + +Passing by the Abu Roash pyramid of King Razedef, we begin our survey +with the magnificent group of Gizeh, which to the ordinary man are the +Pyramids to the exclusion of all others. Everyone knows, of course, +what the Pyramids are like, and has some rough idea of their surpassing +size, and perhaps the only way to impress the sense of their vastness +on the mind is to use one or other of the comparisons which have +been worked out to illustrate the stupendous scale on which they are +built. To tell the reader that the weight of the stones built into the +Great Pyramid is over six million tons is merely to bewilder him; the +vastness of the business may be better appreciated when one realises +that a town of the size of Aberdeen might be built out of the materials +which Khufu gathered together for his monstrous tomb, or that if the +stones were divided into blocks a foot square, and these blocks placed +end to end in a straight line, the line would be long enough to reach +two-thirds of the length of the circumference of the earth at the +Equator. + +[Illustration: 6. GREAT PYRAMID AND SPHINX, WITH PART OF TEMPLE OF THE +SPHINX.] + +Khufu’s pyramid was originally about 481 feet in height, and each of +its sides measured at the base a matter of 755 feet 8 inches, and these +long lines were laid out and built with such wonderful accuracy that +the maximum error is not more than an inch. “The laying out of the base +of the Great Pyramid of Khufu,” says Professor Sir W. M. F. Petrie, “is +a triumph of skill; its errors, both in length and in angles, could be +covered by placing one’s thumb on them; and to lay out a square of more +than a furlong in the side (and with rock in the midst of it, which +prevented any diagonal checks being measured) with such accuracy shows +surprising care. The work of the casing stones which remain is of the +same class; the faces are so straight and so truly square, that when +the stones were built together the film of mortar left between them is +on an average not thicker than one’s thumb-nail, though the joint is a +couple of yards long; and the levelling of them over long distances has +not any larger errors.” “Equal to optician’s work of the present day,” +says the same authority elsewhere, “but on a scale of acres instead of +feet or yards of material.” + +The Second Pyramid is slightly inferior to the first in size, its +measurements being 472 feet in height and 706 feet 3 inches on each +side; and its workmanship is also of inferior accuracy, the errors +in length being double, and those of angle quadruple those of its +predecessor, while the masonry is of poorer quality. Curiously enough, +the sarcophagus, the core of the whole vast building, was in the case +of the Great Pyramid one of the poorest pieces of work of its kind in +the period, and much inferior to that of Khafra in the Second Pyramid. +Spite of its smaller size, which most travellers scarcely notice +owing to the fact of its somewhat superior position, and its inferior +workmanship, the Second Pyramid is itself a world’s wonder. + +Beside these great twin brethren, Menkaura’s Third Pyramid, with its +215 feet of height and its length on the side of 346 feet 2 inches, +seems diminutive, though its partial outer casing of granite may have +given it a richness of appearance which to some extent compensated for +its smallness. + +Here, then, we have a group of buildings which, from whatever point of +view they are regarded, are among the most wonderful ever reared by the +hand of man, and which in sheer bulk are by far the greatest of all +architectural works. What was the purpose for which these stupendous +bulks were built and maintained for so long? To ask such a question +was, not so long ago, to let loose all the flood of vain imaginations +which always gathers about a subject which is great and imperfectly +understood. + +The theories which have been framed about the Great Pyramid in +particular are almost as monstrous as itself, but have none of its +solidity. Of these, perhaps the favourite, because of a certain romance +attaching to it, and because of the reputation of some of those who +have supported it, is, or rather one should say, was, that it was +designed for an astronomical observatory. R. A. Proctor, to whose +advocacy the idea owes a great deal of what vogue it had, has told +us that the entrance passage is so placed that at the date which he +assumes for the erection of the pyramid (3400 B.C.) it bore directly +on the then Pole-Star, Thuban, or Theta Draconis, when the star was +on the meridian below the pole, and further, that the great gallery +which leads up to the King’s Chamber was designed to serve the purpose +of a great transit instrument, through whose open upper end the +transits of stars could be observed by astronomers occupying seats +on cross-benches laid across the gallery at different levels! Still +wilder are the fancies which would have us see in the measurements of +the Great Pyramid divinely inspired revelations as to units of length, +capacity, and so forth, and which gravely inform us that the granite +sarcophagus of Khufu is really a standard measure of capacity, of which +our British quarter is a fourth part. It seems rather a pity in view of +this wonderful theory that Professor Petrie should have just told us of +the inferiority of Khufu’s sarcophagus in accuracy to that of Khafra, +as such a fact tends to disturb the mind as to the truth of our own +measures; but it is a sufficient indication of the flimsy nature of the +foundations on which all these theories rest. + +The fact is that no evidence worth consideration has been brought +forward in support of any of them, and in especial that the idea of the +great gallery having been a gigantic transit instrument (surely the +most cumbrous and inefficient ever designed) is absolutely negatived +by the knowledge which we possess of the object with which the whole +building was constructed--an object whose all-important condition was +absolute secrecy and concealment. To dream that Khufu built a pyramid +to secure his body from discovery and destruction, and then allowed its +passages to remain open to the sky for years that astronomers might +observe the stars, and tomb-robbers the plan of the pyramid, is to put +a fool’s cap on the whole business. The Great Pyramid, like all the +other pyramids, great and small, was none of the extraordinary things +which we have been told it was; it was something simpler and more +wonderful than any of them--the greatest witness ever given on earth to +the human craving for immortality! + +There is no longer any doubt that all the pyramids, from the first +imperfect conception of the form in the Step-Pyramid of Saqqara, +through the giants of Gizeh, down to the crumbling heaps of brickwork +which are all that remain of some of the later fabrics, were built +simply and solely as tombs, and that their one object was to render the +resting-place of their royal tenant as secure as precautions could make +it from the attacks of dynastic enemies or mere robbers. + +The pyramid was just one pathetic expression of that marvellously +persistent passion which gave us the tomb-chambers of Abydos, with +their storerooms for the supply of the dead king’s wants in the +Underworld, the Mummy with all its wonderful elaboration of means +for preserving the shape and likeness of the dead man, the Funerary +Statue, with its amazingly lifelike portrait of the man whose place +it was designed to take when time had reduced the mummy to dust, and +the soul still craved a recognisable dwelling-place, and the long, +rock-hewn galleries of the Valley of the Kings, with their pictured +representations of all that could help their owner through the dangers +and difficulties of the long journey to the Egyptian Fields of +Contentment. + +No race has ever been so possessed by any religious idea as was the +ancient Egyptian by the faith that it was possible to secure immortal +life for humanity beyond the gates of death, possible, but difficult +to the last degree, and needing all the effort which could be given +to secure so great and so difficult an end; and the Great Pyramid is +just the most colossal seal ever put on that creed, expressing, as +nothing else ever could, both the intensity of the conviction and the +consciousness of the extreme difficulty of its attainment in actual +fact. The Egyptian Pharaoh built his pyramid as the expression of +his faith in life everlasting; he built it as huge and as massy as +he could, as the expression of his consciousness of the numberless +difficulties and dangers which compassed the road which led to the +attainment of immortality, and of his determination that, so far as +human effort could secure it, he would be secured against everything +which might prejudice his chance of winning eternity. + +The Pyramid, then, is a tomb, or rather it is the sole surviving part +of the elaborate and complicated structure which the Egyptians of the +Pyramid period devised for the accomplishment of this end of securing +the duration of the personality of its owner. For what we see now at +Gizeh and elsewhere is by no means what the Egyptians of the early +dynasties saw when they looked upon the “eternal dwelling-places” +of their great kings, but only a fragment, which by reason of its +massiveness, and especially of its form, has survived while the rest of +the fabric has perished. The complete pyramid-complex was a development +of the normal Egyptian arrangement of tomb-chamber and tomb-chapel. +Each Egyptian of any rank or pretensions was buried in a chamber, +generally underground, which contained his coffin of stone or wood; but +he had also another chamber above ground, where the necessary rites +might be observed at the stated times, and the daily offerings of food +and drink made for his use in the other world by his relations or by +the priests who were appointed for this purpose. These two chambers +were combined in the “mastabas” of the Old Kingdom nobles, with their +shafts and their chapels. The pyramid took the place of the mastaba, +and as it developed, the chapel, instead of being within the same mass +of building as the tomb-chamber, was built outside, at the foot of the +great structure which protected the mummy of the king, as was fondly +hoped, from sacrilegious attack. This pyramid-temple lay at the east +side of the pyramid, and in close connection with it. But the pyramids +were situated on rising ground, generally at a considerable distance +from the cultivated land, and it was therefore necessary to arrange +for a convenient approach to them, instead of allowing the priests or +the royal relatives to scramble over the rough ground. Accordingly +a secondary temple, or portico, was built down on the level of the +cultivated land in a position where it could be approached by boats +during the inundation; and from this portico-temple a covered causeway +led up to the temple proper at the foot of the pyramid. + +We are to conceive of the pyramid fabric, then, as consisting of +these four parts, first the part for whose sake all the rest existed, +the pyramid itself, with its concealed passages and its carefully +protected sarcophagus-chamber, in which lay the mummy of the king in +its granite coffin; then the temple crouching at the foot of the great +tomb-chamber; then the long covered causeway leading down to the lower +levels, and finally the Portico-temple on the margin of the flooded +river. One imagines the scene on the feast-day of a great Pharaoh--the +graceful and gaily decorated Egyptian river-skiffs drawing up to +the stately columned portico on the river bank, and landing their +freight of white-robed priests and gorgeous courtiers and princes of +the blood, the preliminary service within the lower temple, and then +the solemn procession up the causeway to the temple proper where the +memory of Khufu or Khafra is celebrated, and his wants for the other +world supplied under the shadow of the mighty mass of stone where the +bones of the great builder are laid. The Pyramids are impressive enough +to-day in their stripped and gaunt majesty--one wonders if they could +be more impressive even in the days of their perfected splendour. +Possibly not, but at all events the world can have seen few more +imposing sights than an Egyptian Pyramid Field such as that of Gizeh, +when its three giants were girt with all the sumptuous fabrics which +were part of their essential design as their architects planned them, +and without which we are no more seeing them as they were meant to be +seen than if we were viewing Salisbury without its spire, or the Duomo +of Florence without its campanile. + +As to the sumptuousness of these subsidiary parts of the +pyramid-complex, we have fortunately first-hand evidence. Little +remains of the temple proper of the Second Pyramid, though what there +is has been completely excavated; but the causeway leading down from +it has been traced, and it terminates in a building which has been for +long familiar as one of the most striking examples of the combined +restraint and magnificence of the Egyptian architects of the early +dynasties, the so-called Temple of the Sphinx, which is in reality +the Portico-temple of Khafra’s pyramid. With its severely simple +architecture of vertical and horizontal lines, its great blocks of +stone absolutely without ornament of any sort, and the richness of +its granite monoliths and its alabaster wall-surfaces, it tells us +something of what must have been the dignity and splendour of the Gizeh +Pyramid Field when it stood intact. + +So far as the fulfilment of the object for which they were erected +is concerned, the Pyramids of Gizeh are no more than a melancholy +monument of the vanity of human wishes, and an illustration of how +human cupidity or malice will in the long run break through the most +elaborate system of defence. Professor Petrie has suggested that +Sir Thomas Browne was in the wrong when he wrote that “to be but +pyramidally extant is a fallacy of duration,” and comments upon that +characteristic utterance: “Khufu has provided the grandest monument +that any man ever had, and is by this means better remembered than any +other Eastern king throughout history.” + +That is so; and yet one cannot help remembering that this was not at +all Khufu’s object in the rearing of his vast mausoleum. It was not to +keep his memory green, but to keep his body intact that the greatest +builder of the world raised the Great Pyramid, and in that simple +object he utterly failed, as did all his brother pyramid-builders great +and small. The evidence shows that not in one single case has greed +or hatred failed to overcome all the obstacles placed in their way by +royal power. Every pyramid known has been rifled in ancient times, +probably not long after its builder was laid to rest in his stately +tomb, and the duration of the mass of senseless stone, which bids fair +to be as long as that of the everlasting hills, only mocks the hopes +with which it was reared. The pyramid remains; but the jewel for whose +sake so costly a casket was devised is long ages since “blown about the +desert dust.” + +The story of excavation at the Pyramids of Gizeh has nothing very +exciting about it. The first excavators were, no doubt, the enemies +of the Crown, who, as Petrie has suggested, penetrated into the +burial-chambers in the troubled days between the VIIth and Xth +Dynasties and wreaked their spite on the bodies of their dead masters. +Thereafter, through the Classical period, the entrance into the +subterranean passages of the Great Pyramid was well known; but the +knowledge had been lost by the time of the Arab Conquest, and the +Khalif Mamun had laboriously to quarry his way through the masonry +into the actual passages, leaving behind him the great hole, which is +still called “Mamun’s Hole.” This was the beginning of the vandalism +which has done so much destruction at the Pyramids of Gizeh, though the +worst efforts of human stupidity have somehow only seemed to emphasise +the dignity and grandeur of the great buildings whose might mocks at +the puny attempts of the destroyer. After Mamun had showed the way, +his successors followed him, and used the pyramid as a quarry. In +1356 Sultan Hasan used part of the casing of the Great Pyramid in the +building of his mosque, and though his work may be, as it has been +called, “the finest monument in Cairo,” and “the most perfect specimen +extant of Saracenic architecture,” its beauty is sadly discounted by +the fact that it was created by the robbery of the most magnificent +example of an architecture more ancient and more noble. Hasan, or one +of his immediate successors, added to his crime by stripping part of +the casing from the Second Pyramid also, leaving it in the partially +despoiled condition in which it now appears, for one of his coins was +found by Petrie deep down in the southern foundation. Compared with +such barbarities, the indignities which the Pyramids have had to suffer +in all ages at the hands of tourists, who have insisted on disgracing +their undistinguished names by scrawling them on these great memorials +of the past, are mere trifles. + +Early in the nineteenth century Caviglia succeeded in penetrating into +the centre of the Great Pyramid, and he was followed in the spring of +1818 by the redoubtable Belzoni, whose account of the manner in which +he forced an entrance into the Second Pyramid is as vivacious as the +rest of his narrative. Belzoni’s earlier efforts only resulted in the +discovery of one of the passages by which former explorers had vainly +attempted to force their way into the pyramid; but his disappointment +only quickened his desire, and as he says in his own inimitable way: +“Hope returned to cherish my pyramidical brains.” His workmen were +speedily set to work again at a new spot. “As to expectation that the +entrance might be found, they had none; and I often heard them utter, +in a low voice, the word ‘_magnoon_,’ in plain English, _madman_. I +pointed out to the Arabs the spot where they had to dig, and such +was my measurement, that I was right within two feet, in a straight +direction, as to the entrance; and I have the pleasure of reckoning +this day as fortunate.” Even after the passage was discovered, the +removal of the blocks of stone which obstructed it required several +days of hard labour; but at last, thirty days after the work began, +the explorer found himself standing in the sarcophagus chamber of +Khafra. Besides the empty sarcophagus, Belzoni found the evidence that +he had not been the first who had penetrated into the secret of the +pyramid, for in addition to many graffiti on the walls of the chamber, +which were written in charcoal and rubbed off at the slightest touch, +there was an Arabic inscription which ran: “The Master Mohammed Ahmed, +lapicide, has opened them; and the Master Othman attended this opening: +and the King Ali Mohammed, from the beginning to the closing up.” + +The Third Pyramid, that of Menkaura, was opened in 1226 by +treasure-hunters. “After passing through various passages, a room was +reached wherein was found a long blue vessel [the sarcophagus] quite +empty.... They found in this basin, after they had broken the covering +of it, the decayed remains of a man, but no treasures, excepting some +golden tablets inscribed with characters of a language which nobody +could understand.” The disappointed treasure-seekers were succeeded in +1837 by Colonel Howard Vyse, some of the results of whose discoveries +are in the British Museum in the shape of a fragment of the basalt +sarcophagus, and portions of a wooden coffin, purporting to be that +of “the King of the North and South, Men-kau-Ra, living for ever,” +together with the remains of a man, wrapped in a coarse woollen cloth +of a yellow colour. “In clearing the rubbish out of the large entrance +room,” says Colonel Vyse, “after the men had been employed there +several days and had advanced some distance towards the south-eastern +corner, some bones were first discovered at the bottom of the rubbish; +and the remaining bones and part of the coffin were immediately +discovered all together. No other parts of the coffin or bones could +be found in the room; I therefore had the rubbish which had been +previously turned out of the same room carefully re-examined, when +several pieces of the coffin and of the mummy-cloth were found; but in +no other part of the pyramid were any parts of it to be discovered, +although every place was most minutely examined, to make the coffin as +complete as possible.” Unfortunately some doubt exists as to the coffin +being actually of the period which its inscription claims, and the same +doubt hangs over the remains. It has been suggested that the coffin is +a restoration of the time of the XXVIth Dynasty, and that the remains +are not those of Menkaura, but of one of the treasure-hunters who lost +his life in the attempt of 1226. Accordingly we cannot say, as might +otherwise have been the case, that Vyse actually discovered a Pharaoh +in the great tomb which he had built for his eternal abode. The fine +basalt sarcophagus was taken out of the pyramid by Vyse, and shipped +for England in 1838; but the ill-luck which has dogged the pyramid +explorations attended Menkaura’s coffin also. The ship left Leghorn on +October 12, 1838, and was never heard of again, though some bits of +wreckage were picked up off Carthagena. + +Valuable work was done at Gizeh during the years after Vyse’s +researches by Perring and Piazzi Smyth, though the careful measurement +work of the latter was somewhat obscured by the fanciful theories which +possessed his mind on the subject of the purpose of the Great Pyramid; +but the most complete survey of the Gizeh field was due to Flinders +Petrie, who in 1880–1881 measured and planned the whole site with the +most scrupulous care. + +Perhaps the most interesting result of his work, apart from the +evidence which he gathered as to Egyptian methods of working stone, +was his discovery, behind the Second Pyramid, of the barracks in which +the skilled masons who were permanently employed on the building lived +while the work was going on. These were capable of containing easily +about 4000 men. The rest of the 100,000, who, as Herodotus tells us, +were employed in the building of the Great Pyramid, were doubtless +merely labourers employed during the three months of high Nile, when +work on the land was impossible, to bring up the blocks of stone and +leave them ready for the skilled hewers and masons to work upon. As to +the methods of these skilled workmen, evidence of the most interesting +kind was accumulated. It was found that the great blocks of stone were +sawn by means of bronze saws over nine feet in length, and equipped +with jewelled cutting points. The sarcophagi of hard granite or basalt +were thus sawn to shape with the most remarkable accuracy, while they +were hollowed out by cutting rows of holes with tubular drills also +set with jewelled cutting points. The chief difference between this +kind of ancient Egyptian work and modern practice with diamond drills +is that the ancient work is undeniably superior to the modern. “Truth +to tell, modern drill cores cannot hold a candle to the Egyptians; +by the side of the ancient work they look wretchedly scraped out and +irregular.” “There has been no flinching or jumping of the tool,” says +Petrie again, speaking of a drill core from Gizeh, “every crystal, +quartz, or felspar has been cut through in the most equable way, with a +clean irresistible cut.” + +Our wonder at the mighty mass of the Pyramids of Gizeh, then, is not to +be mere wonder at the barbaric power which summoned myriads of slaves +and forced them to toil till by sheer brute force they had piled up +these mountains of stone. Brute force, unguided and unorganised, would +never have built the Pyramids, though millions instead of thousands had +been employed, and for centuries instead of decades, but would only +have led to disaster and confusion. The wonder of the Pyramids is that +five thousand years ago there was found a race whose keen intelligence +so clearly understood the need and the marvellous power of organised +and trained human labour, architects and engineers who were capable +of directing the energies of a hundred thousand men without confusion +towards a clearly foreseen end, and craftsmen who were capable of +producing, with tools whose material seems to us pathetic in its +inadequacy, results which put to shame the best achievements of men +using the finest modern tools. + +The recent excavations in the Gizeh Pyramid Field, directed by Dr. +G. A. Reisner, have added much to our knowledge of the subordinate +tombs of the period, and of the life of the times. + +Moving southwards from Gizeh, we come to the pyramid field of Abusir, +passing on the way the unfinished pyramid of Zawiyet el Aryan. Of this +pyramid, designed for the Pharaoh Nefer-ka-Ra of the IIIrd Dynasty, +nothing exists above ground. The remains consist simply of the trenches +destined for the superstructure, and the inclined plane leading +down to the mortuary chamber with its fine oval libation-trough, or +sarcophagus. Yet there are few works of ancient Egypt which impress one +more with the sense of the magnificent power with which these early +architects carried out their designs. “The whole,” says Maspero, “is +merely a T-shaped ditch, some 100 feet deep; and yet the impression it +makes when one goes down into it is unforgettable. The richness and the +cutting of the materials, the perfection of the joints and sections, +the incomparable finish of the basin, the boldness of the lines and the +height of the walls all combine to make up a unique creation.” + +The German excavations have resulted in the discovery at Abusir of a +curious development both of the pyramid idea and of the early Egyptian +temple. It was already known from one of the magical tales of the +Westcar Papyrus, that the kings of the Vth Dynasty were probably a +priestly line of usurpers, who claimed to be related to the Sun-god +Ra by direct descent--a relationship which was henceforth claimed +by every subsequent Pharaoh, and embodied in the royal titulary. The +German Expedition has revealed to us the unmistakable proof of the +devotion of the Vth Dynasty kings to the worship of the Sun-god, and +the unique form which their temples took. The temple of Ne-user-ra, for +example, consisted of a rectangular court, 380 feet by 280 feet, whose +main axis ran east and west. In the western half of this area rose the +pyramid, a curious combination of the idea of the mastaba-pyramid of +Seneferu at Medum and the later obelisk. On a great block of building +about 130 feet square by 100 feet in height, shaped like a truncated +pyramid, rose a squat brick obelisk whose point reached a height of +about 120 feet. Roofed corridors surrounded the enclosure on the other +three sides, and probably provided storerooms for the temple furniture, +and for the materials of the offerings. At the foot of the pyramid +an immense alabaster altar stood in a small court surrounded by low +walls. The obelisk, on its truncated pyramid, represented the Sun-god, +and outside the temple wall, near the south side, was placed the most +curious of all the furnishings of this curious temple, in the shape +of a great boat, built of brick, which bore all the sacred insignia +of the Sun-god in his voyage across the heavens. The interior of the +temple walls was covered with sculptured scenes of the life created by +the god, scenes from the river, the swamps, the fields and the desert, +these being the earliest specimens of such mural decorations in any +Egyptian temple. + +The next stage of the Great Pyramid Field is at Saqqara, where the +chief feature is the most ancient, and save for the monsters of Gizeh, +the most famous of all the pyramids, the Stepped-Pyramid of King Zeser +of the IIIrd Dynasty, the earliest great stone structure in the world. +This remarkable building was probably the work of Zeser’s famous +counsellor and architect Imhotep, the typical wise man of early Egypt, +whose counsel was “as though one inquired at the oracle of God,” and +who was subsequently deified and became the patron-deity of the scribes. + +The tomb which he reared for his master (who had also another great +tomb at Bet-Khallaf) was built in six stages, stands about 197 feet in +height, and has the peculiarity that its base is not a square but a +rectangle, measuring 394 by 351 feet. But though the interest attaching +to man’s first great piece of stonework must always be great, the +actually living interest at Saqqara attaches not so much to Zeser’s +hoary and imposing tomb, as to the comparatively insignificant and +decayed pyramids of the Vth and VIth Dynasty kings, Unas, Teti, Pepy +I, Merenra, and Pepy II. Mere heaps of rubble and sand as they seem, +with none of the splendour of construction or greatness of scale of the +Gizeh group, these monuments of the time when the royal power of the +Old Kingdom was beginning to decline are yet of supreme value; for they +are the first pyramids in which inscriptions have been found, and the +long religious texts discovered in them, and now known as the Pyramid +Texts, are unique and of infinite importance. + +Up to the end of his career, Mariette believed that the pyramids were +dumb, as the Gizeh group had proved to be, and therefore looked upon +the attempt to open any of the Saqqara group as mere waste labour. +Maspero, however, believed otherwise, and the opening of the pyramid +of Pepy I in 1880 proved that he was right. The other pyramids named +proved also to be inscribed, and altogether the five pyramids give us +a series of religious texts covering a period of about one hundred +and fifty years, or perhaps one hundred and eighty, from 2825 to 2644 +B.C., or, on Petrie’s dating, from 4275 to 4090 B.C. Even taking the +later dates, these Pyramid Texts form by far the earliest large body of +religious writings which have come down from any part of the ancient +East, and their importance as sources of knowledge as to the beliefs of +the earliest Dynastic period can scarcely be overrated. + +Apart from the interest of its pyramids, Saqqara has proved of infinite +value to the student of ancient Egyptian life because of the richness +of its necropolis in the great mastaba tombs of the nobles of the +Old Kingdom. Since Mariette’s excavation of the tomb of Ti, who was +a great man in his day, and architect to two successive kings of the +Vth Dynasty, Nefer-ari-ka-ra and Ne-user-ra, the sculptures of this +splendid tomb, and those, scarcely less remarkable, of the tombs of +Ptah-hetep, Mereruka and Kagemni, have been recognised as among the +most precious accomplishments of ancient art. + +Apart altogether from their artistic value, their importance as +first-hand documents for the reconstruction of life in ancient Egypt +five thousand years ago is supreme, for their representations, executed +with infinite vivacity and spirit, cover almost every department of +Egyptian life. The great man is represented as surrounded by all +the busy life which ministered to his comfort when he was on earth, +or engaged in the sports and diversions which were his relaxation +in the intervals of his public duties, sailing, fishing, fowling, +or hippopotamus-hunting among the Nile swamps. Farm life, with its +changing activities according to the season, and all its peaceful and +beautiful incident, is faithfully depicted, so that the crops which the +Egyptian landowner grew and the stock he kept can be perfectly known; +while all the crafts which were necessary to the upkeep of a great +estate are also depicted with abundant detail and a charming directness +and dash. The tomb-paintings of the New Empire at Thebes are much and +deservedly admired; but even they must yield in freshness and charm to +these pictures from the dawn of history, which have the dew of youth +still upon them, and all the vigour of an art which is already quite +sure of itself, but has not had the time to grow stale. + +[Illustration: 7. CHASED GOLD PECTORAL ORNAMENTS OF SENUSERT II AND III +(XIIth DYNASTY). + +(_From “Arts and Crafts of Ancient Egypt.”_)] + +From Dahshur down to Illahun and Hawara lie the pyramids of the great +kings of the XIIth Dynasty, who, though Thebans, realised that the +centre of gravity of the national government must be further north, and +who therefore made their royal residence between Memphis and the Fayum. +The earlier kings of the dynasty, Amenemhat I and Senusert I, had their +pyramids at Lisht; Amenemhat II and Senusert III preferred Dahshur +for their resting-place; while Senusert II chose Lahun, and Amenemhat +III Hawara, where he could sleep beside the great works which he had +wrought at Lake Moeris for the welfare of his land. The XIIth Dynasty +pyramids are not imposing externally. The ruinous piles of brickwork +at Dahshur and Lahun look more like gigantic ant-heaps than true +pyramids; yet they were the work of kings who in their own way were +quite as powerful as the pyramid-builders of the IVth Dynasty, and the +detail of the inner workmanship of the sarcophagus chambers is quite as +remarkable as anything to be seen at Gizeh. Part of the reason for the +difference is a change, not so much in the ideal for which the pyramid +was constructed (for that remained constant throughout the history of +Egypt), but in the conception of the best means towards the realising +of the ideal. “It seems,” says Petrie, describing the change which +Senusert II introduced in his pyramid at Lahun, “that the pyramids of +the earlier kings had fallen a prey to violence already, the signs of +personal spite in the destructions are evident. Therefore Senusert II +determined to abandon the old system of a north entrance in the face, +and to conceal the access to the interior by a new method.” His method +was to excavate his sarcophagus chamber entirely out of the solid rock +on which the pyramid was founded, and to place the entrance to the +passage which led to the chamber outside of the pyramid altogether. +The shaft which gives access to the passage actually opens out on the +plain, beneath the floor of the tomb of one of the princesses of the +dynasty. Inside the rock-hewn chamber which was protected with such +care, and which was splendidly lined with red granite, stood the red +granite sarcophagus, “exquisitely wrought,” says Petrie, “the errors of +flatness and straightness being matters of thousandths of an inch.” + +Yet the cunning and the skill of the XIIth Dynasty architects and +masons proved as helpless as the massive power of the IVth Dynasty to +protect the dead monarchs from the ravages of hatred or greed. Nor +were the elaborate precautions of Amenemhat III any more successful +than those of his grandfather had been. Petrie’s description of the +construction of the inner passages of Amenemhat’s pyramid at Hawara +reads like something planned to be a nightmare to explorers. “The +explorer,” he says, “who had found the entrance in the unusual place +on the south side, descended a long staircase, which ended in a dumb +chamber. The roof of this, if slid aside, showed another passage, which +was filled with blocks. This was a mere blind, to divert attention +from the real passage, which stood ostentatiously open. A plunderer +has, however, fruitlessly mined his way through all these blocks. On +going down the real passage, another dumb chamber was reached; another +sliding trap-door was passed; another passage led to a third dumb +chamber; a third trap-door was passed; and now a passage led along +past one side of the real sepulchre; and to amuse explorers, two false +wells open in the passage floor, and the wrong side of the passage is +filled with masonry blocks fitted in. Yet by some means the plunderers +found a cross trench in the passage floor which led to the chamber. +Here another device was met. The chamber had no door, but was entered +solely by one of the immense roof-blocks, weighing 45 tons, being left +raised, and afterwards dropped into place on closing the pyramid.” One +would have imagined that with such precautions the sleep of Amenemhat +would surely be undisturbed; but when Petrie in 1889 tunnelled his +way through the roofing-beams of the sepulchral chamber he found that +an early plunderer had anticipated him by mining right through the +great 45-ton block. “The royal interments had been entirely burnt; and +only fired grains of diorite and pieces of lazuli inlaying showed the +splendour of the decorations of the coffins.” + +Here, as in all the other cases of the pyramids, the very elaboration +of the means adopted for the preservation of the dead body of the king +had only whetted the appetite of the spoiler and destroyer, and little +has survived from the XIIth Dynasty pyramids to reward the modern +explorer. The great finds in the XIIth Dynasty pyramid fields were all +from outside the pyramids. Of these one of the most valuable, though +by no means the most spectacular, was Petrie’s discovery, near the +pyramid of Senusert II at Lahun, of the town, created specially for the +occasion, in which the workmen of Senusert had lived with their staff +of architects, overseers, and scribes, while the pyramid was under +construction. + +The little town of Ha-hetep-Senusert, Kahun as it is now called, gives +us the most complete instance extant of the character of an Egyptian +town of the Middle Kingdom. It occupied an area of about 18 acres, and +the plans of the narrow streets and of the houses, mostly small and +closely crowded together, though there are exceptions to this rule, +have been completely wrought out. Much that is interesting in the way +of pottery, tools, and papyri came from the ruins of the deserted +houses of the little pyramid-town, whose existence seems to have been +a very brief one, probably not much longer than was necessary for the +erection of the pyramid. + +Again it was not in Amenemhat’s elaborately devised pyramid at +Hawara, but in the Roman cemetery to the north of it, that the great +find was made which has made Hawara famous in the history of ancient +Egyptian art, and has given us one of the most valuable contributions +ever made to our knowledge of the processes and technique of ancient +painting. A cemetery which dates mostly from A.D. instead of from B.C. +has in general comparatively little attraction to the explorer in +ancient Egypt, unless he be a specialist in the Greco-Roman Period. +Accordingly, when Petrie in 1888 found that the cemetery in question +was of the first and second centuries A.D., he was on the point of +giving it up as not worth working, when one day a mummy was found +with a painted portrait on a wooden panel inserted above its face. +The picture was a beautifully drawn head of a girl, painted in soft +tones, and quite un-Egyptian in its style. It proved to be only the +forerunner of a whole series of similar portraits, of which about sixty +were found before the excavations closed. The work was resumed in 1911 +with further success. The portraits are of varying merit, and of even +the best of them it has to be remembered that we are not dealing with +the product of the studio of a skilled artist, but only with that of +the workshop of a firm of local undertakers, who supplied funerary +portraits just as they supplied coffins. All things considered the +quality of the work is wonderfully good, and the information given +by these panel pictures as to the methods of the ancient painters is +of the highest importance. Before the Hawara discoveries, we were +left very much in the dark as to how Apelles, Zeuxis, Polygnotus and +their companions and rivals produced the masterpieces which have only +survived in the literary descriptions of their contemporaries. The +Hawara pictures may be very far, even the best of them, from being +masterpieces; but at least they tell us what were the methods by which +the great painters of ancient Greece produced the pictures which were +considered the equals in artistic merit of the statues which are now +the wonder of the world. The manner in which they were painted is +often described as “encaustic,” but this is an incorrect description +of portraits which, so far as can be judged, were simply painted with +melted coloured wax, laid on with a free brush, each tint being laid on +as a solid body, and not subjected to subsequent glazings. + +The XIIth Dynasty pyramid fields at Dahshur and Illahun have yielded +two of the most remarkable finds of Egyptian jewellery which have ever +been made, and the results of the work of de Morgan and Petrie in this +respect are such as to increase our admiration for the marvellous +skill of the craftsmen of the Middle Kingdom. It was in 1894 and 1895 +that de Morgan’s workmen, clearing up the area round the XIIth Dynasty +pyramids at Dahshur, found in the tombs of the princesses of the royal +house one of the most wonderful stores of jewellery which have ever +rewarded excavation. The two most notable pieces of the treasure were +the diadems of the princess Khnumit, the most exquisite examples of the +skill of the goldsmith ever worn. “The floret crown,” says Petrie, “is +perhaps the most charmingly graceful head-dress ever seen; the fine +wavy threads of gold harmonised with the hair, and the delicate little +flowers and berries seem scattered with the wild grace of Nature. Each +floret is held by two wires crossing in an eye behind it, and each pair +of berries has likewise an eye in which the wires cross. The florets +are not stamped, but each gold socket is made by hand for the four +inserted stones. The berries are of lazuli. In no instance, however +small, was the polishing of the stone done in its cloison; it was +always finished before setting.” The other diadem is more conventional, +but scarcely less beautiful. Eight rosettes of gold and precious +stones are surmounted with motives of lyre shape terminating in golden +flowers, and the rosettes are united by long links also bearing +jewelled rosettes. The stones of the two crowns are lapis-lazuli, +carnelian, red jasper, and green felspar. Along with the diadems +were found gold pectorals of fine design and execution, bearing the +cartouches of Senusert II, Senusert III, and Amenemhat III, and various +other articles of jewellery, and even the famous jewellery of Queen +Aah-hotep, so long the typical specimen of Egyptian craftsmanship, must +yield the palm to the earlier work in beauty of design and daintiness +of execution. + +The second discovery came in February, 1914, when Professor Petrie’s +workmen were clearing a rifled tomb belonging to the “Royal daughter +Sat-Hathor-ant” at Lahun near the pyramid of Senusert II. How the +treasure of Lahun had ever escaped the plunderers who had rifled the +tomb is a mystery. “The tomb had been attacked,” says Petrie; “the long +and heavy work of shifting the massive granite lid of the sarcophagus, +and breaking it away, had been achieved; yet all this gold was left +in the recess of the passage untouched.... The whole treasure seems +to have been stacked in the recess at the time of the burial, and to +have gradually dropped apart as the wooden caskets decayed in course of +years, with repeated flooding of storm water and mud slowly washed into +the pit.... The whole treasure was standing in an open recess, within +arm’s reach of the gold-seekers, while they worked at breaking open the +granite sarcophagus.” We can only be thankful that all the luck did not +go to the ancient robber, and that, like his earlier companion who +left the arm of the Ist Dynasty queen, with its jewelled bracelets, at +Abydos, he overlooked something to tell a later age of the skill and +taste of ancient Egypt. + +[Illustration: 8. _Above_, CROWNS OF GOLD INLAID WITH STONES OF +KHNUMIT. _Below_, GRANULATED GOLD WORK. ALL XIIth DYNASTY. + +(_From “Arts and Crafts of Ancient Egypt.”_)] + +The chief feature of the Lahun find was a perfect specimen of a royal +diadem, bearing the uræus on its front. No actual specimen of the +famous double crown of Egypt has ever come to light, familiar though +its appearance may be, probably because its materials were of a +perishable nature; but the diadem of Lahun gives us a unique specimen +of such a crown as Egyptian royalty may often have worn in preference +to the cumbrous mitre so frequently figured. “It is formed by a broad +band of highly burnished gold over an inch wide, and large enough to +pass round the bushy wig worn in the XIIth Dynasty. The uræus is of +open work, inlaid with lazuli and carnelian; the head is of lazuli, +which was found loose in the mud. Around the polished band were affixed +fifteen rosettes, each composed of four flowers with intermediate buds. +At the back a tube of gold was riveted on to the band, and into that +fitted a double plume of sheet gold, the stem of which slipped through +a flower of solid gold. The thickness of the plumes was such that +they would wave slightly with every movement of the head. At the back +and sides of the crown were streamers of gold, which hung from hinges +attached to the rosettes. The whole construction was over a foot and a +half high.” Such was an Egyptian diadem in the great days of the Middle +Kingdom, and surely never did a royal head wear a more graceful +emblem of sovereignty than that which came so strangely to light in +1914. + +Along with the crown were found two pectorals, one of Senusert II, the +other of Amenemhat III, of even finer design than the famous pectorals +of Dahshur. “The earlier pectoral is inlaid with minute feathering of +lazuli and turquoise; the later with a different feathering of lazuli +and white paste, which has probably been green.... They were probably +suspended by necklaces of the very rich deep amethyst beads which were +found here.” With the pectorals went several gold and jewelled collars +and necklets, and broad armlets of golden bars with beads of carnelian +and turquoise, and inlaid clasps bearing the royal cartouche, and a +number of other articles, amulets and toilet utensils, including a +silver mirror with a handle of obsidian, inlaid with bands of plaited +gold, and bearing a cast gold head of Hathor. Another item came to +light from Lahun in 1920 in the shape of the royal uræus of Senusert +II, “a massive gold casting, with inlay of carnelian and lazuli, a +head of lazuli, and eyes of garnet in gold setting,” which was found +near the sepulchral chamber in the heart of the pyramid, amidst a heap +of dust and chips of stone. Doubtless this is the royal emblem which +adorned the brow of Senusert when he was laid to rest in his pyramid, +though how it escaped the notice of the robbers who plundered his tomb +is as great a mystery as the escape of the treasure of Sat-Hathor-ant. + +Thus the pyramids of the XIIth Dynasty monarchs, insignificant as they +may seem in comparison with the gigantic piles of Gizeh, have proved +in their way no less interesting than the colossal work of Khufu, +Khafra, and Menkaura. Indeed each of the pyramid groups has its own +characteristics, and has given its own contribution to our knowledge +of the successive periods of early Egyptian history. To the mighty +structures of the IVth Dynasty we owe the revelation of the marvellous +organisation of the Egyptian kingdom, and the skill with which its +resources could be concentrated on a single gigantic task. To the less +imposing buildings of the Vth and VIth Dynasties we owe something +perhaps even more precious--the revelation of the thoughts which were +shaping themselves in the mind of man in these most ancient days with +regard to the soul and its life beyond the grave. To those of the XIIth +Dynasty we owe the evidence of the skill which shaped the marvellous +red-granite sarcophagus of Senusert II, or the great quartzite funeral +chamber of Amenemhat III, and the union of luxury with the finest taste +which created the jewellery of Dahshur and Lahun. It may be questioned +if even the tomb of Tutankhamen, with all its mass of splendour, will +have anything to show us which can surpass in grace and dignity the +diadems of Khnumit and Sat-Hathor-ant, or in exquisiteness of finish +their pectorals and armlets. + +With the decline of the royal power at the close of the XIIth Dynasty, +the age of the pyramid-builders closes. Already the taste for these +huge structures was being modified, as it was continually found how +powerless they were to accomplish the great end for which they were +designed--the protection of the dead body of the king from the hatred +of his enemies or the greed of the professional tomb-robber. The +decay of the royal power which is so marked even in the beginnings of +the dark period which now ensues no doubt completed a process which +disillusionment had already begun; and when Egypt once more found +herself under a strong and stable government, the Theban kings who +delivered her from the Hyksos tyranny had recourse to another device +for securing the continuity of existence after death, and instead of +piling mountains of stone or brick above their sepulchral chambers, +were hewing in the Valley of the Kings the galleries and halls which +have been yielding up their secrets in our time for the wonder and +instruction of the world. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +WORK AMONG THE TEMPLES + + +Scarcely less famous than the pyramids, and of far greater beauty, +are the splendid temples whose ruins extend from Heliopolis, close to +the Delta, to Philæ, where the beautiful shrines of Isis, exquisite +in their setting, even if of late date for Egypt, are now becoming +only memories of a beauty which has had to yield to the claims of +present-day life. Egypt, almost equally with Greece, may claim to be +the Land of Temples; and certainly no other land of the ancient East +can rival her in the number, the scale, and the magnificence of the +shrines which she reared to her innumerable gods. The claim of the +Greek to be the supreme temple-builder of the ancient world is, of +course, unquestioned, and nothing in Egypt can bear comparison with the +serene beauty of the Parthenon; but, though the Egyptian architect knew +nothing of that exquisite balance and harmony of proportion which has +made Greek architecture the crown of human effort in sacred building, +the temples of Egypt have a grandeur and impressiveness of their own +which make a profound appeal to the mind; and the contribution of the +Egyptian to the sum of human achievement in this respect is coming to +be more and more appreciated every day. + +The pyramids show him to have been one of the great master-builders of +the world in respect of the vastness of his creations; the temples, +often scarcely less impressive in this respect, show him to have been +also a master in the art of constructing stately and nobly proportioned +examples of that art of the column and architrave of which the temples +of Hellas gave the supreme demonstration. The question of how much the +Greek owed to the earlier builder may still be the subject of debate; +but there can be no question of the originality of the architects who +gave to the world such noble specimens of the builder’s art as the +great colonnades of Karnak and Luxor, the beautiful terraces of Der +el-Bahri, and the later glories of Edfu and Philæ. + +In one sense there can be comparatively little to tell in the way +of a story of excavation with regard to the Egyptian temples. In +Mesopotamia and Babylonia the remains of the great temples of Anu and +Adad, of Enlil, and of Marduk, owe their restoration to the light of +day entirely to the spade of the excavator, for they were completely +buried beneath the dust of ages in the great mounds of Ashur, Nippur, +and Babylon, and almost nothing was visible to tell of their former +splendours till the modern excavator patiently stripped away the mantle +in which time had wrapped them. + +But the temples of Egypt had never experienced the oblivion which +had covered their northern rivals. They had suffered, indeed, many +things at the hands of Time and of human vandalism. Sometimes they were +half-buried in the sand which had risen higher and higher, century +after century, around their columns; sometimes the shrines of a rival +faith had been thrust incongruously into their ruined courts, or an +Arab village had grown up like an ugly parasite on their roofs; but +there always remained enough to tell that the work of one of the great +master-building races of the world was there, waiting the time when +it should be stripped of these paltry accretions, and revealed in its +full beauty. Karnak, Luxor, Edfu, Dendera, and their companion shrines +were never quite forgotten, and even Hatshepsut’s exquisite terraces at +Der el-Bahri, half-smothered beneath the sand, and wrecked by Coptic +fanaticism though they were, still showed enough to enable the first +European explorers who described them (MM. Jollois and Devilliers of +Napoleon’s Expedition of 1798) to be sure of the general character of +the building which lay beneath the rubbish-heaps. + +Accordingly the work of the excavator in connection with the temples of +Egypt has not been so much the discovery of the unknown as the recovery +of the complete form of what was already partially known, the clearing +away of the excrescences which had attached themselves in the course +of centuries to the original structures; the preservation of the more +delicate work, such as relief-sculpture and painting, from further +injury; the re-establishment in a state of security of tottering +walls and columns; and, not least, the tracing out of the history of +the building of temples which were in general the work of centuries, +and of many kings. It has all been work which, from its very nature, +can have but little of the nature of romance about it, which has but +seldom led to any startling finds, which has involved a colossal amount +of sheer hard labour, without any very conspicuous rewards; but which +has resulted in the temples becoming intelligible to the ordinary +traveller, and safe for his interest for generations to come, and has +enabled us to trace, in the case of a great structure like Karnak, the +successive stages by which the vast building grew to a finished whole. + +It is, of course, obviously impossible to attempt to tell, even in +the scantiest outline, the story of a work which has extended over +the whole length of the land from the Delta to the furthest bounds +of Egyptian influence in Nubia, and has been carried on by scores of +workers of all nationalities. Perhaps our end will best be served by +taking a typical instance of the recovery of a temple, and telling +in more or less detail the story of the work which gave it back to +present-day knowledge. We take as our example Queen Hatshepsut’s +terraced temple at Der el-Bahri, one of the most beautiful, as it is +now also one of the most famous, of Egyptian buildings. + +In all Egypt there is probably no more beautiful or imposing site +than that of the “Paradise of Amen,” which the great queen reared to +the glory of the Theban god and of her own name. On the western side +of the Nile, almost exactly opposite Karnak, the limestone cliffs of +the Libyan Range sweep backwards in a great semicircle, forming a bay +across whose mouth is drawn the long line of the funerary temples of +the Theban kings of the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties. Behind them, and +behind the innumerable tombs of Sheikh Abd el-Qurneh and the Northern +Assassif, there lies, close against the salmon-red cliffs, the building +which, of all Egyptian temples, makes the strongest appeal of pure +beauty, as distinguished from the impressiveness which comes from sheer +scale and mass. + +[Illustration: 9. HATSHEPSUT’S TEMPLE, DER EL-BAHRI, GENERAL VIEW.] + +The site is one which offers peculiar advantages, but is also +encompassed with peculiar risks. No more magnificent background for +a building could be desired; but the background is precisely of such +magnificence as to form a dangerous pitfall in which a merely mediocre +architect would have been lost. To attempt to compete with Nature, +when the work of man has to be placed in such close proximity with her +towering architecture, would be to ensure hopeless defeat and to invite +ridicule. Khufu’s mountain of stone gets its full value from contrast +with the long lines of the desert plateau on whose edge it stands. The +columns and obelisks of Karnak and Luxor are far enough from the hills +on either bank of the Nile to make the human handiwork the central +and impressive feature of the picture; but the site at Der el-Bahri +would have made what was possible elsewhere a mere derision. To have +placed the huge columns which seem so great on the Theban plain in +competition with the soaring vertical lines of the Libyan cliffs would +have been to place a fool’s cap on the most grandiose work of human +hands. What was needed at Der el-Bahri was a building which should +avoid the very idea of rivalry with Nature’s handiwork, and which +should conquer by subjection, a building where all the emphasis should +be laid on the horizontal lines of structure, so as to disclaim at once +the thought of competition with the towering buttresses and bastions +behind. + +It may be questioned if ever an architect more thoroughly appreciated +the conditions of his problem, or more satisfactorily fulfilled them, +than did Senmut, when he designed for Queen Hatshepsut the three rising +courts of the Paradise of Amen, with the long slopes leading from the +one to the other, and the stately colonnades, where the shadows are so +cunningly pressed into the decorative scheme, and the vertical lines of +the columns give emphasis to the horizontality of the whole conception, +and never for one moment suggest rivalry with the cliffs above. + +Excavation, which has done so much for our knowledge of Der el-Bahri, +has taught us that the originality of the XVIIIth Dynasty architect was +not quite so absolute as was once imagined, and that he owed at least +the idea of colonnaded terraces to the great man of the XIth Dynasty, +Mertisen or another, who designed the pyramid-temple, “Glorious are +the seats of King Mentuhotep Neb-hepet-Ra,” for his royal master. But +Senmut was one of those great men who, though they take their blessings +where they find them, can never be accused of plagiarism, because they +give back to the world the original idea transfigured and glorified. +He has made the idea of the terraced courts and colonnades his own, +while avoiding the heavy central block, which, with its somewhat paltry +pyramid (if this was ever completed), must have been a contradiction +to the whole conception of the rest of the building; and his spacious +courts, with their almost Greek grace of surrounding colonnade, seem +touched with a spirit which is lacking in the older work. + +Mr. Robert Hichens has told us how “after the terrific masculinity of +Medinet-Abu, after the great freedom of the Ramesseum, and the grandeur +of its colossus, the temple at Deir-el-Bahari came upon him like a +delicate woman, perfumed and arranged, clothed in a creation of white +and blue and orange, standing--ever so knowingly--against a background +of orange and pink, of red and of brown-red, a smiling coquette of the +mountain”; and though his idea is quite too fantastically elaborated +(for the idea of conscious striving after prettiness is the last thing +one could think of in connection with Der el-Bahri), yet the idea of +femininity does occur to the mind when the temple is compared with +other Egyptian work. Hatshepsut had not much of the weak woman about +her, to all appearance, and Senmut, if his statues are any clue to the +man, was as rough-hewn and masculine a piece of granite as one might +encounter; but between them they managed to rear a temple which stands +alone in Egypt for the feminine quality of grace. + +So now we may turn to the story of how this most graceful of Egyptian +temples, unique in its grace if not in its main idea, and unique also +in that it is the only temple in Egypt which came into being wholly at +the bidding of a woman, was rescued from the accumulations of two and a +half millenniums of neglect and the ravages of religious fanaticism. + +Hatshepsut’s temple was first made known to the modern world, as we +have seen, by MM. Jollois and Devilliers, two of the savants attached +to Napoleon’s Expedition of 1798. The English traveller Pococke had +indeed visited the site in 1737; but the thing which chiefly interested +him was the abundance of mummies, and all that can be learned about +the temple from his mention of it is that in his day the sanctuary +was apparently accessible. “Here it seemed,” he says, “as though the +mountain had been vertically hewn out by the hand of man, and the +people of the place said that there had once been a passage through it +into the next valley”--the Valley of the Kings. + +What the French explorers saw sixty years later was not a great deal +more. They traced what they believed to be the bases of a series of +sphinxes which had formerly formed an avenue, 42 feet wide and 437 +yards long, leading up to the enclosure-wall of the temple, the remains +of a wall which must have formed part of one of the terraces, what they +took for the evidence of two flights of steps, leading to the higher +levels of the building, the central part of the highest platform, and +the rock-cut sanctuary which Pococke had seen. The rest of the temple +was completely covered with heaps of sand and rubbish. + +The next visitor of importance was the famous Champollion, who, as +was natural in the first decipherer of the hieroglyphics, was chiefly +interested in the inscriptions which were visible, especially on the +granite trilithon portal of the upper platform; and the great scholar +at once recognised the existence in these of a puzzle which was only +to be solved later. He read the cartouche of Hatshepsut as that of a +king Amenenthe; but was surprised to see that all the nouns and verbs +referring to this unknown king were in the feminine, and that the royal +builder was addressed by Amen-Ra as “His daughter whom he loves.” He +imagined the existence of a female ruler Amense, who must have been +connected by marriage with an unknown Thothmes, and also with the +unknown Amenenthe, and his solution of the mystery, though his names +were incorrect, was, after all, not so far from the truth. + +Champollion found evidence in the work of the temple of one of his +favourite theories--that Greek art found its origin in imitation +of Egyptian work; and here, again, he was only anticipating the +recognition of the fact that the colonnades of Der el-Bahri approach +nearer to the style of Greek work than almost any other work in Egypt. + +[Illustration: 10. NORTH COLONNADE, DER EL-BAHRI; “PROTO-DORIC” +COLUMNS.] + +Nearly thirty years after the first French explorers, and shortly after +the visit of Champollion, Wilkinson surveyed the ruins, and apparently +saw, not only the ramps of approach to the courts, but also one of +the pillared corridors whose walls were covered with sculptures of +soldiers carrying boughs and weapons, and with a scene representing +the dedication of two obelisks to Amen. His reading of the name of the +builder of the temple, Amunneitgori, or Amun-noohet, was no nearer +to the truth than that of Champollion, though he saw that the French +scholar’s unknown Thothmes was no other than Thothmes II. + +Lepsius, who evidently saw more of the temple than any of his +predecessors, was the first to make a real approach to the true reading +of its builder’s name. His version of the name, “Numt Amen,” was indeed +an almost correct reading of part of Hatshepsut’s title, Khnum Amen; +and he conjectured that she was the eldest sister of Thothmes III, who +occupied the throne during the minority of her brother, but was not +permitted to rank in the regular lists of the kings of Egypt. + +In 1858 the indefatigable Mariette visited the temple, and added it to +the thirty-six other sites at which he carried on excavations during +his thirty years of ceaseless toil. He was too busy with other work at +Qurneh to give to Der el-Bahri the attention which it deserved, and +his work there was carried on only with a small staff, and for a short +time, though he worked again at the place in 1862 and 1866. Nor were +his methods here such as to be helpful to his successors. Working, as +he did all his lifetime, under the lash, as it were, and with the need +of getting the largest possible results with the smallest expenditure +of money and time, it was impossible for him to make his clearances +thorough and methodical. Indeed, he seriously added to the difficulties +of subsequent excavators by the fact that instead of removing the +rubbish of his excavations completely outside the probable limits of +the temple, he was forced by stress of time and want of money simply +to dump his waste on the nearest convenient spot within the temple +area. The consequence was that when Naville came to make the systematic +clearance of the whole building, he found several of the most important +chambers completely buried, not only beneath the debris of the +centuries, but beneath that also which Mariette had heaped on the top +of everything. + +All the same, it was Mariette who, as in so many other instances, +first revealed to the world the real wonder of Der el-Bahri and the +surpassing interest of its sculptured halls. His was the first plan to +give us anything like a true conception of the form of the temple, then +held to be unique in Egyptian architecture; and though his restoration +of the details, or rather the restoration of M. Brune, working on his +material, was incorrect in several points, it was a good deal less so +than some more pretentious attempts which succeeded it, and at least +gave an impression intelligible, and in the main not very far from the +actuality. + +It was to this first excavation of Mariette also that we owe what has +ever since been the most picturesque, and not the least informing, +of the treasures of Der el-Bahri--the wonderful series of reliefs +representing the voyage of Hatshepsut’s squadron to Punt, which +decorates the retaining wall terminating the middle platform of the +temple. This series of sculptures, one of the priceless treasures +of New Empire Egyptian art, would of itself be the justification of +Mariette’s work. + +In 1893 the Egypt Exploration Fund took up the great task of completely +excavating Queen Hatshepsut’s temple, and their work, conducted by +M. Edouard Naville and a number of assistants, only closed with the +publication, in 1908, of the sixth folio volume of plates and plans, +completing, with the introductory memoir, a present-day memorial which +even the great queen need not have disdained, and which is worthy +of her fine achievement. By the patient efforts of M. Naville and +his fellow-workers the long ramps and spacious courts of the temple +were completely cleared of the rubbish of centuries, their graceful +colonnades put in a condition of safety, and the priceless coloured +reliefs roofed over so as to protect them from the ruinous effects of +the weather, which, even in the period between the work of Mariette +and that of the Egypt Exploration Fund, had wrought more damage to the +wonderful series of scenes of the Expedition to Punt than had been done +by all the centuries of neglect. + +Wisely the explorers made no attempt at restoration. Their aim was +solely one of preservation, and we owe to them the fact that the most +interesting temple of the XVIIIth Dynasty is now in a condition which +permits some realisation of its former beauty, and which promises its +endurance for centuries to come. Thanks to the explorers’ labours, and +to the complete view of the building which we owe to Mr. Somers Clarke, +the memorial temple of Egypt’s greatest queen is now as well known in +all its essential features as almost any structure in the world. + +The work at Der el-Bahri, however, only ended in one aspect to begin +in another. Already in 1879 Mariette, to whose instinct for the +possibilities of the various Egyptian sites full justice has never +been done, had declared his belief, founded on his discovery of a +block of stone bearing the name of King Mentuhotep Neb-hepet-Ra of the +XIth Dynasty, and of several fragments of columns, that a small temple +of the XIth Dynasty had once existed not far from Hatshepsut’s great +temple. In 1903, after the completion of the actual work of excavation +at the great temple, M. Naville began the excavation of the large +mounds to the south of the site of his former labours, and with the +assistance of Dr. H. R. Hall and others, the work was carried on till +1907, the final volume of results being published in 1913. + +[Illustration: 11. RELIEFS, DER EL-BAHRI.] + +The work began, as M. Naville tells us, chiefly with the view of +clearing the XIth Dynasty cemetery which the explorer was convinced lay +beneath the great mounds of rubbish; but the cemetery soon proved to +be less, and other objects more, important than had been anticipated. +Ere long the diggers made out the line of a ramp, running parallel to +the outer wall of Hatshepsut’s temple, and, following up the traces +of building which successively revealed themselves, as the mounds, +often from 15 to 20 feet in height, were cleared away, they at last +completely unearthed the remains of a building which is as unique +in the history of Egyptian architecture as Hatshepsut’s temple was +formerly thought to be. The temple was at an early stage found to +belong, as Mariette had suggested, to the XIth Dynasty, and to be the +work of one of the greatest kings of this little-known line of rulers, +the Mentuhotep Neb-hepet-Ra who has already been mentioned. + +It is by no means in such good preservation as its great companion, for +about the end of the XIXth Dynasty it appears to have been definitely +abandoned as a temple, and handed over to the tender mercies of the +masons who used it as a convenient quarry for material. Nothing is now +standing above 10 feet from the pavement level, and none of the pillars +are above 7 feet in height. Yet the remains are sufficiently complete +to allow of the understanding of the appearance which the whole must +have presented in the days when Hatshepsut’s architect took its +platform and colonnades as the inspiration of the great work on which +he was engaged at its side. + +At the end of a spacious enclosure, bounded by a double temenos wall of +which the outer member was of brick and the inner of limestone, a broad +ramp, sloping somewhat steeply, rose to the level of a rectangular +platform. The retaining wall of the platform was faced, as in the +later temple, with a colonnade consisting of a double row of pillars +square on plan. The platform itself was surrounded by a double range +of similar square pillars, which was roofed over, and made a kind of +veranda completely enclosing the central mass of the temple. In the +centre of this colonnade, a door, curiously narrow and paltry for so +fine a building (it is only 3 feet wide), gave access to an almost +square hypostyle hall, whose roof was supported by a perfect forest +of octagonal columns ranged on three sides in three rows, and on the +fourth, at the back of the hall, in two. In the centre of this hall, +and probably with a narrow open space between it and the innermost row +of columns, rose the unique feature of the temple--a rectangular mass +of rubble faced with hewn stone, and surmounted by a pyramid of similar +materials. Behind the pyramid, and against the wall which separated +the pyramid-court from the rear portion of the temple, were several +shrines, corresponding to certain tombs in the court beyond. + +Passing through another granite doorway, of the same meagre proportions +as the one in the front of the hall, the visitor entered an open +court surrounded by a colonnade of octagonal columns, two deep on the +southern side, but single on the east and west. In the midst of this +court the mouth of a sloping passage, which descended for 150 metres +to the rock-hewn sanctuary, lined with granite and furnished with an +alabaster shrine, where the _Ka_ of King Mentuhotep was worshipped, +formed a strange and impressive feature. Beyond the open court stood +another hypostyle hall, with eight rows of octagonal columns, ten deep, +and, last of all, a passage, bounded by two walls which reached from +the seventh of the two central rows of columns in the hall, led to a +tiny sanctuary hewn out of the cliff behind the temple. + +Such was the temple of Mentuhotep as excavation has revealed it +to us--undoubtedly a most interesting memorial of Middle Kingdom +architecture, and most important as being by far the most complete +example which has survived of the work of that period. Probably we +should have thought the dominant feature of the building, the central +pyramid, rather an incongruity than otherwise, and evidently Senmut, +when he came to his great task six hundred years later, thought so +too, for he adopted the ideas of his predecessor in other respects, +but discarded what seems to us the clumsy pyramid block altogether. +One thing, however, Senmut could not do. He could not secure for +his splendid design anything like the fineness of masonry which +Mentuhotep’s architect had been able to compass in the older temple. +The XVIIIth Dynasty builders, clever though they were in many respects, +left poor work behind them compared with the magnificent masonry of the +XIth Dynasty men. + +One of the most interesting features of the older building was found +in the six shrines which have been already mentioned. They belonged +to certain princesses, Aashait, Sadhe, Kauit, Kemsit, and Henhenit, +with one unnamed, who were also priestesses. These shrines were in +connection with the tombs of the ladies in question, who were buried +within the temple. + +The building had been completed before either the tombs or the shrines +were inserted; and the inference has been drawn that these were the +ladies of the harem who were chosen for the honour of accompanying +King Mentuhotep on his voyage through the Underworld to the regions of +the blessed--in other words, who were killed at his funeral so that he +should not lack company in the world of the dead. The survival to so +late a period of this barbarous custom is not proved, though it has +been suggested that it continued even as late as the middle of the +XVIIIth Dynasty; but at all events the shrines of the princesses have +furnished us with some fine examples of the work of the little-known +XIth Dynasty. + +In the extreme north corner of the temple, Thothmes III intruded +another shrine to the goddess Hathor, which was discovered during the +progress of the excavations in February, 1906, and has provided us with +one of the most admirable examples extant of Egyptian sculpture. The +shrine is a small chamber, 10 feet long and 8 feet high, hewn in the +rock and lined with sandstone. The slabs are sculptured with religious +scenes in which Thothmes III makes offerings to Hathor. The goddess +herself stood in the centre of the shrine in the shape of a life-sized +figure of a cow, suckling a kneeling figure of a king, while another +royal figure stands in front under her head. The name of Amenhotep II +is attached to these figures; but the probability is that they were +meant to represent Thothmes III, who dedicated the chapel, and that all +that Amenhotep II had to do with the act of piety was the engraving of +his cartouche on his father’s work. The Hathor cow of Der el-Bahri is +quite one of the masterpieces of New Empire art, quite eclipsing the +famous example of the same figure which has come from the Saite period +and has hitherto been esteemed one of the finest specimens of Egyptian +animal sculpture. “Neither Greece nor Rome,” says Maspero of the Der +el-Bahri cow, “has left us anything that can be compared with it; we +must go to the great sculptors of animals of our own day to find an +equally realistic piece of work.” Indeed the Hathor cow and the two +lions of Amenhotep III and Tutankhamen, now in the British Museum, +might be safely taken as the pieces on which Egyptian sculpture might +elect to stand as an interpreter of animal figure. + +Such, then, have been the main results of excavation on a single +Egyptian site; surely enough to afford ample justification of the +expenditure of time and money and labour which has been involved. Two +great temples have been given back to the knowledge of the world--one +of them, it is true, from a period otherwise fairly well known, the +other from a period which was hitherto almost a blank. Even in the case +of the later temple, where the results contained no surprises, and +only extended our already existing knowledge, the contribution of this +site to our estimate of Egyptian art was of surpassing value; while +Mentuhotep’s temple has filled a gap at one of the points where further +knowledge of Egyptian history and art was most to be desired. + +There have been no marvels of buried treasure to gild the pages of +the story of excavation at Der el-Bahri; but there has been a solid +addition to the sum of human knowledge of the past. At a score of +other sites, work similar to that which has just been described has +been continually going on during the last thirty years. Mariette’s +beginnings of clearance at sites such as Edfu, Esneh, Denderah, and +Abydos have been followed by work whose thoroughness has been such as +Mariette, from the nature of the case, could never have accomplished. +To tell the story of excavation, even in the most meagre outline, would +take a volume instead of a chapter, and Der el-Bahri must suffice as a +typical example of the kind of work which has been done all up and down +the land of Egypt. + +Reference must be made, however, to one piece of work, associated, +curiously enough, also with the name of the explorer of Der el-Bahri, +which has a unique interest of its own. This is the discovery of the +Pool of Osiris, which, as Strabo told us, lay beneath the great temple, +or, as he called it, the Memnonium, at Abydos. In 1914 M. Naville, +following up the work of Miss M. A. Murray and Professor Petrie in +1902–3, found a great underground chamber, 100 feet by 60 feet, +constructed of huge blocks of limestone, cased inside with hard red +sandstone. The pillars, the architraves, and the roofing-blocks of the +aisles of this chamber were all of fine granite, without adornment or +inscription, and in fact resembled almost exactly the similar work in +the so-called “Temple of the Sphinx” at Gizeh, with this difference, +that whereas the granite pillars of the Temple of the Sphinx are 3 +feet square, those of the chamber at Abydos are 8½ feet square. The +wonder of the building, however, was its arrangement. In the centre +of the chamber stood two rows of these great granite monoliths, each +row consisting of five pillars. Around the central block of masonry on +which these pillars rested, ran a deep channel, which had manifestly +once been filled with water, so as to render the central block an +island. + +Around this channel runs a ledge of stonework about 3 feet wide, and +from this ledge access is given to a set of seventeen cells each about +6 feet square and 6 feet high. + +Manifestly this extraordinary building is Strabo’s “well,” which, as +he tells us, was below the temple, and was built like the Labyrinth, +only on a smaller scale, with passages covered by a single stone. What +may have been its use it is as yet impossible to say. The water channel +and the ledge round it suggest that the boat of Osiris may have been +towed around the pool by his priests on the great feast-days, or when +the Passion Play of Abydos, representing the death and resurrection +of Osiris, was being celebrated. Two things alone seem certain, the +first, the identity of the chamber with the pool described by the old +geographer, and the second, that we have here one of the most ancient +sacred buildings in Egypt. + +Other parts of the structure are the work of the XIXth Dynasty, +which did so much at Abydos, and bear the cartouche of Merenptah and +representations of this king worshipping the gods; but the chamber of +the pool is another matter. Its construction is of such a character +as to refer it at once to a very much earlier date; and there can be +little doubt that the resemblance to the Temple of the Sphinx is only +the evidence of the fact that the two buildings are of the same period, +and that the Pool of Osiris is the earliest Egyptian building of any +size known, apart from the pyramids. + +The magnificence of its masonry shows how far the Egyptians of this +early period had already carried the system of construction which they +were to use to such splendid purpose in the great temples of the land. +Never again, however, even in the great days of New Empire building, +did they put together such a piece of sumptuous massiveness as the +underground chamber of Osiris at Abydos. + +Another aspect of work among the temples must be referred to, as being, +in its own way, not less important than the rescuing of the actual +structures from obscurity and neglect; and that is the interpretation +of the work thus rescued, the tracing of its history, and the +disentangling of the various periods of building which are represented, +and the different hands which have been at work in the completion of +a building whose history as a growing organism may stretch through +centuries, and involve the activities of half a dozen dynasties. + +[Illustration: 12. KARNAK, AVENUE OF SPHINXES.] + +To make the temples intelligible is a matter scarcely less important +than to make them visible, and it has involved scarcely less effort. +Even after all that has been accomplished in this direction, a great +Egyptian temple such as Karnak remains a sufficiently complicated +business to bewilder the ordinary sight-seer and make him turn with +relief to the clarity of Greek architecture; but at least it is now +possible to arrive at something like an understanding of how the vast +bulk of Karnak grew, century after century, to what we now see, and to +realise a little of the romance of history which is involved in the +succession of Pharaohs who have laboured to make great and splendid the +holy and beautiful house of Amen in Thebes. + +Let us turn, then, to Karnak, and try to see a little of what modern +work has done in the direction of making this vastest of extant +Egyptian temples intelligible. A century ago, Belzoni wandered round +the ruins of the great temple, his mind filled with vague dreams of +Memnon, Osymandias, and Psammethes, perhaps as appreciative of the +wonder of what he saw as the most enlightened of his successors, but +absolutely in the dark as to the significance of what he saw, or the +history of how the great building had been reared; to-day the story of +Karnak is practically as well understood as that of one of our European +cathedrals, and anyone who likes to take the trouble may trace out +the evidence of its age-long growth. Indeed it is difficult for the +modern to realise how lengthy is the story which unfolds itself in the +sculptured stones of the great temple. We think with something like +awe of the long process which reared some of our cathedrals, and which +may, perhaps, have lasted for a century, or perhaps, in an extreme +case, for two; but Karnak was a growing organism for a period of time +more than twice as long, not only as any of our cathedrals took in the +building, but twice as long as any of them have been standing. Towards +the eastern end of the vast complex of Karnak there are still to be +seen the scanty relics of the earliest builders of the temple of whom +we have any knowledge--the Middle Kingdom Pharaohs, who began their +work at Karnak certainly not much later than 2000 B.C. On the western +face of the great temple is the Pylon of the Ptolemies, whose dynasty +only closed with the subjection of Egypt to Roman rule in 30 B.C. +Karnak, in other words, was building for a period which was certainly +not less than seventeen hundred years, and which may have been almost +two thousand! Such a consideration makes our ideas as to duration seem +very small indeed. + +Nor has the work been less complicated than it has been lengthy. +Practically every Pharaoh worth naming has left his mark on the great +building in some form or another, and often the work of the reigning +king was done without the slightest regard to that of his forerunners; +sometimes, indeed, with the deliberate design of obscuring it and +blotting out its memory. Consequently the task of disentangling the +story of Karnak has been no easy one. It has been like the reading +of a manuscript where interpolations of different writers, dealing +with different matters, continually break the thread of the main +narrative, and where, to add to the confusion, part of the writing is a +palimpsest, written over the faded script of an earlier author. Along +with the difficulty of interpreting the story of the various buildings +has gone that of preserving them from destruction. + +One of the curious facts about Egyptian building is that, for a race +of master-builders such as they showed themselves to be, they were +strangely, even culpably careless about their foundations. If the +mighty halls which they reared had been built on such foundations +as modern builders would insist on for even much less important +structures, there seems no reason why, short of deliberate destruction +by the hand of man, the Egyptian temples should not stand practically +for ever. But the Egyptian architect was content to pile walls and +colonnades which are the wonder of the world on the most flimsy +foundations, and his work is in most cases literally a house built on +the sand. + +The wonder is, not that there have been occasional collapses, but +that the buildings have stood so long as they have; indeed nothing +but their sheer mass and weight has enabled them to endure. Even so, +earth-tremors, and the constant and insidious work of infiltration, +have worked havoc on the badly founded buildings, and were it not +for the constant care devoted to them, and the work of practically +refounding them which has been carried out, the great halls of Karnak +would ere long be only masses of tumbled ruin. There is nothing +dramatic about the work of either the interpreter or the preserver; +neither can point, in general, to any treasure-trove which has resulted +from his efforts, though occasionally, as notably in connection with +the work of M. Legrain at Karnak, the work of preservation has resulted +in the unearthing of a mass of the most wonderful ancient statuary. +But we owe the double fact that Karnak stands to-day and is likely to +stand for centuries to come, and that its vast complex of building is +intelligible, to many years of quiet and unobtrusive work on the part +of scholars and architects. + +In the great days of Egypt’s glory under the New Empire, Thebes must +have been one of the wonder-cities of the world, and one of the fairest +sights on which the sun ever shone. It may be that Babylon, in the +short-lived glory of the Neo-Babylonian Empire of Nebuchadnezzar, +was vaster in extent, and the German excavations have taught us how +gorgeous were some of the great buildings of the city, with their +facings of enamelled brick and their wealth of colour; but it may be +questioned if even Babylon could show anything to match the solemn +splendour of Karnak or Luxor, and beside the ordered sumptuousness +of the huge Egyptian temples, with their wonders of megalithic +construction, one imagines that Babylon’s glories would have seemed +rather cheap and tawdry. And of all the glories of Thebes, Karnak was +the centre and crown. + +Petrie tells us that the pitiful remains of the Labyrinth, the great +temple of Amenemhat III of the XIIth Dynasty, show that it was big +enough to hold all the temples of Karnak and Luxor put together; but +the imagination is scarcely capable of trying to comprehend the extent +of such a building, and Karnak is quite big enough for most people. +The actual area of its buildings is about equal to that of St. Peter’s +(Rome), Milan, and Nôtre Dame (Paris); while the sacred enclosure, the +Cathedral Close, so to speak, would hold another half-dozen of the +biggest cathedrals of Europe, without crowding them unduly. + +Let us try to imagine ourselves visiting the great temple in the days +when it had reached its greatest extent, though, by that time, the +glory of Thebes had in great measure departed. Still the building, +as we now see it, was practically completed only in the days of the +Ptolemies, and no survey of it would be adequate without including +their work. Unfortunately in taking the temple in the natural order of +approach, by its west front, so to speak, we reverse almost exactly +the order of its building, which was, generally speaking, from east +to west. Yet the history of the building is sufficiently intelligible +even when thus taken in reverse order, and though there are other +approaches to Karnak, and the approach by either the Eastern or the +Western Avenue of Sphinxes must have been very impressive, yet the main +front of the temple must always have been that which faced the Nile, in +the termination of the axis of the whole structure. No doubt also the +Egyptian Kings, with their fondness for using their great river as the +scene of ceremonial processions, used the western front of the temple +for their visits to the shrine of Amen. + +We land, then, at a quay of hewn stone, adorned with two small obelisks +of Sety II of the XIXth Dynasty, and with two statues of couchant +lions. Passing down a short and gentle slope, we move along a broad +paved way between rows of couchant ram-headed sphinxes, which were +placed here by Ramses II. The path extends for 200 feet, and leads up +to the vastest portal to be found even in this land of vast portals. +This is the First Pylon of Karnak--first in point of approach, but last +in point of erection, for it is the work of the Ptolemaic Pharaohs who +grasped the sceptre of Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great; +and indeed, as you can see, the work is not yet complete. Building is +still going on, and the ramps of crude brick by which the great stones +are dragged up to their positions are still heaped against the walls, +where they will continue to stand for more than two thousand years. + +The pylon itself is gigantic. The breadth of the west front of St. +Paul’s, the greatest building familiar to English minds, is 179 feet, +and its height, to the top of the statue of St. Paul on the pediment, +is 135 feet. The Pylon of the Ptolemies measures 370 feet in breadth, +or rather more than double St. Paul’s, while its height is 142½ feet, +so that it overtops St. Paul’s head by 7½ feet. In addition its walls +are 49 feet thick. No mightier approach to a temple was ever devised. + +Passing through this great gateway we find ourselves in an open court +whose dimensions are worthy of the portal which gave access to it. From +the gateway where you stand to the scarcely less imposing pylon of +Ramses I, which faces you across the open space, this court measures +275 feet, while its breadth is 338 feet. The area of St. Paul’s is +84,000 square feet, so that this single court of Karnak exceeds our +great cathedral in area by 8000 square feet. Around its walls runs a +colonnade of single columns. In the north corner of the court there +stands a little grey sandstone temple, divided into three chapels, +which are dedicated to Amen, Mut, and Khonsu, the members of the Theban +Triad. The southern colonnade is broken by the intruding front of a +larger temple. This is the temple of Ramses III, the last of the great +warrior kings of Egypt, who saved the land, in the degenerate days of +the XXth Dynasty, from being overrun and ravaged by the raid of the +Sea-Peoples. His temple, though very modest in size (it measures only +170 feet in length), is important as giving one of the most perfect +examples extant of a complete Egyptian temple, built from start to +finish by one monarch, and on a straightforward and homogeneous plan. + +The great court which has taken these two lesser buildings into its +sweep was the work of the Libyan Pharaohs of the XXIInd Dynasty, who +held their court at Bubastis, and is therefore often called the Court +of the Bubastites. The temple of Ramses III was cleared of rubbish in +1896–7 by M. Legrain, in the course of his great work at Karnak. Down +the central avenue of the Bubastite court the Ethiopian Pharaohs of +the XXVth Dynasty began the erection of a colonnade whose purpose has +not been quite determined. As they left it, it consisted of a double +range of huge columns, five in each row. Of the ten, only one solitary +survivor now stands, and is known as the Column of Taharqa, after the +Ethiopian king who was responsible for its erection, and for some of +the sorest disasters of Egypt in her declining days. It was Taharqa +and his successor Tanutamen who brought down upon Egypt the wrath of +the Assyrian conqueror, Ashurbanipal, whose ruthless soldiery by the +sack of Thebes dealt the imperial city a blow from which she never +recovered. Taharqa’s column stands as the memorial of a man who “began +to build, and was not able to finish” in more senses than one. + +Leaving the court for a moment by the portal in the south-east corner, +we find on the wall of the second pylon one of the most interesting +records of the temple. This is the inscription in which Sheshanq, one +of the Libyan Pharaohs, records the triumph of that campaign in Syria +in the course of which he humbled the pride of Rehoboam of Judah, and +robbed Solomon’s temple of all the riches which the wise king had +accumulated. In Sheshanq’s relief a gigantic figure of Amen leads up +before the now vanished figure of the king five rows of captive towns +of Palestine, each represented by a circular wall enclosing its name, +from which emerges the upper part of a bound prisoner. + +[Illustration: 13. KARNAK, NAVE OF HYPOSTYLE HALL.] + +Before us, as we return to the great court, rises the second pylon, the +work of Ramses I, the founder of the XIXth Dynasty. Scarcely any part +of the temple is more eloquent of the jumble of times, and kings, and +even faiths, which goes to make up Karnak, than the neighbourhood of +this pylon. The great gateway itself is of Ramses I; but its materials +had their own story before he built them into his new approach to the +temple of Amen, and had served another god; for some of the blocks of +the pylon once belonged to one of the heretical temples of Akhenaten, +and bear his name and those of his successors, Tutankhamen and Ay. The +little vestibule before the pylon is flanked by statues of Ramses II; +but within the doorway are found the cartouches of Ramses I and Sety +II, as well as that of Ramses II, while part of the vestibule is the +work of two of the Ptolemies. Thus in this little space the work of no +fewer than eight Pharaohs, covering a period of more than a thousand +years, is represented. + +The gateway of Ramses I gives access to what is perhaps the most +remarkable, though by no means the most beautiful, of the halls of +Karnak. The Hypostyle Hall, one of the hugest of human creations, was, +like so much else at Karnak, the work of several sovereigns, though +in this case the completion of the building was not so very long +protracted as in some other instances. The hall was begun by Ramses +I, whose short reign of two years only enabled him to see the work +started. The greater part of the hall as we now see it is the work of +Sety I, one of the finest of Egyptian Pharaohs, whose work everywhere +is in accordance with the nobility of his face as it can be seen at +Cairo. + +Sety carried out the erection of what is by far the most imposing +feature of the hall, the nave, with its double row of gigantic +open-flower columns, the largest in existence. Each of the twelve +tremendous columns is 69 feet in height and 33 feet in circumference, +while the spreading capitals, 11 feet in height, have an area large +enough for one hundred men to stand upon. Imagine twelve versions of +the Trajan Column at Rome, or the Vendôme Column at Paris, facing +one another in two rows and supporting gigantic architraves of sixty +to a hundred tons in weight, which in their turn support the great +roofing-slabs. These form the central avenue of the great hall. On +either side of them the papyrus-bud columns of the two side aisles rise +to a height of 42½ feet. The rows nearest to the central avenue on +either side bear above their architraves rectangular pillars which make +up the difference between the height of the side columns and those of +the centre, and which bear the extremities of the roof of the nave with +its cornice. On the lower level of the side pillars, the roof of the +hall continues over the rest of the area, supported by a forest of one +hundred and twenty-two columns. + +Sety I is responsible for the whole of the northern half of the hall, +as well as for the central avenue, so that the southern portion of the +building is all that Ramses II can claim as his work, if indeed even +this part was not erected by his father, and only sculptured by him. +Ramses II, however, had the knack of securing to himself the glory +of work which was done by other men, and to most people the great +Hypostyle Hall of Karnak is his work, though he had really very little +to do with it. + +The architectural merits of the huge building are undoubted, up to a +certain point; but its faults are equally unquestionable. Mere size +tells here, as indeed it almost always does, unless its impression +is spoilt by sheer incapacity. There can be no question of the +impressiveness of the great building. The central avenue, with its +soaring columns, and its grated clerestory rising above the roofs +of the side-aisles, is the prototype of all subsequent cathedral +architecture. But the side-aisles do not add to the dignity of the +great chamber. Their forest of squat, shapeless columns, instead of +being impressive, is only bewildering. Here, very certainly, you cannot +see the wood for the trees, and the spaciousness of the hall is quite +destroyed by the multitude of the supports of its roof. “The size that +strikes us,” says Professor Petrie, “is not the grandeur of strength, +but the bulkiness of disease.” + +The outer walls of the great hall are sculptured with reliefs +representing the wars of its two creators. The north wall bears a fine +series of scenes, covering over 200 feet of surface, in which the wars +of Sety I are depicted with great spirit. In some later instances such +war-reliefs are merely wearisome; but these of Sety are both vivacious +and well-executed, and such scenes as that of the king smiting +the Libyans are among the best examples of work in this kind, and +infinitely superior to the pretentious work of his son. The southern +wall has reliefs of Ramses II, his eternal Battle of Kadesh, which +he could never forget, or allow anyone else to forget, a copy of the +treaty of peace with the Hittites, and the so-called Poem of Pentaur, +in which the king’s valour at Kadesh is celebrated. + +Behind the Hypostyle Hall comes the IIIrd Pylon, which was reared +by the most magnificent, if not the greatest, of Egyptian Pharaohs, +the gorgeous Amenhotep III, in whose glittering reign the glories of +the New Empire seemed to culminate, before the shadows of his son’s +ill-starred attempt at religious reform dimmed their splendour. When +Thebes was at the height of its fame, and when all the kings of the +ancient east were sending their ambassadors to the great city to fall +“seven times and seven times” in the dust before the golden sandals of +the man who was God visible on earth to a great part of the ancient +world, this third pylon was the main front of the great Theban temple, +which then occupied not much more than half the space which it now +covers. Its western face was used by Sety as the back wall of the +Hypostyle Hall; but on the northern tower on the eastern side can still +be seen the faint remains of a great scene in which a royal procession +on the Nile in honour of Amen is depicted. One great ship over 40 +feet long has the king standing on the poop, and cabins with cornices +amidships. Thirty or forty rowers urge it along, and it tows behind it +the sacred barge of Amen, which bears in a shrine a small processional +bark of the god, and at the bow a sphinx and an altar. + +[Illustration: 14. KARNAK, COLUMNS OF THE SIDE-AISLE, HYPOSTYLE HALL.] + +Besides his pylon, Amenhotep wrought a vast amount of work at Karnak; +but it was not, like that of Sety and Ramses, concentrated in a single +great structure, but dispersed in various parts of the sacred +enclosure, and so does not produce the same effect. To see the work of +Amenhotep on a scale worthy of his importance in the line of Egyptian +Pharaohs, you have to go to Luxor with its fine papyrus-bud forecourt, +and its noble nave, which, had it been finished, would have almost +rivalled the Hypostyle Hall of the later kings in size and exceeded it +in beauty; or to try to think back the vanished glories of what was +probably the most gorgeous and beautiful of all the Theban temples--the +Funerary temple of Amenhotep, which was destroyed, not by the Assyrian +conqueror, but by the royal vandals of the XIXth Dynasty, Ramses II and +his son Merenptah. + +All the same, Amenhotep accomplished no small amount of work, in one +way and another, within the enclosure of Karnak. Just beyond the +girdle-wall of the great temple on the north side, he built a temple to +Mentu, the Theban War-God, with a pylon, and obelisks of red granite. +This temple once contained statues in black granite of the king, and of +the goddess Sekhmet, towards whom he evidently cherished a feeling of +deep devotion, if we may judge by the number of statues to her which he +dedicated in the temple of Mut. + +The temple of Mentu shared the usual fate of Amenhotep’s work, and +was meddled with by Merenptah, Ramses V, and at least four of the +Ptolemies, a fair specimen of the fashion in which the history of +Karnak is complicated by the multitude of superimposed strata, or +rather of interwoven strands, with which you have to do. + +On the south side, and just at the girdle-wall, stands the beautiful +temple of Khonsu (the son of the Theban Triad), one of the finest +examples of a complete Egyptian temple of normal form. This is not +the work of Amenhotep, but of Ramses III; but apparently an earlier +temple of Amenhotep must have once occupied the site, for the king set +up before the gateway a noble avenue of one hundred and twenty-two +sandstone sphinxes bearing his name. Beyond the wall, and approached +by the eastern avenue of sphinxes, lies another of Amenhotep’s +contributions to the glories of Karnak--the temple of Mut, the +mother-goddess of the Theban Triad, which was excavated in 1895–7 by +two English ladies, Miss Margaret Benson and Miss Janet Gourlay. It is +full of Sekhmet statues, and behind it lies a sacred lake, shaped like +a horse-shoe. + +But the following out of the work of Amenhotep has drawn us away from +our main quest, the tracing of the story of Karnak proper. Returning +to the great temple by the eastern avenue of sphinxes, we pass the +girdle-wall by a pylon built by Horemheb out of the material of a +temple which the unfortunate Akhenaten had reared in Thebes to his +new deity the Aten. Beside the pylon stands a stele inscribed with a +manifesto of Horemheb, which was designed to promote peace in the state +after the religious troubles of Akhenaten’s times. The square court +behind the pylon has on its east side the ruins of a small temple of +Amenhotep II, and the walls of the court have reliefs of Horemheb. +Another pylon of Horemheb, in a very ruinous condition, closes the +court on the north side, and passing through it we are faced by one +of the most ancient parts of the whole building, the pylon of Queen +Hatshepsut. The pylon bears witness both to what Professor Breasted +calls “the Feud of the Thutmosids,” and to the religious strifes of +the XVIIIth Dynasty, for Hatshepsut’s name was erased from her reliefs +by Thothmes II, and all allusions to Amen were scrupulously removed by +Akhenaten, and restored by Sety I. Behind Hatshepsut’s pylon we pass a +pylon of Thothmes III, her successor and enemy, and traversing a court +whose walls bear inscriptions of Merenptah, the son and successor of +Ramses II, in which he describes his victories over the Libyans and the +Peoples of the Mediterranean, we find ourselves back at the point from +which our digression started, in the central court behind the great +pylon of Amenhotep III. Here was the western front of the temple in the +days of Thothmes I, and here still stands the solitary remaining member +of the quartette of obelisks with which this king and Thothmes III +adorned the front of the pylon which now lies in ruins behind them. The +obelisks of the later king are both gone--the survivor of the pair of +Thothmes I is a fine shaft, 75½ feet high. + +Behind his pylon, and between it and a smaller one which he erected to +the east, Thothmes reared a fine ceremonial hall with roof and columns +of cedar wood; but his work was not permitted to endure for long. +It was within this hall that the priests of Amen arranged a little +piece of play-acting in which the god Amen declared his preference +for Thothmes III as king, and it was perhaps this unpalatable fact +which determined Queen Hatshepsut to make it the scene of a piece of +vandalism which was to redound to her own glory. Anyhow, as the time +for the celebration of her jubilee drew near, she sent her architect, +Senmut, up to Aswan to bring down two great shafts of granite for +her jubilee obelisks, and when the tremendous blocks, 97½ feet high, +arrived, she stripped off the roof from part of her father’s hall and +set them up there. Apart from the filial piety of such an act, the +obelisks were things of which she might justly be proud. + +With the single exception of the stone, the work of her deadly enemy +Thothmes III, which now stands before St. John Lateran in Rome, and +which is 8 feet higher than its rival, the shaft of Hatshepsut, which +still remains erect at Karnak, is the largest obelisk existing, and is +more than 20 feet higher than the so-called “Cleopatra’s Needle,” which +represents to Londoners, as its twin does to the folk of New York, the +skill of ancient Egypt. + +[Illustration: 15. KARNAK, VIEW FROM THE NORTH, OBELISKS OF HATSHEPSUT, +AND THOTHMES I.] + +Hatshepsut was so proud of her achievement that she caused the shafts +to be engraved with an inscription in which she swears, “As Ra loves +me, as my father Amen favours me ... as I shall be unto eternity like +an Imperishable, as I shall go down in the west like Atum, so surely +these two great obelisks which My Majesty hath wrought with electrum +for my father, Amen, in order that my name may abide in his temple, +enduring for ever and ever, they are of one block of enduring granite, +without seam or joining.” She goes on to say, what is still more +surprising, that the time occupied in the extraction and transportation +of the mighty shafts was seven months! + +When Thothmes III came to the throne, he showed his love for his +distinguished relative by casing her obelisks to a height of 82 feet +with sandstone, so that her inscriptions might not be read. As rulers, +the Pharaohs of the XVIIIth Dynasty, male or female, stand in the very +front rank; they cannot be said to have shone as exponents of family +affection. + +To the east of his second pylon, Thothmes I had another court, which +was altered and added to by Thothmes III, who built also a small pylon +in front of his Halls of Records, which come next in the great complex +of building, jostling the apartments of Hatshepsut, which stand beside +them. In the First Hall of Records stand the two pillars which strike +everyone who sees them as one of the beauties of Karnak, and examples +of a type not common in Egyptian work. They are of granite, the +southern one carved with the Lotus of Upper Egypt, the northern with +the Papyrus of Lower Egypt. The Second Hall was turned into the chapel +of the temple, in which the sacred bark was kept, by Philip Arrhidæus, +at the beginning of the Ptolemaic dominion, so that one of the oldest +and one of the newest parts of the building are here united. + +In the open space behind the chapel lie the scanty remains of the +earliest Karnak known to us--that of the XIIth Dynasty. A few broken +polygonal columns suggest a kinship in style, for the earliest parts +of the great temple, with the work of the XIth Dynasty at Der el-Bahri; +but it is impossible to say with the least approach to certainty what +the first temple may have looked like. East again of these remnants +comes the last important part of the vast building--the great Festal +Temple of Thothmes III, with its fine Hall, 144 feet by 52 feet, and +its eastern sanctuary and complex of store-chambers. + +The Festal Hall presents a feature unique in Egyptian Architecture. +Its colonnade consists of thirty-two rectangular piers ranged round +the sides, while down the centre of the hall run two rows of ten round +columns, not spaced with the piers, and of extraordinary shape. Instead +of tapering from the base to the top, their taper runs the opposite +way, and their capitals are inverted, and present the appearance of +a bell standing on its mouth. The downwards tapering column is, of +course, a familiar feature in Minoan architectural practice, and it is +within the bounds of possibility that Thothmes’ columns are an Egyptian +adaptation of a Minoan motive, for, as the tombs of Senmut and Rekhmara +show, Minoan influence was at its height in the middle of the XVIIIth +Dynasty, and intercourse between Crete and Egypt was frequent. Whether +Thothmes owed the idea to some Minoan suggestion or not, it never +established itself in Egypt. In Crete, with its regular use of wooden +pillars resting on stone bases, the downward taper was quite natural; +in Egypt, with a prevalent stone construction, it was an exotic, and +could show no reason for its existence, and it was never repeated. +One cannot say that its disappearance was any great loss to Egyptian +architecture, for the effect of the inversion is singularly clumsy. + +We have thus traced the story of Karnak as one traverses the great +temple from front to rear, and the bewildering complexity of the +building is reflected in the variegated fabric of the narrative. To +call Karnak, as is often done, “the typical temple of the Egyptian +Empire,” is to create an entire misapprehension in the mind of anyone +who hears such a phrase used. Karnak is anything but a typical temple; +indeed it is not a temple, but rather an aggregate of many temples, +and above everything else an epitome of Egyptian history for at least +a millennium and a half. One would not even seek it for typical +representatives of Egyptian architecture. Karnak, in this respect, +possesses its beauties--and its monstrosities; but one would look +rather to smaller specimens of the builder’s art for an adequate +representation of Egyptian achievement in this respect. + +The great temple claims, and will always claim, our attention and +wonder, by its sheer vastness, to begin with, for undoubtedly vastness +has its own effect, though it is not the highest, in the elements +of architectural impressiveness; then by the extraordinary way in +which it presents a summary in stone of the vicissitudes of Egyptian +history; last, and perhaps least, by the surprising quality, and in +some instances the beauty, of some of its detail. The main element in +its appeal will always be wonder; admiration, and even that qualified +by many reservations, is a bad second to the impression of simple +amazement, that human hands and brains should have ever wrought so vast +a thing. + +The preservation of the temple is, and will continue to be, a work +almost as great, and as difficult, as its erection. It lies in the +hands of the Egyptian Service of Antiquities, and is a task as unending +as the web of Penelope. Generally speaking, such work is of the kind +which has to be its own reward, for it makes no appeal to the average +visitor, who only sees that his enjoyment of this court or that is +more or less hindered by the progress of work whose one merit is that +it will keep safe for future generations priceless treasures which +otherwise would ere long pass away. Sometimes, however, the work does +bring other prizes in its train. + +[Illustration: 16. LUXOR, FORECOURT OF AMENHOTEP III.] + +Such was the case when, in November, 1903, M. Legrain, in the course +of his work near the pylon of Thothmes III by which we returned to +the central court after our digression to the south, found what has +since been known as “the Karnak Cachette,” a great pit full of pieces +of sculpture of all types and periods. “For a year and eight months,” +wrote Maspero in February, 1905, “we have been fishing for statues in +the Temple of Karnak.... Seven hundred stone monuments have already +come out of the water, and we are not yet at the end.... Statues whole +and in fragments, busts, mutilated trunks, headless bodies, bodiless +heads, vases on which there were only broken feet, Pharaohs enthroned, +queens standing upright, priests of Amon and individuals holding +naos, or images of gods, in front of them, crouching, kneeling, +sitting, found in all the attitudes of their profession or rank, in +limestone, in black or pink granite, in yellow or red sandstone, in +green breccia, in schist, in alabaster--indeed, a whole population +returns to the upper air and demands shelter in the galleries of the +Museum.” + +The reason for the existence of this extraordinary dump of discarded +sculpture, whose richness Maspero’s vivacious sentences do not in the +least exaggerate, and which gave us, to mention only two examples, the +masterly pink granite head of Senusert III, one of the most brilliant +examples of XIIth Dynasty sculpture, and the schist Thothmes III, +equally one of the finest examples of the art of the New Empire, seems +to have been this. The Ptolemies, the presence of whose coins in the +pit sufficiently dates it, did a great deal of building at Karnak, and +in the course of their cleaning up of the places where they worked, +they, no doubt, came on an infinity of out-of-date _ex voto_ statues, +some of them broken, some of them whole, but all rather a nuisance and +obstruction, as the persons with whom they were associated had long +since ceased to be of importance. What was to be done with them? They +could not simply be thrown out as rubbish, for they had been dedicated +to the god, and were therefore sacred; and they could not be allowed to +stand littering up the courts which the Ptolemies were busily tidying. +Accordingly the great pit was dug within the sacred enclosure, and +Senusert, Thothmes, Senmut, and hundreds of other old Egyptian notables +were consigned to its muddy depths, thence to be resurrected, more +than two thousand years later, by their degenerate descendants, who +baled out the water from the pit with old petroleum cans, and hoisted +Pharaoh, High-priest or Statesman, unceremoniously out of his dark +resting-place with lever and tackle. It has been a fortunate chance +for us, for Egyptian portrait-sculpture might stake its reputation on +the two pieces which I have mentioned, and the pit has yielded scores +almost as good. + +The work of preserving the building, and putting it in a condition of +safety for the future, has had a curious interest from the fact that +in its progress Karnak has been to some extent rebuilt, and by exactly +the same methods by means of which it was built in the beginning. For +there can be little doubt, in spite of all talk about the wonderful +mechanical knowledge of the ancient Egyptians, and their possession +of secrets which have been lost to our time, that Karnak, like all +the great Egyptian buildings, was built, not by means of any of these +remarkable secrets which never existed save in the imagination of those +who have talked about them, but by the disciplined and ordered use of +the very simplest means known to man, the inclined plane, the lever, +and any amount of obedient human muscle. These were the mechanical +secrets which M. Legrain found most useful and most economical in +the end of the nineteenth century A.D., as those who had gone before +him had done in the nineteenth, the fifteenth, the fourth century +B.C. Senusert, Thothmes, Hatshepsut, Sety, Ramses, Sheshanq, Taharqa, +Ptolemy, they all built Karnak by sheer force of human labour, +disciplined and guided by a race of builders who for thousands of +years had specialised in the training of men for such tasks, and with +no more marvellous secrets to aid them than those oldest of man’s +mechanical triumphs, the ramp and the lever. M. Legrain has repeated +their miracles with the same equipment; and in an age of machinery has +shown that the human machine may still be the most adequate, the most +adaptable, and the most economical. + +Thus, then, we have seen, at two of the most interesting sites in +Egypt, something of the work which has been going on with the double +object of extending our knowledge of the past and of preserving its +treasures for the future. Realising something of the importance of such +buildings as Der el-Bahri and Karnak, and their scores of companions +throughout the land, buildings which are, in effect, ancient Egypt +to us, one can feel that work such as that which has been meagrely +described in these pages, unspectacular though it may be compared with +the work of Pharaoh-hunting, is yet of great and enduring importance, +the indispensable fabric on which the glittering embroidery of the +treasure-troves from the Valley of the Kings and elsewhere is wrought, +and without whose rich and durable substance to form a background the +golden glory of the royal tombs would lose half its meaning and beauty. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +BURIED ROYALTIES + + +Among the most curious of ancient Egyptian documents are the two +papyri, the Abbott and the Amherst, which tell the story of the +robberies of the royal tombs at Thebes, which came to light in the +reign of Ramses IX, about 1100 B.C. At that time the capital city was +ruled, under the Governor, by a certain noble named Paser, who was +called “The Prince of the Town.” Western Thebes, however, the City +of the Dead, was not under the care of Paser, but was supervised by +another official named Pewero, who rejoiced in the title of “Prince +of the West.” Between the Prince of the Town and the Prince of the +West there was no love lost, as is not uncommon with the heads of two +adjacent jurisdictions; and Paser, on the eastern bank of the river, +kept his ears open to all the tittle-tattle of discontented workmen +from the Necropolis which drifted across the river. It so fell out +in the sixteenth year of Ramses IX, that certain thefts from the +Necropolis were reported by the Prince of the West to the Governor; +and Paser seized the opportunity of making the most to the Council +of the laxity of administration which allowed such things, and of +suggesting that infinitely worse robberies, involving the Royal Tombs, +were occurring under his enemy’s jurisdiction. + +[Illustration: 17. LUXOR, PAPYRUS-BUD COLUMNS AND COLOSSI OF RAMSES II.] + +A special commission was appointed to investigate the charges, and +the importance of the case is shown by the rank of the members of the +court. These were Khaemuas, the Governor, “The Royal Vassal Nesamen, +Scribe of Pharaoh,” _i.e._ the King’s private Secretary, and “The Royal +Vassal Neferkara-em-per-Amen, the Speaker of Pharaoh,” doubtless the +King’s Public Orator. This august court went at great length into the +charges, and it is impossible to read the account of the case without +feeling that Paser had right on his side, though he rather made a +bungle of his case. Obviously his information was mainly derived from +ill-natured gossip, for it was so inaccurate in detail that the very +royal tomb which he positively declared to have been robbed was found +on examination to be untouched; but equally obviously there was a great +deal going on in the Necropolis which should not have gone on, and +Pewero either connived at the thefts or was culpably careless. + +On the whole Paser failed to establish his charges, though in one case, +to be mentioned directly, there was plain evidence of the violation of +a royal tomb. The Prince of the Town took his failure rather badly, and +spoke wild whirling words before a riotous deputation of Necropolis +workmen, which got him into trouble; but bit by bit the actual truth +leaked out, though not in the Commission. + +Three years later, in the reign of Ramses X, sixty persons, mainly +priests and officials of the Necropolis, were arrested on the charge +of complicity in the thefts; and even this big bag of robbers did not +bring security to the royal dead. Ere long the priests of the dead +kings were frantically hustling the mummies of their dead masters from +one tomb to another in the vain attempt to put them beyond the reach +of the spoilers, until at last the bulk of the great Theban Pharaohs +were gathered, or rather huddled, together, in the obscure shaft of the +unfinished tomb of Queen Astemkheb at Der el-Bahri, or in the tomb of +Amenhotep II in the Valley of the Kings. + +The kind of treatment which was meted out to the mighty dead by the +sacrilegious rascals in the Theban Necropolis is detailed for us in +the confession of one of them, a confession extracted, for the rest, +by the time-honoured Eastern questionary of the bastinado. “We found +the august mummy of this god,” says the thief, describing his work at +the tomb of King Sebek-em-saf and his wife Queen Nub-khas, “with a long +chain of golden amulets and ornaments round the neck; the head was +covered with gold. The august mummy of this god was entirely overlaid +with gold, and his coffin was covered both within and without with +gold, and adorned with every splendid costly stone. We stripped off +the gold which we found on the august mummy of this god, as well as +the amulets and ornaments from around the neck, and the bandages in +which the mummy was wrapped. We found the royal wife equipped in like +manner, and we stripped off all that we found upon her. We burnt her +bandages, and we also stole the household goods which we found with +them, and the gold and silver vessels. We divided all between us; we +divided into eight parts the gold which we found with this god, the +mummies, the amulets, the ornaments and the bandages.” + +Such was the treatment accorded to a Pharaoh of Egypt by one of +his subjects three thousand years ago; a curious commentary on the +present-day Egyptian protests against the opening of the royal tombs in +the interests of science! But the story of the Ramesside tomb-robberies +is only an illustration of two contradictory cravings which are seen +working all down the long record of the Egyptian monarchy. On the one +hand there is the constant attempt of royalty to secure for itself by +the most elaborate precautions that age-long endurance of the physical +frame which was deemed a necessary condition for the welfare of the +dead king in the Underworld, an attempt which expresses itself in +different ways, some of them most wonderful, in the successive periods +of Egyptian history; on the other, there is the equally constant +and resolute determination of the Egyptian tomb-robber that not all +the divinity which doth hedge a king, and especially a Pharaoh, +shall keep him from his prey. The Ramesside thief has any amount of +lip-reverence for the dead king whose rest he so rudely disturbs; but +all the time that he is talking about “the august mummy of this god,” +he is stripping the gold and jewels from it, and his accomplices are +kindling the fire which will shortly destroy, from an Egyptian point of +view, King Sebek-em-saf’s hope of immortality; and the contradiction is +an epitome of a good deal in the story of Egyptian royalty. + +The most enduring religious feeling in the Egyptian was the craving +for immortality; and the most permanent, as it was one of the earliest +religious convictions, was that immortality was linked with faith in +the god Osiris, who, as the legend ran, had been treacherously slain +by his brother Set, had risen from the dead, had been judged and +pronounced just by the tribunal of the gods, and thenceforth reigned as +the god of the Underworld and the judge of the dead. + +The devout Egyptian believed that after death, if the necessary +conditions had been fulfilled on his behalf, he was identified with +his god, and like him rose again, was justified, and admitted to the +Egyptian Elysian Fields. These conditions, briefly stated, were, first, +the continuance for as long a period as possible, of the body, in a +state as closely as possible resembling that of life. Whether this +need, which, of course, was responsible for the characteristically +Egyptian practice of mummification, sprang from the belief that the +spiritual essence of the dead man might find a resting-place after +death in the mummified shell of its living abode, or whether the +creation of the mummy was merely, as Professor Peet asserts, a counsel +of despair, an attempt to deny death for as long as possible, is not +certain; but the attempt to preserve the body, first by the provision +of a secure tomb, and later by mummification as well, endures through +the whole of Egyptian history. The second condition was the provision +of food and drink, and all the comforts of life, for the dead man in +his tomb. The third was the equipping of him with all the words of +power which would enable him to escape the dangers which haunted the +ways of the Underworld, and to pass the ordeal of the judgment, and +with amulets which would prove efficacious in warding off the assaults +of the demons of the Underworld. Last of all, as in the Elysian Fields +there was work to be done, and it was not fitting that a king or a +great noble should stoop to manual labour, the dead man had to be +provided with simulacra of servants who should answer for him when he +was called upon for service, and take upon themselves his burden of +labour. + +Out of all these conditions there arose gradually the whole wealth of +Egyptian funerary equipment, as it is found in the tombs of the great +men of the land, and above all in those of the Pharaohs, an equipment +whose splendour has dazzled the whole world in the revelations of the +tomb of Tutankhamen. From the very earliest times the kings of Egypt +were laid to rest with elaborate provision for the wants of the dead +monarch, and the provision grew in completeness and complexity with +each successive generation, till it reached its culmination in the +gorgeous tombs of the Theban Pharaohs of the New Empire, with their +hundreds of feet of rock-hewn chamber and corridor, their glittering +canopies, their nests of gilded coffins, their wealth of costly +amulets and illuminated papyri, their stores of ushabtis, and, at the +heart of all, the wonderfully preserved mummy of the man for whom all +this magnificence had been prepared. + +It may be questioned, however, whether all these precautions did not +rather tend to defeat their own end, and whether Pharaoh might not have +slumbered in greater security had his tomb been less gorgeous and less +richly equipped than he could hope to do when his tomb was a wonder of +the world, and when all men knew that wealth untold was stored within +its dark depths. At all events we know that from the earliest days of +the Egyptian kingdom to the latest the kings were few indeed whose rest +was not rudely broken by the sacrilegious hands of robbers. The fate of +King Sebek-em-saf, already described, is typical of that of the royal +tombs in general. For five thousand years human greed has proved more +powerful than human piety or even than human superstition. To-day, the +professional tomb-robber of native birth, though his activities are as +skilfully conducted as ever, finds a rival in the scientific explorer, +whose disturbance of the rest of the royal dead, though there are still +many who object to the work as a profanation of what all men should +regard as sacred, is at least conducted with as much reverence as +possible, and in the interests not of individual greed of gain, but of +the general sum of knowledge of the human race. + +In this respect the situation should be clearly understood. It is not +a question of whether the dead kings of ancient Egypt shall or shall +not be allowed to rest in peace in their tombs. That question has +been settled, and settled in the negative, for many centuries by the +persistent habit of the Egyptians themselves. Robbed the tombs of the +Pharaohs (such of them as still remain undisturbed) will inevitably +be. That is as sure as death itself. The only question is whether the +robbery shall be conducted by ignorant fellahin for the sake of private +gain, and in such a fashion that the whole of the results shall be +scattered among a score of private collections, and all their historic +value forever lost, or whether it shall be conducted in orderly and +scientific fashion, the finds duly catalogued in their true order, and +gathered together in one great assemblage in a place where they can be +studied in their true relation to one another, and to other finds of +similar character. + +There can be no doubt as to which of these methods is preferable. +To deny to the man of science the opportunity of investigating the +history, the art, and the life of the past as revealed in the treasures +of the royal tombs is simply to make it certain that, without securing +in the least the sanctity of the tombs, all the knowledge which might +have been drawn from them shall be lost forever to the world. This is +the sufficient justification of those excavations which, in spite of +all the interest created by their revelations, have so often created +also a feeling of repugnance and protest. + +The story of the royal tombs of Egypt begins with the excavation of +the Sacred City of Osiris, Abydos. The work there is by no means the +earliest in point of time of the series of discoveries which have +been made in connection with the burial of royalty, though Abydos was +one of the sites excavated by Mariette, who revealed to the world +the wonderful XIXth Dynasty work of the temple of Sety I there. Much +had been discovered at Thebes and at Memphis before Amélineau and +Petrie began at Abydos those researches which have revolutionised our +knowledge of early Egyptian history and civilisation, and have given +back to us several centuries of the story of human effort which had +previously been shrouded in darkness; but it seems best to follow +the subject down the line of history rather than to follow the order +of discovery with its consequent mixing up of all the dynasties and +periods. + +Up to the nineties of last century, it may be said that practically +nothing was known of those earliest Kings of Egypt who reigned before +the time of the IVth Dynasty. The history of Egypt began with the +Pyramid-builders, Khufu, Khafra, and Menkaura; and so far as any real +knowledge went, Egyptian civilisation sprang, like Athene, full-armed +and full grown into being, and offered to the world as its firstfruits +the most gigantic structures ever reared by the hand of man. + +[Illustration: 18. COLONNADE IN TEMPLE OF SETY I, ABYDOS.] + +Obviously this was an impossibility, for things do not happen thus +in real life, and the advance of civilisation is a business, not of +leaps and bounds, but of slow and ordered progress; but before the +Pyramid-builders there was nothing in Egyptian history but a gulf +of misty darkness, in which a few dim and mighty shapes could be +faintly discerned through the clouds. Manetho, the Egyptian historian +of Sebennytos, preserved in the few fragments of his story which have +survived the names, and a few more or less incredible legends, of the +great men who had lived and reigned before the Pyramid-period; but they +were only shadows, and the bulk of what little he told us of them was +too fantastic to command any respect. The chief figure of his story +was the king Menes, or Mena, who was said to have founded Memphis, and +who seemed to have some semblance of reality among the pale shades +of the others; but even he came to us in Manetho’s pages in such a +questionable shape as to seem more a figure of romance than of fact. + +The discoveries of the closing years of the nineteenth century, +however, have put an end to all that vagueness, and while our knowledge +about the earliest dynastic kings of Egypt is still scanty enough, it +is quite solid and real as far as it goes. Not only so, but excavation +has resulted in the extension of knowledge to the period before the +rise of the earliest dynastic rulers, and such a mass of material has +been accumulated bearing on the life of the pre-dynastic Egyptians as +to justify Professor Peet’s statement, “it may reasonably be said that +we are as well acquainted with the material civilisation of this era as +with that of any other in Egyptian history, though at the same time it +has to be admitted that our knowledge of its actual history amounts to +practically nothing.” + +With the pre-dynastic tombs, however, and with their comparatively +meagre provision for the dead, we have not to do at present. All that +need be said is that the pre-dynastic Egyptian buried his dead in a +shallow pit cut in the sand or the soft rock, the body being laid on +its side in a crouching posture, the knees drawn up towards the chin, +and the hands placed in a supplicating attitude before the face. Around +the dead man, who was often covered with a reed mat, were placed the +vases for food and drink, the various utensils, flint knives, ivory +tablets, and suchlike things which were held to be necessary or useful +for him in the life beyond, and above all the carved slate palette +which was used for grinding the green face-paint in which the early +Egyptian delighted, and the material for making the paint itself. + +From these early tombs we have learned that the pre-dynastic Egyptian +was far from being an uncultured savage. His funerary equipment, +primitive as it is in some respects, shows us that he had already +acquired the rudiments of that art of representing human and animal +form which was to be carried to such remarkable heights in the dynastic +period; he was an accomplished potter, whose vessels, though he was as +yet ignorant of the potter’s wheel, are so perfectly moulded by hand +that the absence of the wheel is no loss, and who “belonged to one of +those rare and happy periods when the craftsman seems incapable of an +error of taste, and in consequence almost every form that leaves his +hands is a thing of beauty”; and he had an inexhaustible patience and +an amazing skill in the working of vessels of the hardest stone which +make the pre-dynastic hard stoneware the standard of quality by which +all succeeding periods are judged. + +The disclosure of the tombs of the true early dynastic period, as +distinguished from the earlier tombs which we have been describing, +was to come from the Holy City of ancient Egypt--Abydos. The reason +for the fact that the royal tombs of this period are to be found in +the neighbourhood of a town which was never the capital of the land, +and not at such important cities as Memphis or Thebes, is, of course, +that Abydos had a sanctity to which no other place in Egypt could lay +claim, as the burial-place of the head of the God of the Resurrection, +Osiris, after his slaughter and dismemberment by Set. Osiris was +not the original god of the dead at Abydos, for there existed, long +before his supremacy, the worship of a local god Khenti--“The First +of the Westerners,” whose place Osiris usurped, or rather with whom +he was identified. But from a very early date Osiris was supreme at +Abydos. Every devout Egyptian desired to be buried, if possible, at +Abydos, and as close as might be to the burial-place of the God of the +Resurrection; if actual burial was impossible, as in the vast majority +of cases, the next best thing was to be allowed to set up a memorial +slab in the neighbourhood, or to make a pilgrimage, even after death, +to the Holy City, before being laid in the less holy ground elsewhere; +while if none of these expedients was feasible, at least one could +send a little votive vase of common pottery, and have it laid near +to the sacred site. Accordingly the Necropolis at Abydos is full of +memorials of all periods of Egyptian history, and in particular the +ground is so crowded with broken pottery of all ages and types that the +Arabs call the place “Umm el-Ga’ab,” “The Mother of Pots.” + +It was on this site that M. Amélineau began his excavations in 1895, +continuing them till the spring of 1898. He discovered several large +chamber tombs, which contained many articles of exquisite workmanship, +vases, and plaques in fine stone and in pottery, ebony and ivory +tablets, bearing inscriptions in archaic hieroglyphics, and evidence +that the tombs had belonged to kings of Egypt earlier in date than the +period of the Pyramid-builders. In particular he found the tomb of a +king whose name he read as Khent, and whom he identified with Osiris +himself, as one of the titles of the god is “Khent-Amenti.” In January, +1898, he found in this tomb part of a skull which he conjectured to +be the skull of the god, and on the same day his workmen unearthed a +granite bier of familiar Egyptian shape to which he gave the name of +“The Bed of Osiris.” + +Had these attributions been established M. Amélineau’s discoveries, +important enough in themselves, would have been absolutely unique in +character. But the somewhat acrimonious discussion which followed the +announcement of the finds, established the fact that though he had +discovered the tomb of one of the earliest kings of Egypt it was the +tomb of a man, and not of a god. The Bed of Osiris proved to be a New +Empire copy of some more ancient bier placed there by Egyptians who +had made the same mistake as the modern explorer, and imagined that +they were restoring the actual tomb of the god of the Underworld. The +great discovery thus failed to produce the effect which its importance +deserved, and rather cast ridicule upon the possibility of retrieving +for serious history the period of the earliest dynasties. M. Amélineau +shortly afterwards abandoned his uncompleted task, believing that the +site was completely worked out, and for a time Abydos remained without +any further attempts to unravel its mysteries. + +In the winter of 1899–1900, however, Professor Flinders Petrie began +work on the abandoned site, and the results of his patient and skilful +study have been of supreme importance for the reconstruction of this +earliest period of the history of the ancient Egyptian kingdom. He +not only found in the tombs already discovered a great quantity of +valuable material, but added considerably to the number of known +tombs, and planned with the utmost care all those which came to light. +In the main, these royal tombs of the earliest dynasties proved to +conform to a single type, though the variations in size and in the +number of apartments are considerable. Generally speaking, there is a +large central chamber, dug in the soil, and sometimes approached by a +stairway. This chamber, which we may believe to have been the actual +royal sepulchre, is lined, and sometimes floored, with wood, though +in some instances the flooring is of stone, in one case of granite, +the earliest known examples of stonework. Around the central chamber +are grouped smaller cells, in which were stored the provision for the +use of the dead king in the Underworld, or where the bodies of his +favourites who were doomed to accompany him in his dark journey were +laid after they had been slain during his funeral rites. + +The great tomb of King Kha-sekhem of the IInd Dynasty, 223 feet by 54 +feet, is unique in the fact that its central chamber, 10 feet by 17 +feet, and nearly 6 feet deep, is entirely built of stone, and is the +earliest known example of a piece of mason-work. Each tomb, when it was +completed and occupied, was roofed with wooden beams, and above it the +sand was piled in a low mound, the precursor of the great stone burial +mounds which were to appear ere long when the pride of the IVth Dynasty +monarchs was no longer content with anything less than a pyramid for +its memorial. Above the tomb a pair of grave-steles bearing the king’s +name were placed, so that the royal cemetery of Abydos must have +presented an appearance not unlike that of a modern churchyard with its +mounds and its headstones. + +No royal bodies, of course, were found in these earliest tombs. +Time and the tomb-robber had done their work too well for that, and +the art of mummification was as yet unknown. At a very early date +the tombs had been rifled, and some of them burned, no doubt in the +process of disposing of the bodies after they had been plundered, as +the Ramesside robber disposed of the mummy of Sebek-em-saf. The most +unquestionably personal relic discovered was the shrivelled arm of +the queen of King Zer, which had been stolen by some robber who had +not time to carry off his plunder, and had thrust it into a hole in +the tomb wall, where it was found, with its four beautiful bracelets +still intact, by one of Petrie’s workmen. What was left in the tombs +is simply what previous robbers had not deemed worth the trouble of +carrying away. Yet these pieces of pottery, these broken bits of +ivory furniture, these ebony and ivory plaques, with their archaic +inscriptions, have proved of inestimable importance; for they have +enabled us to fashion in our minds a picture, rude enough, no doubt, +and sadly lacking in detail, but unquestionably true in its main +outline of the earliest ordered civilisation in the history of the +world. + +We can see that by 3500 B.C., the very latest date to which the Ist +Dynasty can be brought down (Petrie dates it from 5500 B.C.), the +Egyptian state, under “The Scorpion,” Narmer, or Aha-men, the group of +kings who probably stand for the Menes of Manetho’s story, had long and +completely emerged from the barbarism which swathed the rest of the +world save Babylonia, and possibly Crete, and was already thoroughly +organised and master of all its own resources. War, which had produced +the union of the two sections of the land, the Delta and the Upper +Valley, was carried on, not as a matter of chance razzias, but with the +movement of great armies which could sweep a whole populace into their +net. The great mace-head of King Narmer records the capture of 120,000 +men, 400,000 oxen, and 1,422,000 goats. The same king has in his train +a Leader of the Ceremonies, a title which shows that the etiquette of +the court was already thoroughly organised, and at an early date the +Commander of the Inundation shows by his presence that the Egyptian +already realised the importance of this great annual event, which, +indeed, was no doubt the compelling cause which resulted in the +extraordinarily early growth of organisation in Egypt as compared with +other lands. + +[Illustration: 19. BRACELETS (Ist DYNASTY); CHAIN (VIth DYNASTY); GOLD +SEAL (VIth DYNASTY); GOLD URÆUS (XIIth DYNASTY). + +(_From “Arts and Crafts of Ancient Egypt.”_)] + +That the equipment of the royal household was sumptuous and tasteful, +and that the personal adornments of the glittering figures who occupied +its stage were of the richest material and of the highest artistic +quality, even the pitiful relics which have survived are sufficient +to assure us. Pharaoh’s palace was adorned with vases and bowls of +diorite, breccia, rock-crystal, and alabaster, wrought with matchless +skill, and ground to translucent thinness; his furniture was of ebony +and ivory exquisitely carved and adorned with hammered gold. Nor was +the glow of beautiful colour wanting to the picture; for the Egyptian +craftsman had already mastered that art of glazing objects with +brilliant colour which his successors practised with such satisfying +results. The ladies of the court found that the goldsmith was capable +of meeting their desire for costly and tasteful jewellery in a fashion +that has never been surpassed, and the bracelets of the Queen of Zer, +of amethyst, turquoise, lazuli, and gold, are of fine design and +astonishingly good workmanship; while the existence of a Court barber +is attested by the plait of false hair which was found in the tomb of +Zer, and was perhaps worn by the lady of the bracelets. + +The art of hieroglyphic writing was already fully established, +and though the hieroglyphics are archaic in form, they are quite +intelligible. In many of the tombs are found small ivory plaques, “made +by the king’s carpenter.” These are inscribed, each with the records +of the events of a single year; so that we have evidence of a regular +system of chronicling. The British Museum possesses the lid of the +ivory box in which King Semti kept his Great Seal--“The Golden Seal +of Judgment of King Den”--so that manifestly official documents were +in existence, and had to be authenticated by the royal seal. Of art, +nothing on a large scale has survived; but the artist who carved the +little ivory statuette of a king (perhaps Semti) wearing the White +Crown, and clothed in a long parti-coloured robe, was already, within +his limits, a master; and Professor Petrie says of the statuette of +Kha-sekhem of the IInd Dynasty, found at Hierakonpolis, “the art of +these figures shows a complete mastery of sculpture, the face being +more delicately modelled than almost any later work.” Altogether we +must conceive of the Court of the earliest Dynastic Kings of Egypt as +being organised on a high plane of luxury, and indeed of comparative +refinement. There is little that can be called barbaric, save the +possible survival of the custom of slaying the king’s favourites to +accompany him in his journey through the Underworld. + +The results of this exploration of the resting-places of the first +buried royalties of Egypt may not in themselves be imposing, when +compared with the bewildering wealth of some of the later royal +interments; but their importance is not to be measured by mere quantity +or richness in the precious metals, but by the fact that they have +given to us a revelation of a whole period of human activity which was +previously hidden beneath the mists of antiquity. Viewed in this light +it becomes apparent that these poor fragments from the tombs of Abydos +have a value far exceeding that of many much more gorgeous finds, +and scarcely surpassed by the discoveries of any period. They stand, +in this respect, on the same level with the revelation of the Minoan +civilisation at Knossos, or that of the city-states of Sumer at Lagash. + +The search for the buried royalties of Egypt next brings us into touch +with the great age of the Pyramid-builders, beginning with Zeser and +Seneferu, and extending, with gradually diminishing splendour, down +to the last relics of the XIIth Dynasty--a period which has already +been dealt with in detail. It is followed by the dark period which +witnessed the incursion and supremacy of the Hyksos kings, and the War +of Independence--a troubled period from which few relics have survived, +though the account of the robbery of the tomb of King Sebek-em-saf of +the XIIIth Dynasty, with which our chapter began, shows that the kings +of even these dark days were laid to rest with at least something of +the ancient splendour of Egyptian royalty. + +When we resume our story, we find that two great changes have taken +place, one in the course of the national history, the other in the +burial customs with which we have to deal. The centre of gravity of the +Empire has shifted from the area south of the Delta, embracing Saqqara, +Memphis, and the Fayum, to the great city from which the Theban princes +had been directing the struggle against the Hyksos; and henceforward, +throughout all the most brilliant period of Egyptian history, Thebes +remains almost exclusively the royal abode, and, particularly for our +purpose, the place where the great monarchs of the New Empire were +buried in the midst of all their magnificence. + +Along with this political change has gone another, which has completely +revolutionised the funerary customs consecrated by so long usage. The +resting-place of a Pharaoh is no longer marked by a “star-y-pointing +Pyramid,” with its temple and causeway. The tombs of the great nobles +of the Middle Kingdom at Beni Hasan and elsewhere had already been +indicating a change in the funerary ideal, and the temple of Mentuhotep +at Der el-Bahri, with its combination of pyramid and rock-hewn shrine, +may perhaps be looked upon as the compromise between the old ideal and +the new. Henceforward the actual tomb and the funerary temple were to +be separated by the necessities of the locality in which the first was +situated. The Temple was to stand by itself, free in the open plain +on the western bank of the Nile; the Tomb was to be hidden from human +knowledge, so far as possible, in a wild and desolate valley of the +Libyan hills behind the plain and its girdling cliffs. + +[Illustration: 20. ENTRANCE TO THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS, THEBES.] + +On the western bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes, there lies a great +bay of the Libyan cliffs, extending for more than two miles from the +ruined palace of Amenhotep III and the temple of Ramses III at Medinet +Habu on the south, to Drah Abu’l Neggah and the temple of Sety I at +Qurneh on the north. From cape to cape of the bay there stretches, like +the string of a bow, a row of ruined funerary temples, built by most +of the notable Theban Pharaohs. Beyond the line of the string towards +the Nile, the two Memnon colossi still keep watch and ward--all that +remains of the most gorgeous of all the western temples, reared by +the most gorgeous of Theban Pharaohs--Amenhotep III; while between +the string and the bow, and clinging close to the curving cliffs, lie +the temples of Der el-Medinet and Der el-Bahri. Beyond the northern +nock of the bow at Drah Abu’l Neggah, a rugged winding path leads +north-westwards into the heart of the hills for about a mile, then +turning sharply westwards, it reveals a forked valley, one branch of +which is known as the West Valley, and the other and more important as +the East Valley. Together these two ravines make up the Biban el-Moluk, +or Valley of the Kings, the most famous place of royal sepulture +in the world, where for a thousand years the kings of the earliest of +world-empires were laid “all of them in glory, everyone in his own +house.” + +They chose for their resting-place one of the wildest and most barren +scenes which it is possible to imagine, a sun-scorched wilderness of +rock and tumbled stone, where the heat, reverberated from rock to rock +under a sky of brass, is like that of Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace. But +it was not beauty or richness that they were seeking when they came +to the Valley of the Kings; it was the security which not even the +Great Pyramid had been able to give to the mighty dead. The loneliness +and desolation of the place were the very things which prompted its +selection; for they sought--how vainly the future was to show--a place +where human foot had never trod, and where they might expect that their +long sleep would be unbroken by any intruder. The sacrilegious attempts +of the type of robber who had scattered to the winds the dust of Khufu +they foresaw, and tried, though with only imperfect success, to guard +against; what they could not foresee was the advent of the scientific +excavator, with a patience which rivals and a skill which far surpasses +that of the native plunderer, whose work has put the crown on the +lengthy demonstration of the futility of all their pathetic efforts at +security. + +The type of tomb which is characteristic of the Valley of the Kings +is simple enough in its general idea, though its development is +sometimes complex enough. An entrance gallery is driven into the rock +sloping downwards, the passage-way being sometimes an inclined plane, +sometimes a stairway. This corridor is sometimes interrupted by a deep +pit, possibly meant to catch any water which might flow in through +the doorway, but more probably to render the task of the robber more +difficult. Beyond the pit, the passage is continued, and gives access +to chambers and halls varying in number and size, until at last the +sarcophagus chamber is reached. Of this general type there are all +varieties, from the simplicity of such a tomb as that of Tutankhamen, +with its short entrance passage, and its scanty provision of poorly +decorated rooms, to the complexity of the tombs of Ramses III or Sety +I, with their hundreds of feet of corridor and chamber, brilliantly +decorated with the finest art which their time could produce. + +The decoration of the royal tombs, though often of high quality +artistically, is generally of a sombre and gloomy character, differing +in this from the brilliant pictures of life which are characteristic +of the Old Kingdom tombs of the nobles at Saqqara, or even from some +of the private tombs, such as those of Nekht and Rekhmara at Thebes. +Generally speaking, the leading conception is that the dead king, +accompanied by the sun-god or identified with him, sails in the bark of +Ra through the Underworld, bringing light as he passes. On his voyage +he is accompanied by all manner of spirits and genii, which ward off +the enemies of the soul from the divine boat. The subjects of the +illustrations are largely derived from two books of funerary ritual, +_The Book of Him Who is in the Duat_ (Underworld), and _The Book of the +Gates_, while portions of the _Book of the Dead_ are also illustrated. + +These wonderful tombs have always been more or less known in historic +times. Strabo mentions that there were in his time forty tombs worthy +of a visit, and we may be sure that the bulk of these had already been +long rifled, or at least cleared of their contents to avoid the danger +of desecration, before the Egyptian Empire ended its long course. The +centuries between the visit of the old geographer and that of the +scholars of the French Expedition had brought oblivion to the majority +of the tombs, for the French explorers mention only eleven, the others +having meanwhile got covered up and forgotten. + +It is with the coming of Belzoni on his second journey in 1817 that +the modern search for buried Pharaohs may be said to begin, and since +his discovery of the tomb of Sety I, the work of finding Pharaohs has +gone on for more than a century with more or less success, until at +the present time something like sixty tombs have been found, including +a few which are not royal, and some which are merely pits. The +probability is that few tombs remain to be discovered in the Valley, +for most of the great royalties of the Empire have now been accounted +for in one way or another. + +One chance of some importance, however, remains. The last king whom we +know to have been buried in the Valley of the Kings is Ramses XII of +the XXth Dynasty. In the great _cache_ at Der el-Bahri, which will +fall to be spoken of shortly, several of the mummies of kings of the +XXIst Dynasty were found, along with those of the earlier and more +famous lines; but the actual tombs of the XXIst Dynasty have never yet +come to light, and it is possible that some fortunate explorer may yet +fall, in one of the desolate valleys among the Libyan hills, on the +necropolis of a line of kings who, if they do not fill so great a place +in the history of Egypt as their predecessors of the XVIIIth and XIXth +Dynasties, were yet sufficiently important to make the discovery of +their resting-place a matter of great moment. + +[Illustration: 21. TOMB OF RAMSES IX, VALLEY OF THE KINGS.] + +It was on October 6 that Belzoni began those excavations in the Valley +which resulted in the discovery of what is still the finest example +of a royal tomb of the Empire. On the 9th he was fortunate enough to +discover two tombs of considerable importance, one of them beautifully +painted, the other undecorated, but containing some funerary furniture +and two female mummies. “Their hair,” says Belzoni, whose summary +method of dealing with mummies we have already noticed, “was pretty +long, and well-preserved, though it was easily separated from the head +by pulling it a little”! On the 11th, this amazingly fortunate man, who +knew so little the greatness of his good fortune, entered another tomb, +evidently one of still greater importance, which, with its contents, +is dismissed in half a page of his story. “We found a sarcophagus of +granite, with two mummies in it, and in a corner a statue standing +erect, 6 feet 6 inches high, and beautifully cut out of sycamore +wood; it is nearly perfect except the nose. We found also a number of +little images of wood, well carved, representing symbolical figures. +Some had a lion’s head, others a fox’s, others a monkey’s.... In the +chamber on our right hand we found another statue like the first, but +not perfect.” Thus summarily Belzoni dismisses a discovery which would +make most present-day explorers green with envy. What became of the two +mummies, the two funerary statues, and the ushabtis, we are not told, +but can easily imagine. + +These, however, were only the preliminaries of the great find which +was awaiting the lucky excavator. On October 16 he started operations +at a point about 15 yards from the tomb already mentioned (which would +seem, therefore, to have been that of Ramses I), and in a spot which +seemed to his workmen most unlikely to yield anything. On the 17th they +struck the first indications of a cutting, and on the next day the +entrance of a tomb was laid bare. Before the close of the day Belzoni +had penetrated into the tomb as far as the antechamber to the first of +its pillared halls, where his progress was interrupted for the time by +a pit 30 feet deep, which had to be bridged before he could advance +further. Crossing it on the next day, he gained access to the rest +of the tomb, and the next three weeks he spent as a man in a dream +wandering through the chambers of the great tomb, and recording to the +best of his ability the wonders which he had been the first to see +for nearly three thousand years. His attempts at representation of +what he saw were imperfect enough, and his nomenclature of the various +chambers is merely paltry. Titles like “The Drawing-room,” “The Room of +Beauties,” “The Side-board Room,” seem ludicrously out of place amidst +the sombre dignity of Sety’s sepulchre. Still Belzoni cannot be denied +the merits of patience and perseverance, and it was no careless worker +who spent a whole twelve-month in the stifling atmosphere of a tomb in +the Valley of the Kings taking impressions in wax of all the figures on +a tomb which measures 328 feet from end to end. + +Belzoni attributed the tomb to Necho and Psamtek II of the XXVIth +Dynasty, finding evidence to his satisfaction of the attribution +in a procession on the walls, in which he saw Persians, Jews, and +Ethiopians, all of whom, according to him, “Nichao and Psammethis” +had conquered. He was thus a matter of seven hundred years out in his +dating of his discovery, for the tomb is that of Sety I of the XIXth +Dynasty, and a monument of the art of the New Empire just at that point +when it had passed its zenith, and was trembling on the verge of the +decadence, though still capable of the wonders of Abydos, which are +rivalled by some of the work here. Sety himself, of course, he did not +find in the magnificent alabaster sarcophagus which stood in one of the +pillared halls of the tomb. Luckily, when we think of how the explorer +would probably have treated him, that honourable king and valiant +soldier had long centuries before been removed from his splendid +underground palace to the obscurer but safer hiding-place where he was +discovered in our own time, and treated with a little more reverence +than he would have received from Belzoni; but his sarcophagus was in +itself a prize more than sufficient to reward the excavator for all the +labour he had spent. + +“It is a sarcophagus,” says the lucky discoverer, “of the finest +Oriental alabaster, 9 feet 5 inches long, and 3 feet 7 inches wide. +Its thickness is only 2 inches; and it is transparent, when a light +is placed in the inside of it. It is minutely sculptured within and +without with several hundred figures, which do not exceed 2 inches +in height.... I cannot give an idea of this beautiful and invaluable +piece of antiquity, and can only say that nothing has been brought into +Europe from Egypt that can be compared with it.” He was not far wrong +in his enthusiastic estimate of the artistic value of his find, as +anyone who has seen the exquisite piece of carving in the Soane Museum +will admit. + +The fame of Belzoni’s discovery was not long in reaching the ears of +the Turkish officials, and ere long the chief local authority, Hamed +Aga of Keneh, appeared upon the scene with a troop of cavalry, having +been so eager over the find that he had made the journey in thirty-six +hours instead of forty-eight. It was no love for antiquity, however, +which had brought him. All the artistic wonders of the tomb were lost +on him and his following; but they ransacked every corner of the tomb +with great eagerness. After a long search the Aga dismissed his +soldiers, and turning to Belzoni, he revealed the true object of his +anxiety. “Pray, where have you put the treasure?” he said. Belzoni’s +denial of the existence of any such thing was met with an incredulous +smile. “I have been told,” said this characteristic specimen of +Turkish officialdom, “by a person to whom I can give credit, that you +have found in this place a large golden cock filled with diamonds and +pearls. I must see it. Where is it?” The explorer at length succeeded +in convincing the Aga that there was nothing to lay hands on, and with +supreme disgust he rose to leave the tomb. Belzoni asked him what he +thought of the beautiful figures which surrounded him. “He just gave +a glance at them, quite unconcerned, and said, ‘This would be a good +place for a harem, as the women would have something to look at.’” +Thirty years later, Layard’s experience of the Turkish official was +almost identical with that of Belzoni. + +Forty-two years elapsed before anything of importance was added to +our knowledge of the buried royalties of Egypt. It was in 1859 the +beautiful jewellery of Queen Aah-hotep was rescued by Mariette from +the hands of the worthy successor of Hamed Aga, as has already been +told. But it was not till 1881 that there occurred the first of those +amazing resurrections of the Theban Pharaohs which since then have been +repeated on several occasions, culminating with the discovery of the +most splendid of all royal burials in the tomb of Tutankhamen. + +The story of the 1881 find is one of the romances of excavation, +though the credit of it, if there is any, goes, not to the scientific +explorer, but to the native practitioner of the gentle art of +tomb-robbery. It was in 1876 that evidence began to accumulate, in the +shape of various papyri and other articles of XXIst Dynasty date which +appeared mysteriously on the market, that the fellahs of Sheikh Abd +el-Qurneh had somehow or other gained access to some royal tomb of that +period. The Service of Antiquities took the matter up, and suspicion +fell on the members of a family named Abd-er-Rassoul. In April, 1881, +Maspero arrested with his own hand Ahmed, one of the members of the +family, and committed him to the tender mercies of Daoud Pasha, the +third Mudir of Keneh who has appeared in this chapter, but who, unlike +his predecessors, comes in on this occasion on the side of the angels, +so to speak. Justice, in the Egypt of the eighties, had ways and +means of arriving at its ends which seem strange to mere Occidentals, +and Maspero covers a good deal in his simple statement that Daoud +Pasha carried on the investigation “with his habitual severity.” The +Ramesside inspectors, in 1100 B.C., put things more bluntly--“They +were beaten with sticks both on their hands and feet”--but probably +the facts were not very different in the modern trial. The only result +was to produce a flood of testimony that Ahmed Abd-er-Rassoul “never +had excavated, and never would excavate, that he was incapable of +misappropriating the tiniest antiquity, to say nothing of violating a +royal tomb,” and the spotless victim of oppression had to be liberated +“provisionally.” “The vigour with which the inquiry had been conducted +by Daoud Pasha” had, however, impressed the mind of one of the +Abd-er-Rassoul family with the conviction that there are cases where +honesty, or the best possible imitation of it, is the best policy. +Mohammed Ahmed Abd-er-Rassoul came secretly to the Mudir, made a clean +breast, or at least a breast as clean as was convenient, to that +Rhadamanthus, and on July 5, 1881, Emile Brugsch Bey, representing the +Service of Antiquities, at last found the truth about the business, as +usual, at the bottom of a well. + +He was led by the penitent sinner Mohammed to a lonely spot at the foot +of the Libyan cliffs, not far from Hatshepsut’s famous temple at Der +el-Bahri. There, after a long climb up the hillside, and the scaling of +a high cliff, he found behind a great rock the mouth of a black shaft +about 6 feet square, the well of the unfinished tomb of Queen Astemkheb +of the XXIst Dynasty; and the story of his experiences may best be told +by himself. + +“Finding Pharaoh was an exciting experience for me. It is true I was +armed to the teeth, and my faithful rifle, full of shells, hung over +my shoulder; but my assistant from Cairo, Ahmed Effendi Kemal, was the +only person with me whom I could trust. Any one of the natives would +have killed me willingly, had we been alone, for everyone of them knew +better than I did that I was about to deprive them of a great source +of revenue. But I exposed no sign of fear, and proceeded with the work. +The well cleared out, I descended, and began the exploration of the +underground passage.” + +There are many types of courage; but surely not the least remarkable +is that of the man of science who allows himself to be lowered on an +Arab rope, down a 40-feet shaft, to explore a dark gallery of the dead, +while the rope which is his only link with life and light is held above +by a man who would cheerfully have left him to keep unending vigil +beside the Pharaohs whom he was seeking. + +Mohammed’s penitence, however, or perhaps we had better say, his +respect for Daoud Pasha’s “habitual severity,” kept him true, and +Brugsch had no other terrors to face than those of his strange task. +“Soon,” he says, “we came upon cases of porcelain funeral offerings, +metal and alabaster vessels, draperies and trinkets, until, reaching +the turn in the passage, a cluster of mummy-cases came to view in +such number as to stagger me. Collecting my senses, I made the best +examination of them I could by the light of my torch, and at once saw +that they contained the mummies of royal personages of both sexes; and +yet that was not all. Plunging on ahead of my guide, I came to the +chamber, and there, standing against the walls, or lying on the floor, +I found even a greater number of mummy-cases of stupendous size and +weight. Their gold coverings and their polished surfaces so plainly +reflected my own excited visage that it seemed as though I was looking +into the faces of my own ancestors. The gilt face on the coffin +of the amiable Queen Nefertari seemed to smile upon me like an old +acquaintance.” “The fellahs,” says Maspero, “had unearthed a catacomb +crammed with Pharaohs.” Among the mummies were those of several of the +most famous Pharaohs of the New Empire, Seqenen-Ra, the hero of the +War of Independence, Amenhotep I, and Queen Aahmes Nefertari, Thothmes +II, and Thothmes III, the greatest soldier of Egyptian history, Sety +I, Ramses II, and Ramses III, the most famous kings of the XIXth and +XXth Dynasties, Pinezem I and Pinezem II of the XXIst Dynasty, Queen +Hent-taui, Queen Nezem-Mut, and others. + +The question of the removal to a place of security of this astonishing +mass of dead royalty presented its own difficulties. The removal had +to be as speedy as possible, for now that the secret was out every +hour would add to the danger of a violent attack on the shaft, and +the dispersal for ever of its previous treasures. Yet the problem of +removal was no easy one. The spot where the shaft lies is lonely and +difficult of access; and the coffins of some of the kings and queens +were of huge size and corresponding weight. That of Queen Aahmes +Nefertari, for instance, is 10 feet long, and required sixteen men to +lift it. + +“Early the next morning,” says Brugsch, “three hundred Arabs were +employed under my direction--each one a thief. One by one the coffins +were hoisted to the surface, were securely sewed up in sailcloth and +matting, and then were carried across the plain of Thebes to the +steamers awaiting them at Luxor.” + +It took six days of hard labour, under the blazing sun of an Egyptian +July, before the tomb was cleared; and then three days more were spent +in waiting for the Museum steamboat to arrive. Brugsch must have +been an anxious man as he watched the efforts of the three hundred +professional tomb-robbers from whose hands he was snatching what they +regarded as their legitimate prey; and no doubt he heaved a sigh of +genuine relief when, on July 20, he handed over his precious freight to +the Museum at Boulak, and was delivered from the burden of royalty. Sir +Gaston Maspero has told us how all along the Nile, from Luxor to Quft, +both banks of the river were covered with frantic crowds of fellahs, +the women tearing their hair and wailing, the men firing rifles, as +they followed the downstream progress of the steamer bearing the +mummies. So, no doubt, only without the rifles and the steam, their +ancestors had followed the funeral barks which bore across the river +the dead bodies of these mighty kings three thousand years before! + +The very richness of the find proved somewhat of an embarrassment to +the authorities at the Cairo Museum, and it was several years before +the results of Brugsch’s great haul of Pharaohs were properly sorted +out and classified. It was not till May, 1886, that the unwrapping of +the mummies began, and the task was only completed in the end of June. +The figure of supreme interest was that of Ramses II, who was then +believed to be the Pharaoh of the Oppression of the Israelites, and who +was then taken more at the estimate of his own overweening vanity than +he is at present. The mummy of the great king was solemnly unwrapped in +the presence of an illustrious gathering, the Khedive of Egypt himself +verifying the existence of the later inscription of the priests of the +XXIst Dynasty on the wrappings around the body, before the process of +unwrapping began. The state of the mummy agreed with the historical +evidence as to the length of the reign of Ramses. The king must have +been nearly one hundred years old when he died, and his body bears the +marks of extreme old age. + +“The mummy,” says Maspero, “is thin, much shrunken, and light; the +bones are brittle, and the muscles atrophied, as one would expect in +the case of a man who had attained the age of a hundred; but the figure +is still tall and of perfect proportions. The mask of the mummy gives +a fair idea of that of the living king; the somewhat unintelligent +expression, slightly brutish perhaps, but haughty and firm of purpose, +displays itself with an air of royal majesty beneath the sombre +materials used by the embalmer.” + +The hero of the battle of Kadesh must in his prime have been a man of +large and powerful frame. “Even after the coalescence of the vertebræ +and the shrinkage produced by mummification, his mummy still measures +over 5 feet 8 inches”; so that we may picture him as a formidable +figure over 6 feet in height, perhaps nearer 7 feet with the high war +helmet of the Pharaohs crowning his head, as he charged with arrow +drawn to the head, in his rattling war-chariot upon the Hittite ranks. +His conduct at Kadesh suggests a good trooper, but a dull general, and +his mummy does nothing to cause a revision of the judgment. + +An infinitely nobler figure was that of the father of Ramses, Sety I, +whose mummy was also found in the _cache_. “The fine kingly head was +exposed to view,” says Maspero. “It was a masterpiece of the art of +the embalmer, and the expression of the face was that of one who had +only a few hours previously breathed his last. Death had slightly drawn +the nostrils and contracted the lips, the pressure of the bandages had +flattened the nose a little, and the skin was darkened by the pitch; +but a calm and gentle smile still played over the mouth, and the +half-open eyelids allowed a glimpse to be seen from under their lashes +of an apparently moist and glistening line, the reflection from the +white porcelain eyes let in to the orbit at the time of burial.” The +somewhat gruesome art of the Egyptian embalmer reached its culmination +in this extraordinary piece of work, and while to our minds the whole +practice verges upon, if it does not overstep, the limits of the decent +into the realm of the horrible, we may admit that it comes as near as +possible to the attainment of what Professor Elliot Smith tells us was +the aim of the embalmer--“to make the representation of the dead man +so life-like that he should, in fact, remain alive.” We should never +have known how noble and dignified a type the aristocratic Egyptian +of 1300 B.C. had attained had it not been for the preservation of the +grand head of Sety, which teaches us that the sculptor of the exquisite +reliefs of Abydos was doing no more than bare justice to his king when +he carved the delicate beauty which charms us to-day. + +If the beauty of Sety’s face almost justified both the morbid skill +which sought to deny the reality of death and the curiosity which +unveiled the secrets of the grave, the same cannot be said of the +mummy of Seqenen-Ra, not the least interesting of the grim assemblage. +There are few things more ghastly than the head of the old hero of the +Expulsion of the Hyksos, with three gaping wounds on skull and face, +and the teeth clenched, in the death-agony, upon the mangled tongue. +Yet even this grim evidence of a violent death on the field of battle +seems to bring the reality of that ancient struggle in which the +Pharaoh died more forcibly home to the imagination. + +A still more horrible figure of nightmare was that of the unnamed +person whose contorted limbs and writhen countenance suggested to +Maspero the most ghastly of all suspicions as to how he met his end. +“It makes one’s flesh creep to look at it,” says Maspero, speaking +of this mummy; “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.” +Others have suggested a less horrible interpretation of the condition +of the figure. In the report of the trial which took place in the +reign of Ramses III of individuals accused of a conspiracy against +the life of the king it is significantly said of some of those whose +guilt was established, “They died of themselves,” and the suggestion +has been made that this figure, whose contortions might well be due to +the action of an irritant poison, is that of one of these involuntary +suicides. In either case, the thing is sufficiently horrible, and +hints, not obscurely, at that darker aspect of Oriental Court life +which lay beneath all the glitter and splendour of the Theban palace. + +The find of Der el-Bahri was followed, in 1894–5, by the discoveries of +M. de Morgan at Dahshur, which have given us the exquisite jewellery of +the XIIth and XIIIth Dynasty already alluded to in our chapter on the +Pyramids. And then, in 1898, M. Loret discovered in the Valley of the +Kings the tomb of Amenhotep II, son of the great conqueror Thothmes III. + +Until the great discovery of last year threw all others into the shade, +this discovery of M. Loret was unique, for the mummy of Amenhotep +was found still resting in its coffin under the gold-starred and +blue-painted roof of the funerary chamber--the first Pharaoh who had +ever been found sleeping in the tomb where he was laid. His own records +tell us of his prowess. “He is a king very weighty of arm,” so the +inscription of the Amada and Elephantine steles runs; “there is not one +who can draw his bow among his army, among the hill-country sheikhs, or +among the princes of Retenu, because his strength is so much greater +than that of any king who has ever existed.” In later days this boast +of the old Pharaoh got twisted into the curious legend which Herodotus +records of the king of Ethiopia who challenged Cambyses to draw his +bow. The redoubtable weapon itself, strange to say, was found in the +tomb along with its owner. It bore the inscription: “Smiter of the +Cave-dwellers, overthrower of Kush, hacking up their cities ... the +great wall of Egypt, protector of his soldiers.” Amenhotep was still +wrapped in his shroud and adorned with garlands; but the tomb had been +ruthlessly plundered in ancient days, and little of artistic value +was found. One of the side-chambers of the tomb, however, yielded a +store of Pharaohs, only second in importance to the great find of Der +el-Bahri. Here were gathered nine royal mummies, among them those of +Thothmes IV, Amenhotep III, Siptah, Ramses IV, Ramses V, and Ramses +VI. Most interesting of all, in view of the idea then prevalent of the +date of the Exodus, was the discovery, along with these, of the mummy +of Merenptah, who was held to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus. The absence +of Merenptah from the royal gathering at Der el-Bahri was explained by +interested but casual readers of Scripture by the fact that of course +he was drowned in the Red Sea. The narrative of Exodus, of course, +makes no such statement, and Merenptah duly appeared, though the +interest attaching to him has somewhat waned with the progress of the +view that the Exodus took place two hundred years before his reign. + +The fate of the tomb of Amenhotep is suggestive of the difficulties +which meet the explorer in his attempt to preserve for science and to +treat with proper reverence the relics of the past which he unearths. +The great king was left in his coffin, with a few articles of his +funerary furniture beside him. The result was that in spite of the +armed guard which is maintained in the Valley of the Kings, or perhaps +with the complicity of the guard, the tomb was rifled in 1901, the +mummy of the Pharaoh tumbled out on the floor, and the model boat which +had been left beside the king stolen. + +With the suggestion that Tutankhamen should be allowed to rest in the +midst of the splendours which accompanied him to the grave, everyone +must sympathise; the question is, will he be allowed to rest in peace, +no matter what the precautions which may be taken, in the midst of a +people with whom tomb-robbery is a profession of six thousand years +standing, and who know the matchless value of the treasure which lies +within their reach? Whatever the decision, it may be hoped that if the +mummy of the last king in the direct line of the great XVIIIth Dynasty +be found beneath his gorgeous canopy it will not be made the subject of +a vulgar show, as is done with that of Amenhotep II. + +In 1902 the work of excavation in the Valley of the Kings was +undertaken by an American, Mr. Theodore M. Davis, or rather the funds +for the work were provided by Mr. Davis, while the actual work of +excavation was carried on by officials of the Service of Antiquities, +first Mr. Howard Carter, then Mr. Weigall, and Mr. Ayrton. In 1903 Mr. +Carter found the tomb of Thothmes IV, son of Amenhotep II, and father +of Amenhotep III. His mummy had already been found in the tomb of his +father, but many articles of funerary furniture, mostly broken, were +found, including the embossed leather front of a state chariot, with +decoration in gesso. Between 1902 and 1912, the work financed by Mr. +Davis was crowned with the most astonishing success. In these years +were found the tombs of Queen Hatshepsut, King Siptah, Akhenaten (or +rather the tomb of Queen Tiy, with the mummy of Akhenaten), Horemheb, +Prince Mentuherkhepshef, and, above all, the tomb which, though its +occupants were not of royal rank, proved yet the richest and the most +interesting which was ever discovered, till it was outclassed by that +of Tutankhamen--the tomb of Yuaa and Tuau. + +It was in February, 1905, that the workmen of Mr. Davis struck +the first indication of the tomb in the shape of a well-cut stone +step, which promised to prove the first of a flight descending to a +tomb-passage. By February 12 the door was cleared, and the next day Mr. +Davis, with the late Sir Gaston Maspero and Mr. Weigall, penetrated +with some difficulty into the tomb-chamber, and the little party found +themselves in the presence, not only of two of the most interesting +personalities of Egyptian history, but also of the most wonderful +collection of funerary furniture which, up to that time, had ever +rewarded the explorer. Their delight was very nearly turned to tragedy +before they had begun to realise the importance of their find. In his +eagerness to inspect the funeral sledge, on which Maspero had just read +the famous name of Yuaa, Mr. Davis stooped with his candle close to the +bitumen-covered woodwork, and was pulled back just in time. One touch +of the flame on the pitch, and the corridors of the tomb would have +been a roaring tunnel of flame, in which Yuaa, his funerary equipment, +and his discoverers would probably all have perished together. + +The danger once realised, candles were discarded, and electric light +led into the tomb. And then the explorers began to realise the full +wonder of their discovery. The tomb was full of furniture of the finest +and most careful workmanship. Armchairs carved and inlaid, coffers +of wood inlaid and enamelled with that wonderful blue of which the +Egyptians had the secret, boxes of painted wood, with figures in gilt +gesso, designed to hold the canopic jars which contain the viscera of +the dead, ushabti figures, some of them plated with gold or silver, +wicker-work baskets for holding perfume bottles, couches of elegant +design, a perfectly preserved specimen of the type of light chariot in +which the Theban noble of the Empire took his airing, cushions stuffed +with down, still soft and resilient after three millenniums, costly +alabaster vases, toilet articles of all sorts, and a plentiful supply +of the mummified meats which the dead might require for their journey +through the Underworld; the chamber was a storehouse of all that the +Egyptian deemed desirable for his use in this life or the next. Nor +were the needs of the spirit neglected. There stood the magical figures +by whose help the occupants of the tomb were to make their way through +the dark paths of the Duat, inscribed with the “Chapter of the Flame,” +or the “Chapter of the Magical Figure of the North Wall”; while a great +roll of papyrus 22 yards long contained other prayers which would +assist the sleepers to conquer all the dangers of their long road. +Never had such an assemblage of beautiful and curious things rewarded +the seeker even in this land of beautiful and curious things. + +Fascinating as the treasures of the tomb were, however, the main +interest was not in them, but in the two gilded coffins in which the +owners of all this wealth lay quietly sleeping their long sleep. “First +above Yuaa and then above his wife the electric lamps were held, and +as one looked down into their quiet faces there was almost the feeling +that they would presently open their eyes and blink at the light. The +stern features of the old man commanded one’s attention, and again and +again our gaze was turned from this mass of wealth to this sleeping +figure in whose honour it had been placed there.” For these two silent +tenants of the tomb were the man and woman to whose influence, in all +probability, was due not a little of that great religious revolution +which in a few years altered the whole course of Egyptian history, +and swayed the balance of the destinies of the Ancient East. Prince +Yuaa and his wife Tuau were the father and mother of that famous Queen +Tiy, whose sway over the mind of her husband Amenhotep III prepared +the way for the supremacy of that new spiritual faith of which her +son, the ill-fated Akhenaten, was in the fulness of time to be the +exponent and champion, and whose failure broke his heart in the midst +of the downfall of the empire to which he had vainly attempted to teach +the creed of the Brotherhood of Man. To few people has it been given +to exercise so great an influence upon the course of history as to +these two quiet figures whose rest was broken after 3300 years by the +representatives of three nations whose ancestors were outer barbarians +when Prince Yuaa and his wife were foremost figures in the most +glittering court of the Ancient East. + +Two years later, the work of Mr. Davis resulted in another discovery, +less important from the point of view of the wealth of funerary +furniture involved, for in this case there was little found, but even +more interesting in view of the personality whose mummy occupied the +tomb. The site of the new find was at the corner of the ravine leading +to the well-known tomb of Sety I, and was covered with gravel and loose +stones. “After some days of hard work, the regular rectangle of a pit +appeared upon the soil, then two or three steps appeared, followed by +a staircase open to the sky, a door, a narrow passage, and a wall of +rock-work and beaten earth. The seals affixed by the guardians, more +than thirty centuries before, were still intact on the lime-wash.” +Breaking them on January 6, 1907, Mr. Davis and Mr. Weigall penetrated +into a narrow passage, which was almost blocked by two panels of +gilded wood, which had once formed part of a funeral canopy, like that +of Tutankhamen. Wriggling past these with difficulty, they entered a +roughly hewn and quite undecorated chamber, on the floor of which lay +a few earthen pots, some alabaster ornaments, and a number of amulets. +But the sight which arrested the eye was that of the coffin, which, +at the first glance, seemed in the glare of the electric light to be +made of massy gold. “It seemed,” says Maspero, “as if all the gold +of ancient Egypt glittered and gleamed in that narrow space.” The +news of a wonderful discovery of treasure spread far and wide through +the neighbourhood, growing as it spread, till the report had reached +such fabulous proportions that it was necessary to place a guard over +the tomb to prevent an assault. Of course it was more seeming than +reality, for the gold turned out to be mere gold-foil, and the tomb +was in reality singularly poor in objects of value. The coffin had +originally been placed upon a bier of the usual form; but this had +decayed, and the heavy coffin had fallen, and its lid had come off in +the fall, exposing the head and feet of its tenant, from which the +bandages had decayed. The body was wrapped in sheets of gold-foil, and +the inscription on the coffin, worked in semi-precious stones, gave the +title of Akhenaten, “the beautiful child of the Sun.” + +Such a discovery was, of course, most unexpected; for Akhenaten had +made his capital, not at Thebes, which he hated, but at Tell el-Amarna, +where he had declared his intention to be buried, and where his tomb +was known. Besides, the inscription on the funeral canopy stated that +Akhenaten had made it for his mother Queen Tiy. The explorers therefore +concluded that they had indeed discovered the tomb, part of the funeral +furniture, and the skeleton (it cannot be called a mummy) of Queen Tiy, +and in this belief they sent the broken fragments of the skeleton to +Professor Elliot Smith for examination, only to be informed by him that +what they had sent was not the body of an old woman, but of a young +man, who, if normal, which was doubtful, could not have been much older +than twenty-six when he died. There seems in fact to be little doubt +that the skeleton which was discovered in the tomb of Tiy was that of +the man whose action in one direction and inaction in another changed +the destiny of the ancient world in one of the most critical periods of +its history. Mr. Davis, strange to say, could never bear the idea that +he had found the bones of Akhenaten, though one would have thought that +the discovery of the most pathetic and interesting figure of Egyptian +history would have put the crown on the satisfaction with which he +could justly regard his work. He had set his heart on discovering Queen +Tiy, and to have even her far more famous son substituted for her was a +bitter disappointment to him. + +But how came Akhenaten, the heretic king, “that criminal of +Akhetaten,”[1] as the priests of Amen always called him, to be buried, +not in his own heretic capital at Tell el-Amarna, but in orthodox +Thebes, and in his mother’s tomb? There is, of course, no certain +explanation of the facts; but from what is known of the history of +the period an explanation may at least be suggested with a reasonable +amount of confidence that it is not very far from the truth. When +Akhenaten died, his body was no doubt buried at Tell el-Amarna, as +he had decreed. When his son-in-law, Tutankhaten, and his daughter, +Ankh. s. en. pa Aten, found the pressure of circumstances too strong +for them, and were obliged to return to Thebes, to restore the old +religion, and to change their names to Tutankhamen and Ankh. s. en. +Amen, they carried with them, doubtless, the body of the reformer, +still revered and beloved, and gave it honourable burial in the tomb +of Tiy--the most fitting place, since no royal tomb could have been +prepared in Thebes. But as time went on, the reactionary priests of +Amen became more and more the dominant element in the kingdom, and +they had none of the chivalrous spirit which prompted Charles V’s “I +war not with the dead,” at the tomb of Luther. The only way in which +they could strike at the dead heretic was also, to an Egyptian mind, +the most certain and the most deadly; they could destroy his hopes of +immortality by desecrating his tomb, and blotting out his name from +it. So the body of Queen Tiy was removed from the tomb which had been +polluted by the presence of her son, his name was erased from the +inscriptions, and the entrance of the tomb was blocked with stones and +sealed with the seal of Tutankhamen. Then the body of “the world’s +first great idealist and the world’s first _individual_” was left in +solitude, and, as his enemies fondly believed, in eternal oblivion and +shame, to await its resurrection, thirty centuries later, at the hands +of a generation which has at least learned to appreciate and to honour +the ideals for which he sacrificed so much. + + [1] Akhetaten, the town created by Akhenaten, the man. + +The remarkable success of Mr. Davis in the search for buried royalties +was fittingly crowned a year later by the discovery of the tomb of +Horemheb, the usurping reactionary who had formerly been a general in +the service of Tutankhamen, and who seized the throne after the brief +reigns of Tutankhamen and Ay. The tomb had been plundered and wrecked, +but the beautiful red granite sarcophagus, 8 feet 11 inches in length +by 3 feet 9½ inches in width and 4 feet in depth, was intact. In it +were found the bones of one person, but in such a condition that it +was impossible to determine the sex of the person to whom they had +belonged. In 1906 Mr. Davis made another discovery, this time of +an uninscribed chamber nearly filled with mud. The presence in the +chamber and in the neighbourhood of a number of articles bearing the +names of Tutankhamen and Ankh. s. en. Amen led him to believe that +this was the tomb of Tutankhamen, and the sumptuous volume in which +he published the results of these last two discoveries was therefore +entitled “The Tombs of Harmhabi and Touatankhamanou.” Time and further +investigation have proved that in this respect he was wrong, as also in +the conviction which he expressed in the book that “the Valley of the +Kings is now exhausted.” Another discovery was due sixteen years after +his last find, which was to prove that the Valley yet held treasures +whose beauty and richness could dazzle the world, and make even those +of the tomb of Yuaa seem almost paltry by comparison. Yet the work of +Mr. Davis remains as one of the most remarkable series of successes +which has ever rewarded excavation in Egypt--a fitting prelude to the +great find of November, 1922. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +TUTANKHAMEN AND HIS SPLENDOURS + + +Wonderful as the results of the work of Mr. Davis and his assistants +had been, they were destined to be completely eclipsed by the most +remarkable discovery which has ever been made in all the long story +of Egyptological research. It may very well prove in the long run +that the importance of the find historically is less than that of +many less striking discoveries; but as a revelation of the sheer +wealth and artistic quality of the provision which was made three +thousand years ago for the journey through the Underworld of even a +comparatively obscure and unimportant Pharaoh, there has never been +anything to compare with the discovery the news of which was flashed +across the world on November 30, 1922. “This afternoon,” the message +ran, “Lord Carnarvon and Mr. Howard Carter revealed to a large company +what promises to be the most sensational Egyptological discovery of +the century. The find consists of, among other objects, the funeral +paraphernalia of the Egyptian King Tutankhamen, one of the famous +heretic kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty, who reverted to Amen worship.” +It is not often that newspaper reports err on the side of making too +little of their subject; but as the days and weeks passed on, and +what seemed to be an unending procession of marvels defiled from the +dark cave in the Valley of the Kings before the astonished eyes of +numberless tourists, it became manifest that the half had not been +told, and that Egyptology was faced with a wealth of material such as +had never before been dealt with, and such as will take many years +to appreciate and measure the full significance of. All that can be +attempted here is to give a summary account of the find itself, and +a brief provisional account of some of the more important of the +treasures which have so far been disclosed; for there can be no doubt +that what has been handled is but a fraction of the treasure which +still remains to be dealt with when the tomb is reopened and the actual +sarcophagus-chamber and its annexe are cleared as the outer chambers +have been. + +[Illustration: 22. GRANITE HEAD OF TUTANKHAMEN, CAIRO MUSEUM.] + +Some great Egyptological discoveries have been the result of a mere +happy chance, as was the case in 1887, when a fellah woman, grubbing +for phosphates among the rubbish heaps of Akhenaten’s ruined capital, +found that store of cuneiform tablets which have since become +world-famous as “The Tell el-Amarna Tablets,” and disposed of her +interest in the find to a friend for the sum of two shillings. Some, +as in the case of the Der el-Bahri _cache_, have resulted from the +watch kept on the illegitimate practitioners of research; and some, +as in the case of Belzoni’s discovery of the tomb of Sety I, have +been made with so little trouble that the wonder is that they were not +made long before. But the discovery made by Lord Carnarvon and Mr. +Howard Carter fell into none of these categories. It was the result +of long and persistent and systematic work, carried on under very +disappointing conditions, but with a clear appreciation of the object +in view. For sixteen years the two explorers had been working together +at Thebes, and already in 1912, they had published the results of their +work in _Five Years’ Exploration at Thebes_. Their work had not been +particularly fruitful, and when seven years ago they took over the +abandoned right to work in the Valley of the Kings, their first efforts +yielded no very brilliant success. “Mostly disappointments,” was Lord +Carnarvon’s summary of his previous finds. The explorers, however, were +proceeding on a plan which was bound to lead to success in the end, if +there was anything left to be found, and if their patience, or their +resources, held out long enough in the face of a continued monotony +of failure. Previous explorers, like Mr. Davis, had proceeded on the +method of _sondages_, or trial pits, sinking a pit here and another +there in spots which they judged likely. Such a method, obviously, +may lead to success very simply and easily; or, on the other hand, it +may result in your missing the very spot where the treasure lies. The +method adopted by Lord Carnarvon and Mr. Carter was much more thorough, +though also much more laborious and monotonous. They systematically +cleared the ground over a selected area down to the virgin rock. The +labour involved in such a method of work is, of course, enormous; it +is said that the two explorers moved 200,000 tons of rubbish in their +researches; but it is plain that there is no chance of missing your +object by a foot or two, as is quite possible with the other plan. +There may, of course, be nothing in your area at all; but if there is +anything, you are bound to get it. + +So it proved at last in this case. On the fifth of November, Mr. +Carter, who was working on a spot which so far had been untouched +because it lay in front of the tomb of Ramses VI, which is one of the +regular electrically lighted show-tombs of the Valley, came upon a +rock-cut step, which seemed like the beginning of a flight leading to a +tomb. He cleared a few more steps, and then came to a door, or rather +to a cement-covered wall, blocking a doorway. On the cement of the wall +was visible the seal of the royal portion of the Theban necropolis, +consisting of a jackal couchant above nine captives in rows of three. +When the excavation had reached this stage, Mr. Carter cabled to Lord +Carnarvon to come out to Egypt at once, as a fine discovery had been +made, and the spot was covered up till his arrival. + +The resumption of the excavation showed that in ancient days a thief +had broken into the tomb, which had been inspected and sealed by the +inspectors of Ramses IX subsequent to his entrance. On the undamaged +portion of the wall there could be seen the cartouche of the Pharaoh +Tutankhamen, son-in-law and successor to the famous Akhenaten. After +arrangements had been made for protecting the tomb and whatever +it might contain from the efforts of the modern successors of the +Ramesside thief, the entrance passage, about 8 metres long, was +cleared, and another sealed door was reached. It was uncertain whether +the explorers would find another staircase or passage behind this new +obstacle, or whether it would give access to one of the chambers of the +tomb. What followed may best be told in the words of Lord Carnarvon +himself: + +“I asked Mr. Carter to take out a few stones and have a look in. +After a few minutes this was done. He pushed his head partly into +the aperture. With the help of a candle he could dimly discern what +was inside. A long silence followed, till I said, I fear in somewhat +trembling tones, ‘Well, what is it?’ ‘There are some wonderful objects +here,’ was the welcome reply. Having given up my place to my daughter, +I myself went to the hole, and I could with difficulty restrain my +excitement. At the first sight, with the inadequate light, all that one +could see was what appeared to be gold bars. On getting a little more +accustomed to the light it became apparent that there were colossal +gilt couches with extraordinary heads, boxes here and boxes there. We +enlarged the hole, and Mr. Carter managed to scramble in--the chamber +is sunk 2 feet below the bottom of the passage--and then, as he moved +around with a candle, we knew that we had found something absolutely +unique and unprecedented. Even with the poor light of the candle one +could see a marvellous collection of furniture and other objects in the +chamber. There were two life-sized statues of the king, beds, chariots, +boxes of all sizes and shapes--some with every sort of inlay, while +others were painted--walking sticks, marvellous alabaster vases, and +so on. After slightly enlarging the hole we went in, and this time we +realised in a fuller degree the extent of the discovery, for we had +managed to tap the electric light from the tomb above, which gave us +far better illumination for our examination.” + +Inspection quickly proved that the first revelation was only the +beginning of marvels. Beneath one of the state couches a small opening +in the wall of the chamber showed where a second chamber opened off the +first. This room it was impossible even to enter, for it was crammed +to a height of 5 feet with articles of furniture of all descriptions, +packed close together in seemingly inextricable confusion. At the +one end of the first chamber stood two life-sized statues of the +king in bituminised wood with gold adornments, and between them was +the evidence that other chambers lay beyond; for this part of the +room had been closed with a wall on which the seals of the Ramesside +inspectors could still be seen, and in the centre of this wall, on the +floor level, there were traces of the fact that a break had once been +made in the wall, sufficiently large to admit a small man. This had +subsequently been sealed up again, probably by the inspectors of Ramses +IX. + +Manifestly there was more to follow behind that sealed wall. In the +two chambers which had been seen there was no trace of any sarcophagus, +or any evidence whatever of any interment. It was obvious, therefore, +that, unless this wonderful mass of artistic craftsmanship was only +a _cache_ where robbers’ loot was gathered, or a gathering of costly +material drawn together for safety from robbers, both of which +alternatives seemed somewhat unlikely, the real tomb-chamber, with +what was in all probability the unimaginable wealth of the great nest +of coffins under its canopy, the coffers for the canopic vases, and +all the other funerary regalia of a Pharaoh of the Empire, lay beyond +the wall which closed the end of the first chamber. In that case, +the revelations which awaited the explorers might well be of a kind +which would make even the glories which had so far been disclosed +look dim and paltry. The explorers must have been sorely tempted to +pierce the wall at once, and so arrive at least at some conception of +the magnitude of their find; but prudence forbade this. The amount of +material already under their hands in the outer chambers was sufficient +to occupy all the time of the experts who had gathered to the scene +for many weeks. The fabrics concerned were all of them priceless, and +some of them were of almost inconceivable delicacy. All of them were +at least three thousand years old, and had during all that time been +shut up in the still air of a subterranean vault. Until they had been +carefully treated with preservatives, and insured, so far as possible, +from the risks of exposure to the air and the heat of the upper world, +it was impossible to do anything that would add to the task, already +one of great labour and difficulty, which lay upon the explorers and +their assistants. Accordingly curiosity was kept in check until the +results of the first discovery should be secured, and the opening of +what was hoped would prove the first intact royal tomb-chamber ever +found in Egypt was deferred for awhile. Meanwhile for weeks the Valley +of the Kings was beset, day after day, by throngs of tourists before +whose astonished eyes there passed a seemingly endless procession of +the marvels of ancient Egyptian craftsmanship of thirty centuries ago, +and who seemed to take it as a personal grievance when the articles +removed on any particular day were not sufficiently numerous or +gorgeous to satisfy their craving for sensation. Tutankhamen became +the fashion, and leaped at once into greater prominence than he ever +enjoyed during his short and not particularly glorious reign. + +[Illustration: 23. DECORATION FROM A THEBAN TOMB.] + +When the contents of the outer chamber had been placed in safety, +the time came for the breaking of the sealed wall which barred +the sarcophagus-chamber from view; and on February 16 this was at +last accomplished in the presence of a distinguished company of +Egyptologists, though the formal opening, at which the Queen of the +Belgians was present, did not take place till two days later. When +it was possible to see through the growing aperture into the inner +chamber, the sight revealed was one to take the breath away from the +most hardened treasure-hunter. Practically the whole chamber was +filled, from end to end, and side to side, by an object which no man +has seen intact for more than three millenniums--the funerary canopy +or shrine of an Egyptian Pharaoh of the New Empire, beneath which, it +might be hoped, lay the successive coffins, with all their wealth of +amulets and ushabtis, which guarded the mummy of the dead king. The +canopy itself was of the most extraordinary beauty and splendour. It +was of wood heavily gilded, carved with representations of the Buckle +of Isis and the Pillar of Osiris, and inlaid with panels of that +exquisite blue glaze of which the Egyptians were so justly fond. Its +upper edge was formed by the familiar Egyptian gorge-cornice, and its +roof was of the usual coved type, common in shrines of all sorts. So +completely did it fill the chamber, that there was scarcely room to +pass between it and the rock walls, which were rather poorly decorated +with painted figures. On the east side of the canopy were bronze-hinged +doors, and when these were opened, there appeared within a second +canopy, entirely gilt, and closed with doors on which the seals, with +their strings, were perfectly intact, a fact of great importance, +since it signifies that in all probability the inner shrine remains +absolutely as it was left on the day when the Pharaoh was laid to rest +amidst all his splendours. Between the two canopies there lay alabaster +vessels, amulets, scarabs of rare colour and fine material, and +precious stones. Between the outer canopy and the wall of the chamber +lay the paddles for the king’s barge on the waters of the Underworld. + +On the same side of the sarcophagus-chamber as the doors of the +shrine, a large opening in the wall, which had never been closed, led +into an annexe. On guard near the entrance of this room was an ebony +and gold figure of the god Anubis as a jackal couchant on the top of +his shrine. Perhaps the most conspicuous thing in the room was a great +gilt coffer, standing over 5 feet high, and adorned along the top with +golden uræi, which in all likelihood is the shrine containing the +Canopic Jars in which the viscera of the royal mummy were deposited. +On its four sides were figures of guardian goddesses, enfolding the +shrine with their arms, and wrought with the most wonderful delicacy of +modelling and realism of expression. They seemed, said one observer, to +be turning reproachful faces towards the intruders who were disturbing +the long peace of the tomb. The whole room was crowded with objects +of all sorts, coffers and boxes of splendid material and workmanship, +model boats for the king’s use in the Elysian Fields, ushabti figures +in gold and silver, and one exquisite and unique specimen, absolutely +complete, of the ostrich-feather fans which are so often depicted on +the reliefs of royal processions. The handle of this beautiful piece +of craftsmanship was of ivory, delicately carved and adorned with the +royal cartouche inlaid in coloured stones. + +Such was something of the general impression which was left on the +minds of the fortunate few who were privileged to be present at the +most marvellous disclosure of the wealth and artistry of ancient Egypt +which has ever been given to the world. The impression was of the +briefest, for the explorers had reluctantly to come to the conclusion +that it was impossible to carry the work further this season. The heat +of the Egyptian spring in the sun-scorched valley was already growing +almost unbearable; the amount of precious material already collected +was such as would require months for its proper preservation and +arrangement, and it was impossible to add to it a far greater quantity +of still more priceless treasure without risking loss and damage. +Accordingly, after the tomb had been kept open for a few days longer, +it was decided to close it again until the autumn, when the conditions +for work would be more favourable. The gang of workmen was set to work +again, and by the end of February the tomb of Tutankhamen was once more +piled with many hundred tons of rubbish, and the king was left beneath +his gorgeous canopy to enjoy for a few months longer the sleep which +had been unbroken for 3300 years. + +Strangely enough, the incident did not close without an event which +seemed to cast a dark shadow across all the splendour of the discovery. +Almost immediately after the triumph of the opening, and before the +freshness of its interest had faded from men’s minds, Lord Carnarvon +was stricken down with fever, and in the beginning of April he died +in Cairo, leaving his great work still incomplete. There is no need +to talk of the flood of superstitious drivel which was let loose over +the world by what seemed so tragic an ending to so great a success. +It is hard to say whether stupidity or cruelty were more conspicuous +in it, and it remains self-condemned in the eyes of all reasonable +people. There is, no doubt, an element of sadness in the thought that +he without whom these treasures of the past might never have been +disclosed did not live to see the completion of his work; but there +is surely also an element of satisfaction in the thought that he knew +that his long toil had not been in vain, and that he had accomplished +something unique in the story of the exploration of that ancient world +to which we owe so much. To leave the scene of triumph while the +splendour of accomplishment is still undimmed has ever been esteemed +the happiest of destinies. If it be so, then Lord Carnarvon was _felix +opportunitate mortis_. + +Before we turn to the consideration of some of the chief treasures +which have so far been gathered from the outer chambers of the tomb, +let us devote a moment to the question of who the Pharaoh is whose +splendours have thus dazzled the world, and what is known of his reign +and his times. Not the least remarkable feature of the whole find is +that the man around whom all this magnificence was gathered is just +about one of the last of the Pharaohs whom one would have suspected +of creating a sensation in the world of Egyptology. His reign is one +of the shortest and least fully recorded in the roll of the XVIIIth +Dynasty; indeed the only kings of the Dynasty who seem yet more +insignificant than himself are his immediate predecessor Smenkhara, and +his immediate successor Ay. The circumstances of his reign, so far as +they are known, are briefly these. Tutankhamen began his career as one +of the courtiers of Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten), and one of his supporters +in the great revolution which he attempted to carry out on the religion +of Egypt; though, from his apparent youth at the time of his death, he +can scarcely have had any real share in the movement. Whether he was of +the blood royal or not is uncertain. On the lion from Gebel Barkal, now +in the British Museum, he calls Amenhotep III his father. If this means +direct relationship, then he must have been the son of Amenhotep III by +a secondary wife, and in that case he was a half-brother of Akhenaten, +whose son-in-law he afterwards became. On the other hand, the title +may be only one of respect applied to an indirect ancestor--really his +grandfather-in-law. In any case he must have been of such noble rank, +and of a family of such influence, that it was worth Akhenaten’s while +to secure his adhesion to the new cause, even when he was no more than +a boy, by marrying him to one of the young princesses. Accordingly +he was married to the third of Akhenaten’s daughters, the princess +Ankh. s. en. pa. aten, the first daughter, Meryt-aten, being married +to another noble of the court, Smenkhara, and the second, Makt-aten, +having died probably between her ninth and eleventh year; and at this +time, and till after his accession to the throne, he bears the name +Tutankhaten, the name of Amen being of course proscribed by the new +faith. + +On the death of Akhenaten without male issue, Smenkhara, the husband +of the eldest princess, naturally, according to Egyptian custom, +succeeded to the throne, and reigned for a short and uncertain period; +then on his death or deposition, the succession fell to Tutankhaten. +For a time, apparently, he maintained himself in the new capital of +Akhetaten (Tell el-Amarna), but the reaction in favour of the old faith +of Amen proved too strong for him, and he was obliged to remove the +court to Thebes, and to conform to the worship of Amen. His name was +changed to Tutankhamen (Living Image of Amen), and that of his wife +to Ankh. s. en. Amen (Her Life is from Amen), and every trace of the +religious revolution was obliterated so far as possible. The duration +of his reign is uncertain, and probably it cannot have been longer than +nine years. It has been suggested, from the evidence of some of the +articles in his tomb, that he died before attaining maturity--at all +events he must have been still a young man at the time of his death. + +As to the events of his reign, we are much in the dark. The brilliance +of his funerary equipment has led to the rather hasty conclusion that +the reign was marked by a great renaissance of Egyptian art and power, +and an attempt to regain the Empire which had been largely lost during +the pacifist reign of Akhenaten; but this theory rests on very slight +foundations, and, as we shall see, there is another and much more +likely explanation of the splendour of the tomb. The only evidences of +foreign enterprise during the reign are found in the inscriptions in +the tombs of two of the great nobles of the period, Huy and Horemheb, +the latter of whom usurped the throne after the death or deposition of +Tutankhamen’s successor, Ay. In the tomb of Huy there are records of +tribute from Syria and the Soudan, so that it is evident that Egyptian +influence was not altogether gone in these two quarters; and one of +the statements in the tomb of Horemheb seems to point to military +operations in Syria under Tutankhamen. In this inscription, from a +fragment in the Cairo Museum, Horemheb describes himself as “King’s +follower on his expeditions in the south and north country,” and +“Companion of the feet of his lord upon the battlefield on that day of +slaying the Asiatics.” + +Beyond this, there is really no evidence as to any events of importance +during the reign, whose significance is not in itself, but in the fact +that it marks the triumph of the forces of reaction and the reversion +to the ancient customs and faith of the land. The early death of +Tutankhamen left his wife, Ankh. s. en. Amen, in a very difficult +position. She was the only representative in the direct line of the +great XVIIIth Dynasty; but in all probability her own tenure of the +throne was very uncertain, and almost impossible. + +For a woman to rule the land was a thing not unheard of, for Hatshepsut +had ruled with vigour and success; but it was an unusual thing, though +a woman could give to her husband a legitimate title to the royal +dignity. Further, there was a point which rendered the reign of Ankh. +s. en. Amen virtually an impossibility. She was deeply stained, in +the eyes of the dominant priesthood of Amen, by the fact that she was +the daughter of “that criminal of Akhetaten,” as her father was now +called. Her husband had saved his throne, and probably his life, by +his conformity to the old faith, and her conversion had accompanied +his; but the daughter of Akhenaten can never have been _persona grata_ +to the priests of Amen, and when her husband was gone she must have +felt that her tenure of the crown, and her very life, hung by a very +frail thread. Accordingly she took steps to place herself in a position +of greater security. Curiously enough, there has come to light from +Boghaz-Kyoi, the Hittite capital, a letter from one of the Hittite +kings, probably Mursil II, telling of some of the events of the reign +of his father Shubbiluliuma, which gives us our last glimpse of the +poor widowed queen struggling in desperation to escape from the net of +deadly danger which was drawing closer and closer around her. + +[Illustration: 24. DECORATION FROM A THEBAN TOMB--SOWING, REAPING, THE +VINTAGE.] + +“Then their ruler,” says the Hittite king, “namely Bib-khuru-riyas [the +Hittite version of Neb. kheperu-Ra, the Solar name of Tutankhamen], +just at that moment died; now the Queen of Egypt was Dakhamun [the +Hittite version of Ankh. s. en. Amen]. She sent an ambassador to my +father; she said thus to him: ‘My husband is dead; I have no children; +your sons are said to be grown up; if to me one of your sons you +will give, and if he will be my husband, he will be a help; send +him accordingly, and thereafter I will make him my husband. I send +bridal gifts.’” The negotiations thus frankly opened by the queen +apparently proceeded, not without some hitches, to the point when the +bridegroom was selected from among the Hittite princes; for Mursil’s +statement closes thus: “And then the lady soon fulfilled her words +and selected one of the sons.” Something, however, must have hindered +the completion of the marriage. What it was we may guess, but with no +assurance that we are right. The Hittites were old enemies of Egypt, +and while Ramses II, a century later, might safely wed a Hittite +princess, it was quite another thing for a woman, very insecurely +established on the throne, to propose to give Egypt a Hittite king. +In itself the plan was likely to be most unpopular with poor Ankh. s. +en. Amen’s subjects. Even more fatal to it would be the opposition of +the priesthood. They, no doubt, had no desire to see the line of their +great enemy established on the throne with a new lease of power, and +backed by the might of the formidable Hittite Confederacy. It would +be an easy thing for them to play on the native prejudice against the +attempt to bring in a Hittite consort for their queen. The probability +is that the very step which Ankh. s. en. Amen took to secure herself +actually hastened, or at least made inevitable, her downfall. At all +events the unlucky young widow disappears, with this letter, from the +page of history; nor is it difficult to imagine the manner of her +disappearance. The journey from the palace to the tomb has never been a +long one for an unpopular sovereign in the East, whether in ancient or +modern days. + +Such, then, is the story of Tutankhamen’s reign, so far as we know it. +It may be that when all the secrets of his tomb are disclosed we may +learn a little more of the man and his times, though that is rather +more than unlikely, for the papyri which may be found in the great +shrine of the sarcophagus-chamber will probably be, not historical, +but purely religious. Meantime, at all events, we know no more, and +the little that is known only seems to underline the contrast between +the insignificance of the king and the splendour of the tomb which +has dazzled all the world. The pathos of the whole thing can scarcely +fail to appeal to the imagination. Here you have a dead monarch laid +to rest with such pomp and magnificence that a mere glimpse of the +glitter of his equipment has left the world bewildered and gaping; and +when you try to conceive the actual facts of the lives behind all this +gorgeousness, what you dimly discern, so far as you can see anything, +is a poor young couple of children, for Tutankhamen and his wife were +scarcely more than that, striving for a little to keep their heads +above the dark flood of poisonous priestly hatred and intrigue which +surged around them on every side, and sinking one after the other +beneath their doom. + + “The glories of our blood and state + Are shadows, not substantial things.” + +Obviously the time has not yet come for the discussion of the results +of the discovery as these affect our ideas of Egyptian art and +craftsmanship. It will be many months, perhaps years, before all the +material is before the world in the shape of colour reproductions of +the various articles, and until this work is completed comparisons +with already known work cannot be made. Much that has been said with +regard to the revolution in our ideas of Egyptian art which is to be +brought about by the revelations of Tutankhamen’s tomb may have to +be qualified or withdrawn in the light of fuller and more leisurely +study, and certain things which were for the moment acclaimed as +masterpieces will beyond doubt be deposed from an eminence which they +would never have attained save under the influence of the enthusiasm of +the moment. Still, even when all deductions have been made, there will +remain an amount of material of the very highest quality, such as has +never before been gathered together for the study of one of the most +interesting periods of Egyptian history and art. + +Already it is manifest that some of the articles are quite without +parallel in any existing collection of Egyptian antiquities. Parallels +to most of them, probably to all, doubtless existed, and we can well +imagine that even the finest things may have been far surpassed by the +magnificence of a really great Pharaoh, such as Amenhotep III; but +these splendours of the culminating period of the Empire no longer +exist, or at least have not yet come to light, and we were obliged to +form our conception of them from reliefs and paintings, and to fill in +the details of their magnificence from our knowledge of the grandeur +of the monarch for whose use they were made. Now for the first time +we can see the actual creations themselves, and even if they belong, +not to one of the greatest of the Pharaohs, but to a comparatively +undistinguished monarch, still they represent the art of a period not +far removed from the historic culmination of Egypt’s greatness, and it +is quite within the bounds of possibility, as we shall see, that some +of the most striking of them do indeed belong to the greater age of +Tutankhamen’s ancestors, rather than to his own. + +Of all the articles so far removed from the tomb, the one which has +attracted the most attention, and excited the most admiration, has +been the Royal Throne, or Chair of State, which was found in the outer +chamber. “It is one of the wonders of the world,” was the comment of +Professor Breasted on his first view of it, and there seems to be +little doubt that this enthusiastic praise is well deserved. Within +the last quarter of a century, two of the royal thrones of two of the +greatest empires of the ancient world have been brought to light, and +the simple dignity of the Throne of Minos, discovered by Sir Arthur +Evans in the Palace of Knossos, forms a most effective contrast and +foil to the gorgeousness of the Throne of Tutankhamen of Thebes, from +which it may be separated in date by not much more than a century, the +Cretan throne being the earlier, and indeed the earliest royal throne +known to exist. + +The Throne of Tutankhamen is of wood, covered with a thin plating of +gold and adorned with finely carved lions’ heads. The arms of the +chair are of modelled wood also overlaid with gold, and beneath them, +on either side, is a sacred uræus, partly wrought in glaze, with the +crown of Egypt in silver. On the back of the throne is a panel of +beautiful workmanship, on which the king is represented seated, with +his legs crossed, and giving his hand to the Queen, who is standing--a +motive which in its unconventionality speaks distinctly of the +realistic art of Tell el-Amarna, and suggests comparisons with the +famous Berlin relief in which Akhenaten leans on his staff, while his +Queen Nefertiti holds out a lotus bloom for him to sniff. The exposed +flesh of the faces and other parts of the body is beautifully modelled +in semi-opaque reddish glaze, while the King’s costume is rendered in +painting overlaid with crystal. The queen’s dress is wrought in silver, +and beside her, on a table, there stands a charming bouquet formed +of semi-precious stones inlaid. The seat of the throne is patterned +with blue, white, and gold mosaic squares, set in diagonal lines. The +whole effect is gorgeous in the extreme, and the description of the +workmanship takes one’s mind back at once to the King’s Gaming Board +of the Palace of Knossos, with its blaze of blue and gold and crystal +on ivory. Whether we are to infer Cretan influence in the Egyptian +splendour, or whether Crete derived from earlier Egyptian work, is a +question which may prove of interest in the future. At any rate, we +know that the two great cultures were for many centuries in the closest +touch, and that each borrowed from the other, adapting the foreign +ideas to its own tastes. + +One of the features of the throne is highly suggestive of the +conditions of Tutankhamen’s reign. On the gold plating of the chair, +the royal cartouche has been altered, and shows the name which the +king adopted after his conversion to orthodoxy. At the side of the +arms, however, the cartouche, wrought in inlay of semi-precious stones +and glass, remains unaltered, and still shows the old heretical form +Tutankhaten. The manifest reason for the difference is that while it +was comparatively easy to alter a cartouche wrought in gold plate, it +was very much the opposite with one wrought in inlay. Tutankhamen, +spite of his royal dignity, had, like Mrs. Gilpin, a frugal mind, and +could see no sense in discarding his old Tell el-Amarna throne, even +though it could not be perfectly adapted to his change of circumstances +and of faith. + +So the throne survives to tell us, not only of the wonderful artistic +skill of the Egyptian craftsman of 3300 years ago, but also of the +difficulties and inconsistencies of such a period of transition as +that in which Tutankhamen’s lot was cast. On the stele which he set +up at Karnak, and which is now in the Cairo Museum, the king has +described the miserable state of the kingdom on his accession. “When +His Majesty became King of the South, the whole country was in a state +of chaos, similar to that in which it had been in primeval times. +From Elephantine to the Swamps of the Delta the properties of the +temples of the gods and goddesses had been destroyed, their shrines +were in a state of ruin, and their estates had become a desert. Weeds +grew in the courts of the temples.” He tells us of the wonders of +restoration which he accomplished when “Egypt and the Red Land came +under his supervision, and every land greeted his will with bowings of +submission.” + +But Horemheb’s Coronation Inscription suggests a somewhat different +state of affairs from the picture of restored prosperity which +Tutankhamen presents, and the hatred with which the later monarch +pursued the memory of his predecessor hints that the reign of the +half-heretic king was but reluctantly accepted, as a stage on the way +to the full restoration of the ancient state of affairs--a stage whose +fitting emblem is the throne with its symbols of the old faith and the +new intermingled. + +One of the most interesting among the finds of the outer chamber is +that of the boxes containing royal robes, both of the King and the +Queen. Whether it may be found possible to preserve permanently these +exquisitely dainty fabrics remains to be seen; meanwhile it may be said +that what has been seen of them enhances our respect for the skill of +the weavers of the XVIIIth Dynasty who wrought such superlatively fine +stuffs. Incidentally, the Queen’s robes give us a curious link with the +Egypt of a day far earlier than even that of Tutankhamen. + +In the Westcar Papyrus we are told how King Seneferu, the last king of +the IIIrd Dynasty, about seventeen hundred years before the time of +Tutankhamen, feeling bored one day, called to him the wizard Zazamankh, +and demanded a cure for his ennui, and how the wizard prescribed a sail +in the royal barge manned by twenty of the most beautiful maidens +of the royal harem. “Bring me twenty oars of ebony inlaid with gold, +with blades of light wood, inlaid with electrum; and bring me twenty +maidens, fair in their limbs, their bosoms and their hair, all virgins; +and bring me twenty fishing-nets, and give these nets unto the maidens +for their garments.” Now the Queen’s robes, found in the tomb, “are +made of the daintiest diaphanous bead net material.” Evidently the +taste which inspired the novel prescription of the IIIrd Dynasty wizard +persisted in the Egyptian Court. We should have inferred as much from +the reliefs and paintings which have come down to us, but the robes +from the Tutankhamen tomb are the solitary specimens of the royal dress +of ancient Egypt which have survived to the present day. + +[Illustration: 25. HEAD OF THE HATHOR-COW, DER EL-BAHRI.] + +Along with these robes may be grouped the so-called coat of mail, +which is one of the wonders of the ceremonial art of the time. The +general type of this wonderful garment is familiar from Wilkinson’s +representation of the corselet pictured in the tomb of Ramses III, with +its overlapping scales of metal. In the case of Tutankhamen’s corselet, +however, the scales, instead of being of bronze on leather, are +pear-shaped links of faience laid on gold and backed with linen, which, +of course, has almost entirely perished, rendering the reconstitution +of the coat a matter of great difficulty. The collar shows a rich +pattern of concentric rings and rectangular plaques of faience in deep +turquoise blue, and red and yellow. Below the collar, and wrought into +the breast of this superb piece of mail, is a brilliant design +stretching right across the chest, representing the hawk-headed Horus +introducing Tutankhamen to Amen. Should it be possible to complete +the restoration of this beautiful piece of design, we shall be in +possession of a unique specimen of the Egyptian armourer’s art, though, +of course, it is such a piece of armour as was never destined to be +worn on active service, but only on ceremonial occasions. Indeed, it +is probable that the ceremonial occasion for which it was designed was +that of the King’s funeral; for we know from the Rainer Papyrus that +such corselets formed, at least in later days, an essential portion of +the royal funerary furnishing--so much so that the funeral could not be +completed without them. + +Between six and seven hundred years after the time of Tutankhamen, the +funeral of Eiorhoreru, prince of Heliopolis, could not be completed +because Ka. amenhotep, prince of Mendes, had stolen his funerary +breastplate. Pimay, the son of the dead prince, has to win the corselet +back in a tournament before he can get his father buried with the +proper ceremonies. A matter of seven hundred years is nothing in the +life of an Egyptian custom; and there can be little doubt that the +corselet of Tutankhamen is just such a ceremonial breastplate as that +for whose possession Pimay and his allies fought in tourney against +Ka. amenhotep and his friends, with Pedubast of Tanis, overlord of the +Delta, as judge of the passage of arms. + +Among the other articles of royal wearing apparel were the magnificent +sandals with their decoration of golden ducks’ heads and gold +roundels. The leather of the sandals had almost entirely perished with +the lapse of time, being turned into a substance more like glue; but +it retained sufficient tenacity to hold the decorative work together, +and to let us see how magnificently a Pharaoh of the Empire was shod +and how gorgeous were the feet before which the vassal kings of Syria +and the Soudan bowed down, “seven times and seven times.” Interesting +too, in their own way, were the child’s linen glove, and the child’s +tippet, of linen with sequin decoration. Speculation has framed, on the +basis of the small size of these and other articles, the theory that +the king died in early youth, in fact when he had scarcely emerged from +childhood. We know nothing, however, of the reason for the presence of +these articles in the tomb; and the foundation for such speculations +is far too slight to bear the weight of inference which it is sought +to rear upon it. From other and more satisfactory reasons it has +been inferred that Tutankhamen died in early maturity; but that is a +different matter. + +Nothing is more fitted to reconcile us to the destiny which has +decreed that we should live in the drab and unpicturesque twentieth +century than the contemplation of the inconveniences with which the +kings and great folk of the bygone ages had to put up in the midst +of the glittering splendours which dazzle our imagination. One of +these is hinted at by the presence in the tomb of the candlesticks +which bore the light of Tutankhamen’s days. They are small bronze +articles, shaped in the form of the Ankh, and carrying fastened to +them linen wicks, which were, no doubt, soaked in oil. As small +pieces of decorative workmanship, they are pretty enough; but it is +impossible to imagine anything much less satisfactory in the way of +lighting than they would seem to be. No doubt there were other and +bigger candlesticks than these, and we cannot imagine that a luxurious +court like that of Thebes would not have something corresponding to +the great stone standard lamps which flared and sputtered in the halls +and corridors of the contemporary palace of Minos at Knossos; but even +so, the lighting of an Egyptian palace must have been what we should +think miserably inefficient, and Pharaoh must have been sorely put to +it to find occupation for his evenings, when all the glitter of his +gorgeousness grew dim and shabby in the light of the miserable smoking +and flickering lamps which at best can have done little more than to +make darkness visible. + +A prominent feature among the heaps of wonderful things in the tomb +was the group of elaborately carved alabaster vases which has been so +often figured and so much be-praised since the discovery was made. +Of the interest attaching to these extraordinary vases there can be +no question; but when we are told that they are “the most beautiful +alabaster vases in the world,” it is time to enter a protest. They are +nothing of the sort. + +As specimens of workmanship they are wonderful enough; as specimens of +art they are flagrantly bad,--characteristic types of an art which has +passed its maturity and is on the downgrade. The over-elaboration and +the far too complicated character of their decoration are sufficient to +condemn them, and they are not to be compared for one moment, from the +point of artistic value, with the simple and graceful forms of earlier +work. Indeed, even in Tutankhamen’s tomb, and in the same chamber with +these over-praised and overdone pieces of pretentiousness, there were +vases far more worthy of praise for their artistic quality than the +ones whose noisy ornamentation has singled them out for a notice which +they do not deserve. + +Of all the objects so far removed from the tomb, none has attracted +more attention, and none seems likely to create more controversy, +than the group of extraordinary gilt state couches, the Lion, Hathor, +and Typhon couches, as they came to be called. The thing which drew +attention to them was not their beauty, for anything more hideous it +is impossible to imagine; it was their strangeness. With Egyptian +couches and biers the world was pretty familiar before; but these were +widely different, with their quiet and shapely lines, from the barbaric +monstrosities of Tutankhamen’s tomb. The heads of the couches present, +indeed, some resemblances to familiar Egyptian types; but even so, the +suggestion which rises to the mind on viewing them is that these are +Egyptian types interpreted by an alien temperament and executed by +alien craftsmen. It seems almost impossible to believe that an Egyptian +craftsman, with his tradition of taste and restraint, would ever have +produced such abortions, calculated to produce nightmares instead of +slumber in those who tried to rest upon them. + +Accordingly Professor Petrie has asserted that these couches are +not of Egyptian workmanship at all. No Egyptian workman, he says, +ever produced work assembled with bronze joints as these couches +are; they must have been produced in a distant country, and jointed +in this fashion for convenience of transport, being reassembled on +their arrival. Further, the decoration (trefoil) on one of them is +characteristically Babylonian. Therefore it seems probable that we +must look to Babylon for their origin; and Professor Petrie suggests +that these are the identical couches to which the Babylonian king +Kadashman-Enlil refers in one of the Tell el-Amarna letters, where he +says, writing to Amenhotep III, that he is sending to the Egyptian king +“a couch of _ushu_ wood, ivory and gold, three couches and six thrones +of _ushu_ and gold,” and other furniture. + +There is nothing unlikely in the idea that couches of such +international importance, coming from one great monarch to another, +should have been preserved for the matter of forty years or so, +and buried as heirlooms in the tomb of the last of the line; and +the suggestion lends an added interest to the ugly things. Sir +E. A. W. Budge, however, rejects the idea, and asserts that the beast +represented on the most hideous of the couches is simply the composite +monster Ammit, “the Eater of the Dead,” so often represented in the +Judgment Scene in the vignettes of the _Book of the Dead_. “The +Mesopotamians knew of no such beast, and the couch or bier could only +have been made in Egypt, where the existence of Ammit was believed in +and the fear of her was great.” In support of his opinion he quotes +from the Papyrus of Hunefer--“Her forepart is crocodile,” and anyone +familiar with the Judgment Scene will remember that this certainly is +so. The trouble is that whatever the hideous monster of Tutankhamen’s +tomb may represent, “her forepart” certainly is _not_ crocodile. It +is ugly and sinister enough for anything; but no Egyptian craftsman +would have dreamed of trying to pass this clumsy monster off as a +representation of a crocodile--one of the most familiar of objects. + +Especially in view of the methods of construction involved--a point +on which no man is better qualified than Petrie to pronounce an +opinion--Budge seems to have done nothing to invalidate the Babylonian +suggestion, which, for the rest, takes its place very naturally, as we +shall see, in the explanation of the extraordinary wealth of furniture +found in the tomb of one of the least famous Pharaohs of the XVIIIth +Dynasty. The couches seem, to an unprejudiced mind, just such work as +would be produced by a clever workman working on motives which were +quite foreign to his usual practice, and therefore producing results +which, while they have a distinct resemblance to the types which he was +imitating, yet show these as seen and interpreted by an outsider, and +not by one to whom they were parts of his normal training. + +Of the statues found in the tomb, two, the life-sized ones of +bituminised wood adorned with gold, were fine specimens of the normal +type of tomb portrait; the third, the so-called “Mannikin,” was of a +different class. It was only a half-length, and lacked the arms; but +in other respects it was a careful and artistic piece of work and +obviously a faithfully studied portrait. The idea that its imperfect +condition is due to the fact that it was a sort of glorified tailor’s +dummy, on which the royal robes were fitted before being worn by the +Pharaoh, may probably be dismissed without ceremony. It is not obvious +why, in a period when court dress was of the most elaborate type, +with long robes of fine linen falling to the feet, and wide sleeves +coming almost to the elbow, the mannikin should have neither legs +nor arms, which one would have judged essential for the purpose of +trying the fall of the robe. Another view was that it was a portrait, +not of Tutankhamen, but of his wife, Ankh. s. en. Amen. There can be +no doubt about the quality of the portrait, though to talk of “the +strange pensive smile playing about the lips, recalling the baffling +smile of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa,” is to invite comparisons which are +scarcely fair to the older work of art; but it certainly is not the +portrait of a woman. It may be a head-portrait of the type not uncommon +in Old Kingdom tombs; or it may be part of the foundation of a copper +statue, like that of Pepy of the Old Kingdom, though in that case it is +difficult to see why it should have been so carefully coloured. + +In the meantime it is impossible to say much about the treasures of the +sarcophagus-chamber and its annexe. Scarcely more than a glimpse has +been vouchsafed of these, no more than enough to whet curiosity and +expectation. But there can be little doubt that the splendour of the +two inner chambers will be in accordance with the preface to it which +the outer chambers have yielded. No one can doubt the magnificence of +the great canopy, which in itself would be a treasure beyond price; +and all observers are at one as to the marvellous beauty of the shrine +with the four goddesses. The motive of its decoration is, of course, +one perfectly familiar in Egyptian art, and is found in all ages. The +beautiful pink granite sarcophagus of Tutankhamen’s successor and enemy +Horemheb, for instance, has as part of its adornment another version +of the same idea of the protecting goddess. But the detail of the +Canopic Shrine, if it prove to be such, appears to be of a quality and +inspiration rare even in the finest Egyptian work. For the rest, we can +only wait and hope. + +[Illustration: 26. COLOSSUS OF RAMSES II, LUXOR.] + +A good deal has been said about the need of recasting our ideas of +Egyptian history in the light of the new information which has been +gained from the tomb of Tutankhamen, and some writers have hinted that +our whole conception of the close of the XVIIIth Dynasty is wrong, and +must be recast to square with the new facts. We are asked to discard +the idea of an Egypt beginning to decline from the lofty position which +she had held under Thothmes III and Amenhotep III, and to substitute +for this the picture of an Egypt waking with renewed strength from +the uneasy religious dreams of the reign of Akhenaten, and asserting +once more, and with greater vigour than ever, her dominion in the +realms of both politics and art. + +All this is merely a vain imagination. Historically, no new facts have +emerged from the tomb of Tutankhamen. It is scarcely true to say, with +Budge, that “we know no more now about the reign of this king than we +did before Lord Carnarvon made his phenomenal discovery.” That would +only be the case on the narrow reading of the meaning of history +which would confine it to the mere recording of dates, conquests, and +legislation. The art of any period constitutes no small part of its +history, and for the history of far-past times it is one of our most +valuable sources of information; and we may surely look for a large +extension of our knowledge of the art of ancient Egypt in the reign of +Tutankhamen from the treasures of his tomb. + +But so far as concerns the facts of what the king, and Egypt under his +leadership, accomplished in the matter of raising again the declining +prestige and power of the Empire, we know no more than we did before +the tomb was opened; nor is it likely that when the work is completed +we shall have gained much more information, if any, on this point. +For the likelihood is that if there are any papyri beneath the great +golden canopy, they will be of a purely religious type, versions of +one or other of the different forms of spiritual guide-book which the +devout Egyptian carried with him on his long journey through the dark +Underworld. + +The artistic value of the find is another matter. There can be no +question but that this splendid collection of the finest work of the +craftsmen of the XVIIIth Dynasty, by far the greatest assemblage of +such work known to exist, will prove of the utmost importance in +shaping and correcting our ideas of Egyptian art at one of the most +interesting points of its long development. Never before has such a +mass of material of the highest class been available for study. Yet +even here it would be rash to assume that the result will be any +considerable modification of our views as to the period of culmination +of the art of the New Empire. At the most, and assuming that all the +art of the tomb is strictly of the time of the king with whose burial +it is associated, and that its quality is all of the supreme standard +which has been attributed to it, the net result would be the shifting +of the apex of the curve a matter of thirty or thirty-five years, a +small thing when we are dealing with an art whose history is written in +millenniums. But it seems likely that even this is more than we need +necessarily assume. + +There is always the possibility that in the tomb of Tutankhamen we are +dealing, not only with the splendours of one king, but perhaps also +with many of the heirlooms of the royal house to which he belonged, in +which case we should be faced with specimens of the art, not of one +period of a few years’ duration, but with those of perhaps a whole +century, perhaps of a longer period still. The work of sifting out +the various sources and periods of the materials found in the tomb +will prove a most fascinating, if also a most difficult, task; when it +is accomplished--the work of years--we may be in a position to speak +more definitely about the change or the confirmation which the tomb +of Tutankhamen has brought to our previous theories of the growth and +decline of Egyptian art; meanwhile we must wait, with the assurance +that even in the extremest case, the discovery can scarcely commit us +to anything revolutionary of our previous conceptions. + +The mention of the possibility of some of the articles found in the +tomb being family heirlooms of the XVIIIth Dynasty brings up the last +question with which it is necessary to deal in this short survey. +How does it come about that a Pharaoh of no great standing in the +long line of Egyptian monarchs--a mere stopgap king, a pigmy between +giants--was buried with surroundings whose splendour exceeds anything +known in all the story of royal magnificence? The discoveries of +Tutankhamen’s wonderful funerary equipment make us wonder what we may +have lost in the fact that his is the only royal tomb which has been +found practically unrifled. Had we found, for instance, the tomb of +a really great Pharaoh, such as Amenhotep III, as intact as that of +his descendant, we should have been in a better position to form a +judgment on the matter; but that unfortunately has been denied us. +One suggestion may be made, with the proviso that it is no more than +a suggestion, which may be confirmed or disproved by subsequent +investigation. It has already been suggested that some of the most +curious, if not the most beautiful, of the finds are relics, not of the +time of Tutankhamen, but of Amenhotep III, dating therefore from forty +years before the time when they were stored away in the Valley of the +Kings; and it has also been suggested that another very interesting +article, the footstool with figures of Asiatic captives inlaid upon +it, dates from an even earlier period, that of Amenhotep II, and is +therefore a century older than the time to which the burial belongs. + +Tutankhamen, we know, was the last king of the direct line of the +XVIIIth Dynasty. His widow, Ankh. s. en. Amen, was left in a most +insecure position from which she made, as we know, a desperate and +unavailing effort to extricate herself. May it not be that, with the +consciousness that all the glories of her house were in danger of +passing to mere usurpers of undistinguished origin, such as the obscure +priest Ay, who succeeded Tutankhamen, or the commonplace soldier +Horemheb, who drove Ay from the throne, she secured at least some of +the most treasured heirlooms of the royal house from desecration by +hiding them in the tomb of her dead husband? + +It is, of course, only an idea, which must stand or fall by the results +of future study; but it seems, at least in the meantime, to offer a +reasonable explanation of a point on which no other explanation is for +the present forthcoming. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +LIFE, ARTS, AND CRAFTS IN THE LAND OF THE NILE + + +Practically the whole of our knowledge of the conditions under which +life was lived in Egypt, of the organisation of society, of the arts +and crafts by which the needs and tastes of the people were met, is +due to the results of excavation during the last century. We owe, of +course, a great deal to the statements of Herodotus and Diodorus as to +the conditions which they found existing in their time; but the great +source of information must always be the mass of first-hand material +which has been gathered, mainly from the tombs with their wealth of +funerary furnishings, by the work of the excavator. Therefore it would +seem that the fitting conclusion to our brief survey of the various +aspects of excavation should be a sketch of the life of ancient Egypt, +with the arts and crafts which ministered to its necessities and its +luxuries. Such a sketch must, of course, be of the slightest and least +elaborated type, for the amount of material is so enormous that only +the most salient points can be touched; but it may still be true so far +as it goes, and may perhaps serve as an outline within which further +details may be inserted by the student of ancient Egyptian life. + +First of all, we may take the framework of society. Through the whole +of Egyptian history the outline of this is very much the same, though +there are many variations in the relative importance of the various +parts. The head of the state is always the Pharaoh, placed on a level +immensely above even the most powerful of his subjects, but, as we +shall see, by no means an irresponsible tyrant, but rather a limited +monarch, governing in accordance with strictly defined customs. + +Beneath him are the great nobles and the great official class--two +sections of society which were not in ancient Egypt, as in so many +other ancient realms, virtually different names for the same thing. + +Then came the priestly class, at all times one of the most important +in the land, and tending at certain periods, with the weakening of the +royal power, to overshadow all the other interests. + +It appears that there was a definitely military class, with definite +lands assigned to it for its support, though in the earlier days of +the kingdom the wars were not the business of a separate class of +professional soldiers, but were carried on by a general levy of the +people. The other great land-holding class of the nation was that of +the husbandmen, who apparently were much of our own old yeoman type, +holding their land by the payment of taxes. + +Behind these classes, which, so to speak, formed the backbone of +the nation, came the shepherds, hunters, artificers, traders, and +workers at other subsidiary occupations. These held no land, and their +occupations appear to have been mainly hereditary, no artisan being +allowed to pass from one trade to another, or to have his children +reckoned in any other class than his own. The various trades must +have been organised more or less after the plan of the mediæval +trade-guilds, though in the case of Egypt the organisation was +apparently a national, and not a local affair. Beneath the tradesmen +came the slave class, whose number varied pretty much according to the +wars on which the nation was engaged, and their fruitfulness, or the +opposite, in yielding captives. + +Slave labour was never a prominent feature of Egyptian life, and Petrie +estimates the slave population of the land at its maximum at no more +than a quarter of a million out of a possible population of twelve +millions. + +To the imagination of most folk probably the mention of “Pharaoh, +King of Egypt,” suggests a typical Oriental tyrant, responsible to +nothing but his own passions, and governing according to the whim +of the moment. Such a picture may have been true of an Assyrian or +Babylonian king, like Ashurbanipal or Nebuchadnezzar, and perhaps +the frequency of assassination in the records of the Assyrian kings +hints that it was; but it certainly was not true of ancient Egypt. +Pharaoh’s own grandiose inscriptions, and the fiction which regarded +him as a god incarnate, may suggest unbridled power; but as a matter +of fact, Pharaoh was anything but the rampant and romantic despot whom +we imagine distributing life and death at his own capricious will, but +rather a somewhat humdrum constitutional monarch, whose every action +was regulated for him centuries before he was born, by an unchanging +custom, and who could no more step beyond the limits which immemorial +laws had assigned to him than he could jump out of his skin, or off his +own shadow. + +The thing which amazed the Greeks, with their experience of +irresponsible tyrants, was the fact that so great a king as Pharaoh +was not the master, but the servant of the laws. “He could not do any +public business, condemn or punish any man to gratify his own humour or +revenge, or for any other unjust cause; but was bound to do according +as the laws had ordered in every particular case.... The kings, +therefore, carrying this even hand towards all their subjects, were +more beloved by them than by their own kindred.” + +Petrie has suggested that it is this limitation of the power of the +Pharaoh which is accountable for the unusual stability of the Egyptian +throne. “The absence of republican interludes, so frequent in other +parts of the Mediterranean, was apparently due to the monarchy being +strictly limited by law. However bad an Egyptian might be personally, +he could not earn the hatred of his subjects like the irresponsible +Greek tyrants or Roman emperors.” + +[Illustration: 27. PORTRAIT-STATUE OF MENTUEMHAT, CAIRO MUSEUM.] + +Indeed Pharaoh according to fact is a very different figure from +Pharaoh according to imagination. We must try to substitute for +the gorgeous tiger of our fancies the figure, gorgeous enough indeed, +so far as concerns his apparel, of a laborious servant of the State +whose life, instead of being spent in wild orgies of licence and wild +explosions of ferocity, was mainly occupied, from the time when he rose +in the morning to the time when he crawled to bed at night, in a manner +quite familiar to royalty in our own country, in signing dull reports, +and reading dull dispatches, presiding over long and wearisome temple +services, and travelling about the country to see that everything was +working smoothly. + +The new picture is by no means so picturesque as the old one; but it +is the real Pharaoh, and no doubt it was for the good, both of his +subjects and himself, that “Pharaoh had to act every hour according +to fixed routine, without room for the licence of a Dionysius or a +Caligula.” The brilliant tiger looks romantic in a story, but when +his despotism becomes unbearable it has generally to be tempered by +assassination, as with Sargon, Sennacherib, and many another; but as a +matter of fact the Egyptian Pharaoh generally managed to die quietly in +his own bed when his time came. + +Not that he had not his own power, and his own initiative. His headship +of the State involved headship of the army in war, and this was no +polite fiction, where Pharaoh reaped the glory while his soldiers had +the danger. Seqenen-Ra’s mummy, with its ghastly wounds on head and +face, tells us how real was the duty of Egyptian royalty in the day +of battle. Thothmes III led the van of his army through the defile of +Aaruna, when his chosen captains shirked the task, and though we need +not believe all that Ramses II tells us about his share in the battle +of Kadesh, there is no doubt that he fought hand to hand with the +Hittites in the forefront of the battle, and at least proved himself a +good trooper, whatever may be thought of his generalship. Much power +also lay in his hands in respect of the selection and advancement of +able men from the lower to the higher ranks of the public service, and +of rewarding their work with grants of land, of initiating the great +public works which were often of such untold benefit to the land, and +of conducting the Foreign-Office business of the country, and the +negotiation of treaties. In short, Pharaoh had no lack of work to do, +and was probably like his modern successors in Kingship, one of the +hardest-worked men in the land; but from start to finish, the Egyptian +monarchy was a limited one. + +Two instances of the limitation of the royal power, and its strict +subjection to law, may be given. When Queen Amtes was tried, in the +reign of Pepy I of the VIth Dynasty, for some unspecified offence, +the trial was conducted without even the presence of the king. “His +Majesty,” says Una in his famous inscription, “caused me to enter in +order to hear the case alone. No chief judge and vizier at all, no +prince at all was there, but only I alone, because I was excellent, +because I was pleasant to the heart of His Majesty.” Again, in +the time of King Ramses III of the XXth Dynasty, there was a great +palace conspiracy arising out of an intrigue in the harem to dethrone +Ramses, and put the son of one of the harem ladies on the throne. In +most other Oriental palaces the discovery of such a thing would have +been the signal for a general massacre. Instead of executing summary +justice, Ramses appointed a commission, giving them these remarkable +instructions: “What the people have spoken, I do not know. Hasten to +investigate it. You will go and question them, and those who must die, +you will cause to die by their own hand, without my knowing anything +of it. You will also cause the punishment awarded to the others to be +carried out without my knowing anything of it.” + +Pharaoh may not always have been a model of propriety or of rectitude; +but he was far too strictly hedged about by precedent to allow of +the brutal tyranny and licence which have so often marked other +Eastern monarchies, and, besides, one fails to see how, with his time +so completely filled as we know it to have been, with all sorts of +necessary routine, he can have had much opportunity for mischief, even +if he had the desire. + +The king’s chief functionary and right-hand man was the Vizier, who +must have been just about as hard-worked a man as his master. The +inscription in the tomb of Rekhmara, who was vizier under Thothmes III, +enumerates thirty separate functions which had to be discharged by the +fortunate holder of this great office. “The vizier is Grand Steward of +all Egypt, and all the activities of the State are under his control. +He has general oversight of the treasury, and the chief treasurer +reports to him; he is chief justice, or head of the judiciary; he +is chief of police, both for the residence-city and the kingdom; he +is minister of war, both for army and navy; he is secretary of the +interior and of agriculture, while all general executive functions of +State, with many that may not be classified, are incumbent upon him. +There is indeed no prime function of the State which does not operate +through his office. He is a veritable Joseph, and it must be this +office which the Hebrew writer has in mind in the story of Joseph.” +Altogether we may conclude that, whatever the salary of the vizier may +have been, he probably earned it. + +A quaint picture of the way in which a high Egyptian official was +hedged about with routine is given by Rekhmara in his description +of the procedure of the court of justice. “As for every act of this +official, the vizier while hearing in the hall of the vizier, he shall +sit upon a chair, with a rug upon the floor, and a dais upon it, a +cushion under his back, a cushion under his feet, and a baton at his +hand; the forty skins [parchments of the codified law] shall be open +before him. Then the magnates of the South shall stand in the two +aisles before him, while the master of the privy chamber is on his +right, the receiver of income on his left, the scribes of the vizier +at his either hand; one corresponding to another, with each man at his +proper place. One shall be heard after another, without allowing one +who is behind to be heard before one who is in front.” + +The great offices of State, of course, often fell to men of high rank, +and of hereditary influence. Rekhmara himself came of noble family, +and succeeded his uncle in the vizierate. But this was by no means +necessarily the case. Egypt always presented the career open to talent +which Napoleon desired. “All through the history there was a free +rising of ability from the lower levels, as we see in England--Wolsey, +the butcher’s son, and many others.... This was a chief cause of the +durability of Egyptian society; great as the differences were, there +was a gradation interlocking all through, as in England.” + +A notable instance of the rise of a talented man is given by the +tomb-inscription of that same Una whom we have already seen presiding +over the trial of Queen Amtes. Beginning his official career as an +“inferior custodian of the domain of Pharaoh,” Una during three reigns +steadily climbed up the official ladder, until at last he became +governor of the South under Merenra, and was the favoured official +chosen to fetch the granite for the royal sarcophagus and pyramid from +the quarries at Aswan. Senmut again, the famous architect and minister +of Queen Hatshepsut, tells us in the inscription on his statue at +Karnak that he was “the greatest of the great in the whole land,” and +seems to have held power not inferior to that of the vizier, though +there is no evidence that he held that office; yet he tells us in his +Berlin inscription that “his ancestors were not found in writing,” or +in other words, that he was a self-made man. + +The elaborately organised court held many offices both ornamental and +useful, which gave openings for talent or ambition. Perhaps one of the +most influential positions was one which involved no very important +duties, but brought the holder of it into close and constant touch +with Pharaoh. This was the position of the “fan-bearer at the king’s +right hand.” His function was purely ornamental, and he can be seen +in paintings and reliefs carrying a tiny fan beside the king’s litter +as the symbol of his office, while the real work of fanning is done +by the ordinary fan-bearers with their big business-like fans; but +he was the highest court-official, a sort of Lord Chamberlain, with +powers of giving or denying entry to the presence, and no doubt his +favour was all-important to a petitioner, as that of one who had the +ear of Pharaoh. As to the rest of the court, there was a multitude of +officials quite comparable to the tail of useless boot-lickers who +adorned the court of Louis XIV; but one imagines that, in earlier days +at least, the courtier of Pharaoh had to do more for his position than +the hanger-on of the Grand Monarque. + +The priesthood formed a very large and very influential class. In +theory, the King was always the Supreme Priest, the Pontifex Maximus +of the kingdom, and very often several of the high-priesthoods of the +different gods were held by members of the royal family, thus securing +that the Pharaoh should be represented in the priestly councils whose +loyalty or disloyalty might mean so much to the stability of his +throne. Thus in the reign of Ramses II, his favourite son Khaemuast, +the Wizard-Prince of the Setna papyrus, was high-priest of Ptah at +Memphis. No doubt the fact that there was such a multitude of gods, +whose priesthoods were all jealous of one another, was some security +against the overwhelming influence of the priestly caste, especially in +the earlier days; but the fate of Akhenaten’s movement showed that in +spite of local jealousies the priestly caste was really one in face of +any attempt to diminish its power and privileges; and in the end the +unquestioned supremacy of Amen led to the Amen priesthood gaining a +position and influence which was superior to that of the weak Ramesside +Pharaohs, and which resulted in the supersession of the true royal +line, and the substitution for it of the XXIst Dynasty of priest-kings. +Even before things had reached such a pitch, the immense wealth which +the piety of successive kings had accumulated in the coffers of the +priesthoods, and especially of that of Amen, must have constituted a +real danger to the state, while the amount of land held by the priests, +and so exempt from taxation, went with the other accumulation to +constitute a steady drain on the national resources which in the end +they were not able to bear. + +The class of the great nobles was held in strict subordination to +the royal power in the days of the strong early monarchs of the +Old Kingdom; but, with the weakening of the royal authority which +followed the Vth Dynasty, the honours and powers which Pharaoh had +heaped on his faithful courtiers, and which had been a convenient +relief to the central authority as shifting part of the burden of +local administration to the shoulders of the local great men, proved +a danger to the State. A kind of feudal system grew up in which the +local chieftains assumed the powers and as much as they could afford +of the splendours of Pharaoh himself, claiming to hold their offices +by hereditary right, maintaining their own armies, holding their own +courts of justice, and even daring to place after their own names in +their proclamations the formula, “Living for ever and ever,” which had +hitherto been the sacred attribute of the crown alone. + +The revival of the monarchy, first under the Antefs and Mentuhoteps +of the XIth Dynasty, and then under the Senuserts and Amenemhats of +the XIIth Dynasty, however, soon curbed the pretensions of these petty +princelets, and the changes of the Hyksos invasion and the War of +Independence wiped out the last relics of the Egyptian feudal system, +which never revived under the New Empire. Even under strong kings like +the Pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom, the courts of the local nomarchs +were no small things, as they might employ anything from fifty to a +hundred officials, from the steward down to the “mat-spreader.” + +[Illustration: 28. Vth DYNASTY RELIEF-WORK, TOMB OF PTAH-HETEP.] + +Tomb-inscriptions are not perhaps the most trustworthy sources as to +the personal character of a class of men, nor are we to expect that +Ameny or Khnemhotep will tell us anything of the shady side of +their administration. Yet it must be confessed that Ameny’s story +of his administration of the Oryx Nome gives a pleasant picture of +the relations of a great local noble and official to the people of +his province; and we may say that if Egypt in the time of the Middle +Kingdom had many nomarchs of his stamp, she was a fortunate land. + +“There was no citizen’s daughter whom I misused,” says the great +man, “there was no widow whom I oppressed, there was no peasant whom +I repulsed, there was no shepherd whom I repelled, there was not a +foreman of five from whom I took his men for forced work. There was not +a pauper around me; there was not a hungry man of my time. When there +came years of famine, I arose, I ploughed all the fields of the Oryx +Nome to its southern and its northern boundary, I kept its inhabitants +alive, making provision so that there was not a hungry man in it. I +gave to the widow as to her that possessed a husband; nor did I exalt +the great above the small in all that I gave. Thereafter great rises of +the Nile took place, producing wheat and barley and all things; but I +did not exact the arrears of the farm.” “I gave bread to the hungry,” +says another noble, “and clothes to the naked, and gave a passage in my +own boat to those who could not cross. I was a father to the orphan, a +husband to the widow, a protection from the wind to the shivering; I am +one who spake what was good, and related what was good. I acquired my +possessions in a just manner.” + +All this may savour a little of Pharisaic self-righteousness to us; +but at least it shows that there was a recognised idea, among the +governing class, of the duties which a great man owed to those under +him, and the possession of such an ideal must have made bad government +more difficult. + +The same praise can scarcely be given to the ideals of the other +important, though minor, official class, the scribes. The Egyptian +scribe belonged to a type with which we are perfectly familiar still, +the type of the petty official who thinks that there is nothing in +all the world so fine as petty officialdom, unless it be superior +officialdom, and who looks down on all other professions with a scorn +which is only equalled by his ignorance. In a land where writing was so +complicated a matter, and where it so early assumed supreme importance, +where also the annual inundation with its obliterating of landmarks +made the possession of written records a matter of great importance, +the scribe obviously had a splendid field for his work, and for the +development of all his peculiar vices. It was possible for a careful +scribe to climb from the humblest position to one of great dignity and +power, and the Egyptian scribe never forgot that every scribe carried +in his writing-case the wand of office of a potential vizier. + +The scribes have left us many examples of what they thought of +themselves and of all other people and professions, and it may be +safely said that of no other class of Egyptian do we carry away so +unpleasant an impression as of that one which no doubt imagined that +it was impressing its own immense superiority on the minds of all +posterity. The Egyptian cherished a profound admiration for learning; +but his devotion to letters was not because of the beauty of learning +in itself, but simply because it was the avenue to preferment and the +way of escape from the miseries of toil or the dangers of war. Both the +admiration and the mercenary reason for it are expressed in the words +of an ancient sage recorded for us in the Sallier Papyrus: + + “Give thy heart to learning and love her like a mother, + For there is nothing that is so precious as learning ... + Behold there is no profession which is not governed, + It is only the learned man who rules himself.” + +The scribe saw himself, because of his possession of letters, +immeasurably above all the poor creatures who had to earn their bread +by the sweat of their brow. He was exempt from all the pains and +anxieties of the workman, and loved maliciously to contemplate them +while he issued the orders which imposed further burdens on backs +already heavily burdened. “The poor ignorant man, ‘whose name is +unknown, is like a heavily-laden donkey, he is driven by the scribe,’ +while the fortunate man ‘who has set his heart upon learning’ is above +work, and becomes a wise prince.” “The learned man has enough to eat +because of his learning.” Therefore, “set to work and become a scribe, +for then thou shalt become a leader of men.” + +No matter what the trade was, or how wonderful its results, it seemed +to the smug scribe a contemptible thing in comparison with his own +precious profession of letters. Here is his opinion of the craftsmen +who created the miracles of metal- and wood-work of the Middle Kingdom: + + “I have never seen the smith as an ambassador, + Or the goldsmith carry tidings; + But I have seen the smith at his work + At the mouth of his furnace, + His fingers were like crocodile skin, + He stank more than the roe of fish ... + Each artist who works with the chisel + Tires himself more than he who hoes a field. + The wood is his field, of metal are his tools. + In the night--is he free? + He works more than his arms are able, + In the night--he lights a light.” + +No doubt this seemed very fine and humorous to our scribe; but we who +have the chance of comparing his literary achievement with the works +of the craftsmen whom he satirised may be pardoned for preferring the +diadems of Khnumit and Sat-Hathor, or the statues of Senusert and +Amenemhat to all the paltry drivel he ever wrote. + +[Illustration: 29. XIXth DYNASTY RELIEF-WORK, TEMPLE OF SETY I, ABYDOS.] + +Nor was his opinion of the soldier’s calling any higher. Indeed the +ancient Egyptian was no more of a warlike person than his successor +the modern fellah, who makes a good enough soldier under British +officers, but is about the most unmilitary person on earth when left +to the freedom of his own will. There is no more curious inversion of +fact than the common idea which pictures the Egyptian as one of the +great warrior races of the world, and classes him along with that +bloodthirsty tiger the Assyrian. Only at one period of his history +did the Egyptian ever show the least sign of developing a craving for +world-dominion and the warfare which goes along with it; and when the +brief imperial fever of his early XVIIIth Dynasty had wrought itself +out, he reverted for the rest of his history to his natural rôle of +the finest craftsman on earth, only bestirring himself when there was +need to defend his frontiers, a business which he did fairly, but only +fairly, well. On the whole, he would have thoroughly agreed with Alan +Breck Stewart that war “is generally rather a bauchle of a business.” + +But it was reserved for the smug and flabby scribe--you can see him +still in the Louvre with his cunning eyes and his rolls of unhealthy +flesh--to make a mock of the calling which won for Egypt all the empire +she ever possessed, and which was that of her greatest Pharaohs. + +“Oh, what does it mean,” says this early pacifist, “Oh, what does +it mean that thou sayest: ‘The officer has a better lot than the +scribe’? Come, let me relate to thee the fate of the officer, so full +of trouble.” Then he goes on to relate in a fashion which he no doubt +thinks humorous, the life of an officer on active duty in Syria: + + “Come, let me relate to thee how he travels to Syria, + How he marches in the upland country. + His food and his water he has to carry on his arm, + Laden like a donkey; + This makes his neck stiff like that of a donkey, + And the bones of his back break ... + If he arrives in face of the enemy, + He is like a bird in a snare ... + If he arrives at his home in Egypt ... + He is ill, and must lie down. + They have to bring him home on the donkey, + Whilst his clothes are stolen, and his servants run away. + Therefore, O scribe, + Reverse thine opinion about the happiness of the scribe and of the + officer.” + +As literature this precious effusion is merely contemptible; but +it is very illuminating as to the character of the class which was +responsible for the production of it. Generally speaking, the Egyptian +leaves you with the pleasant impression that he is a decent kindly +fellow, with a cheery outlook on life, and a love of pretty things +and laughter; but the scribe is an undoubted fly in the ointment. He +thought himself its finest perfume; but that is just precisely what +makes him so unquestionably the fly. + +We need not imagine that the condition either of the soldier or of the +artisan was quite so miserable as the scribe would have us believe. The +misfortune is that it was only the scribe who was vocal. If the soldier +or the craftsman had been able to leave behind him his opinion of the +scribe, it would probably have been quite as unflattering, and perhaps +more pungently expressed. It would not have required great genius to +make fun of a profession which lived by the favour of the great man, +and whose typical figure is the kneeling scribe of the Cairo Museum, +with his twisted deprecating smile, and his submissively crossed +hands, waiting, like a dog, uncertain whether his master will kick him +or fling him a bone. + +Behind all the glitter of the court and official circle, with its +innumerable hangers-on, there comes the great mass of the people, the +farmers, the skilled workmen, the shepherds, fishers, toilers of all +sorts. Of no race in the world can it be said that the conditions of +its workers have been so fully depicted as of the Egyptians. On the +sculptured and painted tomb-reliefs we see the workmen of almost every +trade under heaven busily engaged in the prosecution of their calling. +Whatever the scribe might think of the indignity of being a smith or a +carpenter, his impression was confined to himself, and the great man +had not the least objection to see these and a score of other common +occupations pictured on the walls of his “eternal habitation.” But +while the outward aspect of these callings is thus fully represented, +so that it might be possible to produce a handbook of the Egyptian +crafts, we are not so well informed as to the environment in which +these wonderfully skilled workmen spent their lives, what were the +conditions of their service, the manner of their housing, and the +question of whether their lot was a happy one or not. Petrie’s +excavations at Kahun have given us the almost complete plan of an Old +Kingdom workmen’s town, where the skilled masons who were building the +pyramid of Senusert II were housed. Though this is only a temporary +town, we may probably take its conditions as more or less typical of +those which prevailed for the artisan class in the Old Kingdom. The +houses are of all sizes, ranging from four rooms to sixty, the larger +houses being, no doubt, those of the overseers and clerks of works. The +streets are narrow, varying from 11 feet to 15 feet wide, and having +a drain down the middle of each. The simplest type of small house has +an open court opposite the entrance, a common room on one side, and +two storerooms on the other, with a stair leading up to the roof. The +larger class of artisan’s house has a court, four rooms opening off +it, and five other rooms dependent on the main rooms. On the whole, +one would imagine that the housing conditions were not so very bad; +though certainly the houses were too crowded together. The average +artisan’s house of the present day has not the number of rooms which +were possessed by the pyramid mason of four thousand years ago, though +his advantages in other respects are considerable. + +[Illustration: 30. XIXth DYNASTY RELIEF-WORK, TEMPLE OF RAMSES II, +LUXOR.] + +The workman’s wages were at all events partly paid in kind. Herodotus +tells us of the amount expended in provision for the workmen who built +the Great Pyramid: “On the pyramid is shown an inscription, in Egyptian +characters, how much was expended in radishes, onions, and garlic, +for the workmen; which the interpreter, as I well remember, reading +the inscription, told me amounted to one thousand six hundred talents +of silver.” Payment was still in kind in the time of the New Empire. +One of the foremen of the craftsmen of the Theban necropolis in the +time of Ramses IX (1142–1123 B.C.), fortunately kept with great care +a record of all that happened to his gang, noting whether the men +were on full work or were “idle.” Festival days broke in considerably +on their working time, as we hear of two full months’ holiday, and +again of another month, in the same year; but the workmen’s rations +ran on all the same whether they were working or not. The worry was +that the rations were often behind time, and when that happened there +was trouble. One month the rations were only one day late, but another +they did not come at all, and then the workmen went on strike. This +produced the supplies; but ere long the same thing happened again, and +this time the gang went in a body to Thebes, and complained to the +“great princes,” and the “chief prophets of Amen.” Again the result was +good, and the journal of the careful foreman gives us a quaint hint +of how it had been necessary to use a little palm-oil in the case of +the influential “fan-bearer” to secure the desired end. “We received +to-day our corn-rations; we gave two boxes and a writing-tablet to the +fan-bearer.” + +We cannot be sure whether the condition of the necropolis workmen, +who were mostly skilled craftsmen, metal workers, carvers, painters, +and so forth, was worse than that of the workmen in the city of the +living; probably the conditions in both cases were much the same. In +any case, it is the necropolis workmen who supply us with our instances +of insufficient or delayed payment, and who give us the first historic +examples of strikes. In the twenty-ninth year of Ramses III (1170 B.C.) +things were pretty bad in the necropolis, and wages had not been paid +for half a year. After giving the officials nine days’ grace, the +workmen naturally went on strike in a body. + +They left the necropolis, with their wives and children, and though the +two overseers tried to entice them back to work “with great oaths,” +the workmen were not to be caught with chaff, and stayed outside the +necropolis walls. Finally the affair assumed so threatening an aspect +that two chiefs of police and a number of priests tried to make them +return to duty; but in vain. Their answer was, “We have been driven +here by hunger and thirst, we have no clothes, we have no oil, we have +no food. Write to our lord the Pharaoh on the subject, and write to +the governor who is over us that they may give us something for our +sustenance.” This unheard-of request had its effect--“on that day they +received the provision for the month Tybi.” In another month, however, +they were back again, as supplies had failed once more. This time the +governor of the town met them, and though he asked them how he was to +pay their wages when the storehouses were empty, he at least ordered +that they should receive half of the overdue rations. + +Altogether the evidence goes to show that life was not all pleasure in +ancient Egypt, any more than in other lands; but it is only fair to +say that the other side of the matter has been grossly exaggerated, +and that life in the Land of the Pharaohs was not the gloomy, morbid, +perpetually death-contemplating thing which it has been represented as +being. This idea, of course, we owe, partly to the amiable Herodotus +and his picture of the model coffin and mummy being carried round at +all their banquets, with the words, “Look on this, then drink and enjoy +yourself; for when dead you will be like this,” and partly to the fact +that practically all the knowledge we have of the Egyptians comes from +their tombs. + +The necessary corrective to this one-sided view of a great nation is +given by their books, and particularly by the romantic fiction which +they were the first nation to cultivate. Erman has said that “the +romances are not to be relied upon; the country which they describe is +not Egypt but fairyland.” This may be so as regards scenery and detail; +but the writer of the Tale of the Doomed Prince, or of Setna and the +Magic Roll, whether he may cast the scene of his story in Naharina +or in Egypt, cannot help revealing in his tale the habitual outlook +on life of the Egypt of his time; and in this respect the romances +are far more to be relied upon than either the vainglorious vauntings +of a royal inscription or the carefully dressed-up moralisings of a +scribe. The picture which they give of the Egyptian nature is that of +a simple, kindly race, singularly free from the savage cruelty which +disgraced their great rivals the Assyrians, loving pleasure, and all +the brightness and beauty of life, with a straightforward and childlike +affection, not greedy of power, but ready to live and let live, +singularly advanced in their conception of family life, and especially +worthy of our admiration in the respect which they paid to women, and +the position accorded to woman from the very earliest times. + +It is time to rid our minds of that sinister conception of the Egyptian +as a dark, uncanny, supernaturally wise and diabolically malignant +being, which is still to be found in second-rate fiction, and in the +vain imaginings of gropers in the occult and the miraculous, and to see +this great race as it really was--a race of true children of the Sun, +leading in the dawn of the world’s story a clean, healthy, open-air +life, with its own imperfections and weaknesses, but with its plain +virtues as well, and with a moral standard not unworthy of comparison +with that of any race in the world. What they have accomplished is +plain for all the world to see; surely it is common sense to see also +that such things were not the work of gloomy fanatics or of drivelling +dabblers in the black arts, but of men. + +[Illustration: 31. XXth DYNASTY RELIEF-WORK, TEMPLE OF RAMSES III, +MEDINET HABU.] + +We turn now to consider the art of ancient Egypt as it has now come +to be known by the accumulation of specimens of it during the last +century. Egyptian art has been somewhat slow in coming to its own +in the judgment of the world, and that for two reasons. First that +opinion, which had been accustomed to very different things, had to be +gradually trained to appreciate the merit of work which differed from +the accepted canons in many respects, even in the type of material +which it used for its self-expression; and next, that the Egyptian +work by which the national art was first introduced to the attention +of the modern world was mostly of a period which we have now learned +to know as decadent. Denderah, Esneh, Edfu, Philæ, these were the +products of Egyptian art which first roused the wonder of European +visitors; and very naturally, for these great shrines are not only +wonderful in themselves, but are also in a state of preservation which +renders them intelligible and attractive to everyone who sees them. But +all the same they are very unworthy to be taken as examples of what +Egyptian art could do at its best, and so we need not wonder that, when +the first impulse of surprise had passed away, the voice of criticism +was heard, pointing out the conspicuous faults in this claimant for +recognition among the great arts of the world, and refusing to allow +the claim. Similarly with the works of sculpture on which another part +of the Egyptian claim must be based, in almost all cases the specimens +of Egyptian sculpture which were first brought under the eyes of the +judges were colossal fragments of a style and a period which had their +own merits, but were far from being representative of the actual work +of the Egyptian sculptor at its best, as we have now come to know it. + +In these circumstances it is not to be wondered at that Egyptian art +has only found slow and grudging recognition as one of the great arts +of the world. What is strange, however, is that even to-day, when +the periods of Egyptian architecture are as clearly defined, perhaps +more clearly defined than the periods of Gothic, and when Egyptian +sculpture is represented all over the world by either originals or +reproductions of its best work in all respects, the judgment which was +not unaccountable, or inapplicable in the day of the beginnings of +knowledge of things Egyptian should still be repeated, and Egyptian +art be characterised as a thing, interesting indeed, but essentially +crude and barbaric, the product of a race which has no claim to rank +alongside the other great artistic races of the world. + +Thus we find so learned an art critic as Lord Balcarres remarking +(_Donatello_, p. 21), “The massive and abiding art of Egypt ignored +the personality of its gods and Pharaohs, distinguishing the various +persons by dress, ornament, and attribute.” For the gods, this may +pass, but when such a thing is said of the Pharaohs one can only say +that it is simply the opposite of the truth. Is it possible that the +author of such a statement had never seen, before he made it, such +vivid impressions of personality as the great diorite Khafra, with its +splendid dignity, or, at the opposite end of the scale, the Reisner +Menkaura, the very embodiment of a bourgeois “Farmer George” royalty, +doing his best to look as dignified as becomes the wearer of the double +crown, and failing so absolutely? Here are two successive occupants of +the Egyptian throne, whose personality, according to Lord Balcarres, +should be ignored in Egyptian art, and yet the sharp discrimination of +personality is just the thing that immediately strikes everyone who +sees the two statues together. + +Lord Balcarres, however, is not the only sinner in this respect. +“The emptiness of the Sphinx’s face,” says Mr. March Phillipps in +his charming book, _The Works of Man_, “is a prevailing trait in all +Egyptian sculpture. All Egyptian faces stare before them with the +same blank regard which can be made to mean anything precisely because +it means nothing.... The truth is, Egyptian sculpture is a sculpture +barren of intellectual insight and intellectual interest.” + +Has the writer of this confident condemnation, one wonders, ever seen +the granite Senusert III, either of the Cairo or of the British Museum, +with the strong harsh features which express, if ever any work of the +sculptor’s hands expressed, both the pride and the bitter weariness +of power, or, to take a New Empire instance, the masterful Thothmes +III of the Cairo Museum, the face of a daring soldier, if there ever +was one, or the ugly capable face of Prince Mentuemhat, also at Cairo? +Mentuemhat has no claims to personal beauty, and, one imagines, no +illusions on that matter; but strong character has seldom been more +admirably expressed than in this specimen of the art which, as we are +told, is “barren of intellectual insight and intellectual interest.” + +The fact is, that both these criticisms, and many others similar to +them, rest upon a fundamental misconception about Egyptian sculpture. +It is quite obvious that both Lord Balcarres and Mr. March Phillipps, +in making them, are founding upon the colossal pieces of Egyptian +sculpture which are the prominent objects in the galleries of our +Museums, and taking them as adequately representative of the art which +they are criticising; and to do this is hopelessly to misconceive the +actual position. + +Egyptian sculpture in the round had two entirely different objects, +which were reached by different methods, and are seen in different +examples. The first was purely monumental and decorative, and its +purposes are served by the production of the colossal statues, +monuments of royal pride and glory, and, not less, pieces of decoration +in a great architectural scheme. These gigantic works are not to be +viewed as portraiture in the strict sense, and that the Egyptians +themselves did not so view them is manifest from the fact that a +reigning Pharaoh seldom hesitated to appropriate to himself any +convenient statues of one of his predecessors by the simple process of +cutting his own cartouche on the figure, and obliterating that of the +original owner. + +The question of likeness or unlikeness was a very small one; what was +required was a figure which should convey the impression of power and +dignity, linked with the name of a particular Pharaoh. In this respect, +and as elements of an architectural whole, these statues unquestionably +served their purpose; more was never expected of them, and to criticise +them as lacking in expression, and in individuality, is to do them an +injustice. They can only be judged as what they were designed to be, +not as something radically different. + +[Illustration: 32. PTOLEMAIC RELIEF-WORK, KOM OMBOS.] + +The position is quite different with regard to the other object of +Egyptian sculpture, which was definitely portraiture. Apart from his +monumental work, which in a limited sense may be said to have ideal +elements in it, the Egyptian sculptor, unlike his successor, the +Greek, produced no ideal work. He was simply and solely, from first +to last, a portrait sculptor, and in this respect he has seldom been +excelled. The whole object of his work was to produce a tomb-statue, +which should be the refuge of the _Ka_ of the dead man when his mummy +had perished by lapse of time. Therefore the one condition of his art +was that it should produce likenesses as absolute as the power of man +could compass. The result of such an aim is manifest, both in the +successes and in the limitations of Egyptian sculpture. In the one +point to which he gave his whole strength, the sculptor scored, not +always, of course, but in many instances, a most astonishing success. +It is impossible to imagine anything more lifelike than the heads of +some of the Old Kingdom statues--the Ti or the Ranefer of the Cairo +Museum, or among royal statues, the Menkaura with the figures of the +Nomes, or in later times the exquisite Berlin head of Queen Nefertiti, +the astonishing ebony head of a royal princess of the same period, who +may be Queen Tiy, or, to come down to still later days, the other head +of Mentuemhat which Miss Benson and Miss Gourlay unearthed from the +temple of Mut, or in the very latest days of Egyptian independence, +the head of an unknown man in green schist which is now in the Berlin +Museum. Until the rise of Roman portrait-sculpture, no ancient school +of art presents anything to be compared with the realism of the ancient +Egyptian sculptor. + +Unfortunately for the completeness of his art, the absolute dominance +of the need for recognisable likeness in the head limited his work in +other respects. So long as the head was a success, the rest of the body +did not matter so much; and consequently we have, even in such fine +examples as the Ti and the Ranefer, a noble head joined to a body which +is much less thoroughly studied, while in examples of poorer quality +the contrast between the care with which the head is worked out and the +rude blocking out of the torso and the extremities is almost ludicrous. +Still, Egyptian art, like all art, is entitled to be judged by its +best, and not, as has so often been done, by its worst; and even when +we admit all its limitations the fact remains that to charge it with +incapacity to interpret individuality is, to anyone who is familiar +with its best work, merely ridiculous. + +The case is the same when we turn to the criticisms which have been +directed against the other great branch of Egyptian sculpture--its +relief-work. The great reliefs of the temples, with their battle +pictures and scenes of offerings, are what at once commands the +attention and invites the criticism. We are told, and very justly +so far, that “Kings, gods, prisoners, the smiting champion, and the +transfixed victim are all equally expressionless. Clearly the idea that +art can be charged with, and visibly body forth, the emotions and ideas +of the human mind was never grasped by Egyptian sculptors”; but who in +the world ever dreamed of taking the vast advertisements of the glory +and valour of Pharaoh, for that is what the battle reliefs of Karnak +and Medinet Habu are--contract work, at so much the square yard--as +fair representatives of the delicate and most decorative work which has +given us the tomb-reliefs of the Old Kingdom? + +In some respects Egyptian relief-work is decidedly inferior to the +remarkable animal sculpture with which the Assyrian kings decorated +their palaces. The Egyptian sculptor rarely attempts anything like the +difficulty of the problems of motion which the Assyrian tackled with +such dash and light-heartedness, and when he does make the attempt +his work is apt to seem stiff beside that of his rival, whose hunting +scenes have rarely been equalled; but in his portrayal of quiet scenes +of home, field, and farmyard the Egyptian comes to his own again, and +it is difficult to imagine anything more effective as wall decoration +than his quiet and unstrained work, which, unlike that of the bitter +Assyrian, almost invariably leaves a pleasant impression on the mind. + +The comprehension and appreciation of Egyptian architecture has been +hindered by the same fact which has delayed the appreciation of the art +of the Nile Valley--namely, that the specimens of it which are to-day +the most complete, and which command for that reason most attention, +belong, not to the days when Egypt was at the summit of her achievement +in all respects, but to periods when taste and artistic feeling were +decaying along with power. To take, as is often done, such a temple +as Medinet Habu as fairly representative of Egyptian architecture, is +simply to make adequate appreciation of what Egyptian architecture +is a thing impossible. The Egyptian builders had, no doubt, great +faults, which have already been touched upon. They were often, indeed +almost always, strangely careless about the very factors which should +ensure the “eternal duration” which they craved for the works of their +hands; they had, generally speaking, comparatively little of that +exquisite sense of proportion which makes a fine Greek temple seem +a thing inevitable, though sometimes, as at Der el-Bahri, and the +little temple of Amenhotep III at Elephantine, now, alas, destroyed, +something of this was revealed to them; they sometimes mistook mere +mass for greatness, and the multiplication of forms for beauty, as in +the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak, where a magnificent opportunity was lost +because the architect did not know that too much is too much. But with +it all they have left us a heritage of which it can safely be said that +few of the works of man can surpass it in impressiveness. “It is a part +of my intention,” says Mr. Lethaby (_Architecture_, pp. 65, 66), “to +try to point out what contributions were made to universal architecture +by the several civilisations as they arose and passed away, but to do +so of Egypt would be practically to rewrite what has been said; to a +large degree Architecture is an Egyptian art.” + +The nation of which such a statement can be made needs no further +witness as to its place among the great master-building nations of the +world’s history. + +Whatever hesitations and doubts there may be as to the right of the +ancient Egyptian to rank high among the artistic nations of the world, +there can be none as to his place as a craftsman. In prehistoric days +he was already the finest flint-worker that the world has ever known, +so that his flint knives are to this day the standards by which all +other similar work falls to be tested, and in presence of which it +always comes short; while his vessels of hard stone were shaped, with +a skill and a patience which to us seem little short of marvellous, +into shapes of grace and beauty which have never been surpassed by +the workers of any land or time. Later he translated these into fine +pottery, and was always a skilful and satisfying potter, though his +work never perhaps attained the grace and beauty of that of his brother +craftsman over the sea in Crete. His greatest gift to us in this +respect was his development of the art of covering pottery of all kinds +with the exquisite glazes which still charm us on scarabs, amulets, +ushabti figures, and all sorts of vessels. + +As a linen worker, of course, he was incomparable, and the finest +specimens of modern linen look wretchedly coarse when viewed under +a microscope alongside the best products of his loom. The earliest +jewellery of the world was of his workmanship, and the bracelets of the +Ist Dynasty queen found at Abydos show us that the Egyptian jeweller of +six thousand years ago needed no lessons from any of the most skilled +modern practitioners of the crafts. Indeed, all through the history +of the land the craftsmanship of the goldsmith was beyond reproach. +In the later periods his design was much inferior to the happy +inspirations of the morning of art, though his technique was fairly +well maintained to the end; but in the best days of the craft, which +pretty closely correspond to the best days of the history, design and +technique were alike admirable. + +Anything finer in their own way than the diadems of Khnumit, the +royal crown, or the pectorals of the Lahun treasure, it is impossible +to imagine, while if the standard of the furniture in the tomb of +Tutankhamen is maintained by the jewellery, we may look for evidence +from this source that the skill of the craftsman had not degenerated in +the interval between the Middle Kingdom and the New Empire. + +With regard to woodwork, the evidence of the furniture which has +been found in the tombs is conclusive both as to the skilful and +sound design of the Egyptian cabinet-maker, and as to his careful and +accurate workmanship. The chairs, the coffers, and the couches from the +tomb of Yuaa and Tuau are delightful to the eye, with their simple and +sensible lines, and suggest that they would be equally satisfactory in +use. The wonders which have been disclosed in the tomb of Tutankhamen +have already been discussed in their own place, so far as that is +possible at present, and while they reveal nothing new, save the ugly +and clumsy state couches, whose provenance has been also discussed, +they show an amount of richness in detail and material for which even +previous discoveries had scarcely prepared us. + +Professor Petrie tells us that structurally the work of the Egyptian +joiner was as good as it was satisfying to the eye, and the state in +which his works have come down to us through so many centuries bears +witness to the soundness of the materials which he used, and of the +work which he put out upon them; and perhaps the carefully moderate +estimate of so great an expert is more impressive as to the quality of +Egyptian craftsmanship than the multiplication of superlatives would +be. “The powerful technical skill of Egyptian art, its good sense of +limitations, and its true feeling for harmony and expression, will +always make it of the first importance to the countries of the West +with which it was so early and so long connected.” + +In sum the debt which the modern world owes to the culture of ancient +Egypt is no small one. We owe to Egypt the first book, the first +building, the first ship, the first statue, the first romance, the +first relief, and the first picture, in the modern sense, of which we +have any knowledge; and if some of these anticipations are crude and +primitive, and show but little sign of the wonderful development of +which the future was to prove them capable, yet it is only due to this +pioneer nation to remember that it is to her that we owe the seed which +has borne so manifold a harvest. + + + + +INDEX + + + Aahmes Nefertari, Queen, 160 + + Aah-hotep, Queen, 27, 156 + + Aashait, Princess, 99 + + Abbott Papyrus, 128 + + Abd-er-Rassoul, Ahmed, 157; + Mohamed, 158 + + Abu-Roash, 49, 52 + + Abusir, 50, 68, 69 + + Abydos, Temple of Sety I, 31; + Royal Tombs, 135 _et seq._ + + Akerblad, 14 + + Akhenaten, 113, 118, 168, 171, 172 _et seq._, 189 + + Akhetaten, 174, 190 + + Amélineau, 136, 140, 141 + + Amen, 111 + + Amenartas, 26 + + Amenemhat I, 72; + II, 73; + III, 51, 73, 81, 82 + + Amenhotep I, 160; + II, 100, 130, + tomb of, 165 _et seq._; + III, 116, 148, 166 + + Ameny, 224, 225 + + Amherst Papyrus, 128 + + Ammit, 205, 206 + + Amtes, Queen, 218, 221 + + Ankh.s.en.Amen (Ankh.s.en.pa. Aten), 174, 189, 190 _et seq._ + + Antefs, the, 224 + + Anubis, 186 + + Apis, 19 + + Archæology, methods and aims of, 35 _et seq._ + + Architecture, Egyptian, 243 _et seq._ + + Art, Egyptian, 236 _et seq._ + + Artisans, condition of, 231 _et seq._ + + Ashurbanipal, 112 + + Astemkheb, Queen, 130 + + Ay (Pharaoh), 113, 188, 191 + + Ayrton, Mr., 168 + + + Balcarres, Lord, 238 + + Begarawiyah, 50 + + Belzoni, 9, 11, 12, 13, 63, 64, 105, 151–3 + + Benson, Miss, 118, 241 + + Biban el-Moluk, 148 _et seq._ + + Bib-khuru-Riyas (Tutankhamen), 192 + + Boghaz-Kyoi, 192 + + Book of the Dead, 151 + + Book of the Gates, 151 + + Book of Him who is in the Duat, 151 + + Breasted, Prof., 41, 196 + + Browne, Sir T., 61 + + Brugsch, E., 158 _et seq._ + + Brune, 94 + + Budge, Sir E. A. W., 205, 206, 209 + + + Canopic Jars, 186 + + Carnarvon, Lord, 177 _et seq._ + + Carter, Mr. Howard, 168, 177 _et seq._ + + Caviglia, Capt., 63 + + Champollion, J. F., 13, 14, 92 + + Clarke, Somers, 96 + + Corselet of Eiorhoreru, 201 + + Corselet of Tutankhamen, 200 + + Couches, State (Tutankhamen’s), 204 _et seq._ + + Craftsmanship, Egyptian, 245 _et seq._ + + + Dadefra, 49 + + Dahshur, 73, 77 + + Dakhamun (Ankh.s.en.Amen), 192 + + Daoud Pasha, 157–8 + + Davis, T. M., 168 _et seq._ + + Denon, V., 8, 18 + + Der el-Bahri, 31, 87 _et seq._; + _Cache_ of, 158 _et seq._ + + _Description de l’Egypte_, 8 + + Devilliers, 86, 91 + + Diodorus, 213 + + Drovetti, 9 + + + Edfu, 32 + + Edwards, Miss A., 45–6 + + Elliot Smith, Prof., 163, 173 + + Eugenie, Empress, 29 + + + Fan-bearer, the, 222, 233 + + Fayum, the, 49 + + + Gebel Barkal (Napata), 50 + + Gizeh, 48, 49, 50, 52 + + Gourlay, Miss, 118, 241 + + + Hall, H. R., 96 + + Hamed Aga, 155–6 + + Hasan, Sultan, 62 + + Hathor, shrine, Der el-Bahri, 100 + + Hatshepsut, Queen, 31, 78 _et seq._, 119, 120, 168 + + Hawara, 51, 73, 75, 76 + + Henhenit, Princess, 99 + + Hent-taui, Queen, 160 + + Herodotus, 7, 213, 232, 235 + + Hichens, R., 90 + + Hierakonpolis, 145 + + Horemheb, 118, 168, 175, 190, 199 + + Hunefer, Papyrus of, 206 + + Huy, 190, 191 + + Hyksos Sphinxes, 26 + + Hypostyle Hall, Karnak, 113 + + + Illahun, 51, 78 + + Imhotep, 70 + + Ismail, Khedive, 29 + + + Jewellery, Egyptian, 78, 79, 82, 142, 144 + + Jollois, 86, 91 + + + Ka. amenhotep, 201 + + Kadashman-Enlil, 205 + + Kagemni, 71 + + Kahun, 75, 231 + + Karnak, temple of, 105 _et seq._; + Mariette’s work at, 31 + + Kauit, Princess, 99 + + Kemsit, Princess, 99 + + Keneh, Mudir of, 27, 155, 156–8 + + Khaemuas, the Governor, 129 + + Khafra, pyramid of, 53, 54 + + Kha-Sekhem, tomb of, 142, 145 + + Khenti, 139, 140 + + Khnemhotep, 224 + + Khnumit, Princess, 78, 82 + + Khonsu, 111; + temple of, 118 + + Khufu, pyramid of, 52 _et seq._ + + + Labyrinth, the, 15, 108 + + Lahun, 73, 75, 80 + + Layard, 43, 156 + + Legrain, work of, at Karnak, 108, 111, 124 _et seq._ + + Lepsius, 14–16, 93 + + Lesseps, F. de, 24 + + Lethaby, W. R., on Egyptian Architecture, 244 + + Lisht, 51, 73 + + Loret, 165 + + Luxor, work of Amenhotep III at, 117 + + + Macalister, R. A. S., 9, 16, 39, 41, 43 + + Maghareh, Wady, 15 + + Makt-aten, 189 + + Mamun, 62 + + Manetho, 137 + + Mannikin, the, 8, 207 + + March Phillipps, on Egyptian Art, 238–9 + + Mariette, A., 10, 17, 18, 34, 93, 156 + + Maspero, Sir G., 10, 23, 32, 35, 40, 41, 68, 101, 124, 157, 161, 164, + 165, 168 + + Mastabas, 58, 71 + + Medinet Habu, Mariette’s work at, 31 + + Medum, pyramid of, 54 + + Memphis, 19 + + Mena, 45, 137, 143 + + Menkaura, pyramid of, 54–64, 65; + statue of, 238 + + Mentu, 117 + + Mentuemhat, Prince, 239, 241 + + Mentuherkhepshef, Prince, 168 + + Mentuhotep-neb-Hepet-Ra, 89, 96 _et seq._, 147 + + Merenptah, 117, 166 + + Merenra, 70, 221 + + Mereruka, 71 + + Meroë, 15, 50 + + Mertisen, 89 + + Meryt-Aten, 189 + + Moeris, Lake, 15 + + Morgan, J. de, 78, 165 + + Murray, Miss M. A., 102 + + Mursil II, 192 + + Mut, 111, 117, 118 + + + Napata, 15, 50 + + Napoleon I, 7 + + Napoleon III, 24 + + Narmer, 143, 144 + + Naville, E. de, 31, 95 _et seq._; + 102 _et seq._ + + Necho, 154 + + Nectanebo, 20 + + Nefer-ka-Ra, 68 + + Nefer-ka-ra-em-per-Amen, 129 + + Nekht, tomb of, 150 + + Nesamen, Pharaoh’s Scribe, 129 + + Ne-user-Ra, temple of, 69 + + Nezem-mut, Queen, 160 + + + Osireion, Abydos, 31, 102 _et seq._ + + Osiris, 139; + bed of, 140, 141 + + Osiris-Apis (Serapis), 19 + + + Paser, Governor of Thebes, 128, 129 + + Passalacqua, 10 + + Pedubast, 201 + + Peet, Prof. T. E., 132, 137 + + Pentaur, poem of, 116 + + Pepy I, 70, 218 + + Pepy II, 70 + + Perring, 14 + + Petrie, Sir W. M. F., 47, 53, 61, 66, 67, 73, 74, 75, 78, 79, 80, 81, + 102, 108, 115, 136, 141, 145, 205, 216, 231, 247 + + Pewero, 128, 129 + + Pharaoh, conditions of rule of, 215 _et seq._ + + Philæ, Obelisk of, 13 + + Philip Arrhidæus, chapel of, at Karnak, 121 + + Pimay, 201 + + Pinezem I and II, 160 + + Pococke, 91 + + Pool of Osiris, Abydos, 102 _et seq._ + + Predynastic tombs, 138 + + Priesthood, the Egyptian, 223 + + Proctor, R. A., 54 + + Psamtek II, 154 + + Ptah, 19 + + Ptah-hetep, 71 + + Ptolemaic work at Karnak, 110, 113, 125 + + Punt, 32, 95 + + Pyramids, the, 48 _et seq._ + + Pyramid temples, 58 _et seq._ + + Pyramid texts, 70, 71 + + + Quft, 161 + + + Rainer Papyrus, 201 + + Ramses I, 110, 112, 113 + + Ramses II, 26, 40, 113, 114, 117, 160, 162, 218 + + Ramses III, 31, 111, 148, 160, 165, 219, 233 + + Ramses IV and V, 166 + + Ramses VI, 166, 180 + + Ramses IX, 128, 232 + + Ramses X, 129 + + Ramses XII, 151 + + Razedef, 49, 52 + + Rehoboam, 112 + + Reisner, G. A., 68 + + Rekhmara, 122, 150, 129 + + Rosellini, 14 + + Rosetta Stone, the, 13 + + + Sadhe, Princess, 99 + + Said, Khedive, 24–7 + + Sallier Papyrus, 227 + + Saqqara, Mariette’s work at, 31; + stepped pyramid at, 70 + + Sat-hathor-ant, Princess, 79 + + “Scorpion,” the, 143 + + Scribes, the Egyptian, 226 _et seq._ + + Sebek-em-saf, 13, 130, 146 + + Sekhmet, 117 + + Semti, seal of, 145 + + Seneferu, pyramid of, 51, 69, 146, 199 + + Senmut, 89, 122, 221 + + Senusert I, 72 + + Senusert II, 51, 73, 75, 87, 231 + + Senusert III, 73, 125 + + Seqenen Ra, 160, 164, 217 + + Serabit el-Khadem, 15 + + Serapeum, Serapis, 19 _et seq._ + + Setna-Khaemuast, 40, 223 + + Sety I, 11, 113, 148, 160, 163; + tomb of, 153 _et seq._ + + Sety II, 113 + + Sheshanq, 112 + + Shubbiluliuma, 192 + + Siptah, 166, 168 + + Smenkhara, 188, 189 + + Society in Egypt, 214 _et seq._ + + Sphinx, temple of, 60 + + Strabo, 19, 102, 103, 151 + + Strikes of workmen, 233, 234 + + + Taharqa, 112 + + Tanutamen, 112 + + Tell el-Amarna, 174; + tablets, 178; + art of, 197 + + Temples, Der el-Bahri, 86, 87 _et seq._; + Karnak, 105 _et seq._ + + Teti, 70 + + Thothmes I, 119 + + Thothmes II, 119, 160 + + Thothmes III, 26, 100, 119, 120, 121, 122, 125, 160, 218 + + Thothmes IV, 166, 168 + + Throne of Tutankhamen, 196 + + Ti, 71 + + Tiy, Queen, 168, 171, 173, 174 + + Tuau, 168 _et seq._ + + Tutankhamen, 36, 113, 175, 177 _et seq._; + reign of, 188 + + Tutankhaten, 174 + + + Umm el-Ga’ab, 140 + + Una, 218, 221 + + Unas, 70 + + + Valley of the Kings, 148 _et seq._ + + Vizier, duties of, 219–221 + + Vyse, Col. H., 14, 64, 65 + + + Weigall, 168, 172 + + Westcar Papyrus, 199 + + Wilkinson, 92 + + + Young, 14 + + Yuaa, tomb of, 168 _et seq._ + + + Zawiyet el-Aryan, 68 + + Zazamankh, 199 + + Zer, King, 142, 144, 145 + + Zeser, pyramid of, 51, 70, 146 + + +THE END + + + PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, + LONDON AND BECCLES. + + + + +Transcriber’s Notes + + +Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a +predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they +were not changed. + +Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation +marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left +unbalanced. + +Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs +and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support +hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to +the corresponding illustrations. + +The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page +references. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75684 *** |