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HISTORY OF EGYPT CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA

By G. MASPERO, Honorable Doctor of Civil Laws, and Fellow of Queen'sCollege, Oxford; Member of the Institute and Professor at the College ofFrance

Edited by A. H. SAYCE, Professor of Assyriology, Oxford

Translated by M. L. McCLURE, Member of the Committee of the EgyptExploration Fund

CONTAINING OVER TWELVE HUNDRED COLORED PLATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Volume II. , Part A. 

LONDON

THE GROLIER SOCIETY

PUBLISHERS

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_THE POLITICAL CONSTITUTION OF EGYPT_

_THE KING, QUEEN, AND ROYAL PRINCES--PHARAONIC ADMINISTRATION_

_FEUDALISM AND THE EGYPTIAN PRIESTHOOD, THE MILITARY--THE CITIZENS ANDTHE COUNTRY-PEOPLE. _

_The cemeteries of Gizeh and Saqqâra: the Great Sphinx; the mastabas, their chapel and its decoration, the statues of the double, thesepulchral vault--Importance of the wall-paintings and texts of themastabas in determining the history of the Memphite dynasties. _

_The king and the royal family--Double nature and titles of thesovereign: his Horus-names, and the progressive formation of thePharaonic Protocol--Royal etiquette an actual divine worship; theinsignia and prophetic statues of Pharaoh, Pharaoh the mediator betweenthe gods and his subjects--Pharaoh in family life; his amusements, hisoccupations, his cares--His harem: the women, the queen, her origin, herduties to the king--His children: their position in the State; rivalryamong them during the old age and at the death of their father;succession to the throne, consequent revolutions. _

_The royal city: the palace and its occupants--The royal household andits officers: Pharaoh's jesters, dwarfs, and magicians--The royal domainand the slaves, the treasury and the establishments which provided forits service: the buildings and places for the receipt of taxes--Thescribe, his education, his chances of promotion: the career of Amten, his successive offices, the value of his personal property at hisdeath. _

_Egyptian feudalism: the status of the lords, their rights, theiramusements, their obligations to the sovereign--The influence of thegods: gifts to the temples, and possessions in mortmain; the priesthood, its hierarchy, and the method of recruiting its ranks--The military:foreign mercenaries; native militia, their privileges, their training. _

_The people of the towns--The slaves, men without a master--Workmen andartisans; corporations: misery of handicraftsmen--Aspect of the towns:houses, furniture, women in family life--Festivals; periodic markets, bazaars: commerce by barter, the weighing of precious metals. _

_The country people--The villages; serfs, free peasantry--Rural domains;the survey, taxes; the bastinado, the corvée--Administration of justice, the relations between peasants and their lords; misery of the peasantry;their resignation and natural cheerfulness; their improvidence; theirindifference to political revolutions. _

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CHAPTER I--THE POLITICAL CONSTITUTION OF EGYPT

_The king, the queen, and the royal princes--Administration underthe Pharaohs--Feudalism and the Egyptian priesthood, the military--Thecitizens and country people. _

Between the Fayûm and the apex of the Delta, the Lybian range expandsand forms a vast and slightly undulating table-land, which runs parallelto the Nile for nearly thirty leagues. The Great Sphinx Harmakhis hasmounted guard over its northern extremity ever since the time of theFollowers of Horus. 

 Illustration: Drawn by Boudier, from _La Description de l'Egypte, _ A. , vol. V. Pl. 7. Vignette, which is also by Boudier, represents a man bewailing the dead, in the attitude adopted at funerals by professional mourners of both sexes; the right fist resting on the ground, while the left hand scatters on the hair the dust which he has just gathered up. The statue is in the Gîzeh Museum. 

Hewn out of the solid rock at the extreme margin of themountain-plateau, he seems to raise his head in order that he may be thefirst to behold across the valley the rising of his father the Sun. Onlythe general outline of the lion can now be traced in his weather-wornbody. The lower portion of the head-dress has fallen, so that the neckappears too slender to support the weight of the head. The cannon-shotof the fanatical Mamelukes has injured both the nose and beard, andthe red colouring which gave animation to his features has now almostentirely disappeared. But in spite of this, even in its decay, it stillbears a commanding expression of strength and dignity. The eyes lookinto the far-off distance with an intensity of deep thought, the lipsstill smile, the whole face is pervaded with calmness and power. Theart that could conceive and hew this gigantic statue out of themountain-side, was an art in its maturity, master of itself and sure ofits effects. How many centuries were needed to bring it to this degreeof development and perfection!

[Illustration: 004. Jpg THE MASTABA OF KHOMTINI IN THE NECROPOLIS OFGÎZEH]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Lepsius. The cornerstone at the top of the mastaba, at the extreme left of the hieroglyphic frieze, had been loosened and thrown to the ground by some explorer; the artist has restored it to its original position. 

In later times, a chapel of alabaster and rose granite was erectedalongside the god; temples were built here and there in the moreaccessible places, and round these were grouped the tombs of the wholecountry. The bodies of the common people, usually naked and uncoffined, were thrust under the sand, at a depth of barely three feet from thesurface. Those of a better class rested in mean rectangular chambers, hastily built of yellow bricks, and roofed with pointed vaulting. No ornaments or treasures gladdened the deceased in his miserableresting-place; a few vessels, however, of coarse pottery containedthe provisions left to nourish him during the period of his secondexistence. 

Some of the wealthy class had their tombs cut out of the mountain-side;but the majority preferred an isolated tomb, a "mastaba, "* comprising achapel above ground, a shaft, and some subterranean vaults. 

 * "The Arabic word 'mastaba, ' plur. 'masatib, ' denotes the stone bench or platform seen in the streets of Egyptian towns in front of each shop. A carpet is spread on the 'mastaba, ' and the customer sits upon it to transact his business, usually side by side with the seller. In the necropolis of Saqqâra, there is a temple of gigantic proportions in the shape of a 'mastaba. 'The inhabitants of the neighbourhood call it 'Mastabat-el-Farâoun, ' the seat of Pharaoh, in the belief that anciently one of the Pharaohs sat there to dispense justice. The Memphite tombs of the Ancient Empire, which thickly cover the Saqqâra plateau, are more or less miniature copies of the 'Mastabat-el- Farâoun. 'Hence the name of mastabas, which has always been given to this kind of tomb, in the necropolis of Saqqâra. "

From a distance these chapels have the appearance of truncated pyramids, varying in size according to the fortune or taste of the owner; thereare some which measure 30 to 40 ft. In height, with a façade 160 ft. Long, and a depth from back to front of some 80 ft. , while others attainonly a height of some 10 ft. Upon a base of 16 ft. Square. *

 * The mastaba of Sabû is 175 ft. 9 in. Long, by about 87 ft. 9 in. Deep, but two of its sides have lost their facing; that of Ranimait measures 171 ft. 3 in. By 84 ft. 6 in. On the south front, and 100 ft. On the north front. On the other hand, the mastaba of Papû is only 19 ft. 4 in. By 29 ft. Long, and that of KMbiûphtah 42 ft. 4 in. By 21 ft. 8 in. 

The walls slope uniformly towards one another, and usually have a smoothsurface; sometimes, however, their courses are set back one above theother almost like steps. 

[Illustration: 006. Jpg THE GREAT SPHINX OF GÎZEH PARTIALLY UNCOVERED, AND THE PYRAMID OF KHEPHREN]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey, taken in the course of the excavations begun in 1886, with the funds furnished by a public subscription opened by the _Journal des Débats. _

The brick mastabas were carefully cemented externally, and the layersbound together internally by fine sand poured into the interstices. Stone mastabas, on the contrary, present a regularity in the decorationof their facings alone; in nine cases out of ten the core is built ofrough stone blocks, rudely cut into squares, cemented with gravel anddried mud, or thrown together pell-mell without mortar of any kind. Thewhole building should have been orientated according to rule, the foursides to the four cardinal points, the greatest axis directed north andsouth; but the masons seldom troubled themselves to find the true north, and the orientation is usually incorrect. *

 * Thus the axis of the tomb of Pirsenû is 17° east of the magnetic north. In some cases the divergence is only 1° or 2°, more often it is 6°, 7°, 8°, or 9°, as can be easily ascertained by consulting the work of Mariette. 

The doors face east, sometimes north or south, but never west. One ofthese is but the semblance of a door, a high narrow niche, contrivedso as to face east, and decorated with grooves framing a carefullywalled-up entrance; this was for the use of the dead, and it wasbelieved that the ghost entered or left it at will. The door for theuse of the living, sometimes preceded by a portico, was almost alwayscharacterized by great simplicity. Over it is a cylindrical tympanum, or a smooth flagstone, bearing sometimes merely the name of the deadperson, sometimes his titles and descent, sometimes a prayer for hiswelfare, and an enumeration of the days during which he was entitled toreceive the worship due to ancestors. They invoked on his behalf, andalmost always precisely in the same words, the "Great God, " the Osirisof Mendes, or else Anubis, dwelling in the Divine Palace, that burialmight be granted to him in Amentît, the land of the West, the very greatand very good, to him the vassal of the Great God; that he might walkin the ways in which it is good to walk, he the vassal of the GreatGod; that he might have offerings of bread, cakes, and drink, at the NewYear's Feast, at the feast of Thot, on the first day of the year, on thefeast of Ûagaît, at the great fire festival, at the procession of thegod Mînû, at the feast of offerings, at the monthly and half-monthlyfestivals, and every day. 

[Illustration: 008. Jpg TETINIÔNKHÛ, SITTING BEFORE THE FUNERAL REPAST]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original monument which is preserved in the Liverpool Museum; cf. Gatty, _Catalogue of the Mayer Collection;_ I. Egyptian Antiquities, No. 294, p. 45. 

The chapel is usually small, and is almost lost in the great extentof the building. * It generally consists merely of an oblong chamber, approached by a rather short passage. **

 * Thus the chapel of the mastaba of Sabu is only 14 ft. 4 in. Long, by about 3 ft. 3 in. Deep, and that of the tomb of Phtahshopsisû, 10 ft. 4 in. By 3 ft. 7 in. 

 ** The mastaba of Tinti has four chambers, as has also that of Assi-ônkhû; but these are exceptions, as may be ascertained by consulting the work of Mariette. Most of those which contain several rooms are ancient one-roomed mastabas, which have been subsequently altered or enlarged; this is the case with the mastabas of Shopsi and of Ankhaftûka. A few, however, were constructed from the outset with all their apartments--that of Râônkhûmai, with six chambers and several niches; that of Khâbiûphtah, with three chambers, niches, and doorway ornamented with two pillars; that of Ti, with two chambers, a court surrounded with pillars, a doorway, and long inscribed passages; and that of Phtahhotpû, with seven chambers, besides niches. 

[Illustration: 009. Jpg THE FAÇADE AND THE STELE OF THE TOMB OFPHTAHSHOPSISU AT SAQQARA]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Dûhichen. 

At the far end, and set back into the western wall, is a hugequadrangular stele, at the foot of which is seen the table of offerings, made of alabaster, granite or limestone placed flat upon the ground, and sometimes two little obelisks or two altars, hollowed at the top toreceive the gifts mentioned in the inscription on the exterior of thetomb. The general appearance is that of a rather low, narrow doorway, too small to be a practicable entrance. The recess thus formed is almostalways left empty; sometimes, however, the piety of relatives placedwithin it a statue of the deceased. Standing there, with shouldersthrown back, head erect, and smiling face, the statue seems to stepforth to lead the double from its dark lodging where it lies embalmed, to those glowing plains where he dwelt in freedom during his earthlylife: another moment, crossing the threshold, he must descend the fewsteps leading into the public hall. On festivals and days of offering, when the priest and family presented the banquet with the customaryrites, this great painted figure, in the act of advancing, and seenby the light of flickering torches or smoking lamps, might well appearendued with life. It was as if the dead ancestor himself stepped out ofthe wall and mysteriously stood before his descendants to claim theirhomage. The inscription on the lintel repeats once more the name andrank of the dead. Faithful portraits of him and of other members of hisfamily figure in the bas-reliefs on the door-posts. 

[Illustration: 010. Jpg STELE IN THE FORM OF A DOOR]

The little scene at the far end represents him seated tranquilly attable, with the details of the feast carefully recorded at his side, from the first moment when water is brought to him for ablution, to thatwhen, all culinary skill being exhausted, he has but to return to hisdwelling, in a state of beatified satisfaction. The stele represented tothe visitor the door leading to the private apartments of the deceased;the fact of its being walled up for ever showing that no living mortalmight cross its threshold. The inscription which covered its surface wasnot a mere epitaph informing future generations who it was that reposedbeneath. It perpetuated the name and genealogy of the deceased, andgave him a civil status, without which he could not have preserved hispersonality in the world beyond; the nameless dead, like a living manwithout a name, was reckoned as non-existing. Nor was this the only useof the stele; the pictures and prayers inscribed upon it acted as somany talismans for ensuring the continuous existence of the ancestor, whose memory they recalled. They compelled the god therein invoked, whether Osiris or the jackal Anubis, to act as mediator between theliving and the departed; they granted to the god the enjoyment ofsacrifices and those good things abundantly offered to the deities, andby which they live, on condition that a share of them might first beset aside for the deceased. By the divine favour, the soul or rather thedoubles of the bread, meat, and beverages passed into the other world, and there refreshed the human double. It was not, however, necessarythat the offering should have a material existence, in order to beeffective; the first comer who should repeat aloud the name and theformulas inscribed upon the stone, secured for the unknown occupant, bythis means alone, the immediate possession of all the things which heenumerated. 

The stele constitutes the essential part of the chapel and tomb. In manycases it was the only inscribed portion, it alone being necessary toensure the identity and continuous existence of the dead man; often, however, the sides of the chamber and passage were not left bare. Whentime or the wealth of the owner permitted, they were covered with scenesand writing, expressing at greater length the ideas summarized by thefigures and inscriptions of the stele. 

[Illustration: 014. Jpg A REPRESENTATION OF THE DOMAINS OF THE LORD TI, BRINGING TO HIM OFFERINGS IN PROCESSION]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin taken from a "squeeze" taken from the tomb of Ti. The domains are represented as women. The name is written before each figure with the designation of the landowner. 

Neither pictorial effect nor the caprice of the moment was permittedto guide the artist in the choice of his subjects; all that he drew, pictures or words, bad a magical purpose. Every individual who built forhimself an "eternal house, " either attached to it a staff of priestsof the double, of inspectors, scribes, and slaves, or else made anagreement with the priests of a neighbouring temple to serve the chapelin perpetuity. Lands taken from his patrimony, which thus became the"Domains of the Eternal House, " rewarded them for their trouble, andsupplied them with meats, vegetables, fruits, liquors, linen and vesselsfor sacrifice. 

[Illustration: 015. Jpg THE REPRESENTATION OF THE LORD TI ASSISTING ATTHE PRELIMINARIES OF THE SACRIFICE AND OFFERINGS]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Dumichen, Besultate, vol. I. Pl. 13. 

In theory, these "liturgies" were perpetuated from year to year, untilthe end of time; but in practice, after three or four generations, theolder ancestors were forsaken for those who had died more recently. Notwithstanding the imprecations and threats of the donor against thepriests who should neglect their duty, or against those who should usurpthe funeral endowments, sooner or later there came a time when, forsakenby all, the double was in danger of perishing for want of sustenance. Inorder to ensure that the promised gifts, offered in substance on the dayof burial, should be maintained throughout the centuries, the relativesnot only depicted them upon the chapel walls, but represented inaddition the lands which produced them, and the labour which contributedto their production. On one side we see ploughing, sowing, reaping, thecarrying of the corn, the storing of the grain, the fattening of thepoultry, and the driving of the cattle. A little further on, workmen ofall descriptions are engaged in their several trades: shoemakers plythe awl, glassmakers blow through their tubes, metal founders watch overtheir smelting-pots, carpenters hew down trees and build a ship; groupsof women weave or spin under the eye of a frowning taskmaster, who seemsimpatient of their chatter. Did the double in his hunger desire meat? Hemight choose from the pictures on the wall the animal that pleased himbest, whether kid, ox, or gazelle; he might follow the course of itslife, from its birth in the meadows to the slaughter-house and thekitchen, and might satisfy his hunger with its flesh. The double sawhimself represented in the paintings as hunting, and to the hunt hewent; he was painted eating and drinking with his wife, and he ate anddrank with her; the pictured ploughing, harvesting, and gathering intobarns, thus became to him actual realities. In fine, this painted worldof men and things represented upon the wall was quickened by the samelife which animated the double, upon whom it all depended: the _picture_of a meal or of a slave was perhaps that which best suited the _shade_of guest or of master. 

Even to-day, when we enter one of these decorated chapels, the idea ofdeath scarcely presents itself: we have rather the impression of beingin some old-world house, to which the master may at any moment return. We see him portrayed everywhere upon the walls, followed by hisservants, and surrounded by everything which made his earthly lifeenjoyable. One or two statues of him stand at the end of the room, inconstant readiness to undergo the "Opening of the Mouth" and to receiveofferings. Should these be accidentally removed, others, secreted ina little chamber hidden in the thickness of the masonry, are there toreplace them. These inner chambers have rarely any external outlet, though occasionally they are connected with the chapel by a smallopening, so narrow that it will hardly admit of a hand being passedthrough it. Those who came to repeat prayers and burn incense at thisaperture were received by the dead in person. The statues were not mereimages, devoid of consciousness. Just as the double of a god could belinked to an idol in the temple sanctuary in order to transform it intoa prophetic being, capable of speech and movement, so when the double ofa man was attached to the effigy of his earthly body, whether in stone, metal, or wood, a real living person was created and was introduced intothe tomb. So strong was this conviction that the belief has lived onthrough two changes of religion until the present day. The double stillhaunts the statues with which he was associated in the past. As informer times, he yet strikes with madness or death any who dare todisturb is repose; and one can only be protected from him by breaking, at the moment of discovery, the perfect statues which the vaultcontains. The double is weakened or killed by the mutilation of thesehis sustainers. *

 * The legends still current about the pyramids of Gîzeh furnish some good examples of this kind of superstition. "The guardian of the Eastern pyramid was an idol... Who had both eyes open, and was seated on a throne, having a sort of halberd near it, on which, if any one fixed his eye, he heard a fearful noise, which struck terror to his heart, and caused the death of the hearer. There was a spirit appointed to wait on each guardian, who departed not from before him. " The keeping of the other two pyramids was in like manner entrusted to a statue, assisted by a spirit. I have collected a certain number of tales resembling that of Mourtadi in the _Études de Mythologie et Archéologie Égyptiennes, _ vol. I. P. 77, et seq. 

The statues furnish in their modelling a more correct idea of thedeceased than his mummy, disfigured as it was by the work of theembalmers; they were also less easily destroyed, and any number couldbe made at will. Hence arose the really incredible number of statuessometimes hidden away in the same tomb. These sustainers or imperishablebodies of the double were multiplied so as to insure for him a practicalimmortality; and the care with which they were shut into a securehiding-place, increased their chances of preservation. All the same, noprecaution was neglected that could save a mummy from destruction. Theshaft leading to it descended to a mean depth of forty to fifty feet, but sometimes it reached, and even exceeded, a hundred feet. Runninghorizontally from it is a passage so low as to prevent a man standingupright in it, which leads to the sepulchral chamber properly so called, hewn out of the solid rock and devoid of all ornament; the sarcophagus, whether of fine limestone, rose-granite, or black basalt, does notalways bear the name and titles of the deceased. The servants whodeposited the body in it placed beside it on the dusty floor thequarters of the ox, previously slaughtered in the chapel, as well asphials of perfume, and large vases of red pottery containing muddywater; after which they walled up the entrance to the passage and filledthe shaft with chips of stone intermingled with earth and gravel. Thewhole, being well watered, soon hardened into a compact mass, whichprotected the vault and its master from desecration. 

During the course of centuries, the ever-increasing number of tombs atlength formed an almost uninterrupted chain of burying-places on thetable-land. At Gîzeh they follow a symmetrical plan, and line the sidesof regular roads; at Saqqâra they are scattered about on the surfaceof the ground, in some places sparsely, in others huddled confusedlytogether. Everywhere the tombs are rich in inscriptions, statues, andpainted or sculptured scenes, each revealing some characteristic custom, or some detail of contemporary civilization. From the womb, as it were, of these cemeteries, the Egypt of the Memphite dynasties gradually takesnew life, and reappears in the full daylight of history. Nobles andfellahs, soldiers and priests, scribes and craftsmen, --the whole nationlives anew before us; each with his manners, his dress, his daily roundof occupation and pleasures. It is a perfect picture, and although inplaces the drawing is defaced and the colour dimmed, yet these may berestored with no great difficulty, and with almost absolute certainty. The king stands out boldly in the foreground, and his tall figure towersover all else. He so completely transcends his surroundings, that atfirst sight one may well ask if he does not represent a god rather thana man; and, as a matter of fact, he is a god to his subjects. They callhim "the good god, " "the great god, " and connect him with Râ through theintervening kings, the successors of the gods who ruled the two worlds. His father before him was "Son of Râ, " as was also his grandfather, andhis great-grandfather, and so through all his ancestors, until from"son of Râ" to "son of Râ" they at last reached Râ himself. Sometimesan adventurer of unknown antecedents is abruptly inserted in the series, and we might imagine that he would interrupt the succession of the solarline; but on closer examination we always find that either the intruderis connected with the god by a genealogy hitherto unsuspected, or thathe is even more closely related to him than his predecessors, inasmuchas Râ, having secretly descended upon the earth, had begotten him by amortal mother in order to rejuvenate the race. *

 * A legend, preserved for us in the Westcar Papyrus (Erman's edition, pl. Ix. 11. 5-11, pl. X. 1. 5, et seq. ), maintains that the first three kings of the Vth dynasty, Ûsirkaf, Sahûrî, and Kakiû, were children born to Râ, lord of Sakhîbû, by Rûdîtdidît, wife of a priest attached to the temple of that town. 

If things came to the worst, a marriage with some princess would soonlegitimise, if not the usurper himself, at least his descendants, andthus firmly re-establish the succession. 

[Illustration: 021. Jpg THE BIRTH OF A KING AND HIS DOUBLE]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Gay et. The king is Amenôthes III. , whose conception and birth are represented in the temple of Luxor, with the same wealth of details that we should have expected, had he been a son of the god Amon and the goddess Mût. 

The Pharaohs, therefore, are blood-relations of the Sun-god, somethrough their father, others through their mother, directly begottenby the God, and their souls as well as their bodies have a supernaturalorigin; each soul being a double detached from Horus, the successor ofOsiris, and the first to reign alone over Egypt. This divine doubleis infused into the royal infant at birth, in the same manner as theordinary double is incarnate in common mortals. It always remainedconcealed, and seemed to lie dormant in those princes whom destiny didnot call upon to reign, but it awoke to full self-consciousness in thosewho ascended the throne at the moment of their accession. From that timeto the hour of their death, and beyond it, all that they possessed ofordinary humanity was completely effaced; they were from henceforthonly "the sons of Râ, " the Horus, dwelling upon earth, who, during hissojourn here below, renews the blessings of Horus, son of Isis. Theircomplex nature was revealed at the outset in the form and arrangement oftheir names. Among the Egyptians the choice of a name was not a matterof indifference; not only did men and beasts, but even inanimateobjects, require one or more names, and it may be said that no person orthing in the world could attain to complete existence until the namehad been conferred. The most ancient names were often only a short word, which denoted some moral or physical quality, as Titi the Runner, Minithe Lasting, Qonqeni the Crusher, Sondi the Formidable, Uznasît theFlowery-tongued. They consisted also of short sentences, by whichthe royal child confessed his faith in the power of the gods, and hisparticipation in the acts of the Sun's life--"Khâfrî, " his rising isRâ; "Men-kaûhorû, " the doubles of Horus last for ever; "Usirkerî, " thedouble of Râ is omnipotent. Sometimes the sentence is shortened, and thename of the god is understood: as for instance, "Ûsirkaf, " his double isomnipotent; "Snofmi, " he has made me good; "Khûfïïi, " he has protectedme, are put for the names "Usirkerî, " "Ptahsnofrûi, " "Khnûmkhûfûi, " withthe suppression of Râ, Phtah, and Khnûrnû. 

[Illustration: 023. Jpg PAGE IMAGE]

The name having once, as it were, taken possession of a man on hisentrance into life, never leaves him either in this world or the next;the prince who had been called Unas or Assi at the moment of his birth, retained this name even after death, so long as his mummy existed, andhis double was not annihilated. 

 {Hieroglyphics indicated by [--], see the page images in the HTML file}

When the Egyptians wished to denote that a person or thing was in acertain place, they inserted their names within the picture of the placein question. Thus the name of Teti is written inside a picture of Teti'scastle, the result being the compound hieroglyph [--] Again, when theson of a king became king in his turn, they enclose his ordinary namein the long flat-bottomed frame [--] which we call a cartouche;the elliptical part [--] of which is a kind of plan of the world, arepresentation of those regions passed over by Râ in his journey, andover which Pharaoh, because he is a son of Râ, exercises his rule. When the names of Teti or Snofrûi, following the group [----] whichrespectively express sovereignty over the two halves of Egypt, theSouth and the North, the whole expression describing exactly the visibleperson of Pharaoh during his abode among mortals. But this first namechosen for the child did not include the whole man; it left withoutappropriate designation the double of Horus, which was revealed inthe prince at the moment of accession. The double therefore received aspecial title, which is always constructed on a uniform plan: first thepicture [--] hawk-god, who desired to leave to his descendants a portionof his soul, then a simple or compound epithet, specifying that virtueof Horus which the Pharaoh wished particularly to possess--"Horûnîb-mâîfc, " Horus master of Truth; "Horû miri-toûi, " Horus friend ofboth lands; "Horû nîbkhâùû, " Horus master of the risings; "Horu mazîti, "Horus who crushes his enemies. 

[Illustration: 024. Jpg THE ADULT KING ADVANCING, FOLLOWED BY HIS DOUBLE]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an illustration in Arundale- Bonomi-Birch's _Gallery of Antiquities from the British Museum, _ pl. 31. The king thus represented is Thutmosis II. Of the XVIIIth dynasty; the spear, surmounted by a man's head, which the double holds in his hand, probably recalls the human victims formerly sacrificed at the burial of a chief. 

The variable part of these terms is usually written in an oblongrectangle, terminated at the lower end by a number of lines portrayingin a summary way the façade of a monument, in the centre of which abolted door may sometimes be distinguished: this is the representationof the chapel where the double will one day rest, and the closed door isthe portal of the tomb. * The stereotyped part of the names and titles, which is represented by the figure of the god, is placed outside therectangle, sometimes by the side of it, sometimes upon its top: the hawkis, in fact, free by nature, and could nowhere remain imprisoned againsthis will. 

 * This is what is usually known as the "Banner Name;" indeed, it was for some time believed that this sign represented a piece of stuff, ornamented at the bottom by embroidery or fringe, and bearing on the upper part the title of a king. Wilkinson thought that this "square title, " as he called it, represented a house. The real meaning of the expression was determined by Professor Flinders Petrie and by myself. 

This artless preamble was not enough to satisfy the love of precisionwhich is the essential characteristic of the Egyptians. When they wishedto represent the double in his sepulchral chamber, they left out ofconsideration the period in his existence during which he had presidedover the earthly destinies of the sovereign, in order to render themsimilar to those of Horus, from whom the double proceeded. 

[Illustration: 026. Jpg Page Image]

They, therefore, withdrew him from the tomb which should have been hislot, and there was substituted for the ordinary sparrow-hawk one ofthose groups which symbolize sovereignty over the two countries of theNile--the coiled urasus of the North, and the vulture of the South, [--]; there was then finally added a second sparrow-hawk, the goldensparrow-hawk, [--], the triumphant sparrow-hawk which had deliveredEgypt from Typhon. The soul of Snofrai, which is called, as a survivingdouble, [--], "Horus master of Truth, " is, as a living double, entitled"[--]" "[--]" the Lord of the Vulture and of the "Urous, " master ofTruth, and Horus triumphant. *

 * The Ka, or double name, represented in this illustration is that of the Pharaoh Khephren, the builder of the second of the great pyramids at Gîzeh; it reads "Horu usir-Hâîti, " Horus powerful of heart. 

On the other hand, the royal prince, when he put on the diadem, received, from the moment of his advancement to the highest rank, suchan increase of dignity, that his birth-name--even when framed in acartouche and enhanced with brilliant epithets--was no longer able tofully represent him. This exaltation of his person was therefore markedby a new designation. As he was the living flesh of the sun, so hissurname always makes allusion to some point in his relations with hisfather, and proclaims the love which he felt for the latter, "Mirirî, "or that the latter experienced for him, "Mirnirî, " or else it indicatesthe stability of the doubles of Râ, "Tatkerî, " their goodness, "Nofirkerî, " or some other of their sovereign virtues. Several Pharaohsof the IVth dynasty had already dignified themselves by these surnames;those of the VIth were the first to incorporate them regularly into theroyal preamble. 

[Illustration: 027. Jpg PAGE IMAGE]

There was some hesitation at first as to the position the surname oughtto occupy, and it was sometimes placed after the birth-name, as in "PapiNofirkerî, " sometimes before it, as in [--] "Nofirkerî Papî. " It wasfinally decided to place it at the beginning, preceded by the group [--]"King of Upper and Lower Egypt, " which expresses in its fullest extentthe power granted by the gods to the Pharaoh alone; the other, orbirth-name, came after it, accompanied by the words [--]. "Son of theSun. " There were inscribed, either before or above these two solar names--which are exclusively applied to the visible and living body of themaster--the two names of the sparrow-hawk, which belonged especially tothe soul; first, that of the double in the tomb, and then that of thedouble while still incarnate. Four terms seemed thus necessary to theEgyptians in order to define accurately the Pharaoh, both in time and ineternity. 

Long centuries were needed before this subtle analysis of the royalperson, and the learned graduation of the formulas which corresponded toit, could transform the Nome chief, become by conquest suzerain over allother chiefs and king of all Egypt, into a living god here below, theall-powerful son and successor of the gods; but the divine concept ofroyalty, once implanted in the mind, quickly produced its inevitableconsequences. From the moment that the Pharaoh became god upon earth, the gods of heaven, his fathers or his brothers, and the goddessesrecognized him as their son, and, according to the ceremonial imposedby custom in such cases, consecrated his adoption by offering him thebreast to suck, as they would have done to their own child. 

[Illustration: 028. Jpg THE GODDESS ADOPTS THE KING BY SUCKLING HIM]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger. The original is in the great speos of Silsilis. The king here represented is Harmhabît of the XVIIIth dynasty; cf. Champollion, _Monuments de l'Egypt et de la Nubie, _ pl. Cix. , No. 3; Rosellini, _Monumenti Storici, _ pl. Xliv. 5; Lepsius, Denkm. , iii. 121 b. 

Ordinary mortals spoke of him only in symbolic words, designating him bysome periphrasis: Pharaoh, "Pirûi-Aûi, " the Double Palace, "Prûîti, " theSublime Porte, His Majesty, * the Sun of the two lands, Horus master ofthe palace, or, less ceremoniously, by the indeterminate pronoun "One. "

 * The title "Honûf" is translated by the same authors, sometimes as "His Majesty, " sometimes as "His Holiness. " The reasons for translating it "His Majesty, " as was originally proposed by Champollion, and afterwards generally adopted, have been given last of all by E. De Rougé. 

The greater number of these terms is always accompanied by a wishaddressed to the sovereign for his "life, " "health, " and "strength, " theinitial signs of which are written after all his titles. He accepts allthis graciously, and even on his own initiative, swears by his own life, or by the favour of Râ, but he forbids his subjects to imitate him: forthem it is a sin, punishable in this world and in the next, to adjurethe person of the sovereign, except in the case in which a magistraterequires from them a judicial oath. 

[Illustration: 029. Jpg THE CUCUPHA-HEADED SCEPTRE. ]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the engraving in Prisse d'Avennes, _Recherches sur les légendes royales et l'époque du règne de Schai ou Scheraï, _ in the _Revue Archéologique_, 1st series, vol. Ii. P. 467. The original is now preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale, to which it was presented by Prisse d'Avennes. It is of glazed earthenware, of very delicate and careful workmanship. 

He is approached, moreover, as a god is approached, with downcast eyes, and head or back bent; they "sniff the earth" before him, they veil theirfaces with both hands to shut out the splendour of his appearance; theychant a devout form of adoration before submitting to him a petition. No one is free from this obligation: his ministers themselves, and thegreat ones of his kingdom, cannot deliberate with him on matters ofstate, without inaugurating the proceeding by a sort of solemn servicein his honour, and reciting to him at length a eulogy of his divinity. They did not, indeed, openly exalt him above the other gods, but thesewere rather too numerous to share heaven among them, whilst he alonerules over the "Entire Circuit of the Sun, " and the whole earth, itsmountains and plains, are in subjection under his sandalled feet. People, no doubt, might be met with who did not obey him, but thesewere rebels, adherents of Sît, "Children of Euin, " who, sooner or later, would be overtaken by punishment. 

[Illustration: 030. Jpg DIFFERENT POSTURES FOR APPROACHING THE KING]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger. The picture represents Khâmhaît presenting the superintendents of storehouses to Tûtânkhamon, of the XVIIIth dynasty. 

While hoping that his fictitious claim to universal dominion would berealized, the king adopted, in addition to the simple costume of the oldchiefs, the long or short petticoat, the jackal's tail, the turned-upsandals, and the insignia of the supreme gods, --the ankh, the crook, theflail, and the sceptre tipped with the head of a jerboa or a hare, whichwe misname the cucupha-headed sceptre. * He put on the many-coloureddiadems of the gods, the head-dresses covered with feathers, the whiteand the red crowns either separately or combined so as to form thepshent. The viper or uraeus, in metal or gilded wood, which rose fromhis forehead, was imbued with a mysterious life, which made it a meansof executing his vengeance and accomplishing his secret purposes. It wassupposed to vomit flames and to destroy those who should dare to attackits master in battle. The supernatural virtues which it communicated tothe crown, made it an enchanted thing which no one could resist. Lastly, Pharaoh had his temples where his enthroned statue, animated by oneof his doubles, received worship, prophesied, and fulfilled all thefunctions of a Divine Being, both during his life, and after he hadrejoined in the tomb his ancestors the gods, who existed before him andwho now reposed impassively within the depths of their pyramids. **

 * This identification, suggested by Champollion, is, from force of custom, still adhered to, in nearly all works on Egyptology. But we know from ancient evidence that the cucupha was a bird, perhaps a hoopoe; the sceptre of the gods, moreover, is really surmounted by the head of a quadruped having a pointed snout and long retreating ears, and belonging to the greyhound, jackal, or jerboa species. 

 ** This method of distinguishing deceased kings is met with as far back as the "Song of the Harpist, " which the Egyptians of the Ramesside period attributed to the founder of the XIth dynasty. The first known instance of a temple raised by an Egyptian king to his double is that of Amenôthes III. 

Man, as far as his body was concerned, and god in virtue of his soul andits attributes, the Pharaoh, in right of this double nature, acted as aconstant mediator between heaven and earth. He alone was fit to transmitthe prayers of men to his fathers and his brethren the gods. Just as thehead of a family was in his household the priest _par excellence_ of thegods of that family, --just as the chief of a nome was in his nome thepriest _par excellence_ in regard to the gods of the nome, --so wasPharaoh the priest _par excellence_ of the gods of all Egypt, who werehis special deities. He accompanied their images in solemn processions;he poured out before them the wine and mystic milk, recited the formulasin their hearing, seized the bull who was the victim with a lasso andslaughtered it according to the rite consecrated by ancient tradition. Private individuals had recourse to his intercession, when they askedsome favour from on high; as, however, it was impossible for everysacrifice to pass actually through his hands, the celebrating priestproclaimed at the beginning of each ceremony that it was the king whomade the offering--_Sûtni di hotpu_--he and none other, to Osiris, Phtah, and Ka-Harmakhis, so that they might grant to the faithfulwho implored the object of their desires, and, the declaration beingaccepted in lieu of the act, the king was thus regarded as reallyofficiating on every occasion for his subjects. *

 *I do not agree with Prof. Ed. Meyer, or with Prof. Erman, who imagine that this was the first instance of the practice, and that it had been introduced into Nubia before its adoption on Egyptian soil. Under the Ancient Empire we meet with more than one functionary who styles himself, in some cases during his master's lifetime, in others shortly after his death, "Prophet of Horus who lives in the palace, " or "Prophet of Kheops, " "Prophet of Sondi, " "Prophet of Kheops, of Mykerinos, of Usirkaf, " or "of other sovereigns. "

He thus maintained daily intercourse with the gods, and they, on theirpart, did not neglect any occasion of communicating with him. Theyappeared to him in dreams to foretell his future, to command him torestore a monument which was threatened with ruin, to advise him to setout to war, to forbid him risking his life in the thick of the fight. *

 * Among other examples, the texts mention the dream in which Thûtmosis IV. , while still a royal prince, received from Phrâ-Harmakhis orders to unearth the Great Sphinx, the dream in which Phtah forbids Minephtah to take part in the battle against the peoples of the sea, that by which Tonûatamon, King of Napata, is persuaded to undertake the conquest of Egypt. Herodotus had already made us familiar with the dreams of Sabaco and of the high priest Sethos. 

Communication by prophetic dreams was not, however, the method usuallyselected by the gods: they employed as interpreters of their wishesthe priests and the statues in the temples. The king entered the chapelwhere the statue was kept, and performed in its presence the invocatoryrites, and questioned it upon the subject which occupied his mind. Thepriest replied under direct inspiration from on high, and the dialoguethus entered upon might last a long time. Interminable discourses, whose records cover the walls of the Theban temples, inform us whatthe Pharaoh said on such occasions, and in what emphatic tones thegods replied. Sometimes the animated statues raised their voices inthe darkness of the sanctuary and themselves announced their will; morefrequently they were content to indicate it by a gesture. When they wereconsulted on some particular subject and returned no sign, it was theirway of signifying their disapprobation. If, on the other hand, theysignificantly bowed their head, once or twice, the subject was anacceptable one, and they approved it. No state affair was settledwithout asking their advice, and without their giving it in one way oranother. 

The monuments, which throw full light on the supernatural characterof the Pharaohs in general, tell us but little of the individualdisposition of any king in particular, or of their everyday life. Whenby chance we come into closer intimacy for a moment with the sovereign, he is revealed to us as being less divine and majestic than we mighthave been led to believe, had we judged him only by his impassiveexpression and by the pomp with which he was surrounded in public. Notthat he ever quite laid aside his grandeur; even in his home life, in his chamber or his garden, during those hours when he felt himselfwithdrawn from public gaze, those highest in rank might never forgetwhen they approached him that he was a god. He showed himself to be akind father, a good-natured husband, * ready to dally with his wives andcaress them on the cheek as they offered him a flower, or moved a pieceupon the draught-board. 

 * As a literary example of what the conduct of a king was like in his family circle, we may quote the description of King Minîbphtah, in the story of Satni-Khâmoîs. The pictures of the tombs at Tel-el-Amarna show us the intimate terms on which King Khuniaton lived with his wife and daughters, both big and little. 

He took an interest in those who waited on him, allowed them certainbreaches of etiquette when he was pleased with them, and was indulgentto their little failings. If they had just returned from foreign lands, a little countrified after a lengthy exile from the court, he wouldbreak out into pleasantries over their embarrassment and theirunfashionable costume, --kingly pleasantries which excited the forcedmirth of the bystanders, but which soon fell flat and had no meaning forthose outside the palace. The Pharaoh was fond of laughing and drinking;indeed, if we may believe evil tongues, he took so much at times as toincapacitate him for business. The chase was not always a pleasureto him, hunting in the desert, at least, where the lions evinced aprovoking tendency to show as little respect for the divinity of theprince as for his mortal subjects; but, like the chiefs of old, he feltit a duty to his people to destroy wild beasts, and he ended by countingthe slain in hundreds, however short his reign might be. *

 *Amenôthes III. Had killed as many as a hundred and two lions during the first ten years of his reign. 

A considerable part of his time was taken up in war--in the east, against the Libyans in the regions of the Oasis; in the Nile Valley tothe south of Aswan against the Nubians; on the Isthmus of Suez and inthe Sinaitic Peninsula against the Bedouin; frequently also in a civilwar against some ambitious noble or some turbulent member of his ownfamily. He travelled frequently from south to north, and from north tosouth, leaving in every possible place marked traces of his visits--onthe rocks of Elephantine and of the first cataract, on those of Silsilisor of El-Kab, and he appeared to his vassals as Tûmû himself arisenamong them to repress injustice and disorder. He restored or enlargedthe monuments, regulated equitably the assessment of taxes andcharges, settled or dismissed the lawsuits between one town and anotherconcerning the appropriation of the water, or the possession of certainterritories, distributed fiefs which had fallen vacant, among hisfaithful servants, and granted pensions to be paid out of the royalrevenues. *

 * These details are not found on the historical monuments, but are furnished to us by the description given in "The Book of Knowledge of what there is in the other world" of the course of the sun across the domain of the hours of night; the god is there described as a Pharaoh passing through his kingdom, and all that he does for his vassals, the dead, is identical with what Pharaoh was accustomed to do for his subjects, the living. 

At length he re-entered Memphis, or one of his usual residences, wherefresh labours awaited him. He gave audience daily to all, whether highor low, who were, or believed that they were, wronged by some official, and who came to appeal to the justice of the master against theinjustice of his servant. If he quitted the palace when the causehad been heard, to take boat or to go to the temple, he was not leftundisturbed, but petitions and supplications assailed him by the way. In addition to this, there were the daily sacrifices, the despatchof current affairs, the ceremonies which demanded the presence of thePharaoh, and the reception of nobles or foreign envoys. One would thinkthat in the midst of so many occupations he would never feel time hangheavy on his hands. He was, however, a prey to that profound _ennui_which most Oriental monarchs feel so keenly, and which neither the caresnor the pleasures of ordinary life could dispel. Like the Sultans of the"Arabian Nights, " the Pharaohs were accustomed to have marvellous talesrelated to them, or they assembled their councillors to ask them tosuggest some fresh amusement: a happy thought would sometimes strike oneof them, as in the case of him who aroused the interest of Snofrûi byrecommending him to have his boat manned by young girls barely clad inlarge-meshed network. 

[Illustration: 037. Jpg PHARAOH IN HIS HAREM]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin. 

All his pastimes were not so playful. The Egyptians by nature were notcruel, and we have very few records either in history or tradition ofbloodthirsty Pharaohs; but the life of an ordinary individual was of solittle value in their eyes, that they never hesitated to sacrifice it, even for a caprice. A sorcerer had no sooner boasted before Kheops ofbeing able to raise the dead, than the king proposed that he should trythe experiment on a prisoner whose head was to be forthwith cut off. The anger of Pharaoh was quickly excited, and once aroused, became anall-consuming fire; the Egyptians were wont to say, in describing itsintensity, "His Majesty became as furious as a panther. " The wild beastoften revealed itself in the half-civilized man. 

The royal family was very numerous. The women were principally chosenfrom the relatives of court officials of high rank, or from thedaughters of the great feudal lords; there were, however, many strangersamong them, daughters or sisters of petty Libyan, Nubian, or Asiatickings; they were brought into Pharaoh's house as hostages for thesubmission of their respective peoples. They did not all enjoy the sametreatment or consideration, and their original position decided theirstatus in the harem, unless the amorous caprice of their master shouldotherwise decide. Most of them remained merely concubines for life, others were raised to the rank of "royal spouses, " and at least onereceived the title and privileges of "great spouse, " or queen. This wasrarely accorded to a stranger, but almost always to a princess born inthe purple, a daughter of Râ, if possible a sister of the Pharaoh, andwho, inheriting in the same degree and in equal proportion the flesh andblood of the Sun-god, had, more than others, the right to share the bedand throne of her brother. *

 * It would seem that Queen Mirisônkhû, wife of Khephren, was the daughter of Kheops, and consequently her husband's sister. 

[Illustration: 039. Jpg PHARAOH GIVES SOLEMN AUDIENCE TO ONE OF HISMINISTERS]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after Lepsius. The king is Amenôthes III. (XVIIIth. Dynasty). 

She had her own house, and a train of servants and followers as largeas those of the king; while the women of inferior rank were more or lessshut up in the parts of the palace assigned to them, she came and wentat pleasure, and appeared in public with or without her husband. Thepreamble of official documents in which she is mentioned, solemnlyrecognizes her as the living follower of Horus, the associate ofthe Lord of the Vulture and the Uraeus, the very gentle, the verypraiseworthy, she who sees her Horus, or Horus and Sit, face to face. Her union with the god-king rendered her a goddess, and entailed uponher the fulfilment of all the duties which a goddess owed to a god. Theywere varied and important. The woman, indeed, was supposed to combinein herself more completely than a man the qualities necessary for theexercise of magic, whether legitimate or otherwise: she saw and heardthat which the eyes and ears of man could not perceive; her voice, beingmore flexible and piercing, was heard at greater distances; she was bynature mistress of the art of summoning or banishing invisiblebeings. While Pharaoh was engaged in sacrificing, the queen, by herincantations, protected him from malignant deities, whose interest itwas to divert the attention of the celebrant from holy things: she putthem to flight by the sound of prayer and sistrum, she poured libationsand offered perfumes and flowers. In processions she walked behind herhusband, gave audience with him, governed for him while he was engagedin foreign wars, or during his progresses through his kingdom: suchwas the work of Isis while her brother Osiris was conquering the world. Widowhood did not always entirely disqualify her. If she belonged to thesolar race, and the new sovereign was a minor, she acted as regent byhereditary right, and retained the authority for some years longer. *

 * The best-known of these queen regencies is that which occurred during the minority of Thûtmosis III. , about the middle of the XVIIIth dynasty. Queen Tûaû also appears to have acted as regent for her son Ramses II. During his first Syrian campaigns. 

It occasionally happened that she had no posterity, or that the childof another woman inherited the crown. In that case there was no law orcustom to prevent a young and beautiful widow from wedding the son, andthus regaining her rank as Queen by a marriage with the successor of herdeceased husband. It was in this manner that, during the earlier partof the IVth dynasty, the Princess Mirtîttefsi ingratiated herselfsuccessively in the favour of Snofrûi and Kheops. * Such a case did notoften arise, and a queen who had once quitted the throne had but littlechance of again ascending it. Her titles, her duties, her supremacy overthe rest of the family, passed to a younger rival: formerly she had beenthe active companion of the king, she now became only the nominal spouseof the god, ** and her office came to an end when the god, of whom shehad been the goddess, quitting his body, departed heavenward to rejoinhis father the Sun on the far-distant horizon. 

Children swarmed in the palace, as in the houses of private individuals:in spite of the number who died in infancy, they were reckoned by tens, sometimes by the hundred, and more than one Pharaoh must have beenpuzzled to remember exactly the number and names of his offspring. ***

 * M. De Rougé was the first to bring this fact to light in his _Becherches sur les monuments qu'on peut attribuer aux six premières dynasties de Manéthon, _ pp. 36-38. Mirtîttefsi also lived in the harem of Khephren, but the title which connects her with this king--_Amahhit_, the vassal--proves that she was then merely a nominal wife; she was probably by that time, as M. De Rougé says, of too advanced an age to remain the favourite of a third Pharaoh. 

 ** The title of "divine spouse" is not, so far as we know at present, met with prior to the XVIIIth dynasty. It was given to the wife of a living monarch, and was retained by her after his death; the divinity to whom it referred was no other than the king himself. 

 *** This was probably so in the case of the Pharaoh Ramses II. , more than one hundred and fifty of whose children, boys and girls, are known to us, and who certainly had others besides of whom we know nothing. 

[Illustration: THE QUEEN SHAKES THE SISTKUJU WHILE THE KING OFFERS THESACRIFICE]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief in the temple of Ibsambûl: Nofrîtari shakes behind Ramses II. Two sistra, on which are representations of the head of Hâthor. 

The origin and rank of their mothers greatly influenced the conditionof the children. No doubt the divine blood which they took from a commonfather raised them all above the vulgar herd but those connected withthe solar line on the maternal side occupied a decidedly much higherposition than the rest: as long as one of these was living, none of hisless nobly-born brothers might aspire to the crown. *

 * Proof of this fact is furnished us, in so far as the XVIIIth dynasty is concerned, by the history of the immediate successors of Thûtmosis I. , the Pharaohs Thûtmosis IL, Thûtmosis III. , Queen Hâtshopsîtû, Queen Mûtnofrît, and Isis, concubine of Thûtmosis IL and mother of Thûtmosis III. 

Those princesses who did not attain to the rank of queen by marriage, were given in early youth to some well-to-do relative, or to somecourtier of high descent whom Pharaoh wished to honour; they filled theoffice of priestesses to the goddesses Nît or Hâthor, and bore in theirhouseholds titles which they transmitted to their children, with suchrights to the crown as belonged to them. The most favoured of theprinces married an heiress rich in fiefs, settled on her domain, andfounded a race of feudal lords. Most of the royal sons remained atcourt, at first in their father's service and subsequently in that oftheir brothers' or nephews': the most difficult and best remuneratedfunctions of the administration were assigned to them, thesuperintendence of public works, the important offices of thepriesthood, the command of the army. It could have been no easy matterto manage without friction this multitude of relations and connections, past and present queens, sisters, concubines, uncles, brothers, cousins, nephews, sons and grandsons of kings who crowded the harem and thepalace. The women contended among themselves for the affection of themaster, on behalf of themselves or their children. The children werejealous of one another, and had often no bond of union except a commonhatred for the son whom the chances of birth had destined to be theirruler. As long as he was full of vigour and energy, Pharaoh maintainedorder in his family; but when his advancing years and failing strengthbetokened an approaching change in the succession, competition showeditself more openly, and intrigue thickened around him or around hisnearest heirs. Sometimes, indeed, he took precautions to prevent anoutbreak and its disastrous consequences, by solemnly associating withhimself in the royal power the son he had chosen to succeed him: Egyptin this case had to obey two masters, the younger of whom attendedto the more active duties of royalty, such as progresses through thecountry, the conducting of military expeditions, the hunting of wildbeasts, and the administration of justice; while the other preferred toconfine himself to the _rôle_ of adviser or benevolent counsellor. Eventhis precaution, however, was insufficient to prevent disasters. Thewomen of the seraglio, encouraged from without by their relations orfriends, plotted secretly for the removal of the irksome sovereign. *Those princes who had been deprived by their father's decision of anylegitimate hope of reigning, concealed their discontent to no purpose;they were arrested on the first suspicion of disloyalty, and weremassacred wholesale; their only chance of escaping summary execution waseither by rebellion** or by taking refuge with some independent tribe ofLibya or of the desert of Sinai. 

 * The passage of the Uni inscription, in which mention is made of a lawsuit carried on against Queen Amîtsi, probably refers to some harem conspiracy. The celebrated lawsuit, some details of which are preserved for us in a papyrus of Turin, gives us some information in regard to a conspiracy which was hatched in the harem against Ramses II. 

 ** A passage in the "Instructions of Amenemhâît" describes in somewhat obscure terms an attack on the palace by conspirators, and the wars which followed their undertaking. 

[Illustration: 044. Jpg The Island and Temple of Philæ]

Did we but know the details of the internal history of Egypt, it wouldappear to us as stormy and as bloody as that of other Orientalempires: intrigues of the harem, conspiracies in the palace, murders ofheirs-apparent, divisions and rebellions in the royal family, werethe almost inevitable accompaniment of every accession to the Egyptianthrone. 

The earliest dynasties had their origin in the "White Wall, " but thePharaohs hardly ever made this town their residence, and it would beincorrect to say that they considered it as their capital; each kingchose for himself in the Memphite or Letopolite nome, between theentrance to the Fayûni and the apex of the Delta, a special residence, where he dwelt with his court, and from whence he governed Egypt. Sucha multitude as formed his court needed not an ordinary palace, but anentire city. A brick wall, surmounted by battlements, formed a squareor rectangular enclosure around it, and was of sufficient thicknessand height not only to defy a popular insurrection or the surprises ofmarauding Bedouin, but to resist for a long time a regular siege. At theextreme end of one of its façades, was a single tall and narrow opening, closed by a wooden door supported on bronze hinges, and surmounted witha row of pointed metal ornaments; this opened into a long narrow passagebetween the external wall and a partition wall of equal strength; atthe end of the passage in the angle was a second door, sometimes leadinginto a second passage, but more often opening into a large courtyard, where the dwelling-houses were somewhat crowded together: assailants ranthe risk of being annihilated in the passage before reaching the centreof the place. * The royal residence could be immediately distinguished bythe projecting balconies on its façade, from which, as from a tribune, Pharaoh could watch the evolutions of his guard, the stately approach offoreign envoys, Egyptian nobles seeking audience, or such officials ashe desired to reward for their services. They advanced from the farend of the court, stopped before the balcony, and after prostratingthemselves stood up, bowed their heads, wrung and twisted their hands, now quickly, now slowly, in a rhythmical manner, and rendered worship totheir master, chanting his praises, before receiving the necklaces andjewels of gold which he presented to them by his chamberlains, or whichhe himself deigned to fling to them. **

 * No plan or exact drawing of any of the palaces of the Ancient Empire has come down to us, but, as Erman has very justly pointed out, the signs found in contemporary inscriptions give us a good general idea of them. The doors which lead from one of the hours of the night to another, in the "Book of the Other World, " show us the double passage leading to the courtyard. The hieroglyph [--] gives us the name Ûôskhît (literally, _the broad_ [place]) of the courtyard on to which the passage opened, at the end of which the palace and royal judgment-seat (or, in the other world, the tribunal of Osiris, the court of the double truth) were situated. 

 ** The ceremonial of these receptions is not represented on any monuments with which we are at present acquainted, prior to the XVIIIth dynasty. 

It is difficult for us to catch a glimpse of the detail of the internalarrangements: we find, however, mention made of large halls "resemblingthe hall of Atûmû in the heavens, " whither the king repaired to dealwith state affairs in council, to dispense justice and sometimes also topreside at state banquets. Long rows of tall columns, carved out ofrare woods and painted with bright colours, supported the roofs of thesechambers, which were entered by doors inlaid with gold and silver, andincrusted with malachite or lapis-lazuli. *

 * This is the description of the palace of Amon built by Ramses III. Ramses II. Was seated in one of these halls, on a throne of gold, when he deliberated with his councillors in regard to the construction of a cistern in the desert for the miners who were going to the gold-mines of Akiti. The room in which the king stopped, after leaving his apartments, for the purpose of putting on his ceremonial dress and receiving the homage of his ministers, appears to me to have been called during the Ancient Empire "Pi-dait" --"The House of Adoration, " the house in which the king was worshipped, as in temples of the Ptolemaic epoch, was that in which the statue of the god, on leaving the sanctuary, was dressed and worshipped by the faithful. Sinûhît, under the XIIth dynasty, was granted an audience in the "Hall of Electrum. "

The private apartments, the "âkhonûiti, " were entirely separate, butthey communicated with the queen's dwelling and with the harem of thewives of inferior rank. The "royal children" occupied a quarter tothemselves, under the care of their tutors; they had their own housesand a train of servants proportionate to their rank, age, and thefortune of their mother's family. The nobles who had appointmentsat court and the royal domestics lived in the palace itself, but theoffices of the different functionaries, the storehouses for theirprovisions, the dwellings of their _employés_, formed distinct quartersoutside the palace, grouped around narrow courts, and communicatingwith each other by a labyrinth of lanes or covered passages. The entirebuilding was constructed of wood or bricks, less frequently of roughlydressed stone, badly built, and wanting in solidity. The ancientPharaohs were no more inclined than the Sultans of later days to occupypalaces in which their predecessors had lived and died. Each kingdesired to possess a habitation after his own heart, one which would notbe haunted by the memory, or perchance the double, of another sovereign. These royal mansions, hastily erected, hastily filled with occupants, were vacated and fell into ruin with no less rapidity: they grew oldwith their master, or even more rapidly than he, and his disappearancealmost always entailed their ruin. In the neighbourhood of Memphis manyof these palaces might be seen, which their short-lived masters hadbuilt for eternity, an eternity which did not last longer than the livesof their builders. *

Nothing could present a greater variety than the population of theseephemeral cities in the climax of their splendour. We have first thepeople who immediately surrounded the Pharaoh, ** the retainers ofthe palace and of the harem, whose highly complex degrees of rank arerevealed to us on the monuments. *** His person was, as it were, minutelysubdivided into departments, each requiring its attendants and theirappointed chiefs. 

 * The song of the harp-player on the tomb of King Antûf contains an allusion to these ruined palaces: "The gods [kings] who were of yore, and who repose in their tombs, mummies and manes, all buried alike in their pyramids, when castles are built they no longer have a place in them; see, thus it is done with them! I have heard the poems in praise of Imhotpû and of Hardidif which are sung in the songs, and yet, see, where are their places to-day? their walls are destroyed, their places no more, as though they have never existed!"

 ** They are designated by the general terms of Shonîtiû, the "people of the circle, " and Qonbîtiû, the "people of the corner. " These words are found in religious inscriptions referring to the staff of the temples, and denote the attendants or court of each god; they are used to distinguish the notables of a town or borough, the sheikhs, who enjoyed the right to superintend local administration and dispense justice. 

 *** The Egyptian scribes had endeavoured to draw up an hierarchical list of these offices. At present we possess the remains of two lists of this description. One of these, preserved in the "Hood Papyrus" in the British Museum, has been published and translated by Maspero, in _Études Égyptiennes, _ vol. Ii. Pp. 1-66; another and more complete copy, discovered in 1890, is in the possession of M. Golénischeff. The other list, also in the British Museum, was published by Prof. Petrie in a memoir of _The Egypt Exploration Fund _; in this latter the names and titles are intermingled with various other matter. To these two works may be added the lists of professions and trades to be found _passim_ on the monuments, and which have been commented on by Brugsch. 

His toilet alone gave employment to a score of different trades. Therewere royal barbers, who had the privilege of shaving his head and chin;hairdressers who made, curled, and put on his black or blue wigs andadjusted the diadems to them; there were manicurists who pared andpolished his nails, perfumers who prepared the scented oils and pomadesfor the anointing of his body, the kohl for blackening his eyelids, the_rouge_ for spreading on his lips and cheeks. His wardrobe required awhole troop of shoemakers, belt-makers, and tailors, some of whom hadthe care of stuffs in the piece, others presided over the body-linen, while others took charge of his garments, comprising long or short, transparent or thick petticoats, fitting tightly to the hips or cut withample fulness, draped mantles and flowing pelisses. Side by sidewith these officials, the laundresses plied their trade, which was animportant one among a people devoted to white, and in whose estimationwant of cleanliness in dress entailed religious impurity. Like thefellahîn of the present time, they took their linen daily to wash inthe river; they rinsed, starched, smoothed, and pleated it withoutintermission to supply the incessant demands of Pharaoh and his family. *

 * The "royal laundrymen" and their chiefs are mentioned in the Conte des deux frères under the XIXth dynasty, as well as their laundries on the banks of the Nile. 

[Illustration: 051. Jpg MEN AND WOMEN SINGERS, FLUTE-PLAYERS, HARPISTS, AND DANCERS, FROM THE TOMB OF TI]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a squeeze taken at Saqqâra in 1878 by Mariette

The task of those set over the jewels was no easy one, when we considerthe enormous variety of necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, andsceptres of rich workmanship which ceremonial costume required forparticular times and occasions. The guardianship of the crowns almostapproached to the dignity of the priesthood; for was not the uraeus, which ornamented each one, a living goddess? The queen required numerouswaiting-women, and the same ample number of attendants were to beencountered in the establishments of the other ladies of the harem. Troops of musicians, singers, dancers, and almehs whiled away thetedious hours, supplemented by buffoons and dwarfs. The great Egyptianlords evinced a curious liking for these unfortunate beings, and amusedthemselves by getting together the ugliest and most deformed creatures. They are often represented on the tombs beside their masters in companywith his pet dog, or a gazelle, or with a monkey which they sometimeshold in leash, or sometimes are engaged in teasing. Sometimes thePharaoh bestowed his friendship on his dwarfs, and confided tothem occupations in his household. One of them, Khnûmhotpû, diedsuperintendent of the royal linen. The staff of servants required forsupplying the table exceeded all the others in number. It could scarcelybe otherwise if we consider that the master had to provide food, notonly for his regular servants, * but for all those of his _employés_ andsubjects whose business brought them to the royal residence: even thosepoor wretches who came to complain to him of some more or less imaginarygrievance were fed at his expense while awaiting his judicial verdict. Head-cooks, butlers, pantlers, pastrycooks, fishmongers, game or fruitdealers--if all enumerated, would be endless. The bakers who baked theordinary bread were not to be confounded with those who manufacturedbiscuits. The makers of pancakes and dough-nuts took precedence of thecake-bakers, and those who concocted delicate fruit preserves rankedhigher than the common dryer of dates. 

 * Even after death they remained inscribed on the registers of the palace, and had rations served out to them every day as funeral offerings. 

[Illustration: 052. Jpg THE DWARF KHNUMHOTPU, SUPERINTENDENT OF THE ROYALLINEN]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch- Bey; the original is at Gizeh

If one had held a post in the royal household, however low theoccupation, it was something to be proud of all one's life, and afterdeath to boast of in one's epitaph. The chiefs to whom this army ofservants rendered obedience at times rose from the ranks; on someoccasion their master had noticed them in the crowd, and had transferredthem, some by a single promotion, others by slow degrees, to thehighest offices of the state. Many among them, however, belonged toold families, and held positions in the palace which their fathersand grandfathers had occupied before them, some were members of theprovincial nobility, distant descendants of former royal princes andprincesses, more or less nearly related to the reigning sovereign. *

 * It was the former who, I believe, formed the class of _rokhu sûton_ so often mentioned on the monuments. This title is generally supposed to have been a mark of relationship with the royal family. M. De Rougé proved long ago that this was not so, and that functionaries might bear this title even though they were not blood relations of the Pharaohs. It seems to me to have been used to indicate a class of courtiers whom the king condescended to "know" (_rokhu_) directly, without the intermediary of a chamberlain, the "persons known by the king;" the others were only his "friends" (samirû). 

They had been sought out to be the companions of his education and ofhis pastimes, while he was still living an obscure life in the "Houseof the Children;" he had grown up with them and had kept them about hisperson as his "sole friends" and counsellors. He lavished titles andoffices upon them by the dozen, according to the confidence he felt intheir capacity or to the amount of faithfulness with which he creditedthem. A few of the most favoured were called "Masters of the Secret ofthe Royal House;" they knew all the innermost recesses of the palace, all the passwords needed in going from one part of it to another, theplace where the royal treasures were kept, and the modes of access toit. Several of them were "Masters of the Secret of all the Royal Words, "and had authority over the high courtiers of the palace, which gavethem the power of banishing whom they pleased from the person of thesovereign. Upon others devolved the task of arranging his amusements;they rejoiced the heart of his Majesty by pleasant songs, while thechiefs of the sailors and soldiers kept watch over his safety. To theseactive services were attached honorary privileges which were highlyesteemed, such as the right to retain their sandals in the palace, whilethe general crowd of courtiers could only enter unshod; that of kissingthe knees and not the feet of the "good god, " and that of wearing thepanther's skin. Among those who enjoyed these distinctions were thephysicians of the king, chaplains, and men of the roll--"khri-habi. "The latter did not confine themselves to the task of guiding Pharaohthrough the intricacies of ritual, nor to that of prompting him with thenecessary formulas needed to make the sacrifice efficacious; they werestyled "Masters of the Secrets of Heaven, " those who see what is in thefirmament, on the earth and in Hades, those who know all the charmsof the soothsayers, prophets, or magicians. The laws relating to thegovernment of the seasons and the stars presented no mysteries to them, neither were they ignorant of the months, days, or hours propitious tothe undertakings of everyday life or the starting out on an expedition, nor of those times during which any action was dangerous. They drewtheir inspirations from the books of magic written by Thot, whichtaught them the art of interpreting dreams or of curing the sick, orof invoking and obliging the gods to assist them, and of arrestingor hastening the progress of the sun on the celestial ocean. Some arementioned as being able to divide the waters at their will, and tocause them to return to their natural place, merely by means of a shortformula. An image of a man or animal made by them out of enchantedwax, was imbued with life at their command, and became an irresistibleinstrument of their wrath. Popular stories reveal them to us at work. "Is it true, " said Kheops to one of them, "that thou canst replace ahead which has been cut off?" On his admitting that he could do so, Pharaoh immediately desired to test his power. "Bring me a prisoner fromprison and let him be slain. " The magician, at this proposal, exclaimed:"Nay, nay, not a man, sire my master; do not command that this sinshould be committed; a fine animal will suffice!" A goose was brought, "its head was cut off and the body was placed on the right side, andthe head of the goose on the left side of the hall: he recited what herecited from his book of magic, the goose began to hop forward, the headmoved on to it, and, when both were united, the goose began to cackle. A pelican was produced, and underwent the same process. His Majesty thencaused a bull to be brought forward, and its head was smitten to theground: the magician recited what he recited from his book of magic, the bull at once arose, and he replaced on it what had fallen to theearth. " The great lords themselves deigned to become initiated intothe occult sciences, and were invested with these formidable powers. A prince who practised magic would enjoy amongst us nowadays but smallesteem: in Egypt sorcery was not considered incompatible with royalty, and the magicians of Pharaoh often took Pharaoh himself as their pupil. *

Such were the king's household, the people about his person, and thoseattached to the service of his family. His capital sheltered a stillgreater number of officials and functionaries who were charged withthe administration of his fortune--that is to say, what he possessedin Egypt. ** In theory it was always supposed that the whole of thesoil belonged to him, but that he and his predecessors had diverted andparcelled off such an amount of it for the benefit of their favourites, or for the hereditary lords, that only half of the actual territoryremained under his immediate control. He governed most of the nomes ofthe Delta in person:*** beyond the Fayum, he merely retained isolatedlands, enclosed in the middle of feudal principalities and often atconsiderable distance from each other. 

 * We know the reputation, extending even to the classical writers of antiquity, of the Pharaohs Nechepso and Nectanebo for their skill in magic. Arab writers have, moreover, collected a number of traditions concerning the marvels which the sorcerers of Egypt were in the habit of performing; as an instance, I may quote the description given by Makrîzî of one of their meetings, which is probably taken from some earlier writer. 

 ** They were frequently distinguished from their provincial or manorial colleagues by the addition of the word _khonû_ to their titles, a term which indicates, in a general manner, the royal residence. They formed what we should nowadays call the departmental staff of the public officers, and might be deputed to act, at least temporarily, in the provinces, or in the service of one of the feudal princes, without thereby losing their status as functionaries of the _khonû_ or central administration. 

 *** This seems, at any rate, an obvious inference from the almost total absence of feudal titles on the most ancient monuments of the Delta. Erman, who was struck by this fact, attributed it to a different degree of civilization in the two halves of Egypt; I attribute it to a difference in government. Feudal titles naturally predominate in the South, royal administrative titles in the North. 

The extent of the royal domain varied with different dynasties, and evenfrom reign to reign: if it sometimes decreased, owing to too frequentlyrepeated concessions, * its losses were generally amply compensated bythe confiscation of certain fiefs, or by their lapsing to the crown. Thedomain was always of sufficient extent to oblige the Pharaoh to confidethe larger portion of it to officials of various kinds, and to farmmerely a small remainder of the "royal slaves:" in the latter case, he reserved for himself all the profits, but at the expense of all theannoyance and all the outlay; in the former case, he obtained withoutany risk the annual dues, the amount of which was fixed on the spot, according to the resources of the nome. 

 * We find, at different periods, persons who call themselves masters of new domains or strongholds--Pahûrnofir, under the IIIrd dynasty; several princes of Hermopolis, under the VIth and VIIth; Khnûmhotpû at the begining of the XIIth. In connection with the last named, we shall have occasion, later on, to show in what manner and with what rapidity one of these great _new_ fiefs was formed. 

In order to understand the manner in which the government of Egypt wasconducted, we should never forget that the world was still ignorant ofthe use of money, and that gold, silver, and copper, however abundant wemay suppose them to have been, were mere articles of exchange, likethe most common products of Egyptian soil. Pharaoh was not then, as theState is with us, a treasurer who calculates the total of his receiptsand expenses in ready money, banks his revenue in specie occupying butlittle space, and settles his accounts from the same source. His fiscalreceipts were in kind, and it was in kind that he remunerated hisservants for their labour: cattle, cereals, fermented drinks, oils, stuffs, common or precious metals, --"all that the heavens give, allthat the earth produces, all that the Nile brings from its mysterioussources, "* --constituted the coinage in which his subjects paid him theircontributions, and which he passed on to his vassals by way of salary. 

 * This was the most usual formula for the offering on the funerary stelo, and sums up more completely than any other the nature of the tax paid to the gods by the living, and consequently the nature of that paid to the king; here, as elsewhere, the domain of the gods is modelled on that of the Pharaohs. 

One room, a few feet square, and, if need be, one safe, would easilycontain the entire revenue of one of our modern empires: the largestof our emporiums would not always have sufficed to hold the mass ofincongruous objects which represented the returns of a single Egyptianprovince. As the products in which the tax was paid took various forms, it was necessary to have an infinite variety of special agents andsuitable places to receive it; herdsmen and sheds for the oxen, measurers and granaries for the grain, butlers and cellarers forthe wine, beer, and oils. The product of the tax, while awaitingredistribution, could only be kept from deteriorating in value byincessant labour, in which a score of different classes of clerks andworkmen in the service of the treasury all took part, according to theirtrades. If the tax were received in oxen, it was led to pasturage, or attimes, when a murrain threatened to destroy it, to the slaughter-houseand the currier; if it were in corn, it was bolted, ground to flour, andmade into bread and pastry; if it were in stuffs, it was washed, ironed, and folded, to be retailed as garments or in the piece. The royaltreasury partook of the character of the farm, the warehouse, and themanufactory. 

Each of the departments which helped to swell its contents, occupiedwithin the palace enclosure a building, or group of buildings, which wascalled its "house, " or, as we should say, its storehouse. 

[Illustration: 059. Jpg THE PACKING OF THE LINEN AND ITS REMOVAL TO THEWHITE STOREHOUSE. ]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a chromolithograph in Lepsius, _Denhm. _, ii. 96. 

There was the "White Storehouse, " where the stuffs and jewels werekept, and at times the wine; the "Storehouse of the Oxen, " the "GoldStorehouse, " the "Storehouse for Preserved Fruits, " the "Storehouse forGrain, " the "Storehouse for Liquors, " and ten other storehouses of theapplication of which we are not always sure. In the "Storehouse ofWeapons" (or Armoury) were ranged thousands of clubs, maces, pikes, daggers, bows, and bundles of arrows, which Pharaoh distributed to hisrecruits whenever a war forced him to call out his army, and which wereagain warehoused after the campaign. The "storehouses" were furthersubdivided into rooms or store-chambers, * each reserved for its owncategory of objects. 

 * Aît, Âî. Lefébure has collected a number of passages in which these storehouses are mentioned, in his notes _Sur différents mots et noms Égyptiens. _ In many of the cases which he quotes, and in which he recognizes an office of the State, I believe reference to be made to a trade: many of the ari âît-afû, "people of the store-chambers for meat, " were probably butchers; many of the ari âît-hiqÎtû, "people of the store-chamber for beer, " were probably keepers of drink-shops, trading on their own account in the town of Abydos, and not _employés_ attached to the exchequer of Pharaoh or of the ruler of Thinis. 

It would be difficult to enumerate the number of store-chambers inthe outbuildings of the "Storehouse of Provisions"--store-chambers forbutcher's meat, for fruits, for beer, bread, and wine, in which weredeposited as much of each article of food as would be required by thecourt for some days, or at most for a few weeks. They were brought therefrom the larger storehouses, the wines from vaults, the oxen from theirstalls, the corn from the granaries. The latter were vast brick-builtreceptacles, ten or more in a row, circular in shape and surmounted bycupolas, but having no communication with each other. They had only twoopenings, one at the top for pouring in the grain, another on the groundlevel for drawing it out; a notice posted up outside, often on theshutter which closed the chamber, indicated the character and quantityof the cereals within. For the security and management of these, therewere employed troops of porters, store-keepers, accountants, "primates"who superintended the works, record-keepers, and directors. Great noblescoveted the administration of the "storehouses, " and even the sonsof kings did not think it derogatory to their dignity to be entitled"Directors of the Granaries, " or "Directors of the Armoury. " There wasno law against pluralists, and more than one of them boasts on his tombof having held simultaneously five or six offices. These storehousesparticipated like all the other dependencies of the crown, in thatduality which characterized the person of the Pharaoh. They wouldbe called in common parlance, the Storehouse or the Double WhiteStorehouse, the Storehouse or the Double Gold Storehouse, the DoubleWarehouse, the Double Granary. 

[Illustration: 061. Jpg MEASURING THE WHEAT AND DEPOSITING IT IN THEGRANARIES]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a scene on the tomb of Amoni at Beni-Hasan. On the right, near the door, is a heap of grain, from which the measurer fills his measure in order to empty it into the sack which one of the porters holds open. In the centre is a train of slaves ascending the stairs which lead to the loft above the granaries; one of them empties his sack into a hole above the granary in the presence of the overseer. The inscriptions in ink on the outer wall of the receptacles, which have already been filled, indicate the number of measures which each one of them contains. 

The large towns, as well as the capital, possessed their doublestorehouses and their store-chambers, into which were gathered theproducts of the neighbourhood, but where a complete staff of employéswas not always required: in such towns we meet with "localities"in which the commodities were housed merely temporarily. The leastperishable part of the provincial dues was forwarded by boat to theroyal residence, * and swelled the central treasury. 

 * The boats employed for this purpose formed a flotilla, and their commanders constituted a regularly organized transport corps, who are frequently to be found represented on the monuments of the New Empire, carrying tribute to the residence of the king or of the prince, whose retainers they were. 

The remainder was used on the spot for paying workman's wages, and forthe needs of the Administration. We see from the inscriptions, thatthe staffs of officials who administered affairs in the provinces wassimilar to that in the royal city. Starting from the top, and going downto the bottom of the scale, each functionary supervised those beneathhim, while, as a body, they were all responsible for their depot. Anyirregularity in the entries entailed the bastinado; peculators werepunished by imprisonment, mutilation, or death, according to the gravityof the offence. Those whom illness or old age rendered unfit for work, were pensioned for the remainder of their life. 

[Illustration: 063. Jpg PLAN OF A PRINCELY STOREHOUSE FOR PROVISIONS]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lepsius, _Denkm_. , iii. 95. The illustration is taken from one of the tombs at Tel el- Amarna. The storehouse consists of four blocks, isolated by two avenues planted with trees, which intersect each other in the form of a cross. Behind the entrance gate, in a small courtyard, is a kiosque, in which the master sat for the purpose of receiving the stores or of superintending their distribution; two arms of the cross are lined by porticoes, under which are the entrances to the "chambers" (dît) for the stores, which are filled with jars of wine, linen- chests, dried fish, and other articles. 

The writer, or, as we call him, the scribe, was the mainspring ofall this machinery. We come across him in all grades of the staff: aninsignificant registrar of oxen, a clerk of the Double White Storehouse, ragged, humble, and badly paid, was a scribe just as much as the noble, the priest, or the king's son. Thus the title of scribe was of no valuein itself, and did not designate, as one might naturally think, a savanteducated in a school of high culture, or a man of the world, versed inthe sciences and the literature of his time; El-kab was a scribe whoknew how to read, write, and cipher, was fairly proficient in wordingthe administrative formulas, and could easily apply the elementary rulesof book-keeping. There was no public school in which the scribe could beprepared for his future career; but as soon as a child had acquired thefirst rudiments of letters with some old pedagogue, his father took himwith him to his office, or entrusted him to some friend who agreed toundertake his education. The apprentice observed what went on aroundhim, imitated the mode of procedure of the _employés_, copied in hisspare time old papers, letters, bills, flowerily-worded petitions, reports, complimentary addresses to his superiors or to the Pharaoh, allof which his patron examined and corrected, noting on the margin lettersor words imperfectly written, improving the style, and recasting orcompleting the incorrect expressions. * As soon as he could put togethera certain number of sentences or figures without a mistake, he wasallowed to draw up bills, or to have the sole superintendence of somedepartment of the treasury, his work being gradually increased in amountand difficulty; when he was considered to be sufficiently _au courant_with the ordinary business, his education was declared to be finished, and a situation was found for him either in the place where he had begunhis probation, or in some neighbouring office. **

 * We still possess school exercises of the XIXth and XXth dynasties, e. G. The _Papyrus Anastasi n IV_. , and the _Anastasi Papyrus n V. _, in which we find a whole string of pieces of every possible style and description--business letters, requests for leave of absence, complimentary verses addressed to a superior, all probably a collection of exercises compiled by some professor, and copied by his pupils in order to complete their education as scribes; the master's corrections are made at the top and bottom of the pages in a bold and skilful hand, very different from that of the pupil, though the writing of the latter is generally more legible to our modern eyes (_Select Papyri, _ vol. I. Pls. Lxxxiii. -cxxi. ). 

 ** Evidence of this state of things seems to be furnished by all the biographies of scribes with which we are acquainted, e. G. That of Amten; it is, moreover, what took place regularly throughout the whole of Egypt, down to the latest times, and what probably still occurs in those parts of the country where European ideas have not yet made any deep impression. 

[Illustration: 065. Jpg THE STAFF OF A GOVERNMENT OFFICER IN THE TIME OFTHE MEMPHITE DYNASTIES]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a wall-painting on the tomb of Khûnas. Two scribes are writing on tablets. Before the scribe in the upper part of the picture we see a palette, with two saucers, on a vessel which serves as an ink-bottle, and a packet of tablets tied together, the whole supported by a bundle of archives. The scribe in the lower part rests his tablet against an ink-bottle, a box for archives being placed before him. Behind them a _nakht-khrôû_ announces the delivery of a tablet covered with figures which the third scribe is presenting to the master. 

[Illustration: THE CRIER ANNOUNCES THE ARRIVAL OF FIVE REGISTRARS OF THETEMPLE OF KING ÛSIRNIRÎ, OF THE Vth DYNASTY]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a picture in the tomb of Shopsisûri. Four registrars of the funerary temple of Ûsirnirî advance in a crawling posture towards the master, the fifth has just risen and holds himself in a stooping attitude, while an usher introduces him and transmits to him an order to send in his accounts. 

Thus equipped, the young man ended usually by succeeding his father orhis patron: in most of the government administrations, we find wholedynasties of scribes on a small scale, whose members inherited the samepost for several centuries. The position was an insignificant one, andthe salary poor, but the means of existence were assured, the occupantwas exempted from forced labour and from military service, and heexercised a certain authority in the narrow world in which he lived; itsufficed to make him think himself happy, and in fact to be so. "One hasonly to be a scribe, " said the wise man, "for the scribe takes the leadof all. " Sometimes, however, one of these contented officials, moreintelligent or ambitious than his fellows, succeeded in rising abovethe common mediocrity: his fine handwriting, the happy choice of hissentences, his activity, his obliging manner, his honesty--perhaps alsohis discreet dishonesty--attracted the attention of his superiors andwere the cause of his promotion. The son of a peasant or of some poorwretch, who had begun life by keeping a register of the bread andvegetables in some provincial government office, had been often knownto crown his long and successful career by exercising a kind ofvice-regency over the half of Egypt. His granaries overflowed with corn, his storehouses were always full of gold, fine stuffs, and preciousvases, his stalls "multiplied the backs" of his oxen; the sons of hisearly patrons, having now become in turn his _protégés_, did not ventureto approach him except with bowed head and bended knee. 

No doubt the Amten whose tomb was removed to Berlin by Lepsius, and puttogether piece by piece in the museum, was a _parvenu_ of this kind. Hewas born rather more than four thousand years before our era under oneof the last kings of the IIIrd dynasty, and he lived until the reign ofthe first king of the IVth dynasty, Snofrûi. He probably came from theNome of the Bull, if not from Xoïs itself, in the heart of the Delta. His father, the scribe Anûpûmonkhû, held, in addition to his office, several landed estates, producing large returns; but his mother, Nibsonît, who appears to have been merely a concubine, had no personalfortune, and would have been unable even to give her child an education. Anûpûmonkhû made himself entirely responsible for the necessaryexpenses, "giving him all the necessities of life, at a time when he hadnot as yet either corn, barley, income, house, men or women servants, or troops of asses, pigs, or oxen. " As soon as he was in a condition toprovide for himself, his father obtained for him, in his native Nome, the post of chief scribe attached to one of the "localities" whichbelonged to the Administration of Provisions. On behalf of the Pharaoh, the young man received, registered, and distributed the meat, cakes, fruits, and fresh vegetables which constituted the taxes, all on hisown responsibility, except that he had to give an account of them to the"Director of the Storehouse" who was nearest to him. We are not told howlong he remained in this occupation; we see merely that he wasraised successively to posts of an analogous kind, but of increasingimportance. The provincial offices comprised a small staff of _employés, _ consisting always of the same officials:--a chief, whose ordinaryfunction was "Director of the Storehouse;" a few scribes to keep theaccounts, one or two of whom added to his ordinary calling that ofkeeper of the archives; paid ushers to introduce clients, and, if needbe, to bastinado them summarily at the order of the "director;" lastly, the "strong of voice, " the criers, who superintended the incomings andoutgoings, and proclaimed the account of them to the scribes to be noteddown forthwith. A vigilant and honest crier was a man of great value. 

[Illustration: 068. Jpg THE FUNERAL STELE OF THE TOMB OF AMTEN, THE"GRAND HUNTSMAN. "]

He obliged the taxpayer not only to deliver the exact number of measuresprescribed as his quota, but also compelled him to deliver good measurein each case; a dishonest crier, on the contrary, could easily favourcheating, provided that he shared in the spoil. Amten was at once"crier" and "taxer of the colonists" to the civil administrator of theXoïte nome: he announced the names of the peasants and the payments theymade, then estimated the amount of the local tax which each, accordingto his income, had to pay. He distinguished himself so pre-eminently inthese delicate duties, that the civil administrator of Xoïs made him oneof his subordinates. He became "Chief of the Ushers, " afterwards "MasterCrier, " then "Director of all the King's flax" in the Xoïfce nome--anoffice which entailed on him the supervision of the culture, cutting, and general preparation of flax for the manufacture which was carriedon in Pharaoh's own domain. It was one of the highest offices in theProvincial Administration, and Amten must have congratulated himself onhis appointment. 

From that moment his career became a great one, and he advanced quickly. Up to that time he had been confined in offices; he now left them toperform more active service. The Pharaohs, extremely jealous of theirown authority, usually avoided placing at the head of the nomes in theirdomain, a single ruler, who would have appeared too much like a prince;they preferred having in each centre of civil administration, governorsof the town or province, as well as military commanders who were jealousof one another, supervised one another, counterbalanced one another, anddid not remain long enough in office to become dangerous. Amten held allthese posts successively in most of the nomes situated in the centre orto the west of the Delta. His first appointment was to the governmentof the village of Pidosû, an unimportant post in itself, but one whichentitled him to a staff of office, and in consequence procured for himone of the greatest indulgences of vanity that an Egyptian could enjoy. The staff was, in fact, a symbol of command which only the nobles, and the officials associated with the nobility, could carry withouttransgressing custom; the assumption of it, as that of the sword withus, showed every one that the bearer was a member of a privileged class. 

[Illustration: 072. Jpg STATUE OF AMTEN, FOUND IN HIS TOMB]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lepsius, Denkm. , ii. 120 a; the original is in the Berlin Museum. 

Amten was no sooner ennobled, than his functions began to expand;villages were rapidly added to villages, then towns to towns, includingsuch an important one as Bûto, and finally the nomes of the Harpoon, ofthe Bull, of the Silurus, the western half of the Saïte nome, the nomeof the Haunch, and a part of the Fayûm came within his jurisdiction. Thewestern half of the Saïte nome, where he long resided, corresponded withwhat was called later the Libyan nome. It reached nearly from the apexof the Delta to the sea, and was bounded on one side by the Canopicbranch of the Nile, on the other by the Libyan range; a part of thedesert as well as the Oases fell under its rule. It included amongits population, as did many of the provinces of Upper Egypt, regimentscomposed of nomad hunters, who were compelled to pay their tributein living or dead game. Amten was metamorphosed into Chief Huntsman, scoured the mountains with his men, and thereupon became one of the mostimportant personages in the defence of the country. The Pharaohs hadbuilt fortified stations, and had from time to time constructed walls atcertain points where the roads entered the valley--at Syene, at Coptos, and at the entrance to the Wady Tûmilât. Amten having been proclaimed"Primate of the Western Gate, " that is, governor of the Libyan marches, undertook to protect the frontier against the wandering Bedouin from theother side of Lake Mareotis. His duties as Chief Huntsman had beenthe best preparation he could have had for this arduous task. They hadforced him to make incessant expeditions among the mountains, to explorethe gorges and ravines, to be acquainted with the routes marked out bywells which the marauders were obliged to follow in their incursions, and the pathways and passes by which they could descend into the plainof the Delta; in running the game to earth, he had gained all theknowledge needful for repulsing the enemy. Such a combination ofcapabilities made Amten the most important noble in this part of Egypt. When old age at last prevented him from leading an active life, heaccepted, by way of a pension, the governorship of the nome ofthe Haunch: with civil authority, military command, local priestlyfunctions, and honorary distinctions, he lacked only one thing to makehim the equal of the nobles of ancient family, and that was permissionto bequeath without restriction his towns and offices to his children. 

His private fortune was not as great as we might be led to think. Heinherited from his father only one estate, but had acquired twelveothers in the nomes of the Delta whither his successive appointments hadled him--namely, in the Saïte, Xoïte, and Letopolite nomes. He receivedsubsequently, as a reward for his services, two hundred portions ofcultivated land, with numerous peasants, both male and female, and anincome of one hundred loaves daily, a first charge upon the funeralprovision of Queen Hâpûnimâit. He took advantage of this windfall toendow his family suitably. His only son was already provided for, thanksto the munificence of Pharaoh; he had begun his administrative career byholding the same post of scribe, in addition to the office of provisionregistrar, which his father had held, and over and above these hereceived by royal grant, four portions of cornland with their populationand stock. Amten gave twelve portions to his other children and fifty tohis mother Nibsonît, by means of which she lived comfortably in her oldage, and left an annuity for maintaining worship at her tomb. He builtupon the remainder of the land a magnificent villa, of which he hasconsiderately left us the description. The boundary wall formed a squareof 350 feet on each face, and consequently contained a superficies of122, 500 square feet. The well-built dwelling-house, completely furnishedwith all the necessities of life, was surrounded by ornamental andfruit-bearing trees, --the common palm, the nebbek, fig trees, andacacias; several ponds, neatly bordered with greenery, afforded ahabitat for aquatic birds; trellised vines, according to custom, ran infront of the house, and two plots of ground, planted with vines in fullbearing, amply supplied the owner with wine every year. 

[Illustration: 075. Jpg PLAN OF THE VILLA OF A GREAT EGYPTIAN NOBLE]

 This plan is taken from a Theban tomb of the XVIIIth dynasty; but it corresponds exactly with the description which Amten has left us of his villa. 

It was there, doubtless, that Amten ended his days in peace and quietudeof mind. The tableland whereon the Sphinx has watched for so manycenturies was then crowned by no pyramids, but mastabas of fine whitestone rose here and there from out of the sand: that in which the mummyof Amten was to be enclosed was situated not far from the modern villageof Abûsîr, on the confines of the nome of the Haunch, and almost insight of the mansion in which his declining years were spent. *

 * The site of Amten's manorial mansion is nowhere mentioned in the inscriptions; but the custom of the Egyptians to construct their tombs as near as possible to the places where they resided, leads me to consider it as almost certain that we ought to look for its site in the Memphite plain, in the vicinity of the town of Abûsîr, but in a northern direction, so as to keep within the territory of the Letopolite nome, where Amten governed in the name of the king. 

The number of persons of obscure origin, who in this manner had risen ina few years to the highest honours, and died governors of provinces orministers of Pharaoh, must have been considerable. Their descendantsfollowed in their fathers' footsteps, until the day came when royalfavour or an advantageous marriage secured them the possession of anhereditary fief, and transformed the son or grandson of a prosperousscribe into a feudal lord. It was from people of this class, and fromthe children of the Pharaoh, that the nobility was mostly recruited. In the Delta, where the authority of the Pharaoh was almost everywheredirectly felt, the power of the nobility was weakened and muchcurtailed; in Middle Egypt it gained ground, and became stronger andstronger in proportion as one advanced southward. The nobles held theprincipalities of the Gazelle, of the Hare, of the Serpent Mountain, ofAkhmîm, of Thinis, of Qasr-es-Sayad, of El-Kab, of Aswan, and doubtlessothers of which we shall some day discover the monuments. 

[Illustration: 077. Jpg HUNTING WITH THE BOOMERANG AND FISHING WITH THEDOUBLE HARPOON IN A MARSH OR POOL]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Gayet. 

They accepted without difficulty the fiction according to which Pharaohclaimed to be absolute master of the soil, and ceded to his subjectsonly the usufruct of their fiefs; but apart from the admission of theprinciple, each lord proclaimed himself sovereign in his own domain, andexercised in it, on a small scale, complete royal authority. 

[Illustration: 078. Jpg PRINCE API, BORNE IN A PALANQUIN, INSPECTS HISFUNERARY DOMAIN]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch- Bey. The tomb of Api was discovered at Saqqâra in 1884. It had been pulled down in ancient times, and a new tomb built on its ruins, about the time of the XIIth dynasty; all that remains of it is now in the museum at Gîzeh. 

Everything within the limits of this petty state belonged to him--woods, canals, fields, even the desert-sand: after the example of the Pharaoh, he farmed a part himself, and let out the remainder, either in farms oras fiefs, to those of his followers who had gained his confidence orhis friendship. After the example of Pharaoh, also, he was a priest, andexercised priestly functions in relation to all the gods--that is, not of all Egypt, but of all the deities of the nome. He was anadministrator of civil and criminal law, received the complaints of hisvassals and serfs at the gate of his palace, and against his decisionsthere was no appeal. He kept up a flotilla, and raised on his estate asmall army, of which he was commander-in-chief by hereditary right. Heinhabited a fortified mansion, situated sometimes within the capital ofthe principality itself, sometimes in its neighbourhood, and in whichthe arrangements of the royal city were reproduced on a smaller scale. 

[Illustration: 079. Jpg A DWARF PLAYING WITH CYNOCEPHALI AND A TAME IBIS]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a chromolithograph in Flinders Petrie's _Medûm, _ pl. Xxiv. 

Side by side with the reception halls was the harem, where thelegitimate wife, often a princess of solar rank, played the rôle ofqueen, surrounded by concubines, dancers, and slaves. The offices ofthe various departments were crowded into the enclosure, with theirdirectors, governors, scribes of all ranks, custodians, and workmen, whobore the same titles as the corresponding employés in the departments ofthe State: their White Storehouse, their Gold Storehouse, their Granary, were at times called the Double White Storehouse, the Double GoldStorehouse, the Double Granary, as were those of the Pharaoh. Amusementsat the court of the vassal did not differ from those at that of thesovereign: hunting in the desert and the marshes, fishing, inspection ofagricultural works, military exercises, games, songs, dancing, doubtlessthe recital of long stories, and exhibitions of magic, even down to thecontortions of the court buffoon and the grimaces of the dwarfs. 

[Illustration: 080. Jpg IN A NILE BOAT]

It amused the prince to see one of these wretched favourites leading tohim by the paw a cynocephalus larger than himself, while a mischievousmonkey slyly pulled a tame and stately ibis by the tail. From time totime the great lord proceeded to inspect his domain: on these occasionshe travelled in a kind of sedan chair, supported by two mules yokedtogether; or he was borne in a palanquin by some thirty men, whilefanned by large flabella; or possibly he went up the Nile and the canalsin his beautiful painted barge. The life of the Egyptian lords may beaptly described as in every respect an exact reproduction of the life ofthe Pharaoh on a smaller scale. 

Inheritance in a direct or indirect line was the rule, but in everycase of transmission the new lord had to receive the investiture ofthe sovereign either by letter or in person. The duties enforced by thefeudal state do not appear to have been onerous. In the first place, there was the regular payment of a tribute, proportionate to theextent and resources of the fief. In the next place, there was militaryservice: the vassal agreed to supply, when called upon, a fixed numberof armed men, whom he himself commanded, unless he could offer areasonable excuse such as illness or senile incapacity. *

 * Prince Amoni, of the Gazelle nome, led a body of four hundred men and another body of six hundred, levied in his principality, into Ethiopia under these conditions; the first that he served in the royal army, was as a substitute for his father, who had grown too old. Similarly, under the XVIIIth dynasty, Âhmosis of El-Kab commanded the war-ship, the Calf, in place of his father. The Uni inscription furnishes us with an instance of a general levy of the feudal contingents in the time of the VIth dynasty (1. 14, et seq. ). 

Attendance at court was not obligatory: we notice, however, many noblesabout the person of Pharaoh, and there are numerous examples of princes, with whose lives we are familiar, filling offices which appear to havedemanded at least a temporary residence in the palace, as, for instance, the charge of the royal wardrobe. When the king travelled, the greatvassals were compelled to entertain him and his suite, and to escorthim to the frontier of their domain. On the occasion of such visits, theking would often take away with him one of their sons to be broughtup with his own children: an act which they on their part considered agreat honour, while the king on his had a guarantee of their fidelity inthe person of these hostages. Such of these young people as returned totheir fathers' roof when their education was finished, were usually mostloyal to the reigning dynasty. They often brought back with themsome maiden born in the purple, who consented to share their littleprovincial sovereignty, while in exchange one or more of their sistersentered the harem of the Pharaoh. Marriages made and marred in theirturn the fortunes of the great feudal houses. Whether she werea princess or not, each woman received as her dowry a portion ofterritory, and enlarged by that amount her husband's little state;but the property she brought might, in a few years, be taken by herdaughters as portions and enrich other houses. The fief seldom couldbear up against such dismemberment; it fell away piecemeal, and bythe third or fourth generation had disappeared. Sometimes, however, it gained more than it lost in this matrimonial game, and extended itsborders till they encroached on neighbouring nomes or else completelyabsorbed them. There were always in the course of each reign severalgreat principalities formed, or in the process of formation, whosechiefs might be said to hold in their hands the destinies of thecountry. Pharaoh himself was obliged to treat them with deference, and he purchased their allegiance by renewed and ever-increasingconcessions. 

Their ambition was never satisfied; when they were loaded with favours, and did not venture to ask for more for themselves, they impudentlydemanded them for such of their children as they thought were poorlyprovided for. Their eldest son "knew not the high favours which camefrom the king. Other princes were his privy counsellers, his chosenfriends, or foremost among his friends!" he had no share in all this. Pharaoh took good care not to reject a petition presented so humbly:he proceeded to lavish appointments, titles, and estates on the son inquestion; if necessity required it, he would even seek out a wife forhim, who might give him, together with her hand, a property equal tothat of his father. The majority of these great vassals secretly aspiredto the crown: they frequently had reason to believe that they had someright to it, either through their mother or one of their ancestors. Hadthey combined against the reigning house, they could easily have gainedthe upper hand, but their mutual jealousies prevented this, and theoverthrow of a dynasty to which they owed so much would, for the mostpart, have profited them but little: as soon as one of them revolted, the remainder took arms in Pharaoh's defence, led his armies andfought his battles. If at times their ambition and greed harassedtheir suzerain, at least their power was at his service, and theirself-interested allegiance was often the means of delaying the downfallof his house. 

Two things were specially needful both for them and for Pharaoh in orderto maintain or increase their authority--the protection of the gods, and a military organization which enabled them to mobilize the whole oftheir forces at the first signal. The celestial world was the faithfulimage of our own; it had its empires and its feudal organization, thearrangement of which corresponded to that of the terrestrial world. Thegods who inhabited it were dependent upon the gifts of mortals, and theresources of each individual deity, and consequently his power, dependedon the wealth and number of his worshippers; anything influencing onehad an immediate effect on the other. The gods dispensed happiness, health, and vigour;* to those who made them large offerings andinstituted pious foundations, they lent their own weapons, and inspiredthem with needful strength to overcome their enemies. They even camedown to assist in battle, and every great encounter of armies involvedan invisible struggle among the immortals. The gods of the side whichwas victorious shared with it in the triumph, and received a tithe ofthe spoil as the price of their help; the gods of the vanquished wereso much the poorer, their priests and their statues were reducedto slavery, and the destruction of their people entailed their owndownfall. 

 * I may here remind my readers of the numberless bas-reliefs and stelae on which the king is represented as making an offering to a god, who replies in some such formula as the following: "I give thee health and strength;" or, "I give thee joy and life for millions of years. "

It was, therefore, to the special interest of every one in Egypt, fromthe Pharaoh to the humblest of his vassals, to maintain the good willand power of the gods, so that their protection might be effectivelyensured in the hour of danger. Pains were taken to embellish theirtemples with obelisks, colossi, altars, and bas-reliefs; new buildingswere added to the old; the parts threatened with ruin were restored orentirely rebuilt; daily gifts were brought of every kind--animals whichwere sacrificed on the spot, bread, flowers, fruit, drinks, as wellas perfumes, stuffs, vases, jewels, bricks or bars of gold, silver, lapis-lazuli, which were all heaped up in the treasury within therecesses of the crypts. * If a dignitary of high rank wished toperpetuate the remembrance of his honours or his services, and at thesame time to procure for his double the benefit of endless prayers andsacrifices, he placed "by special permission"** a statue of himself on avotive stele in the part of the temple reserved for this purpose, --ina courtyard, chamber, encircling passage, as at Karnak, *** or onthe staircase of Osiris as in that leading up to the terrace in thesanctuary of Abydos; he then sealed a formal agreement with the priests, by which the latter engaged to perform a service in his name, in frontof this commemorative monument, a stated number of times in the year, onthe days fixed by universal observance or by local custom. 

 * See the "Poem of Pentaûîrît" for the grounds on which Ramses II. Bases his imperative appeal to Araon for help: "Have I not made thee numerous offerings? I have filled thy temple with my prisoners. I have built thee an everlasting temple, and have not spared my wealth in endowing it for thee; I lay the whole world under contribution in order to stock thy domain.... I have built thee whole pylons in stone, and have myself reared the flagstaffs which adorn them; I have brought thee obelisks from Elephantine. "

 ** The majority of the votive statues were lodged in a temple "by special favour of a king "--em HOSÎtû nti KUÎr sûton--as a recompense for services rendered. Some only of the stelae bear an inscription to the above effect, no authorization from the king was required for the consecration of a stele in a temple. 

 *** It was in the encircling passage of the limestone temple built by the kings of the XIIth dynasty, and now completely destroyed, that all the Karnak votive statues were discovered. Some of them still rest on the stone ledge on which they were placed by the priests of the god at the moment of consecration. 

For this purpose he assigned to them annuities in kind, charges on hispatrimonial estates, or in some cases, if he were a great lord, on therevenues of his fief, --such as a fixed quantity of loaves and drinksfor each of the celebrants, a fourth part of the sacrificial victim, a garment, frequently also lands with their cattle, serfs, existingbuildings, farming implements and produce, along with the conditionsof service with which the lands were burdened. These gifts to thegod--"notir hotpûû"--were, it appears, effected by agreements analogousto those dealing with property in mortmain in modern Egypt; in eachnome they constituted, in addition to the original temporalities of thetemple, a considerable domain, constantly enlarged by fresh endowments. The gods had no daughters for whom to provide, nor sons among whom todivide their inheritance; all that fell to them remained theirs forever, and in the contracts were inserted imprecations threatening withterrible ills, in this world and the next, those who should abstract thesmallest portion from them. Such menaces did not always prevent the kingor the lords from laying hands on the temple revenues: had this not beenthe case, Egypt would soon have become a sacerdotal country from one endto the other. Even when reduced by periodic usurpations, the domain ofthe gods formed, at all periods, about one-third of the whole country. *

 * The tradition handed down by Diodorus tells us that the goddess Isis assigned a third of the country to the priests; the whole of Egypt is said to have been divided into three equal parts, the first of which belonged to the priests, the second to the kings, and the third to the warrior class. When we read, in the great Harris Papyrus, the list of the property possessed by the temple of the Theban Amon alone, all over Egypt, under Ramses III. , we can readily believe that the tradition of the Greek epoch in no way exaggerated matters. 

Its administration was not vested in a single body of Priests, representing the whole of Egypt and recruited or ruled everywhere inthe same fashion. There were as many bodies of priests as there weretemples, and every temple preserved its independent constitution withwhich the clergy of the neighbouring temples had nothing to do: theonly master they acknowledged was the lord of the territory on whichthe temple was built, either Pharaoh or one of his nobles. The traditionwhich made Pharaoh the head of the different worships in Egypt*prevailed everywhere, but Pharaoh soared too far above this worldto confine himself to the functions of any one particular order ofpriests: he officiated before all the gods without being speciallythe minister of any, and only exerted his supremacy in order to makeappointments to important sacerdotal posts in his domain. **

 * The only exception to this rule was in the case of the Theban kings of the XXIst dynasty, and even here the exception is more apparent than real. As a matter of fact, these kings, Hrihor and Pinozmû, began by being high priests of Amon before ascending the throne; they were pontiffs who became Pharaohs, not Pharaohs who created themselves pontiffs. Possibly we ought to place Smonkharî of the XIVth dynasty in the same category, if, as Brugsch assures us, his name, Mîr-mâshâù, is identical with the title of the high priest of Osiris at Mendes, thus proving that he was pontiff of Osiris in that town before he became king. 

 ** Among other instances, we have that of the king of the XXIst Tanite dynasty, who appointed Mankhopirrî, high priest of the Theban Amon, and that of the last king of the same dynasty, Psûsennes IL, who conferred the same office on prince Aûpûti, son of Sheshonqû. The king's right of nomination harmonized very well with the hereditary transmission of the priestly office through members of the same family, as we shall have occasion to show later on. 

He reserved the high priesthood of the Memphite Phtah and that of Râ ofHeliopolis either for the princes of his own family or more often forhis most faithful servants; they were the docile instruments of hiswill, through whom he exerted the influence of the gods, and disposedof their property without having the trouble of administrating it. Thefeudal lords, less removed from mortal affairs than the Pharaoh, did notdisdain to combine the priesthood of the temples dependent on them withthe general supervision of the different worships practised on theirlands. The princes of the Gazelle nome, for instance, bore the titleof "Directors of the Prophets of all the Gods, " but were, correctlyspeaking, prophets of Horus, of Khnûmû master of Haoîrît, and of Pakhîtmistress of the Speos-Artemidos. The religious suzerainty of suchprinces was the complement of their civil and military power, and theirordinary income was augmented by some portion at least of the revenueswhich the lands in mortmain furnished annually. The subordinatesacerdotal functions were filled by professional priests whose statusvaried according to the gods they served and the provinces in which theywere located. Although between the mere priest and the chief prophetthere were a number of grades to which the majority never attained, still the temples attracted many people from divers sources, who, onceestablished in this calling of life, not only never left it, but neverrested until they had introduced into it the members of their families. The offices they filled were not necessarily hereditary, but thechildren, born and bred in the shelter of the sanctuary, almost alwayssucceeded to the positions of their fathers, and certain families thuscontinuing in the same occupation for generations, at last came to beestablished as a sort of sacerdotal nobility. *

 * We possess the coffins of the priests of the Theban Montû for nearly thirty generations, viz. From the XXVth dynasty to the time of the Ptolemies. The inscriptions give us their genealogies, as well as their intermarriages, and show us that they belonged almost exclusively to two or three important families who intermarried with one another or took their wives from the families of the priests of Amon. 

The sacrifices supplied them with daily meat and drink; the templebuildings provided them with their lodging, and its revenues furnishedthem with a salary proportionate to their position. They were exemptedfrom the ordinary taxes, from military service, and from forced labour;it is not surprising, therefore, that those who were not actuallymembers of the priestly families strove to have at least a share intheir advantages. The servitors, the workmen and the _employés_ whocongregated about them and constituted the temple corporation, thescribes attached to the administration of the domains, and to thereceipt of offerings, shared _de facto_ if not _de jure_ in the immunityof the priesthood; as a body they formed a separate religious society, side by side, but distinct from, the civil population, and freed frommost of the burdens which weighed so heavily on the latter. 

The soldiers were far from possessing the wealth and influence of theclergy. Military service in Egypt was not universally compulsory, butrather the profession and privilege of a special class of whoseorigin but little is known. Perhaps originally it comprised only thedescendants of the conquering race, but in historic times it was notexclusively confined to the latter, and recruits were raised everywhereamong the fellahs, * the Bedouin of the neighbourhood, the negroes, **the Nubians, *** and even from among the prisoners of war, or adventurersfrom beyond the sea. ****

 * This is shown, _inter alia, _ by the real or supposititious letters in which the master-scribe endeavours to deter his pupil from adopting a military career, recommending that of a scribe in preference. 

 ** Uni, under Papi I. , recruited his army from among the inhabitants of the whole of Egypt, from Elephantine to Letopolis at the mouth of the Delta, and as far as the Mediterranean, from among the Bedouin of Libya and of the Isthmus, and even from the six negro races of Nubia _(Inscription d'Ouni, 11. 14-19)_. 

 *** The Nubian tribe of the Mâzaiû, afterwards known as the Libyan tribe of the Mâshaûasha, furnished troops to the Egyptian kings and princes for centuries; indeed, the Mâzaiû formed such an integral part of the Egyptian armies that their name came to be used in Coptic as a synonym for soldier, under the form "matoï. "

 **** Later on we shall come across the Shardana of the Royal Guard under Ramses II. (E. De Rougé, _Extrait d'un mémoire sur les attaques, _ p. 5); later still, the Ionians, Carians, and Greek mercenaries will be found to play a decisive part in the history of the Saïte dynasties. 

This motley collection of foreign mercenaries composed ordinarily thebody-guard of the king or of his barons, the permanent nucleus roundwhich in times of war the levies of native recruits were rallied. EveryEgyptian soldier received from the chief to whom he was attached, aholding of land for the maintenance of himself and his family. In thefifth century B. C. Twelve _aruræ_ of arable land was estimated as amplepay for each man, * and tradition attributes to the fabulous Sesostristhe law which fixed the pay at this rate. The soldiers were not taxed, and were exempt from forced labour during the time that they were awayfrom home on active service; with this exception they were liable to thesame charges as the rest of the population. Many among them possessedno other income, and lived the precarious life of the fellah, --tilling, reaping, drawing water, and pasturing their cattle, --in the intervalbetween two musters. Others possessed of private fortunes let theirholdings out at a moderate rental, which formed an addition to theirpatrimonial income. **

 * Herodotus, ii. 168. The arura being equal to 27. 82 ares [an are = 100 square metres], the military fief contained 27*82 x 12 = 333. 84 ares. [The "arura, " according to F. L. Griffith, was a square of 100 Egyptian cubits, making about 3/5 of an acre, or 2600 square metres. --Trs. ] The _chifliks_ created by Mohammed-Ali, with a view to bringing the abandoned districts into cultivation, allotted to each labourer who offered to reclaim it, a plot of land varying from one to three feddans, i. E. From 4200. 83 square metres to 12602. 49 square metres, according to the nature of the soil and the necessities of each family. The military fiefs of ancient Egypt were, therefore, nearly three times as great in extent as these _abadiyehs_, which were considered, in modern Egypt, sufficient to supply the wants of a whole family of peasants; they must, therefore, have secured not merely a bare subsistence, but ample provision for their proprietors. 

 ** Diodorus Siculus says in so many words (i. 74) that "the farmers spent their life in cultivating lands which had been let to them at a moderate rent by the king, by the priests, and _by the warriors_. "

Lest they should forget the conditions upon which they possessed thismilitary holding, and should regard themselves as absolute mastersof it, they were seldom left long in possession of the same place:Herodotus asserts that their allotments were taken away-yearly andreplaced by others of equal extent. It is difficult to say if this lawof perpetual change was always in force; at any rate, it did not preventthe soldiers from forming themselves in time into a kind of aristocracy, which even kings and barons of highest rank could not ignore. They wereenrolled in special registers, with the indication of the holding whichwas temporarily assigned to them. A military scribe kept this registerin every royal nome or principality. 

[Illustration: 092. Jpg SOME OF THE MILITARY ATHLETIC EXERCISES]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a scene in the tomb of Amoni- Amenemhâît at Beni-Hasan. 

He superintended the redistribution of the lands, the registration ofprivileges, and in addition to his administrative functions, he had intime of war the command of the troops furnished by his own district; inwhich case he was assisted by a "lieutenant, " who as opportunity offeredacted as his substitute in the office or on the battle-field. Militaryservice was not hereditary, but its advantages, however trifling theymay appear to us, seemed in the eyes of the fellahs so great, thatfor the most part those who were engaged in it had their children alsoenrolled. While still young the latter were taken to the barracks, wherethey were taught not only the use of the bow, the battle-axe, the mace, the lance, and the shield, but were all instructed in such exercises asrendered the body supple, and prepared them for manoeuvring, regimentalmarching, running, jumping, and wrestling either with closed or openhand. They prepared themselves for battle by a regular war-dance, pirouetting, leaping, and brandishing their bows and quivers in theair. Their training being finished, they were incorporated into localcompanies, and invested with their privileges. When they were requiredfor service, part or the whole of the class was mustered; arms kept inthe arsenal were distributed among them, and they were conveyed in boatsto the scene of action. The Egyptians were not martial by temperament;they became soldiers rather from interest than inclination. 

The power of Pharaoh and his barons rested entirely upon these twoclasses, the priests and the soldiers; the remainder, the commonalty andthe peasantry, were, in their hands, merely an inert mass, to betaxed and subjected to forced labour at will. The slaves were probablyregarded as of little importance; the bulk of the people consisted offree families who were at liberty to dispose of themselves and theirgoods. Every fellah and townsman in the service of the king, or ofone of his great nobles, could leave his work and his village whenhe pleased, could pass from the domain in which he was born into adifferent one, and could traverse the country from one end to the other, as the Egyptians of to-day still do. 

His absence entailed neither loss of goods, nor persecution of therelatives he left behind, and he himself had punishment to fear onlywhen he left the Nile Valley without permission, to reside for some timein a foreign land. * But although this independence and liberty were inaccordance with the laws and customs of the land, yet they gave rise toinconveniences from which it was difficult to escape in practical life. Every Egyptian, the King excepted, was obliged, in order to get on inlife, to depend on one more powerful than himself, whom he called hismaster. The feudal lord was proud to recognize Pharaoh as his master, and he himself was master of the soldiers and priests in his own pettystate. 

 * The treaty between Ramses and the Prince of Khiti contains a formal extradition clause in reference to Egyptians or Hittites, who had quitted their native country, of course without the permission of their sovereign. The two contracting parties expressly stipulate that persons extradited on one side or the other shall not be punished for having emigrated, that their property is not to be confiscated, nor are their families to be held responsible for their flight. From this clause it follows that in ordinary times unauthorized emigration brought upon the culprit corporal punishment and the confiscation of his goods, as well as various penalties on his family. The way in which Sinûhît makes excuses for his flight, the fact of his asking pardon before returning to Egypt, the very terms of the letter in which the king recalls him and assures him of impunity, show us that the laws against emigration were in full force under the XIIth dynasty. 

 ** The expressions which bear witness to this fact are very numerous: Miri nîbûf = "He who loves his master;" Aqû hâîti ni nîbûf = "He who enters into the heart of his master, " etc. They recur so frequently in the texts in the case of persons of all ranks, that it was thought no importance ought to be attached to them. But the constant repetition of the word NIB, "master, " shows that we must alter this view, and give these phrases their full meaning. 

From the top to the bottom of the social scale every free manacknowledged a master, who secured to him justice and protection inexchange for his obedience and fealty. The moment an Egyptian tried towithdraw himself from this subjection, the peace of his life was atan end; he became a man without a master, and therefore without arecognized protector. *

 * The expression, "a man without a master, " occurs several times in the _Berlin Papyrus_, No. Ii. For instance, the peasant who is the hero of the story, says of the lord Mirûitensi, that he is "the rudder of heaven, the guide of the earth, the balance which carries the offerings, the buttress of tottering walls, the support of that which falls, _the great master who takes whoever is without a master_ to lavish on him the goods of his house, a jug of beer and three loaves" each day. 

Any one might stop him on the way, steal his cattle, merchandise, orproperty on the most trivial pretext, and if he attempted to protest, might beat him with almost certain impunity. 

[Illustration: 095. Jpg WAR-DANCE PERFORMED BY EGYPTIAN SOLDIERS BEFORE ABATTLE]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the tomb of Khîti at Beni- Hasan. These are soldiers of the nome of Gazelle. 

The only resource of the victim was to sit at the gate of the palace, waiting to appeal for justice till the lord or the king should appear. If by chance, after many rebuffs, his humble petition were granted, itwas only the beginning of fresh troubles. Even if the justice of thecause were indisputable, the fact that he was a man without home ormaster inspired his judges with an obstinate mistrust, and delayed thesatisfaction of his claims. In vain he followed his judges with hiscomplaints and flatteries, chanting their virtues in every key: "Thouart the father of the unfortunate, the husband of the widow, the brotherof the orphan, the clothing of the motherless: enable me to proclaimthy name as a law throughout the land. Good lord, guide without caprice, great without littleness, thou who destroyest falsehood and causesttruth to be, come at the words of my mouth; I speak, listen and dojustice. O generous one, generous of the generous, destroy the cause ofmy trouble; here I am, uplift me; judge me, for behold me a suppliantbefore thee. " If he were an eloquent speaker and the judge were inclinedto listen, he was willingly heard, but his cause made no progress, anddelays, counted on by his adversary, effected his ruin. The religiouslaw, no doubt, prescribed equitable treatment for all devotees ofOsiris, and condemned the slightest departure from justice as one of thegravest sins, even in the case of a great noble, or in that of theking himself; but how could impartiality be shown when the one was therecognized protector, the "master" of the culprit, while the plaintiffwas a vagabond, attached to no one, "a man without a master"!

The population of the towns included many privileged persons other thanthe soldiers, priests, or those engaged in the service of thetemples. Those employed in royal or feudal administration, from the"superintendent of the storehouse" to the humblest scribe, thoughperhaps not entirely exempt from forced labour, had but a small partof it to bear. * These _employés_ constituted a middle class of severalgrades, and enjoyed a fixed income and regular employment: they werefairly well educated, very self-satisfied, and always ready to declareloudly their superiority over any who were obliged to gain theirliving by manual labour. Each class of workmen recognized one or morechiefs, --the shoemakers, their master-shoemakers, the masons, theirmaster-masons, the blacksmiths, their master-blacksmiths, --wholooked after their interests and represented them before the localauthorities. **

 * This is a fair inference from the indirect testimony of the Letters: the writer, in enumerating the liabilities of the various professions, implies by contrast that the scribe (i. E. The _employé_ in general) is not subject to them, or is subject to a less onerous share of them than others. The beginning and end of the instructions of Khîti would in themselves be sufficient to show us the advantages which the middle classes under the XIIth dynasty believed they could derive from adopting the profession of scribe. 

 ** The stelæ of Abydos are very useful to those who desire to study the populations of a small town. They give us the names of the head-men of trades of all kinds; the head-mason Didiû, the master-mason Aa, the master-shoemaker Kahikhonti, the head-smiths Ûsirtasen-Ûati, Hotpû, Hot-pûrekhsû. 

It was said among the Greeks, that even robbers were united in acorporation like the others, and maintained an accredited superior astheir representative with the police, to discuss the somewhat delicatequestions which the practice of their trade gave occasion to. When themembers of the association had stolen any object of value, it wasto this superior that the person robbed resorted, in order to regainpossession of it: it was he who fixed the amount required for itsredemption, and returned it without fail, upon the payment of this sum. Most of the workmen who formed a state corporation, lodged, or at leastall of them had their stalls, in the same quarter or street, under thedirection of their chief. Besides the poll and the house tax, they weresubject to a special toll, a trade licence which they paid in productsof their commerce or industry. *

 * The registers (for the most part unpublished), which are contained in European museums show us that fishermen paid in fish, gardeners in flowers and vegetables, etc. , the taxes or tribute which they owed to their lords. In the great inscription of Abydos the weavers attached to the temple of Seti I. Are stated to have paid their tribute in stuffs. 

[Illustration: 098. Jpg TWO BLACKSMITHS WORKING THE BELLOWS]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Rosellini, Monumenti Civili, pl. 2 a. 

Their lot was a hard one, if we are to believe the description whichancient writers have handed down to us: "I have never seen a blacksmithon an embassy--nor a smelter sent on a mission--but what I have seenis the metal worker at his toil, --at the mouth of the furnace of hisforge, --his fingers as rugged as the crocodile, --and stinking more thanfish-spawn. --The artisan of any kind who handles the chisel, --does notemploy so much movement as he who handles the hoe;*

 * The literal translation would be, "The artisan of all kinds who handles the chisel is more motionless than he who handles the hoe. " Both here, and in several other passages of this little satiric poem, I have been obliged to paraphrase the text in order to render it intelligible to the modern reader. 

[Illustration: 099. Jpg STONE-CUTTERS FINISHING THE DRESSING OF LIMESTONEBLOCKS]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Rosellini, _Monumenti civili_, pl. Xlviii. 2. 

--but for him his fields are the timber, his business is the metal, --andat night when the other is free, --he, he works with his hands over andabove what he has already done, --for at night, he works at home by thelamp. --The stone-cutter who seeks his living by working in all kinds ofdurable stone, --when at last he has earned something--and his two armsare worn out, he stops;--but if at sunrise he remain sitting, --his legsare tied to his back. * --The barber who shaves until the evening, --whenhe falls to and eats, it is without sitting down** --while running fromstreet to street to seek custom;--if he is constant [at work] his twoarms fill his belly--as the bee eats in proportion to its toil. --ShallI tell thee of the mason--how he endures misery?--Exposed to all thewinds--while he builds without any garment but a belt--and while thebunch of lotus-flowers [which is fixed] on the [completed] houses--isstill far out of his reach, ***

 * This is an allusion to the cruel manner in which the Egyptians were accustomed to bind their prisoners, as it were in a bundle, with the legs bent backward along the back and attached to the arms. The working-day commenced then, as now, at sunrise, and lasted till sunset, with a short interval of one or two hours at midday for the workmen's dinner and siesta. 

 ** Literally, "He places himself on his elbow. " The metaphor seems to me to be taken from the practice of the trade itself: the barber keeps his elbow raised when shaving and lowers it when he is eating. 

 *** This passage is conjecturally translated. I suppose the Egyptian masons had a custom analogous to that of our own, and attached a bunch of lotus to the highest part of a building they had just finished: nothing, however, has come to light to confirm this conjecture. 

--his two arms are worn out with work; his provisions are placedhiggledy piggledy amongst his refuse, --he consumes himself, for he hasno other bread than his fingers--and he becomes wearied all at once. --Heis much and dreadfully exhausted--for there is [always] a block [to bedragged] in this or that building, --a block of ten cubits by six, --thereis [always] a block [to be dragged] in this or that month [as far asthe] scaffolding poles [to which is fixed] the bunch of lotus-flowerson the [completed] houses. --When the work is quite finished, --if he hasbread, he returns home, --and his children have been beaten unmercifully[during his absence]. --The weaver within doors is worse off there thana woman;--squatting, his knees against his chest, --he does notbreathe. --If during the day he slackens weaving, --he is bound fast asthe lotuses of the lake;--and it is by giving bread to the doorkeeper, that the latter permits him to see the light. 

[Illustration: 101. Jpg A WORKSHOP OF SHOEMAKERS MANUFACTURING SANDALS]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Champollion's _Monuments de l'Êypte et de la Nubie_. This Picture belongs to the XVIIIth dynasty; but the sandals in it are, however, quite like those to be seen on more ancient monuments. 

The dyer, his fingers reeking--and their smell is that offish-spawn;--his two eyes are oppressed with fatigue, --his hand does notstop, --and, as he spends his time in cutting out rags--he has ahatred of garments. --The shoemaker is very unfortunate;--he moansceaselessly, --his health is the health of the spawning fish, --and hegnaws the leather. --The baker makes dough, --subjects the loaves to thefire;--while his head is inside the oven, --his son holds him by thelegs;--if he slips from the hands of his son, --he falls there into theflames. " These are the miseries inherent to the trades themselves: thelevying of the tax added to the catalogue a long sequel of vexationsand annoyances, which were renewed several times in the year at regularintervals. 

[Illustration: 101. Jpg THE BAKER MAKING HIS BREAD AND PLACING IT IN THEOVEN]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the painted picture in one of the small antechambers of the tomb of Ramses III. , at Bab- el-Molûk. 

Even at the present day, the fellah does not pay his contributionsexcept under protest and by compulsion, but the determination not tomeet obligations except beneath the stick, was proverbial from ancienttimes: whoever paid his dues before he had received a merciless beatingwould be overwhelmed with reproaches by his family, and jeered atwithout pity by his neighbours. The time when the tax fell due, cameupon the nomes as a terrible crisis which affected the whole population. For several days there was nothing to be heard but protestations, threats, beating, cries of pain from the tax-payers, and piercinglamentations from women and children. The performance over, calm wasre-established, and the good people, binding up their wounds, resumedtheir round of daily life until the next tax-gathering. 

The towns of this period presented nearly the same confined andmysterious appearance as those of the present day. *

 * I have had occasion to make "soundings" or excavations at various points in very ancient towns and villages, at Thebes, Abydos and Mataniyeh, and I give here a _résumé_ of my observations. Professor Petrie has brought to light and regularly explored several cities of the XIIth and XVIIIth dynasties, situated at the entrance to the Fayûm. I have borrowed many points in my description from the various works which he has published on the subject, _Kahun, Gurob and Hawara, _ 1890; and _Illahun, Kahun and Gurob_, 1891. 

[Illustration: 103. Jpg THE HOUSE OF A GREAT EGYPTIAN LORD]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a water-colour by Boussac, _Le Tombeau d'Anna_ in the _Mémoires de la Mission Française_. The house was situated at Thebes, and belonged to the XVIIIth dynasty. The remains of the houses brought to light by Mariette at Abydos belong to the same type, and date back to the XIIth dynasty. By means of these, Mariette was enabled to reconstruct an ancient Egyptian house at the Paris Exhibition of 1877. The picture of the tomb of Anna reproduces in most respects, we may therefore assume, the appearance of a nobleman's dwelling at all periods. At the side of the main building we see two corn granaries with conical roofs, and a great storehouse for provisions. 

They were grouped around one or more temples, each of which wassurrounded by its own brick enclosing wall, with its enormous gateways:the gods dwelt there in real castles, or, if this word appears tooambitious, redouts, in which the population could take refuge in casesof sudden attack, and where they could be in safety. 

[Illustration: 104. Jpg PLAN OF A PART OF THE ANCIENT TOWN OF KAHUN]

 From a plan made and published by Professor Flinders Petrie, _Illahun, Kahun and Gurob_, pl. Xiv. 

The towns, which had all been built at one period by some king orprince, were on a tolerably regular ground plan; the streets were pavedand fairly wide; they crossed each other at right angles, and werebordered with buildings on the same line of frontage. The cities ofancient origin, which had increased with the chance growth of centuries, presented a totally different aspect. 

[Illustration: 105. Jpg STELE OF SÎTÛ, REPRESENTING THE FRONT OF A HOUSE]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey. The monument is the stele of Sîtû (IVth dynasty), in the Gîzeh Museum. 

A network of lanes and blind alleys, narrow, dark, damp, and badlybuilt, spread itself out between the houses, apparently at random: hereand there was an arm of a canal, all but dried up, or a muddy pool wherethe cattle came to drink, and from which the women fetched the water fortheir households; then followed an open space of irregular shape, shadedby acacias or sycamores, where the country-folk of the suburbs heldtheir market on certain days, twice or thrice a month; then camewaste ground covered with filth and refuse, over which the dogs ofthe neighbourhood fought with hawks and vultures. The residence ofthe prince or royal governor, and the houses of rich private persons, covered a considerable area, and generally presented to the street along extent of bare walls, crenellated like those of a fortress: theonly ornament admitted on them consisted of angular grooves, eachsurmounted by two open lotus flowers having their stems intertwined. 

[Illustration: 106. Jpg A STREET IN THE HIGHER QUARTER OF MODERN SIÛT]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph, taken in 1884, by Emil Brugsch-Bey. 

Within these walls domestic life was entirely secluded, and as it wereconfined to its own resources; the pleasure of watching passers-by wassacrificed to the advantage of not being seen from outside. The entrancealone denoted at times the importance of the great man who concealedhimself within the enclosure. Two or three steps led up to the door, which sometimes had a columned portico, ornamented with statues, lendingan air of importance to the building. The houses of the citizens weresmall, and built of brick; they contained, however, some half-dozenrooms, either vaulted, or having flat roofs, and communicating with eachother usually by arched doorways. 

[Illustration: 107. Jpg A HALL WITH COLUMNS IN ONE OF THE XIIth DYNASTYHOUSES AT GUROB]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Professor Petrie, _Elahun, Kahun and Gurob_, pl. Xvi. 3. 

A few houses boasted of two or three stories; all possessed a terrace, on which the Egyptians of old, like those of to-day, passed mostof their time, attending to household cares or gossiping with theirneighbours over the party wall or across the street. The hearth washollowed out in the ground, usually against a wall, and the smokeescaped through a hole in the ceiling: they made their fires of sticks, wood charcoal, and the dung of oxen and asses. In the houses of therich we meet with state apartments, lighted in the centre by a squareopening, and supported by rows of wooden columns; the shafts, which wereoctagonal, measured ten inches in diameter, and were fixed into flatcircular stone bases. 

[Illustration: 108a. Jpg WOODEN HEAD-REST]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a head-rest in my possession obtained at Gebelên (XIth dynasty): the foot of the head- rest is usually solid, and cut out of a single piece of wood. 

[Illustration: 108b. Jpg PIGEON ON WHEELS]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Petrie, _Hawara, Biahmu, and Arsinoe_, pl. Xiii. 21. The original, of rough wood, is now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. 

The family crowded themselves together into two or three rooms inwinter, and slept on the roof in the open air in summer, in spite ofrisk from affections of the stomach and eyes; the remainder of thedwelling was used for stables or warehouses. The store-chamberswere often built in pairs; they were of brick, carefully limewashedinternally, and usually assumed the form of an elongated cone, inimitation of the Government storehouses. For the valuables whichconstituted the wealth of each household--wedges of gold or silver, precious stones, ornaments for men or women--there were places ofconcealment, in which the possessors attempted to hide them from robbersor from the tax-collectors. But the latter, accustomed to the craft ofthe citizens, evinced a peculiar aptitude for ferreting out the hoard:they tapped the walls, lifted and pierced the roofs, dug down into thesoil below the foundations, and often brought to light, not only thetreasure of the owner, but all the surroundings of the grave and humancorruption. It was actually the custom, among the lower and middleclasses, to bury in the middle of the house children who had died at thebreast. The little body was placed in an old tool or linen box, withoutany attempt at embalming, and its favourite playthings and amulets wereburied with it: two or three infants are often found occupying the samecoffin. The playthings were of an artless but very varied character;dolls of limestone, enamelled pottery or wood, with movable arms andwigs of artificial hair; pigs, crocodiles, ducks, and pigeons on wheels, pottery boats, miniature sets of household furniture, skin balls filledwith hay, marbles, and stone bowls. However, strange it may appear, wehave to fancy the small boys of ancient Egypt as playing at bowlslike ours, or impudently whipping their tops along the streets withoutrespect for the legs of the passers-by. 

[Illustration: 109. Jpg APPARATUS FOR STRIKING A LIGHT]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch published in Fl. Petrie, _Illahun, Kdhun and Gurob, _ pl. Vii. The bow is represented in the centre; on the left, at the top, is the nut; below it the fire-stick, which was attached to the end of the stock; at the bottom and right, two pieces of wood with round carbonized holes, which took fire from the friction of the rapidly rotating stick. 

Some care was employed upon the decoration of the chambers. Therough-casting of mud often preserves its original grey colour;sometimes, however, it was limewashed, and coloured red or yellow, ordecorated with pictures of jars, provisions, and the interiors as wellas the exteriors of houses. 

[Illustration: 110. Jpg MITRAL PAINTINGS IN THE RUINS OF AN ANCIENT HOUSEAT KAHUN]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the facsimile in Petrie's _Illahun, Kahun and Gurob_, pl. Xvi. 6. 

The bed was not on legs, but consisted of a low framework, like the"angarebs" of the modern Nubians, or of mats which were folded up in thedaytime, but upon which they lay in their clothes during the night, thehead being supported by a head-rest of pottery, limestone, or wood: theremaining articles of furniture consisted of one or two roughly hewnseats of stone, a few lion-legged chairs or stools, boxes and trunksof varying sizes for linen and implements, kohl, or perfume, pots ofababaster or porcelain, and lastly, the fire-stick with the bow by whichit was set in motion, and some roughly made pots and pans of clay orbronze. 

[Illustration: 111. Jpg WOMAN GRINDING GRAIN]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Béchard (cf. Mariette, _Alburn photographique du Musée de Boulaq_, pl. 20; Maspero, _Guide du Visiteur_, P- 220, Nos. 1012, 1013). 

Men rarely entered their houses except to eat and sleep; theiremployments or handicrafts were such as to require them for the mostpart to work out-of-doors. The middle-class families owned, almostalways, one or two slaves--either purchased or born in the house--whodid all the hard work: they looked after the cattle, watched over thechildren, acted as cooks, and fetched water from the nearest pool orwell. Among the poor the drudgery of the household fell entirely uponthe woman. She spun, wove, cut out and mended garments, fetched freshwater and provisions, cooked the dinner, and made the daily bread. Shespread some handfuls of grain upon an oblong slab of stone, slightlyhollowed on its upper surface, and proceeded to crush them with asmaller stone like a painter's muller, which she moistened from time totime. For an hour and more she laboured with her arms, shoulders, loins, in fact, all her body; but an indifferent result followed from the greatexertion. The flour, made to undergo several grindings in this rusticmortar, was coarse, uneven, mixed with bran, or whole grains, which hadescaped the pestle, and contaminated with dust and abraded particlesof the stone. She kneaded it with a little water, blended with it, as asort of yeast, a piece of stale dough of the day before, and made fromthe mass round cakes, about half an inch thick and some four inches indiameter, which she placed upon a flat flint, covering them with hotashes. The bread, imperfectly raised, often badly cooked, borrowed, fromthe organic fuel under which it was buried, a special odour, and a tasteto which strangers did not readily accustom themselves. The impuritieswhich it contained were sufficient in the long run to ruin the strongestteeth; eating it was an action of grinding rather than chewing, and oldmen were not unfrequently met with whose teeth had been gradually wornaway to the level of the gums, like those of an aged ass or ox. *

 * The description of the woman grinding grain and kneading dough is founded on statues in the Gîzeh Museum. All the European museums possess numerous specimens of the bread in question, and the effect which it produces in the long run on the teeth of those who habitually used it as an article of diet, has been observed in mummies of the most important personages. 

Movement and animation were not lacking at certain hours of the day, particularly during the morning, in the markets and in the neighbourhoodof the temples and government buildings: there was but little trafficanywhere else; the streets were silent, and the town dull and sleepy. Itwoke up completely only three or four times a year, at seasons of solemnassemblies "of heaven and earth:" the houses were then opened and theirinhabitants streamed forth, the lively crowd thronging the squares andcrossways. To begin with, there was New Year's Day, quickly followedby the Festival of the Bead, the "Ûagaît. " On the night of the 17thof Thot, the priests kindled before the statues in the sanctuaries andsepulchral chapels, the fire for the use of the gods and doubles duringthe twelve ensuing months. Almost at the same moment the whole countrywas lit up from one end to the other: there was scarcely a family, however poor, who did not place in front of their door a new lamp inwhich burned an oil saturated with salt, and who did not spend the wholenight in feasting and gossiping. *

 * The night of the 17th Thot--which, according to our computation, would be the night of the 16th to the 17th --was, as may be seen from the Great Inscription of Siût, appointed for the ceremony of "lighting the fire" before the statues of the dead and of the gods. As at the "Feast of Lamps"

The festivals of the living gods attracted considerable crowds, whocame not only from the nearest nomes, but also from great distances incaravans and in boats laden with merchandise, for religious sentimentdid not exclude commercial interests, and the pilgrimage ended in afair. 

[Illustration: 114. Jpg TWO WOMEN WEAVING LINEN AT A HORIZANTAL LOOM]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a picture on the tomb of Khnûm- hotpû at Beni-Hasan. This is the loom which was reconstructed in 1889 for the Paris Exhibition, and which is now to be seen in the galleries of the Trocadero. 

For several days the people occupied mentioned by Herodotus, thereligious ceremony was accompanied by a general illumination whichlasted all the night; the object of this, probably, was to facilitatethe visit which the souls of the dead were supposed to pay at this timeto the family residence themselves solely in prayers, sacrifices, andprocessions, in which the faithful, clad in white, with palms in theirhands, chanted hymns as they escorted the priests on their way. "Thegods of heaven exclaim 'Ah! ah! 'in satisfaction, the inhabitants ofthe earth are full of gladness, the Hâthors beat their tabors, the greatladies wave their mystic whips, all those who are gathered together inthe town are drunk with wine and crowned with flowers; the tradespeopleof the place walk joyously about, their heads scented with perfumedoils, all the children rejoice in honour of the goddess, from the risingto the setting of the sun. "*

 * The people of Dendera crudely enough called this the "Feast of Drunkenness. " From what we know of the earlier epochs, we are justified in making this description a general one, and in applying it, as I have done here, to the festivals of other towns besides Dendera. 

The nights were as noisy as the days: for a few hours, they made upenergetically for long months of torpor and monotonous existence. Thegod having re-entered the temple and the pilgrims taken their departure, the regular routine was resumed and dragged on its tedious course, interrupted only by the weekly market. At an early hour on that day, the peasant folk came in from the surrounding country in an interminablestream, and installed themselves in some open space, reserved from timeimmemorial for their use. The sheep, geese, goats, and large-hornedcattle were grouped in the centre, awaiting purchasers. Market-gardeners, fishermen, fowlers and gazelle-hunters, potters, andsmall tradesmen, squatted on the roadsides or against the houses, andoffered their wares for the inspection of their customers, heaped upin reed baskets, or piled on low round tables: vegetables and fruits, loaves or cakes baked during the night, meat either raw or cooked invarious ways, stuffs, perfumes, ornaments, --all the necessities andluxuries of daily life. It was a good opportunity for the workpeople, aswell as for the townsfolk, to lay in a store of provisions at a cheaperrate than from the ordinary shops; and they took advantage of it, eachaccording to his means. 

Business was mostly carried on by barter. The purchasers brought withthem some product of their toil--a new tool, a pair of shoes, a reedmat, pots of unguents or cordials; often, too, rows of cowries anda small box full of rings, each weighing a "tabnû, " made of copper, silver, or even gold, all destined to be bartered for such things asthey needed. When it came to be a question of some large animal or ofobjects of considerable value, the discussions which arose were keen andstormy: it was necessary to be agreed not only as to the amount, butas to the nature of the payment to be made, and to draw up a sort ofinvoice, or in fact an inventory, in which beds, sticks, honey, oil, pick-axes, and garments, all figure as equivalents for a bull ora she-ass. Smaller retail bargains did not demand so many or suchcomplicated calculations. Two townsfolk stop for a moment in front ofa fellah who offers onions and corn in a basket for sale. The firstappears to possess no other circulating medium than two necklacesmade of glass beads or many-coloured enamelled terra-cotta; the otherflourishes about a circular fan with a wooden handle, and one of thosetriangular contrivances used by cooks for blowing up the fire. "Here isa fine necklace which will suit you, " cries the former, "it is just whatyou are wanting;" while the other breaks in with: "Here is a fan and aventilator. " The fellah, however, does not let himself be disconcertedby this double attack, and proceeding methodically, he takes one of thenecklaces to examine it at his leisure: "Give it to me to look at, that I may fix the price. " The one asks too much, the other offers toolittle; after many concessions, they at last come to an agreement, and settle on the number of onions or the quantity of grain whichcorresponds exactly with the value of the necklace or the fan. A littlefurther on, a customer wishes to get some perfumes in exchange for apair of sandals, and conscientiously praises his wares: "Here, " sayshe, "is a strong pair of shoes. " But the merchant has no wish to be shodjust then, and demands a row of cowries for his little pots: "You havemerely to take a few drops of this to see how delicious it is, " he urgesin a persuasive tone. A seated customer has two jars thrust under hisnose by a woman--they probably contain some kind of unguent: "Here issomething which smells good enough to tempt you. " Behind this group twomen are discussing the relative merits of a bracelet and a bundle offish-hooks; a woman, with a small box in her hand, is having an argumentwith a merchant selling necklaces; another woman seeks to obtain areduction in the price of a fish which is being scraped in front of her. Exchanging commodities for metal necessitated two or three operationsnot required in ordinary barter. The rings or thin bent strips of metalwhich formed the "tabnû" and its multiples, * did not always contain theregulation amount of gold or silver, and were often of light weight. 

 * The rings of gold in the Museum at Leyden, which were used as a basis of exchange, are made on the Chaldæo-Babylonian pattern, and belong to the Asiatic system. 

[Illustration: 118. Jpg one of the forms of egyptian scales]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after a sketch by Rosellini

They had to be weighed at every fresh transaction in order to estimatetheir true value, and the interested parties never missed this excellentopportunity for a heated discussion: after having declared for a quarterof an hour that the scales were out of order, that the weighing had beencarelessly performed, and that it should be done over again, they atlast came to terms, exhausted with wrangling, and then went their wayfairly satisfied with one another. * It sometimes happened that a cleverand unscrupulous dealer would alloy the rings, and mix with the preciousmetal as much of a baser sort as would be possible without danger ofdetection. The honest merchant who thought he was receiving in paymentfor some article, say eight tabnû of fine gold, and who had handed tohim eight tabnû of some alloy resembling gold, but containing one-thirdof silver, lost in a single transaction, without suspecting it, almostone-third of his goods. The fear of such counterfeits was instrumentalin restraining the use of tabnû for a long time among the people, andrestricted the buying and selling in the markets to exchange in naturalproducts or manufactured objects. 

 * The weighing of rings is often represented on the monuments from the XVIIIth dynasty onwards. I am not acquainted with any instance of this on the bas-reliefs of the Ancient Empire. The giving of false weight is alluded to in the paragraph in the "Negative Confession, " in which the dead man declares that he has not interfered with the beam of the scales (cf. Vol. I. P. 271) _civili, _ pl. Lii. 1. As to the construction of the Egyptian scales, and the working of their various parts, see Flinders Petrie's remarks in _A Season in Egypt_, P- 42, and the drawings which he has brought together on pl. Xx. Of the same work. 

[Illustration: 118b. Jpg SCENES IN A BAZAAR]

We must, perhaps, agree with Fr. Lenormant, in his conclusion that theonly kind of national metal of exchange in use in Egypt was a copperwire or plate bent thus [--]. This being the sign invariably used in thehieroglyphics in writing the word _tàbnû_. 

The present rural population of Egypt scarcely ever live in isolatedand scattered farms; they are almost all concentrated in hamlets andvillages of considerable extent, divided into quarters often at somedistance from each other. The same state of things existed in ancienttimes, and those who would realize what a village in the past waslike, have only to visit any one of the modern market towns scatteredat intervals along the valley of the Nile:--half a dozen fairly builthouses, inhabited by the principal people of the place; groups of brickor clay cottages thatched with durra stalks, so low that a man standingupright almost touches the roof with his head; courtyards filled withtall circular mud-built sheds, in which the corn and durra for thehousehold is carefully stored, and wherever we turn, pigeons, ducks, geese, and animals all living higgledly-piggledly with the family. Themajority of the peasantry were of the lower class, but they were noteverywhere subjected to the same degree of servitude. The slaves, properly so called, came from other countries; they had been bought fromforeign merchants, or they had been seized in a raid and had lost theirliberty by the fortune of war. * Their master removed them from placeto place, sold them, used them as he pleased, pursued them if theysucceeded in escaping, and had the right of recapturing them as soon ashe received information of their whereabouts. They worked for him underhis overseer's orders, receiving no regular wages, and with no hope ofrecovering their liberty. **

 * The first allusion to prisoners of war brought back to Egypt, is found in the biography of Uni. The method in which they were distributed among the officers and soldiers is indicated in several inscriptions of the New Empire, in that of Ahmosis Pannekhabît, in that of Ahmosis si-Abîna, where one of the inscriptions contains a list of slaves, some of whom are foreigners, in that of Amenemhabi. We may form some idea of the number of slaves in Egypt from the fact that in thirty years Ramses III. Presented 113, 433 of them to the temples alone. The "Directors of the Royal Slaves, " at all periods, occupied an important position at the court of the Pharaohs. 

 ** A scene reproduced by Lepsius shows us, about the time of the VIth dynasty, the harvest gathered by the "royal slaves" in concert with the tenants of the dead man. One of the petty princes defeated by the Ethiopian Piônkhi Miamûn proclaims himself to be "one of the royal slaves who pay tribute in kind to the royal treasury. " Amten repeatedly mentions slaves of this kind, "sûtiû. "

Many chose concubines from their own class, or intermarried with thenatives and had families: at the end of two or three generations theirdescendants became assimilated with the indigenous race, and wereneither more nor less than actual serfs attached to the soil, who weremade over or exchanged with it. * The landed proprietors, lords, kings, or gods, accommodated this population either in the outbuildingsbelonging to their residences, or in villages built for the purpose, where everything belonged to them, both houses and people. 

 * This is the status of serfs, or _mirîtiû, _ as shown in the texts of every period. They are mentioned along with the fields or cattle attached to a temple or belonging to a noble. Ramses II. Granted to the temple of Abydos "an appanage in cultivated lands, in serfs (_mirîtiû_), in cattle. " The scribe Anna sees in his tomb "stalls of bulls, of oxen, of calves, of milch cows, as well as serfs, in the mortmain of Amon. " Ptolemy I. Returned to the temple at Bûto "the domains, the boroughs, the serfs, the tillage, the water supply, the cattle, the geese, the flocks, all the things" which Xerxes had taken away from Kabbisha. The expression passed into the language, as a word used to express the condition of a subject race: "I cause, " said Thûtmosis III. , "Egypt to be a sovereign (_hirît_) to whom all the earth is a slave" (_mirîtû_). 

[Illustration: 123. Jpg PART OF THE MODERN VILLAGE OF KARNAK, TO THE WESTOF THE TEMPLE OF APÎT]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato, taken in 1886. 

The condition of the free agricultural labourer was in many respectsanalogous to that of the modern fellah. Some of them possessed no otherproperty than a mud cabin, just large enough for a man and his wife, and hired themselves out by the day or the year as farm servants. Otherswere emboldened to lease land from the lord or from a soldier in theneighbourhood. The most fortunate acquired some domain of which theywere supposed to receive only the product, the freehold of the propertyremaining primarily in the hands of the Pharaoh, and secondarily inthat of lay or religious feudatories who held it of the sovereign: theycould, moreover, bequeath, give, or sell these lands and buy fresh oneswithout any opposition. They paid, besides the capitation tax, a groundrent proportionate to the extent of their property, and to the kind ofland of which it consisted. *

 * The capitation tax, the ground rent, and the house duty of the time of the Ptolemies, already existed under the rule of the native Pharaohs. Brugsch has shown that these taxes are mentioned in an inscription of the time of Ameuôthes III. 

It was not without reason that all the ancients attributed the inventionof geometry to the Egyptians. The perpetual encroachments of the Nileand the displacements it occasioned, the facility with which it effacedthe boundaries of the fields, and in one summer modified the whole faceof a nome, had forced them from early times to measure with the greatestexactitude the ground to which they owed their sustenance. The territorybelonging to each town and nome was subjected to repeated surveys madeand co-ordinated by the Royal Administration, thus enabling Pharaohto know the exact area of his estates. The unit of measurement was thearura; that is to say, a square of a hundred cubits, comprising inround numbers twenty-eight ares. * A considerable staff of scribes andsurveyors was continually occupied in verifying the old measurementsor in making fresh ones, and in recording in the State registers anychanges which might have taken place. ** Each estate had its boundariesmarked out by a line of stelas which frequently bore the name of thetenant at the time, and the date when the landmarks were last fixed. ***

 * [One "are" equals 100 square metres. --Tr. ]

 ** We learn from the expressions employed in the great inscription of Beni-Hasan (11. 13--58, 131-148) that the cadastral survey had existed from the very earliest times; there are references in it to previous surveys. We find a surveying scene on the tomb of Zosirkerîsonbû at Thebes, under the XVIIIth dynasty. Two persons are measuring a field of wheat by means of a cord; a third notes down the result of their work. 

 *** The great inscription of Beni-Hasan tells us of the stelæ which bounded the principality of the Gazelle on the North and South, and of those in the plain which marked the northern boundary of the nome of the Jackal; we also possess three other stelo which were used by Amenôthes IV. To indicate the extreme limits of his new city of Khûtniaton. In addition to the above stele, we also know of two others belonging to the XIIth dynasty which marked the boundaries of a private estate, and which are reproduced, one on plate 106, the other in the text of _Monuments divers_, p. 30; also the stele of Bûhani under Thûtmosis IV. 

[Illustration: 125. Jpg a boundary stele]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph given by Mariette, Monuments divers, pl. 47 a. The stele marked the boundary of the estate given to a priest of the Theban Amon by Pharaoh Thûtmosis IV. Of the XVIIIth dynasty. The original is now in the Museum at Gizeh. 

Once set up, the stele received a name which gave it, as it were, aliving and independent personality. It sometimes recorded the natureof the soil, its situation, or some characteristic which made itremarkable--the "Lake of the South, " the "Eastern Meadow, " the "GreenIsland, " the "Fisher's Pool, " the "Willow Plot, " the "Vineyard, " the"Vine Arbour, " the "Sycamore;" sometimes also it bore the name ofthe first master or the Pharaoh under whom it had been erected--the"Nurse-Phtahhotpû, " the "Verdure-Kheops, " the "Meadow-Didifrî, " the"Abundance-Sahûri, " "Khafri-Great-among-the Doubles. " Once given, thename clung to it for centuries, and neither sales, nor redistributions, nor revolutions, nor changes of dynasty, could cause it to be forgotten. The officers of the survey inscribed it in their books, together withthe name of the proprietor, those of the owners of adjoining lands, and the area and nature of the ground. They noted down, to within afew cubits, the extent of the sand, marshland, pools, canals, groupsof palms, gardens or orchards, vineyards and cornfields, * which itcontained. 

 * See in the great inscription of Beni-Hasan the passage in which are enumerated at full length, in a legal document, the constituent parts of the principality of the Gazelle, "its watercourses, its fields, its trees, its sands, from the river to the mountain of the West" (11. 46-53). 

The cornland in its turn was divided into several classes, according towhether it was regularly inundated, or situated above the highest riseof the water, and consequently dependent on a more or less costly systemof artificial irrigation. All this was so much information of which thescribes took advantage in regulating the assessment of the land-tax. 

Everything tends to make us believe that this tax represented one-tenthof the gross produce, but the amount of the latter varied. It dependedon the annual rise of the Nile, and it followed the course of it withalmost mathematical exactitude: if there were too much or too littlewater, it was immediately lessened, and might even be reduced to nothingin extreme cases. The king in his capital and the great lords in theirfiefs had set up nilo-meters, by means of which, in the critical weeks, the height of the rising or subsiding flood was taken daily. Messengerscarried the news of it over the country: the people, kept regularlyinformed of what was happening, soon knew what kind of season to expect, and they could calculate to within very little what they would have topay. In theory, the collecting of the tax was based on the actual amountof land covered by the water, and the produce of it was constantlyvarying. In practice it was regulated by taking the average of precedingyears, and deducting from that a fixed sum, which was never departedfrom except in extraordinary circumstances. *

 * We know that this was so, in so far as the Roman period is concerned, from a passage in the edict of Tiberius Alexander. The practice was such a natural one, that I have no hesitation in tracing it back to the time of the Ancient Empire; repeatedly condemned as a piece of bad administration, it reappeared continually. At Beni-Hasan, the nomarch Amoni boasts that, "when there had been abundant Niles, and the owners of wheat and barley crops had thriven, he had not increased the rate of the land-tax, " which seems to indicate that, so far as he was concerned, he had fixed the tax to pay his dues without difficulty. 

[Illustration: 128. Jpg THE LEVYING OF THE TAX: THE TAXPAYER IN THESCRIBE'S OFFICE]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a picture at Beni-Hasan. This picture and those which follow it represent a census in the principality of the Gazelle under the XIIth dynasty as well as the collection of a tax. 

The year would have to be a very bad one before the authorities wouldlower the ordinary rate: the State in ancient times was not more willingto deduct anything from its revenue than the modern State would be. *

 * The two decrees of Rosetta and of Canopus, however, mention reductions granted by the Ptolemies after an insufficient rise of the Nile. 

The payment of taxes was exacted in wheat, durra, beans, and fieldproduce, which were stored in the granaries of the nome. It would seemthat the previous deduction of one-tenth of the gross amount of theharvest could not be a heavy burden, and that the wretched fellah oughtto have been in a position on land at a permanent figure, based on theaverage of good and bad harvests. 

It was not so, however, and the same writers who have given us such alamentable picture of the condition of the workmen in the towns, havepainted for us in even darker colours the miseries which overwhelmed thecountry people. "Dost thou not recall the picture of the farmer, whenthe tenth of his grain is levied? Worms have destroyed half of thewheat, and the hippopotami have eaten the rest; there are swarms of ratsin the fields, the grasshoppers alight there, the cattle devour, thelittle birds pilfer, and if the farmer lose sight for an instant ofwhat remains upon the ground, it is carried off by robbers;* the thongs, moreover, which bind the iron and the hoe are worn out, and the team hasdied at the plough. It is then that the scribe steps out of the boat atthe landing-place to levy the tithe, and there come the keepers ofthe doors of the granary with cudgels and the negroes with ribs ofpalm-leaves, who come crying: 'Come now, corn!' There is none, and theythrow the cultivator full length upon the ground; bound, dragged to thecanal, they fling him in head first;** his wife is bound with him, hischildren are put into chains; the neighbours, in the mean time, leavehim and fly to save their grain. "

 * This last danger survives even to the present day. During part of the year the fellahîn spend the night in their fields; if they did not see to it, their neighbours would not hesitate to come and cut their wheat before the harvest, or root up their vegetables while still immature. 

 ** The same kind of torture is mentioned in the decree of Harmhabi, in which the lawless soldiery are represented as "running from house to house, dealing blows right and left with their sticks, ducking the fellahîn head downwards in the water, and not leaving one of them with a whole skin. " This treatment was still resorted to in Egypt not long ago, in order to extract money from those taxpayers whom beatings had failed to bring to reason. 

One might be tempted to declare that the picture is too dark a one to betrue, did one not know from other sources of the brutal ways of fillingthe treasury which Egypt has retained even to the present day. In thesame way as in the town, the stick facilitated the operations of thetax-collector in the country: it quickly opened the granaries of therich, it revealed resources to the poor of which he had been ignorant, and it only failed in the case of those who had really nothing to give. Those who were insolvent were not let off even when they had been morethan half killed: they and their families were sent to prison, and theyhad to work out in forced labour the amount which they had failed to payin current merchandise. *

 * This is evident from a passage in the _Sallier Papyrus n° I_, quoted above, in which we see the taxpayer in fetters, dragged out to clean the canals, his whole family, wife and children, accompanying him in bonds. 

[Illustration: 130. Jpg LEVYING THE TAX: THE TAXPAYER IN THE HANDS OF THEEXACTORS]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a picture on the tomb of Khîti at Beni-Hasan (cf. Champollion, _Monuments de l'Egypte_, pl. Cccxc. 4; Rosellini, _Monumenti civili_, pl. Cxxiv. B). 

The collection of the taxes was usually terminated by a rapid revisionof the survey. The scribe once more recorded the dimensions andcharacter of the domain lands in order to determine afresh the amountof the tax which should be imposed upon them. It often happened, indeed, that, owing to some freak of the Nile, a tract of ground which had beenfertile enough the preceding year would be buried under a gravel bed, ortransformed into a marsh. The owners who thus suffered were allowed anequivalent deduction; as for the farmers, no deductions of the burdenwere permitted in their case, but a tract equalling in value that of thepart they had lost was granted to them out of the royal or seignorialdomain, and their property was thus made up to its original worth. 

[Illustration: 131. Jpg LEVYING THE TAX: THE BASTINADO]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a picture on the tomb of Khîti at Beni-Hasan. 

What the collection of the taxes had begun was almost always broughtto a climax by the _corvées_. However numerous the royal and seignorialslaves might have been, they were insufficient for the cultivation ofall the lands of the domains, and a part of Egypt must always have lainfallow, had not the number of workers been augmented by the addition ofthose who were in the position of freemen. 

This excess of cultivable land was subdivided into portions of equaldimensions, which were distributed among the inhabitants of neighbouringvillages by the officers of a "regent" nominated for that purpose. Thosedispensed from agricultural service were--the destitute, soldiers onservice and their families, certain _employés_ of the public works, andservitors of the temple;* all other country-folk without exceptionhad to submit to it, and one or more portions were allotted to each, according to his capabilities. ** Orders issued at fixed periods calledthem together, themselves, their servants and their beasts of burden, todig, sow, keep watch in the fields while the harvest was proceeding, tocut and carry the crops, the whole work being done at their own expenseand to the detriment of their own interests. ***

 * That the scribes, i. E. The employés of the royal or princely government, were exempt from enforced labour, is manifest from the contrast drawn by the letter-writers of the Sallier and Anastasi Papyri between themselves and the peasants, or persons belonging to other professions who were liable to it. The circular of Dorion defines the classes of soldiers who were either temporarily or permanently exempt under the Greek kings. 

 ** Several fragments of the Turin papyri contain memoranda of enforced labour performed on behalf of the temples, and of lists of persons liable to be called on for such labour. 

 *** All these details are set forth in the Ptolemaic period, in the letter to Dorion which refers to a royal edict. As Signor Lumbroso has well remarked, the Ptolemies merely copied exactly the misdeeds of the old native governments. Indeed, we come across frequent allusions to the enforced labour of men and beasts in inscriptions of the Middle Empire at Beni-Hasan or at Siût; many of the pictures on the Memphite tombs show bands of such labourers at work in the fields of the great landowners or of the king. 

[Illustration: 132. Jpg COLLOSAL STATUE OF A KING]

As a sort of indemnity, a few allotments were left uncultivated fortheir benefit; to these they sent their flocks after the subsidence ofthe inundation, for the pasturage on them was so rich that the sheepwere doubly productive in wool and offspring. This was a mere apologyfor a wage: the forced labour for the irrigation brought them nocompensation. The dykes which separate the basins, and the networkof canals for distributing the water and irrigating the land, demandcontinual attention: every year some need strengthening, othersre-excavating or cleaning out. The men employed in this work pass wholedays standing in the water, scraping up the mud with both hands in orderto fill the baskets of platted leaves, which boys and girls lift on totheir heads and carry to the top of the bank: the semi-liquid contentsooze through the basket, trickle over their faces and soon coat theirbodies with a black shining mess, disgusting even to look at. Sheikhspreside over the work, and urge it on with abuse and blows. When thegangs of workmen had toiled all day, with only an interval of two hoursabout noon for a siesta and a meagre pittance of food, the poor wretchesslept on the spot, in the open air, huddled one against another and butill protected by their rags from the chilly nights. The task was so harda one, that malefactors, bankrupts, and prisoners of war were condemnedto it; it wore out so many hands that the free peasantry were scarcelyever exempt. Having returned to their homes, they were not called untilthe next year to any established or periodic _corvée_, but many anirregular one came and surprised them in the midst of their work, andforced them to abandon all else to attend to the affairs of king orlord. Was a new chamber to be added to some neighbouring temple, werematerials wanted to strengthen or rebuild some piece of wall which hadbeen undermined by the inundation, orders were issued to the engineersto go and fetch a stated quantity of limestone or sandstone, and thepeasants were commanded to assemble at the nearest quarry to cutthe blocks from it, and if needful to ship and convey them to theirdestination. Or perhaps the sovereign had caused a gigantic statue ofhimself to be carved, and a few hundred men were requisitioned to haulit to the place where he wished it to be set up. The undertaking endedin a gala, and doubtless in a distribution of food and drink: theunfortunate creatures who had been got together to execute the workcould not always have felt fitly compensated for the precious time theyhad lost, by one day of drunkenness and rejoicing. 

[Illustration: 136. Jpg COLORED SCULPTURES IN THE PALACE]

We may ask if all these corvées were equally legal? Even if some of themwere illegal, the peasant on whom they fell could not have found themeans to escape from them, nor could he have demanded legal reparationfor the injury which they caused him. Justice, in Egypt and in the wholeOriental world, necessarily emanates from political authority, and isonly one branch of the administration amongst others, in the handsof the lord and his representatives. Professional magistrates wereunknown--men brought up to the study of law, whose duty it was to ensurethe observance of it, apart from any other calling--but the same menwho commanded armies, offered sacrifices, and assessed or receivedtaxes, investigated the disputes of ordinary citizens, or settled thedifferences which arose between them and the representatives of thelords or of the Pharaoh. In every town and village, those who held bybirth or favour the position of governor were ex-officio invested withthe right of administering justice. For a certain number of days in themonth, they sat at the gate of the town or of the building which servedas their residence, and all those in the town or neighbourhood possessedof any title, position, or property, the superior priesthood of thetemples, scribes who had advanced or grown old in office, thosein command of the militia or the police, the heads of divisions orcorporations, the "qonbîtiû, " the "people of the angle, " might ifthey thought fit take their place beside them, and help them to decideordinary lawsuits. The police were mostly recruited from foreigners andnegroes, or Bedouin belonging to the Nubian tribe of the Mâzaiû. Thelitigants appeared at the tribunal, and waited under the superintendenceof the police until their turn came to speak: the majority of thequestions were decided in a few minutes by a judgment by which there wasno appeal; only the more serious cases necessitated a cross-examinationand prolonged discussion. All else was carried on before thispatriarchal jury as in our own courts of justice, except thatthe inevitable stick too often elucidated the truth and cut shortdiscussions: the depositions of the witnesses, the speeches on bothsides, the examination of the documents, could not proceed without thefrequent taking of oaths "by the life of the king" or "by the favour ofthe gods, " in which the truth often suffered severely. Penalties werevaried somewhat--the bastinado, imprisonment, additional days of workfor the corvée, and, for grave offences, forced labour in the Ethiopianmines, the loss of nose and ears, and finally, death by strangulation, by beheading, * by empalement, and at the stake. 

 * The only known instance of an execution by hanging is that of Pharaoh's chief baker, in Gen. Xl. 19, 22, xli. 13; but in a tomb at Thebes we see two human victims executed by strangulation. The Egyptian hell contains men who have been decapitated, and the block on which the damned were beheaded is frequently mentioned in the texts. 

Criminals of high rank obtained permission to carry out on themselvesthe sentence passed upon them, and thus avoided by suicide the shame ofpublic execution. Before tribunals thus constituted, the fellah who cameto appeal against the exactions of which he was the victim had littlechance of obtaining a hearing: had not the scribe who had overtaxed him, or who had imposed a fresh corvée upon him, the right to appear amongthe Judges to whom he addressed himself? Nothing, indeed, preventedhim from appealing from the latter to his feudal lord, and from him toPharaoh, but such an appeal would be for him a mere delusion. When hehad left his village and presented his petition, he had many delaysto encounter before a solution could be arrived at; and if the adverseparty were at all in favour at court, or could command any influence, the sovereign decision would confirm, even if it did not aggravate, thesentence of the previous judges. In the mean while the peasants'land remained uncultivated, his wife and children bewailed theirwretchedness, and the last resources of the family were consumed inproceedings and delays: it would have been better for him at the outsetto have made up his mind to submit without resistance to a fate fromwhich he could not escape. 

In spite of taxes, requisitions, and forced labour, the fellahîn cameoff fairly well, when the chief to whom they belonged proved a kindmaster, and did not add the exactions of his own personal caprice tothose of the State. The inscriptions which princes caused to be devotedto their own glorification, are so many enthusiastic panegyrics dealingonly with their uprightness and kindness towards the poor and lowly. Every one of them represents himself as faultless: "the staff of supportto the aged, the foster father of the children, the counsellor of theunfortunate, the refuge in which those who suffer from the cold inThebes may warm themselves, the bread of the afflicted which neverfailed in the city of the South. " Their solicitude embraced everybodyand everything: "I have caused no child of tender age to mourn; I havedespoiled no widow; I have driven away no tiller of the soil; I havetaken no workmen away from their foreman for the public works; nonehave been unfortunate about me, nor starving in my time. When years ofscarcity arose, as I had cultivated all the lands of the nome of theGazelle to its northern and southern boundaries, causing its inhabitantsto live, and creating provisions, none who were hungry were found there, for I gave to the widow as well as to the woman who had a husband, and Imade no distinction between high and low in all that I gave. If, on thecontrary, there were high Niles, the possessors of lands became rich inall things, for I did not raise the rate of the tax upon the fields. "The canals engrossed all the prince's attention; he cleaned them out, enlarged them, and dug fresh ones, which were the means of bringingfertility and plenty into the most remote corners of his property. Hisserfs had a constant supply of clean water at their door, and were nolonger content with such food as durra; they ate wheaten bread daily. His vigilance and severity were such that the brigands dared no longerappear within reach of his arm, and his soldiers kept strict discipline:"When night fell, whoever slept by the roadside blessed me, and was [insafety] as a man in his own house; the fear of my police protected him, the cattle remained in the fields as in the stable; the thief was as theabomination of the god, and he no more fell upon the vassal, so that thelatter no more complained, but paid exactly the dues of his domain, forlove" of the master who had procured for him this freedom from care. This theme might be pursued at length, for the composers of epitaphsvaried it with remarkable cleverness and versatility of imagination. Thevery zeal which they display in describing the lord's virtues betrayshow precarious was the condition of his subjects. There was nothing tohinder the unjust prince or the prevaricating officer from ruining andill-treating as he chose the people who were under his authority. Hehad only to give an order, and the corvée fell upon the proprietors of avillage, carried off their slaves and obliged them to leave their landsuncultivated; should they declare that they were incapable of payingthe contributions laid on them, the prison opened for them and theirfamilies. If a dyke were cut, or the course of a channel altered, thenome was deprived of water: prompt and inevitable ruin came upon theunfortunate inhabitants, and their property, confiscated by the treasuryin payment of the tax, passed for a small consideration into the handsof the scribe or of the dishonest administrator. Two or three years ofneglect were almost enough to destroy a system of irrigation: the canalsbecame filled with mud, the banks crumbled, the inundation either failedto reach the ground, or spread over it too quickly and lay upon ittoo long. Famine soon followed with its attendant sicknesses: men andanimals died by the hundred, and it was the work of nearly a wholegeneration to restore prosperity to the district. 

The lot of the fellah of old was, as we have seen, as hard as thatof the fellah of to-day. He himself felt the bitterness of it, andcomplained at times, or rather the scribes complained for him, when withselfish complacency they contrasted their calling with his. He had totoil the whole year round, --digging, sowing, working the shadouf frommorning to night for weeks, hastening at the first requisition to thecorvée, paying a heavy and cruel tax, --all without even the certaintyof enjoying what remained to him in peace, or of seeing his wife andchildren profit by it. So great, however, was the elasticity of histemperament that his misery was not sufficient to depress him: thosemonuments upon which his life is portrayed in all its minutias, represent him as animated with inexhaustible cheerfulness. The summermonths ended, the ground again becomes visible, the river retires intoits bed, the time of sowing is at hand: the peasant takes his team andhis implements with him and goes off to the fields. In many places, thesoil, softened by the water, offers no resistance, and the hoe easilyturns it up; elsewhere it is hard, and only yields to the plough. Whileone of the farm-servants, almost bent double, leans his whole weighton the handles to force the ploughshare deep into the soil, his comradedrives the oxen and encourages them by his songs: these are only twoor three short sentences, set to an unvarying chant, and with the timebeaten on the back of the nearest animal. Now and again he turns roundtowards his comrade and encourages him: "Lean hard!"--"Hold fast!"

[Illustration: 142a. Jpg TWO FELLAHÎN WORK THE SHADOUF IN A GARDEN]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph. 

The sower follows behind and throws handfuls of grain into the furrow: aflock of sheep or goats brings up the rear, and as they walk, they treadthe seed into the ground. The herdsmen crack their whips and sing somecountry song at the top of their voices, --based on the complaint of somefellah seized by the corvée to clean out a canal. "The digger is in thewater with the fish, --he talks to the silurus, and exchanges greetingswith the oxyrrhynchus:--West! your digger is a digger from the West!"*

 * The silurus is the electrical fish of the Nile. The text ironically hints that the digger, up to his waist in water, engaged in dredging the dykes or repairing a bank swept away by an inundation, is liable at any moment to salute, i. E. To meet with a silurus or an oxyrrhynchus ready to attack him; he is doomed to death, and this fact the couplet expresses by the words, "West! your digger is a digger from the West. " The West was the region of the tombs; and the digger, owing to the dangers of his calling, was on his way thither. 

[Illustration: 142b. Jpg CUTTING AND CARRYING THE HARVEST]

All this takes place under the vigilant eye of the master: as soon ashis attention is relaxed, the work slackens, quarrels arise, andthe spirit of idleness and theft gains the ascendency. Two men haveunharnessed their team. One of them quickly milks one of the cows, theother holds the animal and impatiently awaits his turn: "Be quick, whilethe farmer is not there. " They run the risk of a beating for a potfulof milk. The weeks pass, the corn has ripened, the harvest begins. Thefellahîn, armed with a short sickle, cut or rather saw the stalks, ahandful at a time. As they advance in line, a flute-player plays themcaptivating tunes, a man joins in with his voice marking the rhythm byclapping his hands, the foreman throwing in now and then a few words ofexhortation: "What lad among you, when the season is over, can say:'It is I who say it, to thee and to my comrades, you are all of you butidlers!'--Who among you can say: 'An active lad for the job am I!'" Aservant moves among the gang with a tall jar of beer, offering it tothose who wish for it. "Is it not good!" says he; and the one who drinksanswers politely: "'Tis true, the master's beer is better than a cakeof durra!" The sheaves once bound, are carried to the singing of freshsongs addressed to the donkeys who bear them: "Those who quit the rankswill be tied, those who roll on the ground will be beaten, --Geeho!then. " And thus threatened, the ass trots forward. Even when a tragicelement enters the scene, and the bastinado is represented, thesculptor, catching the bantering spirit of the people among whom helives, manages to insinuate a vein of comedy. A peasant, summarilycondemned for some misdeed, lies flat upon the ground with bared back:two friends take hold of his arms, and two others his legs, to keep himin the proper position. His wife or his son intercedes for him to theman with the stick: "For mercy's sake strike on the ground!" And as afact, the bastinado was commonly rather a mere form of chastisement thanan actual punishment: the blows, dealt with apparent ferocity, missedtheir aim and fell upon the earth; the culprit howled loudly, but waslet off with only a few bruises. 

An Arab writer of the Middle Ages remarks, not without irony, that theEgyptians were perhaps the only people in the world who never kept anystores of provisions by them, but each one went daily to the market tobuy the pittance for his family. The improvidence which he lamentsover in his contemporaries had been handed down from their most remoteancestors. Workmen, fellahîn, _employés_, small townsfolk, all livedfrom hand to mouth in the Egypt of the Pharaohs. Pay-days were almosteverywhere days of rejoicing and extra eating: no one spared eitherthe grain, oil, or beer of the treasury, and copious feasting continuedunsparingly, as long as anything was left of their wages. As theirresources were almost always exhausted before the day of distributiononce more came round, beggary succeeded to fulness of living, and a partof the population was literally starving for several days. This almostconstant alternation of abundance and dearth had a reactionaryinfluence on daily work: there were scarcely any seignorial workshops orundertakings which did not come to a standstill every month on accountof the exhaustion of the workmen, and help had to be provided for thestarving in order to avoid popular seditions. Their improvidence, like their cheerfulness, was perhaps an innate trait in the nationalcharacter: it was certainly fostered and developed by the system ofgovernment adopted by Egypt from the earliest times. What incentive wasthere for a man of the people to calculate his resources and to lay upfor the future, when he knew that his wife, his children, his cattle, his goods, all that belonged to him, and himself to boot, might becarried off at any moment, without his having the right or the powerto resent it? He was born, he lived, and he died in the possession of amaster. 

[Illustration: 147. Jpg A FLOCK OF GOATS AND THE SONG OF A GOATHERD]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch- Bey. The picture is taken from the tomb of Ti. 

The lands or houses which his father had left him, were his merely onsufferance, and he enjoyed them only by permission of his lord. Thosewhich he acquired by his own labour went to swell his master's domain. If he married and had sons, they were but servants for the master fromthe moment they were brought into the world. Whatever he might enjoyto-day, would his master allow him possession of it to-morrow? Even lifein the world beyond did not offer him much more security or liberty:he only entered it in his master's service and to do his bidding; heexisted in it on tolerance, as he had lived upon this earth, and hefound there no rest or freedom unless he provided himself abundantlywith "respondents" and charmed statuettes. He therefore concentrated hismind and energies on the present moment, to make the most of it as ofalmost the only thing which belonged to him: he left to his master thetask of anticipating and providing for the future. In truth, his masterswere often changed; now the lord of one town, now that of another; now aPharaoh of the Memphite or Theban dynasties, now a stranger installedby chance upon the throne of Horns. The condition of the people neverchanged; the burden which crushed them was never lightened, and whateverhand happened to hold the stick, it never fell the less heavily upontheir backs. 

[Illustration: 148. Jpg TAILPIECE]

Volume II. , Part B. 

_THE MEMPHITE EMPIRE_

_THE ROYAL PYRAMID BUILDERS: KHEOPS, KHEPHREN, MYKERINOS--MEMPHITELITERATURE AND ART--EXTENSION OF EGYPT TOWARDS THE SOUTH, AND THECONQUEST OP NUBIA BY THE PHARAOHS. _

_Snofrûi--The desert which separates Africa from Asia: its physicalconfiguration, its inhabitants, their incursions into Egypt, and theirrelations with the Egyptians--The peninsula of Sinai: the turquoiseand copper mines, the mining works of the Pharaohs--The two tombs ofSnofrûi: the pyramid and the mastabas of Mêdûm, the statues of Bahotpûand his wife Nofrît. _

_Kheops, Ehephren, and Myherinos--The Great Pyramid: its constructionand internal arrangements--The pyramids of Khephren and Myherinos; therifling of them--Legend about the royal pyramid builders: the impietyof Kheops and Khephren, the piety of Myherinos; the brick pyramid ofAsychis--The materials employed in building, and the quarries of Turah;the plans, the worship of the royal "double;" the Arab legends aboutthe guardian genii of the pyramids. _

_The kings of the fifth dynasty: Ùsirkaf, Sahûri, Kalciû, and theromance about their advent--The relations of the Delta to the peoplesof the North: the shipping and maritime commerce of the Egyptians--Nubiaand its tribes: the Ûaûaiû and the Mazaiû, Pûanît, the dwarfs andthe Danga--Egyptian literature: the Proverbs of Phtahhotpû--The arts:architecture, statuary and its chief examples, bas-reliefs, painting, industrial art. _

_The development of Egyptian feudalism, and the advent of the sixthdynasty: Ati, Imhotpâ, Teti--Papi I. And his minister Uni: the affairof Queen Amitsi; the wars against the Hirû-Shâîtû and the country ofTiba--Metesûphis I. And the second Papi: progress of the Egyptian powerin Nubia--the lords of Elephantine; Hirkhûf, Papinakhîti: the wayfor conquest prepared by their explorations, the occupation of theOases--The pyramids of Saqqâra: Metesûphis the Second--Nitokris and thelegend concerning her--Preponderance of the feudal lords, and fall ofthe Memphite dynasty. _

[Illustration: 151. Jpg PAGE IMAGE]

CHAPTER II--THE MEMPHITE EMPIRE

_The royal pyramid builders: Kheops, Khephren, Mykerinos--Memphiteliterature and art--Extension of Egypt towards the South, and theconquest of Nubia by the Pharaohs. _

At that time "the Majesty of King Huni died, and the Majesty of KingSnofrûi arose to be a sovereign benefactor over this whole earth. " Allthat we know of him is contained in one sentence: he fought against thenomads of Sinai, constructed fortresses to protect the eastern frontierof the Delta, and made for himself a tomb in the form of a pyramid. 

The almost uninhabited country which connects Africa with Asia isflanked towards the south by two chains of hills which unite at rightangles, and together form the so-called Gebel et-Tîh. This country isa tableland, gently inclined from south to north, bare, sombre, coveredwith flint-shingle, and siliceous rocks, and breaking out at frequentintervals into long low chalky hills, seamed with wadys, the largestof which--that of El-Arish--having drained all the others into itself, opens into the Mediterranean halfway between Pelusiam and Gaza. Torrentsof rain are not infrequent in winter and spring, but the small quantityof water which they furnish is quickly evaporated, and barely keepsalive the meagre vegetation in the bottom of the valleys. Sometimes, after months of absolute drought, a tempest breaks over the moreelevated parts of the desert. *

 * In chap. Viii. Of the _Account of the Survey_, pp. 226- 228, Mr. Holland describes a sudden rainstorm or "sell" on December 3, 1867, which drowned thirty persons, destroyed droves of camels and asses, flocks of sheep and goats, and swept away, in the Wady Feîrân, a thousand palm trees and a grove of tamarisks, two miles in length. Towards 4. 30 in the afternoon, a few drops of rain began to fall, but the storm did not break till 5 p. M. At 5. 15 it was at its height, and it was not over till 9. 30. The torrent, which at 8 p. M. Was 10 feet deep, and was about 1000 feet in width, was, at 6 a. M. The next day, reduced to a small streamlet. 

The wind rises suddenly in squall-like blasts; thick clouds, borne oneknows not whence, are riven by lightning to the incessant accompanimentof thunder; it would seem as if the heavens had broken up and werecrashing down upon the mountains. In a few moments streams of muddywater rushing down the ravines, through the gulleys and along theslightest depressions, hurry to the low grounds, and meeting there in afoaming concourse, follow the fall of the land; a few minutes later, and the space between one hillside and the other is occupied by a deepriver, flowing with terrible velocity and irresistible force. At the endof eight or ten hours the air becomes clear, the wind falls, the rainceases; the hastily formed river dwindles, and for lack of supply isexhausted; the inundation comes to an end almost as quickly as it began. In a short time nothing remains of it but some shallow pools scatteredin the hollows, or here and there small streamlets which rapidly dry up. The flood, however, accelerated by its acquired velocity, continues todescend towards the sea. The devastated flanks of the hills, theirtorn and corroded bases, the accumulated masses of shingle left bythe eddies, the long lines of rocks and sand, mark its route and bearevidence everywhere of its power. The inhabitants, taught by experience, avoid a sojourn in places where tempests have once occurred. It is invain that the sky is serene above them and the sun shines overhead; theyalways fear that at the moment in which danger seems least likely tothreaten them, the torrent, taking its origin some twenty leagues off, may be on its headlong way to surprise them. And, indeed, it comes sosuddenly and so violently that nothing in its course can escape it:men and beasts, before there is time to fly, often even before theyare aware of its approach, are swept away and pitilessly destroyed. TheEgyptians applied to the entire country the characteristic epithet ofTo-Shûît, the land of Emptiness, the land of Aridity. 

[Illustration: 154. Jpg MAP SINAITIC PENINSULAR, TIME OF MEMPHITE EMPIRE]

They divided it into various districts--the upper and lower Tonû, Aia, Kadûma. They called its inhabitants Hirû-Shâîtû, the lords of the Sands;Nomiû-Shâîtû, the rovers of the Sands; and they associated them with theAmu--that is to say, with a race which we recognize as Semitic. The typeof these barbarians, indeed, reminds one of the Semitic massivehead, aquiline nose, retreating forehead, long beard, thick and notinfrequently crisp hair. They went barefoot, and the monuments representthem as girt with a short kilt, though they also wore the _abayah_. Their arms were those commonly used by the Egyptians--the bow, lance, club, knife, battle-axe, and shield. They possessed great flocks ofgoats or sheep, but the horse and camel were unknown to them, as well asto their African neighbours. They lived chiefly upon the milk of theirflocks, and the fruit of the date-palm. A section of them tilled thesoil: settled around springs or wells, they managed by industriouslabour to cultivate moderately sized but fertile fields, flourishingorchards, groups of palms, fig and olive trees, and vines. In spite ofall this their resources were insufficient, and their position wouldhave been precarious if they had not been able to supplement theirstock of provisions from Egypt or Southern Syria. They bartered at thefrontier markets their honey, wool, gums, manna, and small quantitiesof charcoal, for the products of local manufacture, but especially forwheat, or the cereals of which they stood in need. The sight of theriches gathered together in the eastern plain, from Tanis to Bubastis, excited their pillaging instincts, and awoke in them an irrepressiblecovetousness. The Egyptian annals make mention of their incursions atthe very commencement of history, and they maintained that even the godshad to take steps to protect themselves from them. The Gulf of Suez andthe mountainous rampart of Gebel Geneffeh in the south, and the marshesof Pelusium on the north, protected almost completely the easternboundary of the Delta; but the Wady Tumilât laid open the heart of thecountry to the invaders. The Pharaohs of the divine dynasties in thefirst place, and then those of the human dynasties, had fortified thisnatural opening, some say by a continuous wall, others by a line ofmilitary posts, flanked on the one side by the waters of the gulf. *

 * The existence of the wall, or of the line of military posts, is of very ancient date, for the name Kîm-Oîrît is already followed by the hieroglyph of the wall, or by that of a fortified enclosure in the texts of the Pyramids. 

[Illustration: 156. Jpg A BARBARIAN MONÎTI FROM SINAI]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Petrie. The original is of the time of Nectanebo, and is at Karnak; I have chosen it for reproduction in preference to the heads of the time of the Ancient Empire, which are more injured, and of which this is only the traditional copy. 

Snofrûi restored or constructed several castles in this district, whichperpetuated his name for a long time after his death. These had thesquare or rectangular form of the towers, whose ruins are still tobe seen on the banks of the Nile. Standing night and day upon thebattlements, the sentinels kept a strict look-out over the desert, readyto give alarm at the slightest suspicious movement. 

[Illustration: 157. Jpg TWO REFUGE TOWERS OF THE HIRÛ-SHÂÎTÛ, IN THE WADYBÎAR]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the vignette by E. H. Palmer, _The Desert of the Exodus_, p. 317. 

 The expression Kîm-Oîrît, "the very black, " is applied to the northern part of the Red Sea, in contradistinction to Ûaz-Oîrît, Uazît-Oîrît, "the very green, " the Mediterranean; a town, probably built at a short distance from the village of Maghfâr, had taken its name from the gulf on which it was situated, and was also called Kîm- Oîrît. 

The marauders took advantage of any inequality in the ground to approachunperceived, and they were often successful in getting through thelines; they scattered themselves over the country, surprised a villageor two, bore off such women and children as they could lay their handson, took possession of herds of animals, and, without carrying theirdepredations further, hastened to regain their solitudes beforeinformation of their exploits could have reached the garrison. If theirexpeditions became numerous, the general of the Eastern Marches, or thePharaoh himself, at the head of a small army, started on a campaign ofreprisals against them. The marauders did not wait to be attacked, butbetook themselves to refuges constructed by them beforehand at certainpoints in their territory. They erected here and there, on the crest ofsome steep hill, or at the confluence of several wadys, stone towers puttogether without mortar, and rounded at the top like so many beehives, in unequal groups of three, ten, or thirty; here they massed themselvesas well as they could, and defended the position with the greatestobstinacy, in the hope that their assailants, from the lack of water andprovisions, would soon be forced to retreat. *

 * The members of the English Commission do not hesitate to attribute the construction of these towers to the remotest antiquity; the Bedouin call them "namûs, " plur. "nawamîs, " mosquito-houses, and they say that the children of Israel built them as a shelter during the night from mosquitos at the time of the Exodus. The resemblance of these buildings to the "Talayôt" of the Balearic Isles, and to the Scotch beehive-shaped houses, has struck all travellers. 

Elsewhere they possessed fortified "duars, " where not only theirfamilies but also their herds could find a refuge--circular or ovalenclosures, surrounded by low walls of massive rough stones crowned by athick rampart made of branches of acacia interlaced with thorny bushes, the tents or huts being ranged behind, while in the centre was an emptyspace for the cattle. These primitive fortresses were strong enough tooverawe nomads; regular troops made short work of them. The Egyptianstook them by assault, overturned them, cut down the fruit trees, burnedthe crops, and retreated in security, after having destroyed everythingin their march. Each of their campaigns, which hardly lasted more than afew days, secured the tranquillity of the frontier for some years. *

 * The inscription of Uni (11. 22-32) furnishes us with the invariable type of the Egyptian campaigns against the Hirû- Shâîtû: the bas-reliefs of Karnak might serve to illustrate it, as they represent the great raid led by Seti I. Into the territory of the Shaûsûs and their allies, between the frontier of Egypt and the town of Hebron. 

[Illustration: 159. Jpg VIEW OF THE OASIS OF WADY FEÎKÂN IN THE PENINSULAOF SINAI]

 Drawn by Boudier, from the water-colour drawing published by Lepsius, _Denhn. _, i. 7, No. 2. 

To the south of Gebel et-Tîh, and cut off from it almost completely by amoat of wadys, a triangular group of mountains known as Sinai thrusts awedge-shaped spur into the Red Sea, forcing back its waters to the rightand left into two narrow gulfs, that of Akabah and that of Suez. GebelKatherin stands up from the centre and overlooks the whole peninsula. Asinuous chain detaches itself from it and ends at Gebel Serbâl, atsome distance to the northwest; another trends to the south, and afterattaining in Gebel Umm-Shomer an elevation equal to that of GebelKatherin, gradually diminishes in height, and plunges into the sea atRas-Mohammed. A complicated system of gorges and valleys--Wady Nasb, Wady Kidd, Wady Hebrân, Wady Baba--furrows the country and holds it asin a network of unequal meshes. Wady Feîrân contains the most fertileoasis in the peninsula. A never-failing stream waters it for about twoor three miles of its length; quite a little forest of palms enlivensboth banks--somewhat meagre and thin, it is true, but intermingled withacacias, tamarisks, nabecas, carob trees, and willows. Birds sing amidtheir branches, sheep wander in the pastures, while the huts of theinhabitants peep out at intervals from among the trees. Valleys andplains, even in some places the slopes of the hills, are sparselycovered with those delicate aromatic herbs which affect a stony soil. Their life is a perpetual struggle against the sun: scorched, dried up, to all appearance dead, and so friable that they crumble to pieces inthe fingers when one attempts to gather them, the spring rains annuallyinfuse into them new life, and bestow upon them, almost before one'seyes, a green and perfumed youth of some days' duration. The summits ofthe hills remain always naked, and no vegetation softens the ruggednessof their outlines, or the glare of their colouring. The core of thepeninsula is hewn, as it were, out of a block of granite, in whichwhite, rose-colour, brown, or black predominate, according to thequantities of felspar, quartz, or oxides of iron which the rockscontain. Towards the north, the masses of sandstone which join on toGebel et-Tîh assume all possible shades of red and grey, from a delicatelilac neutral tint to dark purple. The tones of colour, although placedcrudely side by side, present nothing jarring nor offensive to the eye;the sun floods all, and blends them in his light. The Sinaitic peninsulais at intervals swept, like the desert to the east of Egypt, by terribletempests, which denude its mountains and transform its wadys into somany ephemeral torrents. The Monîtû who frequented this region from thedawn of history did not differ much from the "Lords of the Sands;" theywere of the same type, had the same costume, the same arms, the samenomadic instincts, and in districts where the soil permitted it, madesimilar brief efforts to cultivate it. They worshipped a god and agoddess whom the Egyptians identified with Horus and Hâthor; one ofthese appeared to represent the light, perhaps the sun, the other theheavens. They had discovered at an early period in the sides of thehills rich metalliferous veins, and strata, bearing precious stones;from these they learned to extract iron, oxides of copper and manganese, and turquoises, which they exported to the Delta. The fame of theirriches, carried to the banks of the Nile, excited the cupidity of thePharaohs; expeditions started from different points of the valley, sweptdown upon the peninsula, and established themselves by main force in themidst of the districts where the mines lay. These were situated to thenorth-west, in the region of sandstone, between the western branchof Gebel et-Tîh and the Gulf of Suez. They were collectively calledMafkaît, the country of turquoises, a fact which accounts for theapplication of the local epithet, lady of Mafkaît, to Hâthor. Theearliest district explored, that which the Egyptians first attacked, wasseparated from the coast by a narrow plain and a single range of hills:the produce of the mines could be thence transported to the sea in afew hours without difficulty. Pharaoh's labourers called this region thedistrict of Baîfc, the mine _par excellence_, or of Bebît, the countryof grottoes, from the numerous tunnels which their predecessors had madethere: the name Wady Maghara, Valley of the Cavern, by which the siteis now designated, is simply an Arabic translation of the old Egyptianword. 

The Monîtû did not accept this usurpation of their rights without astruggle, and the Egyptians who came to work among them had either topurchase their forbearance by a tribute, or to hold themselves always inreadiness to repulse the assaults of the Monîtû by force of arms. Zosirihad already taken steps to ensure the safety of the turquoise-seekersat their work; Snofrûi was not, therefore, the first Pharaoh who passedthat way, but none of his predecessors had left so many traces of hispresence as he did in this out-of-the-way corner of the empire. Theremay still be seen, on the north-west slope of the Wady Maghara, thebas-relief which one of his lieutenants engraved there in memory of avictory gained over the Monîtû. A Bedouin sheikh fallen on his kneesprays for mercy with suppliant gesture, but Pharaoh has already seizedhim by his long hair, and brandishes above his head a white stone maceto fell him with a single blow. 

[Illustration: 163. Jpg THE MINING WORKS OF WADY MAGHARA]

 Plan made by Thuillier, from the sketch by Brugscii, _Wanderung nach den Tiirhis Minen_, p. 70. 

The workmen, partly recruited from the country itself, partly despatchedfrom the banks of the Nile, dwelt in an entrenched camp upon an isolatedpeak at the confluence of Wady Genneh and Wady Maghara. A zigzag pathwayon its smoothest slope ends, about seventeen feet below the summit, atthe extremity of a small and slightly inclined tableland, upon which arefound the ruins of a large village; this is the High Castle--Hâît-Qaîtof the ancient inscriptions. Two hundred habitations can still be madeout here, some round, some rectangular, constructed of sandstone blockswithout mortar, and not larger than the huts of the fellahîn: in formertimes a flat roof of wicker-work and puddled clay extended over each. The entrance was not so much a door as a narrow opening, through whicha fat man would find it difficult to pass; the interior consisted ofa single chamber, except in the case of the chief of the works, whosedwelling contained two. 

[Illustration: 164. Jpg THE HIGH CASTLE OF THE MINERS--HAÎT-QAÎT--AT THECONFLUENCE OF WADY GENNEH AND WADY MAGHARA]

 Drawn by Boudier, from the photograph published in the Ordnance Survey of the Peninsula of Sinai, Photographs, vol. Ii. Pls. 59, 60. 

A rough stone bench from two to two and a half feet high surrounds theplateau on which the village stands; a _cheval défrise_ made of thornybrushwood probably completed the defence, as in the _duars_ of thedesert. The position was very strong and easily defended. Watchmenscattered over the neighbouring summits kept an outlook over the distantplain and the defiles of the mountains. Whenever the cries of thesesentinels announced the approach of the foe, the workmen immediatelydeserted the mine and took refuge in their citadel, which a handful ofresolute men could successfully hold, as long as hunger and thirst didnot enter into the question. As the ordinary springs and wells wouldnot have been sufficient to supply the needs of the colony, they hadtransformed the bottom of the valley into an artificial lake. A damthrown across it prevented the escape of the waters, which filled thereservoir more or less completely according to the season. It neverbecame empty, and several species of shellfish flourished in it--amongothers, a kind of large mussel which the inhabitants generally used asfood, which with dates, milk, oil, coarse bread, a few vegetables, andfrom time to time a fowl or a joint of meat, made up their scanty fare. Other things were of the same primitive character. The tools found inthe village are all of flint: knives, scrapers, saws, hammers, and headsof lances and arrows. A few vases brought from Egypt are distinguishedby the fineness of the material and the purity of the design; but thepottery in common use was made on the spot from coarse clay withoutcare, and regardless of beauty. As for jewellery, the villagers hadbeads of glass or blue enamel, and necklaces of strung cowrie-shells. In the mines, as in their own houses, the workmen employed stone toolsonly, with handles of wood, or of plaited willow twigs, but theirchisels or hammers were more than sufficient to cut the yellowsandstone, coarse-grained and very friable as it was, in the midst ofwhich they worked. *

 * E. H. Palmer, however, from his observations, is of opinion that the work in the tunnels of the mines was executed entirely by means of bronze chisels and tools; the flint implements serving only to incise the scenes which cover the surfaces of the rocks. 

The tunnels running straight into the mountain were low and wide, andwere supported at intervals by pillars of sandstone left _in situ_. These tunnels led into chambers of various sizes, whence they followedthe lead of the veins of precious mineral. The turquoise sparkled onevery side--on the ceiling and on the walls--and the miners, profitingby the slightest fissures, cut round it, and then with forcible blowsdetached the blocks, and reduced them to small fragments, which theycrushed, and carefully sifted so as not to lose a particle of the gem. The oxides of copper and of manganese which they met with here andelsewhere in moderate quantities, were used in the manufacture of thosebeautiful blue enamels of various shades which the Egyptians esteemedso highly. The few hundreds of men of which the permanent population wascomposed, provided for the daily exigencies of industry and commerce. Royal inspectors arrived from time to time to examine into theircondition, to rekindle their zeal, and to collect the product of theirtoil. When Pharaoh had need of a greater quantity than usual of mineralsor turquoises, he sent thither one of his officers, with a select bodyof carriers, mining experts, and stone-dressers. Sometimes as manyas two or three thousand men poured suddenly into the peninsula, andremained there one or two months; the work went briskly forward, andadvantage was taken of the occasion to extract and transport to Egyptbeautiful blocks of diorite, serpentine or granite, to be afterwardsmanufactured there into sarcophagi or statues. Engraved stelæ, to beseen on the sides of the mountains, recorded the names of the principalchiefs, the different bodies of handicraftsmen who had participated inthe campaign, the name of the sovereign who had ordered it and often theyear of his reign. 

It was not one tomb only which Snofrui had caused to be built, but two. He called them "Khâ, " the Rising, the place where the dead Pharaoh, identified with the sun, is raised above the world for ever. One ofthese was probably situated near Dahshur; the other, the "Khâ rîsi, " theSouthern Rising, appears to be identical with the monument of Mêdûm. 

[Illustration: 167. Jpg THE PYRAMID OF MÊDÛM]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the plans of Flinders Petrie, _Medum_, pl. Ii. 

The pyramid, like the mastaba, * represents a tumulus with four sides, in which the earthwork is replaced by a structure of stone or brick. Itindicates the place in which lies a prince, chief, or person of rank inhis tribe or province. It was built on a base of varying area, and wasraised to a greater or less elevation according to the fortune of thedeceased or of his family. **

 * No satisfactory etymon for the word _pyramid_, has as yet been proposed: the least far-fetched is that put forward by Cantor-Eisenlohr, according to which _pyramid_ is the Greek form, irupauç, of the compound term "piri-m-ûisi, " which in Egyptian mathematical phraseology designates the _salient angle_, the ridge or height of the pyramid. 

 ** The brick pyramids of Abydos were all built for private persons. The word "mirit, " which designates a pyramid in the texts, is elsewhere applied to the tombs of nobles and commoners as well as to those of kings. 

The fashion of burying in a pyramid was not adopted in the environs ofMemphis until tolerably late times, and the Pharaohs of the primitivedynasties were interred, as their subjects were, in sepulchral chambersof mastabas. Zosiri was the only exception, if the step-pyramid ofSaqqâra, as is probable, served for his tomb. *

 * It is difficult to admit that a pyramid of considerable dimensions could have disappeared without leaving any traces behind, especially when we see the enormous masses of masonry which still mark the sites of those which have been most injured; besides, the inscriptions connect none of the predecessors of Snofrûi with a pyramid, unless it be Zosiri. The step-pyramid of Saqqâra, which is attributed to the latter, belongs to the same type as that of Mêdûm; so does also the pyramid of Rigah, whose occupant is unknown. If we admit that this last-mentioned pyramid served as a tomb to some intermediate Pharaoh between Zosiri and Snofrûi--for instance, Hûni--the use of pyramids would be merely exceptional for sovereigns anterior to the IVth dynasty. 

The motive which determined Snofrûi's choice of Mêdûm as a site, isunknown to us: perhaps he dwelt in that city of Heracleopolis, which incourse of time frequently became the favourite residence of the kings;perhaps he improvised for himself a city in the plain between El-Wastahand Kafr el-Ayat. His pyramid, at the present time, is composed of threelarge unequal cubes with slightly inclined sides, arranged in steps oneabove the other. Some centuries ago five could be still determined, andin ancient times, before ruin had set in, as many as seven. Each blockmarked a progressive increase of the total mass, and bad its externalface polished--a fact which we can still determine by examining theslabs one behind another; a facing of large blocks, of which many of thecourses still exist towards the base, covered the whole, at one anglefrom the apex to the foot, and brought it into conformity with the typeof the classic pyramid. The passage had its orifice in the middle of thenorth face about sixty feèt above the ground: it is five feet high, anddips at a tolerably steep angle through the solid masonry. At a depth ofa hundred and ninety-seven feet it becomes level, without increasingin aperture, runs for forty feet on this plane, traversing two low andnarrow chambers, then making a sharp turn it ascends perpendicularlyuntil it reaches the floor of the vault. The latter is hewn out of themountain rock, and is small, rough, and devoid of ornament: the ceilingappears to be in three heavy horizontal courses of masonry, whichproject one beyond the other corbel-wise, and give the impression of asort of acutely pointed arch. Snofrûi slept there for ages; then robbersfound a way to him, despoiled and broke up his mummy, scattered thefragments of his coffin upon the ground, and carried off the stonesarcophagus. The apparatus of beams and cords of which they made use forthe descent, hung in their place above the mouth of the shaft until tenyears ago. The rifling of the tomb took place at a remote date, for fromthe XXth dynasty onwards the curious were accustomed to penetrate intothe passage: two scribes have scrawled their names in ink on the backof the framework in which the stone cover was originally inserted. The sepulchral chapel was built a little in front of the east face; itconsisted of two small-sized rooms with bare surfaces, a court whosewalls abutted on the pyramid, and in the court, facing the door, a massive table of offerings flanked by two large stelo withoutinscriptions, as if the death of the king had put a stop to thedecoration before the period determined on by the architects. It wasstill accessible to any one during the XVIIIth dynasty, and people camethere to render homage to the memory of Snofrûi or his wife Mirisônkhû. Visitors recorded in ink on the walls their enthusiastic, butstereotyped impressions: they compared the "Castle of Snofrûi" with thefirmament, "when the sun arises in it; the heaven rains incense thereand pours out perfumes on the roof. " Ramses II. , who had little respectfor the works of his predecessors, demolished a part of the pyramid inorder to procure cheaply the materials necessary for the buildings whichhe restored to Heracleopolis. His workmen threw down the waste stoneand mortar beneath the place where they were working, without troublingthemselves as to what might be beneath; the court became choked up, the sand borne by the wind gradually invaded the chambers, the chapeldisappeared, and remained buried for more than three thousand years. 

The officers of Snofrûi, his servants, and the people of his citywished, according to custom, to rest beside him, and thus to form acourt for him in the other world as they had done in this. The menialswere buried in roughly made trenches, frequently in the ground merely, without coffins or sarcophagi. The body was not laid out its wholelength on its back in the attitude of repose: it more frequently restedon its left side, the head to the north, the face to the east, the legsbent, the right arm brought up against the breast, the left followingthe outline of the chest and legs. *

 * W. Fl. Petrie, _Medum_, pp. 21, 22. Many of these mummies were mutilated, some lacking a leg, others an arm or a hand; these were probably workmen who had fallen victims to an accident during the building of the pyramid. In the majority of cases the detached limb had been carefully placed with the body, doubtless in order that the double might find it in the other world, and complete himself when he pleased for the exigencies of his new existence. 

The people who were interred in a posture so different from that withwhich we are familiar in the case of ordinary mummies, belonged toa foreign race, who had retained in the treatment of their dead thecustoms of their native country. 

[Illustration: 171. Jpg THE COURT AND THE TWO STELÆ OF THE CHAPELADJOINING THE PYRAMID OF MÊDÛM]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Fl. Petrie, _Ten Years' Digging in Egypt_, p. 141. 

The Pharaohs often peopled their royal cities with prisoners of war, captured on the field of battle, or picked up in an expedition throughan enemy's country. Snofrûi peopled his city with men from the Libyantribes living on the borders of the Western desert or Monîtû captives. *

 * Petrie thinks that the people who were interred in a contracted position belonged to the aboriginal race of the valley, reduced to a condition of servitude by a race who had come from Asia, and who had established the kingdom of Egypt. The latter were represented by the mummies disposed at full length (_Medum_, p. 21). 

The body having been placed in the grave, the relatives who had takenpart in the mourning heaped together in a neighbouring hole the funeraryfurniture, flint implements, copper needles, miniature pots and pansmade of rough and badly burned clay, bread, dates, and eatables indishes wrapped up in linen. The nobles ranged their mastabas in a singleline to the north of the pyramid; these form fine-looking masses ofconsiderable size, but they are for the most part unfinished and empty. Snofrûi having disappeared from the scene, Kheops who succeeded himforsook the place, and his courtiers, abandoning their unfinished tombs, went off to construct for themselves others around that of the new king. We rarely find at Mêdûm finished and occupied sepulchres except that ofindividuals who had died before or shortly after Snofrûi. The mummy ofEânofir, found in one of them, shows how far the Egyptians had carriedthe art of embalming at this period. His body, though much shrunken, is well preserved: it had been clothed in some fine stuff, then coveredover with a layer of resin, which a clever sculptor had modelled in sucha manner as to present an image resembling the deceased; it was thenrolled in three or four folds of thin and almost transparent gauze. 

Of these tombs the most important belonged to the Prince Nofirmâîtand his wife Atiti: it is decorated with bas-reliefs of a peculiarcomposition; the figures have been cut in outline in the limestone, andthe hollows thus made are filled in with a mosaic of tinted pastes whichshow the moulding and colour of the parts. Everywhere else the ordinarymethods of sculpture have been employed, the bas-reliefs being enhancedby brilliant colouring in a simple and delicate manner. 

[Illustration: 173. Jpg NOFKÎT, LADY OF MÊDÛM]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken by Éinil Brugsch- Bey. 

The figures of men and animals are portrayed with a vivacity of mannerwhich is astonishing; and the other objects, even the hieroglyphs, arerendered with an accuracy which does not neglect the smallest detail. The statues of Eâhotpû and of the lady Nofrît, discovered in ahalf-ruined mastaba, have fortunately reached us without having sufferedthe least damage, almost without losing anything of their originalfreshness; they are to be seen in the Gîzeh Museum just as they werewhen they left the hands of the workman. Eâhotpû was the son of a king, perhaps of Snofrûi: but in spite of his high origin, I find somethinghumble and retiring in his physiognomy. Nofrît, on the contrary, hasan imposing appearance: an indescribable air of resolution and commandinvests her whole person, and the sculptor has cleverly given expressionto it. She is represented in a robe with a pointed opening in the front:the shoulders, the bosom, the waist, and hips, are shown under thematerial of the dress with a purity and delicate grace which one doesnot always find in more modern works of art. The wig, secured on theforehead by a richly embroidered band, frames with its somewhat heavymasses the firm and rather plump face: the eyes are living, the nostrilsbreathe, the mouth smiles and is about to speak. The art of Egypt has attimes been as fully inspired; it has never been more so than on the dayin which it produced the statue of Nofrît. 

The worship of Snofrûi was perpetuated from century to century. After the fall of the Memphite empire it passed through periods ofintermittence, during which it ceased to be observed, or was observedonly in an irregular way; it reappeared under the Ptolemies for the lasttime before becoming extinct for ever. Snofrûi was probably, therefore, one of the most popular kings of the good old times; but his fame, however great it may have been among the Egyptians, has been eclipsed inour eyes by that of the Pharaohs who immediately followed him--Kheops, Khephren, and Mykerinos. Not that we are really better acquainted withtheir history. All we know of them is made up of two or three seriesof facts, always the same, which the contemporaneous monuments teach usconcerning these rulers. Khnûmû-Khûfûi, * abbreviated into Khûfûi, theKheops** of the Greeks, was probably the son of Snofrûi. ***

 * The existence of the two cartouches Khûfûi and Khnûmû- Khûfûi on the same monuments has caused much embarrassment to Egyptologists: the majority have been inclined to see here two different kings, the second of whom, according to M. Robiou, would have been the person who bore the pre-nomen of Dadûfri. Khnûmû-Khûfûi signifies "the god Khnûmû protects me. "

 ** Kheops is the usual form, borrowed from the account of Herodotus; Diodorus writes Khembes or Khemmes, Eratosthenes Saôphis, and Manetho Souphis. 

 *** The story in the "Westcar" papyrus speaks of Snofrûi as father of Khûfûi; but this is a title of honour, and proves nothing. The few records which we have of this period give one, however, the impression that Kheops was the son of Snofrûi, and, in spite of the hesitation of de Rougé, this affiliation is adopted by the majority of modern historians. 

[175. Jpg alabaster statue of kheops]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey. 

He reigned twenty-three years, and successfully defended the mines ofthe Sinaitic peninsula against the Bedouin; he may still be seen on theface of the rocks in the Wady Maghara sacrificing his Asiatic prisoners, now before the jackal Anubis, now before the ibis-headed Thot. The godsreaped advantage from his activity and riches; he restored the templeof Hâ-thor at Den-dera, embellished that of Bubastis, built a stonesanctuary to the Isis of the Sphinx, and consecrated there gold, silver, bronze, and wooden statues of Horus, Nephthys, Selkît, Phtah, Sokhît, Osiris, Thot, and Hâpis. Scores of other Pharaohs had done as much ormore, on whom no one bestowed a thought a century after their death, andKheops would have succumbed to the same indifference had he not forciblyattracted the continuous attention of posterity by the immensity of histomb. *

 * All the details relating to the Isis of the Sphinx are furnished by a stele of the daughter of Kheops, discovered in the little temple of the XXIst dynasty, situated to the west of the Great Pyramid, and preserved in the Gîzeh Museum. It was not a work entirely of the XXIst dynasty, as Mr. Petrie asserts, but the inscription, barely readable, engraved on the face of the plinth, indicates that it was remade by a king of the Saïte period, perhaps by Sabaco, in order to replace an ancient stele of the same import which had fallen into decay. 

[Illustration: 176. Jpg THE TRIUMPHAL BAS-RELIEFS OF KHEOPS ON THE ROCKSOF WADY MAGHARA]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph published in the _Ordnance Survey, Photographs_, vol. Iii. Pl. 5. On the left stands the Pharaoh, and knocks down a Monîti before the Ibis-headed Thot; upon the right the picture is destroyed, and we see the royal titles only, without figures. The statue bears no cartouche, and considerations purely artistic cause me to attribute it to Kheops: it may equally well represent Dadûfrî, the successor of Kheops, or Shopsiskaf, who followed Mykerinos. 

[Illustration: 176b. Jpg PROFILE OF HEAD OF A MUMMY, (A MAN) THEBES]

[Illustration: 177. Jpg PYRAMIDS OF GIZEH]

The Egyptians of the Theban period were compelled to form their opinionsof the Pharaohs of the Memphite dynasties in the same way as we do, lessby the positive evidence of their acts than by the size and numberof their monuments: they measured the magnificence of Kheops by thedimensions of his pyramid, and all nations having followed this example, Kheops has continued to be one of the three or four names of formertimes which sound familiar to our ears. The hills of Gîzeh in his timeterminated in a bare wind-swept table-land. A few solitary mastabas werescattered here and there on its surface, similar to those whose ruinsstill crown the hill of Dahshur. * The Sphinx, buried even in ancienttimes to its shoulders, raised its head half-way down the eastern slope, at its southern angle;** beside him*** the temple of Osiris, lord of theNecropolis, was fast disappearing under the sand; and still further backold abandoned tombs honey-combed the rock. ****

 * No one has noticed, I believe, that several of the mastabas constructed under Kheops, around the pyramid, contain in the masonry fragments of stone belonging to some more ancient structures. Those which I saw bore carvings of the same style as those on the beautiful mastabas of Dahshur. 

 ** The stele of the Sphinx bears, on line 13, the cartouche of Khephren in the middle of a blank. We have here, I believe, an indication of the clearing of the Sphinx effected under this prince, consequently an almost certain proof that the Sphinx was already buried in sand in the time of Kheops and his predecessors. 

 *** Mariette identifies the temple which he discovered to the south of the Sphinx with that of Osiris, lord of the Necropolis, which is mentioned in the inscription of the daughter of Kheops. This temple is so placed that it must have been sanded up at the same time as the Sphinx; I believe, therefore, that the restoration effected by Kheops, according to the inscription, was merely a clearing away of the sand from the Sphinx analogous to that accomplished by Khephren. 

 **** These sepulchral chambers are not decorated in the majority of instances. The careful scrutiny to which I subjected them in 1885-86 causes me to believe that many of them must be almost contemporaneous with the Sphinx; that is to say, that they had been hollowed out and occupied a considerable time before the period of the IVth dynasty. 

Kheops chose a site for his Pyramid on the northern edge of the plateau, whence a view of the city of the White Wall, and at the same time of theholy city of Heliopolis, could be obtained. 

[Illustration: 179. Jpg KHÛÎT, THE GREAT PYRAMID OF GÎZEH, THE SPHINX, AND THE TEMPLE OF THE SPHINX]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey. The temple of the Sphinx is in the foreground, covered with sand up to the top of the walls. The second of the little pyramids below the large one is that whose construction is attributed to Honîtsonû, the daughter of Kheops, and with regard to which the dragomans of the Saite period told such strange stories to Herodotus. 

A small mound which commanded this prospect was roughly squared, andincorporated into the masonry; the rest of the site was levelled toreceive the first course of stones. The pyramid when completed had aheight of 476 feet on a base 764 feet square; but the decaying influenceof time has reduced these dimensions to 450 and 730 feet respectively. It possessed, up to the Arab conquest, its polished facing, colouredby age, and so subtily jointed that one would have said that it was asingle slab from top to bottom. * The work of facing the pyramid beganat the top; that of the point was first placed in position, then thecourses were successively covered until the bottom was reached. **

 * The blocks which still exist are of white limestone. Letronne, after having asserted in his youth (Recherches sur Dicuil, p. 107), on the authority of a fragment attributed to Philo of Byzantium, that the facing was formed of polychromatic zones of granite, of green breccia and other different kinds of stone, renounced this view owing to the evidence of Vyse. Perrot and Chipiez have revived it, with some hesitation. 

 ** Herodotus, ii. 125, the word "point" should not be taken literally. The Great Pyramid terminated, like its neighbour, in a platform, of which each side measured nine English feet (six cubits, according to Diodorus Siculus, i. 63), and which has become larger in the process of time, especially since the destruction of the facing. The summit viewed from below must have appeared as a sharp point. "Having regard to the size of the monument, a platform of three metres square would have been a more pointed extremity than that which terminates the obelisks" (Letronne). 

In the interior every device had been employed to conceal the exactposition of the sarcophagus, and to discourage the excavators whomchance or persistent search might have put upon the right track. Theirfirst difficulty would be to discover the entrance under the limestonecasing. It lay hidden almost in the middle of the northern face, onthe level of the eighteenth course, at about forty-five feet above theground. A movable flagstone, working on a stone pivot, disguised it soeffectively that no one except the priests and custodians could havedistinguished this stone from its neighbours. When it was tilted up, ayawning passage was revealed, * three and a half feet in height, with abreadth of four feet. 

 * Strabo expressly states that in his time the subterranean parts of the Great Pyramid were accessible: "It has on its side, at a moderate elevation, a stone which can be moved, [--Greek phrase--]". "When it has been lifted up, a tortuous passage is seen which leads to the tomb. " The meaning of Strabo's statement had not been mastered until Mr. Petrie showed, what we may still see, at the entrance of one of the pyramids of Dahshur, arrangements which bore witness to the existence of a movable stone mounted on a pivot to serve as a door. It was a method of closing of the same kind as that described by Strabo, perhaps after he had seen it himself, or had heard of it from the guides, and like that which Mr. Petrie had reinstated, with much probability, at the entrance of the Great Pyramid. 

[Illustration: 181a. Jpg THE MOVABLE FLAGSTONE AT THE entrance to thegreat pyramid]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Petrie's The Pyramids and Temples of Gîzeh, pl. Xi. 

The passage is an inclined plane, extending partly through the masonryand partly through the solid rock for a distance of 318 feet; it passesthrough an unfinished chamber and ends in a _cul-de-sac_ 59 feetfurther on. The blocks are so nicely adjusted, and the surface so finelypolished, that the joints can be determined only with difficulty. Thecorridor which leads to the sepulchral chamber meets the roof at anangle of 120° to the descending passage, and at a distance of 62 feetfrom the entrance. It ascends for 108 feet to a wide landing-place, where it divides into two branches. One of these penetrates straighttowards the centre, and terminates in a granite chamber with ahigh-pitched roof. This is called, but without reason, the "Chamberof the Queen. " The other passage continues to ascend, but its form andappearance are altered. It now becomes a gallery 148 feet long and some28 feet high, constructed of beautiful Mokattam stone. The lower coursesare placed perpendicularly one on the top of the other; each of theupper courses projects above the one beneath, and the last two, whichsupport the ceiling, are only about 1 foot 8 inches distant from eachother. The small horizontal passage which separates the upper landingfrom the sarcophagus chamber itself, presents features imperfectlyexplained. It is intersected almost in the middle by a kind of depressedhall, whose walls are channelled at equal intervals on each side by fourlongitudinal grooves. The first of these still supports a fine flagstoneof granite which seems to hang 3 feet 7 inches above the ground, and thethree others were probably intended to receive similar slabs. The latteris a kind of rectangular granite box, with a flat roof, 19 feet 10inches high, 1 foot 5 inches deep, and 17 feet broad. No figures orhieroglyphs are to be seen, but merely a mutilated granite sarcophaguswithout a cover. Such were the precautions taken against man: the resultwitnessed to their efficacy, for the pyramid preserved its contentsintact for more than four thousand years. * But a more serious dangerthreatened them in the great weight of the materials above. In orderto prevent the vault from being crushed under the burden of the hundredmetres of limestone which surmounted it, they arranged above it fivelow chambers placed exactly one above the other in order to relieve thesuperincumbent stress. The highest of these was protected by a pointedroof consisting of enormous blocks made to lean against each other atthe top: this ingenious device served to transfer the perpendicularthrust almost entirely to the lateral faces of the blocks. Although anearthquake has to some extent dislocated the mass of masonry, not oneof the stones which encase the chamber of the king has been crushed, not one has yielded by a hair's-breadth, since the day when the workmenfixed it in its place. 

 * Professor Petrie thinks that the pyramids of Gîzeh were rifled, and the mummies which they contained destroyed during the long civil wars which raged in the interval between the VIth and XIIth dynasties. If this be true, it will be necessary to admit that the kings of one of the subsequent dynasties must have restored what had been damaged, for the workmen of the Caliph Al-Mamoun brought from the sepulchral chamber of the "Horizon" "a stone trough, in which lay a stone statue in human form, enclosing a man who had on his breast a golden pectoral, adorned with precious stones, and a sword of inestimable value, and on his head a carbuncle of the size of an egg, brilliant as the sun, having characters which no man can read. " All the Arab authors, whose accounts have been collected by Jomard, relate in general the same story; one can easily recognize from this description the sarcophagus still in its place, a stone case in human shape, and the mummy of Kheops loaded with jewels and arms, like the body of Queen Âhhotpû I. 

[Illustration: 181b. Jpg the interior of the great pyramid]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from pl. Ix. , Petrie, The Pyramids and Temples of Gîzeh. A is the descending passage, B the unfinished chamber, and C the horizontal passage pierced in the rock. D is the narrow passage which provides a communication between chamber B and the landing where the roads divide, and with the passage FG leading to the "Chamber of the Queen. " E is the ascending passage, H the high gallery, I and J the chamber of barriers, K the sepulchral vault, L indicates the chambers for relieving the stress; finally, a, are vents which served for the aeration of the chambers during construction, and through which libations were introduced on certain feast-days in honour of Kheops. The draughtsman has endeavoured to render, by lines of unequal thickness, the varying height of the courses of masonry; the facing, which is now wanting, has been reinstated, and the broken line behind it indicates the visible ending of the courses which now form the northern face of the pyramid. 

[Illustration: 183. Jpg The ascending passage OF THE great pyramid]

 Facsimile by Boudier of a drawing published in the _Description de l'Egypte, Ant. _, vol. V. Pl. Xiii. 2. 

Four barriers in all were thus interposed between the external world andthe vault. *

 * This appears to me to follow from the analogous arrangements which I met with in the pyramid of Saqqâra. Mr. Petrie refuses to recognize here a barrier chamber (cf. The notes which he has appended to the English translation of my _Archéologie égyptienne_, p. 327, note 27, ) but he confesses that the arrangement of the grooves and of the flagstone is still an enigma to him. Perhaps only one of the four intended barriers was inserted in its place--that which still remains. 

The Great Pyramid was called Khûît, the "Horizon" in which Khûfûî had tobe swallowed up, as his father the Sun was engulfed every evening inthe horizon of the west. It contained only the chambers of the deceased, without a word of inscription, and we should not know to whom itbelonged, if the masons, during its construction, had not daubed hereand there in red paint among their private marks the name of the king, and the dates of his reign. *

 * The workmen often drew on the stones the cartouches of the Pharaoh under whose reign they had been taken from the quarry, with the exact date of their extraction; the inscribed blocks of the pyramid of Kheops bear, among others, a date of the year XVI. 

Worship was rendered to this Pharaoh in a temple constructed a little infront of the eastern side of the pyramid, but of which nothing remainsbut a mass of ruins. Pharaoh had no need to wait until he was mummifiedbefore he became a god; religious rites in his honour were establishedon his accession; and many of the individuals who made up his courtattached themselves to his double long before his double had becomedisembodied. They served him faithfully during their life, to reposefinally in his shadow in the little pyramids and mastabas whichclustered around him. Of Dadûfri, his immediate successor, we canprobably say that he reigned eight years;* but Khephren, the next sonwho succeeded to the throne, ** erected temples and a gigantic pyramid, like his father. 

 * According to the arrangement proposed by E. De Rougé for the fragments of the Turin Canon. E. De Rougé reads the name Râ-tot-ef, and proposes to identify it with the Ratoises of the lists of Manetho, which the copyists had erroneously put out of its proper place. This identification has been generally accepted. Analogy compels us to read Dadûfrî, like Khâfrî, Menkaurî, in which case the hypothesis of de Rougé falls to the ground. The worship of Dadûfrî was renewed towards the Saite period, together with that of Kheops and Khephren, according to some tradition which connected his reign with that of these two kings. On the general scheme of the Manethonian history of these times, see Maspero, _Notes sur quelques points de Grammaire et d'Histoire dans le Recueil de Travaux_, vol. Xvii. Pp. 122-138. 

 ** The Westcar Papyrus considers Khâfri to be the son of Khûfû; this falls in with information given us, in this respect, by Diodorus Siculus. The form which this historian assigns--I do not know on what authority--to the name of the king, Khabryies, is nearer the original than the Khephren of Herodotus. 

He placed it some 394 feet to the south-west of that of Kheops; andcalled it Ûîrû, the Great. It is, however, smaller than its neighbour, and attains a height of only 443 feet, but at a distance the differencein height disappears, and many travellers have thus been led toattribute the same elevation to the two. The facing, of which aboutone-fourth exists from the summit downwards, is of nummulite limestone, compact, hard, and more homogeneous than that of the courses, withrusty patches here and there due to masses of a reddish lichen, butgrey elsewhere, and with a low polish which, at a distance, reflects thesun's rays. Thick walls of unwrought stone enclose the monument onthree sides, and there may be seen behind the west front, in an oblongenclosure, a row of stone sheds hastily constructed of limestone andNile mud. 

[Illustration: 187. Jpg THE NAME OF KHEOPS DRAWN IN RED ON SEVERAL BLOCKSOF THE GREAT PYRAMID]

 Facsimile by Faucher-Gudin of the sketch in Lepsius, Denkm. , ii. , 1 c. 

Here the labourers employed on the works came every evening to huddletogether, and the refuse of their occupation still encumbers the ruinsof their dwellings, potsherds, chips of various kinds of hard stonewhich they had been cutting, granite, alabaster, diorite, fragments ofstatues broken in the process of sculpture, and blocks of smooth graniteready for use. The chapel commands a view of the eastern face of thepyramid, and communicated by a paved causeway with the temple of theSphinx, to which it must have borne a striking resemblance. * The plan ofit can be still clearly traced on the ground, and the rubbish cannotbe disturbed without bringing to light portions of statues, vases, andtables of offerings, some of them covered with hieroglyphs, like themace-head of white stone which belonged in its day to Khephren himself. 

 * The connection of the temple of the Sphinx with that of the second pyramid was discovered in December, 1880, during the last diggings of Mariette. I ought to say that the whole of that part of the building into which the passage leads shows traces of having been hastily executed, and at a time long after the construction of the rest of the edifice; it is possible that the present condition of the place does not date back further than the time of the Antonines, when the Sphinx was cleared for the last time in ancient days. 

[Illustration: 188. Jpg ALABASTER STATUE OF KHEPHREN]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey. See on p. 199 the carefully executed drawing of the best preserved among the diorite statues which the Gîzeh Museum now possesses of this Pharaoh. 

The internal arrangements of the pyramid are of the simplest character;they consist of a granite-built passage carefully concealed in the northface, running at first at an angle of 25°, and then horizontally, untilstopped by a granite barrier at a point which indicates a change ofdirection; a second passage, which begins on the outside, at a distanceof some yards in advance of the base of the pyramid, and proceeds, afterpassing through an unfinished chamber, to rejoin the first; finally, achamber hollowed in the rock, but surmounted by a pointed roof of finelimestone slabs. 

[Illustration: 188b. Jpg THE PYRAMID OF KHEPHREN]

The sarcophagus was of granite, and, like that of Kheops, bore neitherthe name of a king nor the representation of a god. The cover was fittedso firmly to the trough that the Arabs could not succeed in detachingit when they rifled the tomb in the year 1200 of our era; they were, therefore, compelled to break through one of the sides with a hammerbefore they could reach the coffin and take from it the mummy of thePharaoh. *

 * The second pyramid was opened to Europeans in 1816 by Belzoni. The exact date of the entrance of the Arabs is given us by an inscription, written in ink, on one of the walls of the sarcophagus chamber: "Mohammed Ahmed Effendi, the quarryman, opened it; Othman Effendi was present, as well as the King Ali Mohammed, at the beginning and at the closing. " The King Ali Mohammed was the son and successor of Saladin. 

Of Khephren's sons, Menkaûrî (Mykerinos), who was his successor, couldscarcely dream of excelling his father and grandfather;* his pyramid, the Supreme--Hirû** --barely attained an elevation of 216 feet, and wasexceeded in height by those which were built at a later date. *** Up toone-fourth of its height it was faced with syenite, and the remainder, up to the summit, with limestone. ****

 * Classical tradition makes Mykerinos the son of Kheops. Egyptian tradition regards him as the son of Khephren, and with this agrees a passage in the Westcar Papyrus, in which a magician prophesies that after Kheops his son (Khâfrî) will yet reign, then the son of the latter (Menkaûrî), then a prince of another family. 

 ** An inscription, unfortunately much mutilated, from the tomb of Tabhûni, gives an account of the construction of the pyramid, and of the transport of the sarcophagus. 

 *** Professor Petrie reckons the exact height of the pyramid at 2564 ±15 or 2580 ± 2 inches; that is to say, 214 or 215 feet in round numbers. 

 **** According to Herodotus, the casing of granite extended to half the height. Diodorus states that it did not go beyond the fifteenth course. Professor Petrie discovered that there were actually sixteen lower courses in red granite. 

For lack of time, doubtless, the dressing of the granite was notcompleted, but the limestone received all the polish it was capable oftaking. The enclosing wall was extended to the north so as to meet, andbecome one with, that of the second pyramid. The temple was connectedwith the plain by a long and almost straight causeway, which ran forthe greater part of its course* upon an embankment raised above theneighbouring ground. This temple was in fair condition in the earlyyears of the eighteenth century, ** and so much of it as has escapedthe ravages of the Mameluks, bears witness to the scrupulous care andrefined art employed in its construction. 

 * This causeway should not be confounded, as is frequently done, with that which may be seen at some distance to the east in the plain: the latter led to limestone quarries in the mountain to the south of the plateau on which the pyramids stand. These quarries were worked in very ancient times. 

 ** Benoit de Maillet visited this temple between 1692 and 1708. "It is almost square in form. There are to be found inside four pillars which doubtless supported a vaulted roof covering the altar of the idol, and one moved around these pillars as in an ambulatory. These stones were cased with granitic marble. I found some pieces still unbroken which had been attached to the stones with mastic. I believe that the exterior as well as the interior of the temple was cased with this marble" (Le Mascrier, Description de l'Egypte, 1735, pp. 223, 224). 

[Illustration: 192. Jpg DIORITE STATUE OF MENRAÛRÏ]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph, by Emil Brugsch-Bey, of a statue preserved in the Museum of Gîzeh. 

Coming from the plain, we first meet with an immense halting-placemeasuring 100 feet by 46 feet, and afterwards enter a large court withan egress on each side: beyond this we can distinguish the ground-planonly of five chambers, the central one, which is in continuation withthe hall, terminating at a distance of some 42 feet from the pyramid, exactly opposite the middle point of the eastern face. The whole massof the building covers a rectangular area 184 feet long by a littleover 177 feet broad. Its walls, like those of the temple of the Sphinx, contained a core of lime-stone 7 feet 10 inches thick, of which theblocks have been so ingeniously put together as to suggest the idea thatthe whole is cut out of the rock. This core was covered with a casingof granite and alabaster, of which the remains preserve no trace ofhieroglyphs or of wall scenes: the founder had caused his name to beinscribed on the statues, which received, on his behalf, the offerings, and also on the northern face of the pyramid, where it was still shownto the curious towards the first century of our era. The arrangement ofthe interior of the pyramid is somewhat complicated, and bears witnessto changes brought unexpectedly about in the course of construction. Theoriginal central mass probably did not exceed 180 feet in breadth at thebase, with a vertical height of 154 feet. It contained a sloping passagecut into the hill itself, and an oblong low-roofed cell devoid ofornament. The main bulk of the work had been already completed, and thecasing not yet begun, when it was decided to alter the proportions ofthe whole. 

[Illustration: 194. Jpg THE COFFIN OF MYKERINOS]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin. The coffin is in the British Museum. The drawing of it was published by Vyse, by Birch-Lenormant, and by Lepsius. Herr Sethe has recently revived an ancient hypothesis, according to which it had been reworked in the Saite period, and he has added to archaeological considerations, up to that time alone brought to bear upon the question, new philological facts. 

Mykerinos was not, it appears, the eldest son and appointed heir ofKhephren; while still a mere prince he was preparing for himself apyramid similar to those which lie near the "Horizon, " when the deathsof his father and brother called him to the throne. What was sufficientfor him as a child, was no longer suitable for him as a Pharaoh; themass of the structure was increased to its present dimensions, and a newinclined passage was effected in it, at the end of which a hallpanelled with granite gave access to a kind of antechamber. * The lattercommunicated by a horizontal corridor with the first vault, which wasdeepened for the occasion; the old entrance, now no longer of use, wasroughly filled up. **

 * Vyse discovered here fragments of a granite sarcophagus, perhaps that of the queen; the legends which Herodotus (ii. 134, 135), and several Greek authors after him, tell concerning this, show clearly that an ancient tradition assumed the existence of a female mummy in the third pyramid alongside of that of the founder Mykerinos. 

 ** Vyse has noticed, in regard to the details of the structure, that the passage now filled up is the only one driven from the outside to the interior; all the others were made from the inside to the outside, and consequently at a period when this passage, being the only means of penetrating into the interior of the monument, had not yet received its present dimensions. 

Mykerinos did not find his last resting-place in this upper level of theinterior of the pyramid: a narrow passage, hidden behind the slabbingof the second chamber, descended into a secret crypt, lined with graniteand covered with a barrel-vaulted roof. The sarcophagus was a singleblock of blue-black basalt, polished, and carved into the form of ahouse, with a façade having three doors and three openings in the formof windows, the whole framed in a rounded moulding and surmounted by aprojecting cornice such as we are accustomed to see on the temples. *

 * It was lost off the coast of Spain in the vessel which was bringing it to England. We have only the drawing remaining which was made at the time of its discovery, and published by Vyse. M. Borchardt has attempted to show that it was reworked under the XXVIth Saite dynasty as well as the wooden coffin of the king. 

The mummy-case of cedar-wood had a man's head, and was shaped tothe form of the human body; it was neither painted nor gilt, but aninscription in two columns, cut on its front, contained the name of thePharaoh, and a prayer on his behalf: "Osiris, King of the two Egypts, Menkaûrî, living eternally, given birth to by heaven, conceived by Nûît, flesh of Sibii, thy mother Nûît has spread herself out over thee inher name of 'Mystery of the Heavens, ' and she has granted that thoushouldest be a god, and that thou shouldest repulse thine enemies, OKing of the two Egypts, Menkaûrî, living eternally. " The Arabs openedthe mummy to see if it contained any precious jewels, but found withinit only some leaves of gold, probably a mask or a pectoral coveredwith hieroglyphs. When Vyse reopened the vault in 1837, the bones layscattered about in confusion on the dusty floor, mingled with bundles ofdirty rags and wrappings of yellowish woollen cloth. 

The worship of the three great pyramid-building kings continued inMemphis down to the time of the Greeks and Romans. Their statues, ingranite, limestone, and alabaster, were preserved also in the buildingsannexed to the temple of Phtah, where visitors could contemplate thesePharaohs as they were when alive. 

[Illustration: 196. Jpg THE GRANITE SARCOPHAGUS OF MYKERINOS]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a chromolithograph in Prisse D'Avennes, _Histoire de l'Art Égyptien_. 

Those of Khephren show us the king at different ages, when young, mature, or already in his decadence. They are in most cases cut out ofa breccia of green diorite, with long irregular yellowish veins, and ofsuch hardness that it is difficult to determine the tool with which theywere worked. The Pharaoh sits squarely on his royal throne, his hands onhis lap, his body firm and upright, and his head thrown back with a lookof self-satisfaction. A sparrow-hawk perched on the back of his seatcovers his head with its wings--an image of the god Horus protectinghis son. The modelling of the torso and legs of the largest of thesestatues, the dignity of its pose, and the animation of its expression, make of it a unique work of art which may be compared with the mostperfect products of antiquity. Even if the cartouches which tell us thename of the king had been hammered away and the insignia of his rankdestroyed, we should still be able to determine the Pharaoh by hisbearing: his whole appearance indicates a man accustomed from hisinfancy to feel himself invested with limitless authority. Mykerinosstands out less impassive and haughty: he does not appear so far removedfrom humanity as his predecessor, and the expression of his countenanceagrees, somewhat singularly, with the account of his piety and goodnature preserved by the legends. The Egyptians of the Theban dynasties, when comparing the two great pyramids with the third, imagined that thedisproportion in their size corresponded with a difference of characterbetween their royal occupants. Accustomed as they were from infancy togigantic structures, they did not experience before "the Horizon" and"the Great" the feeling of wonder and awe which impresses the beholderof to-day. They were not the less apt on this account to estimatethe amount of labour and effort required to complete them from top tobottom. This labour seemed to them to surpass the most excessive corvéewhich a just ruler had a right to impose upon his subjects, and thereputation of Kheops and Khephren suffered much in consequence. Theywere accused of sacrilege, of cruelty, and profligacy. 

[Illustration: 198. Jpg DIORITE STATUE OF KHEPHREN, GÎZEU MUSEUM]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey. It is one of the most complete statues found by Mariette in the temple of the Sphinx. 

It was urged against them that they had arrested the whole life of theirpeople for more than a century for the erection of their tombs. Kheops began by closing the temples and by prohibiting the offering ofsacrifices: he then compelled all the Egyptians to work for him. To somehe assigned the task of dragging the blocks from the quarries of theArabian chain to the Nile: once shipped, the duty was incumbent onothers of transporting them as far as the Libyan chain. A hundredthousand men worked at a time, and were relieved every three months. *

 * Professor Petrie thinks that this detail rests upon an authentic tradition. The inundation, he says, lasts three months, during which the mass of the people have nothing to do; it was during these three months that Kheops raised the 100, 000 men to work at the transport of the stone. The explanation is very ingenious, but it is not supported by the text: Herodotus does not relate that 100, 000 men were called by the corvée for three months every year; but from three months to three months, possibly four times a year, bodies of 100, 000 men relieved each other at the work. The figures which he quotes are well-known legendary numbers, and we must leave the responsibility for them to the popular imagination (Wiedemann, Herodots Zweites Buck, p. 465). 

The period of the people's suffering was divided as follows: ten yearsin making the causeway along which the blocks were dragged--a work, inmy opinion, very little less onerous than that of erecting the pyramid, for its length was five _stadia_, its breadth ten _orgyio_, its greatestheight eight, and it was made of cut stone and covered with figures. *Ten years, therefore, were consumed in constructing this causewayand the subterranean chambers hollowed out in the hill.... As for thepyramid itself, twenty years were employed in the making of it.... Thereare recorded on it, in Egyptian characters, the value of the sums paidin turnips, onions, and garlic, for the labourers attached to the works;if I remember aright, the interpreter who deciphered the inscriptiontold me that the total amounted to sixteen hundred talents of silver. If this were the case, how much must have been expended for iron to maketools, and for provisions and clothing for the workmen?**

 * Diodorus Siculus declares that there were no causeways to be seen in his time. The remains of one of them appear to have been discovered and restored by Vyse. 

 ** Herodotus, ii. 124, 125. The inscriptions which were read upon the pyramids were the graffiti of visitors, some of them carefully executed. The figures which were shown to Herodotus represented, according to the dragoman, the value of the sums expended for vegetables for the workmen; we ought, probably, to regard them as the thousands which, in many of the votive temples, served to mark the quantities of different things presented to the god, that they might be transmitted to the deceased. 

The whole resources of the royal treasure were not sufficient for suchnecessaries: a tradition represents Kheops as at the end of his means, and as selling his daughter to any one that offered, in order to procuremoney. * Another legend, less disrespectful to the royal dignity and topaternal authority, assures us that he repented in his old age, and thathe wrote a sacred book much esteemed by the devout. **

 * Herodotus, ii. 126. She had profited by what she received to build a pyramid for herself in the neighbourhood of the great one--the middle one of the three small pyramids: it would appear in fact, that this pyramid contained the mummy of a daughter of Kheops, Honîtsonû. 

 ** Manetho, Unger's edition, p. 91. The ascription of a book to Kheops, or rather the account of the discovery of a "sacred book" under Kheops, is quite in conformity with Egyptian ideas. The British Museum possesses two books, which were thus discovered under this king; the one, a medical treatise, in a temple at Coptos; the other comes from Tanis. Among the works on alchemy published by M. Berthelot, there are two small treatises ascribed to Sophé, possibly Souphis or Kheops: they are of the same kind as the book mentioned by Manetho, and which Syncellus says was bought in Egypt. 

Khephren had imitated, and thus shared with, him, the hatred ofposterity. The Egyptians avoided naming these wretches: their work wasattributed to a shepherd called Philitis, who in ancient times pasturedhis flocks in the mountain; and even those who did not refuse to themthe glory of having built the most enormous sepulchres in the world, related that they had not the satisfaction of reposing in them aftertheir death. The people, exasperated at the tyranny to which they hadbeen subject, swore that they would tear the bodies of these Pharaohsfrom their tombs, and scatter their fragments to the winds: they hadto be buried in crypts so securely placed that no one has succeeded infinding them. 

Like the two older pyramids, "the Supreme" had its anecdotal history, in which the Egyptians gave free rein to their imagination. We knowthat its plan had been rearranged in the course of building, that itcontained two sepulchral chambers, two sarcophagi, and two mummies:these modifications, it was said, belonged to two distinct reigns; forMykerinos had left his tomb unfinished, and a woman had finished it ata later date--according to some, Nitokris, the last queen of the VIthdynasty; according to others, Rhodopis, the Ionian who was the mistressof Psammetichus I. Or of Ainasis. *

 * Zoega had already recognized that the Rhodopis of the Greeks was no other than the Nitokris of Manetho, and his opinion was adopted and developed by Bunsen. The legend of Rhodopis was completed by the additional ascription to the ancient Egyptian queen of the character of a courtesan: this repugnant trait seems to have been borrowed from the same class of legends as that which concerned itself with the daughter of Kheops and her pyramid. The narrative thus developed was in a similar manner confounded with another popular story, in which occurs the episode of the slipper, so well known from the tale of Cinderella. Herodotus connects Rhodopis with his Amasis, Ælian with King Psammetichus of the XXVIth dynasty. 

The beauty and richness of the granite casing dazzled all eyes, andinduced many visitors to prefer the least of the pyramids to its twoimposing sisters; its comparatively small size is excused on the groundthat its founder had returned to that moderation and piety whichought to characterize a good king. "The actions of his father were notpleasing to him; he reopened the temples and sent the people, reducedto the extreme of misery, back to their religious observances and theiroccupations; finally, he administered justice more equitably than allother kings. On this head he is praised above those who have at any timereigned in Egypt: for not only did he administer good justice, but ifany one complained of his decision he gratified him with some present inorder to appease his wrath. " There was one point, however, which excitedthe anxiety of many in a country where the mystic virtue of numberswas an article of faith: in order that the laws of celestial arithmeticshould be observed in the construction of the pyramids, it was necessarythat three of them should be of the same size. The anomaly of a thirdpyramid out of proportion to the two others could be explained only onthe hypothesis that Mykerinos, having broken with paternal usage, had ignorantly infringed a decree of destiny--a deed for which he wasmercilessly punished. He first lost his only daughter; a short timeafter he learned from an oracle that he had only six more years toremain upon the earth. He enclosed the corpse of his child in a hollowwooden heifer, which he sent to Sais, where it was honoured with divineworship. *

 * Herodotus, ii. 129-133. The manner in which Herodotus describes the cow which was shown to him in the temple of Sais, proves that he was dealing with Nit, in animal form, Mihî-ûîrît, the great celestial heifer who had given birth to the Sun. How the people could have attached to this statue the legend of a daughter of Mykerinos is now difficult to understand. The idea of a mummy or a corpse shut up in a statue, or in a coffin, was familiar to the Egyptians: two of the queens interred at Déir el-Baharî, Nofritari Ahhotpû II. , were found hidden in the centre of immense Osirian figures of wood, covered with stuccoed fabric. Egyptian tradition supposed that the bodies of the gods rested upon the earth. The cow Mîhî-ûîrît might, therefore, be bodily enclosed in a sarcophagus in the form of a heifer, just as the mummified gazelle of Déîr el-Baharî is enclosed in a sarcophagus of gazelle form; it is even possible that the statue shown to Herodotus really contained what was thought to be a mummy of the goddess. 

"He then communicated his reproaches to the god, complaining that hisfather and his uncle, after having closed the temples, forgotten thegods and oppressed mankind, had enjoyed a long life, while he, devout ashe was, was so soon about to perish. The oracle answered that it was forthis very reason that his days were shortened, for he had not done thatwhich he ought to have done. Egypt had to suffer for a hundred and fiftyyears, and the two kings his predecessors had known this, while he hadnot. On receiving this answer, Mykerinos, feeling himself condemned, manufactured a number of lamps, lit them every evening at dusk, began todrink and to lead a life of jollity, without ceasing for a moment nightand day, wandering by the lakes and in the woods wherever he thought tofind an occasion of pleasure. He had planned this in order to convincethe oracle of having spoken falsely, and to live twelve years, thenights counting as so many days. " Legend places after him Asychis orSasychis, a later builder of pyramids, but of a different kind. Thelatter preferred brick as a building material, except in one place, where he introduced a stone bearing the following inscription: "Do notdespise me on account of the stone pyramids: I surpass them as much asZeus the other gods. Because, a pole being plunged into a lake and theclay which stuck to it being collected, the brick out of which I wasconstructed was moulded from it. " The virtues of Asychis and Mykerinoshelped to counteract the bad impression which Kheops and Khephren hadleft behind them. Among the five legislators of Egypt Asychis stood outas one of the best. He regulated, to minute details, the ceremonies ofworship. He invented geometry and the art of observing the heavens. *

 * Diodorus, i. 94. It seems probable that Diodorus had received knowledge from some Alexandrian writer, now lost, of traditions concerning the legislative acts of Shashanqû I. Of the XXIInd dynasty; but the name of the king, commonly written Sesonkhis, had been corrupted by the dragoman into Sasykhis. 

He put forth a law on lending, in which he authorized the borrower topledge in forfeit the mummy of his father, while the creditor had theright of treating as his own the tomb of the debtor: so that if thedebt was not met, the latter could not obtain a last resting-place forhimself or his family either in his paternal or any other tomb. 

History knows nothing either of this judicious sovereign or of manyother Pharaohs of the same type, which the dragomans of the Greek periodassiduously enforced upon the respectful attention of travellers. Itmerely affirms that the example given by Kheops, Khephren, and Mykerinoswere by no means lost in later times. From the beginning of the IVthto the end of the XIVth dynasty--during more than fifteen hundredyears--the construction of pyramids was a common State affair, providedfor by the administration, secured by special services. Not only didthe Pharaohs build them for themselves, but the princes and princessesbelonging to the family of the Pharaohs constructed theirs, each oneaccording to his resources; three of these secondary mausoleums areranged opposite the eastern side of "the Horizon, " three opposite thesouthern face of "the Supreme, " and everywhere else--near Abousir, atSaqqâra, at Dahshur or in the Fayûm--the majority of the royal pyramidsattracted around them a more or less numerous cortège of pyramids ofprincely foundation often debased in shape and faulty in proportion. Thematerials for them were brought from the Arabian chain. A spur of thelatter, projecting in a straight line towards the Nile, as far asthe village of Troiû, is nothing but a mass of the finest and whitestlimestone. The Egyptians had quarries here from the earliest times. Bycutting off the stone in every direction, they lowered the point of thisspur for a depth of some hundreds of metres. The appearance of thesequarries is almost as astonishing as that of the monuments made out oftheir material. The extraction of the stone was carried on with a skilland regularity which denoted ages of experience. The tunnels were somade as to exhaust the finest and whitest seams without waste, and thechambers were of an enormous extent; the walls were dressed, the pillarsand roofs neatly finished, the passages and doorways made of a regularwidth, so that the whole presented more the appearance of a subterraneantemple than of a place for the extraction of building materials. *

 * The description of the quarries of Turah, as they were at the beginning of the century, was somewhat briefly given by Jomard, afterwards more completely by Perring. During the last thirty years the Cairo masons have destroyed the greater part of the ancient remains formerly existing in this district, and have completely changed the appearance of the place. 

Hastily written graffiti, in red and black ink, preserve the names ofworkmen, overseers, and engineers, who had laboured here at certaindates, calculations of pay or rations, diagrams of interesting details, as well as capitals and shafts of columns, which were shaped out on thespot to reduce their weight for transport. Here and there true officialstelas are to be found set apart in a suitable place, recording thatafter a long interruption such or such an illustrious sovereign hadresumed the excavations, and opened fresh chambers. Alabaster was metwith not far from here in the Wady Gerrauî. The Pharaohs of very earlytimes established a regular colony here, in the very middle of thedesert, to cut the material into small blocks for transport: a stronglybuilt dam, thrown across the valley, served to store up the winter andspring rains, and formed a pond whence the workers could always supplythemselves with water. Kheops and his successors drew their alabasterfrom Hâtnûbû, in the neighbourhood of Hermopolis, their granite fromSyene, their diorite and other hard rocks, the favourite material fortheir sarcophagi, from the volcanic valleys which separate the Nile fromthe Red Sea--especially from the Wady Hammamât. As these were the onlymaterials of which the quantity required could not be determined inadvance, and which had to be brought from a distance, every king wasaccustomed to send the principal persons of his court to the quarriesof Upper Egypt, and the rapidity with which they brought back the stoneconstituted a high claim on the favour of their master. If the buildingwas to be of brick, the bricks were made on the spot, in the plainat the foot of the hills. If it was to be a limestone structure, theneighbouring parts of the plateau furnished the rough material inabundance. For the construction of chambers and for casing walls, therose granite of Elephantine and the limestone of Troiu were commonlyemployed, but they were spared the labour of procuring these speciallyfor the occasion. The city of the White Wall had always at hand a supplyof them in its stores, and they might be drawn upon freely for publicbuildings, and consequently for the royal tomb. The blocks chosen fromthis reserve, and conveyed in boats close under the mountain-side, weredrawn up slightly inclined causeways by oxen to the place selected bythe architect. 

The internal arrangements, the length of the passages and the heightof the pyramids, varied much: the least of them had a height of somethirty-three feet merely. As it is difficult to determine the motiveswhich influenced the Pharaohs in building them of different sizes, somewriters have thought that the mass of each increased in proportion tothe time bestowed upon its construction--that is to say, to the lengthof each reign. As soon as a prince mounted the throne, he would probablybegin by roughly sketching out a pyramid sufficiently capacious tocontain the essential elements of the tomb; he would then, from year toyear, have added fresh layers to the original nucleus, until the day ofhis death put an end for ever to the growth of the monument. *

 * This was the theory formulated by Lepsius, after the researches made by himself, and the work done by Erbkam, and the majority of Egyptologists adopted it, and still maintain it. It was vigorously attacked by Perrot-Chipiez and by Petrie; it was afterwards revived, with amendments, by Borchardt whose conclusions have been accepted by Ed. Meyer. The examinations which I have had the opportunity of bestowing on the pyramids of Saqqâra, Abusir, Dahshur, Rîgah, and Lisht have shown me that the theory is not applicable to any of these monuments. 

This hypothesis is not borne out by facts: such a small pyramid as thatof Saqqâra belonged to a Pharaoh who reigned thirty years, while"the Horizon" of Gîzeh is the work of Kheops, whose rule lasted onlytwenty-three years. 

[Illustration: 208. Jpg MAP OLEANDER LOWER]

The plan of each pyramid was arranged once for all by the architect, according to the instructions he had received, and the resources at hiscommand. Once set on foot, the work was continued until its completion, without addition or diminution, unless something unforeseen occurred. The pyramids, like the mastabas, ought to present their faces to thefour cardinal points; but owing to unskilfulness or negligence, themajority of them are not very accurately orientated, and several of themvary sensibly from the true north. The great pyramid of Saqqâra does notdescribe a perfect square at its base, but is an oblong rectangle, withits longest sides east and west; it is stepped--that is to say, the sixsloping sided cubes of which it is composed are placed upon one anotherso as to form a series of treads and risers, the former being about twoyards wide and the latter of unequal heights. The highest of the stonepyramids of Dahshur makes at its lower part an angle of 54° 41' with thehorizon, but at half its height the angle becomes suddenly more acuteand is reduced to 42° 59'. It reminds one of a mastaba with a sort ofhuge attic on the top. Each of these monuments had its enclosing wall, its chapel and its college of priests, who performed there for agessacred rites in honour of the deceased prince, while its property inmortmain was administered by the chief of the "priests of the double. "Each one received a name, such as "the Fresh, " "the Beautiful, " "theDivine in its places, " which conferred upon it a personality and, as itwere, a living soul. These pyramids formed to the west of the White Walla long serrated line whose extremities were lost towards the south andnorth in the distant horizon: Pharaoh could see them from the terracesof his palace, from the gardens of his villa, and from every point inthe plain in which he might reside between Heliopolis and Mêdûm--as aconstant reminder of the lot which awaited him in spite of his divineorigin. The people, awed and inspired by the number of them, and by thevariety of their form and appearance, were accustomed to tell storiesof them to one another, in which the supernatural played a predominantpart. They were able to estimate within a few ounces the heaps of goldand silver, the jewels and precious stones, which adorned the royalmummies or rilled the sepulchral chambers: they were acquainted withevery precaution taken by the architects to ensure the safety of allthese riches from robbers, and were convinced that magic had added tosuch safeguards the more effective protection of talismans and genii. There was no pyramid so insignificant that it had not its mysteriousprotectors, associated with some amulet--in most cases with a statue, animated by the double of the founder. The Arabs of to-day are stillwell acquainted with these protectors, and possess a traditional respectfor them. The great pyramid concealed a black and white image, seatedon a throne and invested with the kingly sceptre. He who looked upon thestatue "heard a terrible noise proceeding from it which almost causedhis heart to stop beating, and he who had heard this noise would die. "An image of rose-coloured granite watched over the pyramid of Khephren, standing upright, a sceptre in its hand and the urous on its brow, "which serpent threw himself upon him who approached it, coileditself around his neck, and killed him. " A sorcerer had invested theseprotectors of the ancient Pharaohs with their powers, but anotherequally potent magician could elude their vigilance, paralyze theirenergies, if not for ever, at least for a sufficient length of timeto ferret out the treasure and rifle the mummy. The cupidity of thefellahîn, highly inflamed by the stories which they were accustomed tohear, gained the mastery over their terror, and emboldened them to risktheir lives in these well-guarded tombs. How many pyramids had beenalready rifled at the beginning of the second Theban empire!

The IVth dynasty became extinct in the person of Shop-siskaf, thesuccessor and probably the son of Mykerinos. * The learned of the time ofRamses II. Regarded the family which replaced this dynasty as merelya secondary branch of the line of Snofrûi, raised to power by thecapricious laws which settled hereditary questions. **

 * The series of kings beginning with Mykerinos was drawn up for the first time in an accurate manner by E. De Rougé, _recherches sur les Monu-mails qu'on peut attribuer aux six premières dynasties_, pp. 66-84, M. De Rouge's results have been since adopted by all Egyptologists. The table of the IVTH dynasty, restored as far as possible with the approximate dates, is subjoined:--

[Illustration: 211. Jpg TABLE OF THE IVTH DYNASTY]

 ** The fragments of the royal Turin Papyrus exhibit, in fact, no separation between the kings which Manetho attributes to the IVth dynasty and those which he ascribes to the Vth, which seems to show that the Egyptian annalist considered them all as belonging to one and the same family of Pharaohs. 

Nothing on the contemporary monuments, it is true, gives indication of aviolent change attended by civil war, or resulting from a revolution atcourt: the construction and decoration of the tombs continued withoutinterruption and without indication of haste, the sons-in-law ofShopsiskaf and of Mykerinos, their daughters and grandchildren, possessunder the new kings, the same favour, the same property, the sameprivileges, which they had enjoyed previously. It was stated, however, in the time of the Ptolemies, that the Vth dynasty had no connectionwith the IVth; it was regarded at Memphis as an intruder, and it wasasserted that it came from Elephantine. * The tradition was a very oldone, and its influence is betrayed in a popular story, which was currentat Thebes in the first years of the New Empire. Kheops, while in searchof the mysterious books of Thot in order to transcribe from them thetext for his sepulchral chamber, ** had asked the magician Didi to begood enough to procure them for him; but the latter refused the periloustask imposed upon him. 

 * Such is the tradition accepted by Manetho. Lepsius thinks that the copyists of Manetho were under some distracting influence, which made them transfer the record of the origin of the VIth dynasty to the Vth: it must have been the VIth dynasty which took its origin from Elephantine. I think the safest plan is to respect the text of Manetho until we know more, and to admit that he knew of a tradition ascribing the origin of the Vth dynasty to Elephantine. 

 ** The Great Pyramid is mute, but we find in other pyramids inscriptions of some hundreds of lines. The author of the story, who knew how much certain kings of the VIth dynasty had laboured to have extracts of the sacred books engraved within their tombs, fancied, no doubt, that his Kheops had done the like, but had not succeeded in procuring the texts in question, probably on account of the impiety ascribed to him by the legends. It was one of the methods of explaining the absence of any religious or funereal inscription in the Great Pyramid. 

"'Sire, my lord, it is not I who shall bring them to thee. ' His Majestyasks: 'Who, then, will bring them to me?' Didi replies, 'It is theeldest of the three children who are in the womb of Rudîtdidît who willbring them to thee. ' His Majesty says: 'By the love of Râ! what is thisthat thou tellest me; and who is she, this Rudîtdidît?' Didi says tohim: 'She is the wife of a priest of Râ, lord of Sakhîbû. She carries inher womb three children of Râ, lord of Sakhîbû, and the god has promisedto her that they shall fulfil this beneficent office in this wholeearth, * and that the eldest shall be the high priest at Heliopolis. " HisMajesty, his heart was troubled at it, but Didi says to him: "'What arethese thoughts, sire, my lord? Is it because of these three children?Then I say to thee: 'Thy son, his son, then one of these. '"** The goodKing Kheops doubtless tried to lay his hands upon this threatening trioat the moment of their birth; but Râ had anticipated this, and saved hisoffspring. When the time for their birth drew near, the Majesty of Râ, lord of Sakhîbû, gave orders to Isis, Nephthys, Maskhonît, Hiquît, ***and Khnûmû: "Come, make haste and run to deliver Budîtdidît of thesethree children which she carries in her womb to fulfil that beneficentoffice in this whole earth, and they will build you temples, they willfurnish your altars with offerings, they will supply your tables withlibations, and they will increase your mortmain possessions. "

 * This kind of circumlocution is employed on several occasions in the old texts to designate royalty. It was contrary to etiquette to mention directly, in common speech, the Pharaoh, or anything belonging to his functions or his family. Cf. Pp. 28, 29 of this History. 

 ** This phrase is couched in oracular form, as befitting the reply of a magician. It appears to have been intended to reassure the king in affirming that the advent of the three sons of Râ would not be immediate: his son, then a son of this son, would succeed him before destiny would be accomplished, and one of these divine children succeed to the throne in his turn. The author of the story took no notice of Dadufrî or Shopsiskaf, of whose reigns little was known in his time. 

 *** Hiquît as the frog-goddess, or with a frog's head, was one of the mid-wives who is present at the birth of the sun every morning. Her presence is, therefore, natural in the case of the spouse about to give birth to royal sons of the sun. 

The goddesses disguised themselves as dancers and itinerant musicians:Khnûmû assumed the character of servant to this band of nautch-girls andfilled the bag with provisions, and they all then proceeded togetherto knock at the door of the house in which Budîtdidît was awaiting herdelivery. The earthly husband Baûsîr, unconscious of the honour that thegods had in store for him, introduced them to the presence of his wife, and immediately three male children were brought into the world oneafter the other. Isis named them, Maskhonît predicted for them theirroyal fortune, while Khnûmû. Infused into their limbs vigour and health;the eldest was called Ûsirkaf, the second Sahûrî, the third Kakiû. Kaûsîr was anxious to discharge his obligation to these unknown persons, and proposed to do so in wheat, as if they were ordinary mortals: theyhad accepted it without compunction, and were already on their way tothe firmament, when Isis recalled them to a sense of their dignity, andcommanded them to store the honorarium bestowed upon them in one ofthe chambers of the house, where henceforth prodigies of the strangestcharacter never ceased to manifest themselves. Every time one enteredthe place a murmur was heard of singing, music, and dancing, whileacclamations such as those with which kings are wont to be received gavesure presage of the destiny which awaited the newly born. The manuscriptis mutilated, and we do not know how the prediction was fulfilled. If wemay trust the romance, the three first princes of the Vth dynasty werebrothers, and of priestly descent, but our experience of similar storiesdoes not encourage us to take this one very seriously: did not suchtales affirm that Kheops and Khephren were brothers also?

The Vth dynasty manifested itself in every respect as the sequel andcomplement of the IVth. * It reckons nine Pharaohs after the three whichtradition made sons of the god Râ himself and of Rudîtdidîfc. Theyreigned for a century and a half; the majority of them have leftmonuments, and the last four, at least, Ûsirnirî Ânû, Menkaû-horû, Dadkerî Assi, and Unas, appear to have ruled gloriously. They all builtpyramids, ** they repaired temples and founded cities. ***

 * A list is appended of the known Pharaohs of the Vth dynasty, restored as far as can be, with the closest approximate dates of their reigns:--

[Illustration: 215. Jpg TABLE OF PHARAOHS OF THE VTH DYNASTY]

 ** It is pretty generally admitted, but without convincing proofs, that the pyramids of Abûsîr served as tombs for the Pharaohs in the Vth dynasty, one for Sahûrî, another to Ûsirnirî Anû, although Wiedemann considers that the truncated pyramid of Dahshur was the tomb of this king. I am inclined to think that one of the pyramids of Saqqâra was constructed by Assi; the pyramid of Unas was opened in 1881, and the results made known by Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie_, vol. I. P. 150, et seq. , and _Recueil de Travaux_, vols. Iv. And v. The names of the majority of the pyramids are known to us from the monuments: that of Ûsirkaf was called "Ûâbisîtu"; that of Sahûrî, "Khâbi"; that of Nofiririkerî, "Bi"; that of Anû, "Min-isûîtû"; that of Menkaûhorû, "Nûtirisûîtû"; that of Assi, "Nutir"; that of Unas, "Nofir-isûîtû. "

 *** Pa Sahûrî, near Esneh, for instance, was built by Sahûrî. The modern name of the village of Sahoura still preserves, on the same spot, without the inhabitants suspecting it, the name of the ancient Pharaoh. 

[Illustration: 210. Jpg STATUE IN ROSE-COLOURED GRANITE OF THE PHARAOHANÛ, IN THE GÎZEH MUSEUM]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey. 

The Bedouin of the Sinaitic peninsula gave them much to do. Sahûrîbrought these nomads to reason, and perpetuated the memory of hisvictories by a stele, engraved on the face of one of the rocks in theWady Magharah; Anû obtained some successes over them, and Assi repulsedthem in the fourth year of his reign. On the whole, they maintainedEgypt in the position of prosperity and splendour to which theirpredecessors had raised it. 

In one respect they even increased it. Egypt was not so far isolatedfrom the rest of the world as to prevent her inhabitants from knowing, either by personal contact or by hearsay, at least some of the peoplesdwelling outside Africa, to the north and east. 

[Illustration: 217. Jpg TRIUMPHAL BAS-RELIEF OF PHARAOH SAHÛRÛ, ON THEROCKS OF WADY MAGHARAH. ]

 Drawn by Boudier, from the water-colour published in Lepsius, _Denhn. _, i. Pl. 8, No. 2

They knew that beyond the "Very Green, " almost at the foot of themountains behind which the sun travelled during the night, stretchedfertile islands or countries and nations without number, some barbarousor semi-barbarous, others as civilized as they were themselves. Theycared but little by what names they were known, but called them all bya common epithet, the Peoples beyond the Seas, "Haûi-nîbû. " If theytravelled in person to collect the riches which were offered to them bythese peoples in exchange for the products of the Nile, the Egyptianscould not have been the unadventurous and home-loving people we haveimagined. They willingly left their own towns in pursuit of fortuneor adventure, and the sea did not inspire them with fear or religioushorror. The ships which they launched upon it were built on the model ofthe Nile boats, and only differed from the latter in details which wouldnow pass unnoticed. The hull, which was built on a curved keel, wasnarrow, had a sharp stem and stern, was decked from end to end, lowforward and much raised aft, and had a long deck cabin: the steeringapparatus consisted of one or two large stout oars, each supported ona forked post and managed by a steersman. It had one mast, sometimescomposed of a single tree, sometimes formed of a group of smaller mastsplanted at a slight distance from each other, but united at the top bystrong ligatures and strengthened at intervals by crosspieces which madeit look like a ladder; its single sail was bent sometimes to one yard, sometimes to two; while its complement consisted of some fifty men, oarsmen, sailors, pilots, and passengers. Such were the vessels forcruising or pleasure; the merchant ships resembled them, but they wereof heavier build, of greater tonnage, and had a higher freeboard. Theyhad no hold; the merchandise had to remain piled up on deck, leavingonly just enough room for the working of the vessel. They neverthelesssucceeded in making lengthy voyages, and in transporting troops into theenemy's territory from the mouths of the Nile to the southern coast ofSyria. Inveterate prejudice alone could prevent us from admitting thatthe Egyptians of the Memphite period went to the ports of Asia and tothe Haûi-nîbû by sea. Some, at all events, of the wood required forbuilding* and for joiner's work of a civil or funereal character, suchas pine, cypress or cedar, was brought from the forests of Lebanon orthose of Amanus. 

 * Cedar-wood must have been continually imported into Egypt. It is mentioned in the Pyramid texts; in the tomb of Ti, and in the other tombs of Saqqâra or Gîzeh, workmen are represented making furniture of it. Chips of wood from the coffins of the VIth dynasty, detached in ancient times and found in several mastabas at Saqqâra, have been pronounced to be, some cedar of Lebanon, others a species of pine which still grows in Cilicia and in the north of Syria. 

[Illustration: 219. Jpg PASSENGER VESSEL UNDER SAIL]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch- Bey; the picture is taken from one of the walls of the tomb of Api, discovered at Saqqâra, and now preserved in the Gîzeh Museum (VIth dynasty). The man standing at the bow is the fore-pilot, whose duty it is to take soundings of the channel, and to indicate the direction of the vessel to the pilot aft, who works the rudder-oars. 

Beads of amber are still found near Abydos in the tombs of the oldestnecropolis, and we may well ask how many hands they had passed throughbefore reaching the banks of the Nile from the shores of the Baltic. *The tin used to alloy copper for making bronze, ** and perhaps bronzeitself, entered doubtless by the same route as the amber. 

 * I have picked up in the tombs of the VIth dynasty at Kom- es-Sultan, and in the part of the necropolis of Abydos containing the tombs of the XIth and XIIth dynasties, a number of amber beads, most of which were very small. Mariette, who had found some on the same site, and who had placed them in the Boulaq Museum, mistook them for corroded yellow or brown glass beads. The electric properties which they still possess have established their identity. 

 ** I may recall the fact that the analysis of some objects discovered at Mèdûm by Professor Petrie proved that they were made of bronze, and contained 9. L per cent, of tin; the Egyptians, therefore, used bronze from the IVth dynasty downwards, side by side with pure copper. 

The tribes of unknown race who then peopled the coasts of the Ægean Sea, were amongst the latest to receive these metals, and they transmittedthem either directly to the Egyptians or Asiatic intermediaries, whocarried them to the Nile Valley. Asia Minor had, moreover, its treasuresof metal as well as those of wood--copper, lead, and iron, whichcertain tribes of miners and smiths, had worked from the earliest times. Caravans plied between Egypt and the lands of Chaldæan civilization, crossing Syria and Mesopotamia, perhaps even by the shortest desertroute, as far as Ur and Babylon. The communications between nation andnation were frequent from this time forward, and very productive, buttheir existence and importance are matters of inference, as we have nodirect evidence of them. The relations with these nations continued tobe pacific, and, with the exception of Sinai, Pharaoh had no desire toleave the Nile Valley and take long journeys to pillage or subjugatecountries from whence came so much treasure. The desert and the seawhich protected Egypt on the north and east from Asiatic cupidity, protected Asia with equal security from the greed of Egypt. 

On the other hand, towards the south, the Nile afforded an easy meansof access to those who wished to penetrate into the heart of Africa. TheEgyptians had, at the outset, possessed only the northern extremity ofthe valley, from the sea to the narrow pass of Silsileh; they had thenadvanced as far as the first cataract, and Syene for some time markedthe extreme limit of their empire. At what period did they cross thissecond frontier and resume their march southwards, as if again to seekthe cradle of their race? They had approached nearer and nearer to thegreat bend described by the river near the present village of Korosko, *but the territory thus conquered had, under the Vth dynasty, not as yeteither name or separate organization: it was a dependency of the fiefdomof Elephantine, and was under the immediate authority of its princes. 

 * This appears to follow from a passage in the inscription of Uni. This minister was raising troops and exacting wood for building among the desert tribes whose territories adjoined at this part of the valley: the manner in which the requisitions were effected shows that it was not a question of a new exaction, but a familiar operation, and consequently that the peoples mentioned had been under regular treaty obligations to the Egyptians, at least for some time previously. 

Those natives who dwelt on the banks of the river appear to have offeredbut a slight resistance to the invaders: the desert tribes proved moredifficult to conquer. The Nile divided them into two distinct bodies. Onthe right side, the confederation of the Uaûaiu spread in the directionof the Bed Sea, from the district around Ombos to the neighbourhood ofKorosko, in the valleys now occupied by the Ababdehs: it was bounded onthe south by the Mâzaiû tribes, from whom our contemporary Mâazeh haveprobably descended. The Amamiu were settled on the left bank oppositeto the Mâzaiû, and the country of Iritît lay facing the territory of theUaûaiu. None of these barbarous peoples were subject to Egypt, butthey all acknowledged its suzerainty, --a somewhat dubious one, indeed, analogous to that exercised over their descendants by the Khedives ofto-day. The desert does not furnish them with the means of subsistence:the scanty pasturages of their wadys support a few flocks of sheep andasses, and still fewer oxen, but the patches of cultivation which theyattempt in the neighbourhood of springs, yield only a poor produce ofvegetables or dourah. They would literally die of starvation were theynot able to have access to the banks of the Nile for provisions. Onthe other hand, it is a great temptation to them to fall unawares onvillages or isolated habitations on the outskirts of the fertile lands, and to carry off cattle, grain, and male and female slaves; they wouldalmost always have time to reach the mountains again with their spoiland to protect themselves there from pursuit, before even the newsof the attack could reach the nearest police station. Under treatiesconcluded with the authorities of the country, they are permitted todescend into the plain in order to exchange peaceably for corn anddourah, the acacia-wood of their forests, the charcoal that they make, gums, game, skins of animals, and the gold and precious stones whichthey get from their mines: they agree in return to refrain from anyact of plunder, and to constitute a desert police, provided that theyreceive a regular pay. 

[Illustration: 223. Jpg MAP OF NUBIA IN THE TIME OF THE MEMPHITE EMPIRE]

The same arrangement existed in ancient times. The tribes hiredthemselves out to Pharaoh. They brought him beams of "sont" at the firstdemand, when he was in need of materials to build a fleet beyond thefirst cataract. They provided him with bands of men ready armed, whena campaign against the Libyans or the Asiatic tribes forced him to seekrecruits for his armies: the Mâzaiû entered the Egyptian service in suchnumbers, that their name served to designate the soldiery in general, just as in Cairo porters and night watchmen are all called Berberines. Among these people respect for their oath of fealty yielded sometimesto their natural disposition, and they allowed themselves to be carriedaway to plunder the principalities which they had agreed to defend: thecolonists in Nubia were often obliged to complain of their exactions. When these exceeded all limits, and it became impossible to wink attheir misdoings any longer, light-armed troops were sent againstthem, who quickly brought them to reason. As at Sinai, these were easyvictories. They recovered in one expedition what the Ûaûaiû hadstolen in ten, both in flocks and fellahîn, and the successful generalperpetuated the memory of his exploits by inscribing, as he returned, the name of Pharaoh on some rock at Syene or Elephantine: we may surmisethat it was after this fashion that Usirkaf, Nofiririkerî, and Unascarried on the wars in Nubia. Their armies probably never went beyondthe second cataract, if they even reached so far: further south thecountry was only known by the accounts of the natives or by the fewmerchants who had made their way into it. Beyond the Mâzaiû, but stillbetween the Nile and the Red Sea, lay the country of Pûanît, rich inivory, ebony, gold, metals, gums, and sweet-smelling resins. When someEgyptian, bolder than his fellows, ventured to travel thither, he couldchoose one of several routes for approaching it by land or sea. Thenavigation of the Red Sea was, indeed, far more frequent than is usuallybelieved, and the same kind of vessels in which the Egyptians coastedalong the Mediterranean, conveyed them, by following the coast ofAfrica, as far as the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. They preferred, however, to reach it by land, and they returned with caravans of heavily ladenasses and slaves. 

[Illustration: 225. Jpg HEAD OF AN INHABITANT OF PÛANÎT]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Professor Petrie. This head was taken from the bas-relief at Karnak, on which the Pharaoh Harmhabi of the XVIIIth dynasty recorded his victories over the peoples of the south of Egypt. 

All that lay beyond Pûanît was held to be a fabulous region, a kindof intermediate boundary land between the world of men and that of thegods, the "Island of the Double, " "Land of the Shades, " where the livingcame into close contact with the souls of the departed. It was inhabitedby the Dangas, tribes of half-savage dwarfs, whose grotesque faces andwild gestures reminded the Egyptians of the god Bîsû (Bes). The chancesof war or trade brought some of them from time to time to Pûanît, oramong the Amamiû: the merchant who succeeded in acquiring and bringingthem to Egypt had his fortune made. Pharaoh valued the Dangas highly, and was anxious to have some of them at any price among the dwarfs withwhom he loved to be surrounded; none knew better than they the danceof the god--that to which Bîsû unrestrainedly gave way in his merrymoments. Towards the end of his reign Assi procured one which a certainBiûrdidi had purchased in Pûanît. Was this the first which had made itsappearance at court, or had others preceded it in the good graces ofthe Pharaohs? His wildness and activity, and the extraordinary positionswhich he assumed, made a lively impression upon the courtiers of thetime, and nearly a century later there were still reminiscences of him. 

A great official born in the time of Shopsiskaf, and living on to agreat age into the reign of Nofiririkerî, is described on his tomb asthe "Scribe of the House of Books. " This simple designation, occurringincidentally among two higher titles, would have been sufficientin itself to indicate the extraordinary development which Egyptiancivilization had attained at this time. The "House of Books" wasdoubtless, in the first place, a depository of official documents, suchas the registers of the survey and taxes, the correspondence betweenthe court and the provincial governors or feudal lords, deeds of giftto temples or individuals, and all kinds of papers required in theadministration of the State. It contained I also, however, literaryworks, many of which even at this early date were already old, prayersdrawn up during the first dynasties, devout poetry belonging to timesprior to the misty personage called Mini--hymns to the gods of light, formulas of black magic, collections of mystical works, such as the"Book of the Dead"* and the "Ritual of the Tomb;" scientific treatiseson medicine, geometry, mathematics, and astronomy; manuals of practicalmorals; and lastly, romances, or those marvellous stories which precededthe romance among Oriental peoples. 

 * The "Book of the Dead" must have existed from prehistoric times, certain chapters excepted, whose relatively modern origin has been indicated by those who ascribe the editing of the work to the time of the first human dynasties. 

All these, if we had them, would form "a library much more precious tous than that of Alexandria;" unfortunately up to the present we havebeen able to collect only insignificant remains of such rich stores. Inthe tombs have been found here and there fragments of popular songs. The pyramids have furnished almost intact a ritual of the dead whichis distinguished by its verbosity, its numerous pious platitudes, andobscure allusions to things of the other world; but, among all thistrash, are certain portions full of movement and savage vigour, in whichpoetic glow and religious emotion reveal their presence in a mass ofmythological phraseology. In the Berlin Papyrus we may read the end ofa philosophic dialogue between an Egyptian and his soul, in which thelatter applies himself to show that death has nothing terrifying to man. "I say to myself every day: As is the convalescence of a sick person, who goes to the court after his affliction, such is death.... I say tomyself every day: As is the inhaling of the scent of a perfume, as aseat under the protection of an outstretched curtain, on that day, suchis death.... I say to myself every day: As the inhaling of the odourof a garden of flowers, as a seat upon the mountain of the Country ofIntoxication, such is death.... I say to myself every day: As a roadwhich passes over the flood of inundation, as a man who goes as asoldier whom nothing resists, such is death.... I say to myself everyday: As the clearing again of the sky, as a man who goes out to catchbirds with a net, and suddenly finds himself in an unknown district, such is death. " Another papyrus, presented by Prisse d'Avennes to the_Bibliothèque Nationale_, Paris, contains the only complete work oftheir primitive wisdom which has come down to us. It was certainlytranscribed before the XVIIIth dynasty, and contains the works of twoclassic writers, one of whom is assumed to have lived under theIIIrd and the other under the Vth dynasty; it is not without reason, therefore, that it has been called "the oldest book in the world. " Thefirst leaves are wanting, and the portion preserved has, towardsits end, the beginning of a moral treatise attributed to Qaqimnî, acontemporary of Hûni. Then followed a work now lost: one of theancient possessors of the papyrus having effaced it with the view ofsubstituting for it another piece, which was never transcribed. 

The last fifteen pages are occupied by a kind of pamphlet, which hashad a considerable reputation, under the name of the "Proverbs ofPhtahhotpû. "

This Phtahhotpû, a king's son, flourished under Menkaûhorû and Assi: histomb is still to be seen in the necropolis of Saqqâra. He had sufficientreputation to permit the ascription to him, without violence toprobability, of the editing of a collection of political and moralmaxims which indicate a profound knowledge of the court and of mengenerally. It is supposed that he presented himself, in his decliningyears, before the Pharaoh Assi, exhibited to him the piteous state towhich old age had reduced him, and asked authority to hand down for thebenefit of posterity the treasures of wisdom which he had stored up inhis long career. The nomarch Phtahhotpû says: "'Sire, my lord, whenage is at that point, and decrepitude has arrived, debility comes anda second infancy, upon which misery falls heavily every day: the eyesbecome smaller, the ears narrower, strength is worn out while the heartcontinues to beat; the mouth is silent and speaks no more; the heartbecomes darkened and no longer remembers yesterday; the bones becomepainful, everything which was good becomes bad, taste vanishes entirely;old age renders a man miserable in every respect, for his nostrils closeup, and he breathes no longer, whether he rises up or sits down. If thehumble servant who is in thy presence receives an order to enter on adiscourse befitting an old man, then I will tell to thee the languageof those who know the history of the past, of those who have heardthe gods; for if thou conductest thyself like them, discontent shalldisappear from among men, and the two lands shall work for thee!' Themajesty of this god says: 'Instruct me in the language of old times, forit will work a wonder for the children of the nobles; whosoever entersand understands it, his heart weighs carefully what it says, and it doesnot produce satiety. '" We must not expect to find in this work any greatprofundity of thought. Clever analyses, subtle discussions, metaphysicalabstractions, were not in fashion in the time of Phtahhotpû. Actualfacts were preferred to speculative fancies: man himself was the subjectof observation, his passions, his habits, his temptations and hisdefects, not for the purpose of constructing a system therefrom, but inthe hope of reforming the imperfections of his nature and of pointingout to him the road to fortune. Phtahhotpû, therefore, does not showmuch invention or make deductions. He writes down his reflections justas they occur to him, without formulating them or drawing any conclusionfrom them as a whole. Knowledge is indispensable to getting on in theworld; hence he recommends knowledge. Gentleness to subordinates ispolitic, and shows good education; hence he praises gentleness. Hemingles advice throughout on the behaviour to be observed in the variouscircumstances of life, on being introduced into the presence of ahaughty and choleric man, on entering society, on the occasion of diningwith a dignitary, on being married. "If thou art wise, thou wilt goup into thine house, and love thy wife at home; thou wilt give herabundance of food, thou wilt clothe her back with garments; all thatcovers her limbs, her perfumes, is the joy of her life; as long as thoulookest to this, she is as a profitable field to her master. " To analysesuch a work in detail is impossible: it is still more impossible totranslate the whole of it. The nature of the subject, the strangeness ofcertain precepts, the character of the style, all tend to disconcert thereader and to mislead him in his interpretations. From the very earliesttimes ethics has been considered as a healthy and praiseworthy subjectin itself, but so hackneyed was it, that a change in the mode ofexpressing it could alone give it freshness. Phtahhotpû is a victimto the exigencies of the style he adopted. Others before him had givenutterance to the truths he wished to convey: he was obliged to clothethem in a startling and interesting form to arrest the attention of hisreaders. In some places he has expressed his thought with such subtlety, that the meaning is lost in the jingle of the words. The art of theMemphite dynasties has suffered as much as the literature from thehand of time, but in the case of the former the fragments are at leastnumerous and accessible to all. The kings of this period erected templesin their cities, and, not to speak of the chapel of the Sphinx, we findin the remains still existing of these buildings chambers of granite, alabaster and limestone, covered with religious scenes like those ofmore recent periods, although in some cases the walls are left bare. Their public buildings have all, or nearly all, perished; breaches havebeen made in them by invading armies or by civil wars, and they havebeen altered, enlarged, and restored scores of times in the course ofages; but the tombs of the old kings remain, and afford proof of theskill and perseverance exhibited by the architects in devising andcarrying out their plans. Many of the mastabas occurring at intervalsbetween Gîzeh and Mêdûm have, indeed, been hastily and carelessly built, as if by those who were anxious to get them finished, or who had an eyeto economy; we may observe in all of them neglect and imperfection, --allthe trade-tricks which an unscrupulous jerry-builder then, as now, couldbe guilty of, in order to keep down the net cost and satisfy the naturalparsimony of his patrons without lessening his own profits. * Where, however, the master-mason has not been hampered by being forced to workhastily or cheaply, he displays his conscientiousness, and the choice ofmaterials, the regularity of the courses, and the homogeneousness of thebuilding leave nothing to be desired; the blocks are adjusted with suchprecision that the joints are almost invisible, and the mortar betweenthem has been spread with such a skilful hand that there is scarcely anappreciable difference in its uniform thickness. **

 * The similarity of the materials and technicalities of construction and decoration seem to me to prove that the majority of the tombs were built by a small number of contractors or corporations, lay or ecclesiastical, both at Memphis, under the Ancient, as well as at Thebes, under the New Empire. 

 ** Speaking of the Great Pyramid and of its casing, Professor Petrie says: "Though the stones were brought as close as [--] inch, or, in fact, into contact, and the mean opening of the joint was but [--] inch, yet the builders managed to fill the joint with cement, despite the great area of it, and the weight of the stone to be moved--some 16 tons. To merely place such stones in exact contact at the sides would be careful work; but to do so with cement in the joint seems almost impossible. "

The long low flat mass which the finished tomb presented to the eyeis wanting in grace, but it has the characteristics of strength andindestructibility well suited to an "eternal house. " The façade, however, was not wanting in a certain graceful severity: the play oflight and shade distributed over its surface by the stelæ, niches, anddeep-set doorways, varied its aspect in the course of the day, withoutlessening the impression of its majesty and serenity which nothingcould disturb. The pyramids themselves are not, as we might imagine, the coarse and ill-considered reproduction of a mathematical figuredisproportionately enlarged. The architect who made an estimate for thatof Kheops, must have carefully thought out the relative value of theelements contained in the problem which had to be solved--the verticalheight of the summit, the length of the sides on the ground line, the angle of pitch, the inclination of the lateral faces to oneanother--before he discovered the exact proportions and the arrangementof lines which render his monument a true work of art, and not merely acostly and mechanical arrangement of stones. *

 * Cf. Borchardt's article, _Wie wurden die Boschungen der Pyramiden bestimmt?_ in which the author--an architect by profession as well as an Egyptologist--interprets the theories and problems of the _Rhind mathematical Papyrus_ in a new manner, comparing the result with his own calculations, made from measurements of pyramids still standing, and in which he shows, by an examination of the diagrams discovered on the wall of a mastaba at Mêdûm, that the Egyptian contractors of the Memphite period were, at that early date, applying the rules and methods of procedure which we find set forth in the Papyri of Theban times. 

The impressions which he desired to excite, have been felt by all whocame after him when brought face to face with the pyramids. From a greatdistance they appear like mountain-peaks, breaking the monotony of theLibyan horizon; as we approach them they apparently decrease in size, and seem to be merely unimportant inequalities of ground on the surfaceof the plain. It is not till we reach their bases that we guess theirenormous size. The lower courses then stretch seemingly into infinity toright and left, while the summit soars up out of our sight into the sky. "The effect is gained by majesty and simplicity of form, in the contrastand disproportion between the stature of man and the immensity of hishandiwork: the eye fails to take it in; it is even difficult for themind to grasp it. We see, we may touch hundreds of courses formed ofblocks, two hundred cubic feet in size, ... And thousands of othersscarcely less in bulk, and wo are at a loss to know what force hasmoved, transported, and raised so great a number of colossal stones, howmany men were needed for the work, what amount of time was requiredfor it, what machinery they used; and in proportion to our inability toanswer these questions, we increasingly admire the power which regardedsuch obstacles as trifles. "

We are not acquainted with the names of any of the men who conceivedthese prodigious works. The inscriptions mention in detail the princes, nobles, and scribes who presided over all the works undertaken by thesovereign, but they have never deigned to record the name of a singlearchitect. *

 * The title "mir kaûtû nîbû nîti sûton, " frequently met with under the Ancient Empire, does not designate the architects, as many Egyptologists have thought: it signifies "director of all the king's works, " and is applicable to irrigation, dykes and canals, mines and quarries, and all branches of an engineer's profession, as well as to those of the architect's. The "directors of all the king's works " were dignitaries deputed by Pharaoh to take the necessary measurements for the building of temples, for dredging canals, for quarrying stone and minerals; they were administrators, and not professionals possessing the technical knowledge of an architect or engineer. 

[Illustrations: 234a. Jpg Avenue of Sphinxes--Karnak]

[Illustrations: 234a-text. Jpg]

They were people of humble extraction, living hard lives under fear ofthe stick, and their ordinary assistants, the draughtsmen, painters, andsculptors, were no better off than themselves; they were looked uponas mechanics of the same social status as the neighbouring shoemaker orcarpenter. The majority of them were, in fact, clever mechanical workersof varying capability, accustomed to chisel out a bas-relief or set astatue firmly on its legs, in accordance with invariable rules whichthey transmitted unaltered from one generation to another: some werefound among them, however, who displayed unmistakable genius intheir art, and who, rising above the general mediocrity, producedmasterpieces. Their equipment of tools was very simple--iron picks withwooden handles, mallets of wood, small hammers, and a bow for boringholes. The sycamore and acacia furnished them with a material of adelicate grain and soft texture, which they used to good advantage:Egyptian art has left us nothing which, in purity of Hue and delicacy ofmodelling, surpasses the panels of the tomb of Hosi, with their seatedor standing male figures and their vigorously cut hieroglyphs in thesame relief as the picture. Egypt possesses, however, but few trees ofsuitable fibre for sculptural purposes, and even those which werefitted for this use were too small and stunted to furnish blocks of anyconsiderable size. The sculptor, therefore, turned by preference to thesoft white limestone of Turah. 

[Illustration: 236. Jpg ONE OF THE WOODEN PANELS OF HOSI, IN THE GÎZEHMUSEUM]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey. The original is now in the Gîzeh Museum. 

He quickly detached the general form of his statue from the mass ofstone, fixed the limits of its contour by means of dimension guidesapplied horizontally from top to bottom, and then cut away the anglesprojecting beyond the guides, and softened off the outline till he madehis modelling correct. This simple and regular method of procedure wasnot suited to hard stone: the latter had to be first chiselled, but whenby dint of patience the rough hewing had reached the desired stage, thework of completion was not entrusted to metal tools. Stone hatchetswere used for smoothing off the superficial roughnesses, and it wasassiduously polished to efface the various tool-marks left uponits surface. The statues did not present that variety of gesture, expression, and attitude which we aim at to-day. They were, aboveall things, the accessories of a temple or tomb, and their appearancereflects the particular ideas entertained with regard to their nature. The artists did not seek to embody in them the ideal type of maleor female beauty: they were representatives made to perpetuate theexistence of the model. 

[Illustration: 237. Jpg A SCULPTOR's STUDIO, AND EGYPTIAN PAINTERS ATWORK]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a chromolithograph by Prisse d'Avennes, _Histoire de l'Art Égyptien_. The original is in the tomb of Rakhmirî, who lived at Thebes under the XVIIIth dynasty. The methods which were used did not differ from those employed by the sculptors and painters of the Memphite period more than two thousand years previously. 

The Egyptians wished the double to be able to adapt itself easily toits image, and in order to compass that end, it was imperative that thestone presentment should be at least an approximate likeness, and shouldreproduce the proportions and peculiarities of the living prototypefor whom it was meant. The head had to be the faithful portrait of theindividual: it was enough for the body to be, so to speak, an averageone, showing him at his fullest development and in the completeenjoyment of his physical powers. The men were always represented intheir maturity, the women never lost the rounded breast and slight hipsof their girlhood, but a dwarf always preserved his congenital ugliness, for his salvation in the other world demanded that it should be so. Hadhe been given normal stature, the double, accustomed to the deformity ofhis members in this world, would have been unable to accommodate himselfto an upright carriage, and would not have been in a fit condition toresume his course of life. 

[Illustration: 238. Jpg CELLARER COATING A JAR WITH PITCH]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey. The original is now in the Gîzeh Museum. 

The particular pose of the statue was dependent on the social positionof the person. The king, the nobleman, and the master are alwaysstanding or sitting: it was in these postures they received the homageof their vassals or relatives. The wife shares her husband's seat, stands upright beside him, or crouches at his feet as in daily life. Theson, if his statue was ordered while he was a child, wears the dress ofchildhood; if he had arrived to manhood, he is represented in the dressand with the attitude suited to his calling. Slaves grind the grain, cellarers coat their amphoræ with pitch, bakers knead their dough, mourners make lamentation and tear their hair. The exigencies of rankclung to the Egyptians in temple and tomb, wherever their statues wereplaced, and left the sculptor who represented them scarcely any liberty. He might be allowed to vary the details and arrange the accessoriesto his taste; he might alter nothing in the attitude or the generallikeness without compromising the end and aim of his work. The statuesof the Memphite period may be counted at the present day by hundreds. 

[Illustration: 239. Jpg BAKER KNEADING HIS DOUGH]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Béchard. The original is now in the Gîzeh Museum. 

Some are in the heavy and barbaric style which has caused them to bemistaken for primaeval monuments: as, for instance, the statues of Sapiand his wife, now in the Louvre, which are attributed to the beginningof the IIIrd dynasty or even earlier. Groups exactly resembling these inappearance are often found in the tombs of the Vth and VIth dynasties, which according to this reckoning would be still older than that ofSapi: they were productions of an inferior studio, and their supposedarchaism is merely the want of skill of an ignorant sculptor. Themajority of the remaining statues are not characterized either byglaring faults or by striking merits: they constitute an array ofhonest good-natured folk, without much individuality of character andno originality. They may be easily divided into five or six groups, eachhaving a style in common, and all apparently having been executed on thelines of a few chosen models; the sculptors who worked for the mastabacontractors were distributed among a very few studios, in which atraditional routine was observed for centuries. They did not alwayswait for orders, but, like our modern tombstone-makers, kept by them atolerable assortment of half-finished statues, from which the purchasercould choose according to his taste. The hands, feet, and bust lackedonly the colouring and final polish, but the head was merely rough-hewn, and there were no indications of dress; when the future occupant ofthe tomb or his family had made their choice, a few hours of work weresufficient to transform the rough sketch into a portrait, such as itwas, of the deceased they desired to commemorate, and to arrange hisgarment according to the latest fashion. If, however, the relatives orthe sovereign* declined to be satisfied with these commonplace images, and demanded a less conventional treatment of body for the double of himwhom they had lost, there were always some among the assistants to befound capable of entering into their wishes, and of seizing the lifelikeexpression of limbs and features. 

 * It must not be forgotten that the statues were often, like the tomb itself, given by the king to the man whose services he desired to reward. His burying-place then bore the formulary, "By the favour of the king, " as I have mentioned previously. 

[Illustration: 241. Jpg THE SHEIKH-EL BELED IN THE GIZEH MUSEUM]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey. 

We possess at the present day, scattered about in museums, some score ofstatues of this period, examples of consummate art, --the Khephrens, theKheops, the Anû, the Nofrît, the Râhotpû I have already mentioned, the"Sheîkh-el-Beled" and his wife, the sitting scribe of the Louvre andthat of Gîzeh, and the kneeling scribe. Kaâpirû, the "Sheîkh-el-Beled, "was probably one of the directors of the corvée employed to build theGreat Pyramid. * He seems to be coming forward to meet the beholder, withan acacia staff in his hand. He has the head and shoulders of a bull, and a common cast of countenance, whose vulgarity is not wanting inenergy. The large, widely open eye has, by a trick of the sculptor, analmost uncanny reality about it. 

 * It was discovered by Mariette at Saqqâra. "The head, torso, arms, and even the staff, were intact; but the pedestal and legs were hopelessly decayed, and the statue was only kept upright by the sand which surrounded it. " The staff has since been broken, and is replaced by a more recent one exactly like it. In order to set up the figure, Mariette was obliged to supply new feet, which retain the colour of the fresh wood. By a curious coincidence, Kaâpirû was an exact portrait of one of the "Sheikhs el-Beled, " or mayors of the village of Saqqâra: the Arab workmen, always quick to see a likeness, immediately called it the "Sheikh el-Beled, " and the name has been retained ever since. 

[Illustration: 242. Jpg THE KNEELING SCRIBE IN THE GIZEH MUSEUM]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch- Bey. 

 [Illustration: 242b. Jpg THE SITTING SCRIBE IN THE GÎZEH MUSEUM]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey. This scribe was discovered at Saqqâra, by M. De Morgan, in the beginning of 1893. 

The socket which holds it has been hollowed out and filled with anarrangement of black and white enamel; a rim of bronze marks the outlineof the lids, while a little silver peg, inserted at the back of thepupil, reflects the light and gives the effect of the sparkle of aliving glance. The statue, which is short in height, is of wood, and onewould be inclined to think that the relative plasticity of the materialcounts for something in the boldness of the execution, were it not thatthough the sitting scribe of the Louvre is of limestone, the sculptorhas not shown less freedom in its composition. We recognize in thisfigure one of those somewhat flabby and heavy subordinate officials ofwhom so many examples are to be seen in Oriental courts. He is squattingcross-legged on the pedestal, pen in hand, with the outstretched leaf ofpapyrus conveniently placed on the right: he waits, after an intervalof six thousand years, until Pharaoh or his vizier deigns to resume theinterrupted dictation. His colleague at the Gîzeh Museum awakens in usno less wonder at his vigour and self-possession; but, being younger, he exhibits a fuller and firmer figure with a smooth skin, contrastingstrongly with the deeply wrinkled appearance of the other, aggravated asit is by his flabbiness. The "kneeling scribe" preserves in his poseand on his countenance that stamp of resigned indecision and monotonousgentleness which is impressed upon subordinate officials by theinfluence of a life spent entirely under the fear of the stick. Banofir, on the contrary, is a noble lord looking upon his vassals passing infile before him: his mien is proud, his head disdainful, and he hasthat air of haughty indifférence which is befitting a favourite of thePharaoh, possessor of generously bestowed sinecures, and lord of a scoreof domains. The same haughtiness of attitude distinguishes thedirector of the granaries, Nofir. We rarely encounter a small statueso expressive of vigour and energy. Sometimes there may be found amongthese short-garmented people an individual wrapped and almost smotheredin an immense _abayah_; or a naked man, representing a peasant on hisway to market, his bag on his left shoulder, slightly bent under theweight, carrying his sandals in his other hand, lest they should beworn out too quickly in walking. Everywhere we observe the traits ofcharacter distinctive of the individual and his position, renderedwith a scrupulous fidelity: nothing is omitted, no detail of thecharacteristics of the model is suppressed. Idealisation we must notexpect, but we have here an intelligent and sometimes too realisticfidelity. Portraits have been conceived among other peoples and in otherperiods in a different way: they have never been better executed. 

[Illustration: 246. Jpg PEASANT GOING TO MARKET]

 * Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Béchard. The original is at Gizeh. --Vth dynasty. 

The decoration of the sepulchres provided employment for scores ofdraughtsmen, sculptors, and painters, whose business it was to multiplyin these tombs scenes of everyday life which were indispensable to thehappiness or comfort of the double. The walls are sometimes decoratedwith isolated pictures only, each one of which represents a distinctoperation; more frequently we find traced upon them a single subjectwhose episodes are superimposed one upon the other from the ground tothe ceiling, and represent an Egyptian panorama from the Nile to thedesert. In the lower portion, boats pass to and fro, and collide witheach other, while the boatmen come to blows with their boat-hooks withinsight of hippopotami and crocodiles. In the upper portions we see a bandof slaves engaged in fowling among the thickets of the river-bank, orin the making of small boats, the manufacture of ropes, the scraping andsalting of fish. Under the cornice, hunters and dogs drive the gazelleacross the undulating plains of the desert. Every row represents one ofthe features of the country; but the artist, instead of arranging thepictures in perspective, separated them and depicted them one above theother. 

[Illustration: 247. Jpg KOFIR, THE DIRECTOR OF GRANARIES]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey. Original is in the Gîzeh Museum. --Vth dynasty. 

The groups are repeated in one tomb after another; they are alwaysthe same, but sometimes they are reduced to two or three individuals, sometimes increased in number, spread out and crowded with figures andinscriptions. Each chief draughtsman had his book of subjects and texts, which he combined in various ways, at one time bringing them closetogether, at another duplicating or extending them according to themeans put at his disposal or the space he had to cover. The samemen, the same animals, the same features of the landscape, the sameaccessories, appear everywhere: it is industrial and mechanical art atits highest. The whole is, however, harmonious, agreeable to the eye, and instructive. The conventionalisms of the drawing as well as thoseof the composition are very different from ours. Whether it is man orbeast, the subject is invariably presented in outline by the brush, orby the graving tool in sharp relief upon the background; but the animalsare represented in action, with their usual gait, movement, and play oflimbs distinguishing each species. The slow and measured walk of the ox, the short step, meditative ears, and ironical mouth of the ass, the calmstrength of the lion at rest, the grimaces of the monkeys, the slendergracefulness of the gazelle and antelope, are invariably presented witha consummate skill in drawing and expression. The human figure is theleast perfect: every one is acquainted with those strange figures, whoseheads in profile, with the eye drawn in full face, are attached to atorso seen from the front and supported by limbs in profile. These aretruly anatomical monsters, and yet the appearance they present to usis neither laughable nor grotesque. The defective limbs are so deftlyconnected with those which are normal, that the whole becomes natural:the correct and fictitious lines are so ingeniously blent togetherthat they seem to rise necessarily from each other. The actors in thesedramas are constructed in such a paradoxical fashion that they could notexist in this world of ours; they live notwithstanding, in spite of theordinary laws of physiology, and to any one who will take the trouble toregard them without prejudice, their strangeness will add a charm whichis lacking in works more conformable to nature. A layer of colour spreadover the whole heightens and completes them. This colouring is neverquite true to nature nor yet entirely false. It approaches reality asfar as possible, but without pretending to copy it in a servile way. Thewater is always a uniform blue, or broken up by black zigzag lines; theskin of the men is invariably brown, that of the women pale yellow. 

[Illustration: 249. Jpg BAS-RELIEF IN IVORY]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Bouriant. The original is in private possession. 

The shade befitting each being or object was taught in the workshops, and once the receipt for it was drawn up, it was never varied inapplication. The effect produced by these conventional colours, however, was neither discordant nor jarring. The most brilliant colours wereplaced alongside each other with extreme audacity, but with a perfectknowledge of their mutual relations and combined effect. They do notjar with, or exaggerate, or kill each other: they enhance each other'svalue, and by their contact give rise to half-shades which harmonizewith them. The sepulchral chapels, in cases where their decoration hadbeen completed, and where they have reached us intact, appear to us aschambers hung with beautifully luminous and interesting tapestry, inwhich rest ought to be pleasant during the heat of the day to the soulwhich dwells within them, and to the friends who come there to holdintercourse with the dead. 

The decoration of palaces and houses was not less sumptuous than that ofthe sepulchres, but it has been so completely destroyed that we shouldfind it difficult to form an idea of the furniture of the living if wedid not see it frequently depicted in the abode of the double. The greatarmchairs, folding seats, footstools, and beds of carved wood, paintedand inlaid, the vases of hard stone, metal, or enamelled ware, thenecklaces, bracelets, and ornaments on the walls, even the commonpottery of which we find the remains in the neighbourhood of thepyramids, are generally distinguished by an elegance and gracereflecting credit on the workmanship and taste of the makers. * Thesquares of ivory which they applied to their linen-chests and theirjewel-cases often contained actual bas-reliefs in miniature of as boldworkmanship and as skilful execution as the most beautiful pictures inthe tombs: on these, moreover, were scenes of private life--dancing orprocessions bringing offerings and animals. **

 * The study of the alabaster and diorite vases found near the pyramids has furnished Petrie with very ingenious views on the methods among the Egyptians of working hard stone. Examples of stone toilet or sacrificial bottles are not unfrequent in our museums: I may mention those in the Louvre which bear the cartouches of Dadkerî Assi (No. 343), of Papi I. , and of Papi II. , the son of Papi I. ; not that they are to be reckoned among the finest, but because the cartouches fix the date of their manufacture. They came from the pyramids of these sovereigns, opened by the Arabs at the beginning of this century: the vase of the VIth dynasty, which is in the Museum at Florence, was brought from Abydos. 

 ** M. Grébaut bought at the Great Pyramids, in 1887, a series of these ivory sculptures of the Ancient Empire. They are now at the Gîzeh Museum. Others belonging to the same find are dispersed among private collections: one of them is reproduced on p. 249 of this History. 

[Illustration: 252. Jpg STELE OF THE DAUGHTER OF KHEOPS]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Bochard. 

One would like to possess some of those copper and golden statues whichthe Pharaoh Kheops consecrated to Isis in honour of his daughter: onlythe representation of them upon a stele has come down to us; and thefragments of sceptres or other objects which too rarely have reached us, have unfortunately no artistic value. 

A taste for pretty things was common, at least among the upper classes, including not only those about the court, but also those in the mostdistant nomes of Egypt. The provincial lords, like the courtiers ofthe palace, took a pride in collecting around them in the other worldeverything of the finest that the art of the architect, sculptor, andpainter could conceive and execute. Their mansions as well as theirtemples have disappeared, but we find, here and there on the sides ofthe hills, the sepulchres which they had prepared for themselves inrivalry with those of the courtiers or the members of the reigningfamily. They turned the valley into a vast series of catacombs, so thatwherever we look the horizon is bounded by a row of historic tombs. Thanks to their rock-cut sepulchres, we are beginning to know theNomarchs of the Gazelle and the Hare, those of the Serpent-Mountain, ofAkhmîm, Thinis, Qasr-es-Sayad, and Aswan, --all the scions, in fact, ofthat feudal government which preceded the royal sovereignty on thebanks of the Nile, and of which royalty was never able to entirelydisembarrass itself. The Pharaohs of the IVth dynasty had kept them insuch check that we can hardly find any indications during their reignsof the existence of these great barons; the heads of the Pharaonicadministration were not recruited from among the latter, but from thefamily and domestic circle of the sovereign. It was in the time of thekings of the Vth dynasty, it would appear, that the barons againentered into favour and gradually gained the upper hand; we find themin increasing numbers about Anû, Menkaûhorû, and Assi. Did Unas, who wasthe last ruler of the dynasty of Elephantine, die without issue, or werehis children prevented from succeeding him by force? The Egyptian annalsof the time of the Ramessides bring the direct line of Menés to an endwith this king. A new line of Memphite origin begins after him. 

[Illustration: 253. Jpg THE PHARAOH MENKAUHORÛ]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Faucher-Gudin. The original, which came from Mariette's excavations at the Serapeum, is in the Louvre. 

It is almost certain that the transmission of power was not accomplishedwithout contention, and that there were many claimants to the crown. Oneof the latter, Imhotpû, whose legitimacy was always disputed, hasleft hardly any traces of his accession to power, * but Ati establishedhimself firmly on the throne for a year at least:** he pushed onactively the construction of his pyramid, and sent to the valley ofHammamât for the stone of his sarcophagus. 

 * The monuments furnish proof that their contemporaries considered these ephemeral rulers as so many illegitimate pretenders. Phtahshopsîsû and his son Sabû-Abibi, who exercised important functions at the court, mention only Unas and Teti III. ; Uni, who took office under Teti III. , mentions after this king only Papi I. And Mihtimsaûf I. The official succession was, therefore, regulated at this epoch in the same way as we afterwards find it in the table of Saqqâra, Unas, Teti III. , Papi I. , Mihtimsaûf I. , and in the Royal Canon of Turin, without the intercalation of any other king. 

 ** Brugsch, in his Histoire d'Egypte, pp. 44, 45, had identified this king with the first Metesouphis of Manetho: E. De Rougé prefers to transfer him to one of the two Memphite series after the VIth dynasty, and his opinion has been adopted by Wiedemann. The position occupied by his inscription among those of Hamraamât has decided me in placing him at the end of the Vth or beginning of the VIth dynasty: this E. Meyer has also done. 

We know not whether revolution or sudden death put an end to hisactivity: the "Mastabat-el-Faraun" of Saqqâra, in which he hoped torest, never exceeded the height which it has at present. * His name was, however, inscribed in certain official lists, ** and a tradition of theGreek period maintained that he had been assassinated by his guards. ***Teti III. Was the actual founder of the VIth dynasty, **** historiansrepresenting him as having been the immediate successor of Unas. 

 * Ati is known only from the Hammamât, inscription dated in the first year of his reign. He was identified by Brugsch with the Othoes of Manetho, and this identification has been generally adopted. M. De Rougé is inclined to attribute to him as _prænomen_ the cartouche Usirkeri, which is given in the Table of Abydos between those of Teti III. And Papi I. Mariette prefers to recognize in Urikeri an independent Pharaoh of short reign. Several blocks of the Mastabat-el- Faraun at Saqqâra contain the cartouche of Unas, a fact which induced Mariette to regard this as the tomb of the Pharaoh. The excavations of 1881 showed that Unas was entombed elsewhere, and the indications are in favour of attributing the mastaba to Ati. We know, indeed, the pyramids of Teti III. , of the two Papis, and of Metesouphis I. ; Ati is the only prince of this period with whose tomb we are unacquainted. It is thus by elimination, and not by direct evidence, that the identification has been arrived at: Ati may have drawn upon the workshops of his predecessor Unas, which fact would explain the presence on these blocks of the cartouche of the latter. 

 ** Upon that of Abydos, if we agree with E. De Rougé that the cartouche Usirkeri contains his prænomen; upon that from which Manetho borrowed, if we admit his identification with Othoes. 

 *** Manetho (Unger's edition, p. 101), where the form of the name is Othoes. 

 **** He is called Teti Menephtah, with the cartouche prænomen of Seti I. , on a monument of the early part of the XIXth dynasty, in the Museum at Marseilles: we see him in his pyramid represented as standing. This pyramid was opened in 1881, and its chambers are covered with long funerary inscriptions. It is a work of the time of Seti I. , and not a contemporary production of the time of Menkaûhorû. 

He lived long enough to build at Saqqâra a pyramid whose internalchambers are covered with inscriptions, * and his son succeeded himwithout opposition. Papi I. Reigned at least twenty years. **

 * The true pronunciation of this name would be Pipi, and of the one before it Titi. The two other Tetis are Teti I. Of the Ist dynasty, and Zosir-Teti, or Teti II. , of the IIIrd. 

 ** From fragment 59 of the Royal Canon of Turin, An inscription in the quarries of Hât-nûbû bears the date of the year 24: if it has been correctly copied, the reign must have been four years at least longer than the chronologists of the time of the Ramessides thought. 

[Illustration: 255. Jpg THE MASTABAT-EL-FARAUN, LOOKING TOWARDS THE WESTFAÇADE]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Béchard. 

He manifested his activity in all corners of his empire, in the nomesof the Said as well as in those of the Delta, and his authority extendedbeyond the frontiers by which the power of his immediate predecessorshad been limited. He owned sufficient territory south of Elephantine toregard Nubia as a new kingdom added to those which constituted ancientEgypt: we therefore see him entitled in his preamble "the tripleGolden Horus, " "the triple Conqueror-Horus, " "the Delta-Horus, " "theSaid-Horus, " "the Nubia-Horus. " The tribes of the desert furnished him, as was customary, with recruits for his army, for which he had needenough, for the Bedouin of the Sinaitic Peninsula were on the move, andwere even becoming dangerous. Papi, aided by Uni, his prime minister, undertook against them a series of campaigns, in which he reduced themto a state of helplessness, and extended the sovereignty of Egypt forthe time over regions hitherto unconquered. 

Uni began his career under Teti. * At first a simple page in thepalace, ** he succeeded in obtaining a post in the administration of thetreasury, and afterwards that of inspector of the woods of the royaldomain. ***

 * The beginning of the first line is wanting, and I have restored it from other inscriptions of the same kind: "I was born under Unas. " Uni could not have been born before Unas; the first office that he filled under Teti III. Was while he was a child or youth, while the reign of Unas lasted thirty years. 

 ** Literally, "crown-bearer. " This was a title applied probably to children who served the king in his private apartments, and who wore crowns of natural flowers on their heads: the crown was doubtless of the same form as those which we see upon the brows of women on several tombs of the Memphite epoch. 

 *** The word "Khoniti" probably indicates lands with plantations of palms or acacias, the thinly wooded forests of Egypt, and also of the vines which belonged to the personal domain of the Pharaoh. 

Papi took him into his friendship at the beginning of his reign, andconferred upon him the title of "friend, " and the office of head ofthe cabinet, in which position he acquitted himself with credit. Alone, without other help than that of a subordinate scribe, he transacted allthe business and drew up all the documents connected with the harem andthe privy council. He obtained an ample reward for his services. Pharaohgranted to him, as a proof of his complete satisfaction, the furnitureof a tomb in choice white limestone; one of the officials of thenecropolis was sent to obtain from the quarries at Troiû the blocksrequired, and brought back with him a sarcophagus and its lid, adoor-shaped stele with its setting and a table of offerings. He affirmswith much self-satisfaction that never before had such a thing happenedto any one; moreover, he adds, "my wisdom charmed his Majesty, my zealpleased him, and his Majesty's heart was delighted with me. " All thisis pure hyperbole, but no one was surprised at it in Egypt; etiquetterequired that a faithful subject should declare the favours of hissovereign to be something new and unprecedented, even when theypresented nothing extraordinary or out of the common. Gifts ofsepulchral furniture were of frequent occurrence, and we know of morethan one instance of them previous to the VIth dynasty--for example, the case of the physician Sokhît-niônkhû, whose tomb still exists atSaqqâra, and whom Pharaoh Sahurî rewarded by presenting him with amonumental stele in stone from Turah. Henceforth Uni could face withoutapprehension the future which awaited him in the other world; at thesame time, he continued to make his way no less quickly in this, and wassoon afterwards promoted to the rank of "sole friend" and superintendentof the irrigated lands of the king. The "sole friends" were closelyattached to the person of their master. In all ceremonies, theirappointed place was immediately behind him, a place of the highesthonour and trust, for those who occupied it literally held his lifein their hands. They made all the arrangements for his processions andjourneys, and saw that the proper ceremonial was everywhere observed, and that no accident was allowed to interrupt the progress of his train. Lastly, they had to take care that none of the nobles ever departed fromthe precise position to which his birth or office entitled him. This wasa task which required a great deal of tact, for questions of precedencegave rise to nearly as many heart-burnings in Egypt as in modern courts. Uni acquitted himself so dexterously, that he was called upon to actin a still more delicate capacity. Queen Amîtsi was the king's chiefconsort. Whether she had dabbled in some intrigue of the palace, or hadbeen guilty of unfaithfulness in act or in intention, or had been mixedup in one of those feminine dramas which so frequently disturb the peaceof harems, we do not know. At any rate, Papi considered it necessary toproceed against her, and appointed Uni to judge the case. Aided onlyby his secretary, he drew up the indictment and decided the action sodiscreetly, that to this day we do not know of what crime Amîtsi wasaccused or how the matter ended. Uni felt great pride at having beenpreferred before all others for this affair, and not without reason, "for, " says he, "my duties were to superintend the royal forests, andnever before me had a man in my position been initiated into the secretsof the Royal Harem; but his Majesty initiated me into them because mywisdom pleased his Majesty more than that of any other of his lieges, more than that of any other of his mamelukes, more than that of anyother of his servants. " These antecedents did not seem calculated tomark out Uni as a future minister of war; but in the East, when a manhas given proofs of his ability in one branch of administration, thereis a tendency to consider him equally well fitted for service in anyof the others, and the fiat of a prince transforms the clever scribe ofto-day into the general of to-morrow. No one is surprised, not eventhe person promoted; he accepts his new duties without flinching, andfrequently distinguishes himself as much in their performance as thoughhe had been bred to them from his youth up. When Papi had resolved togive a lesson to the Bedouin of Sinai, he at once thought of Uni, his"sole friend, " who had so skilfully conducted the case of QueenAmîtsi. The expedition was not one of those which could be brought toa successful issue by the troops of the frontier nomes; it required aconsiderable force, and the whole military organization of the countryhad to be brought into play. "His Majesty raised troops to the number ofseveral myriads, in the whole of the south from Elephantine to the nomeof the Haunch, in the Delta, in the two halves of the valley, in eachfort of the forts of the desert, in the land of Iritît, among the blacksof the land of Maza, among the blacks of the land of Amamît, among theblacks of the land of Ûaûait, among the blacks of the land of Kaaû, among the blacks of To-Tamû, and his Majesty sent me at the head of thisarmy. It is true, there were chiefs there, there were mamelukes of theking there, there were sole friends of the Great House there, therewere princes and governors of castles from the south and from the north, 'gilded friends, ' directors of the prophets from the south and thenorth, directors of districts at the head of troops from the south andthe north, of castles and towns that each one ruled, and also blacksfrom the regions which I have mentioned, but it was I who gave themtheir orders--although my post was only that of superintendent of theirrigated lands of Pharaoh, --so much so that every one of them obeyedme like the others. " It was not without much difficulty that he broughtthis motley crowd into order, equipped them, and supplied them withrations. At length he succeeded in arranging everything satisfactorily;by dint of patience and perseverance, "each one took his biscuit andsandals for the march, and each one of them took bread from the towns, and each one of them took goats from the peasants. " He collected hisforces on the frontier of the Delta, in the "Isle of the North, " betweenthe "Gate of Imhotpû" and the "Tell of Horû nib-mâît, " and set out intothe desert. He advanced, probably by Gebel Magharah and Gebel Helal, as far as Wady-el-Arîsh, into the rich and populous country which laybetween the southern slopes of Gebel Tîh and the south of the Dead Sea:once there he acted with all the rigour permitted by the articles ofwar, and paid back with interest the ill usage which the Bedouin hadinflicted on Egypt. "This army came in peace, it completely destroyedthe country of the Lords of the Sands. This army came in peace, itpulverized the country of the Lords of the Sands. This army came inpeace, it demolished their 'douars. ' This army came in peace, it cutdown their fig trees and their vines. This army came in peace, it burntthe houses of all their people. This army came in peace, it slaughteredtheir troops to the numbers of many myriads. This army came in peace, itbrought back great numbers of their people as living captives, for whichthing his Majesty praised me more than for aught else. "* As a matter offact, these poor wretches were sent off as soon as taken to the quarriesor to the dockyards, thus relieving the king from the necessity ofimposing compulsory labour too frequently on his Egyptian subjects. 

 * The locality of the tribes against which Uni waged war can, I think, be fixed by certain details of the campaign, especially the mention of the oval or circular enclosures "ûanît" within which they entrenched themselves. These enclosures, or ndars, correspond to the nadami which are mentioned by travellers in these regions, and which are singularly characteristic. The "Lords of the Sands" mentioned by Uni occupied the naûami country, i. E. The Negeb regions situated on the edge of the desert of Tih, round about Aîn-Qadis, and beyond it as far as Akabah and the Dead Sea. Assuming this hypothesis to be correct, the route followed by Uni must have been the same as that which was discovered and described nearly twenty years ago, by Holland. 

"His Majesty sent me five times to lead this army in order to penetrateinto the country of the Lords of the Sands, on each occasion of theirrevolt against this army, and I bore myself so well that his Majestypraised me beyond everything. " The Bedouin at length submitted, butthe neighbouring tribes to the north of them, who had no doubt assistedthem, threatened to dispute with Egypt the possession of the territorywhich it had just conquered. As these tribes had a seaboard on theMediterranean, Uni decided to attack them by sea, and got together afleet in which he embarked his army. The troops landed on the coast ofthe district of Tiba, to the north of the country of the Lords of theSands, thereupon "they set out. I went, I smote all the barbarians, andI killed all those of them who resisted. " On his return, Uni obtainedthe most distinguished marks of favour that a subject could receive, the right to carry a staff and to wear his sandals in the palace in thepresence of Pharaoh. 

These wars had occupied the latter part of the reign; the last of themtook place very shortly before the death of the sovereign. The domesticadministration of Papi I. Seems to have been as successful in itsresults, as was his activity abroad. He successfully worked the minesof Sinai, caused them to be regularly inspected, and obtained an unusualquantity of minerals from them; the expedition he sent thither, in theeighteenth year of his reign, left behind it a bas-relief in which arerecorded the victories of Uni over the barbarians and the grantsof territory made to the goddess Hâthor. Work was carried onuninterruptedly at the quarries of Hatnûbû and Kohanû; buildingoperations were carried on at Memphis, where the pyramid was in courseof erection, at Abydos, whither the oracle of Osiris was alreadyattracting large numbers of pilgrims, at Tanis, at Bubastis, andat Heliopolis. The temple of Dendera was falling into ruins; it wasrestored on the lines I of the original plans which were accidentallydiscovered, and this piety displayed towards one of the most honoureddeities was rewarded, as it deserved to be, by the insertion of thetitle of "son of Hâthor" in the royal cartouche. The vassals rivalledtheir sovereign in activity, and built new towns on all sides to servethem as residences, more than one of which was named after the Pharaoh. The death of Papi I. Did nothing to interrupt this movement; the elderof his two sons by his second wife, Mirirî-ônkhnas, succeeded himwithout opposition. Mirnirî Mihtimsaûf I. (Metesouphis) was almost achild when he ascended the throne. The recently conquered Bedouin gavehim no trouble; the memory of their reverses was still too recent toencourage them to take advantage of his minority and renew hostilities. Uni, moreover, was at hand, ready to recommence his campaigns at theslightest provocation. Metesouphis had retained him in all his offices, and had even entrusted him with new duties. "Pharaoh appointed megovernor-general of Upper Egypt, from Elephantine in the south toLetopolis in the north, because my wisdom was pleasing to his Majesty, because my zeal was pleasing to his Majesty, because the heart of hisMajesty was satisfied with me.... When I was in my place I was above allhis vassals, all his mamelukes, and all his servants, for never hadso great a dignity been previously conferred upon a mere subject. Ifulfilled to the satisfaction of the king my office as superintendent ofthe South, so satisfactorily, that it was granted to me to be second inrank to him, accomplishing all the duties of a superintendent of works, judging all the cases which the royal administration had to judge inthe south of Egypt as second judge, to render judgment at all hoursdetermined by the royal administration in this south of Egypt as secondjudge, transacting as a governor all the business there was to do inthis south of Egypt. " The honour of fetching the hard stone blocksintended for the king's pyramid fell to him by right: he proceeded tothe quarries of Abhaît, opposite Sehel, to select the granite forthe royal sarcophagus and its cover, and to those of Hatnûbû for thealabaster for the table of offerings. The transport of the table was amatter of considerable difficulty, for the Nile was low, and the stoneof colossal size: Uni constructed on the spot a raft to carry it, andbrought it promptly to Saqqâra in spite of the sandbanks which obstructnavigation when the river is low. *

 * Prof. Petrie has tried to prove from the passage which relates to the transport, that the date of the reign of Papi I. Must have been within sixty years of 3240 B. C. ; this date I believe to be at least four centuries too late. It is, perhaps, to this voyage of Uni that the inscription of the Vth year of Metesouphis I. Refers, given by Blackden-Frazer in A Collection of Hieratic Graffiti from the Alabaster Quarry of Rat-nub, pl. Xv. 2. 

This was not the limit of his enterprise: the Pharaohs had not as yet afleet in Nubia, and even if they had had, the condition of the channelwas such as to prevent it from making the passage of the cataract. He demanded acacia-wood from the tribes of the desert, the peoplesof Iritit and Uaûaît, and from the Mâzaiû, laid down his ships on thestocks, built three galleys and two large lighters in a single year;during this time the river-side labourers had cleared five channelsthrough which the flotilla passed and made its way to Memphis withits ballast of granite. This was Uni's last exploit; he died shortlyafterwards, and was buried in the cemetery at Abydos, in the sarcophaguswhich had been given him by Papi I. 

[Illustration: 265. Jpg THE ISLAND OF ELEPHANTINE]

 Plan drawn up by Thuillier, from the Map of the _Commission d'Egypte. _

Was it solely to obtain materials for building the pyramid that hehad re-established communication by water between Egypt and Nubia? TheEgyptians were gaining ground in the south every day, and under theirrule the town of Elephantine was fast becoming a depot for trade withthe Soudan. *

 * The growing importance of Elephantine is shown by the dimensions of the tombs which its princes had built for themselves, as well as by the number of graffiti commemorating the visits of princes and functionaries, and still remaining at the present day. 

The town occupied only the smaller half of a long narrow island, whichwas composed of detached masses of granite, formed gradually into acompact whole by accumulations of sand, and over which the Nile, fromtime immemorial, had deposited a thick coating of its mud. It is nowshaded by acacias, mulberry trees, date trees, and dôm palms, growing insome places in lines along the pathways, in others distributed in groupsamong the fields. Half a dozen saqiyehs, ranged in a line along theriver-bank, raise water day and night, with scarcely any cessation oftheir monotonous creaking. The inhabitants do not allow a foot of theirnarrow domain to lie idle; they have cultivated wherever it is possiblesmall plots of durra and barley, bersim and beds of vegetables. 

[Illustration: 266. Jpg THE ISLAND OF ELAPHANTINE SEEN FROM THE RUINS OFSYENNE]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato. In the foreground are the ruins of the Roman mole built of brick, which protected the entrance to the harbour of Syene; in the distance is the Libyan range, surmounted by the ruins of several mosques and of a Coptic monastery. Cf. The woodcut on p. 275 of the present work. 

A few scattered buffaloes and cows graze in corners, while fowls andpigeons without number roam about in flocks on the look-out for whatthey can pick up. It is a world in miniature, tranquil and pleasant, where life is passed without effort, in a perpetually clear atmosphereand in the shade of trees which never lose their leaf. The ancient citywas crowded into the southern extremity, on a high plateau of granitebeyond the reach of inundations. Its ruins, occupying a space half amile in circumference, are heaped around a shattered temple of Khnûrnû, of which the most ancient parts do not date back beyond the sixteenthcentury before our era. 

[Illustration: 267. Jpg THE FIRST CATARACT]

 Map by Thuillier, from _La Description de l'Egypte, Ant_. , vol. I. Pl. 30, 1. I have added the ancient names in those cases where it has been possible to identify them with the modern localities. 

It was surrounded with walls, and a fortress of sun-dried brick perchedupon a neighbouring island to the south-west, gave it complete com-mandover the passages of the cataract. An arm of the river ninety yards wideseparated it from Sûanît, whose closely built habitations wereranged along the steep bank, and formed, as it were, a suburb. Marshypasturages occupied the modern site of Syene; beyond these were gardens, vines, furnishing wine celebrated throughout the whole of Egypt, and aforest of date palms running towards the north along the banks of thestream. The princes of the nome of Nubia encamped here, so to speak, as frontier-posts of civilization, and maintained frequent but variablerelations with the people of the desert. It gave the former no troubleto throw, as occasion demanded it, bodies of troops on the right or leftsides of the valley, in the direction of the Red Sea or in that of theOasis; however little they might carry away in their raids--of oxen, slaves, wood, charcoal, gold dust, amethysts, cornelian or green felsparfor the manufacture of ornaments--it was always so much to the good, andthe treasury of the prince profited by it. They never went very far intheir expeditions: if they desired to strike a blow at a distance, to reach, for example, those regions of Pûanît of whose riches thebarbarians were wont to boast, the aridity of the district around thesecond cataract would arrest the advance of their foot-soldiers, whilethe rapids of Wady Haifa would offer an almost impassable barrier totheir ships. In such distant operations they did not have recourse toarms, but disguised themselves as peaceful merchants. An easy road ledalmost direct from their capital to Ras Banât, which they called the"Head of Nekhabît, " on the Red Sea; arrived at the spot where in latertimes stood one of the numerous Berenices, and having quickly puttogether a boat from the wood of the neighbouring forest, they madevoyages along the coast, as far as the Sinaitic peninsula and theHirû-Shâîtû on the north, as well as to the land of Pûânît itself onthe south. The small size of these improvised vessels rendered suchexpeditions dangerous, while it limited their gain; they preferred, therefore, for the most part the land journey. 

[Illustration: 269. Jpg SMALL WADY, FIVE HOURS BEYOND ED-DOUEÎG, ON THEROAD TO THE RED SEA]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Golénischeff. 

It was fatiguing and interminable: donkeys--the only beast of burdenthey were acquainted with, or, at least, employed--could make but shortstages, and they spent months upon months in passing through countrieswhich a caravan of camels would now traverse in a few weeks. *

 * The _History of the Peasant_, in the Berlin Papyri Nos. Ii. And iv. , affords us a good example of the use made of pack-asses; the hero was on his way across the desert, from the "Wady Natrûn" to Henasieh, with a quantity of merchandise which he intended to sell, when an unscrupulous artisan, under cover of a plausible pretext, stole his train of pack- asses and their loads. Hirkhûf brought back with him a caravan of three hundred asses from one of his journeys; cf. P. 278 of the present work. 

The roads upon which they ventured were those which, owing to thenecessity for the frequent watering of the donkeys and the impossibilityof carrying with them adequate supplies of water, were marked out atfrequent intervals by wells and springs, and were therefore necessarilyof a tortuous and devious character. Their choice of objects for barterwas determined by the smallness of their bulk and weight in comparisonwith their value. The Egyptians on the one side were provided withstocks of beads, ornaments, coarse cutlery, strong perfumes, and rollsof white or coloured cloth, which, after the lapse of thirty-fivecenturies, are objects still coveted by the peoples of Africa. Theaborigines paid for these articles of small value, in gold, eitherin dust or in bars, in ostrich feathers, lions' and leopards' skins, elephants' tusks, cowrie shells, billets of ebony, incense, and gumarabic. Considerable value was attached to cynocephali and greenmonkeys, with which the kings or the nobles amused themselves, and whichthey were accustomed to fasten to the legs of their chairs on days ofsolemn reception; but the dwarf, the Danga, was the rare commodity whichwas always in demand, but hardly ever attainable. *

 * Domichen, _Geographische Inschriften_, vol. I. Xxxi. 1. 1, where the dwarfs and pigmies who came to the court of the king, in the period of the Ptolemies, to serve in his household, are mentioned. Various races of diminutive stature, which have since been driven down to the upper basin of the Congo, formerly extended further northward, and dwelt between Darfûr and the marshes of Bahr-el-Ghazâl. As to the Danga, cf. What has been said on p. 226 of the present work. 

[Illustration: 270. Jpg THE ROCKS OF THE ISLAND OF SEHÊL, WITH SOME OFTHE VOTIVE INSCRIPTIONS]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken by Dévèria in 1864. 

Partly by commerce, and partly by pillage, the lords of Elephantinebecame rapidly wealthy, and began to play an important part among thenobles of the Said: they were soon obliged to take serious precautionsagainst the cupidity which their wealth excited among the tribes ofKonusît. They entrenched themselves behind a wall of sun-dried brick, some seven and a half miles long, of which the ruins are still an objectof wonder to the traveller. It was flanked towards the north by theramparts of Syene, and followed pretty regularly the lower course of thevalley to its abutment at the port of Mahatta opposite Philas: guardsdistributed along it, kept an eye upon the mountain, and uttered acall to arms, when the enemy came within sight. Behind this bulwarkthe population felt quite at ease, and could work without fear at thegranite quarries on behalf of the Pharaoh, or pursue in security theircallings of fishermen and sailors. The inhabitants of the village ofSatît and of the neighbouring islands claimed from earliest times theprivilege of piloting the ships which went up and down the rapids, and of keeping clear the passages which were used for navigation. They worked under the protection of their goddesses Anûkît and Satît:travellers of position were accustomed to sacrifice in the temple of thegoddesses at Sehêl, and to cut on the rock votive inscriptions in theirhonour, in gratitude for the prosperous voyage accorded to them. We meettheir scrawls on every side, at the entrance and exit of the cataract, and on the small islands where they moored their boats at nightfallduring the four or five days required for the passage; the bank ofthe stream between Elephantine and Philæ is, as it were, an immensevisitors' book, in which every generation of Ancient Egypt has in turninscribed itself. The markets and streets of the twin cities must havepresented at that time the same motley blending of types and costumeswhich we might have found some years back in the bazaars of modernSyene. Nubians, negroes of the Soudan, perhaps people from SouthernArabia, jostled there with Libyans and Egyptians of the Delta. What theprinces did to make the sojourn of strangers agreeable, what templesthey consecrated to their god Khnûmû and his companions, in gratitudefor the good things he had bestowed upon them, we have no means ofknowing up to the present. Elephantine and Syene have preserved for usnothing of their ancient edifices; but the tombs which they have lefttell us their history. They honeycomb in long lines the sides of thesteep hill which looks down upon the whole extent of the left bank ofthe Nile opposite the narrow channel of the port of Aswan. A rude flightof stone steps led from the bank to the level of the sepulchres. Themummy having been carried slowly on the shoulders of the bearers to theplatform, was deposited for a moment at the entrance cf the chapel. The decoration of the latter was rather meagre, and was distinguishedneither by the delicacy of its execution nor by the variety of thesubjects. More care was bestowed upon the exterior, and upon the wallson each side of the door, which could be seen from the river or from thestreets of Elephantine. An inscription borders the recess, and boaststo every visitor of the character of the occupant: the portrait of thedeceased, and sometimes that of his son, stand to the right and left:the scenes devoted to the offerings come next, when an artist ofsufficient skill could be found to engrave them. 

[Illustration: 275. Jpg THE MOUNTAIN OF ASWAN AND THE TOMBS OF THEPRINCES OF ELEPHANTINE]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger. The entrance to the tombs are halfway up; the long trench, cutting the side of the mountain obliquely, shelters the still existing steps which led to the tombs of Pharaonic times. On the sky-line may be noted the ruins of several mosques and Coptic monasteries. 

The expeditions of the lords of Elephantine, crowned as they frequentlywere with success, soon attracted the attention of the Pharaohs:Metesouphis deigned to receive in person at the cataract the homage ofthe chiefs of Ûaûaît and Iritît and of the Màzaiû during the early daysof the fifth year of his reign. *

 * The words used in the inscription, "The king himself went and returned, ascending the mountain to see what there was on the mountain, " prove that Metesouphis inspected the quarries in person. Another inscription, discovered in 1893, gives the year V. As the date of his journey to Elephantine, and adds that he had negotiations with the heads of the four great Nubian races. 

The most celebrated caravan guide at this time was Hirkhûf, own cousinto Mikhû, Prince of Elephantine. He had entered upon office under theauspices of his father Iri, "the sole friend. " A king whose name he doesnot mention, but who was perhaps Unas, more probably Papi I. , despatchedthem both to the country of the Amamît. The voyage occupied sevenmonths, and was extraordinarily successful: the sovereign, encouraged bythis unexpected good fortune, resolved to send out a fresh expedition. Hirkhûf had the sole command of it; he made his way through Iritît, explored the districts of Satir and Darros, and retraced his stepsafter an absence of eight months. He brought back with him a quantityof valuable commodities, "the like of which no one had ever previouslybrought back. " He was not inclined to regain his country by the ordinaryroute: he pushed boldly into the narrow wadys which furrow the territoryof the people of Iritît, and emerged upon the region of Situ, in theneighbourhood of the cataract, by paths in which no official travellerwho had visited the Amamît had up to this time dared to travel. A thirdexpedition which started out a few years later brought him into regionsstill less frequented. It set out by the Oasis route, proceeded towardsthe Amamît, and found the country in an uproar. The sheikhs had convokedtheir tribes, and were making preparations to attack the Timihû "towardsthe west corner of the heaven, " in that region where stand the pillarswhich support the iron firmament at the setting sun. The Timihû wereprobably Berbers by race and language. Their tribes, coming from beyondthe Sahara, wandered across the frightful solitudes which bound the NileValley on the west. The Egyptians had constantly to keep a sharp lookout for them, and to take precautions against their incursions; havingfor a long time acted only on the defensive, they at length took theoffensive, and decided, not without religious misgivings, to pursuethem to their retreats. As the inhabitants of Mendes and of Busirishad relegated the abode of their departed to the recesses of theimpenetrable marshes of the Delta, so those of Siût and Thinis had atfirst believed that the souls of the deceased sought a home beyond thesands: the good jackal Anubis acted as their guide, through the gorgeof the Cleft or through the gate of the Oven, to the green islandsscattered over the desert, where the blessed dwelt in peace at aconvenient distance from their native cities and their tombs. Theyconstituted, as we know, a singular folk, those _uiti_ whose membersdwelt in coffins, and who had put on the swaddling clothes of the dead;the Egyptians called the Oasis which they had colonised, the land of theshrouded, or of mummies, _ûît_, and the name continued to designateit long after the advance of geographical knowledge had removed thisparadise further towards the west. The Oases fell one after the otherinto the hands of frontier princes--that of Bahnesa coming under thedominion of the lord of Oxyrrhynchus, that of Dakhel under the lords ofThinis. The Nubians of Amamît had relations, probably, with the Timihû, who owned the Oasis of Dush--a prolongation of that of Dakhel, on theparallel of Elephantine. Hirkhûf accompanied the expedition to theAmamît, succeeded in establishing peace among the rival tribes, andpersuaded them "to worship all the gods of Pharaoh:" he afterwardsreconciled the Iritît, Amamît, and Ûaûaît, who lived in a state ofperpetual hostility to each other, explored their valleys, and collectedfrom them such quantities of incense, ebony, ivory, and skins that threehundred asses were required for their transport. 

[Illustration: 278. Jpg HIRKHÛF RECEIVING POSTHUMOUS HOMAGE AT THE DOOROF HIS TOMB FROM HIS SON]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph, taken in 1892, by Alexander Gayet. 

He was even fortunate enough to acquire a Danga from the land of ghosts, resembling the one brought from Pûanît by Biûrdidi in the reign of Assieighty years before. Metesouphis, in the mean time, had died, and hisyoung brother and successor, Papi II. , had already been a year upon thethrone. The new king, delighted to possess a dwarf who could perform"the dance of the god, " addressed a rescript to Hirkhuf to express hissatisfaction; at the same time he sent him a special messenger, Uni, adistant relative to Papi I. 's minister, who was to invite him to comeand give an account of his expedition. The boat in which the explorerembarked to go down to Memphis, also brought the Danga, and from thatmoment the latter became the most important personage of the party. Forhim all the royal officials, lords, and sacerdotal colleges hastened toprepare provisions and means of conveyance; his health was of greaterimportance than that of his protector, and he was anxiously watchedlest he should escape. "When he is with thee in the boat, let there becautious persons about him, lest he should fall into the water; when herests during the night, let careful people sleep beside him, in case ofhis escaping quickly in the night-time. For my Majesty desires to seethis dwarf more than all the treasures which are being imported fromthe land of Pûanît. " Hirkhûf, on his return to Elephantine, engraved theroyal letter and the detailed account of his journeys to the lands ofthe south, on the façade of his tomb. 

These repeated expeditions produced in course of time more importantand permanent results than the capture of an accomplished dwarf, or theacquisition of a fortune by an adventurous nobleman. The nations whichthese merchants visited were accustomed to hear so much of Egypt, itsindustries, and its military force, that they came at last to entertainan admiration and respect for her, not unmingled with fear: they learnedto look upon her as a power superior to all others, and upon her king asa god whom none might resist. They adopted Egyptian worship, yielded toEgypt their homage, and sent the Egyptians presents: they were won overby civilization before being subdued by arms. We are not acquaintedwith the manner in which Nofirkiri-Papi II. Turned these friendlydispositions to good account in extending his empire to the south. Theexpeditions did not all prove so successful as that of Hirkhûf, and oneat least of the princes of Elephantine, Papinakhîti, met with his deathin the course of one of them. Papi II. Had sent him on a mission, afterseveral others, "to make profit out of the Ûaûaiû and the Iritît. " Hekilled considerable numbers in this raid, and brought back great spoil, which he shared with Pharaoh; "for he was at the head of many warriors, chosen from among the bravest, " which was the cause of his success inthe enterprise with which his Holiness had deigned to entrust him. Once, however, the king employed him in regions which were not so familiar tohim as those of Nubia, and fate was against him. He had received ordersto visit the Amu, the Asiatic tribes inhabiting the Sinaitic Peninsula, and to repeat on a smaller scale in the south the expedition which Unihad led against them in the north; he proceeded thither, and his sojournhaving come to an end, he chose to return by sea. To sail towardsPûanît, to coast up as far as the "Head of Nekhabît, " to land thereand make straight for Elephantine by the shortest route, presented nounusual difficulties, and doubtless more than one traveller or generalof those times had safely accomplished it; Papinakhîti failed miserably. As he was engaged in constructing his vessel, the Hirû-Shâîtû fellupon him and massacred him, as well as the detachment of troops whoaccompanied him: the remaining soldiers brought home his body, which wasburied by the side of the other princes in the mountain opposite Syene. Papi II. Had ample leisure to avenge the death of his vassal and tosend fresh expeditions to Iritît, among the Amamît and even beyond, if, indeed, as the author of the chronological Canon of Turin asserts, * hereally reigned for more than ninety years; but the monuments are almostsilent with regard to him, and give us no information about his possibleexploits in Nubia. An inscription of his second year proves that hecontinued to work the Sinaitic mines, and that he protected them fromthe Bedouin. 

 * The fragments of Manetho and the Canon of Eratosthenes agree in assigning to him a reign of a hundred years--a fact which seems to indicate that the missing unit in the Turin list was nine: Papi II. Would have thus died in the hundreth year of his reign. A reign of a hundred years is impossible: Mihtimsaûf I. Having reigned fourteen years, it would be necessary to assume that Papi II. , son of Papi I. , should have lived a hundred and fourteen years at the least, even on the supposition that he was a posthumous child. The simplest solution is to suppose (1) that Papi II. Lived a hundred years, as Ramses II. Did in later times, and that the years of his life were confounded with the years of his reign; or (2) that, being the brother of Mihtimsaûf I. , he was considered as associated with him on the throne, and that the hundred years of his reign, including the fourteen of the latter prince, were identified with the years of his life. We may, moreover, believe that the chronologists, for. Lack of information on the VIth dynasty, have filled the blanks in their annals by lengthening the reign of Papi II. , which in any case must have been very long. 

On the other hand, the number and beauty of the tombs in which mentionis made of him, bear witness to the fact that Egypt enjoyed continuedprosperity. Recent discoveries have done much to surround this king andhis immediate predecessors with an air of reality which is lacking inmany of the later Pharaohs. 

[Illustration: 282. Jpg HEAD OF THE MUMMY OF METESOUPHIS I]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey. The mummy is now in the Gîzeh Museum (cf. Maspero, _Guide au Musée de Boulaq_, pp. 347, 348, No. 5250). 

Their pyramids, whose familiar designations we have deciphered in thetexts, have been uncovered at Saqqâra, and the inscriptions which theycontain, reveal to us the names of the sovereigns who reposed within. Unas, Teti III. , Papi I. , Mete-souphis I. , and Papi II. Now have asclearly defined a personality for us as Ramses II. Or Seti I. ; even themummy of Metesouphis has been discovered near his sarcophagus, and canbe seen under glass in the Gîzeh Museum. The body is thin and slender;the head refined, and ornamented with the thick side-lock of boyhood;the features can be easily distinguished, although the lower jaw hasdisappeared and the pressure of the bandages has flattened the nose. All the pyramids of the dynasty are of a uniform-type, the model beingfurnished by that of Unas. The entrance is in the centre of the northernfaçade, underneath the lowest course, and on the ground-level. An inclined passage, obstructed by enormous stones, leads to anantechamber, whose walls are partly bare, and partly covered with longcolumns of hieroglyphs: a level passage, blocked towards the middle bythree granite barrier, ends in a nearly square chamber; on the left arethree low cells devoid of ornament, and on the right an oblong chambercontaining the sarcophagus. 

[Illustration: 283. Jpg PLAN OF THE PYRAMID OF UNAS]

 From drawings by Maspero, _La Pyramide d'Ounas_, in the _Recueil de Travaux_, vol. Iv. P. 177. 

These two principal rooms had high-pitched roofs. They were composed oflarge slabs of limestone, the upper edges of which leaned one againstthe other, while the lower edges rested on a continuous ledge which ranround the chamber: the first row of slabs was surmounted by a second, and that again by a third, and the three together effectively protectedthe apartments of the dead against the thrust of the superincumbentmass, or from the attacks of robbers. The wall-surfaces close to thesarcophagus in the pyramid of Unas are decorated with many-colouredornaments and sculptured and painted doors representing the front ofa house: this was, in fact, the dwelling of the double, in which heresided with the dead body. 

[Illustration: 284. Jpg THE SEPULCHRAL CHAMBER IN THE PYRAMID OF UNAS, AND HIS SARCOPHAOUS]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph, taken in 1881, by Émil Brugsch-Bey. 

The inscriptions, like the pictures in the tombs, were meant to furnishthe sovereign with provisions, to dispel serpents and malevolentdivinities, to keep his soul from death, and to lead him into the barkof the sun or into the Paradise of Osiris. They constitute a portion ofa vast book, whose chapters are found scattered over the monuments ofsubsequent periods. They are the means of restoring to us, not only thereligion but the most ancient language of Egypt: the majority of theformulas contained in them were drawn up in the time of the earliesthuman kings, perhaps even before Menés. 

The history of the VIth dynasty loses itself in legend and fable. Two more kings are supposed to have succeeded Papi Nofirkeri, MirnirîMihtimsaût (Metesouphis II. ) and Nîtaûqrît (Nitokris). Metesouphis II. Was killed, so runs the tale, in a riot, a year after his accession. *

 * Manetho does not mention this fact, but the legend given by Herodotus says that Nitokris wished to avenge the king, her brother and predecessor, who was killed in a revolution; and it follows from the narrative of the facts that this anonymous brother was the Metesouphis of Manetho. The Turin Papyrus assigns a reign of a year and a month to Mihtimsaul- Metesouphis II. 

His sister, Nitokris, the "rosy-cheeked, " to whom, as was the custom, hewas married, succeeded him and avenged his death. She built an immensesubterranean hall; under pretext of inaugurating its completion, but inreality with a totally different aim, she then invited to a great feast, and received in this hall, a considerable number of Egyptians from amongthose whom she knew to have been instigators of the crime. During theentertainment, she diverted the waters of the Nile into the hall by meansof a canal which she had kept concealed. This is what is related of her. They add, that "after this, the queen, of her own will, threw herselfinto a great chamber filled with ashes, in order to escape punishment. "She completed the pyramid of Mykerinos, by adding to it that costlycasing of Syenite which excited the admiration of travellers; shereposed in a sarcophagus of blue basalt, in the very centre of themonument, above the secret chamber where the pious Pharaoh had hiddenhis mummy. *

 * The legend which ascribes the building of the third pyramid to a woman has been preserved by Herodotus: E. De Bunsen, comparing it with the observations of Vyse, was inclined to attribute to Nitokris the enlarging of the monument, which appears to me to have been the work of Mykerinos himself. 

The Greeks, who had heard from their dragomans the story of the"Rosy-cheeked Beauty, " metamorphosed the princess into a courtesan, and for the name of Nitokris, substituted the more harmonious one ofRhodopis, which was the exact translation of the characteristic epithetof the Egyptian queen. One day while she was bathing in the river, aneagle stole one of her gilded sandals, carried it off in thedirection of Memphis, and let it drop in the lap of the king, who wasadministering justice in the open air. The king, astonished at thesingular occurrence, and at the beauty of the tiny shoe, caused a searchto be made throughout the country for the woman to whom it belonged:Rhodopis thus became Queen of Egypt, and could build herself a pyramid. Even Christianity and the Arab conquest did not entirely efface theremembrance of the courtesan-princess. 

[Illustration: 286. Jpg THE ENTRANCE TO THE PYRAMID OF UNAS AT SAQQÀRA]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey. 

It is said that the spirit of the Southern Pyramid never appears abroad, except in the form of a naked woman, who is very beautiful, but whosemanner of acting is such, that when she desires to make people fallin love with her, and lose their wits, she smiles upon them, andimmediately they draw near to her, and she attracts them towards her, and makes them infatuated with love; so that they at once lose theirwits, and wander aimlessly about the country. Many have seen her movinground the pyramid about midday and towards sunset. It is Nitokris stillhaunting the monument of her shame and her magnificence. *

 * The lists of the VIth dynasty, with the approximate dates of the kings, are as follows:--

[Illustration: 289. Jpg TABLE OF THE DATES OF THE KINGS VITH DYNASTY]

After her, even tradition is silent, and the history of Egypt remainsa mere blank for several centuries. Manetho admits the existence oftwo other Memphite dynasties, of which the first contains seventy kingsduring as many days. Akhthoës, the most cruel of tyrants, followed next, and oppressed his subjects for a long period: he was at last the victimof raving madness, and met with his death from the jaws of a crocodile. It is related that he was of Heracleopolite extraction, and thetwo dynasties which succeeded him, the IXth and the Xth, were alsoHeracleopolitan. The table of Abydos is incomplete, and the TurinPapyrus, in the absence of other documents, too mutilated to furnishus with any exact information; the contemporaries of the Ptolemies werealmost entirely ignorant of what took place between the end of the VIthand the beginning of the XIIth dynasty; and Egyptologists, not findingany monuments which they could attribute to this period, thereuponconcluded that Egypt had passed through some formidable crisis out ofwhich she with difficulty extricated herself. *

 * Marsham (_Canon Chronicus_, edition, of Leipzig, 1676, p. 29) had already declared in the seventeenth century that he felt no hesitation in considering the Heracleopolites as identical with the successors of Menes-Misraîm, who reigned over the Mestraea, that is, over the Delta only. The idea of an Asiatic invasion, analogous to that of the Hyksos, which was put forward by Mariette, and accepted by Fr. Lenormant, has found its chief supporters in Germany. Bunsen made of the Heracleopolitan two subordinate dynasties reigning simultaneously in Lower Egypt, and originating at Heracleopolis in the Delta: they were supposed to have been contemporaries of the last Memphite and first Theban dynasties. Lepsius accepted and recognized in the Heracleopolitans of the Delta the predecessors of the Hyksos, an idea defended by Ebers, and developed by Krall in his identification of the unknown invaders with the Hirû- Shâîtû: it has been adopted by Ed. Meyer, and by Petrie. 

The so-called Heracleopolites of Manetho were assumed to have been thechiefs of a barbaric people of Asiatic origin, those same "Lords of theSands" so roughly handled by Uni, but who are considered to have invadedthe Delta soon after, settled themselves in Heracleopolis Parva as theircapital, and from thence held sway over the whole valley. They appearedto have destroyed much and built nothing; the state of barbarism intowhich they sank, and to which they reduced the vanquished, explainingthe absence of any monuments to mark their occupation. This hypothesis, however, is unsupported by any direct proof: even the dearth ofmonuments which has been cited as an argument in favour of thetheory, is no longer a fact. The sequence of reigns and details of therevolutions are wanting; but many of the kings and certain facts intheir history are known, and we are able to catch a glimpse of thegeneral course of events. The VIIth and VIIIth dynasties are Memphite, and the names of the kings themselves would be evidence in favour oftheir genuineness, even if we had not the direct testimony of Manetho:the one recurring most frequently is that of Nofirkerî, the prenomen ofPapi II. , and a third Papi figures in them, who calls himself Papi-Sonbûto distinguish himself from his namesakes. The little recorded of themin Ptolemaic times, even the legend of the seventy Pharaohs reigningseventy days, betrays a troublous period and a rapid change of rulers. *

 * The explanation of Prof. Lauth, according to which Manetho is supposed to have made an independent dynasty of the five Memphite priests who filled the interregnum of seventy days during the embalming of Nitokris, is certainly very ingenious, but that is all that can be said for it. The legendary source from which Manetho took his information distinctly recorded seventy successive kings, who reigned in all seventy days, a king a day. 

We know as a fact that the successors of Nitokris, in the Royal TurinPapyrus, scarcely did more than appear upon the throne. Nofirkerîreigned a year, a month, and a day; Nofîrûs, four years, two months, and a day; Abu, two years, one month, and a day. Each of them hoped, no doubt, to enjoy the royal power for a longer period than hispredecessors, and, like the Ati of the VIth dynasty, ordered a pyramidto be designed for him without delay: not one of them had time tocomplete the building, nor even to carry it sufficiently far to leaveany trace behind. As none of them had any tomb to hand his name down toposterity, the remembrance of them perished with their contemporaries. By dint of such frequent changes in the succession, the royal authoritybecame enfeebled, and its weakness favoured the growing influence of thefeudal families and encouraged their ambition. The descendants of thosegreat lords, who under Papi I. And II. Made such magnificent tombs forthemselves, were only nominally subject to the supremacy of the reigningsovereign; many of them were, indeed, grandchildren of princesses of theblood, and possessed, or imagined that they possessed, as good a rightto the crown as the family on the throne. Memphis declined, becameimpoverished, and dwindled in population. Its inhabitants ceased tobuild those immense stone mastabas in which they had proudly displayedtheir wealth, and erected them merely of brick, in which the decorationwas almost entirely confined to one narrow niche near the sarcophagus. Soon the mastaba itself was given up, and the necropolis of the city wasreduced to the meagre proportions of a small provincial cemetery. Thecentre of that government, which had weighed so long and so heavily uponEgypt, was removed to the south, and fixed itself at Heracleopolis theGreat. 

Volume II. , Part . 

_THE FIRST THEBAN EMPIRE_

_THE TWO HERACLEOPOLITAN DYNASTIES AND THE TWELFTH DYNASTY--THE CONQUESTOF ETHIOPIA, AND THE MAKING OF GREATER EGYPT BY THE THEBAN KINGS. _

_The principality of Heracleopolis: Achthoës-Khîti and theHeracleopolitan dynasties--Supremacy of the great barons: the feudalfortresses, El-Kab and Abydos; ceaseless warfare, the army--Origin ofthe Theban principality: the principality of Sidt, and the struggles ofits lords against the princes of Thebes--The kings of the XIth dynastyand their buildings: the brick pyramids of Abydos and Thebes, and therude character of early Theban art. _

_The XIIth dynasty: Amenemdidît I. , his accession, his wars; he shareshis throne with his son Usirtasen I. , and the practice of a coregnancyprevails among his immediate successors--The relations of Egyptwith Asia: the Amû in Egypt and the Egyptians among the Bedouin; theAdventures of Sinûhît--The mining settlements in the Sinaitic peninsula:Sarbût-el-Khddim and its chapel to Hâthor. _

_Egyptian policy in the Nile Valley--Nubia becomes part of Egypt: worksof the Pharaohs, the gold-mines and citadel of Kubân--Defensivemeasures at the second cataract: the two fortresses and the Nilometerof Semnêh--The vile Kush and its inhabitants: the wars against Kûshand their consequences; the gold-mines--Expeditions to Pûanît, andnavigation along the coasts of the Bed Sea: the Story of the ShipwreckedSailor. _

_Public works and new buildings--The restoration of the temples of theDelta: Tanis and the sphinxes of Amenemhâît III. , Bubastis, Heliopolis, and the temple of Usirtasen I. --The increasing importance of Thebesand Abydos--Heracleopolis and the Fayûm: the monuments of Begig and ofBiahmil, the fields and water-system of the Fayûm; preference shown bythe Pharaohs for this province--The royal pyramids of Dashdr, Lisht, Ulahûn, and Haiodra. _

_The part played by the feudal lords under the XIIth dynasty--History ofthe princes of Mondît-Khûfûi: Khnûmhotpil, Khîti, Amoni-Amenemhâît--Thelords of Thébes, and the accession of the XIIIth dynasty: the Sovkhotpûsand the Nfirhotpûs--Completion of the conquest of Nubia; the XIVthdynasty_. 

[Illustration: 295. Jpg PAGE IMAGE]

CHAPTER III--THE FIRST THEBAN EMPIRE

_The two Heracleopolitan dynasties and the XIIth dynasty--The conquestof Ethiopia, and the making of Greater Egypt by the Theban kings. _

The principality of the Oleander--Nârû--was bounded on the north by theMemphite nome; the frontier ran from the left bank of the Nile to theLibyan range, from the neighbourhood of Riqqah to that of Mêdûm. Theprincipality comprised the territory lying between the Nile and the BahrYûsûf, from the above-mentioned two villages to the Harabshent Canal--adistrict known to Greek geographers as the island of Heracleopolis;--itmoreover included the whole basin of the Fâyûm, on the west of thevalley. In very early times it had been divided into three parts: theUpper Oleander--Nârû Khonîti--the Lower Oleander--Nârû Pahûi--andthe lake land--To-shît; and these divisions, united usually underthe supremacy of one chief, formed a kind of small state, of whichHeracleopolis was always the capital. The soil was fertile, wellwatered, and well tilled, but the revenues from this district, confinedbetween the two arms of the river, were small in comparison with thewealth which their ruler derived from his hands on the other side of themountain range. The Fayûm is approached by a narrow and winding gorge, more than six miles in length--a depression of natural formation, deepened by the hand of man to allow a free passage to the waters of theNile. The canal which conveys them leaves the Bahr Yûsûf at a point alittle to the north of Heracleopolis, carries them in a swift streamthrough the gorge in the Libyan chain, and emerges into an immenseamphitheatre, whose highest side is parallel to the Nile valley, andwhose terraced slopes descend abruptly to about a hundred feet below thelevel of the Mediterranean. Two great arms separate themselves from thiscanal to the right and left--the Wady Tamieh and the Wady Nazleh; theywind at first along the foot of the hills, and then again approachingeach other, empty themselves into a great crescent or horn-shaped lake, lying east and west--the Moeris of Strabo, the Birket-Kerun of theArabs. A third branch penetrates the space enclosed by the other two, passes the town of Shodû, and is then subdivided into numerous canalsand ditches, whose ramifications appear on the map as a networkresembling the reticulations of a skeleton leaf. The lake formerlyextended beyond its present limits, and submerged districts from whichit has since withdrawn. *

 * Most of the specialists who have latterly investigated the Fayûm have greatly exaggerated the extent of the Birket- Kerûn in historic times. Prof. Petrie states that it covered the whole of the present province throughout the time of the Memphite kings, and that it was not until the reign of Amenemhâît I. That even a very small portion was drained. Major Brown adopts this theory, and considers that it was under Amenemhâît III. That the great lake of the Fayûm was transformed into a kind of artificial reservoir, which was the Mceris of Herodotus. The city of Shodû, Shadû, Shadît-- the capital of the Fayûm--and its god Sovkû are mentioned even in the Pyramid texts: and the eastern district of the Fayûm is named in the inscription of Amten, under the IIIrd dynasty. 

[Illustration: 297. Jpg MAP, THE FAYUM]

In years when the inundation was excessive, the surplus waters weredischarged into the lake; when, however, there was a low Nile, thestorage which had not been absorbed by the soil was poured back intothe valley by the same channels, and carried down by the Bahr-Yûsûf toaugment the inundation of the Western Delta. 

[Illustration: 298. Jpg FLAT-BOTTOMED VESSEL OF BRONZE OPEN-WORK BEARINGTHE CARTOUCHES OF PHARAOH KHÎTI I]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the original in the Louvre Museum. 

The Nile was the source of everything in this principality, and hencethey were gods of the waters who received the homage of the three nomes. The inhabitants of Heracleopolis worshipped the ram Harshafîtû, withwhom they associated Osiris of Narûdûf as god of the dead; the peopleof the Upper Oleander adored a second ram, Khnûmû of Hâsmonîtû, and thewhole Fayûm was devoted to the cult of Sovkû the crocodile. Attracted bythe fertility of the soil, the Pharaohs of the older dynasties hadfrom time to time taken up their residence in Heracleopolis or itsneighbourhood, and one of them--Snofrûi--had built his pyramid at Mêdûm, close to the frontier of the nome. In proportion as the power of theMemphites declined, the princes of the Oleander grew more vigorous andenterprising; and when the Memphite kings passed away, these princessucceeded their former masters and sat "upon the throne of Horus. "

The founder of the IXth dynasty was perhaps Khîti I. , Miribrî, theAkhthoës of the Greeks. He ruled over all Egypt, and his name has beenfound on rocks at the first cataract. A story dating from the time ofthe Ramessides mentions his wars against the Bedouin of the regions eastof the Delta; and what Manetho relates of his death is merely a romance, in which the author, having painted him as a sacrilegious tyrant likeKheops and Khephren, states that he was dragged down under the water andthere devoured by a crocodile or hippopotamus, the appointed avengers ofthe offended gods. His successors seem to have reigned ingloriouslyfor more than a century. Their deeds are unknown to history, but itwas under the reign of one of them--Nibkaûrî--that a travelling fellah, having been robbed of his earnings by an artisan, is said to havejourneyed to Heracleopolis to demand justice from the governor, orto charm him by the eloquence of his pleadings and the variety of hismetaphors. It would, of course, be idle to look for the record of anyhistoric event in this story; the common people, moreover, do not longremember the names of unimportant princes, and the tenacity withwhich the Egyptians treasured the memories of several kings of theHeracleopolitan line amply proves that, whether by their good or evilqualities, they had at least made a lasting impression upon the popularimagination. 

[Illustration: 300. Jpg PART OF THE WALLS OF EL-KAB ON THE NORTHERN SIDE]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Grébaut. The illustration shows a breach where the gate stood, and the curves of the brickwork courses can clearly be traced both to the right and the left of the opening. 

The history of this period, as far as we can discern it through themists of the past, appears to be one confused struggle: from north tosouth war raged without intermission; the Pharaohs fought against theirrebel vassals, the nobles fought among themselves, and--what scarcelyamounted to warfare--there were the raids on all sides of pillagingbands, who, although too feeble to constitute any serious danger tolarge cities, were strong enough either in numbers or discipline torender the country districts uninhabitable, and to destroy nationalprosperity. The banks of the Nile already bristled with citadels, where the monarchs lived and kept watch over the lands subject to theirauthority: other fortresses were established wherever any commandingsite--such as a narrow part of the river, or the mouth of a defileleading into the desert--presented itself. All were constructed onthe same plan, varied only by the sizes of the areas enclosed, and thedifferent thickness of the outer walls. The outline of their ground-planformed a parallelogram, whose enclosure wall was often divided intovertical panels easily distinguished by the different arrangements ofthe building material. At El-Kab and other places the courses of crudebrick are slightly concave, somewhat resembling a wide inverted archwhose outer curve rests on the ground. In other places there was aregular alternation of lengths of curved courses, with those in whichthe courses were strictly horizontal. The object of this method ofstructure is still unknown, but it is thought that such building offersbetter resistance to shocks of earthquake. The most ancient fortressat Abydos, whose ruins now lie beneath the mound of Kom-es-Sultân, wasbuilt in this way. Tombs having encroached upon it by the time of theVIth dynasty, it was shortly afterwards replaced by another and similarfort, situate rather more than a hundred yards to the south-east;the latter is still one of the best-preserved specimens of militaryarchitecture dating from the times immediately preceding the firstTheban empire. *

 * My first opinion was that the second fortress had been built towards the time of the XVIIIth dynasty at the earliest, perhaps even under the XXth. Further consideration of the details of its construction and decoration now leads me to attribute it to the period between the VIth and XIIth dynasties. 

[Illustration: 302. Jpg THE SECOND FORTRESS OF ABYDOS--THESHÛNET-EZ-ZEBÎB--AS SEEN FROM THE EAST]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey. Modern Arabs call it Shûnet-ez-Zébïb, the storehouse of raisins. 

The exterior is unbroken by towers or projections of any kind, andconsists of four sides, the two longer of which are parallel to eachother and measure 143 yards from east to west: the two shorter sides, which are also parallel, measure 85 yards from north to south. The outerwall is solid, built in horizontal courses, with a slight batter, anddecorated by vertical grooves, which at all hours of the day diversifythe surface with an incessant play of light and shade. When perfect itcan hardly have been less than 40 feet in height. The walk round theramparts was crowned by a slight, low parapet, with rounded battlements, and was reached by narrow staircases carefully constructed in thethickness of the walls. A battlemented covering wall, about five and ahalf yards high, encircled the building at a distance of some four feet. The fortress itself was entered by two gates, and posterns placed atvarious points between them provided for sorties of the garrison. Theprincipal entrance was concealed in a thick block of building at thesouthern extremity of the east front. The corresponding entrance inthe covering wall was a narrow opening closed by massive wooden doors;behind it was a small _place d'armes_, at the further end of which wasa second gate, as narrow as the first, and leading into an oblong courthemmed in between the outer rampart and two bastions projecting at rightangles from it; and lastly, there was a gate purposely placed at thefurthest and least obvious corner of the court. Such a fortress wasstrong enough to resist any modes of attack then at the disposal of thebest-equipped armies, which knew but three ways of taking a place byforce, viz. Scaling, sapping, and breaking open the gates. The heightof the walls effectually prevented scaling. The pioneers were kept ata distance by the brave, but if a breach were made in that, the smallflanking galleries fixed outside the battlements enabled the besieged tooverwhelm the enemy with stones and javelins as they approached, and tomake the work of sapping almost impossible. Should the first gate ofthe fortress yield to the assault, the attacking party would be crowdedtogether in the courtyard as in a pit, few being able to enter together;they would at once be constrained to attack the second gate under ashower of missiles, and did they succeed in carrying that also, it wasat the cost of enormous sacrifice. The peoples of the Nile Valleyknew nothing of the swing battering-ram, and no representation ofthe hand-worked battering-ram has ever been found in any of theirwall-paintings or sculptures; they forced their way into a strongholdby breaking down its gates with their axes, or by setting fire to itsdoors. 

[Illustration: 304. Jpg ATTACK UPON AN EGYPTIAN FORTRESS BY TROOPS OFVARIOUS ARMS]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a scene in the tomb of Amoni- Amenemhâît at Beni-Hasan. 

While the sappers were hard at work, the archers endeavoured, by theaccuracy of their aim, to clear the enemy from the curtain, whilesoldiers sheltered behind movable mantelets tried to break down thedefences and dismantle the flanking galleries with huge metal-tippedlances. In dealing with a resolute garrison none of these methods provedsuccessful; nothing but close siege, starvation, or treachery couldovercome its resistance. 

The equipment of Egyptian troops was lacking in uniformity, and menarmed with slings, or bows and arrows, lances, wooden swords, clubs, stone or metal axes, all fought side by side. The head was protectedby a padded cap, and the body by shields, which were small for lightinfantry, but of great width for soldiers of the line. The issue of abattle depended upon a succession of single combats between foes armedwith the same weapons; the lancers alone seem to have charged in linebehind their huge bucklers. As a rule, the wounds were trifling, and thegreat skill with which the shields were used made the risk of injury toany vital part very slight. Sometimes, however, a lance might be drivenhome into a man's chest, or a vigorously wielded sword or club mightfracture a combatant's skull and stretch him unconscious on the ground. With the exception of those thus wounded and incapacitated for flight, very few prisoners were taken, and the name given to them, "Those struckdown alive"--_sokirûonkhû_--sufficiently indicates the method of theircapture. The troops were recruited partly from the domains of militaryfiefs, partly from tribes of the desert or Nubia, and by their aidthe feudal princes maintained the virtual independence which they hadacquired for themselves under the last kings of the Memphite line. Here and there, at Hermopolis, Shit, and Thebes, they founded actualdynasties, closely connected with the Pharaonic dynasty, and evenoccasionally on an equality with it, though they assumed neitherthe crown nor the double cartouche. Thebes was admirably adapted forbecoming the capital of an important state. It rose on the right bankof the Nile, at the northern end of the curve made by the river towardsHermonthis, and in the midst of one of the most fertile plains of Egypt. Exactly opposite to it, the Libyan range throws out a precipitous spurbroken up by ravines and arid amphitheatres, and separated from theriver-bank by a mere strip of cultivated ground which could be easilydefended. A troop of armed men stationed on this neck of land couldcommand the navigable arm of the Nile, intercept trade with Nubia attheir pleasure, and completely bar the valley to any army attempting topass without having first obtained authority to do so. The advantagesof this site do not seem to have been appreciated during the Memphiteperiod, when the political life of Upper Egypt was but feeble. Elephantine, El-Kab, and Koptos were at that period the principal citiesof the country. Elephantine particularly, owing to its trade with theSoudan, and its constant communication with the peoples bordering theRed Sea, was daily increasing in importance. Hermonthis, the Aûnû of theSouth, occupied much the same position, from a religious point of view, as was held in the Delta by Heliopolis, the Aûnû of the North, and itsgod Montû, a form of the Solar Horus, disputed the supremacy with Mînû, of Koptos. Thebes long continued to be merely an insignificant villageof the Uisit nome and a dependency of Hermonthis. It was only towardsthe end of the VIIIth dynasty that Thebes began to realize its power, after the triumph of feudalism over the crown had culminated in thedownfall of the Memphite kings. 

[Illustration: 306. Jpg Denderah--Temple of Tentyra]

[Illustration: 306-text. Jpg--Temple of Tentyra]

A family which, to judge from the fact that its members affected thename of Monthotpû, originally came from Hermonthis, settled in Thebesand made that town the capital of a small principality, which rapidlyenlarged its borders at the expense of the neighbouring nomes. All thetowns and cities of the plain, Mâdûfc, Hfûîfc, Zorît, Hermonthis, and towards the south, Aphroditopolis Parva, at the gorge of the TwoMountains (Gebelên) which formed the frontier of the fief of El-Kab, Kûsît towards the north, Denderah, and Hû, all fell into the hands ofthe Theban princes and enormously increased their territory. After thelapse of a very few years, their supremacy was accepted more or lesswillingly by the adjacent principalities of El-Kab, Elephantine, Koptos, Qasr-es-Sayad, Thinis, and Ekhmîm. Antûf, the founder of the family, claimed no other title than that of Lord of Thebes, and still submittedto the suzerainty of the Heracleopolitan kings. His successorsconsidered themselves strong enough to cast off this allegiance, ifnot to usurp all the insignia of royalty, including the uraeus and thecartouche. Monthotpû I. , Antûf II. , and Antûf III. Must have occupied asomewhat remarkable position among the great lords of the south, sincetheir successors credited them with the possession of a unique preamble. It is true that the historians of a later date did not venture toplace them on a par with the kings who were actually independent; theyenclosed their names in the cartouche without giving them a prenomen;but, at the same time, they invested them with a title not met withelsewhere, that of the first Horus--_Horû tapi_. They exercisedconsiderable power from the outset. It extended over Southern Egypt, over Nubia, and over the valleys lying between the Nile and the RedSea. * The origin of the family was somewhat obscure, but in supportof their ambitious projects, they did not fail to invoke the memory ofpretended alliances between their ancestors and daughters of the solarrace; they boasted of their descent from the Papis, from Usirnirî Anû, Sahûri, and Snofrûi, and claimed that the antiquity of their titles didaway with the more recent rights of their rivals. 

The revolt of the Theban princes put an end to the IXth dynasty, and, although supported by the feudal powers of Central and Northern Egypt, and more especially by the lords of the Terebinth nome, who viewed thesudden prosperity of the Thebans with a very evil eye, the Xth dynastydid not succeed in bringing them back to their allegiance. **

 * In the "Hall of Ancestors" the title of "Horus" is attributed to several Antûfs and Monthotpûs bearing the cartouche. This was probably the compiler's ingenious device for marking the subordinate position of these personages as compared with that of the Heracleopolitan Pharaohs, who alone among their contemporaries had a right to be placed on such official lists, even when those lists were compiled under the great Theban dynasties. The place in the XIth dynasty of princes bearing the title of "Horus" was first determined by E. De Rougé. 

 ** The history of the house of Thebes was restored at the same time as that of the Heracleopolitan dynasties, by Maspero, in the _Revue Critique_, 1889, vol. Ii. P. 220. The difficulty arising from the number of the Theban kings according to Manetho, considered in connection with the forty-three years which made the total duration of the dynasty, has been solved by Barucchi, _Discord critici sojpra la Cronologia Egizia_, pp. 131-134. These forty-three years represent the length of time that the Theban dynasty reigned alone, and which are ascribed to it in the Royal Canon; but the number of its kings includes, besides the recognized Pharaohs of the line, those princes who were contemporary with the Heracleopolitan rulers and are officially reckoned as forming the Xth dynasty. 

The family which held the fief of Siût when the war broke out, hadruled there for three generations. Its first appearance on the scene ofhistory coincided with the accession of Akhthoës, and its elevation wasprobably the reward of services rendered by its chief to the head of theHeracleopolitan family. *

 * By ascribing to the princes of Siut an average reign equal to that of the Pharaohs, and admitting with Lepsius that the IXth dynasty consisted of four or five kings, the accession of the first of these princes would practically coincide with the reign of Akhthoës. The name of Khîti, borne by two members of this little local dynasty, may have been given in memory of the Pharaoh Khiti Miribrî; there was also a second Khîti among the Heracleopolitan sovereigns, and one of the Khîtis of Siut may have been his contemporary. The family claimed a long descent, and said of itself that it was "an ancient litter"; but the higher rank and power of "prince" --hiqû--it owed to Khîti I. [Miribri?--Ed. ] or some other king of the Heracleo-politian line. 

[Illustration: 309. Jpg MAP, PLAIN OF THEBES]

From this time downwards, the title of "ruler"--_hiqû_--which thePharaohs themselves sometimes condescended to take, was hereditary inthe family, who grew in favour from year to year. Khiti I. , the fourthof this line of princes, was brought up in the palace of Heracleopolis, and had learned to swim with the royal children. On his return homehe remained the personal friend of the king, and governed his domainswisely, clearing the canals, fostering agriculture, and lightening thetaxes without neglecting the army. His heavy infantry, recruited fromamong the flower of the people of the north, and his light infantry, drawn from the pick of the people of the south, were counted bythousands. He resisted the Theban pretensions with all his might, andhis son Tefabi followed in his footsteps. "The first time, " said he, "that my foot-soldiers fought against the nomes of the south which weregathered together from Elephantine in the south to Gau on the north, I conquered those nomes, I drove them towards the southern frontier, Ioverran the left bank of the Nile in all directions. When I came to atown I threw down its walls, I seized its chief, I imprisoned him at theport (landing-place) until he paid me ransom. As soon as I had finishedwith the left bank, and there were no longer found any who dared resist, I passed to the right bank; like a swift hare I set full sail foranother chief.... I sailed by the north wind as by the east, by thesouth as by the west, and him whose ship I boarded I vanquished utterly;he was cast into the water, his boats fled to shore, his soldiers wereas bulls on whom falleth the lion; I compassed his city from end to end, I seized his goods, I cast them into the fire. " Thanks to his energy andcourage, he "extinguished the rebellion by the counsel and according tothe tactics of the jackal Uapûaîtû, god of Siût. "

[Illustration: 310. Jpg MAP, THE PRINCIPALITY OF SIÛT]

[Illustration: 311. Jpg THE HEAVY INFANTRY OF THE PRINCES OF SIÛT, ARMEDWITH LANCE AND BUCKLER]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger, taken in 1882. The scene forms part of the decoration of one of the walls of the tomb of Khîti III. 

From that time "no district of the desert was safe from his terrors, "and he "carried flame at his pleasure among the nomes of the south. "Even while bringing desolation to his foes, he sought to repair the illswhich the invasion had brought upon his own subjects. He administeredsuch strict justice that evil-doers disappeared as though by magic. "When night came, he who slept on the roads blessed me, because he wasas safe as in his own house; for the fear which was shed abroad by mysoldiers protected him; and the cattle in the fields were as safe thereas in the stable; the thief had become an abomination to the god, and heno longer oppressed the serf, so that the latter ceased to complain, andpaid the exact dues of his land for love of me. " In the time of KhîtiII. , the son of Tefabi, the Heracleopolitans were still masters ofNorthern Egypt, but their authority was even then menaced by theturbulence of their own vassals, and Heracleopolis itself drove out thePharaoh Mirikarî, who was obliged to take refuge in Siût with that Kkîtiwhom he called his father. Khîti gathered together such an extensivefleet that it encumbered the Nile from Shashhotpû to Gebel-Abufodah, from one end of the principality of the Terebinth to the other. Vainlydid the rebels unite with the Thebans; Khîti "sowed terror over theworld, and himself alone chastised the nomes of the south. " While he wasdescending the river to restore the king to his capital, "the sky grewserene, and the whole country rallied to him; the commanders of thesouth and the archons of Heracleopolis, their legs tremble beneath themwhen the royal urous, ruler of the world, comes to suppress crime; theearth trembles, the South takes ship and flies, all men flee in dismay, the towns surrender, for fear takes hold on their members. " Mirikarî'sreturn was a triumphal progress: "when he came to Heracleopolis thepeople ran forth to meet him, rejoicing in their lord; women and mentogether, old men as well as children. " But fortune soon changed. Beatenagain and again, the Thebans still returned to the attack; at lengththey triumphed, after a struggle of nearly two hundred years, andbrought the two rival divisions of Egypt under their rule. 

[Illustration: 313. Jpg PALETTE INSCRIBED WITH THE NAME OF MIRIKARÎ]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the original, now in the Museum of the Louvre. The palette is of wood, and bears the name of a contemporary personage; the outlines of the hieroglyphs are inlaid with silver wire. It was probably found in the necropolis of Meîr, a little to the north of Siût. The sepulchral pyramid of the Pharaoh Mirikarî is mentioned on a coffin in the Berlin Museum. 

The few glimpses to be obtained of the early history of the firstTheban dynasty give the impression of an energetic and intelligent race. Confined to the most thinly populated, that is, the least fertile partof the valley, and engaged on the north in a ceaseless warfare whichexhausted their resources, they still found time for building both atThebes and in the most distant parts of their dominions. If their powermade but little progress southwards, at least it did not recede, andthat part of Nubia lying between Aswan and the neighbourhood of Koroskoremained in their possession. The tribes of the desert, the Amamiû, theMâzaiû, and the Uaûaiû often disturbed the husbandmen by their suddenraids; yet, having pillaged a district, they did not take possession ofit as conquerors, but hastily returned to their mountains. The Thebanprinces kept them in check by repeated counter-raids, and renewed theold treaties with them. The inhabitants of the Great Oasis in the west, and the migratory peoples of the Land of the Gods, recognized the Thebansuzerainty on the traditional terms. 

[Illustration: 314. Jpg THE BRICK PYRAMID OF ANTÛFÂA, AT THEBES]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Prisse d'Avennes. This pyramid is now completely destroyed. 

As in the times of Uni, the barbarians made up the complement of thearmy with soldiers who were more inured to hardships and more accustomedto the use of arms than the ordinary fellahîn; and several obscurePharaohs--such as Monthotpû I. And Antûf III. --owed their boastedvictories over Libyans and Asiatics* to the energy of their mercenaries. 

 * The cartouches of Antûfâa, inscribed on the rocks of Elephantine, are the record of a visit which this prince paid to Syenê, probably on his return from some raid; many similar inscriptions of Pharaohs of the XIIth dynasty were inscribed in analogous circumstances. Nûbkhopirrî Antûf boasted of having worsted the Amû and the negroes. On one of the rocks of the island of Konosso, Monthotpû Nibhotpûrî sculptured a scene of offerings in which the gods are represented as granting him victory over all peoples. Among the ruins of the temple which he built at Gebelên, is a scene in which he is presenting files of prisoners from different countries to the Theban gods. 

But the kings of the XIth dynasty were careful not to wander too farfrom the valley of the Nile. Egypt presented a sufficiently wide fieldfor their activity, and they exerted themselves to the utmost to remedythe evils from which the country had suffered for hundreds of years. They repaired the forts, restored or enlarged the temples, and evidencesof their building are found at Koptos, Gebelên, El-Kab, and Abydos. Thebes itself has been too often overthrown since that time for anytraces of the work of the XIth dynasty kings in the temple of Amon tobe distinguishable; but her necropolis is still full of their "eternalhomes, " stretching in lines across the plain, opposite Karnak, atDrah abû'l-Neggah, and on the northern slopes of the valley ofDeir-el-Baharî. Some were excavated in the mountain-side, and presenteda square façade of dressed stone, surmounted by a pointed roof in theshape of a pyramid. Others were true pyramids, sometimes having a pairof obelisks in front of them, as well as a temple. None of themattained to the dimensions of the Memphite tombs; for, with only its ownresources at command, the kingdom of the south could not build monumentsto compete with those whose construction had taxed the united efforts ofall Egypt, but it used a crude black brick, made without grit or straw, where the Egyptians of the north had preferred more costly stone. Theseinexpensive pyramids were built on a rectangular base not more than sixand a half feet high; and the whole erection, which was simply facedwith whitewashed stucco, never exceeded thirty-three feet in height. Thesepulchral chamber was generally in the centre; in shape it resembled anoven, its roof being "vaulted" by the overlapping of the courses. Often also it was constructed partly in the base, and partly in thefoundations below the base, the empty space above it being intendedmerely to lighten the weight of the masonry. There was not always anexternal chapel attached to these tombs, but a stele placed on thesubstructure, or fixed in one of the outer faces, marked the spot towhich offerings were to be brought for the dead; sometimes, however, there was the addition of a square vestibule in front of the tomb, and here, on prescribed days, the memorial ceremonies took place. The statues of the double were rude and clumsy, the coffins heavy andmassive, and the figures with which they were decorated inelegant andout of proportion, while the stelæ are very rudely cut. From the timeof the VIth dynasty the lords of the Saïd had been reduced to employingworkmen from Memphis to adorn their monuments; but the rivalry betweenthe Thebans and the Heracleopolitans, which set the two divisions ofEgypt against each other in constant hostility, obliged the Antufs toentrust the execution of their orders to the local schools of sculptorsand painters. It is difficult to realize the degree of rudeness towhich the unskilled workmen who made certain of the Akhmîtn and Gebelênsarcophagi must have sunk; and even at Thebes itself, or at Abydos, theexecution of both bas-reliefs and hieroglyphs shows minute carefulnessrather than any real skill or artistic feeling. Failing to attain tothe beautiful, the Egyptians endeavoured to produce the sumptuous. Expeditions to the Wady Ham marnât to fetch blocks of granite forsarcophagi become more and more frequent, and wells were sunk from pointto point along the road leading from Koptos to the mountains. Sometimesthese expeditions were made the occasion for pushing on as far as theport of Saû and embarking on the Eed Sea. A hastily constructed boatcruised along by the shore, and gum, incense, gold, and the preciousstones of the country were brought from the land of the Troglodytes. Onthe return of the convoy with its block of stone, and various packagesof merchandise, there was no lack of scribes to recount the dangers ofthe campaign in exaggerated language, or to congratulate the reigningPharaoh on having sown abroad the fame and terror of his name in thecountries of the gods, and as far as the land of Pûanît. 

The final overthrow of the Heracleopolitan dynasty, and the union of thetwo kingdoms under the rule of the Theban house, are supposed to havebeen the work of that Monthotpû whose throne-name was Nibkhrôûrî;his, at any rate, was the name which the Egyptians of Kamesside timesinscribed in the royal lists as that of the founder and most illustriousrepresentative of the XIth dynasty. The monuments commemorate hisvictories over the Uaûaiû and the barbarous inhabitants of Nubia. Evenafter he had conquered the Delta he still continued to reside in Thebes;there he built his pyramid, and there divine honours were paid him fromthe day after his decease. A scene carved on the rocks north of Silsilehrepresents him as standing before his son Antûf; he is of giganticstature, and one of his wives stands behind him. *

 * Brugsch makes him out to be a descendant of Amenemhâît, the prince of Thebes who lived under Monthotpu Nibtûirî, and who went to bring the stone for that Pharaoh's sarcophagus from the Wady Hammamât. He had previously supposed him to be this prince himself. Either of these hypotheses becomes probable, according as Nibtûirî is supposed to have lived before or after Nibkhrôûrî. 

[Illustration: 318. Jpg THE PHARAOH MONTHOTPU RECEIVING THE HOMAGE OF HISSUCCESSOR--ANTUE--IN THE SHAT ER-RIGELEH. ]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a sketch by Petrie, _Ten Years' Digging in Egypt_, p. 74, No. 2. 

Three or four kings followed him in rapid succession; the leastinsignificant among them appearing to have been a Monthotpii Nibtouiri. Nothing but the prenomen--Sonkherî--is known of the last of these latterprinces, who was also the only one of them ever entered on the officiallists. In their hands the sovereignty remained unchanged from what ithad been almost uninterruptedly since the end of the VIth dynasty. Theysolemnly proclaimed their supremacy, and their names were inscribed atthe head of public documents; but their power scarcely extended beyondthe limits of their family domain, and the feudal chiefs never concernedthemselves about the sovereign except when he evinced the power or willto oppose them, allowing him the mere semblance of supremacy over thegreater part of Europe. Such a state of affairs could only be reformedby revolution. Amenemhâît I. , the leader of the new dynasty, was of theTheban race; whether he had any claim to the throne, or by what means hehad secured the stability of his rule, we do not know. Whether he hadusurped the crown or whether he had inherited it legitimately, he showedhimself worthy of the rank to which fortune had raised him, and thenobility saw in him a new incarnation of that type of kingship longknown to them by tradition only, namely, that of a Pharaoh convinced ofhis own divinity and determined to assert it. He inspected the valleyfrom one end to another, principality by principality, nome by nome, "crushing crime, and arising like Tûmû himself; restoring that which hefound in ruins, settling the bounds of the towns, and establishing foreach its frontiers. " The civil wars had disorganized everything; no oneknew what ground belonged to the different nomes, what taxes were duefrom them, nor how questions of irrigation could be equitablydecided. Amenemhâît set up again the boundary stelae, and restored itsdependencies to each nome: "He divided the waters among them accordingto that which was in the cadastral surveys of former times. " Hostilenobles, or those whose allegiance was doubtful, lost the whole or partof their fiefs; those who had welcomed the new order of things receivedaccessions of territory as the reward of their zeal and devotion. Depositions and substitutions of princes had begun already in the timeof the XIth dynasty. Antûf V. , for instance, finding the lord of Koptostoo lukewarm, had had him removed and promptly replaced. The fief ofSiût accrued to a branch of the family which was less warlike, and aboveall less devoted to the old dynasty than that of Khîti had been. Part ofthe nome of the Gazelle was added to the dominions of Nûhri, prince ofthe Hare nome; the eastern part of the same nome, with Monaît-Khûfûias capital, was granted to his father-in-law, Khnûmhotpû I. Expeditionsagainst the Ûaûaiû, the Mâzaiû, and the nomads of Libya and Arabiadelivered the fellahîn from their ruinous raids and ensured to theEgyptians safety from foreign attack. Amenemhâît had, moreover, the witto recognize that Thebes was not the most suitable place of residencefor the lord of all Egypt; it lay too far to the south, was thinlypopulated, ill-built, without monuments, without prestige, and almostwithout history. He gave it into the hands of one of his relations togovern in his name, and proceeded to establish himself in the heart ofthe country, in imitation of the glorious Pharaohs from whom he claimedto be descended. But the ancient royal cities of Kheops and his childrenhad ceased to exist; Memphis, like Thebes, was now a provincial town, and its associations were with the VIth and VIIIth dynasties only. Amenemhâît took up his abode a little to the south of Dahshur, in thepalace of Titoûi, which he enlarged and made the seat of his government. Conscious of being in the hands of a strong ruler, Egypt breathed freelyafter centuries of distress, and her sovereign might in all sinceritycongratulate himself on having restored peace to his country. "I causedthe mourner to mourn no longer, and his lamentation was no longerheard, --perpetual fighting was no longer witnessed, --while before mycoming they fought together as bulls unmindful of yesterday, --and noman's welfare was assured, whether he was ignorant or learned. "--"Itilled the land as far as Elephantine, --I spread joy throughout thecountry, unto the marshes of the Delta. --At my prayer the Nile grantedthe inundation to the fields:--no man was an hungered under me, noman was athirst under me, --for everywhere men acted according to mycommands, and all that I said was a fresh cause of love. "

In the court of Amenemhâît, as about all Oriental sovereigns, there weredoubtless men whose vanity or interests suffered by this revival ofthe royal authority; men who had found it to their profit to intervenebetween Pharaoh and his subjects, and who were thwarted in theirintrigues or exactions by the presence of a prince determined on keepingthe government in his own hands. 

These men devised plots against the new king, and he escaped withdifficulty from their conspiracies. "It was after the evening meal, asnight came on, --I gave myself up to pleasure for a time, --then Ilay down upon the soft coverlets in my palace, I abandoned myself torepose, --and my heart began to be overtaken by slumber; when, lo! theygathered together in arms to revolt against me, --and I became weak asa serpent of the field. --Then I aroused myself to fight with my ownhands, --and I found that I had but to strike the unresisting. --WhenI took a foe, weapon in hand, I make the wretch to turn andflee;--strength forsook him, even in the night; there were nonewho contended, and nothing vexatious was effected against me. " Theconspirators were disconcerted by the promptness with which Amenemhâîthad attacked them, and apparently the rebellion was suppressed on thesame night in which it broke out. But the king was growing old, his sonUsirtasen was very young, and the nobles were bestirring themselves inprospect of a succession which they supposed to be at hand. The bestmeans of putting a stop to their evil devices and of ensuring the futureof the dynasty was for the king to appoint the heir-presumptive, and atonce associate him with himself in the exercise of his sovereignty. Inthe XXth year of his reign, Amenemhâît solemnly conferred the titles andprerogatives of royalty upon his son Usirtasen: "I raised thee from therank of a subject, --I granted thee the free use of thy arm that thoumightest be feared. --As for me, I apparelled myself in the finestuffs of my palace until I appeared to the eye as the flowers of mygarden, --and I perfumed myself with essences as freely as I pour forththe water from my cisterns. " Usirtasen naturally assumed the activeduties of royalty as his share. "He is a hero who wrought with thesword, a mighty man of valour without peer: he beholds the barbarians, he rushes forward and falls upon their predatory hordes. He is thehurler of javelins who makes feeble the hands of the foe; those whomhe strikes never more lift the lance. Terrible is he, shattering skullswith the blows of his war-mace, and none resisted him in his time. He isa swift runner who smites the fugitive with the sword, but none who runafter him can overtake him. He is a heart alert for battle in his time. He is a lion who strikes with his claws, nor ever lets go his weapon. He is a heart girded in armour at the sight of the hosts, and who leavesnothing standing behind him. He is a valiant man rushing forward whenhe beholds the fight. He is a soldier rejoicing to fall upon thebarbarians: he seizes his buckler, he leaps forward and kills withouta second blow. None may escape his arrow; before he bends his bow thebarbarians flee from his arms like dogs, for the great goddess hascharged him to fight against all who know not her name, and whomhe strikes he spares not; he leaves nothing alive. " The old Pharaoh"remained in the palace, " waiting until his son returned to announcethe success of his enterprises, and contributing by his counsel to theprosperity of their common empire. Such was the reputation for wisdomwhich he thus acquired, that a writer who was almost his contemporarycomposed a treatise in his name, and in it the king was supposed toaddress posthumous instructions to his son on the art of governing. Heappeared to his son in a dream, and thus admonished him: "Hearken untomy words!--Thou art king over the two worlds, prince over the threeregions. Act still better than did thy predecessors. --Let there beharmony between thy subjects and thee, --lest they give themselves up tofear; keep not thyself apart in the midst of them; make not thy brothersolely from the rich and noble, fill not thy heart with them alone;yet neither do thou admit to thy intimacy chance-comers whose place isunknown. " The king confirmed his counsels by examples taken from hisown life, and from these we have learned some facts in his history. Thelittle work was widely disseminated and soon became a classic; in thetime of the XIXth dynasty it was still copied in schools and studiedby young scribes as an exercise in style. Usirfcasen's share in thesovereignty had so accustomed the Egyptians to consider this princeas the king _de facto_, that they had gradually come to write his namealone upon the monuments. When Amenemhâît died, after a reign of thirtyyears, Ûsirtasen was engaged in a war against the Libyans. Dreading anoutbreak of popular feeling, or perhaps an attempted usurpation byone of the princes of the blood, the high officers of the crown keptAmenemhâît's death secret, and despatched a messenger to the camp torecall the young king. He left his tent by night, unknown to the troops, returned to the capital before anything had transpired among thepeople, and thus the transition from the founder to his immediatesuccessor--always a delicate crisis for a new dynasty--seemed tocome about quite naturally. The precedent of co-regnancy having beenestablished, it was scrupulously followed by most of the succeedingsovereigns. In the XIIIth year of his sovereignty, and after havingreigned alone for thirty-two years, Ûsirtasen I. Shared his throne withAmenemhâît II. ; and thirty-two years later Amenemhâît II. Acted in asimilar way with regard to Ûsirtasen II. Amenemhâît III. And AmenemhâîtIV. Were long co-regnant. The only princes of this house in whose casesany evidence of co-regnancy is lacking are Ûsirtasen III. , and the queenSovknofriûrî, with whom the dynasty died out. 

[Illustration: 325. Jpg AN ASIATIC CHIEF IS PRESENTED TO KHNÛMHOTPÛ BYNOFIRHOPTU, AND BY KHITI, THE SUPERINTENDENT OF THE HUNTSMEN]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a chromolithograph in Lepsius, _Denhm. _, ii. 133. 

It lasted two hundred and thirteen years, one month, and twenty-sevendays, * and its history can be ascertained with greater certainty andcompleteness than that of any-other dynasty which ruled over Egypt. 

 *This is its total duration, as given in the Turin papyrus. Several Egyptologists have thought that Manetho had, in his estimate, counted the years of each sovereign as consecutive, and have hence proposed to conclude that the dynasty only lasted 168 years (Brugscii), or 160 (Lieblein), or 194 (Ed. Meyer). It is simpler to admit that the compiler of the papyrus was not in error; we do not know the length of the reigns of Ûsirtasen II. , Ûsirtasen III. , and Amenemhâît III. , and their unknown years may be considered as completing the tale of the two hundred and thirteen years. 

We are doubtless far from having any adequate idea of its greatachievements, for the biographies of its eight sovereigns, and thedetails of their interminable wars are very imperfectly known to us. Thedevelopment of its foreign and domestic policy we can, however, followwithout a break. 

[Illustration: 326. Jpg SOME OF THE BAND OF ASIATICS, WITH THEIR BEASTS, BROUGHT FROM KHNÛMHOTPÛ]

Asia had as little attraction for these kings as for their Memphitepredecessors; they seem to have always had a certain dread of itswarlike races, and to have merely contented themselves with repellingtheir attacks. Amenemhâît I. Had completed the line of fortresses acrossthe isthmus, and these were carefully maintained by his successors. ThePharaohs were not ambitious of holding direct sway over the tribes ofthe desert, and scrupulously avoided interfering with their affairsas long as the "Lords of the Sands" agreed to respect the Egyptianfrontier. Commercial relations were none the less frequent and certainon this account. 

[Illustration: 327. Jpg THE WOMEN PASSING BY IN PROCESSION, IN CHARGE OFA WARRIOR AND OF A MAN PLAYING UPON THE LYRE]

Dwellers by the streams of the Delta were accustomed to see thecontinuous arrival in their towns of isolated individuals or of wholebands driven from their homes by want or revolution, and begging forrefuge under the shadow of Pharaoh's throne, and of caravans offeringthe rarest products of the north and of the east for sale. A celebratedscene in one of the tombs of Beni-Hasan illustrates what usually tookplace. We do not know what drove the thirty-seven Asiatics, men, women, and children, to cross the Red Sea and the Arabian desert and hills inthe VIth year of Usirtasen II. ;* they had, however, suddenly appeared inthe Gazelle nome, and were there received by Khîti, the superintendentof the huntsmen, who, as his duty was, brought them before the princeKhnûmhotpû. 

 * This bas-relief was first noticed and described by Champollion, who took the immigrants for Greeks of the archaic period. Others have wished to consider it as representing Abraham, the sons of Jacob, or at least a band of Jews entering into Egypt, and on the strength of this hypothesis it has often been reproduced. 

The foreigners presented the prince with green eye-paint, antimonypowder, and two live ibexes, to conciliate his favour; while he, topreserve the memory of their visit, had them represented in paintingupon the walls of his tomb. The Asiatics carry bows and arrows, javelins, axes, and clubs, like the Egyptians, and wear long garments orclose-fitting loin-cloths girded on the thigh. One of them plays, as hegoes, on an instrument whose appearance recalls that of the old Greeklyre. The shape of their arms, the magnificence and good taste of thefringed and patterned stuffs with which they are clothed, the eleganceof most of the objects which they have brought with them, testify to ahigh standard of civilisation, equal at least to that of Egypt. Asia hadfor some time provided the Pharaohs with slaves, certain perfumes, cedarwood and cedar essences, enamelled vases, precious stones, lapis-lazuli, and the dyed and embroidered woollen fabrics of which Chaldæa kept themonopoly until the time of the Komans. Merchants of the Delta bravedthe perils of wild beasts and of robbers lurking in every valley, whiletransporting beyond the isthmus products of Egyptian manufacture, suchas fine linens, chased or _cloisonné_ jewellery, glazed pottery, andglass paste or metal amulets. Adventurous spirits who found life dullon the banks of the Nile, men who had committed crimes, or who believedthemselves suspected by their lords on political grounds, conspirators, deserters, and exiles were well received by the Asiatic tribes, andsometimes gained the favour of the sheikhs. In the time of the XIIthdynasty, Southern Syria, the country of the "Lords of the Sands, " andthe kingdom of Kadûma were full of Egyptians whose eventful careerssupplied the scribes and storytellers with the themes of many romances. 

Sinûhît, the hero of one of these stories, was a son of Amenemhâît I. , and had the misfortune involuntarily to overhear a state secret. Hehappened to be near the royal tent when news of his father's suddendeath was brought to Usirtasen. Fearing summary execution, he fledacross the Delta north of Memphis, avoided the frontier-posts, andstruck into the desert. "I pursued my way by night; at dawn I hadreached Pûteni, and set out for the lake of Kîmoîrî. Then thirst fellupon me, and the death-rattle was in my throat, my throat cleavedtogether, and I said, 'It is the taste of death!' when suddenly I liftedup my heart and gathered my strength together: I heard the lowing of theherds. I perceived some Asiatics; their chief, who had been in Egypt, knew me; he gave me water, and caused milk to be boiled for me, andI went with him and joined his tribe. " But still Sinûhît did not feelhimself in safety, and fled into Kadûma, to a prince who had provided anasylum for other Egyptian exiles, and where he "could hear men speak thelanguage of Egypt. " Here he soon gained honours and fortune. "The chiefpreferred me before his children, giving me his eldest daughter inmarriage, and he granted me that I should choose for myself the best ofhis land near the frontier of a neighbouring country. It is an excellentland, Aîa is its name. Figs are there and grapes; wine is more plentifulthan water; honey abounds in it; numerous are its olives and all theproduce of its trees; there are corn and flour without end, and cattleof all kinds. Great, indeed, was that which was bestowed upon me whenthe prince came to invest me, installing me as prince of a tribe in thebest of his land. I had daily rations of bread and wine, day by day;cooked meat and roasted fowl, besides the mountain game which I took, orwhich was placed before me in addition to that which was brought me bymy hunting dogs. Much butter was made for me, and milk prepared in everykind of way. There I passed many years, and the children which were bornto me became strong men, each ruling his own tribe. When a messenger wasgoing to the interior or returning from it, he turned aside from his wayto come to me, for I did kindness to all: I gave water to the thirsty, I set again upon his way the traveller who had been stopped on it, Ichastised the brigand. The Pitaîtiû, who went on distant campaigns tofight and repel the princes of foreign lands, I commanded them andthey marched forth; for the prince of Tonû made me the general of hissoldiers for long years. When I went forth to war, all countries towardswhich I set out trembled in their pastures by their wells. I seizedtheir cattle, I took away their vassals and carried off their slaves, Islew the inhabitants, the land was at the mercy of my sword, of my bow, of my marches, of my well-conceived plans glorious to the heart of myprince. Thus, when he knew my valour, he loved me, making me chief amonghis children when he saw the strength of my arms. 

"A valiant man of Tonu came to defy me in my tent; he was a hero besidewhom there was none other, for he had overthrown all his adversaries. Hesaid: 'Let Sinûhît fight with me, for he has not yet conquered me!' andhe thought to seize my cattle and therewith to enrich his tribe. Theprince talked of the matter with me. I said: 'I know him not. Verily, I am not his brother. I keep myself far from his dwelling; have I everopened his door, or crossed his enclosures? Doubtless he is some jealousfellow envious at seeing me, and who believes himself fated to rob meof my cats, my goats, my kine, and to fall on my bulls, my rams, and myoxen, to take them.... If he has indeed the courage to fight, let himdeclare the intention of his heart! Shall the god forget him whom he hasheretofore favoured? This man who has challenged me to fight is as oneof those who lie upon the funeral couch. I bent my bow, I took out myarrows, I loosened my poignard, I furbished my arms. At dawn all theland of Tonu ran forth; its tribes were gathered together, and all theforeign lands which were its dependencies, for they were impatient tosee this duel. Each heart was on live coals because of me; men and womencried 'Ah!' for every heart was disquieted for my sake, and they said:'Is there, indeed, any valiant man who will stand up against him? Lo!the enemy has buckler, battle-axe, and an armful of javelins. ' When hehad come forth and I appeared, I turned aside his shafts from me. Whennot one of them touched me, he fell upon me, and then I drew my bowagainst him. When my arrow pierced his neck, he cried out and fell tothe earth upon his nose; I snatched his lance from him, I shouted my cryof victory upon his back. While the country people rejoiced, I madehis vassals whom he had oppressed to give thanks to Montu. This prince, Ammiânshi, bestowed upon me all the possessions of the vanquished, andI took away his goods, I carried off his cattle. All that he had desiredto do unto me that did I unto him; I took possession of all that was inhis tent, I despoiled his dwelling; therewith was the abundance of mytreasure and the number of my cattle increased. " In later times, inArab romances such as that of Antar or that of Abû-Zeît, we find theincidents and customs described in this Egyptian tale; there we havethe exile arriving at the court of a great sheikh whose daughter heultimately marries, the challenge, the fight, and the raids of onepeople against another. Even in our own day things go on in much thesame way. Seen from afar, these adventures have an air of poetry and ofgrandeur which fascinates the reader, and in imagination transports himinto a world more heroic and more noble than our own. He who cares topreserve this impression would do well not to look too closely at themen and manners of the desert. Certainly the hero is brave, but heis still more brutal and treacherous; fighting is one object of hisexistence, but pillage is a far more important one. How, indeed, shouldit be otherwise? the soil is poor, life hard and precarious, and fromremotest antiquity the conditions of that life have remained unchanged;apart from firearms and Islam, the Bedouin of to-day are the same as theBedouin of the days of Sinûhît. 

There are no known documents from which we can derive any certaininformation as to what became of the mining colonies in Sinai after thereign of Papi II. Unless entirely abandoned, they must have lingeredon in comparative idleness; for the last of the Memphites, theHeracleopohtans, and the early Thebans were compelled to neglect them, nor was their active life resumed until the accession of the XIIthdynasty. The veins in the Wady Maghara were much exhausted, but a seriesof fortunate explorations revealed the existence of untouched depositsin the Sarbût-el-Khâdîm, north of the original workings. From the timeof Amenemhâît II. These new veins were worked, and absorbed attentionduring several generations. Expeditions to the mines were sent out everythree or four years, sometimes annually, under the command of suchhigh functionaries as "Acquaintances of the King, " "Chief Lectors, "and Captains of the Archers. As each mine was rapidly worked out, thedelegates of the Pharaohs were obliged to find new veins in orderto meet industrial demands. The task was often arduous, and thecommissioners generally took care to inform posterity very fully as tothe anxieties which they had felt, the pains which they had taken, andthe quantities of turquoise or of oxide of copper which they had broughtinto Egypt. Thus the Captain Haroëris tells us that, on arriving atSarbût in the month Pha-menoth of an unknown year of Amenemhâît III. , he made a bad beginning in his work of exploration. Wearied of fruitlessefforts, the workmen were quite ready to desert him if he had not put agood face on the business and stoutly promised them the support of thelocal Hâthor. 

[Illustration: 334. Jpg PLAN OF THE TEMPLE OF SARBUT EL KHADIM]

And, as a matter of fact, fortune did change. When he began to despair, "the desert burned like summer, the mountain was on fire, and the veinexhausted; one morning the overseer who was there questioned the miners, the skilled workers who were used to the mine, and they said: 'There isturquoise for eternity in the mountain. ' At that very moment the veinappeared. " And, indeed, the wealth of the deposit which he found socompletely indemnified Haroëris for his first disappointments, that inthe month Pachons, three months after the opening of these workings, hehad finished his task and prepared to leave the country, carrying hisspoils with him. From time to time Pharaoh sent convoys of cattle andprovisions--corn, sixteen oxen, thirty geese, fresh vegetables, livepoultry--to his vassals at the mines. 

[Illustration: 335. Jpg THE RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF HATHOR]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph in the _Ordnance Survey, Photo-graphs_, vol. Iii. Pl. 8. 

The mining population increased so fast that two chapels were built, dedicated to Hâthor, and served by volunteer priests. One of thesechapels, presumably the oldest, consists of a single rock-cut chamber, upheld by one large square pillar, walls and pillar having been coveredwith finely sculptured scenes and inscriptions which are now almosteffaced. The second chapel included a beautifully proportionedrectangular court, once entered by a portico supported on pillars withHâthor-head capitals, and beyond the court a narrow building dividedinto many small irregular chambers. The edifice was altered and rebuilt, and half destroyed; it is now nothing by a confused heap of ruins, ofwhich the original plan cannot be traced. Votive stehe of all shapes andsizes, in granite, sandstone, or limestone, were erected here and thereat random in the two chambers and in the courts between the columns, andflush with the walls. Some are still _in situ_, others lie scattered inthe midst of the ruins. Towards the middle of the reign of AmenemhâîtIII. , the industrial demand for turquoise and for copper ore became sogreat that the mines of Sarbût-el-Khâdîm could no longer meet it, andthose in the Wady Maghara were re-opened. The workings of both sets ofmines were carried on with unabated vigour under Amenemhâîfc IV. , andwere still in full activity when the XIIIth dynasty succeeded the XIIthon the Egyptian throne. Tranquillity prevailed in the recesses of themountains of Sinai as well as in the valley of the Nile, and a smallgarrison sufficed to keep watch over the Bedouin of the neighbourhood. Sometimes the latter ventured to attack the miners, and then fled inhaste, carrying off their meagre booty; but they were vigorously pursuedunder the command of one of the officers on the spot, and generallycaught and compelled to disgorge their plunder before they had reachedthe shelter of their "douars. " The old Memphite kings prided themselveson these armed pursuits as though they were real victories, and had themrecorded in triumphal bas-reliefs; but under the XIIth dynasty they weretreated as unimportant frontier incidents, almost beneath the noticeof the Pharaoh, and the glory of them--such as it was--he left to hiscaptains then in command of those districts. 

Egypt had always kept up extensive commercial relations with certainnorthern countries lying beyond the Mediterranean. The reputation forwealth enjoyed by the Delta sometimes attracted bands of the Haiû-nîbûto come prowling in piratical excursions along its shores; but theirexpeditions seldom turned out successfully, and even if the adventurersescaped summary execution, they generally ended their days as slaves inthe Fayûm, or in some village of the Said. At first their descendantspreserved the customs, religion, manners, and industries of theirdistant home, and went on making rough pottery for daily use, which wasdecorated in a style recalling that of vases found in the most ancienttombs of the Ægean archipelago; but they were gradually assimilatedto their surroundings, and their grandchildren became fellahîn like therest, brought up from infancy in the customs and language of Egypt. 

The relations with the tribes of the Libyan desert, the Tihûnû and theTimihû, were almost invariably peaceful; although occasional raids ofone of their bands into Egyptian territory would provoke counter raidsinto the valleys in which they took refuge with their flocks and herds. Thus, in addition to the captive Haiû-nîbû, another heterogeneouselement, soon to be lost in the mass of the Egyptian population, wassupplied by detachments of Berber women and children. 

[Illustration: 338. Jpg MAP]

The relations Egypt with her northern neighbours during the hundredyears of the XIIth dynasty were chiefly commercial, but occasionallythis peaceful intercourse was broken by sudden incursions or piraticalexpeditions which called for active measures of repression, and werethe occasion of certain romantic episodes. The foreign policy of thePharaohs in this connexion was to remain strictly on the defensive. Ethiopia attracted all their attention, and demanded all their strength. The same instinct which had impelled their predecessors to passsuccessively beyond Gebel-Silsileh and Elephantine now drove the XIIthdynasty beyond the second cataract, and even further. The nature of thevalley compelled them to this course. From the Tacazze, or rather fromthe confluence of the two Niles down to the sea, the whole valley formsas it were a Greater Egypt; for although separated by the cataractsinto different divisions, it is everywhere subject to the same physicalconditions. In the course of centuries it has more than once beenforcibly dismembered by the chances of war, but its various parts havealways tended to reunite, and have coalesced at the first opportunity. The Amami, the Irittt, and the Sitiu, all those nations which wanderedwest of the river, and whom the Pharaohs of the VIth and subsequently ofthe XIth dynasty either enlisted into their service or else conquered, do not seem to have given much trouble to the successors of AmenemhâîtI. The Ûaûaiû and the Mâzaiû were more turbulent, and it was necessaryto subdue them in order to assure the tranquillity of the colonistsscattered along the banks of the river from Philo to Korosko. They wereworsted by Amenemhâît I. In several encounters. 

Ûsirtasen I. Made repeated campaigns against them, the earlier onesbeing undertaken in his father's lifetime. Afterwards he pressed on, andstraightway "raised his frontiers" at the rapids of Wady Haifa; and thecountry was henceforth the undisputed property of his successors. It wasdivided into nomes like Egypt itself; the Egyptian language succeeded indriving out the native dialects, and the local deities, including Didûn, the principal god, were associated or assimilated with the gods ofEgypt. Khnûmû was the favourite deity of the northern nomes, doubtlessbecause the first colonists were natives of Elephantine, and subjectsof its princes. In the southern nomes, which had been annexed under theTheban kings and were peopled with Theban immigrants, the worship ofKhnûmû was carried on side by side with the worship of Amon, or Amon-Ra, god of Thebes. In accordance with local affinities, now no longerintelligible, the other gods also were assigned smaller areas in the newterritory--Thot at Pselcis and Pnûbsît, where a gigantic nabk tree wasworshipped, Râ near Derr, and Horus at Miama and Baûka. The Pharaohswho had civilized the country here received divine honours while stillalive. Ûsirtasen III. Was placed in triads along with Didûn, Amon, andKhnûmû; temples were raised to him at Semneh, Shotaûi, and Doshkeh;and the anniversary of a decisive victory which he had gained over thebarbarians was still celebrated on the 21st of Pachons, a thousand yearsafterwards, under Thutmosis III. The feudal system spread over the landlying between the two cataracts, where hereditary barons held theircourts, trained their armies, built their castles, and excavated theirsuperbly decorated tombs in the mountain-sides. The only differencebetween Nubian Egypt and Egypt proper lay in the greater heat andsmaller wealth of the former, where the narrower, less fertile, andless well-watered land supported a smaller population and yielded lessabundant revenues. 

The Pharaoh kept the charge of the more important strategical pointsin his own hands. Strongholds placed at bends of the river and atthe mouths of ravines leading into the desert, secured freedom ofnavigation, and kept off the pillaging nomads. The fortress of Derr[Kubbân?--Ed. ], which was often rebuilt, dates in part at least fromthe early days of the conquest of Nubia. Its rectangular boundary--adry brick wall--is only broken by easily filled up gaps, and with somerepairs it would still resist an Ababdeh attack. *

 * The most ancient bricks in the fortifications of Derr, easily distinguishable from those belonging to the later restorations, are identical in shape and size with those of the walls at Syene and El-Kab; and the wall at El-Kab was certainly built not later than the XIIth dynasty. 

The most considerable Nubian works of the XIIth dynasty were in thethree places from which the country can even now be most effectivelycommanded, namely, at the two cataracts, and in the districts extendingfrom Derr to Dakkeh. Elephantine already possessed an entrenched campwhich commanded the rapids and the land route from Syene to Philo. Usirtasen III. Restored its great wall; he also cleared and widenedthe passage to Sériel, as did Papi I. To such good effect that easy andrapid communication between Thebes and the new towns was at all timespracticable. Some little distance from Phihe he established a stationfor boats, and an emporium which he called Hirû Khâkerî--"the Ways ofKhâkerî"--after his own throne name--Khâkerî. *

 * The widening of the passage was effected in the VIIIth year of his reign, the same year in which he established the Egyptian frontier at Semneh. The other constructions are mentioned, but not very clearly, in a stele of the same year which came from Elephantine, and is now in the British Museum. The votive tablet, engraved in honour of Anûkît at Sehêl, in which the king boasts of having made for the goddess "the excellent channel [called] 'the Ways of Khâkeûrî, '" probably refers to this widening and deepening of the passage in the VIIIth year. 

Its exact site is unknown, but it appears to have completed on thesouth side the system of walls and redoubts which protected the cataractprovinces against either surprise or regular attacks of the barbarians. Although of no appreciable use for the purposes of general security, thefortifications of Middle Nubia were of great importance in the eyes ofthe Pharaohs. They commanded the desert roads leading to the Eed Sea, and to Berber and Gebel Barkel on the Upper Nile. The most importantfort occupied the site of the present village of Kuban, opposite Dakkeh, and commanded the entrance to the Wady Olaki, which leads to the richestgold deposits known to Ancient Egypt. The valleys which furrow themountains of Etbai, the Wady Shauanîb, the Waddy Umm Teyur, Gebel Iswud, Gebel Umm Kabriteh, all have gold deposits of their own. The gold isfound in nuggets and in pockets in white quartz, mixed with iron oxidesand titanium, for which the ancients had no use. The method of miningpractised from immemorial antiquity by the Uaûaiû of the neighbourhoodwas of the simplest, and traces of the workings may be seen all over thesides of the ravines. Tunnels followed the direction of the lodes to adepth of fifty-five to sixty-five yards; the masses of quartz procuredfrom them were broken up in granite mortars, pounded small andafterwards reduced to a powder in querns, similar to those used forcrushing grain; the residue was sifted on stone tables, and the finelyground parts afterwards washed in bowls of sycamore wood, until the golddust had settled to the bottom. *

 * The gold-mines and the method of working them under the Ptolemies have been described by Agatharchides; the processes employed were very ancient, and had hardly changed since the time of the first Pharaohs, as is shown by a comparison of the mining tools found in these districts with those which have been collected at Sinai, in the turquoise- mines of the Ancient Empire. 

This was the Nubian gold which was brought into Egypt by nomad tribes, and for which the Egyptians themselves, from the time of the XIIthdynasty onwards, went to seek in the land which produced it. They madeno attempt to establish permanent colonies for working the mines, as atSinai; but a detachment of troops was despatched nearly every year tothe spot to receive the amount of precious metal collected since theirprevious visit. The king Usirtasen would send at one time the prince ofthe nome of the Gazelle on such an expedition, with a contingent offour hundred men belonging to his fief; at another time, it would bethe faithful Sihâthor who would triumphantly scour the country, obligingyoung and old to work with redoubled efforts for his master AmenemhâîtII. On his return the envoy would boast of having brought back more goldthan any of his predecessors, and of having crossed the desert withoutlosing either a soldier or a baggage animal, not even a donkey. 

[Illustration: 314. Jpg ONE OF TUE FAÇADES OF THE FORTRESS OF KUBBAN]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger, taken in 1881. 

Sometimes a son of the reigning Pharaoh, even the heir-presumptive, would condescend to accompany the caravan. Amenemhâît III. Repaired orrebuilt the fortress of Kubbân, the starting-place of the little army, and the spot to which it returned. It is a square enclosure measuring328 feet on each side; the ramparts of crude brick are sloped slightlyinwards, and are strengthened at intervals by bastions projecting fromthe external face of the wall. The river protected one side; the otherthree were defended by ditches communicating with the Nile. There werefour entrances, one in the centre of each façade: that on the east, which faced the desert, and was exposed to the severest attacks, wasflanked by a tower. 

The cataract of Wady Haifa offered a natural barrier to invasion fromthe south. Even without fortification, the chain of granite rocks whichcrosses the valley at this spot would have been a sufficient obstacle toprevent any fleet which might attempt the passage from gaining access tonorthern Nubia. 

[Illustration: 345. Jpg THE SECOND CATARACT BETWEEN HAMKEH AND WADYHALFA]

The Nile here has not the wild and imposing aspect which it assumeslower down, between Aswan and Philae. It is bordered by low and recedinghills, devoid of any definite outline. Masses of bare black rock, hereand there covered by scanty herbage, block the course of the river insome places in such profusion, that its entire bed seems to be takenup by them. For a distance of seventeen miles the main body of wateris broken up into an infinitude of small channels in its width oftwo miles; several of the streams thus formed present, apparently, atempting course to the navigator, so calm and safe do they appear, butthey conceal ledges of hidden reefs, and are unexpectedly forced intonarrow passages obstructed by granite boulders. The strongest built andbest piloted boat must be dashed to pieces in such circumstances, andno effort or skilfulness on the part of the crew would save the vesselshould the owner venture to attempt the descent. The only channel atall available for transit runs from the village of Aesha on the Arabianside, winds capriciously from one bank to another, and emerges into calmwater a little above Nakhiet Wady Haifa. During certain days in Augustand September the natives trust themselves to this stream, but only withboats lightly laden; even then their escape is problematical, for theyare in hourly danger of foundering. As soon as the inundation begins tofall, the passage becomes more difficult: by the middle of October itis given up, and communication by water between Egypt and the countriesabove Wady Haifa is suspended until the return of the inundation. Bydegrees, as the level of the water becomes lower, remains of wrecksjammed between the rocks, or embedded in sandbanks, emerge into view, as if to warn sailors and discourage them from an undertaking so fraughtwith perils. Usirtasen I. Realized the importance of the position, andfortified its approaches. 

[Illustration: 346. Jpg THE SECOND CATARACT AT LOW NILE]

He selected the little Nubian town of Bohani, which lay exactly oppositeto the present village of Wady Haifa, and transformed it into a strongfrontier fortress. Besides the usual citadel, he built there a templededicated to the Theban god Amon and to the local Horus; he then setup a stele commemorating his victories over the peoples beyond thecataract. 

[Illustration: 349. Jpg THE TRIUMPHAL STELE OF USIRTASEN I. ]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph of the original in the museum at Florence. 

Ten of their principal chiefs had passed before Amon as prisoners, theirarms tied behind their backs, and had been sacrificed at the foot ofthe altar by the sovereign himself: he represented them on the stele byenclosing their names in battlemented cartouches, each surmounted bythe bust of a man bound by a long cord which is held by the conqueror. 

Nearly a century later Ûsirtasen III. Enlarged the fortress, and findingdoubtless that it was not sufficiently strong to protect the passage ofthe cataract, he stationed outposts at various points, at Matûga, Fakus, and Kassa. They served as mooring-places where the vessels which wentup and down stream with merchandise might be made fast to the bank atsunset. The bands of Bedouin, lurking in the neighbourhood, wouldhave rejoiced to surprise them, and by their depredations to stop thecommerce between the Said and the Upper Nile, during the few weeks inwhich it could be carried on with a minimum of danger. A narrow gorgecrossed by a bed of granite, through which the Nile passes at Semneh, afforded another most favourable site for the completion of thissystem of defence. On cliffs rising sheer above the current, theking constructed two fortresses, one on each bank of the river, whichcompletely commanded the approaches by land and water. On the right bankat Kummeh, where the position was naturally a strong one, the engineersdescribed an irregular square, measuring about two hundred feet eachside; two projecting bastions flanked the entrance, the one to thenorth covering the approaching pathways, the southern one commandingthe river-bank. A road with a ditch runs at about thirteen feet from thewalls round the building, closely following its contour, except at thenorth-west and south-east angles, where there are two projections whichformed bastions. The town on the other bank, Samninû-Kharp-Khâkerî, occupied a less favourable position: its eastern flank was protected bya zone of rocks and by the river, but the three other sides were of easyapproach. They were provided with ramparts which rose to the heightof eighty-two feet above the plain, and were strengthened at unequaldistances by enormous buttresses. These resembled towers withoutparapets, overlooking every part of the encircling road, and from themthe defenders could take the attacking sappers in flank. 

[Illustration: 351. Jpg THE RAPIDS OF THE NILE AT SEMNEH, AND THE TWOFORTRESSES BUILT BY USIRTASEN III]

 Map drawn up by Thuillier from the somewhat obsolete survey of Cailliaud

The intervals between them had been so calculated as to enable thearchers to sweep the intervening space with their arrows. The mainbuilding is of crude brick, with beams laid horizontally between; thebase of the external rampart is nearly vertical, while the upper partforms an angle of some seventy degrees with the horizon, making thescaling of it, if not impossible, at least very difficult. Each of theenclosing walls of the two fortresses surrounded a town complete initself, with temples dedicated to their founders and to the Nubiandeities, as well as numerous habitations, now in ruins. The suddenwidening of the river immediately to the south of the rapids made akind of natural roadstead, where the Egyptian squadron could lie withoutdanger on the eve of a campaign against Ethiopia; the galiots of thenegroes there awaited permission to sail below the rapids, and toenter Egypt with their cargoes. At once a military station and a rivercustom-house, Semneh was the necessary bulwark of the new Egypt, andUsirtasen III. Emphatically proclaimed the fact, in two decrees, whichhe set up there for the edification of posterity. "Here is, " so runs thefirst, "the southern boundary fixed in the year VIII. Under his Holinessof Khâkerî, Usirtasen, who gives life always and for ever, in order thatnone of the black peoples may cross it from above, except only for thetransport of animals, oxen, goats, and sheep belonging to them. " Theedict of the year XVI. Reiterates the prohibition of the year VIII. , and adds that "His Majesty caused his own statue to be erected at thelandmarks which he himself had set up. " The beds of the first and secondcataracts were then less worn away than they are now; they are thereforemore efficacious in keeping back the water and forcing it to rise to ahigher level above. The cataracts acted as indicators of the inundation, and if their daily rise and fall were studied, it was possible toannounce to the dwellers on the banks lower down the river the progressand probable results of the flood. 

[Illustration: 353. Jpg THE CHANNEL OF THE NILE BETWEEN THE TWOFORTRESSES OF SEMNEH AND KUMMEH]

 Reproduction by Faucher-Gudin of a sketch published by Cailliaud, _Voyage à Méroe, Atlas_, vol. Ii. Pl. Xxx. 

As long as the dominion of the Pharaohs reached no further than Philæ, observations of the Nile were always taken at the first cataract; andit was from Elephantine that Egypt received the news of the firstappearance and progress of the inundation. Amenemhâît III. Set up anew nilometer at the new frontier, and gave orders to his officers toobserve the course of the flood. They obeyed him scrupulously, and everytime that the inundation appeared to them to differ from the averageof ordinary years, they marked its height on the rocks of Semneh andKummeh, engraving side by side with the figure the name of the king andthe date of the year. The custom was continued there under the XIIIthdynasty; afterwards, when the frontier was pushed further south, thenilometer accompanied it. 

The country beyond Semneh was virgin territory, almost untouched andquite uninjured by previous wars. Its name now appears for the firsttime upon the monuments, in the form of Kaûshû--the humbled Kûsh. Itcomprised the districts situated to the south within the immense loopdescribed by the river between Dongola and Khartoum, those vast plainsintersected by the windings of the White and Blue Niles, known as theregions of Kordofan and Darfur; it was bounded by the mountains ofAbyssinia, the marshes of Lake Nû, and all those semi-fabulous countriesto which were relegated the "Isles of the Manes" and the "Lands ofSpirits. " It was separated from the Red Sea by the land of Pûanît; andto the west, between it and the confines of the world, lay the Timihû. Scores of tribes, white, copper-coloured, and black, bearing strangenames, wrangled over the possession of this vaguely defined territory;some of them were still savage or emerging from barbarism, while othershad attained to a pitch of material civilization almost comparable withthat of Egypt. The same diversity of types, the same instability and thesame want of intelligence which characterized the tribes of those days, still distinguish the medley of peoples who now frequent the uppervalley of the Nile. They led the same sort of animal life, guided byimpulse, and disturbed, owing to the caprices of their petty chiefs, bybloody wars which often issued in slavery or in emigration to distantregions. 

[Illustration: 355. Jpg KÛSHITE PRISONERS BROUGHT TO EGYPT]

 Drawn by Faucher-Guclin, from the water-colour drawing by Mr. Blackden. 

With such shifting and unstable conditions, it would be difficult tobuild up a permanent State. From time to time some kinglet, more daring, cunning, tenacious, or better fitted to govern than the rest, extendedhis dominion over his neighbours, and advanced step by step, till heunited immense tracts under his single rule. As by degrees his kingdomenlarged, he made no efforts to organize it on any regular system, tointroduce any uniformity in the administration of its affairs, or togain the adherence of its incongruous elements by just laws which wouldbe equally for the good of all: when the massacres which accompanied hisfirst victories were over, when he had incorporated into his own armywhat was left of the vanquished troops, when their children were ledinto servitude and he had filled his treasury with their spoil and hisharem with their women, it never occurred to him that there was anythingmore to be done. If he had acted otherwise, it would not probably havebeen to his advantage. Both his former and present subjects were toodivergent in language and origin, too widely separated by manners andcustoms, and too long in a state of hostility to each other, to drawtogether and to become easily welded into a single nation. As soon asthe hand which held them together relaxed its hold for a moment, discordcrept in everywhere, among individuals as well as among the tribes, andthe empire of yesterday resolved itself into its original elementseven more rapidly than it had been formed. The clash of arms which hadinaugurated its brief existence died quickly away, the remembrance ofits short-lived glory was lost after two or three generations in thehorrors of a fresh invasion: its name vanished without leaving a tracebehind. The occupation of Nubia brought Egypt into contact with thishorde of incongruous peoples, and the contact soon entailed a struggle. It is futile for a civilized state to think of dwelling peacefully withany barbarous nation with which it is in close proximity. Should itdecide to check its own advances, and impose limits upon itself whichit shall not pass over, its moderation is mistaken for feebleness andimpotence; the vanquished again take up the offensive, and eitherforce the civilized power to retire, or compel it to cross its formerboundary. The Pharaohs did not escape this inevitable consequence ofconquest: their southern frontier advanced continually higher and higherup the Nile, without ever becoming fixed in a position sufficientlystrong to defy the attacks of the Barbarians. Usirtasen I. Had subduedthe countries of Hahû, of Khonthanunofir, and Shaad, and had beaten inbattle the Shemîk, the Khasa, the Sus, the Aqîn, the Anu, the Sabiri, and the people of Akîti and Makisa. Amenemhâît II. , Usirtasen II. , andUsirtasen III. Never hesitated to "strike the humbled Kush" wheneverthe opportunity presented itself. The last-mentioned king in particularchastised them severely in his VIIIth, XIIth, XVIth, and XIXth years, and his victories made him so popular, that the Egyptians of the Greekperiod, identifying him with the Sesostris of Herodotus, attributed tohim the possession of the universe. On the base of a colossal statue ofrose granite which he erected in the temple of Tanis, we find preserveda list of the tribes which he conquered: the names of them appear tous most outlandish--Alaka, Matakaraû, Tûrasû, Pamaîka, Uarakî, Paramakâ--and we have no clue as to their position on the map. We knowmerely that they lived in the desert, on both sides of the Nile, in thelatitude of Berber or thereabouts. Similar expeditions were sent afterÛsirtasen's time, and Amenem-hâît III. Regarded both banks of the Nile, between Semneh and Dongola, as forming part of the territory of Egyptproper. Little by little, and by the force of circumstances, the makingof Greater Egypt was realized; she approached nearer and nearer towardsthe limit which had been prescribed for her by nature, to that pointwhere the Nile receives its last tributaries, and where its peerlessvalley takes its origin in the convergence of many others. 

The conquest of Nubia was on the whole an easy one, and so much personaladvantage accrued from these wars, that the troops and generals enteredon them without the least repugnance. A single fragment has come down tous which contains a detailed account of one of these campaigns, probablythat conducted by Usirtasen III. In the XVIth year of his reign. ThePharaoh had received information that the tribes of the district ofHûâ, on the Tacazze, were harassing his vassals, and possibly alsothose Egyptians who were attracted by commerce to that neighbourhood. He resolved to set out and chastise them severely, and embarked withhis fleet. It was an expedition almost entirely devoid of danger:the invaders landed only at favourable spots, carried off any of theinhabitants who came in their way, and seized on their cattle--on oneoccasion as many as a hundred and twenty-three oxen and eleven asses, onothers less. Two small parties marched along the banks, and foraging tothe right and left, drove the booty down to the river. The tactics ofinvasion have scarcely undergone any change in these countries;the account given by Cailliaud of the first conquest of Fazogl byIsmail-Pasha, in 1822, might well serve to complete the fragments ofthe inscription of Usirtasen III. , and restore for us, almost in everydetail, a faithful picture of the campaigns carried on in these regionsby the kings of the XIIth dynasty. The people are hunted down inthe same fashion; the country is similarly ravaged by a handful ofwell-armed, fairly disciplined men attacking naked and disconnectedhordes, the young men are massacred after a short resistance or forcedto escape into the woods, the women are carried off as slaves, the hutspillaged, villages burnt, whole tribes exterminated in a few hours. Sometimes a detachment, having imprudently ventured into some thornythicket to attack a village perched on a rocky summit, would experiencea reverse, and would with great difficulty regain the main body oftroops, after having lost three-fourths of its men. In most cases therewas no prolonged resistance, and the attacking party carried the placewith the loss of merely two or three men killed or wounded. The spoilwas never very considerable in any one locality, but its total amountincreased as the raid was carried afield, and it soon became so bulkythat the party had to stop and retrace their steps, in order to placeit for safety in the nearest fortress. The booty consisted for the mostpart of herds of oxen and of cumbrous heaps of grain, as well as woodfor building purposes. But it also comprised objects of small size butof great value, such as ivory, precious stones, and particularly gold. The natives collected the latter in the alluvial tracts watered by theTacazze, the Blue Nile and its tributaries. The women were employedin searching for nuggets, which were often of considerable size; theyenclosed them in little leather cases, and offered them to the merchantsin exchange for products of Egyptian industry, or they handed them overto the goldsmiths to be made into bracelets, ear, nose, or finger rings, of fairly fine workmanship. Gold was found in combination with severalother metals, from which they did not know how to separate it: thepurest gold had a pale yellow tint, which was valued above all others, but electrum, that is to say, gold alloyed with silver in the proportionof eighty per cent. , was also much in demand, while greyish-colouredgold, mixed with platinum, served for making common jewellery. *

 * Cailliaud has briefly described the auriferous sand of the Qamâmyl, and the way in which it is worked: it is from him that I have borrowed the details given in the text. From analyses which I caused to be made at the Bûlaq Museum of Egyptian jewellery of the time of the XVIIIth dynasty, which had been broken and were without value, from an archeo- logical or artistic point of view, I have demonstrated the presence of the platinum and silver mentioned by Cailliaud as being found in the nuggets from the Blue Nile. 

None of these expeditions produced any lasting results, and the Pharaohsestablished no colonies in any of these countries. Their Egyptiansubjects could not have lived there for any length of time withoutdeteriorating by intermarriage with the natives or from the effects ofthe climate; they would have degenerated into a half-bred race, havingall the vices and none of the good qualities of the aborigines. ThePharaohs, therefore, continued their hostilities without furtherscruples, and only sought to gain as much as possible from theirvictories. They cared little if nothing remained after they had passedthrough some district, or if the passage of their armies was markedonly by ruins. They seized upon everything which came across theirpath--men, chattels, or animals--and carried them back to Egypt; theyrecklessly destroyed everything for which they had no use, and made adesert of fertile districts which but yesterday had been covered withcrops and studded with populous villages. The neighbouring inhabitants, realizing their incapacity to resist regular troops, endeavoured to buyoff the invaders by yielding up all they possessed in the way of slaves, flocks, wood, or precious metals. The generals in command, however, hadto reckon with the approaching low Nile, which forced them to beat aretreat; they were obliged to halt at the first appearance of it, andthey turned homewards "in peace, " their only anxiety being to lose thesmallest possible number of men or captured animals on their returnjourney. 

As in earlier times, adventurous merchants penetrated into districts notreached by the troops, and prepared the way for conquest. The princesof Elephantine still sent caravans to distant parts, and one of them, Siranpîtû, who lived under Ûsirtasen I. And Amenemhâit II. , recorded hisexplorations on his tomb, after the fashion of his ancestors: the kingat several different times had sent him on expeditions to the Soudan, but the inscription in which he gives an account of them is somutilated, that we cannot be sure which tribes he visited. Welearn merely that he collected from them skins, ivory, ostrichfeathers--everything, in fact, which Central Africa has furnished asarticles of commerce from time immemorial. It was not, however, byland only that Egyptian merchants travelled to seek fortune in foreigncountries: the Red Sea attracted them, and served as a quick route forreaching the land of Pûanît, whose treasures in perfumes and raritiesof all kinds had formed the theme of ancient traditions and navigators'tales. Relations with it had been infrequent, or had ceased altogether, during the wars of the Heracleo-politan period: on their renewal itwas necessary to open up afresh routes which had been forgotten forcenturies. 

[Illustration: 362. Jpg THE ROUTES LEADING FROM THE NILE TO THE RED SEA, BETWEEN KOPTOS AND KOSSEIR. ]

Traffic was confined almost entirely to two or three out of themany, --one which ran from Elephantine or from Nekhabît to the "Head ofNekhabît, " the Berenice of the Greeks; others which started from Thebesor Koptos, and struck the coast at the same place or at Saû, the presentKosseir. The latter, which was the shortest as well as the favouriteroute, passed through Wady Hammamât, from whence the Pharaohs drew theblocks of granite for their sarcophagi. The officers who were sent toquarry the stone often took advantage of the opportunity to visit thecoast, and to penetrate as far as the Spice Regions. As early as theyear VIII. Of Sônkherî, the predecessor of Amenemhâît I. , the "solefriend" Hûnû had been sent by this road, "in order to take the commandof a squadron to Pûanît, and to collect a tribute of fresh incensefrom the princes of the desert. " He got together three thousand men, distributed to each one a goatskin bottle, a crook for carrying it, andten loaves, and set out from Koptos with this little army. No water wasmet with on the way: Hûnû bored several wells and cisterns in the rock, one at a halting-place called Bait, two in the district of Adahaît, andfinally one in the valleys of Adabehaît. Having reached the seaboard, he quickly constructed a great barge, freighted it with merchandise forbarter, as well as with provisions, oxen, cows, and goats, and set sailfor a cruise along the coast: it is not known how far he went, but hecame back with a large cargo of all the products of the "Divine Land, "especially of incense. On his return, he struck off into the Uagaivalley, and thence reached that of Rohanû, where he chose out splendidblocks of stone for a temple which the king was building: "Never had'Royal Cousin' sent on an expedition done as much since the time ofthe god Râ!" Numbers of royal officers and adventurers followed in hisfootsteps, but no record of them has been preserved for us. Two or threenames only have escaped oblivion--that of Khnûmhotpû, who in the firstyear of Ûsirtasen I. Erected a stele in the Wady Gasûs in the very heartof the "Divine Land;" and that of Khentkhîtioîrû, who in the XXVIIIthyear of Amenemhâît II. Entered the haven of Saû after a fortunate cruiseto Pûanît, without having lost a vessel or even a single man. Navigationis difficult in the Red Sea. The coast as a rule is precipitous, bristling with reefs and islets, and almost entirely without strand orhaven. No river or stream runs into it; it is bordered by no fertile orwooded tract, but by high cliffs, half disintegrated by the burning sun, or by steep mountains, which appear sometimes a dull red, sometimesa dingy grey colour, according to the material--granite orsandstone--which predominates in their composition. The few tribes whoinhabit this desolate region maintain a miserable existence by fishingand hunting: they were considered, during the Greek period, to bethe most unfortunate of mortals, and if they appeared to be so to themariners of the Ptolemies, doubtless they enjoyed the same reputation inthe more remote time of the Pharaohs. A few fishing villages, however, are mentioned as scattered along the littoral; watering-places, at somedistance apart, frequented on account of their wells of brackish waterby the desert tribes: such were Nahasît, Tap-Nekhabît, Saû, and Tâû:these the Egyptian merchant-vessels used as victualling stations, and took away as cargo the products of the country--mother-of-pearl, amethysts, emeralds, a little lapis-lazuli, a little gold, gums, andsweet-smelling resins. If the weather was favourable, and the intakeof merchandise had been scanty, the vessel, braving numerous risks ofshipwreck, continued its course as far as the latitude of Sûakîn andMassowah, which was the beginning of Pûanît properly so called. Hereriches poured down to the coast from the interior, and selection becamea difficulty: it was hard to decide which would make the best cargo, ivory or ebony, panthers' skins or rings of gold, myrrh, incense, or ascore of other sweet-smelling gums. So many of these odoriferous resinswere used for religious purposes, that it was always to the advantage ofthe merchant to procure as much of them as possible: incense, fresh ordried, was the staple and characteristic merchandise of the Red Sea, andthe good people of Egypt pictured Pûanît as a land of perfumes, whichattracted the sailor from afar by the delicious odours which were waftedfrom it. 

These voyages were dangerous and trying: popular imagination seized uponthem and made material out of them for marvellous tales. The hero chosenwas always a daring adventurer sent by his master to collect gold fromthe mines of Nubia; by sailing further and further up the river, hereached the mysterious sea which forms the southern boundary of theworld. "I set sail in a vessel one hundred and fifty cubits long, fortywide, with one hundred and fifty of the best sailors in the landof Egypt, who had seen heaven and earth, and whose hearts were moreresolute than those of lions. They had foretold that the wind would notbe contrary, or that there would be even none at all; but a squall cameupon us unexpectedly while we were in the open, and as we approachedthe land, the wind freshened and raised the waves to the height of eightcubits. As for me, I clung to a beam, but those who were on the vesselperished without one escaping. A wave of the sea cast me on to anisland, after having spent three days alone with no other companion thanmy own heart. I slept there in the shade of a thicket; then I set mylegs in motion in quest of something for my mouth. " The island produceda quantity of delicious fruit: he satisfied his hunger with it, lighteda fire to offer a sacrifice to the gods, and immediately, by the magicalpower of the sacred rites, the inhabitants, who up to this time hadbeen invisible, were revealed to his eyes. "I heard a sound like that ofthunder, which I at first took to be the noise of the flood-tide in theopen sea; but the trees quivered, the earth trembled. I uncovered myface, and I perceived that it was a serpent which was approaching. Hewas thirty cubits in length, and his wattles exceeded two cubits; hisbody was incrusted with gold, and his colour appeared like that ofreal lapis. He raised himself before me and opened his mouth; while Iprostrated myself before him, he said to me: 'Who hath brought thee, whohath brought thee, little one, who hath brought thee? If thou dost nottell me immediately who brought thee to this island, I will cause theeto know thy littleness: either thou shalt faint like a woman, or thoushalt tell me something which I have not yet heard, and which I knewnot before thee. ' Then he took me into his mouth and carried me tohis dwelling-place, and put me down without hurting me; I was safe andsound, and nothing had been taken from me. " Our hero tells the serpentthe story of his shipwreck, which moves him to pity and induces him toreciprocate his confidence. "Fear nothing, fear nothing, little one, letnot thy countenance be sad! If thou hast come to me, it is the god whohas spared thy life; it is he who has brought thee into this 'Isle ofthe Double, ' where nothing is lacking, and which is filled with allgood things. Here thou shalt pass one month after another till thou hastremained four months in this island, then shall come a vessel from thycountry with mariners; thou canst depart with them to thy country, and thou shalt die in thy city. To converse rejoices the heart, he whoenjoys conversation bears misfortune better; I will therefore relateto thee the history of this island. " The population consisted ofseventy-five serpents, all of one family: it formerly comprised also ayoung girl, whom a succession of misfortunes had cast on the island, andwho was killed by lightning. The hero, charmed with such good nature, overwhelmed the hospitable dragon with thanks, and promised to send himnumerous presents on his return home. "I will slay asses for thee insacrifice, I will pluck birds for thee, I will send to thee vesselsfilled with all the riches of Egypt, meet for a god, the friend of manin a distant country unknown to men. " The monster smiled, and repliedthat it was needless to think of sending presents to one who was theruler of Pûanît; besides, "as soon as thou hast quitted this place, thou wilt never again see this island, for it will be changed intowaves. "--"And then, when the vessel appeared, according as he hadpredicted to me, I went and perched upon a high tree and sought todistinguish those who manned it. I next ran to tell him the news, but Ifound that he was already informed of its arrival, and he said to me: 'Apleasant journey home, little one; mayst thou behold thy children again, and may thy name be well spoken of in thy town; such are my wishes forthee!' He added gifts to these obliging words. I placed all these onboard the vessel which had come, and prostrating myself, I adored him. He said to me: 'After two months thou shalt reach thy country, thou wiltpress thy children to thy bosom, and thou shalt rest in thy sepulchre. 'After that I descended the shore to the vessel, and I hailed the sailorswho were in it. I gave thanks on the shore to the master of the island, as well as to those who dwelt in it. " This might almost be an episodein the voyages of Sindbad the Sailor; except that the monsters whichSindbad met with in the course of his travels were not of such a kindlydisposition as the Egyptian serpent: it did not occur to them to consolethe shipwrecked with the charm of a lengthy gossip, but they swallowedthem with a healthy appetite. Putting aside entirely the marvellouselement in the story, what strikes us is the frequency of the relationswhich it points to between Egypt and Pûanît. The appearance of anEgyptian vessel excites no astonishment on its coasts: the inhabitantshave already seen many such, and at such regular intervals, that theyare able to predict the exact date of their arrival. The distancebetween the two countries, it is true, was not considerable, and avoyage of two months was sufficient to accomplish it. While the newEgypt was expanding outwards in all directions, the old country did notcease to add to its riches. The two centuries during which the XIIthdynasty continued to rule were a period of profound peace; the monumentsshow us the country in full possession of all its resources and itsarts, and its inhabitants both cheerful and contented. More than ever dothe great lords and royal officers expatiate in their epitaphs uponthe strict justice which they have rendered to their vassals andsubordinates, upon the kindness which they have shown to the fellahîn, on the paternal solicitude with which, in the years of insufficientinundations or of bad harvests, they have striven to come forward andassist them, and upon the unheard-of disinterestedness which kept themfrom raising the taxes during the times of average Niles, or of unusualplenty. Gifts to the gods poured in from one end of the country to theother, and the great building works, which had been at a standstillsince the end of the VIth dynasty, were recommenced simultaneously onall sides. There was much to be done in the way of repairing the ruins, of which the number had accumulated during the two preceding centuries. Not that the most audacious kings had ventured to lay their hands onthe sanctuaries: they emptied the sacred treasuries, and partiallyconfiscated their revenues, but when once their cupidity was satisfied, they respected the fabrics, and even went so far as to restore afew inscriptions, or, when needed, to replace a few stones. Thesemagnificent buildings required careful supervision: in spite of theirbeing constructed of the most durable materials--sand-stone, granite, limestone, --in spite of their enormous size, or of the strengtheningof their foundations by a bed of sand and by three or four courses ofcarefully adjusted blocks to form a substructure, the Nile was everthreatening them, and secretly working at their destruction. Its waters, filtering through the soil, were perpetually in contact with the lowercourses of these buildings, and kept the foundations of the walls andthe bases of the columns constantly damp: the saltpetre which the watershad dissolved in their passage, crystallising on the limestone, wouldcorrode and undermine everything, if precautions were not taken. Whenthe inundation was over, the subsidence of the water which impregnatedthe subsoil caused in course of time settlements in the most solidfoundations: the walls, disturbed by the unequal sinking of the ground, got out of the perpendicular and cracked; this shifting displaced thearchitraves which held the columns together, and the stone slabs whichformed the roof. These disturbances, aggravated from year to year, weresufficient, if not at once remedied, to entail the fall of the portionsattacked; in addition to this, the Nile, having threatened the partbelow with destruction, often hastened by direct attacks the work ofruin, which otherwise proceeded slowly. A breach in the embankmentsprotecting the town or the temple allowed its waters to rush violentlythrough, and thus to effect large gaps in the decaying walls, completingthe overthrow of the columns and wrecking the entrance halls and secretchambers by the fall of the roofs. At the time when Egypt came underthe rule of the XIIth dynasty there were but few cities which did notcontain some ruined or dilapidated sanctuary. Amenemhâît I. , althoughfully occupied in reducing the power of the feudal lords, restored; thetemples as far as he was able, and his successors pushed forward thework vigorously for nearly two centuries. 

The Delta profited greatly by this activity in building. The monumentsthere had suffered more than anywhere else: fated to bear the firstshock of foreign invasion, and transformed into fortresses while thetowns in which they were situated were besieged, they have been capturedagain and again by assault, broken down by attacking engines, anddismantled by all the conquerors of Egypt, from the Assyrians to theArabs and the Turks. The fellahîn in their neighbourhood have forcenturies come to them to obtain limestone to burn in their kilns, or touse them as a quarry for sandstone or granite for the doorways of theirhouses, or for the thresholds of their mosques. Not only have they beenruined, but the remains of their ruins have, as it were, melted awayand almost entirely disappeared in the course of ages. And yet, whereverexcavations have been made among these remains which have suffered suchdeplorable ill-treatment, colossi and inscriptions commemorating thePharaohs of the XIIth dynasty have been brought to light. Amenemhâît I. Founded a great temple at Tanis in honour of the gods of Memphis: thevestiges of the columns still scattered on all sides show that themain body of the building was of rose granite, and a statue of the samematerial has preserved for us a portrait of the king. He is seated, andwears the tall head-dress of Osiris. He has a large smiling face, thicklips, a short nose, and big staring eyes: the expression is one ofbenevolence and gentleness, rather than of the energy and firmness whichone would expect in the founder of a dynasty. The kings who were hissuccessors all considered it a privilege to embellish the temple and toplace in it some memorial of their veneration for the god. Ûsirtasen I. , following the example of his father, set up a statue of himself in theform of Osiris: he is sitting on his throne of grey granite, and hisplacid face unmistakably recalls that of Amenemhâît I. Amenemhâît II. , Usirtasen II. , and his wife Nofrît have also dedicated their imageswithin the sanctuary. 

Nofrît's is of black granite: her head is almost eclipsed by the heavyHâthor wig, consisting of two enormous tresses of hair which surroundthe cheeks, and lie with an outward curve upon the breast; her eyes, which were formerly inlaid, have fallen out, the bronze eyelids arelost, her arms have almost disappeared. What remains of her, however, gives us none the less the impression of a young and graceful woman, with a lithe and well-proportioned body, whose outlines are delicatelymodelled under the tight-fitting smock worn by Egyptian women; the smalland rounded breasts curve outward between the extremities of her curlsand the embroidered hem of her garment; and a pectoral bearing the nameof her husband lies flat upon her chest, just below the column of herthroat. 

[Illustration: 372. Jpg THE STATUE OF NOFRIT]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger. In addition to the complete statue, the Museum at Gîzeh possesses a torso from the same source. I believe I can recognize another portrait of the same queen in a beautiful statue in black granite, which has been in the Museum at Marseilles since the beginning of the present century. 

These various statues have all an evident artistic relationship tothe beautiful granite figures of the Ancient Empire. The sculptors whoexecuted them belonged to the same school as those who carved Khephrenout of the solid diorite: there is the same facile use of the chisel, the same indifference to the difficulties presented by the materialchosen, the same finish in the detail, the same knowledge of the humanform. One is almost tempted to believe that Egyptian art remainedunchanged all through those long centuries, and yet as soon as astatue of the early period is placed side by side with one of the XIIthdynasty, we immediately perceive something in the one which is lackingin the other. It is a difference in feeling, even if the techniqueremains unmodified. It was the man himself that the sculptors desiredto represent in the older Pharaohs, and however haughty may be thecountenance which we admire in the Khephren, it is the human elementwhich predominates in him. The statues of Amenemhâît I. And hissuccessors appear, on the contrary, to represent a superior race: at thetime when these were produced, the Pharaoh had long been regarded asa god, and the divine nature in him had almost eliminated the human. Whether intentionally or otherwise, the sculptors idealized their model, and made him more and more resemble the type of the divinities. The headalways appears to be a good likeness, but smoothed down and sometimeslacking in expression. 

Not only are the marks of age rendered less apparent, and the featuresmade to bear the stamp of perpetual youth, but the characteristicsof the individual, such as the accentuation of the eyebrows, theprotuberance of the cheek-bones, the projection of the under lip, areall softened down as if intentionally, and made to give way to a uniformexpression of majestic tranquillity. One king only, Amenemhâît III. , refused to go down to posterity thus effaced, and caused his portraitto be taken as he really was. He has certainly the round full faceof Amenemhâît or of Usirtasen I. , and there is an undeniable familylikeness between him and his ancestors; but at the first glance wefeel sure that the artist has not in any way flattered his model. Theforehead is low and slightly retreating, narrow across the temples; hisnose is aquiline, pronounced in form, and large at the tip; the thicklips are slightly closed; his mouth has a disdainful curve, and itscorners are turned down as if to repress the inevitable smile common tomost Egyptian statues; the chin is full and heavy, and turns up in frontin spite of the weight of the false beard dependent from it; he hassmall narrow eyes, with full lids; his cheekbones are accentuated andprojecting, the cheeks hollow, and the muscles about the nose and mouthstrongly defined. The whole presents so strange an aspect, that for along time statues of this type have been persistently looked upon asproductions of an art which was only partially Egyptian. It is, indeed, possible that the Tanis sphinxes were turned out of workshops where theprinciples and practice of the sculptor's art had previously undergonesome Asiatic influence; the bushy mane which surrounds the face, andthe lion's ears emerging from it, are exclusively characteristic of thelatter. The purely human statues in which we meet with the same type ofcountenance have no peculiarity of workmanship which could be attributedto the imitation of a foreign art. If the nameless masters to whomwe owe their existence desired to bring about a reaction against theconventional technique of their contemporaries, they at least introducedno foreign innovations; the monuments of the Memphite period furnishedthem with all the models they could possibly wish for. 

Bubastis had no less occasion than Tanis to boast of the generosity ofthe Theban Pharaohs. The temple of Bastît, which had been decorated byKheops and Khephren, was still in existence: Amenemhâît I. , UsirtasenI. , and their immediate successors confined themselves to therestoration of several chambers, and to the erection of their ownstatues, but Usirtasen III. Added to it a new structure which must havemade it rival the finest monuments in Egypt. He believed, no doubt, thathe was under particular obligations to the lioness goddess of the city, and attributed to her aid, for unknown reasons, some of his successes inNubia; it would appear that it was with the spoil of a campaign againstthe country of the Hûâ that he endowed a part of the new sanctuary. *

 * The fragment found by Naville formed part of an inscription engraved on a wall: the wars which it was customary to commemorate in a temple were always selected from those in which the whole or a part of the booty had been consecrated to the use of the local divinity. 

Nothing now remains of it except fragments of the architraves andgranite columns, which have been used over again by Pharaohs of a laterperiod when restoring or altering the fabric. 

[Illustration: 376. Jpg ONE OF THE TANIS SPHINXES IN THE GÎZEH MUSEUM]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch- Bey, taken in 1881. The sphinx bears on its breast the cartouche of Psiûkhânû, a Tanite Pharaoh of the XXIst dynasty. 

A few of the columns belong to the lotiform type. The shaft is composedof eight triangular stalks rising from a bunch of leaves, symmetricallyarranged, and bound together at the top by a riband, twisted thriceround the bundle; the capital is formed by the union of the eight lotusbuds, surmounted by a square member on which rests the architrave. Othercolumns have Hâthor-headed capitals, the heads being set back to back, and bearing the flat head-dress ornamented with the urous. The faceof the goddess, which is somewhat flattened when seen closely on theeye-level, stands out and becomes more lifelike in proportion as thespectator recedes from it; the projection of the features has beencalculated so as to produce the desired effect at the right heightwhen seen from below. The district lying between Tanis and Bubastis isthickly studded with monuments built or embellished by the Amenemhâîtsand Usirtasens: wherever the pickaxe is applied, whether at Fakus orTell-Nebêsheh, remains of them are brought to light--statues, stelæ, tables of offerings, and fragments of dedicatory or historicalinscriptions. While carrying on works in the temple of Phtah at Memphis, the attention of these Pharaohs was attracted to Heliopolis. The templeof Râ there was either insufficient for the exigencies of worship, orhad been allowed to fall into decay. Usirtasen III. Resolved, in thethird year of his reign, to undertake its restoration. The occasionappears to have been celebrated as a festival by all Egypt, and theremembrance of it lasted long after the event: the somewhat detailedaccount of the ceremonies which then took place was copied out again atThebes, towards the end of the XVIIIth dynasty. It describes the kingmounting his throne at the meeting of his council, and receiving, as wascustomary, the eulogies of his "sole friends" and of the courtierswho surrounded him: "Here, " says he, addressing them, "has my Majestyordained the works which shall recall my worthy and noble acts toposterity. I raise a monument, I establish lasting decrees in favourof Harmakhis, for he has brought me into the world to do as he did, toaccomplish that which he decreed should be done; he has appointed me toguide this earth, he has known it, he has called it together and he hasgranted me his help; I have caused the Eye which is in him to becomeserene, in all things acting as he would have me to do, and I havesought out that which he had resolved should be known. I am a king bybirth, a suzerain not of my own making; I have governed from childhood, petitions have been presented to me when I was in the egg, I have ruledover the ways of Anubis, and he raised me up to be master of the twohalves of the world, from the time when I was a nursling; I had not yetescaped from the swaddling-bands when he enthroned me as master of men;creating me himself in the sight of mortals, he made me to find favourwith the Dweller in the Palace, when I was a youth.... I came forth asHorus the eloquent, and I have instituted divine oblations; I accomplishthe works in the palace of my father Atûmû, I supply his altar on earthwith offerings, I lay the foundations of my palace in his neighbourhood, in order that the memorial of my goodness may remain in his dwelling;for this palace is my name, this lake is my monument, all that is famousor useful that I have made for the gods is eternity. " The great lordstestified their approbation of the king's piety; the latter summoned hischancellor and commanded him to draw up the deeds of gift and all thedocuments necessary for the carrying out of his wishes. "He arose, adorned with the royal circlet and with the double feather, followed byall his nobles; the chief lector of the divine book stretched the cordand fixed the stake in the ground. "*

 * Stehn, _Urkunde uber den Bau des Sonnentempels zu On_, pl. I. 11. 13--15. The priest here performed with the king the more important of the ceremonies necessary in measuring the area of the temple, by "inserting the measuring stakes, " and marking out the four sides of the building with the cord. 

This temple has ceased to exist; but one of the granite obelisks raisedby Usirtasen I. On each side of the principal gateway is still standing. The whole of Heliopolis has disappeared: the site where it formerlystood is now marked only by a few almost imperceptible inequalitiesin the soil, some crumbling lengths of walls, and here and there somescattered blocks of limestone, containing a few lines of mutilatedinscriptions which can with difficulty be deciphered; the obelisk hassurvived even the destruction of the ruins, and to all who understandits language it still speaks of the Pharaoh who erected it. 

The undertaking and successful completion of so many great structureshad necessitated a renewal of the working of the ancient quarries, andthe opening of fresh ones. Amenemhâît I. Sent Antuf, a great dignitary, chief of the prophets of Mînû and prince of Koptos, to the valleyof Rohanû, to seek out fine granite for making the royal sarcophagi. Amenemhâît III. Had, in the XLIIIrd year of his reign, been present atthe opening of several fine veins of white limestone in the quarries ofTurah, which probably furnished material for the buildings proceeding atHeliopolis and Memphis. Thebes had also its share of both limestone andgranite, and Amon, whose sanctuary up to this time had only attainedthe modest proportions suited to a provincial god, at last possessed atemple which raised him to the rank of the highest feudal divinities. Amon's career had begun under difficulties: he had been merely avassal-god of Montû, lord of Hermonthis (the Aûnû of the south), whohad granted to him the ownership of the village of Karnak only. Theunforeseen good fortune of the Antufs was the occasion of his emergingfrom his obscurity: he did not dethrone Montû, but shared with him thehomage of all the neighbouring villages--Luxor, Medamut, Bayadîyeh; and, on the other side of the Nile, Gurneh and Medînet-Habu. The accession ofthe XIIth dynasty completed his triumph, and made him the most powerfulauthority in Southern Egypt. He was an earth-god, a form of Mînû whoreigned at Koptos, at Akhmîm and in the desert, but he soon becameallied to the sun, and from thenceforth he assumed the name of Amon-Râ. The title of "sûton nûtîrû" which he added to it would alone havesufficed to prove the comparatively recent origin of his notoriety; asthe latest arrival among the great gods, he employed, to express hissovereignty, this word "sûton, " king, which had designated the rulersof the valley ever since the union of the two Egypts under the shadowyMenés. Reigning at first alone, he became associated by marriage with avague indefinite goddess, called Maût, or Mût, the "mother, " who neveradopted any more distinctive name: the divine son who completedthis triad was, in early times, Montû; but in later times a being ofsecondary rank, chosen from among the genii appointed to watch over thedays of the month or the stars, was added, under the name of Khonsû. Amenemhâît laid the foundations of the temple, in which the cultus ofAmon was carried on down to the latest times of paganism. The buildingwas supported by polygonal columns of sixteen sides, some fragments ofwhich are still existing. 

[Illustration: 381. Jpg THE OBELISK OF ÛSIRTASEN I. , STILL STANDING INTHE PLAIN OF HELIOPOLIS]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger. 

The temple was at first of only moderate dimensions, but it was builtof the choicest sandstone and limestone, and decorated with exquisitebas-reliefs. Ûsirtasen I. Enlarged it, and built a beautiful house forthe high priest on the west side of the sacred lake. Luxor, Zorit, Edfu, Hierakonpolis, El-Kab, Elephantine, and Dendera, * shared between themthe favour of the Pharaohs; the venerable town of Abydos became theobject of their special predilection. 

 * Dümichen pointed out, in the masonry of the great eastern staircase of the present temple of Hâthor, a stone obtained from the earlier temple, which bears the name of Amenemhâît; another fragment, discovered and published by Mariette, shows that Amenemhâît I. Is here again referred to. The buildings erected by this monarch at Dondera must have been on a somewhat large scale, if we may judge from the size of this last fragment, which is the lintel of a door. 

Its reputation for sanctity had been steadily growing from the time ofthe Papis: its god, Khontamentît, who was identified with Osiris, hadobtained in the south a rank as high as that of the Mendesian Osiris inthe north of Egypt. He was worshipped as the sovereign of the sovereignsof the dead--he who gathered around him and welcomed in his domainsthe majority of the faithful of other cults. His sepulchre, or, morecorrectly speaking, the chapel representing his sepulchre, in whichone of his relics was preserved, was here, as elsewhere, built upon theroof. Access to it was gained by a staircase leading up on the left sideof the sanctuary: on the days of the passion and resurrection of Osirissolemn processions of priests and devotees slowly mounted its steps, tothe chanting of funeral hymns, and above, on the terrace, away fromthe world of the living, and with no other witnesses than the stars ofheaven, the faithful celebrated mysteriously the rites of the divinedeath and embalming. The "vassals of Osiris" flocked in crowds to thesefestivals, and took a delight in visiting, at least once during theirlifetime, the city whither their souls would proceed after death, inorder to present themselves at the "Mouth of the Cleft, " there to embarkin the "bari" of their divine master or in that of the Sun. Theyleft behind them, "under the staircase of the great god, " a sort offictitious tomb, near the representation of the tomb of Osiris, in theshape of a stele, which immortalized the memory of their piety, andwhich served as a kind of hostelry for their soul, when the lattershould, in course of time, repair to this rallying-place of allOsirian souls. The concourse of pilgrims was a source of wealth tothe population, the priestly coffers were filled, and every year theoriginal temple was felt to be more and more inadequate to meet therequirements of worship. Usirtasen I. Desired to come to the rescue:he despatched Monthotpû, one of his great vassals, to superintend theworks. The ground-plan of the portico of white limestone which precededthe entrance court may still be distinguished; this portico wassupported by square pillars, and, standing against the remains of these, we see the colossi of rose granite, crowned with the Osirian head-dress, and with their feet planted on the "Nine Bows, " the symbol of vanquishedenemies. The best preserved of these figures represents the founder, butseveral others are likenesses of those of his successors who interestedthemselves in the temple. Monthotpû dug a well which was kept fullysupplied by the infiltrations from the Nile. He enlarged and cleanedout the sacred lake upon which the priests launched the Holy Ark, on thenights of the great mysteries. The alluvial deposits of fifty centurieshave not as yet wholly filled it up: it is still an irregularly shapedpond, which dries up in winter, but is again filled as soon as theinundation reaches the village of El-Kharbeh. 

[Illustration: 384. Jpg USIRTASEN I. OF ABYDOS]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by M. De Banville. 

A few stones, corroded with saltpetre, mark here and there the linesof the landing stages, a thick grove of palms fringes its northern andsouthern banks, but to the west the prospect is open, and extends asfar as the entrance to the gorge, through which the souls set forth insearch of Paradise and the solar bark. Buffaloes now come to drink andwallow at midday where once floated the gilded "bari" of Osiris, and themurmur of bees from the neighbouring orchards alone breaks the silenceof the spot which of old resounded with the rhythmical lamentations ofthe pilgrims. 

Heracleopolis the Great, the town preferred by the earlier ThebanPharaohs as their residence in times of peace, must have been one ofthose which they proceeded to decorate _con amore_ with magnificentmonuments. 

[Illustration: 385. Jpg A PART OF THE ANCIENT SACRED LAKE OF OSIRIS NEARTHE TEMPLE OF ABYDOS]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey, taken in 1884. 

Unfortunately it has suffered more than any of the rest, and nothingof it is now to be seen but a few wretched remains of buildings of theRoman period, and the ruins of a barbaric colonnade on the site of aByzantine basilica almost contemporary with the Arab conquest. Perhapsthe enormous mounds which cover its site may still conceal the remainsof its ancient temples. We can merely estimate their magnificence bycasual allusions to them in the inscriptions. 

[Illustration: 368. Jpg THE SITE OF THE ANCIENT HERACLEOPOLIS]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Golénischeff

We know, for instance, that Usirtasen III. Rebuilt the sanctuary ofHarshâfîtû, and that he sent expeditions to the Wady Hammamât to quarryblocks of granite worthy of his god: but the work of this king and hissuccessors has perished in the total ruin of the ancient town. Somethingat least has remained of what they did in that traditional dependencyof Heracleopolis, the Fayum: the temple which they rebuilt to the godSobkû in Shodît retained its celebrity down to the time of the Cæsars, not so much, perhaps, on account of the beauty of its architecture asfor the unique character of the religious rites which took place theredaily. The sacred lake contained a family of tame crocodiles, theimage and incarnation of the god, whom the faithful fed with theirofferings--cakes, fried fish, and drinks sweetened with honey. Advantagewas taken of the moment when one of these creatures, wallowing on thebank, basked contentedly in the sun: two priests opened his jaws, and athird threw in the cakes, the fried morsels, and finally the liquid. The crocodile bore all this without even winking; he swallowed down hisprovender, plunged into the lake, and lazily reached the opposite bank, hoping to escape for a few moments from the oppressive liberality of hisdevotees. 

[Illustration: 387. Jpg SOBKÛ, THE GOD OF THE FAYÛM, UNDER THE FORM OF ASACRED CROCODILE]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch- Bey, taken in 1885. The original in black granite is now in the Berlin Museum. It represents one of the sacred crocodiles mentioned by Strabo; we read on the base a Greek inscription in honour of Ptolemy Neos Dionysos, in which the name of the divine reptile "Petesûkhos, the great god, " is mentioned. 

As soon, however, as another of these approached, he was again besetat his new post and stuffed in a similar manner. These animals were intheir own way great dandies: rings of gold or enamelled terra-cottawere hung from their ears, and bracelets were soldered on to their frontpaws. The monuments of Shodît, if any still exist, are buried under themounds of Medinet el-Fayûm, but in the neighbourhood we meet with morethan one authentic relic of the XIIth dynasty. It was Usirtasen I. Whoerected that curious thin granite obelisk, with a circular top, whosefragments lie forgotten on the ground near the village of Begig: asort of basin has been hollowed out around it, which fills during theinundation, so that the monument lies in a pool of muddy water duringthe greater part of the year. Owing to this treatment, most of theinscriptions on it have almost disappeared, though we can still makeout a series of five scenes in which the king hands offerings to severaldivinities. Near to Biahmû there was an old temple which had becomeruinous: Amenemhâît III. Repaired it, and erected in front of it twoof those colossal statues which the Egyptians were wont to place likesentinels at their gates, to ward off baleful influences and evilspirits. 

[Illustration: 388. Jpg THE REMAINS OF THE OBELISK OF BEGIG]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Golûnischeff. 

The colossi at Biahmû were of red sandstone, and were seated on highlimestone pedestals, placed at the end of a rectangular court; thetemple walls hid the lower part of the pedestals, so that the colossiappeared to tower above a great platform which sloped gently away fromthem on all sides. Herodotus, who saw them from a distance at thetime of the inundation, believed that they crowned the summits oftwo pyramids rising out of the middle of a lake. Near Illahun, QueenSovkûnofriûri herself has left a few traces of her short reign. 

The Fayum, by its fertility and pleasant climate, justified thepreference which the Pharaohs of the XIIth dynasty bestowed upon it. On emerging from the gorges of Illahun, it opens out like a vastamphitheatre of cultivation, whose slopes descend towards the north tillthey reach the desolate waters of the Birket-Kerun. 

[Illustration: 389. Jpg THE RUINED PEDESTAL OF ONE OF THE COLOSSI OFBIAHMÛ]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after Major Brown. 

On the right and left, the amphitheatre is isolated from the surroundingmountains by two deep ravines, filled with willows, tamarisks, mimosas, and thorny acacias. Upon the high ground, lands devoted to theculture of corn, durra, and flax, alternate with groves of palms andpomegranates, vineyards and gardens of olives, the latter being almostunknown elsewhere in Egypt. 

[Illustration: 390. Jpg A VIEW IN THE FAYÛM IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THEVILLAGE OF FIDEMÎN]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Golenischeff. 

The slopes are covered with cultivated fields, irregularly terracedwoods, and meadows enclosed by hedges, while lofty trees, clustered insome places and thinly scattered in others, rise in billowy massesof verdure one behind the other. Shodît [Shâdû] stood on a peninsulastretching out into a kind of natural reservoir, and was connected withthe mainland by merely a narrow dyke; the water of the inundation flowedinto this reservoir and was stored here during the autumn. Countlesslittle rivulets escaped from it, not merely such canals and ditches aswe meet with in the Nile Valley, but actual running brooks, coursing andbabbling between the trees, spreading out here and there into poolsof water, and in places forming little cascades like those of our ownstreams, but dwindling in volume as they proceeded, owing to constantdrains made on them, until they were for the most part absorbed by thesoil before finally reaching the lake. 

[Illustration: 391. Jpg THE COURT OF THE SMALL TEMPLE]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Major Brown. 

They brought down in their course part of the fertilizing earthaccumulated by the inundation, and were thus instrumental in raising thelevel of the soil. The water of the Birkeh rose or fell according to theseason of the year. It formerly occupied a much larger area than it doesat present, and half of the surrounding districts was covered by it. Its northern shores, now deserted and uncultivated, then shared in thebenefits of the inundation, and supplied the means of existence fora civilized population. In many places we still find the remains ofvillages, and walls of uncemented stone; a small temple even hasescaped the general ruin, and remains almost intact in the midst of thedesolation, as if to point out the furthest limit of Egyptian territory. 

[Illustration: 392. Jpg THE SHORES OF THE BIRKET-KERUN NEAR THEEMBOUCHURE OF THE WADY NAZLEH]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Golénischeff. 

It bears no inscriptions, but the beauty of the materials of which itis composed, and the perfection of the work, lead us to attribute itsconstruction to some prince of the XIIth dynasty. An ancient causewayruns from its entrance to what was probably at one time the originalmargin of the lake. The continual sinking of the level of the Birkehhas left this temple isolated on the edge of the Libyan plateau, andall life has retired from the surrounding district, and has concentrateditself on the southern shores of the lake. 

[Illustration: 393. Jpg THE TWO PYRAMIDS OF THE XIITH DYNASTY AT LISHT]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey. 

Here the banks are low and the bottom deepens almost imperceptibly. Inwinter the retreating waters leave exposed long patches of the shore, upon which a thin crust of snow-white salt is deposited, concealing thedepths of mud and quicksands beneath. Immediately after the inundation, the lake regains in a few days the ground it had lost: it encroacheson the tamarisk bushes which fringe its banks, and the district is soonsurrounded by a belt of marshy vegetation, affording cover for ducks, pelicans, wild geese, and a score of different kinds of birds whichdisport themselves there by the thousand. The Pharaohs, when tired ofresiding in cities, here found varied and refreshing scenery, an equableclimate, gardens always gay with flowers, and in the thickets of theKerun they could pursue their favourite pastimes of interminable fishingand of hunting with the boomerang. 

They desired to repose after death among the scenes in which they hadlived. Their tombs stretch from Heracleo-polis till they nearly meet thelast pyramids of the Memphites: at Dahshur there are still two of themstanding. The northern one is an immense erection of brick, placed inclose proximity to the truncated pyramid, but nearer than it to the edgeof the plateau, so as to overlook the valley. We might be tempted tobelieve that the Theban kings, in choosing a site immediately to thesouth of the spot where Papi II. Slept in his glory, were prompted bythe desire to renew the traditions of the older dynasties prior tothose of the Heracleopolitans, and thus proclaim to all beholders theantiquity of their lineage. One of their residences was situated at nogreat distance, near Miniet Dahshur, the city of Titoui, the favouriteresidence of Amenemhâîfc I. It was here that those royal princesses, Nofirhonît, Sonît-Sonbît, Sîthâthor, and Monît, his sisters, wives, anddaughters, whose tombs lie opposite the northern face of the pyramid, flourished side by side with Amenemhâît III. 

[Illustration: 394. Jpg PAINTING AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE FIFTH TOMB]

There, as of old in their harem, they slept side by side, and, in spiteof robbers, their mummies have preserved the ornaments with which theywere adorned, on the eve of burial, by the pious act of their lords. The art of the ancient jewellers, which we have hitherto known onlyfrom pictures on the walls of tombs or on the boards of coffins, is hereexhibited in all its cunning. The ornaments comprise a wealth ofgold gorgets, necklaces of agate beads or of enamelled lotus-flowers, cornelian, amethyst, and onyx scarabs. Pectorals of pierced gold-work, inlaid with flakes of vitreous paste or precious stones, bear thecartouches of Usirtasen III. And of Amenemhâît II. , and every one ofthese gems of art reveals a perfection of taste and a skilfulness ofhandling which are perfectly wonderful. 

[Illustration: 395. Jpg PECTORAL ORNAMENT OF USIRTASEN III]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch- Bey. 

Their delicacy, and their freshness in spite of their antiquity, make ithard for us to realize that fifty centuries have elapsed since theywere made. We are tempted to imagine that the royal ladies to whom theybelonged must still be waiting within earshot, ready to reply to oursummons as soon as we deign to call them; we may even anticipate the joythey will evince when these sumptuous ornaments are restored to them, and we need to glance at the worm-eaten coffins which contain theirstiff and disfigured mummies to recall our imagination to the sternreality of fact. Two other pyramids, but in this case of stone, stillexist further south, to the left of the village of Lisht: their casing, torn off by the fellahîn, has entirely disappeared, and from a distancethey appear to be merely two mounds which break the desert horizon line, rather than two buildings raised by the hand of man. 

[Illustration: 396. Jpg THE PYRAMID OF ILLAHUN, AT THE ENTRANCE OF THEFAïÛM]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Golénischeff. 

The sepulchral chambers, excavated at a great depth in the sand, are nowfilled with water which has infiltrated through the soil, and they havenot as yet been sufficiently emptied to permit of an entrance beingeffected: one of them contained the body of Usirtasen I. ; doesAmenemhâît I. Or Amenemhâît II. Repose in the other? We know, at allevents, that Usirtasen II. Built for himself the pyramid of Illahun, and Amenemhâît III. That of Hawâra. "Hotpû, " the tomb of Usirtasen II. , stood upon a rocky hill at a distance of some two thousand feet fromthe cultivated lands. To the east of it lay a temple, and close tothe temple a town, Haît-Usirtasen-Hotpû--"the Castle of the Repose ofUsirtasen"--which was inhabited by the workmen employed in buildingthe pyramid, who resided there with their families. The remains of thetemple consist of scarcely anything more than the enclosing wall, whosesides were originally faced with fine white limestone covered withhieroglyphs and sculptured scenes. It adjoined the wall of the town, andthe neighbouring quarters are almost intact: the streets were straight, and crossed each other at right angles, while the houses on each sidewere so regularly built that a single policeman could keep his eye oneach thoroughfare from one end to the other. The structures were ofrough material hastily put together, and among the _débris_ are to befound portions of older buildings, stehe, and fragments of statues. The town began to dwindle after the Pharaoh had taken possession of hissepulchre; it was abandoned during the XIIIth dynasty, and its ruinswere entombed in the sand which the wind heaped over them. The citywhich Amenemhâît III. Had connected with his tomb maintained, on thecontrary, a long existence in the course of the centuries. The king'slast resting-place consisted of a large sarcophagus of quartzosesandstone, while his favourite consort, Nofriuphtah, reposed besidehim in a smaller coffin. The sepulchral chapel was very large, and itsarrangements were of a somewhat complicated character. It consisted ofa considerable number of chambers, some tolerably large, and othersof moderate dimensions, while all of them were difficult of access andplunged in perpetual darkness: this was the Egyptian Labyrinth, towhich the Greeks, by a misconception, have given a world-wide renown. Amenemhâît III. Or his architects had no intention of building such achildish structure as that in which classical tradition so ferventlybelieved. He had richly endowed the attendant priests, and bestowed uponthe cult of his double considerable revenues, and the chambers abovementioned were so many storehouses for the safekeeping of the treasureand provisions for the dead, and the arrangement of them was not moresingular than that of ordinary storage depots. As his cult persistedfor a long period, the temple was maintained in good condition during aconsiderable time: it had not, perhaps, been abandoned when the Greeksfirst visited it. *

 * The identity of the ruins at Hawâra with the remains of the Labyrinth, admitted by Jomard-Caristie and by Lepsius, disputed by Vassali, has been definitely proved by Pétrie, who found remains of the buildings erected by Amenemhâît III. Under the ruins of a village and some Græco-Roman tombs. 

The other sovereigns of the XIIth dynasty must have been interred notfar from the tombs of Amenemhâît III. And Usirtasen II. : they also hadtheir pyramids, of which we may one day discover the site. The outlineof these was almost the same as that of the Memphite pyramids, but theinterior arrangements were different. As at Illahun and Dahshur, themass of the work consisted of crude bricks of large size, between whichfine sand was introduced to bind them solidly together, and the wholewas covered with a facing of polished limestone. The passages andchambers are not arranged on the simple plan which we meet with inthe pyramids of earlier date. Experience had taught the Pharaohs thatneither granite walls nor the multiplication of barriers could preservetheir mummies from profanation: no sooner was vigilance relaxed, eitherin the time of civil war or under a feeble administration, than robbersappeared on the scene, and boring passages through the masonry withthe ingenuity of moles, they at length, after indefatigable patience, succeeded in reaching the sepulchral vault and despoiling the mummy ofits valuables. 

[Illustration: 399. Jpg THE MOUNTAIN OF SILT WITH THE TOMBS OF THEPRINCES]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey, taken in 1884. 

With a view to further protection, the builders multiplied blindpassages and chambers without apparent exit, but in which a portion ofthe ceiling was movable, and gave access to other equally mysteriousrooms and corridors. Shafts sunk in the corners of the chambers andagain carefully closed put the sacrilegious intruder on a false scent, for, after causing him a great loss of time and labour, they only leddown to the solid rock. At the present day the water of the Nile fillsthe central chamber of the Hawâra pyramid and covers the sarcophagus; itis possible that this was foreseen, and that the builders counted on theinfiltration as an additional obstacle to depredations from without. *

 * Indeed, it should be noted that in the Græco-Roman period the presence of water in a certain number of the pyramids was a matter of common knowledge, and so frequently was it met with, that it was even supposed to exist in a pyramid into which water had never penetrated, viz. That of Kheops. Herodotus relates that, according to the testimony of the interpreters who acted as his guides, the waters of the Nile were carried to the sepulchral cavern of the Pharaoh by a subterranean channel, and shut it in on all sides, like an island. 

The hardness of the cement, which fastens the lid of the stone coffinto the lower part, protects the body from damp, and the Pharaoh, lyingbeneath several feet of water, still defies the greed of the robber orthe zeal of the archaeologist. 

The absolute power of the kings kept their feudal vassals in check: farfrom being suppressed, however, the seignorial families continuednot only to exist, but to enjoy continued prosperity. Everywhere, atElephantine, Koptos, Thinis, in Aphroditopolis, and in most of thecities of the Said and of the Delta, there were ruling princes whowere descended from the old feudal lords or even from Pharaohs of theMemphite period, and who were of equal, if not superior rank, to themembers of the reigning family. The princes of Siut no longer en-joyedan authority equal to that exercised by their ancestors under theHeracleopolitan dynasties, but they still possessed considerableinfluence. One of them, Hapizaûfi I. , excavated for himself, in thereign of Ûsirtasen I. , nor far from the burying-place of Khîti andTefabi, that beautiful tomb, which, though partially destroyed by Copticmonks or Arabs, still attracts visitors and excites their astonishment. 

[Illustration: 401. Jpg MAP OF PRINCIPALITY OF THE GAZELLE]

The lords of Shashotpu in the south, and those of Hermopolis in thenorth, had acquired to some extent the ascendency which their neighboursof Siût had lost. The Hermopolitan princes dated at least from the timeof the VIth dynasty, and they had passed safely through the troubloustimes which followed the death of Papi II. A branch of their familypossessed the nome of the Hare, while another governed that of theGazelle. The lords of the nome of the Hare espoused the Theban cause, and were reckoned among the most faithful vassals of the sovereigns ofthe south: one of them, Thothotpû, caused a statue of himself, worthyof a Pharaoh, to be erected in his loyal town of Hermopolis, and theirburying-places at el-Bersheh bear witness to their power no less thanto their taste in art. During the troubles which put an end to the XIthdynasty, a certain Khnûmhotpû, who was connected in some unknown mannerwith the lords of the nome of the Gazelle, entered the Theban serviceand accompanied Amenemhâît I. On his campaigns into Nubia. He obtained, as a reward of faithfulness, Monâît-Khûfûi and the district ofKhûît-Horû, --"the Horizon of Horus, "--on the east bank of the Nile. Onbecoming possessed of the western bank also, he entrusted the governmentof the district which he was giving up to his eldest son, Nakhîti I. ;but, the latter having died without heirs, Usirtasen I. Granted toBiqît, the sister of Nakhîti, the rank and prerogative of a reigningprincess. Biqît married Nûhri, one of the princes of Hermopolis, andbrought with her as her dowry the fiefdom of the Gazelle, thus doublingthe possessions of her husband's house. Khnûmhotpû II. , the eldestof the children born of this union, was, while still young, appointedGovernor of Monâît-Khûfuî, and this title appears to have become anappanage of his heir-apparent, just as the title of "Prince of Kaûshû"was, from the XIXth dynasty onwards, the special designation of the heirto the throne. The marriage of Khnûmhotpû II. With the youthful Khîti, the heiress of the nome of the Jackal, rendered him master of one ofthe most fertile provinces of Middle Egypt. The power of this family wasfurther augmented under Nakhîti II. , son of Khnûmhotpû II. And Khîti:Nakhîti, prince of the nome of the Jackal in right of his mother, andlord of that of the Gazelle after the death of his father, receivedfrom Usirtasen II. The administration of fifteen southern nomes, fromAphroditopolis to Thebes. This is all we know of his history, but it isprobable that his descendants retained the same power and position forseveral generations. The career of these dignitaries depended greatlyon the Pharaohs with whom they were contemporary: they accompanied theroyal troops on their campaigns, and with the spoil which they collectedon such occasions they built temples or erected tombs for themselves. The tombs of the princes of the nome of the Gazelle are disposed alongthe right bank of the Nile, and the most ancient are exactly oppositeMinieh. It is at Zawyet el-Meiyetîn and at Kom-el-Ahmar, nearly facingHibonu, their capital, that we find the burying-places of those wholived under the VIth dynasty. The custom of taking the dead across theNile had existed for centuries, from the time when the Egyptians firstcut their tombs in the eastern range; it still continues to the presentday, and part of the population of Minieh are now buried, year afteryear, in the places which their remote ancestors had chosen as the siteof their "eternal houses. " The cemetery lies peacefully in the centreof the sandy plain at the foot of the hills; a grove of palms, likea curtain drawn along the river-side, partially conceals it; a Copticconvent and a few Mahommedan hermits attract around them the tombs oftheir respective followers, Christian or Mussulman. The rock-hewn tombsof the XIIth dynasty succeed each other in one long irregular linealong the cliffs of Beni-Hasan, and the traveller on the Nile sees theirentrances continuously coming into sight and disappearing as he goesup or descends the river. These tombs are entered by a square aperture, varying in height and width according to the size of the chapel. Twoonly, those of Amoni-Amenemhâît and of Khnûm-hotpû II. , have a columnedfaçade, of which all the members--pillars, bases, entablatures--havebeen cut in the solid rock: the polygonal shafts of the façade look likea bad imitation of ancient Doric. Inclined planes or nights of steps, like those at Elephantine, formerly led from the plain up to theterrace. Only a few traces of these exist at the present day, and thevisitor has to climb the sandy slope as best he can: wherever he enters, the walls present to his view inscriptions of immense extent, as wellas civil, sepulchral, military, and historical scenes. These are notincised like those of the Memphite mastabas, but are painted in frescoon the stone itself. The technical skill here exhibited is not a whitbehind that of the older periods, and the general conception of thesubjects has not altered since the time of the pyramid-building kings. The object is always the same, namely, to ensure wealth to the double inthe other world, and to enable him to preserve the same rank amongthe departed as he enjoyed among the living: hence sowing, reaping, cattle-rearing, the exercise of different trades, the preparation andbringing of offerings, are all represented with the same minuteness asformerly. But a new element has been added to the ancient themes. 

[Illustration: 405. Jpg THE MODERN CEMETERY OF ZAWYET EL-MEIYETÎN]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger. 

We know, and the experience of the past is continually reiterating thelesson, that the most careful precautions and the most conscientiousobservation of customs were not sufficient to perpetuate the worship ofancestors. The day was bound to come when not only the descendants ofKhnûmhotpû, but a crowd of curious or indifferent strangers, would visithis tomb: he desired that they should know his genealogy, his privateand public virtues, his famous deeds, his court titles and dignities, the extent of his wealth; and in order that no detail should be omitted, he relates all that he did, or he gives the representation of it uponthe wall. In a long account of two hundred and twenty-two lines, hegives a _résumé_ of his family history, introducing extracts from hisarchives, to show the favours received by his ancestors from the handsof their sovereigns. Amoni and Khîti, who were, it appears, the warriorsof their race, have everywhere recounted the episodes of their militarycareer, the movements of their troops, their hand-to-hand fights, andthe fortresses to which they laid siege. These scions of the houseof the Gazelle and of the Hare, who shared with Pharaoh himself thepossession of the soil of Egypt, were no mere princely ciphers: theyhad a tenacious spirit, a warlike disposition, an insatiable desire forenlarging their borders, together with sufficient ability to realizetheir aims by court intrigues or advantageous marriage alliances. We caneasily picture from their history what Egyptian feudalism really was, what were its component elements, what were the resources it had at itsdisposal, and we may well be astonished when we consider the power andtact which the Pharaohs must have displayed in keeping such vassals incheck during two centuries. 

Amenemhâît I. Had abandoned Thebes as a residence in favour ofHeracleopolis and Memphis, and had made it over to some personage whoprobably belonged to the royal household. The nome of Ûisît had relapsedinto the condition of a simple fief, and if we are as yet unable toestablish the series of the princes who there succeeded each othercontemporaneously with the Pharaohs, we at least know that all thosewhose names have come down to us played an important part in the historyof their times. Montûnsîsû, whose stele was engraved in the XXIVth yearof Amenemhâît I. , and who died in the joint reign of this Pharaoh andhis son Usirtasen I. , had taken his share in most of the wars conductedagainst neighbouring peoples, --the Anîtiû of Nubia, the Monîtû of Sinai, and the "Lords of the Sands:" he had dismantled their cities and razedtheir fortresses. The principality retained no doubt the same boundarieswhich it had acquired under the first Antûfs, but Thebes itself grewdaily larger, and gained in importance in proportion as its frontiersextended southward. It had become, after the conquests of UsirtasenIII. , the very centre of the Egyptian world--a centre from which thepower of the Pharaoh could equally well extend in a northerly directiontowards the Sinaitic Peninsula and Libya, or towards the Red Sea andthe "humiliated Kûsh" in the south. The influence of its lords increasedaccordingly: under Amenemhâît III. And Amenemhâît IV. They were perhapsthe most powerful of the great vassals, and when the crown slipped fromthe grasp of the XIIth dynasty, it fell into the hands of one of thesefeudatories. It is not known how the transition was brought about whichtransferred the sovereignty from the elder to the younger branch of thefamily of Amenemhâît I. When Amenemhâît IV. Died, his nearest heir was awoman, his sister Sovkûnofriûrî: she retained the supreme authorityfor not quite four years, * and then resigned her position to a certainSovkhotpû. **

 * She reigned exactly three years, ten months, and eighteen days, according to the fragments of the "Royal Canon of Turin" (Lepsius, Auswahl der wichtigten Urkunden, pl. V. Col. Vii. 1. 2). 

 ** Sovkhotpû Khûtoûirî, according to the present published versions of the Turin Papyrus, an identification which led Lieblein (Recherches sur la Chronologie Égyptienne, pp. 102, 103) and Wiedemann to reject the generally accepted assumption that this first king of the XIIIth dynasty was Sovkhotpû Sakhemkhûtoûirî. Still, the way in which the monuments of Sovkhotpû Sakhemkhûtoûirî and his papyri are intermingled with the monuments of Amenemhâît III. At Semneh and in the Fayûm, show that it is difficult to separate him from this monarch. Moreover, an examination of the original Turin Papyrus shows that there is a tear before the word Khûtoûirî on the first cartouche, no indication of which appears in the facsimile, but which has, none the less, slightly damaged the initial solar disk and removed almost the whole of one sign. We are, therefore, inclined to believe that _Sakhemkhûtoûirî_ was written instead of _Khûtoûirî_, and that, therefore, all the authorities are in the right, from their different points of view, and that the founder of the XIIIth dynasty was a Sakhemkhûtoûirî I. , while the Savkhotpû Sakhemkhûtoûirî, who occupies the fifteenth place in the dynasty, was a Sakhemkhûtoûirî II. 

[Illustration: 408. Jpg THE TOMBS OF PRINCES OF THE GAZELLE-NOME ATBENI-HASAN]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a chromolithograph in Lepsius, Denkm. , i. Pl. 61. The first tomb on the left, of which the portico is shown, is that of Khnûmhotpû II. 

Was there a revolution in the palace, or a popular rising, or a civilwar? Did the queen become the wife of the new sovereign, and thus bringabout the change without a struggle? Sovkhotpû was probably lordof Ûisît, and the dynasty which he founded is given by the nativehistorians as of Theban origin. His accession entailed no change in theEgyptian constitution; it merely consolidated the Theban supremacy, andgave it a recognized position. Thebes became henceforth the head ofthe entire country: doubtless the kings did not at once forsakeHeracleopolis and the Fayûm, but they made merely passing visits tothese royal residences at considerable intervals, and after a fewgenerations even these were given up. Most of these sovereigns residedand built their Pyramids at Thebes, and the administration of thekingdom became centralized there. The actual capital of a king wasdetermined not so much by the locality from whence he ruled, as by theplace where he reposed after death. Thebes was the virtual capitalof Egypt from the moment that its masters fixed on it as theirburying-place. 

Uncertainty again shrouds the history of the country after Sovkhotpû I. :not that monuments are lacking or names of kings, but the records of themany Sovkhotpûs and Nonrhotpûs found in a dozen places in the valley, furnish as yet no authentic means of ascertaining in what order toclassify them. The XIIIth dynasty contained, so it is said, sixty kings, who reigned for a period of over 453 years. *

 * This is the number given in one of the lists of Manetho, in Muller-Didot, _Fragmenta Historicorum Græcorum_, vol. Ii. P. 565. Lepsius's theory, according to which the shepherds overran Egypt from the end of the XIIth dynasty and tolerated the existence of two vassal dynasties, the XIIIth and XIVth, was disputed and refuted by E. De Rougé as soon as it appeared; we find the theory again in the works of some contemporary Egyptologists, but the majority of those who continued to support it have since abandoned their position. 

The succession did not always take place in the direct line from fatherto son: several times, when interrupted by default of male heirs, itwas renewed without any disturbance, thanks to the transmission of royalrights to their children by princesses, even when their husbands did notbelong to the reigning family. Monthotpû, the father of Sovkhotpu III. , was an ordinary priest, and his name is constantly quoted by his son;but solar blood flowed in the veins of his mother, and procured for himthe crown. The father of his successor, Nofirhotpû IL, did not belongto the reigning branch, or was only distantly connected with it, but hismother Kamâît was the daughter of Pharaoh, and that was sufficientto make her son of royal rank. With careful investigation, we shouldprobably find traces of several revolutions which changed the legitimateorder of succession without, however, entailing a change of dynasty. TheNofirhotpûs and Sovkhotpûs continued both at home and abroad the work soably begun by the Amenemhâîts and the Usirtasens. 

[Illustration: 410. Jpg THE COLOSSAL STATUE OF KING SOVKHOTPU IN THELOUVRE]

They devoted all their efforts to beautifying the principal towns ofEgypt, and caused important works to be carried on in most of them--atKarnak, in the great temple of Amon, at Luxor, at Bubastis, at Tanis, at Tell-Mokhdam, and in the sanctuary of Abydos. At the latterplace, Khâsoshûshrî Nofirhotpû restored to Khontamentit considerablepossessions which the god had lost; Nozirri sent thither one of hisofficers to restore the edifice built by Usirtasen I. ; SovkûmsaûfII. Dedicated his own statue in this temple, and private individuals, following the example set them by their sovereigns, vied with each otherin their gifts of votive stehe. The pyramids of this period were ofmoderate size, and those princes who abandoned the custom of buildingthem were content like Aûtûabrî I. Horû with a modest tomb, close to thegigantic pyramids of their ancestors. In style the statues of this epochshow a certain inferiority when compared with the beautiful work of theXIIth dynasty: the proportions of the human figure are not so good, themodelling of the limbs is not so vigorous, the rendering of the featureslacks individuality; the sculptors exhibit a tendency, which had beengrowing since the time of the Usirtasens, to represent all their sitterswith the same smiling, commonplace type of countenance. There are, however, among the statues of kings and private individuals which havecome down to us, a few examples of really fine treatment. The colossalstatue of Sovkhotpû IV. , which is now in the Louvre side by side with anordinary-sized figure of the same Pharaoh, must have had a good effectwhen placed at the entrance to the temple at Tanis: his chest is thrownwell forward, his head is erect, and we feel impressed by that nobledignity which the Memphite sculptors knew how to give to the bearingand features of the diorite Khephren enthroned at Gîzeh. The sittingMirmâshaû of Tanis lacks neither energy nor majesty, and the Sovkûmsaûfof Abydos, in spite of the roughness of its execution, decidedly holdsits own among the other Pharaohs. 

[Illustration: 414. Jpg STATUE OF HARSÛF IN THE VIENNA MUSEUM]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Ernest de Bergmann. From Dahshur, now at Gîzeh; it has been published in Morgan's Dahshur. 

The statuettes found in the tombs, and the smaller objects discovered inthe ruins, are neither less carefully nor less successfully treated. Thelittle scribe at Gîzeh, in the attitude of walking, is a _chef d'oeuvre_of delicacy and grace, and might be attributed to one of the bestschools of the XIIth dynasty, did not the inscriptions oblige us torelegate it to the Theban art of the XIIIth. The heavy and commonplacefigure of the magnate now in the Vienna Museum is treated with a rathercoarse realism, but exhibits nevertheless most skilful tooling. It isnot exclusively at Thebes, or at Tanis, or in any of the other greatcities of Egypt, that we meet with excellent examples of work, or thatwe can prove that flourishing schools of sculpture existed at thisperiod; probably there is scarcely any small town which would notfurnish us at the present day, if careful excavation were carried out, with some monument or object worthy of being placed in a museum. Duringthe XIIIth dynasty both art and everything else in Egypt were fairlyprosperous. Nothing attained a very high standard, but, on the otherhand, nothing fell below a certain level of respectable mediocrity. Wealth exercised, however, an injurious influence upon artistic taste. The funerary statue, for instance, which Aûtûabrî I. Horû ordered forhimself was of ebony, and seems to have been inlaid originally withgold, whereas Kheops and Khephren were content to have theirs ofalabaster and diorite. 

[Illustration: 415. Jpg STATUE OF SOVKHOTPÛ III. ]

 Drawn by Boudier, from the sketch by Lepsius; the head was "quite mutilated and separated from the bust. "

During this dynasty we hear nothing of the inhabitants of the SinaiticPeninsula to the east, or of the Libyans to the west: it was in thesouth, in Ethiopia, that the Pharaohs expended all their surplus energy. The most important of them, Sovkhotpu I. , had continued to register theheight of the Nile on the rocks of Semneh, but after his time weare unable to say where the Nilometer was moved to, nor, indeed, whodisplaced it. The middle basin of the river as far as Gebel-Barkalwas soon incorporated with Egypt, and the population became quicklyassimilated. The colonization of the larger islands of Say and Argotook place first, as their isolation protected them from sudden attacks:certain princes of the XIIIth dynasty built temples there, and erectedtheir statues within them, just as they would have done in any of themost peaceful districts of the Said or the Delta. Argo is still at thepresent day one of the largest of these Nubian islands:* it is said tobe 12 miles in length, and about 2 1/2 in width towards the middle. 

 * The description of Argo and its ruins is borrowed from Caillaud, Voyage à Méroé, vol. Ii. Pp. 1-7. 

It is partly wooded, and vegetation grows there with tropicalluxuriance; creeping plants climb from tree to tree, and form analmost impenetrable undergrowth, which swarms with game secure from thesportsman. A score of villages are dotted about in the clearings, and are surrounded by carefully cultivated fields, in which durrapredominates. An unknown Pharaoh of the XIIIth dynasty built, near tothe principal village, a temple of considerable size; it covered anarea, whose limits may still easily be traced, of 174 feet wide by 292long from east to west. The main body of the building was of sandstone, probably brought from the quarries of Tombos: it has been pitilesslydestroyed piecemeal by the inhabitants, and only a few insignificantfragments, on which some lines of hieroglyphs may still be deciphered, remain _in situ_. A small statue of black granite of good workmanship isstill standing in the midst of the ruins. It represents Sovkhotpû III. Sitting, with his hands resting on his knees; the head, which has beenmutilated, lies beside the body. 

[Illustration: 417. Jpg ONE OF THE OVERTURNED AND BROKEN STATUES OFMIRMASIIAÛ AT TANIS]

 Drawn by Boudier, from the photograph in Rougé-Banville's _Album photographique de la Mission de M. De Bougé_, No. 114. 

The same king erected colossal statues of himself at Tanis, Bubastis, and at Thebes: he was undisputed master of the whole Nile Valley, fromnear the spot where the river receives its last tributary to whereit empties itself into the sea. The making of Egypt was finallyaccomplished in his time, and if all its component parts were not as yetequally prosperous, the bond which connected them was strong enoughto resist any attempt to break it, whether by civil discord within orinvasions from without. The country was not free from revolutions, andif we have no authority for stating that they were the cause of thedownfall of the XIIIth dynasty, the lists of Manetho at least show thatafter that event the centre of Egyptian power was again shifted. Thebeslost its supremacy, and the preponderating influence passed into thehands of sovereigns who were natives of the Delta. Xoïs, situated in themidst of the marshes, between the Phatnitic and Sebennytic branches ofthe Nile, was one of those very ancient cities which had played butan insignificant part in shaping the destinies of the country. By whatcombination of circumstances its princes succeeded in raising themselvesto the throne of the Pharaohs, we know not: they numbered, so it wassaid, seventy-five kings, who reigned four hundred and eighty-fouryears, and whose mutilated names darken the pages of the Turin Papyrus. The majority of them did little more than appear upon the throne, somereigning three years, others two, others a year or scarcely more than afew months: far from being a regularly constituted line of sovereigns, they appear rather to have been a series of Pretenders, mutually jealousof and deposing one another. 

The feudal lords who had been so powerful under the Usirtasens hadlost none of their prestige under the Sovkhotpûs: and the rivalries ofusurpers of this kind, who seized the crown without being strong enoughto keep it, may perhaps explain the long sequence of shadowy Pharaohswith curtailed reigns who constitute the XIVth dynasty. They did notwithdraw from Nubia, of that fact we are certain: but what did theyachieve in the north and north-east of the empire? The nomad tribes wereshowing signs of restlessness on the frontier, the peoples of the Tigrisand Euphrates were already pushing the vanguards of their armies intoCentral Syria. While Egypt had been bringing the valley of the Nile andthe eastern corner of Africa into subjection, Chaldæa had imposed bothher language and her laws upon the whole of that part of Western Asiawhich separated her from Egypt: the time was approaching when these twogreat civilized powers of the ancient world would meet each other faceto face and come into fierce collision. 

END OF VOL. II.