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Title: The Treasury of Ancient Egypt
Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology
Author: Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
Release Date: July 1, 2005 [EBook #16160]
Language: English
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[Illustration: FRONTISPIECE. A statue of the hawk-god Horus in front of
the temple of Edfu. The author stands
beside it.]
[_Photo by N. Macnaghten._
The Treasury of
Ancient Egypt
Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient
Egyptian History and Archæology
BY
ARTHUR E.P.B. WEIGALL
INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF UPPER EGYPT, DEPARTMENT OF ANTIQUITIES
AUTHOR OF 'TRAVELS IN THE UPPER EGYPTIAN DESERTS,' 'THE LIFE AND
TIMES OF AKHNATON, PHARAOH OF EGYPT,' 'A GUIDE TO THE
ANTIQUITIES OF UPPER EGYPT,' ETC., ETC.
RAND McNALLY & COMPANY
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK
1912
_TO
ALAN H. GARDINER, ESQ.,
M.A., D.LITT.
LAYCOCK STUDENT OF EGYPTOLOGY AT WORCESTER
COLLEGE, OXFORD,
THIS BOOK,
WHICH WILL RECALL SOME SUMMER NIGHTS UPON
THE THEBAN HILLS,
IS DEDICATED._
PREFACE.
No person who has travelled in Egypt will require to be told that it is
a country in which a considerable amount of waiting and waste of time
has to be endured. One makes an excursion by train to see some ruins,
and, upon returning to the station, the train is found to be late, and
an hour or more has to be dawdled away. Crossing the Nile in a
rowing-boat the sailors contrive in one way or another to prolong the
journey to a length of half an hour or more. The excursion steamer will
run upon a sandbank, and will there remain fast for a part of the day.
The resident official, travelling from place to place, spends a great
deal of time seated in railway stations or on the banks of the Nile,
waiting for his train or his boat to arrive; and he has, therefore, a
great deal of time for thinking. I often try to fill in these dreary
periods by jotting down a few notes on some matter which has recently
been discussed, or registering and elaborating arguments which have
chanced lately to come into the thoughts. These notes are shaped and
"written up" when next there is a spare hour, and a few books to refer
to; and ultimately they take the form of articles or papers, some of
which find their way into print.
This volume contains twelve chapters, written at various times and in
various places, each dealing with some subject drawn from the great
treasury of Ancient Egypt. Some of the chapters have appeared as
articles in magazines. Chapters iv., v., and viii. were published in
'Blackwood's Magazine'; chapter vii. in 'Putnam's Magazine' and the
'Pall Mall Magazine'; and chapter ix. in the 'Century Magazine.' I have
to thank the editors for allowing me to reprint them here. The remaining
seven chapters have been written specially for this volume.
LUXOR, UPPER EGYPT,
_November_ 1910.
CONTENTS.
PART I.--THE VALUE OF THE TREASURY.
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE VALUE OF ARCHÆOLOGY 3
II. THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE 26
III. THE NECESSITY OF ARCHÆOLOGY TO THE GAIETY OF
THE WORLD 55
PART II.--STUDIES IN THE TREASURY.
IV. THE TEMPERAMENT OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 81
V. THE MISFORTUNES OF WENAMON 112
VI. THE STORY OF THE SHIPWRECKED SAILOR 138
PART III.--RESEARCHES IN THE TREASURY.
VII. RECENT EXCAVATIONS IN EGYPT 165
VIII. THE TOMB OF TIY AND AKHNATON 185
IX. THE TOMB OF HOREMHEB 209
PART IV.--THE PRESERVATION OF THE TREASURY.
X. THEBAN THIEVES 239
XI. THE FLOODING OF LOWER NUBIA 262*
XII. ARCHÆOLOGY IN THE OPEN 281**
* Transcriber's note: Original text incorrectly lists page number "261".
**Transcriber's note: Original text incorrectly lists page number "282".
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PLATE PAGE
A STATUE OF THE HAWK-GOD HORUS IN FRONT OF
THE TEMPLE OF EDFU. THE AUTHOR STANDS
BESIDE IT _Frontispiece_
I. THE MUMMY OF RAMESES II. OF DYNASTY XIX. 10
II. WOOD AND ENAMEL JEWEL-CASE DISCOVERED IN THE
TOMB OF YUAA AND TUAU. AN EXAMPLE OF
THE FURNITURE OF ONE OF THE BEST PERIODS
OF ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ART 17
III. HEAVY GOLD EARRINGS OF QUEEN TAUSERT OF
DYNASTY XX. AN EXAMPLE OF THE WORK
OF ANCIENT EGYPTIAN GOLDSMITHS 22
IV. IN THE PALM-GROVES NEAR SAKKÂRA, EGYPT 36
V. THE MUMMY OF SETY I. OF DYNASTY XIX. 48
VI. A RELIEF UPON THE SIDE OF THE SARCOPHAGUS
OF ONE OF THE WIVES OF KING MENTUHOTEP III.,
DISCOVERED AT DÊR EL BAHRI (THEBES).
THE ROYAL LADY IS TAKING SWEET-SMELLING
OINTMENT FROM AN ALABASTER VASE. A
HANDMAIDEN KEEPS THE FLIES AWAY WITH
A BIRD'S-WING FAN. 62
VII. LADY ROUGING HERSELF: SHE HOLDS A MIRROR
AND ROUGE-POT 71
DANCING GIRL TURNING A BACK SOMERSAULT 71
VIII. TWO EGYPTIAN BOYS DECKED WITH FLOWERS AND
A THIRD HOLDING A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.
THEY ARE STANDING AGAINST THE OUTSIDE
WALL OF THE DENDEREH TEMPLE 82
IX. A GARLAND OF LEAVES AND FLOWERS DATING FROM
ABOUT B.C. 1000. IT WAS PLACED UPON THE
NECK OF A MUMMY 94
X. A RELIEF OF THE SAITIC PERIOD, REPRESENTING
AN OLD MAN PLAYING UPON A HARP, AND A
WOMAN BEATING A DRUM. OFFERINGS OF
FOOD AND FLOWERS ARE PLACED BEFORE
THEM 100
XI. AN EGYPTIAN NOBLE OF THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY
HUNTING BIRDS WITH A BOOMERANG AND
DECOYS. HE STANDS IN A REED-BOAT WHICH
FLOATS AMIDST THE PAPYRUS CLUMPS, AND A
CAT RETRIEVES THE FALLEN BIRDS. IN THE
BOAT WITH HIM ARE HIS WIFE AND SON 108
XII. A REED BOX FOR HOLDING CLOTHING, DISCOVERED
IN THE TOMB OF YUAA AND TUAU 118
XIII. A FESTIVAL SCENE OF SINGERS AND DANCERS FROM
A TOMB-PAINTING OF DYNASTY XVII. 133
XIV. A SAILOR OF LOWER NUBIA AND HIS SON 144
XV. A NILE BOAT PASSING THE HILLS OF THEBES 159
XVI. THE EXCAVATIONS ON THE SITE OF THE CITY OF
ABYDOS 166
XVII. EXCAVATING THE OSIREION AT ABYDOS. A CHAIN
OF BOYS HANDING UP BASKETS OF SAND TO
THE SURFACE 175
XVIII. THE ENTRANCE OF THE TOMB OF QUEEN TIY, WITH
EGYPTIAN POLICEMAN STANDING BESIDE IT. ON
THE LEFT IS THE LATER TOMB OF RAMESES X. 186
XIX. TOILET-SPOONS OF CARVED WOOD, DISCOVERED IN
TOMBS OF THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. THAT
ON THE RIGHT HAS A MOVABLE LID 192
XX. THE COFFIN OF AKHNATON LYING IN THE TOMB OF
QUEEN TIY 207
XXI. HEAD OF A GRANITE STATUE OF THE GOD KHONSU,
PROBABLY DATING FROM ABOUT THE PERIOD
OF HOREMHEB 217
XXII. THE MOUTH OF THE TOMB OF HOREMHEB AT THE
TIME OF ITS DISCOVERY. THE AUTHOR IS
SEEN EMERGING FROM THE TOMB AFTER THE
FIRST ENTRANCE HAD BEEN EFFECTED. ON
THE HILLSIDE THE WORKMEN ARE GROUPED 229
XXIII. A MODERN THEBAN FELLAH-WOMAN AND HER CHILD 240
XXIV. A MODERN GOURNAWI BEGGAR 250
XXV. THE ISLAND AND TEMPLES OF PHILÆ WHEN THE
RESERVOIR IS EMPTY 269
XXVI. A RELIEF REPRESENTING QUEEN TIY, FROM THE
TOMB OF USERHAT AT THEBES. THIS RELIEF
WAS STOLEN FROM THE TOMB, AND FOUND ITS
WAY TO THE BRUSSELS MUSEUM, WHERE IT IS
SHOWN IN THE DAMAGED CONDITION SEEN IN
PL. XXVII. 282
XXVII. A RELIEF REPRESENTING QUEEN TIY, FROM THE
TOMB OF USERHAT, THEBES. (SEE PL. XXVI.) 293
PART I
THE VALUE OF THE TREASURY.
"History no longer shall be a dull book. It shall walk
incarnate in every just and wise man. You shall not tell
me by languages and titles a catalogue of the volumes you
have read. You shall make me feel what periods you have
lived. A man shall be the Temple of Fame. He shall walk,
as the poets have described that goddess, in a robe
painted all over with wonderful events and
experiences.... He shall be the priest of Pan, and bring
with him into humble cottages the blessing of the morning
stars, and all the recorded benefits of heaven and
earth."
EMERSON.
CHAPTER I.
THE VALUE OF ARCHÆOLOGY.
The archæologist whose business it is to bring to light by pick and
spade the relics of bygone ages, is often accused of devoting his
energies to work which is of no material profit to mankind at the
present day. Archæology is an unapplied science, and, apart from its
connection with what is called culture, the critic is inclined to judge
it as a pleasant and worthless amusement. There is nothing, the critic
tells us, of pertinent value to be learned from the Past which will be
of use to the ordinary person of the present time; and, though the
archæologist can offer acceptable information to the painter, to the
theologian, to the philologist, and indeed to most of the followers of
the arts and sciences, he has nothing to give to the ordinary layman.
In some directions the imputation is unanswerable; and when the
interests of modern times clash with those of the past, as, for example,
in Egypt where a beneficial reservoir has destroyed the remains of early
days, there can be no question that the recording of the threatened
information and the minimising of the destruction, is all that the
value of the archæologist's work entitles him to ask for. The critic,
however, usually overlooks some of the chief reasons that archæology can
give for even this much consideration, reasons which constitute its
modern usefulness; and I therefore propose to point out to him three or
four of the many claims which it may make upon the attention of the
layman.
In the first place it is necessary to define the meaning of the term
"Archæology." Archæology is the study of the facts of ancient history
and ancient lore. The word is applied to the study of all ancient
documents and objects which may be classed as antiquities; and the
archæologist is understood to be the man who deals with a period for
which the evidence has to be excavated or otherwise discovered. The age
at which an object becomes an antiquity, however, is quite undefined,
though practically it may be reckoned at a hundred years; and ancient
history is, after all, the tale of any period which is not modern. Thus
an archæologist does not necessarily deal solely with the remote ages.
Every chronicler of the events of the less recent times who goes to the
original documents for his facts, as true historians must do during at
least a part of their studies, is an archæologist; and, conversely,
every archæologist who in the course of his work states a series of
historical facts, becomes an historian. Archæology and history are
inseparable; and nothing is more detrimental to a noble science than
the attitude of certain so-called archæologists who devote their entire
time to the study of a sequence of objects without proper consideration
for the history which those objects reveal. Antiquities are the relics
of human mental energy; and they can no more be classified without
reference to the minds which produced them than geological specimens can
be discussed without regard to the earth. There is only one thing worse
than the attitude of the archæologist who does not study the story of
the periods with which he is dealing, or construct, if only in his
thoughts, living history out of the objects discovered by him; and that
is the attitude of the historian who has not familiarised himself with
the actual relics left by the people of whom he writes, or has not, when
possible, visited their lands. There are many "archæologists" who do not
care a snap of the fingers for history, surprising as this may appear;
and there are many historians who take no interest in manners and
customs. The influence of either is pernicious.
It is to be understood, therefore, that in using the word Archæology I
include History: I refer to history supplemented and aggrandised by the
study of the arts, crafts, manners, and customs of the period under
consideration.
As a first argument the value of archæology in providing a precedent for
important occurrences may be considered. Archæology is the structure of
ancient history, and it is the voice of history which tells us that a
Cretan is always a Cretan, and a Jew always a Jew. History, then, may
well take her place as a definite asset of statecraft, and the law of
Precedent may be regarded as a fundamental factor in international
politics. What has happened before may happen again; and it is the hand
of the archæologist that directs our attention to the affairs and
circumstances of olden times, and warns us of the possibilities of their
recurrence. It may be said that the statesman who has ranged in the
front of his mind the proven characteristics of the people with whom he
is dealing has a perquisite of the utmost importance.
Any archæologist who, previous to the rise of Japan during the latter
half of the nineteenth century, had made a close study of the history of
that country and the character of its people, might well have predicted
unerringly its future advance to the position of a first-class power.
The amazing faculty of imitation displayed by the Japanese in old times
was patent to him. He had seen them borrow part of their arts, their
sciences, their crafts, their literature, their religion, and many of
their customs from the Chinese; and he might have been aware that they
would likewise borrow from the West, as soon as they had intercourse
with it, those essentials of civilisation which would raise them to
their present position in the world. To him their fearlessness, their
tenacity, and their patriotism, were known; and he was so well aware of
their powers of organisation, that he might have foreseen the rapid
development which was to take place.
What historian who has read the ancient books of the Irish--the Book of
the Dun Cow, the Book of Ballymote, the Book of Lismore, and the
like--can show either surprise or dismay at the events which have
occurred in Ireland in modern times? Of the hundreds of kings of Ireland
whose histories are epitomised in such works as that of the old
archæologist Keating, it would be possible to count upon the fingers
those who have died in peace; and the archæologist, thus, knows better
than to expect the descendants of these kings to live in harmony one
with the other. National characteristics do not change unless, as in the
case of the Greeks, the stock also changes.
In the Jews we have another example of the persistence of those national
characteristics which history has made known to us. The Jews first
appear in the dimness of the remote past as a group of nomad tribes,
wandering over southern Palestine, Egypt, and the intervening deserts;
and at the present day we see them still homeless, scattered over the
face of the globe, the "tribe of the wandering foot and weary breast."
In no country has the archæologist been more active than in Egypt during
the last half century, and the contributions which his spade and pick
have offered to history are of first-rate importance to that study as a
whole. The eye may now travel down the history of the Nile Valley from
prehistoric days to the present time almost without interruption; and
now that the anthropologist has shown that the modern Egyptians,
Mussulman and Copt, peasant and townsman, belong to one and the same
race of ancient Egyptians, one may surely judge to-day's inhabitants of
the country in the light of yesterday's records. In his report for the
year 1906, Lord Cromer, questioning whether the modern inhabitants of
the country were capable of governing their own land, tells us that we
must go back to the precedent of Pharaonic days to discover if the
Egyptians ever ruled themselves successfully.
In this pregnant remark Lord Cromer was using information which the
archæologist and historian had made accessible to him. Looking back over
the history of the country, he was enabled, by the study of this
information, to range before him the succession of foreign occupations
of the Nile Valley and to assess their significance. It may be worth
while to repeat the process, in order to give an example of the bearing
of history upon modern polemics, though I propose to discuss this matter
more fully in another chapter.
Previous to the British occupation the country was ruled, as it is now,
by a noble dynasty of Albanian princes, whose founder was set upon the
throne by the aid of Turkish and Albanian troops. From the beginning of
the sixteenth century until that time Egypt had been ruled by the
Ottoman Government, the Turk having replaced the Circassian and other
foreign "Mamlukes" who had held the country by the aid of foreign troops
since the middle of the thirteenth century. For a hundred years previous
to the Mamluke rule Egypt had been in the hands of the Syrian and
Arabian dynasty founded by Saladdin. The Fatimides, a North African
dynasty, governed the country before the advent of Saladdin, this family
having entered Egypt under their general, Jauhar, who was of Greek
origin. In the ninth century Ahmed ibn Tulun, a Turk, governed the land
with the aid of a foreign garrison, his rule being succeeded by the
Ikhshidi dynasty of foreigners. Ahmed had captured Egypt from the
Byzantines who had held it since the days of the Roman occupation.
Previous to the Romans the Ptolemies, a Greek family, had governed the
Nile Valley with the help of foreign troops. The Ptolemies had followed
close upon the Greek occupation, the Greeks having replaced the Persians
as rulers of Egypt. The Persian occupation had been preceded by an
Egyptian dynasty which had been kept on the throne by Greek and other
foreign garrisons. Previous to this there had been a Persian occupation,
which had followed a short period of native rule under foreign
influence. We then come back to the Assyrian conquest which had followed
the Ethiopian rule. Libyan kings had held the country before the
Ethiopian conquest. The XXIst and XXth Dynasties preceded the Libyans,
and here, in a disgraceful period of corrupt government, a series of
so-called native kings are met with. Foreigners, however, swarmed in the
country at the time, foreign troops were constantly used, and the
Pharaohs themselves were of semi-foreign origin. One now comes back to
the early XIXth and XVIIIth Dynasties which, although largely tinged
with foreign blood, may be said to have been Egyptian families. Before
the rise of the XVIIIth Dynasty the country was in foreign hands for the
long period which had followed the fall of the XIIth Dynasty, the
classical period of Egyptian history (about the twentieth century B.C.),
when there were no rivals to be feared. Thus the Egyptians may be said
to have been subject to foreign occupation for nearly four thousand
years, with the exception of the strong native rule of the XVIIIth
Dynasty, the semi-native rule of the three succeeding dynasties, and a
few brief periods of chaotic government in later times; and this is the
information which the archæologist has to give to the statesman and
politician. It is a story of continual conquest, of foreign occupations
following one upon another, of revolts and massacres, of rapid
retributions and punishments. It is the story of a nation which, however
ably it may govern itself in the future, has only once in four
thousand years successfully done so in the past.
[Illustration: PL. I. The mummy of Rameses II. of Dynasty XIX.
--CAIRO MUSEUM.]
[_Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha._
Such information is of far-reaching value to the politician, and to
those interested, as every Englishman should be, in Imperial politics. A
nation cannot alter by one jot or tittle its fundamental
characteristics; and only those who have studied those characteristics
in the pages of history are competent to foresee the future. A certain
Englishman once asked the Khedive Ismail whether there was any news that
day about Egyptian affairs. "That is so like all you English," replied
his Highness. "You are always expecting something new to happen in Egypt
day by day. To-day is here the same as yesterday, and to-morrow will be
the same as to-day; and so it has been, and so it will be, for thousands
of years."[1] Neither Egypt nor any other nation will ever change; and
to this it is the archæologist who will bear witness with his stern law
of Precedent.
[Footnote 1: E. Dicey. 'The Story of the Khedivate,' p. 528.]
I will reserve the enlarging of this subject for the next chapter: for
the present we may consider, as a second argument, the efficacy of the
past as a tonic to the present, and its ability to restore the vitality
of any age that is weakened.
In ancient Egypt at the beginning of the XXVIth Dynasty (B.C. 663) the
country was at a very low ebb. Devastated by conquests, its people
humiliated, its government impoverished, a general collapse of the
nation was imminent. At this critical period the Egyptians turned their
minds to the glorious days of old. They remodelled their arts and crafts
upon those of the classical periods, introduced again the obsolete
offices and titles of those early times, and organised the government
upon the old lines. This movement saved the country, and averted its
collapse for a few more centuries. It renewed the pride of workmanship
in a decadent people; and on all sides we see a revival which was the
direct result of an archæological experiment.
The importance of archæology as a reviver of artistic and industrial
culture will be realised at once if the essential part it played in the
great Italian Renaissance is called to mind. Previous to the age of
Cimabue and Giotto in Florence, Italian refinement had passed steadily
down the path of deterioration. Græco-Roman art, which still at a high
level in the early centuries of the Christian era, entirely lost its
originality during Byzantine times, and the dark ages settled down upon
Italy in almost every walk of life. The Venetians, for example, were
satisfied with comparatively the poorest works of art imported from
Constantinople or Mount Athos: and in Florence so great was the poverty
of genius that when Cimabue in the thirteenth century painted that
famous Madonna which to our eyes appears to be of the crudest
workmanship, the little advance made by it in the direction of
naturalness was received by the city with acclamations, the very street
down which it was carried being called the "Happy Street" in honour of
the event. Giotto carried on his master's teachings, and a few years
later the Florentines had advanced to the standard of Fra Angelico, who
was immediately followed by the two Lippis and Botticelli. Leonardo da
Vinci, artist, architect, and engineer, was almost contemporaneous with
Botticelli, being born not much more than a hundred years after the
death of Giotto. With him art reached a level which it has never
surpassed, old traditions and old canons were revived, and in every
direction culture proceeded again to those heights from which it had
fallen.
The reader will not need to be reminded that this great renaissance was
the direct result of the study of the remains of the ancient arts of
Greece and Rome. Botticelli and his contemporaries were, in a sense,
archæologists, for their work was inspired by the relics of ancient
days.
Now, though at first sight it seems incredible that such an age of
barbarism as that of the later Byzantine period should return, it is
indeed quite possible that a relatively uncultured age should come upon
us in the future; and there is every likelihood of certain communities
passing over to the ranks of the absolute Philistines. Socialism run
mad would have no more time to give to the intellect than it had during
the French Revolution. Any form of violent social upheaval means
catalepsy of the arts and crafts, and a trampling under foot of old
traditions. The invasions and revolts which are met with at the close of
ancient Egyptian history brought the culture of that country to the
lowest ebb of vitality. The fall of Greece put an absolute stop to the
artistic life of that nation. The invasions of Italy by the inhabitants
of less refined countries caused a set-back in civilisation for which
almost the whole of Europe suffered. Certain of the French arts and
crafts have never recovered from the effects of the Revolution.
A national convulsion of one kind or another is to be expected by every
country; and history tells us that such a convulsion is generally
followed by an age of industrial and artistic coma, which is brought to
an end not so much by the introduction of foreign ideas as by a
renascence of the early traditions of the nation. It thus behoves every
man to interest himself in the continuity of these traditions, and to
see that they are so impressed upon the mind that they shall survive all
upheavals, or with ease be re-established.
There is no better tonic for a people who have weakened, and whose arts,
crafts, and industries have deteriorated than a return to the conditions
which obtained at a past age of national prosperity; and there are few
more repaying tasks in the long-run than that of reviving an interest in
the best periods of artistic or industrial activity. This can only be
effected by the study of the past, that is to say by archæology.
It is to be remembered, of course, that the sentimental interest in
antique objects which, in recent years, has given a huge value to all
ancient things, regardless of their intrinsic worth, is a dangerous
attitude, unless it is backed by the most expert knowledge; for instead
of directing the attention only to the best work of the best periods, it
results in the diminishing of the output of modern original work and the
setting of little of worth in its place. A person of a certain
fashionable set will now boast that there is no object in his room less
than two hundred years old: his only boast, however, should be that the
room contains nothing which is not of intrinsic beauty, interest, or
good workmanship. The old chairs from the kitchen are dragged into the
drawing-room--because they are old; miniatures unmeritoriously painted
by unknown artists for obscure clients are nailed in conspicuous
places--because they are old; hideous plates and dishes, originally made
by ignorant workmen for impoverished peasants, are enclosed in glass
cases--because they are old; iron-bound chests, which had been cheaply
made to suit the purses of farmers, are rescued from the cottages of
their descendants and sold for fabulous sums--because they are old.
A person who fills a drawing-room with chairs, tables, and ornaments,
dating from the reign of Queen Anne, cannot say that he does so because
he wishes it to look like a room of that date; for if this were his
desire, he would have to furnish it with objects which appeared to be
newly made, since in the days of Queen Anne the first quality noticeable
in them would have been their newness. In fact, to produce the desired
effect everything in the room, with very few exceptions, would have to
be a replica. To sit in this room full of antiques in a frock-coat would
be as bad a breach of good taste as the placing of a Victorian
chandelier in an Elizabethan banqueting-hall. To furnish the room with
genuine antiquities because they are old and therefore interesting would
be to carry the museum spirit into daily life with its attending
responsibilities, and would involve all manner of incongruities and
inconsistencies; while to furnish in this manner because antiques were
valuable would be merely vulgar. There are, thus, only three
justifications that I can see for the action of the man who surrounds
himself with antiquities: he must do so because they are examples of
workmanship, because they are beautiful, or because they are endeared to
him by family usage. These, of course, are full and complete
justifications; and the value of his attitude should be felt in the
impetus which it gives to conscientious modern work. There are periods
in history at which certain arts, crafts, or industries reached an
extremely high level of excellence; and nothing can be more valuable to
modern workmen than familiarity with these periods. Well-made replicas
have a value that is overlooked only by the inartistic. Nor must it be
forgotten that modern objects of modern design will one day become
antiquities; and it should be our desire to assist in the making of the
period of our lifetime an age to which future generations will look back
for guidance and teaching. Every man can, in this manner, be of use to a
nation, if only by learning to reject poor work wherever he comes upon
it--work which he feels would not stand against the criticism of Time;
and thus it may be said that archæology, which directs him to the best
works of the ancients, and sets him a standard and criterion, should be
an essential part of his education.
[Illustration: PL. II Wood and enamel jewel-case discovered in the tomb
of Yuaa and Tuau. An example of the furniture of
one of the best periods of ancient Egyptian art.
--CAIRO MUSEUM.]
[_Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha._
The third argument which I wish to employ here to demonstrate the value
of the study of archæology and history to the layman is based upon the
assumption that patriotism is a desirable ingredient in a man's
character. This is a premise which assuredly will be admitted. True
patriotism is essential to the maintenance of a nation. It has taken the
place, among certain people, of loyalty to the sovereign; for the armies
which used to go to war out of a blind loyalty to their king, now do so
from a sense of patriotism which is shared by the monarch (if they
happen to have the good fortune to possess one).
Patriotism is often believed to consist of a love of one's country, in
an affection for the familiar villages or cities, fields or streets, of
one's own dwelling-place. This is a grievous error. Patriotism should be
an unqualified desire for the welfare of the race as a whole. It is not
really patriotic for the Englishman to say, "I love England": it is only
natural. It is not patriotic for him to say, "I don't think much of
foreigners": it is only a form of narrowness of mind which, in the case
of England and certain other countries, happens sometimes to be rather a
useful attitude, but in the case of several nations, of which a good
example is Egypt, would be detrimental to their own interests. It was
not unqualified patriotism that induced the Greeks to throw off the
Ottoman yoke: it was largely dislike of the Turks. It is not patriotism,
that is to say undiluted concern for the nation as a whole, which leads
some of the modern Egyptians to prefer an entirely native government to
the Anglo-Egyptian administration now obtaining in that country: it is
restlessness; and I am fortunately able to define it thus without the
necessity of entering the arena of polemics by an opinion as to whether
that restlessness is justified or not justified.
If patriotism were but the love of one's tribe and one's dwelling-place,
then such undeveloped or fallen races as, for example, the American
Indians, could lay their downfall at the door of that sentiment; since
the exclusive love of the tribe prevented the small bodies from
amalgamating into one great nation for the opposing of the invader. If
patriotism were but the desire for government without interference, then
the breaking up of the world's empires would be urged, and such
federations as the United States of America would be intolerable.
Patriotism is, and must be, the desire for the progress and welfare of
the whole nation, without any regard whatsoever to the conditions under
which that progress takes place, and without any prejudice in favour
either of self-government or of outside control. I have no hesitation in
saying that the patriotic Pole is he who is in favour of Russian or
German control of his country's affairs; for history has told him quite
plainly that he cannot manage them himself. The Nationalist in any
country runs the risk of being the poorest patriot in the land, for his
continuous cry is for self-government, without any regard to the
question as to whether such government will be beneficial to his nation
in the long-run.
The value of history to patriotism, then, is to be assessed under two
headings. In the first place, history defines the attitude which the
patriot should assume. It tells him, in the clear light of experience,
what is, and what is not, good for his nation, and indicates to him how
much he may claim for his country. And in the second place, it gives to
the patriots of those nations which have shown capacity and ability in
the past a confidence in the present; it permits in them the indulgence
of that enthusiasm which will carry them, sure-footed, along the path
of glory.
Archæology, as the discovery and classification of the facts of history,
is the means by which we may obtain a true knowledge of what has
happened in the past. It is the instrument with which we may dissect
legend, and extract from myth its ingredients of fact. Cold history
tells the Greek patriot, eager to enter the fray, that he must set
little store by the precedent of the deeds of the Trojan war. It tells
the English patriot that the "one jolly Englishman" of the old rhyme is
not the easy vanquisher of the "two froggy Frenchmen and one Portugee"
which tradition would have him believe. He is thus enabled to steer a
middle course between arrant conceit and childish fright. History tells
him the actual facts: history is to the patriot what "form" is to the
racing man.
In the case of the English (Heaven be praised!) history opens up a
boundless vista for the patriotic. The Englishman seldom realises how
much he has to be proud of in his history, or how loudly the past cries
upon him to be of good cheer. One hears much nowadays of England's
peril, and it is good that the red signals of danger should sometimes be
displayed. But let every Englishman remember that history can tell him
of greater perils faced successfully; of mighty armies commanded by the
greatest generals the world has ever known, held in check year after
year, and finally crushed by England; of vast fleets scattered or
destroyed by English sailors; of almost impregnable cities captured by
British troops. "There is something very characteristic," writes
Professor Seeley,[1] "in the indifference which we show towards the
mighty phenomenon of the diffusion of our race and the expansion of our
state. We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world
in a fit of absence of mind."
[Footnote 1: 'The Expansion of England,' p. 10.]
The history of England, and later of the British Empire, constitutes a
tale so amazing that he who has the welfare of the nation as a whole at
heart--that is to say, the true patriot--is justified in entertaining
the most optimistic thoughts for the future. He should not be
indifferent to the past: he should bear it in mind all the time.
Patriotism may not often be otherwise than misguided if no study of
history has been made. The patriot of one nation will wish to procure
for his country a freedom which history would show him to have been its
very curse; and the patriot of another nation will encourage a
nervousness and restraint in his people which history would tell him was
unnecessary. The English patriot has a history to read which, at the
present time, it is especially needful for him to consider; and, since
Egyptology is my particular province, I cannot better close this
argument than by reminding the modern Egyptians that their own history
of four thousand years and its teaching must be considered by them when
they speak of patriotism. A nation so talented as the descendants of the
Pharaohs, so industrious, so smart and clever, should give a far larger
part of its attention to the arts, crafts, and industries, of which
Egyptian archæology has to tell so splendid a story.
As a final argument for the value of the study of history and archæology
an aspect of the question may be placed before the reader which will
perhaps be regarded as fanciful, but which, in all sincerity, I believe
to be sober sense.
In this life of ours which, under modern conditions, is lived at so
great a speed, there is a growing need for a periodical pause wherein
the mind may adjust the relationship of the things that have been to
those that are. So rapidly are our impressions received and assimilated,
so individually are they shaped or classified, that, in whatever
direction our brains lead us, we are speedily carried beyond that
province of thought which is common to us all. A man who lives alone
finds himself, in a few months, out of touch with the thought of his
contemporaries; and, similarly, a man who lives in what is called an
up-to-date manner soon finds himself grown unsympathetic to the sober
movement of the world's slow round-about.
Now, the man who lives alone presently developes some of the recognised
eccentricities of the recluse, which, on his return to society, cause
him to be regarded as a maniac; and the man who lives entirely in the
present cannot argue that the characteristics which he has developed are
less maniacal because they are shared by his associates. Rapidly he,
too, has become eccentric; and just as the solitary man must needs come
into the company of his fellows if he would retain a healthy mind, so
the man who lives in the present must allow himself occasional
intercourse with the past if he would keep his balance.
[Illustration: PL. III. Heavy gold earrings of Queen Tausert of Dynasty
XX. An example of the work of ancient Egyptian
goldsmiths.
--CAIRO MUSEUM.]
[_Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha._
Heraclitus, in a quotation preserved by Sextus Empiricus,[1] writes: "It
behoves us to follow the common reason of the world; yet, though there
is a common reason in the world, the majority live as though they
possessed a wisdom peculiar each unto himself alone." Every one of us
who considers his mentality an important part of his constitution should
endeavour to give himself ample opportunities of adjusting his mind to
this "common reason" which is the silver thread that runs unbroken
throughout history. We should remember the yesterdays, that we may know
what the pother of to-day is about; and we should foretell to-morrow not
by to-day but by every day that has been.
[Footnote 1: Bywater: 'Heracliti Ephesii Reliquiæ,' p. 38.]
Forgetfulness is so common a human failing. In our rapid transit through
life we are so inclined to forget the past stages of the journey. All
things pass by and are swallowed up in a moment of time. Experiences
crowd upon us; the events of our life occur, are recorded by our busy
brains, are digested, and are forgotten before the substance of which
they were made has resolved into its elements. We race through the
years, and our progress is headlong through the days.
Everything, as it is done with, is swept up into the basket of the past,
and the busy handmaids, unless we check them, toss the contents, good
and bad, on to the great rubbish heap of the world's waste. Loves,
hates, gains, losses, all things upon which we do not lay fierce and
strong hands, are gathered into nothingness, and, with a few exceptions,
are utterly forgotten.
And we, too, will soon have passed, and our little brains which have
forgotten so much will be forgotten. We shall be throttled out of the
world and pressed by the clumsy hands of Death into the mould of that
same rubbish-hill of oblivion, unless there be a stronger hand to save
us. We shall be cast aside, and left behind by the hurrying crowd,
unless there be those who will see to it that our soul, like that of
John Brown, goes marching along. There is only one human force stronger
than death, and that force is History, By it the dead are made to live
again: history is the salvation of the mortal man as religion is the
salvation of his immortal life.
Sometimes, then, in our race from day to day it is necessary to stop the
headlong progress of experience, and, for an hour, to look back upon the
past. Often, before we remember to direct our mind to it, that past is
already blurred, and dim. The picture is out of focus, and turning from
it in sorrow instantly the flight of our time begins again. This should
not be. "There is," says Emerson, "a relationship between the hours of
our life and the centuries of time." Let us give history and archæology
its due attention; for thus not only shall we be rendering a service to
all the dead, not only shall we be giving a reason and a usefulness to
their lives, but we shall also lend to our own thought a balance which
in no otherwise can be obtained, we shall adjust ourselves to the true
movement of the world, and, above all, we shall learn how best to serve
that nation to which it is our inestimable privilege to belong.
CHAPTER II.
THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE.
"History," says Sir J. Seeley, "lies before science as a mass of
materials out of which a political doctrine can be deduced.... Politics
are vulgar when they are not liberalised by history, and history fades
into mere literature when it loses sight of its relation to practical
politics.... Politics and history are only different aspects of the same
study."[1]
[Footnote 1: 'The Expansion of England.']
These words, spoken by a great historian, form the keynote of a book
which has run into nearly twenty editions; and they may therefore be
regarded as having some weight. Yet what historian of old Egyptian
affairs concerns himself with the present welfare and future prospects
of the country, or how many statesmen in Egypt give close attention to a
study of the past? To the former the Egypt of modern times offers no
scope for his erudition, and gives him no opportunity of making
"discoveries," which is all he cares about. To the latter, Egyptology
appears to be but a pleasant amusement, the main value of which is the
finding of pretty scarabs suitable for the necklaces of one's lady
friends. Neither the one nor the other would for a moment admit that
Egyptology and Egyptian politics "are only different aspects of the same
study." And yet there can be no doubt that they are.
It will be argued that the historian of ancient Egypt deals with a
period so extremely remote that it can have no bearing upon the
conditions of modern times, when the inhabitants of Egypt have altered
their language, religion, and customs, and the Mediterranean has ceased
to be the active centre of the civilised world. But it is to be
remembered that the study of Egyptology carries one down to the
Muhammedan invasion without much straining of the term, and merges then
into the study of the Arabic period at so many points that no real
termination can be given to the science; while the fact of the
remoteness of its beginnings but serves to give it a greater value,
since the vista before the eyes is wider.
It is my object in this chapter to show that the ancient history of
Egypt has a real bearing on certain aspects of the polemics of the
country. I need not again touch upon the matters which were referred to
on page 8 in order to demonstrate this fact. I will take but one
subject--namely, that of Egypt's foreign relations and her wars in other
lands. It will be best, for this purpose, to show first of all that the
ancient and modern Egyptians are one and the same people; and,
secondly, that the political conditions, broadly speaking, are much the
same now as they have been throughout history.
Professor Elliot Smith, F.R.S., has shown clearly enough, from the study
of bones of all ages, that the ancient and modern inhabitants of the
Nile Valley are precisely the same people anthropologically; and this
fact at once sets the matter upon an unique footing: for, with the
possible exception of China, there is no nation in the world which can
be proved thus to have retained its type for so long a period. This one
fact makes any parallel with Greece or Rome impossible. The modern
Greeks have not much in common, anthropologically, with the ancient
Greeks, for the blood has become very mixed; the Italians are not the
same as the old Romans; the English are the result of a comparatively
recent conglomeration of types. But in Egypt the subjects of archaic
Pharaohs, it seems certain, were exactly similar to those of the modern
Khedives, and new blood has never been introduced into the nation to an
appreciable extent, not even by the Arabs. Thus, if there is any
importance in the bearing of history upon politics, we have in Egypt a
better chance of appreciating it than we have in the case of any other
country.
It is true that the language has altered, but this is not a matter of
first-rate importance. A Jew is not less typical because he speaks
German, French, or English; and the cracking of skulls in Ireland is
introduced as easily in English as it was in Erse. The old language of
the Egyptian hieroglyphs actually is not yet quite dead; for, in its
Coptic form, it is still spoken by many Christian Egyptians, who will
salute their friends in that tongue, or bid them good-morning or
good-night. Ancient Egyptian in this form is read in the Coptic
churches; and God is called upon by that same name which was given to
Amon and his colleagues. Many old Egyptian words have crept into the
Arabic language, and are now in common use in the country; while often
the old words are confused with Arabic words of similar sound. Thus, at
Abydos, the archaic fortress is now called the _Shunet es Zebib_, which
in Arabic would have the inexplicable meaning "the store-house of
raisins"; but in the old Egyptian language its name, of similar sound,
meant "the fortress of the Ibis-jars," several of these sacred birds
having been buried there in jars, after the place had been disused as a
military stronghold. A large number of Egyptian towns still bear their
hieroglyphical names: Aswan, (Kom) Ombo, Edfu, Esneh, Keft, Kus, Keneh,
Dendereh, for example. The real origin of these being now forgotten,
some of them have been given false Arabic derivations, and stories have
been invented to account for the peculiar significance of the words thus
introduced. The word _Silsileh_ in Arabic means "a chain," and a place
in Upper Egypt which bears that name is now said to be so called
because a certain king here stretched a chain across the river to
interrupt the shipping; but in reality the name is derived from a
mispronounced hieroglyphical word meaning "a boundary." Similarly the
town of Damanhur in Lower Egypt is said to be the place at which a great
massacre took place, for in Arabic the name may be interpreted as
meaning "rivers of blood," whereas actually the name in Ancient Egyptian
means simply "the Town of Horus." The archæological traveller in Egypt
meets with instances of the continued use of the language of the
Pharaohs at every turn; and there are few things that make the science
of Egyptology more alive, or remove it further from the dusty atmosphere
of the museum, than this hearing of the old words actually spoken by the
modern inhabitants of the land.
The religion of Ancient Egypt, like those of Greece and Rome, was killed
by Christianity, which largely gave place, at a later date, to
Muhammedanism; and yet, in the hearts of the people there are still an
extraordinary number of the old pagan beliefs. I will mention a few
instances, taking them at random from my memory.
In, ancient days the ithiphallic god Min was the patron of the crops,
who watched over the growth of the grain. In modern times a degenerate
figure of this god Min, made of whitewashed wood and mud, may be seen
standing, like a scarecrow, in the fields throughout Egypt. When the
sailors cross the Nile they may often be heard singing _Ya Amuni, Ya
Amuni_, "O Amon, O Amon," as though calling upon that forgotten god for
assistance. At Aswan those who are about to travel far still go up to
pray at the site of the travellers' shrine, which was dedicated to the
gods of the cataracts. At Thebes the women climb a certain hill to make
their supplications at the now lost sanctuary of Meretsegert, the
serpent-goddess of olden times. A snake, the relic of the household
goddess, is often kept as a kind of pet in the houses of the peasants.
Barren women still go to the ruined temples of the forsaken gods in the
hope that there is virtue in the stones; and I myself have given
permission to disappointed husbands to take their childless wives to
these places, where they have kissed the stones and embraced the figures
of the gods. The hair of the jackal is burnt in the presence of dying
people, even of the upper classes, unknowingly to avert the jackal-god
Anubis, the Lord of Death. A scarab representing the god of creation is
sometimes placed in the bath of a young married woman to give virtue to
the water. A decoration in white paint over the doorways of certain
houses in the south is a relic of the religious custom of placing a
bucranium there to avert evil. Certain temple-watchmen still call upon
the spirits resident in the sanctuaries to depart before they will enter
the building. At Karnak a statue of the goddess Sekhmet is regarded
with holy awe; and the goddess who once was said to have massacred
mankind is even now thought to delight in slaughter. The golden barque
of Amon-Ra, which once floated upon the sacred lake of Karnak, is said
to be seen sometimes by the natives at the present time, who have not
yet forgotten its former existence. In the processional festival of
Abu'l Haggag, the patron saint of Luxor, whose mosque and tomb stand
upon the ruins of the Temple of Amon, a boat is dragged over the ground
in unwitting remembrance of the dragging of the boat of Amon in the
processions of that god. Similarly in the _Mouled el Nebi_ procession at
Luxor, boats placed upon carts are drawn through the streets, just as
one may see them in the ancient paintings and reliefs. The patron gods
of Kom Ombo, Horur and Sebek, yet remain in the memories of the peasants
of the neighbourhood as the two brothers who lived in the temple in the
days of old. A robber entering a tomb will smash the eyes of the figures
of the gods and deceased persons represented therein, that they may not
observe his actions, just as did his ancestors four thousand years ago.
At Gurneh a farmer recently broke the arms of an ancient statue, which
lay half-buried near his fields, because he believed that they had
damaged his crops. In the south of Egypt a pot of water is placed upon
the graves of the dead, that their ghost, or _ka_, as it would have been
called in old times, may not suffer from thirst; and the living will
sometimes call upon the name of the dead, standing at night in the
cemeteries.
The ancient magic of Egypt is still widely practised, and many of the
formulæ used in modern times are familiar to the Egyptologist. The
Egyptian, indeed, lives in a world much influenced by magic and thickly
populated by spirits, demons, and djins. Educated men holding Government
appointments, and dressing in the smartest European manner, will
describe their miraculous adventures and their meetings with djins. An
Egyptian gentleman holding an important administrative post, told me the
other day how his cousin was wont to change himself into a cat at night
time, and to prowl about the town. When a boy, his father noticed this
peculiarity, and on one occasion chased and beat the cat, with the
result that the boy's body next morning was found to be covered with
stripes and bruises. The uncle of my informant once read such strong
language (magically) in a certain book that it began to tremble
violently, and finally made a dash for it out of the window. This same
personage was once sitting beneath a palm-tree with a certain magician
(who, I fear, was also a conjurer), when, happening to remark on the
clusters of dates twenty feet or so above his head, his friend stretched
his arms upwards and his hands were immediately filled with the fruit.
At another time this magician left his overcoat by mistake in a railway
carriage, and only remembered it when the train was a mere speck upon
the horizon; but, on the utterance of certain words, the coat
immediately flew through the air back to him.
I mention these particular instances because they were told to me by
educated persons; but amongst the peasants even more incredible stories
are gravely accepted. The Omdeh, or headman, of the village of Chaghb,
not far from Luxor, submitted an official complaint to the police a
short time ago against an _afrit_ or devil which was doing much mischief
to him and his neighbours, snatching up oil-lamps and pouring the oil
over the terrified villagers, throwing stones at passers-by, and so
forth. Spirits of the dead in like manner haunt the living, and often do
them mischief. At Luxor, lately, the ghost of a well-known robber
persecuted his widow to such an extent that she finally went mad. A
remarkable parallel to this case, dating from Pharaonic days, may be
mentioned. It is the letter of a haunted widower to his dead wife, in
which he asks her why she persecutes him, since he was always kind to
her during her life, nursed her through illnesses, and never grieved her
heart.[1]
[Footnote 1: Maspero: 'Études egyptologiques,' i. 145.]
These instances might be multiplied, but those which I have quoted will
serve to show that the old gods are still alive, and that the famous
magic of the Egyptians is not yet a thing of the past. Let us now turn
to the affairs of everyday life.
An archæological traveller in Egypt cannot fail to observe the
similarity between old and modern customs as he rides through the
villages and across the fields. The houses, when not built upon the
European plan, are surprisingly like those of ancient days. The old
cornice still survives, and the rows of dried palm stems, from which its
form was originally derived, are still to be seen on the walls of
gardens and courtyards. The huts or shelters of dried corn-stalks, so
often erected in the fields, are precisely the same as those used in
prehistoric days; and the archaic bunches of corn-stalks smeared with
mud, which gave their form to later stone columns, are set up to this
day, though their stone posterity are now in ruins. Looking through the
doorway of one of these ancient houses, the traveller, perhaps, sees a
woman grinding corn or kneading bread in exactly the same manner as her
ancestress did in the days of the Pharaohs. Only the other day a native
asked to be allowed to purchase from us some of the ancient millstones
lying in one of the Theban temples, in order to re-use them on his farm.
The traveller will notice, in some shady corner, the village barber
shaving the heads and faces of his patrons, just as he is seen in the
Theban tomb-paintings of thousands of years ago; and the small boys who
scamper across the road will have just the same tufts of hair left for
decoration on their shaven heads as had the boys of ancient Thebes and
Memphis. In another house, where a death has occurred, the mourning
women, waving the same blue cloth which was the token of mourning in
ancient days, will toss their arms about in gestures familiar to every
student of ancient scenes. Presently the funeral will issue forth, and
the men will sing that solemn yet cheery tune which never fails to call
to mind the far-famed _Maneros_--that song which Herodotus describes as
a plaintive funeral dirge, and which Plutarch asserts was suited at the
same time to festive occasions. In some other house a marriage will be
taking place, and the singers and pipers will, in like manner, recall
the scenes upon the monuments. The former have a favourite gesture--the
placing of the hand behind the ear as they sing--which is frequently
shown in ancient representations of such festive scenes. The dancing
girls, too, are here to be seen, their eyes and cheeks heavily painted,
as were those of their ancestresses; and in their hands are the same
tambourines as are carried by their class in Pharaonic paintings and
reliefs. The same date-wine which intoxicated the worshippers of the
Egyptian Bacchus goes the round of this village company, and the same
food stuff, the same small, flat loaves of bread, are eaten.
Passing out into the fields the traveller observes the ground raked into
the small squares for irrigation which the prehistoric farmer made; and
the plough is shaped as it always was. The _shadoof_, or water-hoist,
is patiently worked as it has been for thousands of years; while the
cylindrical hoist employed in Lower Egypt was invented and introduced in
Ptolemaic times. Threshing and winnowing proceed in the manner
represented on the monuments, and the methods of sowing and reaping have
not changed. Along the embanked roads, men, cattle, and donkeys file
past against the sky-line, recalling the straight rows of such figures
depicted so often upon the monuments. Overhead there flies the vulture
goddess Nekheb, and the hawk Horus hovers near by. Across the road ahead
slinks the jackal, Anubis; under one's feet crawls Khepera, the scarab;
and there, under the sacred tree, sleeps the horned ram of Amon. In all
directions the hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians pass to and fro, as
though some old temple-inscription had come to life. The letter _m_, the
owl, goes hooting past. The letter _a_, the eagle, circles overhead; the
sign _ur_, the wagtail, flits at the roadside, chirping at the sign
_rekh_, the peewit. Along the road comes the sign _ab_, the frolicking
calf; and near it is _ka_, the bull; while behind them walks the sign
_fa_, a man carrying a basket on his head. In all directions are the
figures from which the ancients made their hieroglyphical script; and
thus that wonderful old writing at once ceases to be mysterious, a thing
of long ago, and one realises how natural a product of the country it
was.
[Illustration: PL. IV. In the palm-groves near Sakkâra, Egypt.]
[_Photo by E. Bird._
In a word, ancient and modern Egyptians are fundamentally similar. Nor
is there any great difference to be observed between the country's
relations with foreign powers in ancient days and those of the last
hundred years. As has been seen in the last chapter, Egypt was usually
occupied by a foreign power, or ruled by a foreign dynasty, just as at
the present day; and a foreign army was retained in the country during
most of the later periods of ancient history. There were always numerous
foreigners settled in Egypt, and in Ptolemaic and Roman times Alexandria
and Memphis swarmed with them. The great powers of the civilised world
were always watching Egypt as they do now, not always in a friendly
attitude to that one of themselves which occupied the country; and the
chief power with which Egypt was concerned in the time of the Ramesside
Pharaohs inhabited Asia Minor and perhaps Turkey, just as in the middle
ages and the last century. Then, as in modern times, Egypt had much of
her attention held by the Sudan, and constant expeditions had to be made
into the regions above the cataracts. Thus it cannot be argued that
ancient history offers no precedent for modern affairs because all
things have now changed. Things have changed extremely little, broadly
speaking; and general lines of conduct have the same significance at the
present time as they had in the past.
I wish now to give an outline of Egypt's relationship to her most
important neighbour, Syria, in order that the bearing of history upon
modern political matters may be demonstrated; for it would seem that the
records of the past make clear a tendency which is now somewhat
overlooked. I employ this subject simply as an example.
From the earliest historical times the Egyptians have endeavoured to
hold Syria and Palestine as a vassal state. One of the first Pharaohs
with whom we meet in Egyptian history, King Zeser of Dynasty III., is
known to have sent a fleet to the Lebanon in order to procure cedar
wood, and there is some evidence to show that he held sway over this
country. For how many centuries previous to his reign the Pharaohs had
overrun Syria we cannot now say, but there is no reason to suppose that
Zeser initiated the aggressive policy of Egypt in Asia. Sahura, a
Pharaoh of Dynasty V., attacked the Phoenician coast with his fleet, and
returned to the Nile Valley with a number of Syrian captives. Pepi I. of
the succeeding dynasty also attacked the coast-cities, and Pepi II. had
considerable intercourse with Asia. Amenemhat I., of Dynasty XII.,
fought in Syria, and appears to have brought it once more under Egyptian
sway. Senusert I. seems to have controlled the country to some extent,
for Egyptians lived there in some numbers. Senusert III. won a great
victory over the Asiatics in Syria; and a stela and statue belonging to
Egyptian officials have been found at Gezer, between Jerusalem and the
sea. After each of the above-mentioned wars it is to be presumed that
the Egyptians held Syria for some years, though little is now known of
the events of these far-off times.
During the Hyksos dynasties in Egypt there lived a Pharaoh named Khyan
who was of Semitic extraction; and there is some reason to suppose that
he ruled from Baghdad to the Sudan, he and his fathers having created a
great Egyptian Empire by the aid of foreign troops. Egypt's connection
with Asia during the Hyksos rule is not clearly defined, but the very
fact that these foreign kings were anxious to call themselves "Pharaohs"
shows that Egypt dominated in the east end of the Mediterranean. The
Hyksos kings of Egypt very probably held Syria in fee, being possessed
of both countries, but preferring to hold their court in Egypt.
We now come to the great Dynasty XVIII., and we learn more fully of the
Egyptian invasions of Syria. Ahmosis I. drove the Hyksos out of the
Delta and pursued them through Judah. His successor, Amenhotep I.,
appears to have seized all the country as far as the Euphrates; and
Thutmosis I., his son, was able to boast that he ruled even unto that
river. Thutmosis III., Egypt's greatest Pharaoh, led invasion after
invasion into Syria, so that his name for generations was a terror to
the inhabitants. From the Euphrates to the fourth cataract of the Nile
the countries acknowledged him king, and the mighty Egyptian fleet
patrolled the seas. This Pharaoh fought no less than seventeen campaigns
in Asia, and he left to his son the most powerful throne in the world.
Amenhotep II. maintained this empire and quelled the revolts of the
Asiatics with a strong hand. Thutmosis IV., his son, conducted two
expeditions into Syria; and the next king, Amenhotep III., was
acknowledged throughout that country.
That extraordinary dreamer, Akhnaton, the succeeding Pharaoh, allowed
the empire to pass from him owing to his religious objections to war;
but, after his death, Tutankhamen once more led the Egyptian armies into
Asia. Horemheb also made a bid for Syria; and Seti I. recovered
Palestine. Rameses II., his son, penetrated to North Syria; but, having
come into contact with the new power of the Hittites, he was unable to
hold the country. The new Pharaoh, Merenptah, seized Canaan and laid
waste the land of Israel. A few years later, Rameses III. led his fleet
and his army to the Syrian coast and defeated the Asiatics in a great
sea-battle. He failed to hold the country, however, and after his death
Egypt remained impotent for two centuries. Then, under Sheshonk I., of
Dynasty XXII., a new attempt was made, and Jerusalem was captured.
Takeloth II., of the same dynasty, sent thither an Egyptian army to help
in the overthrow of Shalmaneser II.
From this time onwards the power of Egypt had so much declined that the
invasions into Syria of necessity became more rare. Shabaka of Dynasty
XXV. concerned himself deeply with Asiatic politics, and attempted to
bring about a state of affairs which would have given him the
opportunity of seizing the country. Pharaoh Necho, of the succeeding
dynasty, invaded Palestine and advanced towards the Euphrates. He
recovered for Egypt her Syrian province, but it was speedily lost again.
Apries, a few years later, captured the Phoenician coast and invaded
Palestine; but the country did not remain for long under Egyptian rule.
It is not necessary to record all the Syrian wars of the Dynasty of the
Ptolemies. Egypt and Asia were now closely connected, and at several
periods during this phase of Egyptian history the Asiatic province came
under the control of the Pharaohs. The wars of Ptolemy I. in Syria were
conducted on a large scale. In the reign of Ptolemy III. there were
three campaigns, and I cannot refrain from quoting a contemporary record
of the King's powers if only for the splendour of its wording:--
"The great King Ptolemy ... having inherited from his father the royalty
of Egypt and Libya and Syria and Phoenicia and Cyprus and Lycia and
Caria and the Cyclades, set out on a campaign into Asia with infantry
and cavalry forces, a naval armament and elephants, both Troglodyte and
Ethiopic.... But having become master of all the country within the
Euphrates, and of Cilicia and Pamphylia and Ionia and the Hellespont
and Thrace, and of all the military forces and elephants in these
countries, and having made the monarchs in all these places his
subjects, he crossed the Euphrates, and having brought under him
Mesopotamia and Babylonia and Susiana and Persis and Media, and all the
rest as far as Bactriana ... he sent forces through the canals----"
(Here the text breaks off.)
Later in this dynasty Ptolemy VII. was crowned King of Syria, but the
kingdom did not remain long in his power. Then came the Romans, and for
many years Syria and Egypt were sister provinces of one empire.
There is no necessity to record the close connection between the two
countries in Arabic times. For a large part of that era Egypt and Syria
formed part of the same empire; and we constantly find Egyptians
fighting in Asia. Now, under Edh Dhahir Bebars of the Baharide Mameluke
Dynasty, we see them helping to subject Syria and Armenia; now, under
El-Mansur Kalaun, Damascus is captured; and now En Nasir Muhammed is
found reigning from Tunis to Baghdad. In the Circassian Mameluke Dynasty
we see El Muayyad crushing a revolt in Syria, and El Ashraf Bursbey
capturing King John of Cyprus and keeping his hand on Syria. And so the
tale continues, until, as a final picture, we see Ibrahim Pasha leading
the Egyptians into Asia and crushing the Turks at Iconium.
Such is the long list of the wars waged by Egypt in Syria. Are we to
suppose that these continuous incursions into Asia have suddenly come to
an end? Are we to imagine that because there has been a respite for a
hundred years the precedent of six thousand years has now to be
disregarded? By the recent reconquest of the Sudan it has been shown
that the old political necessities still exist for Egypt in the south,
impelling her to be mistress of the upper reaches of the Nile. Is there
now no longer any chance of her expanding in other directions should her
hands become free?
The reader may answer with the argument that in early days England made
invasion after invasion into France, yet ceased after a while to do so.
But this is no parallel. England was impelled to war with France because
the English monarchs believed themselves to be, by inheritance, kings of
a large part of France; and when they ceased to believe this they ceased
to make war. The Pharaohs of Egypt never considered themselves to be
kings of Syria, and never used any title suggesting an inherited
sovereignty. They merely held Syria as a buffer state, and claimed no
more than an overlordship there. Now Syria is still a buffer state, and
the root of the trouble, therefore, still exists. Though I must disclaim
all knowledge of modern politics, I am quite sure that it is no
meaningless phrase to say that England will most carefully hold this
tendency in check prevent an incursion into Syria; but, with a strong
controlling hand relaxed, it would require more than human strength to
eradicate an Egyptian tendency--nay, a habit, of six thousand years'
standing. Try as she might, Egypt, as far as an historian can see, would
not be able to prevent herself passing ultimately into Syria again. How
or when this would take place an Egyptologist cannot see, for he is
accustomed to deal in long periods of time, and to consider the
centuries as others might the decades. It might not come for a hundred
years or more: it might come suddenly quite by accident.
In 1907 there was a brief moment when Egypt appeared to be, quite
unknowingly, on the verge of an attempted reconquest of her lost
province. There was a misunderstanding with Turkey regarding the
delineation of the Syrio-Sinaitic frontier; and, immediately, the
Egyptian Government took strong action and insisted that the question
should be settled. Had there been bloodshed the seat of hostilities
would have been Syria; and supposing that Egypt had been victorious, she
would have pushed the opposing forces over the North Syrian frontier
into Asia Minor, and when peace was declared she would have found
herself dictating terms from a point of vantage three hundred miles
north of Jerusalem. Can it be supposed that she would then have desired
to abandon the reconquered territory?
However, matters were settled satisfactorily with the Porte, and the
Egyptian Government, which had never realised this trend of events, and
had absolutely no designs upon Syria, gave no further consideration to
Asiatic affairs. In the eyes of the modern onlookers the whole matter
had developed from a series of chances; but in the view of the historian
the moment of its occurrence was the only chance about it, the _fact_ of
its occurrence being inevitable according to the time-proven rules of
history. The phrase "England in Egypt" has been given such prominence of
late that a far more important phrase, "Egypt in Asia," has been
overlooked. Yet, whereas the former is a catch-word of barely thirty
years' standing, the latter has been familiar at the east end of the
Mediterranean for forty momentous centuries at the lowest computation,
and rings in the ears of the Egyptologist all through the ages. I need
thus no justification for recalling it in these pages.
Now let us glance at Egypt's north-western frontier. Behind the deserts
which spread to the west of the Delta lies the oasis of Siwa; and from
here there is a continuous line of communication with Tripoli and Tunis.
Thus, during the present winter (1910-11), the outbreak of cholera at
Tripoli has necessitated the despatch of quarantine officials to the
oasis in order to prevent the spread of the disease into Egypt. Now, of
late years we have heard much talk regarding the Senussi fraternity, a
Muhammedan sect which is said to be prepared to declare a holy war and
to descend upon Egypt. In 1909 the Egyptian Mamur of Siwa was murdered,
and it was freely stated that this act of violence was the beginning of
the trouble. I have no idea as to the real extent of the danger, nor do
I know whether this bogie of the west, which is beginning to cause such
anxiety in Egypt in certain classes, is but a creation of the
imagination; but it will be interesting to notice the frequent
occurrence of hostilities in this direction, since the history of
Egypt's gateways is surely a study meet for her guardians.
When the curtain first rises upon archaic times, we find those far-off
Pharaohs struggling with the Libyans who had penetrated into the Delta
from Tripoli and elsewhere. In early dynastic history they are the chief
enemies of the Egyptians, and great armies have to be levied to drive
them back through Siwa to their homes. Again in Dynasty XII., Amenemhat
I. had to despatch his son to drive these people out of Egypt; and at
the beginning of Dynasty XVIII., Amenhotep I. was obliged once more to
give them battle. Seti I. of Dynasty XIX. made war upon them, and
repulsed their invasion into Egypt. Rameses II. had to face an alliance
of Libyans, Lycians, and others, in the western Delta. His son Merenptah
waged a most desperate war with them in order to defend Egypt against
their incursions, a war which has been described as the most perilous in
Egyptian history; and it was only after a battle in which nine thousand
of the enemy were slain that the war came to an end. Rameses III.,
however, was again confronted with these persistent invaders, and only
succeeded in checking them temporarily. Presently the tables were
turned, and Dynasty XXII., which reigned so gloriously in Egypt, was
Libyan in origin. No attempt was made thenceforth for many years to
check the peaceful entrance of Libyans into Egypt, and soon that nation
held a large part of the Delta. Occasional mention is made of troubles
upon the north-west frontier, but little more is heard of any serious
invasions. In Arabic times disturbances are not infrequent, and certain
sovereigns, as for example, El Mansur Kalaun, were obliged to invade the
enemy's country, thus extending Egypt's power as far as Tunis.
There is one lesson which may be learnt from the above facts--namely,
that this frontier is somewhat exposed, and that incursions from North
Africa by way of Siwa are historic possibilities. If the Senussi
invasion of Egypt is ever attempted it will not, at any rate, be without
precedent.
When England entered Egypt in 1882 she found a nation without external
interests, a country too impoverished and weak to think of aught else
but its own sad condition. The reviving of this much-bled, anæmic
people, and the reorganisation of the Government, occupied the whole
attention of the Anglo-Egyptian officials, and placed Egypt before their
eyes in only this one aspect. Egypt appeared to be but the Nile Valley
and the Delta; and, in truth, that was, and still is, quite as much
as the hard-worked officials could well administer. The one task of the
regeneration of Egypt was all absorbing, and the country came to be
regarded as a little land wherein a concise, clearly-defined, and
compact problem could be worked out.
[Illustration: PL. V. The mummy of Sety I. of Dynasty XIX.
--CAIRO MUSEUM.]
[_Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha._
Now, while this was most certainly the correct manner in which to face
the question, and while Egypt has benefited enormously by this
singleness of purpose in her officials, it was, historically, a false
attitude. Egypt is not a little country: Egypt is a crippled Empire.
Throughout her history she has been the powerful rival of the people of
Asia Minor. At one time she was mistress of the Sudan, Somaliland,
Palestine, Syria, Libya, and Cyprus; and the Sicilians, Sardinians,
Cretans, and even Greeks, stood in fear of the Pharaoh. In Arabic times
she held Tunis and Tripoli, and even in the last century she was the
foremost Power at the east end of the Mediterranean. Napoleon when he
came to Egypt realised this very thoroughly, and openly aimed to make
her once more a mighty empire. But in 1882 such fine dreams were not to
be considered: there was too much work to be done in the Nile Valley
itself. The Egyptian Empire was forgotten, and Egypt was regarded as
permanently a little country. The conditions which we found here we took
to be permanent conditions. They were not. We arrived when the country
was in a most unnatural state as regards its foreign relations; and we
were obliged to regard that state as chronic. This, though wise, was
absolutely incorrect. Egypt in the past never has been for more than a
short period a single country; and all history goes to show that she
will not always be single in the future.
With the temporary loss of the Syrian province Egypt's need for a navy
ceased to exist; and the fact that she is really a naval power has now
passed from men's memory. Yet it was not much more than a century ago
that Muhammed Ali fought a great naval battle with the Turks, and
utterly defeated them. In ancient history the Egyptian navy was the
terror of the Mediterranean, and her ships policed the east coast of
Africa. In prehistoric times the Nile boats were built, it would seem,
upon a seafaring plan: a fact that has led some scholars to suppose that
the land was entered and colonised from across the waters. We talk of
Englishmen as being born to the sea, as having a natural and inherited
tendency towards "business upon great waters"; and yet the English navy
dates from the days of Queen Elizabeth. It is true that the Plantagenet
wars with France checked what was perhaps already a nautical bias, and
that had it not been for the Norman conquest, England, perchance would
have become a sea power at an earlier date. But at best the tendency is
only a thousand years old. In Egypt it is seven or eight thousand years
old at the lowest computation. It makes one smile to think of Egypt as
a naval power. It is the business of the historian to refrain from
smiling, and to remark only that, absurd as it may sound, Egypt's future
is largely upon the water as her past has been. It must be remembered
that she was fighting great battles in huge warships three or four
hundred feet in length at a time when Britons were paddling about in
canoes.
One of the ships built by the Pharaoh Ptolemy Philopator was four
hundred and twenty feet long, and had several banks of oars. It was
rowed by four thousand sailors, while four hundred others managed the
sails. Three thousand soldiers were also carried upon its decks. The
royal dahabiyeh which this Pharaoh used upon the Nile was three hundred
and thirty feet long, and was fitted with state rooms and private rooms
of considerable size. Another vessel contained, besides the ordinary
cabins, large bath-rooms, a library, and an astronomical observatory. It
had eight towers, in which there were machines capable of hurling stones
weighing three hundred pounds or more, and arrows eighteen feet in
length. These huge vessels were built some two centuries before Cæsar
landed in Britain.[1]
[Footnote 1: Athenæus, v. 8.]
In conclusion, then, it must be repeated that the present Nile-centred
policy in Egypt, though infinitely best for the country at this
juncture, is an artificial one, unnatural to the nation except as a
passing phase; and what may be called the Imperial policy is absolutely
certain to take its place in time, although the Anglo-Egyptian
Government, so long as it exists, will do all in its power to check it.
History tells us over and over again that Syria is the natural dependant
of Egypt, fought for or bargained for with the neighbouring countries to
the north; that the Sudan is likewise a natural vassal which from time
to time revolts and has to be reconquered; and that Egypt's most exposed
frontier lies on the north-west. In conquering the Sudan at the end of
the nineteenth century the Egyptians were but fulfilling their destiny:
it was a mere accident that their arms were directed against a Mahdi. In
discussing seriously the situation in the western oases, they are
working upon the precise rules laid down by history. And if their
attention is not turned in the far future to Syria, they will be defying
rules even more precise, and, in the opinion of those who have the whole
course of Egyptian history spread before them, will but be kicking
against the pricks. Here surely we have an example of the value of the
study of a nation's history, which is not more nor less than a study of
its political tendencies.
Speaking of the relationship of history to politics, Sir J. Seeley
wrote: "I tell you that when you study English history, you study not
the past of England only but her future. It is the welfare of your
country, it is your whole interest as citizens, that is in question when
you study history." These words hold good when we deal with Egyptian
history, and it is our business to learn the political lessons which the
Egyptologist can teach us, rather than to listen to his dissertations
upon scarabs and blue glaze. Like the astronomers of old, the
Egyptologist studies, as it were, the stars, and reads the future in
them; but it is not the fashion for kings to wait upon his
pronouncements any more! Indeed he reckons in such very long periods of
time, and makes startling statements about events which probably will
not occur for very many years to come, that the statesman, intent upon
his task, has some reason to declare that the study of past ages does
not assist him to deal with urgent affairs. Nevertheless, in all
seriousness, the Egyptologist's study is to be considered as but another
aspect of statecraft, and he fails in his labours if he does not make
this his point of view.
In his arrogant manner the Egyptologist will remark that modern politics
are of too fleeting a nature to interest him. In answer, I would tell
him that if he sits studying his papyri and his mummies without regard
for the fact that he is dealing with a nation still alive, still
contributing its strength to spin the wheel of the world around, then
are his labours worthless and his brains misused. I would tell him that
if his work is paid for, then is he a robber if he gives no return in
information which will be of practical service to Egypt in some way or
another. The Egyptian Government spends enormous sums each year upon
the preservation of the magnificent relics of bygone ages--relics for
which, I regret to say, the Egyptians themselves care extremely little.
Is this money spent, then, to amuse the tourist in the land, or simply
to fulfil obligations to ethical susceptibilities? No; there is but one
justification for this very necessary expenditure of public
money--namely, that these relics are regarded, so to speak, as the
school-books of the nation, which range over a series of subjects from
pottery-making to politics, from stone-cutting to statecraft. The future
of Egypt may be read upon the walls of her ancient temples and tombs.
Let the Egyptologist never forget, in the interest and excitement of his
discoveries, what is the real object of his work.
CHAPTER III.
THE NECESSITY OF ARCHÆOLOGY TO THE GAIETY OF THE WORLD.
When a great man puts a period to his existence upon earth by dying, he
is carefully buried in a tomb, and a monument is set up to his glory in
the neighbouring church. He may then be said to begin his second life,
his life in the memory of the chronicler and historian. After the lapse
of an æon or two the works of the historian, and perchance the tomb
itself, are rediscovered; and the great man begins his third life, now
as a subject of discussion and controversy amongst archæologists in the
pages of a scientific journal. It may be supposed that the spirit of the
great man, not a little pleased with its second life, has an extreme
distaste for his third. There is a dead atmosphere about it which sets
him yawning as only his grave yawned before. The charm has been taken
from his deeds; there is no longer any spring in them. He must feel
towards the archæologist much as a young man feels towards his
cold-blooded parent by whom his love affair has just been found out.
The public, too, if by chance it comes upon this archæological journal,
finds the discussion nothing more than a mental gymnastic, which, as the
reader drops off to sleep, gives him the impression that the writer is a
man of profound brain capacity, but, like the remains of the great man
of olden times, as dry as dust.
There is one thing, however, which has been overlooked. This scientific
journal does not contain the ultimate results of the archæologist's
researches. It contains the researches themselves. The public, so to
speak, has been listening to the pianist playing his morning scales, has
been watching the artist mixing his colours, has been examining the
unshaped block of marble and the chisels in the sculptor's studio. It
must be confessed, of course, that the archæologist has so enjoyed his
researches that often the ultimate result has been overlooked by him. In
the case of Egyptian archæology, for example, there are only two
Egyptologists who have ever set themselves to write a readable
history,[1] whereas the number of books which record the facts of the
science is legion.
[Footnote 1: Professor J.H. Breasted and Sir Gaston Maspero.]
The archæologist not infrequently lives, for a large part of his time,
in a museum, a somewhat dismal place. He is surrounded by rotting
tapestries, decaying bones, crumbling stones, and rusted or corroded
objects. His indoor work has paled his cheek, and his muscles are not
like iron bands. He stands, often, in the contiguity to an ancient
broadsword most fitted to demonstrate the fact that he could never use
it. He would probably be dismissed his curatorship were he to tell of
any dreams which might run in his head--dreams of the time when those
tapestries hung upon the walls of barons' banquet-halls, or when those
stones rose high above the streets of Camelot.
Moreover, those who make researches independently must needs contribute
their results to scientific journals, written in the jargon of the
learned. I came across a now forgotten journal, a short time ago, in
which an English gentleman, believing that he had made a discovery in
the province of Egyptian hieroglyphs, announced it in ancient Greek.
There would be no supply of such pedantic swagger were there not a
demand for it.
Small wonder, then, that the archæologist is often represented as
partaking somewhat of the quality of the dust amidst which he works. It
is not necessary here to discuss whether this estimate is just or not: I
wish only to point out its paradoxical nature.
More than any other science, archæology might be expected to supply its
exponents with stuff that, like old wine, would fire the blood and
stimulate the senses. The stirring events of the Past must often be
reconstructed by the archæologist with such precision that his
prejudices are aroused, and his sympathies are so enlisted as to set him
fighting with a will under this banner or under that. The noise of the
hardy strife of young nations is not yet silenced for him, nor have the
flags and the pennants faded from sight. He has knowledge of the state
secrets of kings, and, all along the line, is an intimate spectator of
the crowded pageant of history. The caravan-masters of the elder days,
the admirals of the "great green sea" the captains of archers, have
related their adventures to him; and he might repeat to you their
stories. Indeed, he has such a tale to tell that, looking at it in this
light, one might expect his listeners all to be good fighting men and
noble women. It might be supposed that the archæologist would gather
around him only men who have pleasure in the road that leads over the
hills, and women who have known the delight of the open. One has heard
so often of the "brave days of old" that the archæologist might well be
expected to have his head stuffed with brave tales and little else.
His range, however, may be wider than this. To him, perhaps, it has been
given to listen to the voice of the ancient poet, heard as a far-off
whisper; to breathe in forgotten gardens the perfume of long dead
flowers; to contemplate the love of women whose beauty is all perished
in the dust; to hearken to the sound of the harp and the sistra, to be
the possessor of the riches of historical romance. Dim armies have
battled around him for the love of Helen; shadowy captains of sea-going
ships have sung to him through the storm the song of the sweethearts
left behind them; he has feasted with sultans, and kings' goblets have
been held to his lips; he has watched Uriah the Hittite sent to the
forefront of the battle.
Thus, were he to offer a story, one might now suppose that there would
gather around him, not the men of muscle, but a throng of sallow
listeners, as improperly expectant as were those who hearkened under the
moon to the narrations of Boccaccio, or, in old Baghdad, gave ear to the
tales of the thousand and one nights. One might suppose that his
audience would be drawn from those classes most fondly addicted to
pleasure, or most nearly representative, in their land and in their
time, of the light-hearted and not unwanton races of whom he had to
tell. For his story might be expected to be one wherein wine and women
and song found countenance. Even were he to tell of ancient tragedies
and old sorrows, he would still make his appeal, one might suppose, to
gallants and their mistresses, to sporting men and women of fashion,
just as, in the mournful song of Rosabelle, Sir Walter Scott is able to
address himself to the "ladies gay," or Coleridge in his sad "Ballad of
the Dark Ladie" to "fair maids."
Who could better arrest the attention of the coxcomb than the
archæologist who has knowledge of silks and scents now lost to the
living world? To the gourmet who could more appeal than the archæologist
who has made abundant acquaintance with the forgotten dishes of the
East? Who could so surely thrill the senses of the courtesan than the
archæologist who can relate that which was whispered by Anthony in the
ear of Cleopatra? To the gambler who could be more enticing than the
archæologist who has seen kings play at dice for their kingdoms? The
imaginative, truly, might well collect the most highly disreputable
audience to listen to the tales of the archæologist.
But no, these are not the people who are anxious to catch the pearls
which drop from his mouth. Do statesmen and diplomatists, then, listen
to him who can unravel for them the policies of the Past? Do business
men hasten from Threadneedle Street and Wall Street to sit at his feet,
that they may have instilled into them a little of the romance of
ancient money? I fear not.
Come with me to some provincial town, where this day Professor Blank is
to deliver one of his archæological lectures at the Town Hall. We are
met at the door by the secretary of the local archæological society: a
melancholy lady in green plush, who suffers from St Vitus's dance.
Gloomily we enter the hall and silently accept the seats which are
indicated to us by an unfortunate gentleman with a club-foot. In front
of us an elderly female with short hair is chatting to a very plain
young woman draped like a lay figure. On the right an emaciated man with
a very bad cough shuffles on his chair; on the left two old grey-beards
grumble to one another about the weather, a subject which leads up to
the familiar "Mine catches me in the small of the back"; while behind
us the inevitable curate, of whose appearance it would be trite to
speak, describes to an astonished old lady the recent discovery of the
pelvis of a mastodon.
The professor and the aged chairman step on to the platform; and, amidst
the profoundest gloom, the latter rises to pronounce the prefatory
rigmarole. "Archæology," he says, in a voice of brass, "is a science
which bars its doors to all but the most erudite; for, to the layman who
has not been vouchsafed the opportunity of studying the dusty volumes of
the learned, the bones of the dead will not reveal their secrets, nor
will the crumbling pediments of naos and cenotaph, the obliterated
tombstones, or the worm-eaten parchments, tell us their story. To-night,
however, we are privileged; for Professor Blank will open the doors for
us that we may gaze for a moment upon that solemn charnel-house of the
Past in which he has sat for so many long hours of inductive
meditation."
And the professor by his side, whose head, perhaps, was filled with the
martial music of the long-lost hosts of the Lord, or before whose eyes
there swayed the entrancing forms of the dancing-girls of Babylon,
stares horrified from chairman to audience. He sees crabbed old men and
barren old women before him, afflicted youths and fatuous maidens; and
he realises at once that the golden keys which he possesses to the gates
of the treasury of the jewelled Past will not open the doors of that
charnel-house which they desire to be shown. The scent of the king's
roses fades from his nostrils, the Egyptian music which throbbed in his
ears is hushed, the glorious illumination of the Palace of a Thousand
Columns is extinguished; and in the gathering gloom we leave him
fumbling with a rusty key at the mildewed door of the Place of Bones.
Why is it, one asks, that archæology is a thing so misunderstood? Can it
be that both lecturer and audience have crushed down that which was in
reality uppermost in their minds: that a shy search for romance has led
these people to the Town Hall? Or perchance archæology has become to
them something not unlike a vice, and to listen to an archæological
lecture is their remaining chance of being naughty. It may be that,
having one foot in the grave, they take pleasure in kicking the moss
from the surrounding tombstones with the other; or that, being denied,
for one reason or another, the jovial society of the living, like Robert
Southey's "Scholar" their hopes are with the dead.
[Illustration: PL. VI. A relief upon the side of the sarcophagus of one
of the wives of King Mentuhotep III., discovered
at Dêr el Bahri (Thebes). The royal lady is taking
sweet-smelling ointment from an alabaster vase.
A handmaiden keeps the flies away with a
bird's-wing fan.
--CAIRO MUSEUM.]
[_Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha._
Be the explanation what it may, the fact is indisputable that archæology
is patronised by those who know not its real meaning. A man has no more
right to think of the people of old as dust and dead bones than he has
to think of his contemporaries as lumps of meat. The true archæologist
does not take pleasure in skeletons as skeletons, for his whole effort
is to cover them decently with flesh and skin once more, and to put
some thoughts back into the empty skulls. He sets himself to hide again
the things which he would not intentionally lay bare. Nor does he
delight in ruined buildings: rather he deplores that they are ruined.
Coleridge wrote like the true archæologist when he composed that most
magical poem "Khubla Khan"--
"In Xanadu did Khubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."
And those who would have the pleasure-domes of the gorgeous Past
reconstructed for them must turn to the archæologist; those who would
see the damsel with the dulcimer in the gardens of Xanadu must ask of
him the secret, and of none other. It is true that, before he can
refashion the dome or the damsel, he will have to grub his way through
old refuse heaps till he shall lay bare the ruins of the walls and
expose the bones of the lady. But this is the "dirty work"; and the
mistake which is made lies here: that this preliminary dirty work is
confused with the final clean result. An artist will sometimes build up
his picture of Venus from a skeleton bought from an old Jew round the
corner; and the smooth white paper which he uses will have been made
from putrid rags and bones. Amongst painters themselves these facts are
not hidden, but by the public they are most carefully obscured. In the
case of archæology, however, the tedious details of construction are so
placed in the foreground that the final picture is hardly noticed at
all. As well might one go to Rheims to see men fly, and be shown nothing
else but screws and nuts, steel rods and cog-wheels. Originally the
fault, perhaps, lay with the archæologist; now it lies both with him and
with the public. The public has learnt to ask to be shown the works, and
the archæologist is often so proud of them that he forgets to mention
the purpose of the machine.
A Roman statue of bronze, let us suppose, is discovered in the Thames
valley. It is so corroded and eaten away that only an expert could
recognise that it represents a reclining goddess. In this condition it
is placed in the museum, and a photograph of it is published in 'The
Graphic.' Those who come to look at it in its glass case think it is a
bunch of grapes, or possibly a monkey: those who see its photograph say
that it is more probably an irregular catapult-stone or a fish in
convulsions.
The archæologist alone holds its secret, and only he can see it as it
was. He alone can know the mind of the artist who made it, or interpret
the full meaning of the conception. It might have been expected, then,
that the public would demand, and the archæologist delightedly furnish,
a model of the figure as near to the original as possible; or, failing
that, a restoration in drawing, or even a worded description of its
original beauty. But no: the public, if it wants anything, wants to see
the shapeless object in all its corrosion; and the archæologist forgets
that it is blind to aught else but that corrosion. One of the main
duties of the archæologist is thus lost sight of: his duty as
Interpreter and Remembrancer of the Past.
All the riches of olden times, all the majesty, all the power, are the
inheritance of the present day; and the archæologist is the recorder of
this fortune. He must deal in dead bones only so far as the keeper of a
financial fortune must deal in dry documents. Behind those documents
glitters the gold, and behind those bones shines the wonder of the
things that were. And when an object once beautiful has by age become
unsightly, one might suppose that he would wish to show it to none save
his colleagues or the reasonably curious layman. When a man makes the
statement that his grandmother, now in her ninety-ninth year, was once a
beautiful woman, he does not go and find her to prove his words and
bring her tottering into the room: he shows a picture of her as she was;
or, if he cannot find one, he describes what good evidence tells him was
her probable appearance. In allowing his controlled and sober
imagination thus to perform its natural functions, though it would never
do to tell his grandmother so, he becomes an archæologist, a
remembrancer of the Past.
In the case of archæology, however, the public does not permit itself so
to be convinced. In the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford excellent facsimile
electrotypes of early Greek weapons are exhibited; and these have far
more value in bringing the Past before us than the actual weapons of
that period, corroded and broken, would have. But the visitor says,
"These are shams," and passes on.
It will be seen, then, that the business of archæology is often
misunderstood both by archæologists and by the public; and that there is
really no reason to believe, with Thomas Earle, that the real
antiquarian loves a thing the better for that it is rotten and stinketh.
That the impression has gone about is his own fault, for he has exposed
too much to view the mechanism of his work; but it is also the fault of
the public for not asking of him a picture of things as they were.
Man is by nature a creature of the present. It is only by an effort that
he can consider the future, it is often quite impossible for him to give
any heed at all to the Past. The days of old are so blurred and remote
that it seems right to him that any relic from them should, by the
maltreatment of Time, be unrecognisable. The finding of an old sword,
half-eaten by rust, will only please him in so far as it shows him once
more by its sad condition the great gap between those days and these,
and convinces him again of the sole importance of the present. The
archæologist, he will tell you, is a fool if he expects him to be
interested in a wretched old bit of scrap-iron. He is right. It would be
as rash to suppose that he would find interest in an ancient sword in
its rusted condition as it would be to expect the spectator at Rheims to
find fascination in the nuts and screws. The true archæologist would
hide that corroded weapon in his workshop, where his fellow-workers
alone could see it. For he recognises that it is only the sword which is
as good as new that impresses the public; it is only the Present that
counts. That is the real reason why he is an archæologist. He has turned
to the Past because he is in love with the Present. He, more than any
man, worships at the altar of the goddess of To-day; and he is so
desirous of extending her dominion that he has adventured, like a
crusader, into the lands of the Past in order to subject them to her.
Adoring the Now, he would resent the publicity of anything which so
obviously suggested the Then as a rust-eaten old blade. His whole
business is to hide the gap between Yesterday and To-day; and, unless a
man is initiate, he would have him either see the perfect sword as it
was when it sought the foeman's bowels, or see nothing. The Present is
too small for him; and it is therefore that he calls so insistently to
the Past to come forth from the darkness to augment it. The ordinary
man lives in the Present, and he will tell one that the archæologist
lives in the Past. This is not so. The layman, in the manner of the
Little Englander, lives in a small and confined Present; but the
archæologist, like a true Imperialist, ranges through all time, and
calls it not the Past but the Greater Present.
The archæologist is not, or ought not to be, lacking in vivacity. One
might say that he is so sensible to the charms of society that, finding
his companions too few in number, he has drawn the olden times to him to
search them for jovial men and agreeable women. It might be added that
he has so laughed at jest and joke that, fearing lest the funds of
humour run dry, he has gathered the laughter of all the years to his
enrichment. Certainly he has so delighted in noble adventure and
stirring action that he finds his newspaper insufficient to his needs,
and fetches to his aid the tales of old heroes. In fact, the
archæologist is so enamoured of life that he would raise all the dead
from their graves. He will not have it that the men of old are dust: he
would bring them to him to share with him the sunlight which he finds so
precious. He is so much an enemy of Death and Decay that he would rob
them of their harvest; and, for every life the foe has claimed, he would
raise up, if he could, a memory that would continue to live.
The meaning of the heading which has been given to this chapter is now
becoming clear, and the direction of the argument is already apparent.
So far it has been my purpose to show that the archæologist is not a
rag-and-bone man, though the public generally thinks he is, and he often
thinks he is himself. The attempt has been made to suggest that
archæology ought not to consist in sitting in a charnel-house amongst
the dead, but rather in ignoring that place and taking the bones into
the light of day, decently clad in flesh and finery. It has now to be
shown in what manner this parading of the Past is needful to the gaiety
of the Present.
Amongst cultured people whose social position makes it difficult for
them to dance in circles on the grass in order to express or to
stimulate their gaiety, and whose school of deportment will not permit
them to sing a merry song of sixpence as they trip down the streets,
there is some danger of the fire of merriment dying for want of fuel.
Vivacity in printed books, therefore, has been encouraged, so that the
mind at least, if not the body, may skip about and clap its hands. A
portly gentleman with a solemn face, reading his 'Punch' in the club,
is, after all, giving play to precisely those same humours which in
ancient days might have led him, like Georgy Porgy, to kiss the girls or
to perform any other merry joke. It is necessary, therefore, ever to
enlarge the stock of things humorous, vivacious, or rousing, if thoughts
are to be kept young and eyes bright in this age of restraint. What
would Yuletide be without the olden times to bolster it? What would the
Christmas numbers do without the pictures of our great-grandparents'
coaches snow-bound, of huntsmen of the eighteenth century, of jesters at
the courts of the barons? What should we do without the 'Vicar of
Wakefield,' the 'Compleat Angler,' 'Pepys' Diary,' and all the rest of
the ancient books? And, going back a few centuries, what an amount we
should miss had we not 'Æsop's Fables,' the 'Odyssey,' the tales of the
Trojan War, and so on. It is from the archæologist that one must expect
the augmentation of this supply; and just in that degree in which the
existing supply is really a necessary part of our equipment, so
archæology, which looks for more, is necessary to our gaiety.
[Illustration: PL. VII. Lady rouging herself: she holds a mirror and
rouge-pot.
--FROM A PAPYRUS, TURIN.]
[Illustration: Dancing girl turning a back somersault.--NEW KINGDOM.]
In order to keep his intellect undulled by the routine of his dreary
work, Matthew Arnold was wont to write a few lines of poetry each day.
Poetry, like music and song, is an effective dispeller of care; and
those who find Omar Khayyam or "In Memoriam" incapable of removing the
of burden of their woes, will no doubt appreciate the "Owl and the
Pussy-cat," or the Bab Ballads. In some form or other verse and song are
closely linked with happiness; and a ditty from any age has its
interests and its charm.
"She gazes at the stars above:
I would I were the skies,
That I might gaze upon my love
With such a thousand eyes!"
That is probably from the Greek of Plato, a writer who is not much
read by the public at large, and whose works are the legitimate property
of the antiquarian. It suffices to show that it is not only to the
moderns that we have to look for dainty verse that is conducive to a
light heart. The following lines are from the ancient Egyptian:--
"While in my room I lie all day
In pain that will not pass away,
The neighbours come and go.
Ah, if with them my darling came
The doctors would be put to shame:
_She_ understands my woe."
Such examples might be multiplied indefinitely; and the reader will
admit that there is as much of a lilt about those which are here quoted
as there is about the majority of the ditties which he has hummed to
himself in his hour of contentment. Here is Philodemus' description of
his mistress's charms:--
"My lady-love is small and brown;
My lady's skin is soft as down;
Her hair like parseley twists and turns;
Her voice with magic passion burns...."
And here is an ancient Egyptian's description of not very dissimilar
phenomena:--
"A damsel sweet unto the sight,
A maid of whom no like there is;
Black are her tresses as the night,
And blacker than the blackberries."
Does not the archæologist perform a service to his contemporaries by
searching out such rhymes and delving for more? They bring with them,
moreover, so subtle a suggestion of bygone romance, they are backed by
so fair a scene of Athenian luxury or Theban splendour, that they
possess a charm not often felt in modern verse. If it is argued that
there is no need to increase the present supply of such ditties, since
they are really quite unessential to our gaiety, the answer may be given
that no nation and no period has ever found them unessential; and a
light heart has been expressed in this manner since man came down from
the trees.
Let us turn now to another consideration. For a man to be light of heart
he must have confidence in humanity. He cannot greet the morn with a
smiling countenance if he believes that he and his fellows are slipping
down the broad path which leads to destruction. The archæologist never
despairs of mankind; for he has seen nations rise and fall till he is
almost giddy, but he knows that there has never been a general
deterioration. He realises that though a great nation may suffer defeat
and annihilation, it is possible for it to go down in such a thunder
that the talk of it stimulates other nations for all time. He sees, if
any man can, that all things work together for happiness. He has
observed the cycle of events, the good years and the bad; and in an evil
time he is comforted by the knowledge that the good will presently roll
round again. Thus the lesson which he can teach is a very real
necessity to that contentment of mind which lies at the root of all
gaiety.
Again, a man cannot be permanently happy unless he has a just sense of
proportion. He who is too big for his boots must needs limp; and he who
has a swollen head is in perpetual discomfort. The history of the lives
of men, the history of the nations, gives one a fairer sense of
proportion than does almost any other study. In the great company of the
men of old he cannot fail to assess his true value: if he has any
conceit there is a greater than he to snub him; if he has a poor opinion
of his powers there is many a fool with whom to contrast himself
favourably. If he would risk his fortune on the spinning of a coin,
being aware of the prevalence of his good-luck, archæology will tell him
that the best luck will change; or if, when in sore straits, he asks
whether ever a man was so unlucky, archæology will answer him that many
millions of men have been more unfavoured than he. Archæology provides a
precedent for almost every event or occurrence where modern inventions
are not involved; and, in this manner, one may reckon their value and
determine their trend. Thus many of the small worries which cause so
leaden a weight to lie upon the heart and mind are by the archæologist
ignored; and many of the larger calamities by him are met with serenity.
But not only does the archæologist learn to estimate himself and his
actions: he learns also to see the relationship in which his life stands
to the course of Time. Without archæology a man may be disturbed lest
the world be about to come to an end: after a study of history he knows
that it has only just begun; and that gaiety which is said to have
obtained "when the world was young" is to him, therefore, a present
condition. By studying the ages the archæologist learns to reckon in
units of a thousand years; and it is only then that that little unit of
threescore-and-ten falls into its proper proportion. "A thousand ages in
Thy sight are like an evening gone," says the hymn, but it is only the
archæologist who knows the meaning of the words; and it is only he who
can explain that great discrepancy in the Christian faith between the
statement "Behold, I come quickly" and the actual fact. A man who knows
where he is in regard to his fellows, and realises where he stands in
regard to Time, has learnt a lesson of archæology which is as necessary
to his peace of mind as his peace of mind is necessary to his gaiety.
It is not needful, however, to continue to point out the many ways in
which archæology may be shown to be necessary to happiness. The reader
will have comprehended the trend of the argument, and, if he be in
sympathy with it, he will not be unwilling to develop the theme for
himself. Only one point, therefore, need here be taken up. It has been
reserved to the end of this chapter, for, by its nature, it closes all
arguments. I refer to Death.
Death, as we watch it around us, is the black menace of the heavens
which darkens every man's day; Death, coming to our neighbour, puts a
period to our merry-making; Death, seen close beside us, calls a halt in
our march of pleasure. But let those who would wrest her victory from
the grave turn to a study of the Past, where all is dead yet still
lives, and they will find that the horror of life's cessation is
materially lessened. To those who are familiar with the course of
history, Death seems, to some extent, but the happy solution of the
dilemma of life. So many men have welcomed its coming that one begins to
feel that it cannot be so very terrible. Of the death of a certain
Pharaoh an ancient Egyptian wrote: "He goes to heaven like the hawks,
and his feathers are like those of the geese; he rushes at heaven like a
crane, he kisses heaven like the falcon, he leaps to heaven like the
locust"; and we who read these words can feel that to rush eagerly at
heaven like the crane would be a mighty fine ending of the pother.
Archæology, and especially Egyptology, in this respect is a bulwark to
those who find the faith of their fathers wavering; for, after much
study, the triumphant assertion which is so often found in Egyptian
tombs--"Thou dost not come dead to thy sepulchre, thou comest
living"--begins to take hold of the imagination. Death has been the
parent of so much goodness, dying men have cut such a dash, that one
looks at it with an awakening interest. Even if the sense of the
misfortune of death is uppermost in an archæologist's mind, he may find
not a little comfort in having before him the example of so many good,
men, who, in their hour, have faced that great calamity with squared
shoulders.
"When Death comes," says a certain sage of ancient Egypt, "it seizes the
babe that is on the breast of its mother as well as he that has become
an old man. When thy messenger comes to carry thee away, be thou found
by him _ready_." Why, here is our chance; here is the opportunity for
that flourish which modesty, throughout our life, has forbidden to us!
John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, when the time came for him to lay his
head upon the block, bade the executioner smite it off with three
strokes as a courtesy to the Holy Trinity. King Charles the Second, as
he lay upon his death-bed, apologised to those who stood around him for
"being an unconscionable time adying." The story is familiar of
Napoleon's aide-de-camp, who, when he had been asked whether he were
wounded, replied, "Not wounded: killed," and thereupon expired. The Past
is full of such incidents; and so inspiring are they that Death comes to
be regarded as a most stirring adventure. The archæologist, too, better
than any other, knows the vastness of the dead men's majority; and if,
like the ancients, he believes in the Elysian fields, where no death is
and decay is unknown, he alone will realise the excellent nature of the
company into which he will there be introduced.
There is, however, far more living going on in the world than dying; and
there is more happiness (thanks be!) than sorrow. Thus the archæologist
has a great deal more of pleasure than of pain to give to us for our
enrichment. The reader will here enter an objection. He will say: "This
may be true of archæology in general, but in the case of Egyptology,
with which we are here mostly concerned, he surely has to deal with a
sad and solemn people." The answer will be found in the next chapter. No
nation in the world's history has been so gay, so light-hearted as the
ancient Egyptians; and Egyptology furnishes, perhaps, the most
convincing proof that archæology is, or should be, a merry science, very
necessary to the gaiety of the world. I defy a man suffering from his
liver to understand the old Egyptians; I defy a man who does not
appreciate the pleasure of life to make anything of them. Egyptian
archæology presents a pageant of such brilliancy that the archæologist
is often carried along by it as in a dream, down the valley and over the
hills, till, Past blending with Present, and Present with Future, he
finds himself led to a kind of Island of the Blest, where death is
forgotten and only the joy of life, and life's good deeds, still remain;
where pleasure-domes, and all the ancient "miracles of rare device,"
rise into the air from above the flowers; and where the damsel with the
dulcimer beside the running stream sings to him of Mount Abora and of
the old heroes of the elder days. If the Egyptologist or the
archæologist could revive within him one-hundredth part of the elusive
romance, the delicate gaiety, the subtle humour, the intangible
tenderness, the unspeakable goodness, of much that is to be found in his
province, one would have to cry, like Coleridge--
"Beware, beware!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise."
PART II.
STUDIES IN THE TREASURY.
"And I could tell thee stories that would make thee laugh
at all thy trouble, and take thee to a land of which thou
hast never even dreamed. Where the trees have ever
blossoms, and are noisy with the humming of intoxicated
bees. Where by day the suns are never burning, and by
night the moonstones ooze with nectar in the rays of the
camphor-laden moon. Where the blue lakes are filled with
rows of silver swans, and where, on steps of lapis
lazuli, the peacocks dance in agitation at the murmur of
the thunder in the hills. Where the lightning flashes
without harming, to light the way to women stealing in
the darkness to meetings with their lovers, and the
rainbow hangs for ever like an opal on the dark blue
curtain of the cloud. Where, on the moonlit roofs of
crystal palaces, pairs of lovers laugh at the reflection
of each other's love-sick faces in goblets of red wine,
breathing, as they drink, air heavy with the fragrance of
the sandal, wafted on the breezes from the mountain of
the south. Where they play and pelt each other with
emeralds and rubies, fetched at the churning of the ocean
from the bottom of the sea. Where rivers, whose sands are
always golden, flow slowly past long lines of silent
cranes that hunt for silver fishes in the rushes on the
banks. Where men are true, and maidens love for ever, and
the lotus never fades."
F.W. BAIN: _A Heifer of the Dawn_.
CHAPTER IV.
THE TEMPERAMENT OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS.
A certain school geography book, now out of date, condenses its remarks
upon the character of our Gallic cousins into the following pregnant
sentence: "The French are a gay and frivolous nation, fond of dancing
and red wine." The description would so nearly apply to the ancient
inhabitants of Egypt, that its adoption here as a text to this chapter
cannot be said to be extravagant. The unbiassed inquirer into the
affairs of ancient Egypt must discover ultimately, and perhaps to his
regret, that the dwellers on the Nile were a "gay and frivolous people,"
festive, light-hearted, and mirthful, "fond of dancing and red wine,"
and pledged to all that is brilliant in life. There are very many
people, naturally, who hold to those views which their forefathers held
before them, and picture the Egyptians as a sombre, gloomy people;
replete with thoughts of Death and of the more melancholy aspect of
religion; burdened with the menacing presence of a multitude of horrible
gods and demons, whose priests demanded the erection of vast temples for
their appeasement; having little joy of this life, and much uneasy
conjecture about the next; making entertainment in solemn gatherings and
ponderous feasts; and holding merriment in holy contempt. Of the five
startling classes into which the dictionary divides the human
temperament, namely, the bilious or choleric, the phlegmatic, the
sanguine, the melancholic, and the nervous, it is probable that the
first, the second, and the fourth would be those assigned to the ancient
Egyptians by these people. This view is so entirely false that one will
be forgiven if, in the attempt to dissolve it, the gaiety of the race is
thrust before the reader with too little extenuation. The sanguine, and
perhaps the nervous, are the classes of temperament under which the
Egyptians must be docketed. It cannot be denied that they were an
industrious and even a strenuous people, that they indulged in the most
serious thoughts, and attempted to study the most complex problems of
life, and that the ceremonial side of their religion occupied a large
part of their time. But there is abundant evidence to show that, like
their descendents of the present day, they were one of the least gloomy
people of the world, and that they took their duties in the most buoyant
manner, allowing as much sunshine to radiate through their minds as
shone from the cloudless Egyptian skies upon their dazzling country.
It is curiously interesting to notice how general is the present belief
in the solemnity of this ancient race's attitude towards existence,
and how little their real character is appreciated. Already the reader
will be protesting, perhaps, that the application of the geographer's
summary of French characteristics to the ancient Egyptians lessens in no
wise its ridiculousness, but rather increases it. Let the protest,
however, be held back for a while. Even if the Egyptians were not always
frivolous, they were always uncommonly gay, and any slight exaggeration
will be pardoned in view of the fact that old prejudices have to be
violently overturned, and the stigma of melancholy and ponderous
sobriety torn from the national name. It would be a matter of little
surprise to some good persons if the products of excavation in the Nile
Valley consisted largely of antique black kid gloves.
[Illustration: PL. VIII. Two Egyptian boys decked with flowers and a
third holding a musical instrument. They are
standing against the outside wall of the
Dendereh Temple.]
[_Photo by E. Bird._
Like many other nations the ancient Egyptians rendered mortuary service
to their ancestors, and solid tomb-chapels had to be constructed in
honour of the more important dead. Both for the purpose of preserving
the mummy intact, and also in order to keep the ceremonies going for as
long a period of time as possible, these chapels were constructed in a
most substantial manner, and many of them have withstood successfully
the siege of the years. The dwelling-houses, on the other hand, were
seldom delivered from father to son; but, as in modern Egypt, each
grandee built a palace for himself, designed to last for a lifetime
only, and hardly one of these mansions still exists even as a ruin.
Moreover the tombs were constructed in the dry desert or in the solid
hillside, whereas the dwelling-houses were situated on the damp earth,
where they had little chance of remaining undemolished. And so it is
that the main part of our knowledge of the Egyptians is derived from a
study of their tombs and mortuary temples. How false would be our
estimate of the character of a modern nation were we to glean our
information solely from its churchyard inscriptions! We should know
absolutely nothing of the frivolous side of the life of those whose bare
bones lie beneath the gloomy declaration of their Christian virtues. It
will be realised how sincere was the light-heartedness of the Egyptians
when it is remembered that almost everything in the following record of
their gaieties is derived from a study of the tombs, and of objects
found therein.
Light-heartedness is the key-note of the ancient philosophy of the
country, and in this assertion the reader will, in most cases, find
cause for surprise. The Greek travellers in Egypt, who returned to their
native land impressed with the wonderful mysticism of the Egyptians,
committed their amazement to paper, and so led off that feeling of awed
reverence which is felt for the philosophy of Pharaoh's subjects. But in
their case there was the presence of the priests and wise men eloquently
to baffle them into the state of respect, and there were a thousand
unwritten arguments, comments, articles of faith, and controverted
points of doctrine heard from the mouths of the believers, to surprise
them into a reverential attitude. But we of the present day have left to
us only the more outward and visible remains of the Egyptians. There are
only the fundamental doctrines to work on, the more penetrating notes of
the harmony to listen to. Thus the outline of the philosophy is able to
be studied without any complication, and we have no whirligig of
priestly talk to confuse it. Examined in this way, working only from
cold stones and dry papyri, we are confronted with the old "Eat, drink,
and be merry," which is at once the happiest and most dangerous
philosophy conceived by man. It is to be noticed that this way of
looking at life is to be found in Egypt from the earliest times down to
the period of the Greek occupation of the country, and, in fact, until
the present day. That is to say, it was a philosophy inborn in the
Egyptian,--a part of his nature.
Imhotep, the famous philosopher of Dynasty III., about B.C. 3000, said
to his disciples: "Behold the dwellings of the dead. Their walls fall
down, their place is no more; they are as though they had never
existed"; and he drew from this the lesson that man is soon done with
and forgotten, and that therefore his life should be as happy as
possible. To Imhotep must be attributed the earliest known exhortation
to man to resign himself to his candle-end of a life, and to the
inevitable snuffing-out to come, and to be merry while yet he may. There
is a poem, dating from about B.C. 2000, from which the following is
taken:--
"Walk after thy heart's desire so long as thou livest.
Put myrrh on thy head, clothe thyself in fine linen,
anoint thyself with the true marvels of God.... Let not
thy heart concern itself, until there cometh to thee that
great day of lamentation. Yet he who is at rest can hear
not thy complaint, and he who lies in the tomb can
understand not thy weeping. Therefore, with smiling face,
let thy days be happy, and rest not therein. For no man
carrieth his goods away with him; "O, no man returneth
again who is gone thither."
Again, we have the same sentiments expressed in a tomb of about B.C.
1350, belonging to a certain Neferhotep, a priest of Amen. It is quoted
on page 235, and here we need only note the ending:
"Come, songs and music are before thee. Set behind thee
all cares; think only upon gladness, until that day
cometh whereon thou shalt go down to the land which
loveth silence."
A Ptolemaic inscription quoted more fully towards the end of this
chapter reads: "Follow thy desire by night and by day. Put not care
within thy heart."
The ancient Egyptian peasants, like their modern descendants, were
fatalists, and a happy carelessness seems to have softened the
strenuousness of their daily tasks. The peasants of the present day in
Egypt so lack the initiative to develop the scope of their industries
that their life cannot be said to be strenuous. In whatever work they
undertake, however, they show a wonderful degree of cheerfulness, and a
fine disregard for misfortune. Their forefathers, similarly, went
through their labours with a song upon their lips. In the tombs at
Sakkâra, dating from the Old Empire, there are scenes representing
flocks of goats treading in the seed on the newly-sown ground, and the
inscriptions give the song which the goat-herds sing:--
"The goat-herd is in the water with the fishes,--
He speaks with the _nar_-fish, he talks with the pike;
From the west is your goat-herd; your goat-herd is from the west."
The meaning of the words is not known, of course, but the song seems to
have been a popular one. A more comprehensible ditty is that sung to the
oxen by their driver, which dates from the New Empire:--
"Thresh out for yourselves, ye oxen, thresh out for yourselves.
Thresh out the straw for your food, and the grain for your masters.
Do not rest yourselves, for it is cool to-day."
Some of the love-songs have been preserved from destruction, and these
throw much light upon the subject of the Egyptian temperament. A number
of songs, supposed to have been sung by a girl to her lover, form
themselves into a collection entitled "The beautiful and gladsome songs
of thy sister, whom thy heart loves, as she walks in the fields." The
girl is supposed to belong to the peasant class, and most of the verses
are sung whilst she is at her daily occupation of snaring wild duck in
the marshes. One must imagine the songs warbled without any particular
refrain, just as in the case of the modern Egyptians, who pour out their
ancient tales of love and adventure in a series of bird-like cadences,
full-throated, and often wonderfully melodious. A peculiar sweetness and
tenderness will be noticed in the following examples, and though they
suffer in translation, their airy lightness and refinement is to be
distinguished. One characteristic song, addressed by the girl to her
lover, runs--
"Caught by the worm, the wild duck cries,
But in the love-light of thine eyes
I, trembling, loose the trap. So flies
The bird into the air.
What will my angry mother say?
With basket full I come each day,
But now thy love hath led me stray,
And I have set no snare."
Again, in a somewhat similar strain, she sings--
"The wild duck scatter far, and now
Again they light upon the bough
And cry unto their kind;
Anon they gather on the mere--
But yet unharmed I leave them there,
For love hath filled my mind."
Another song must be given here in prose form. The girl who sings it is
supposed to be making a wreath of flowers, and as she works she cries--
"I am thy first sister, and to me thou art as a garden
which I have planted with flowers and all sweet-smelling
herbs. And I have directed a canal into it, that thou
mightest dip thy hand into it when the north wind blows
cool. The place is beautiful where we walk, because we
walk together, thy hand resting within mine, our mind
thoughtful and our heart joyful. It is intoxicating to me
to hear thy voice, yet my life depends upon hearing it.
Whenever I see thee it is better to me than food and
drink."
One more song must be quoted, for it is so artless and so full of human
tenderness that I may risk the accusation of straying from the main
argument in repeating it. It runs:--
"The breath of thy nostrils alone
Is that which maketh my heart to live.
I found thee:
God grant thee to me
For ever and ever."
It is really painful to think of these words as having fallen from the
lips of what is now a resin-smelling lump of bones and hardened flesh,
perhaps still unearthed, perhaps lying in some museum show-case, or
perhaps kicked about in fragments over the hot sand of some
tourist-crowded necropolis. Mummies are the most lifeless objects one
could well imagine. It is impossible even for those whose imaginations
are most powerful, to infuse life into a thing so utterly dead as an
embalmed body; and this fact is partly responsible for that atmosphere
of stark, melancholy, sobriety and aloofness which surrounds the affairs
of ancient Egypt. In reading these verses, it is imperative for their
right understanding that the mummies and their resting-places should be
banished from the thoughts. It is not always a simple matter for the
student to rid himself of the atmosphere of the museum, where the beads
which should be jangling on a brown neck are lying numbered and labelled
on red velvet; where the bird-trap, once the centre of such feathered
commotion, is propped up in a glass case as "D, 18,432"; and where even
the document in which the verses are written is the lawful booty of the
grammarian and philologist in the library. But it is the first duty of
an archæologist to do away with that atmosphere.
Let those who are untrammelled then, pass out into the sunshine of the
Egyptian fields and marshes, where the wild duck cry to each other as
they scuttle through the tall reeds. Here in the early morning comes our
songstress, and one may see her as clearly as one can that Shulamite of
King Solomon's day, who has had the good fortune to belong to a land
where stones and bones, being few in number, do not endanger the
atmosphere of the literature. One may see her, her hair moving in the
breeze "as a flock of goats that appear from Mount Gilead"; her teeth
white "as a flock of shorn sheep which came up from the washing," and
her lips "like a thread of scarlet." Through such imaginings alone can
one appreciate the songs, or realise the lightness of the manner in
which they were sung.
With such a happy view of life amongst the upper classes as is
indicated by their philosophy, and with that merry disposition amongst
the peasants which shows itself in their love of song, it is not
surprising to find that asceticism is practically unknown in ancient
Egypt before the time of Christ. At first sight, in reflecting on the
mysteries and religious ceremonies of the nation, we are apt to endow
the priests and other participators with a degree of austerity wholly
unjustified by facts. We picture the priest chanting his formulæ in the
dim light of the temple, the atmosphere about him heavy with incense;
and we imagine him as an anchorite who has put away the things of this
world. But in reality there seems to have been not even such a thing as
a celibate amongst the priests. Each man had his wife and his family,
his house, and his comforts of food and fine linen. He indulged in the
usual pastimes and was present at the merriest of feasts. The famous
wise men and magicians, such as Uba-ana of the Westcar Papyrus, had
their wives, their parks, their pleasure-pavilions, and their hosts of
servants. Great dignitaries of the Amon Church, such as Amenhotepsase,
the Second Prophet of Amen in the time of Thutmosis IV., are represented
as feasting with their friends, or driving through Thebes in
richly-decorated chariots drawn by prancing horses, and attended by an
array of servants. A monastic life, or the life of an anchorite, was
held by the Egyptians in scorn; and indeed the state of mind which
produces the monk and the hermit was almost entirely unknown to the
nation in dynastic times. It was only in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods
that asceticism came to be practised; and some have thought that its
introduction into Egypt is to be attributed to the preaching of the
Hindoo missionaries sent from India to the court of the Ptolemies. It is
not really an Egyptian characteristic; and its practice did not last for
more than a few centuries.
The religious teachings of the Egyptians before the Ptolemaic era do not
suggest that the mortification of the flesh was a possible means of
purifying the spirit. An appeal to the senses and to the emotions,
however, was considered as a legitimate method of reaching the soul. The
Egyptians were passionately fond of ceremonial display. Their huge
temples, painted as they were with the most brilliant colours, formed
the setting of processions and ceremonies in which music, rhythmic
motion, and colour were brought to a point of excellence. In honour of
some of the gods dances were conducted; while celebrations, such as the
fantastic Feast of Lamps, were held on the anniversaries of religious
events. In these gorgeously spectacular ceremonies there was no place
for anything sombre or austere, nor could they have been conceived by
any but the most life-loving temperaments.
As in his religious functions, so in his home, the Egyptian regarded
brilliancy and festivity as an edification. When in trouble or
distress, he was wont to relieve his mind as readily by an appeal to the
vanities of this world as by an invocation of the powers of Heaven.
Thus, when King Sneferu, of Dynasty IV., was oppressed with the cares of
state, his councillor Zazamankh constructed for him a pleasure boat
which was rowed around a lake by the most beautiful damsels obtainable.
And again, when Wenamon, the envoy of Herhor of Dynasty XXI., had fallen
into trouble with the pirates of the Mediterranean, his depression was
banished by a gift of a dancing-girl, two vessels of wine, a young goat
of tender flesh, and a message which read--"Eat and drink, and let not
thy heart feel apprehension."
An intense craving for brightness and cheerfulness is to be observed on
all sides, and the attempt to cover every action of life with a kind of
lustre is perhaps the most apparent characteristic of the race. At all
times the Egyptians decked themselves with flowers, and rich and poor
alike breathed what they called "the sweet north wind" through a screen
of blossoms. At their feasts and festivals each guest was presented with
necklaces and crowns of lotus-flowers, and a specially selected bouquet
was carried in the hands. Constantly, as the hours passed, fresh flowers
were brought to them, and the guests are shown in the tomb paintings in
the act of burying their noses in the delicate petals with an air of
luxury which even the conventionalities of the draughtsman cannot hide.
In the women's hair a flower was pinned which hung down before the
forehead; and a cake of ointment, concocted of some sweet-smelling
unguent, was so arranged upon the head that, as it slowly melted, it
re-perfumed the flower. Complete wreaths of flowers were sometimes worn,
and this was the custom as much in the dress of the home as in that of
the feast. The common people also arrayed themselves with wreaths of
lotuses at all galas and carnivals. The room in which a feast was held
was decorated lavishly with flowers. Blossoms crept up the delicate
pillars to the roof; garlands twined themselves around the tables and
about the jars of wine; and single buds lay in every dish of food. Even
the dead were decked in their tombs with a mass of flowers, as though
the mourners would hide with the living delights of the earth the misery
of the grave.
The Egyptian loved his garden, and filled it with all manner of
beautiful flowers. Great parks were laid out by the Pharaohs, and it is
recorded of Thutmosis III. that he brought back from his Asiatic
campaigns vast quantities of rare plants with which to beautify Thebes.
Festivals were held at the season when the flowers were in full bloom,
and the light-hearted Egyptian did not fail to make the flowers talk to
him, in the imagination, of the delights of life. In one case a fig-tree
is made to call to a passing maiden to come into its shade.
"Come," it says, "and spend this festal day, and
to-morrow, and the day after to-morrow, sitting in my
shadow. Let thy lover sit at thy side, and let him
drink.... Thy servants will come with the
dinner-things--they will bring drink of every kind, with
all manner of cakes, flowers of yesterday and of to-day,
and all kinds of refreshing fruit."
Than this one could hardly find a more convincing indication of the
gaiety of the Egyptian temperament. In the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries A.D. the people were so oppressed that any display of luxury
was discouraged, and a happy smile brought the tax-gatherer to the door
to ascertain whether it was due to financial prosperity. But the
carrying of flowers, and other indications of a kind of unworried
contentment, are now again becoming apparent on all sides.
[Illustration: PL. IX. A garland of leaves and flowers dating from about
B.C. 1000. It was placed upon the neck of a
mummy.
--CAIRO MUSEUM.]
[_Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha._
The affection displayed by the Egyptians for bright colours would alone
indicate that their temperament was not melancholic. The houses of the
rich were painted with colours which would be regarded as crude had they
appeared in the Occident, but which are admissible in Egypt where the
natural brilliancy of the sunshine and the scenery demands a more
extreme colour-scheme in decoration. The pavilions in which the nobles
"made a happy day," as they phrased it, were painted with the most
brilliant wall-decorations, and the delicately-shaped lotus columns
supporting the roof were striped with half a dozen colours, and were
hung with streamers of linen. The ceilings and pavements seem to have
afforded the artists a happy field for a display of their originality
and skill, and it is on these stretches of smooth-plastered surface that
gems of Egyptian art are often found. A pavement from the palace of
Akhnaton at Tell el Amârna shows a scene in which a cow is depicted
frisking through the reeds, and birds are represented flying over the
marshes. In the palace of Amenhotep III. at Gurneh there was a ceiling
decoration representing a flight of doves, which, in its delicacy of
execution and colouring, is not to be classed with the crude forms of
Egyptian decoration, but indicates an equally light-hearted temperament
in its creator. It is not probable that either bright colours or
daintiness of design would emanate from the brains of a sombre-minded
people.
Some of the feminine garments worn in ancient Egypt were exceedingly
gaudy, and they made up in colour all that they lacked in variety of
design. In the Middle and New Empires the robes of the men were as
many-hued as their wall decorations, and as rich in composition. One may
take as a typical example the costume of a certain priest who lived at
the end of Dynasty XVIII. An elaborate wig covers his head; a richly
ornamented necklace surrounds his neck; the upper part of his body is
clothed in a tunic of gauze-like linen; as a skirt there is swathed
around him the most delicately coloured fine linen, one end of which is
brought up and thrown gracefully over his arm; decorated sandals cover
his feet and curl up over his toes; and in his hand he carries a
jewelled wand surmounted by feathers. It would be an absurdity to state
that these folds of fine linen hid a heart set on things higher than
this world and its vanities. Nor do the objects of daily use found in
the tombs suggest any austerity in the Egyptian character. There is no
reflection of the Underworld to be looked for in the ornamental bronze
mirrors, nor smell of death in the frail perfume pots. Religious
abstraction is not to be sought in lotus-formed drinking-cups, and
mortification of the body is certainly not practised on golden chairs
and soft cushions. These were the objects buried in the tombs of the
priests and religious teachers.
The puritanical tendency of a race can generally be discovered by a
study of the personal names of the people. The names by which the
Egyptians called their children are as gay as they are pretty, and lack
entirely the Puritan character. "Eyes-of-love," "My-lady-is-as-gold,"
"Cool-breeze," "Gold-and-lapis-lazuli," "Beautiful-morning," are
Egyptian names very far removed from "Through-trials-and-tribulations-
we-enter-into-the-Kingdom-of-Heaven Jones," which is the actual name
of a now living scion of a Roundhead family. And the well-known
"Praise-God Barebones" has little to do with the Egyptian "Beautiful-
Kitten," "Little-Wild-Lion," "I-have-wanted-you," "Sweetheart," and
so on.
The nature of the folk-tales is equally indicative of the temperament
of a nation. The stories which have come down to us from ancient Egypt
are often as frivolous as they are quaint. Nothing delighted the
Egyptians more than the listening to a tale told by an expert
story-teller; and it is to be supposed that such persons were in as much
demand in the old days as they are now. One may still read of the
adventures of the Prince who was fated to die by a dog, a snake, or a
crocodile; of the magician who made the waters of the lake heap
themselves up that he might descend to the bottom dry-shod to recover a
lady's jewel; of the fat old wizard who could cut a man's head off and
join it again to his body; of the fairy godmothers who made presents to
a new-born babe; of the shipwrecked sailor who was thrown up on an
island inhabited by serpents with human natures; of the princess in the
tower whose lovers spent their days in attempting to climb to her
window,--and so on. The stories have no moral, they are not pompous:
they are purely amusing, interesting, and romantic. As an example one
may quote the story which is told of Prince Setna, the son of Rameses
II. This Prince was one day sitting in the court of the temple of Ptah,
when he saw a woman pass "beautiful exceedingly, there being no woman of
her beauty." There were wonderful golden ornaments upon her, and she was
attended by fifty-two persons, themselves of some rank and much beauty.
"The hour that Setna saw her, he knew not the place on earth where he
was"; and he called to his servants and told them to "go quickly to the
place where she is, and learn what comes under her command." The
beautiful lady proved finally to be named Tabubna, the daughter of a
priest of Bast, the Cat. Setna's acquaintance with her was later of a
most disgraceful character; and, from motives which are not clear, she
made him murder his own children to please her. At the critical moment,
however, when the climax is reached, the old, old joke is played upon
the listener, who is told that Setna then woke up, and discovered that
the whole affair had been an afternoon dream in the shade of the temple
court.
The Egyptians often amused themselves by drawing comic pictures and
caricatures, and there is an interesting series still preserved in which
animals take the place of human beings, and are shown performing all
manner of antics. One sees a cat walking on its hind legs driving a
flock of geese, while a wolf carrying a staff and knapsack leads a herd
of goats. There is a battle of the mice and cats, and the king of the
mice, in his chariot drawn by two dogs, is seen attacking the fortress
of the cats. A picture which is worthy of Edward Lear shows a ridiculous
hippopotamus seated amidst the foliage of a tree, eating from a table,
whilst a crow mounts a ladder to wait upon him. There are caricatures
showing women of fashion rouging their faces, unshaven and really
amusing old tramps, and so forth. Even upon the walls of the tombs
there are often comic pictures, in which one may see little girls
fighting and tearing at each others' hair, men tumbling one over another
as they play, and the like; and one must suppose that these were the
scenes which the owner of the tomb wished to perpetuate throughout the
eternity of Death.
The Egyptians took keen delight in music. In the sound of the trumpet
and on the well-tuned cymbals they praised God in Egypt as merrily as
the Psalmist could wish. The strings and the pipe, the lute and the
harp, made music at every festival--religious, national, or private.
Plato tells us that "nothing but beautiful forms and fine music was
permitted to enter into the assemblies of young people" in Egypt; and he
states that music was considered as being of the greatest consequence
for its beneficial effects upon youthful minds. Strabo records the fact
that music was largely taught in Egypt, and the numbers of musical
instruments buried in the tombs or represented in the decorations
confirm his statement. The music was scientifically taught, and a
knowledge of harmony is apparent in the complicated forms of the
instruments. The harps sometimes had as many as twenty-two strings: the
long-handled guitars, fitted with three strings, were capable of wide
gradations; and the flutes were sufficiently complicated to be described
by early writers as "many-toned." The Egyptian did not merely bang a
drum with his fist because it made a noise, nor blow blasts upon a
trumpet as a means of expressing the inexpressible. He was an educated
musician, and he employed the medium of music to encourage his lightness
of heart and to render his gaiety more gay.
[Illustration: PL. X. A relief of the Saitic Period, representing an old
man playing upon a harp, and a woman beating a
drum. Offerings of food and flowers are placed
before them.
--ALEXANDRIA MUSEUM.]
[_Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha._
One sees representations of the women in a rich man's harem amusing
themselves by dancing and singing. In the tomb of Ay there is a scene
showing the interior of the women's quarters, and here the ladies are
shown dancing, playing guitars, feasting, or adorning themselves with
their jewellery; while the store-rooms are seen to be filled with all
manner of musical instruments, as well as mirrors, boxes of clothes, and
articles of feminine use. At feasts and banquets a string band played
during the meal, and songs were sung to the accompaniment of the harp.
At religious festivals choruses of male and female voices were
introduced. Soldiers marched through the streets to the sound of
trumpets and drums, and marriage processions and the like were led by a
band. At the feasts it was customary for the dancing-girls, who were
employed for the amusement of the guests, to perform their dances and to
play a guitar or a flute at the same time. One sees representations of
girls, their heads thrown back and their long hair flying, merrily
twanging a guitar as they skip round the room. In the civil and
religious processions many of the participators danced along as though
from sheer lightness of heart; and on some occasions even the band
footed it down the high-road, circling, jumping, and skipping as they
played.
The words for "rejoice" and "dance" were synonymous in the literature of
the Egyptians. In early days dancing naturally implied rejoicing, and
rejoicing was most easily expressed by dancing. But the Egyptians of the
refined periods more often danced to amuse themselves, regarding it,
just as we do at the present day, as an exhilaration. Persons of the
upper classes, however, did not indulge very freely in it, but preferred
to watch the performances of professional dancers. At all banquets
dancing was as indispensable as wine, women, and song, and it rather
depended on the nature of the wine and women as to whether the guests
joined personally in the sport or sat still while the dancers swayed
around the room. The professionals were generally women, but sometimes
men were employed, and one sees representations of a man performing some
difficult solo while a chorus of women sings and marks time by clapping
the hands. Men and women danced together on occasions, but as a general
rule the Egyptian preferred to watch the movements of the more graceful
sex by themselves. The women sometimes danced naked, to show off the
grace of their poses and the suppleness of their muscles; sometimes they
were decked with ribbons only; and sometimes they wore transparent
dresses made of linen of the finest texture. It was not unusual for
them to carry tambourines and castanets with which to beat time to their
dances. On the other hand, there were delicate and sober performances,
unaccompanied by music. The paintings show some of the poses to have
been exceedingly graceful, and there were character dances enacted in
which the figures must have been highly dramatic and artistic. For
example, the tableau which occurs in one dance, and is called "The
Wind," shows two of the dancing-girls bent back like reeds when the wind
blows upon them, while a third figure stands over them in protection, as
though symbolising the immovable rocks.
But more usually the merry mood of the Egyptians asserted itself, as it
so often does at the present day, in a demand for something approaching
nearer to buffoonery. The dancers whirled one another about in the
wildest manner, often tumbling head over heels on the floor. A trick,
attended generally with success, consisted in the attempt by the dancers
to balance the body upon the head without the support of the arms. This
buffoonery was highly appreciated by the audience which witnessed it;
and the banqueting-room must have been full of the noise of riotous
mirth. One cannot, indeed, regard a feast as pompous or solemn at which
the banging of the tambourines and the click of castanets vied with the
clatter of the dishes and the laughter of the guests in creating a
general hullabaloo. Let those state who will that the Egyptian was a
gloomy individual, but first let them not fail to observe that same
Egyptian standing upon his head amidst the roars of laughter of his
friends.
Dancing as a religious ceremony is to be found in many primitive
countries, and in Egypt it exists at the present day in more than one
form. In the days of the Pharaohs it was customary to institute dances
in honour of some of the gods, more especially those deities whose
concerns were earthy--that is to say, those connected with love, joy,
birth, death, fertility, reproduction, and so on. It will be remembered
how David danced before the Ark of the Lord, and how his ancestors
danced in honour of the golden calf. In Egypt the king was wont to dance
before the great god Min of the crops, and at harvest-time the peasants
performed their thanksgiving before the figures of Min in this manner.
Hathor and Bast, the two great goddesses of pleasure, were worshipped in
the dance. Hathor was mistress of sports and dancing, and patron of
amusements and mirth, joy and pleasure, beauty and love; and in regard
to the happy temperament of the Egyptians, it is significant that this
goddess was held in the highest esteem throughout the history of the
nation.
Bast was honoured by a festival which for merriment and frivolity could
not well be equalled. The festival took place at Bubastis, and is
described by Herodotus in the following words:--
"This is the nature of the ceremony on the way to
Bubastis. They go by water, and numerous boats are
crowded with persons of both sexes. During the voyage
several women strike the cymbals, some men play the
flute, the rest singing and clapping their hands. As they
pass near a town they bring the boat close to the bank.
Some of the women continue to sing and play the cymbals;
others cry out as long as they can, and utter mocking
jests against the people of the town, who begin to dance,
while the former pull up their clothes before them in a
scoffing manner. The same is repeated at every town they
pass upon the river. Arrived at Bubastis, they celebrate
the festival of Bast, sacrificing a great number of
victims, and on that occasion a greater consumption of
wine takes place than during the whole of the year."
At this festival of Bast half the persons taking part in the
celebrations must have become intoxicated. The Egyptians were always
given to wine-drinking, and Athenæus goes so far as to say that they
were a nation addicted to systematic intemperance. The same writer, on
the authority of Hellanicus, states that the vine was cultivated in the
Nile valley at a date earlier than that at which it was first grown by
any other people; and it is to this circumstance that Dion attributes
the Egyptian's love of wine. Strabo and other writers speak of the wines
of Egypt as being particularly good, and various kinds emanating from
different localities are mentioned. The wines made from grapes were of
the red and white varieties; but there were also fruit wines, made from
pomegranates and other fruits. In the lists of offerings inscribed on
the walls of temples and tombs one sees a large number of varieties
recorded--wines from the north, wines from the south, wines provincial,
and wines foreign. Beer, made of barley, was also drunk very largely,
and this beverage is heartily commended by the early writers. Indeed,
the wine and beer-bibber was so common an offender against the dignity
of the nation, that every moralist who arose had a word to say against
him. Thus, for example, in the Maxims of Ani one finds the moralist
writing--
"Do not put thyself in a beer-house. An evil thing are
words reported as coming from thy mouth when thou dost
not know that they have been said by thee. When thou
fallest thy limbs are broken, and nobody giveth thee a
hand. Thy comrades in drink stand up, saying, 'Away with
this drunken man.'"
The less thoughtful members of society, however, considered drunkenness
as a very good joke, and even went so far as to portray it in their tomb
decorations. One sees men carried home from a feast across the shoulders
of three of their companions, or ignominiously hauled out of the house
by their ankles and the scruff of their neck. In the tomb of Paheri at
El Kab women are represented at a feast, and scraps of their
conversation are recorded, such, for instance, as "Give me eighteen cups
of wine, for I should love to drink to drunkenness: my inside is as dry
as straw." There are actually representations of women overcome with
nausea through immoderate drinking, and being attended by servants who
have hastened with basins to their assistance. In another tomb-painting
a drunken man is seen to have fallen against one of the delicate
pillars of the pavilion with such force that it has toppled over, to the
dismay of the guests around.
In the light of such scenes as these one may picture the life of an
Egyptian in the elder days as being not a little depraved. One sees the
men in their gaudy raiment, and the women luxuriously clothed, staining
their garments with the wine spilt from the drinking-bowls as their
hands shake with their drunken laughter; and the vision of Egyptian
solemnity is still further banished at the sight. It is only too obvious
that a land of laughter and jest, feasting and carouse, must be situated
too near a Pompeian volcano to be capable of endurance, and the
inhabitants too purposeless in their movements to avoid at some time or
other running into the paths of burning lava. The people of Egypt went
merrily through the radiant valley in which they lived, employing all
that the gods had given them,--not only the green palms, the thousand
birds, the blue sky, the hearty wind, the river and its reflections, but
also the luxuries of their civilisation,--to make for themselves a frail
feast of happiness. And when the last flowers, the latest empty
drinking-cup, fell to the ground, nothing remained to them but that
sodden, drunken night of disgrace which shocks one so at the end of the
dynastic history, and which inevitably led to the fall of the nation.
Christian asceticism came as the natural reaction and Muhammedan
strictness followed in due course; and it required the force of both
these movements to put strength and health into the people once more.
[Illustration: PL. XI. An Egyptian noble of the Eighteenth Dynasty
hunting birds with a boomerang and decoys.
He stands in a reed-boat which floats amidst
the papyrus clumps, and a cat retrieves the
fallen birds. In the boat with him are his
wife and son.
--FROM A THEBAN TOMB-PAINTING, BRITISH MUSEUM.]
One need not dwell, however, on this aspect of the Egyptian temperament.
It is more pleasing, and as pertinent to the argument, to follow the old
lords of the Nile into the sunshine once more, and to glance for a
moment at their sports. Hunting was a pleasure to them, in which they
indulged at every opportunity. One sees representations of this with
great frequency upon the walls of the tombs. A man will be shown
standing in a reed boat which has been pushed in amongst the waving
papyrus. A boomerang is in his hand, and his wife by his side helps him
to locate the wild duck, so that he may penetrate within
throwing-distance of the birds before they rise. Presently up they go
with a whir, and the boomerang claims its victims; while all manner of
smaller birds dart from amidst the reeds, and gaudy butterflies pass
startled overhead. Again one sees the hunter galloping in his chariot
over the hard sand of the desert, shooting his arrows at the gazelle as
he goes. Or yet again with his dogs he is shown in pursuit of the
long-eared Egyptian hare, or of some other creature of the desert. When
not thus engaged he may be seen excitedly watching a bullfight, or
eagerly judging the merits of rival wrestlers, boxers, and fencers. One
may follow him later into the seclusion of his garden, where, surrounded
by a wealth of trees and flowers, he plays draughts with his friends,
romps with his children, or fishes in his artificial ponds. There is
much evidence of this nature to show that the Egyptian was as much given
to these healthy amusements as he was to the mirth of the feast.
Josephus states that the Egyptians were a people addicted to pleasure,
and the evidence brought together in the foregoing pages shows that his
statement is to be confirmed. In sincere joy of living they surpassed
any other nation of the ancient world. Life was a thing of such delight
to the Egyptian, that he shrank equally from losing it himself and from
taking it from another. His prayer was that he might live to be a
centenarian. In spite of the many wars of the Egyptians, there was less
unnecessary bloodshed in the Nile valley than in any other country which
called itself civilised. Death was as terrible to them as it was
inevitable, and the constant advice of the thinker was that the living
should make the most of their life. When a king died, it was said that
"he went forth to heaven having spent life in happiness," or that "he
rested after life, having completed his years in happiness." It is true
that the Egyptians wished to picture the after-life as one of continuous
joy. One sees representations of a man's soul seated in the shade of the
fruit-trees of the Underworld, while birds sing in the branches above
him, and a lake of cool water lies before him; but they seemed to know
that this was too pleasant a picture to be the real one. A woman, the
wife of a high priest, left upon her tombstone the following
inscription, addressed to her husband:--
"O, brother, husband, friend," she says, "thy desire to
drink and to eat hath not ceased. Therefore be drunken,
enjoy the love of women--make holiday. Follow thy desire
by night and by day. Put not care within thy heart. Lo!
are not these the years of thy life upon earth? For as
for the Underworld, it is a land of slumber and heavy
darkness, a resting-place for those who have passed
within it. Each sleepeth there in his own form, they
never awake to see their fellows, they behold not their
fathers nor their mothers, their heart is careless of
their wives and children."
She knows that she will be too deeply steeped in the stupor of the
Underworld to remember her husband, and unselfishly she urges him to
continue to be happy after the manner of his nation. Then, in a passage
which rings down the years in its terrible beauty, she tells of her
utter despair, lying in the gloomy Underworld, suffocated with the mummy
bandages, and craving for the light, the laughter, and the coolness of
the day.
"The water of life," she cries, "with which every mouth
is moistened, is corruption to me, the water that is by
me corrupteth me. I know not what to do since I came into
this valley. Give me running water, say to me, 'Water
shall not cease to be brought to thee.' Turn my face to
the north wind upon the edge of the water. Verily thus
shall my heart be cooled and refreshed from its pain."
It is, however, the glory of life, rather than the horror of death,
which is the dominant note in the inscriptions and reliefs. The scenes
in the tomb decorations seem to cry out for very joy. The artist has
imprisoned in his representations as much sheer happiness as was ever
infused into cold stone. One sees there the gazelle leaping over the
hills as the sun rises, the birds flapping their wings and singing, the
wild duck rising from the marshes, and the butterflies flashing
overhead. The fundamental joy of living--that gaiety of life which the
human being may feel in common with the animals--is shown in these
scenes as clearly as is the merriment in the representations of feasts
and dancing. In these paintings and reliefs one finds an exact
illustration to the joyful exhortation of the Psalmist as he cries, "Let
the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; ... let the fields be
joyful, and all that is therein." In a land where, to quote one of their
own poems, "the tanks are full of water and the earth overflows with
love," where "the cool north wind" blows merrily over the fields, and
the sun never ceases to shine, it would be a remarkable phenomenon if
the ancient Egyptians had not developed the sanguine temperament. The
foregoing pages have shown them at their feasts, in their daily
occupations, and in their sports, and the reader will find that it is
not difficult to describe them, in the borrowed words of the old
geographer, as a people always gay and often frivolous, and
never-ceasingly "fond of dancing and red wine."
CHAPTER V.
THE MISFORTUNES OF WENAMON.
In the third chapter of this book it has been shown that the
archæologist is, to some extent, enamoured of the Past because it can
add to the stock of things which are likely to tickle the fancy. So
humorous a man is he, so fond of the good things of life, so stirred by
its adventures, so touched by its sorrows, that he must needs go to the
Past to replenish his supplies, as another might go to Paris or
Timbuctoo.
Here, then, is the place to give an example of the entertainment which
he is likely to find in this province of his; and if the reader can
detect any smell of dust or hear any creak of dead bones in the story
which follows, it will be a matter of surprise to me.
In the year 1891, at a small village in Upper Egypt named El Hibeh, some
natives unearthed a much damaged roll of papyrus which appeared to them
to be very ancient. Since they had heard that antiquities have a market
value they did not burn it along with whatever other scraps of
inflammable material they had collected for their evening fire, but
preserved it, and finally took it to a dealer, who gave them in exchange
for it a small sum of money. From the dealer's hands it passed into the
possession of Monsieur Golenischeff, a Russian Egyptologist, who
happened at the time to be travelling in Egypt; and by him it was
carried to St Petersburg, where it now rests. This _savant_ presently
published a translation of the document, which at once caused a
sensation in the Egyptological world; and during the next few years four
amended translations were made by different scholars. The interest shown
in this tattered roll was due to the fact that it had been found to
contain the actual report written by an official named Wenamon to his
chief, the High Priest of Amon-Ra, relating his adventures in the
Mediterranean while procuring cedar-wood from the forests of Lebanon.
The story which Wenamon tells is of the greatest value to Egyptology,
giving as it does a vivid account of the political conditions obtaining
in Syria and Egypt during the reign of the Pharaoh Rameses XII.; but it
also has a very human interest, and the misfortunes of the writer may
excite one's sympathy and amusement, after this lapse of three thousand
years, as though they had occurred at the present time.
In the time at which Wenamon wrote his report Egypt had fallen on evil
days. A long line of incapable descendants of the great Rameses II. and
Rameses III. had ruled the Nile valley; and now a wretched ghost of a
Pharaoh, Rameses XII., sat upon the throne, bereft of all power, a ruler
in name only. The government of the country lay in the hands of two
great nobles: in Upper Egypt, Herhor, High Priest of Amon-Ra, was
undisputed master; and in Lower Egypt, Nesubanebded, a prince of the
city of Tanis (the Zoan of the Bible), virtually ruled as king of the
Delta. Both these persons ultimately ascended the throne of the
Pharaohs; but at the time of Wenamon's adventures the High Priest was
the more powerful of the two, and could command the obedience of the
northern ruler, at any rate in all sacerdotal matters. The priesthood of
Amon-Ra was the greatest political factor in Egyptian life. That god's
name was respected even in the courts of Syria, and though his power was
now on the wane, fifty years previously the great religious body which
bowed the knee to him was feared throughout all the countries
neighbouring to Egypt. The main cause of Wenamon's troubles was the lack
of appreciation of this fact that the god's influence in Syria was not
as great as it had been in the past; and this report would certainly not
have been worth recording here if he had realised that prestige is, of
all factors in international relations, the least reliable.
In the year 1113 B.C. the High Priest undertook the construction of a
ceremonial barge in which the image of the god might be floated upon the
sacred waters of the Nile during the great religious festivals at
Thebes; and for this purpose he found himself in need of a large amount
of cedar-wood of the best quality. He therefore sent for Wenamon, who
held the sacerdotal title of "Eldest of the Hall of the Temple of Amon,"
and instructed him to proceed to the Lebanon to procure the timber. It
is evident that Wenamon was no traveller, and we may perhaps be
permitted to picture him as a rather portly gentleman of middle age, not
wanting either in energy or pluck, but given, like some of his
countrymen, to a fluctuation of the emotions which would jump him from
smiles to tears, from hope to despair, in a manner amazing to any but an
Egyptian. To us he often appears as an overgrown baby, and his
misfortunes have a farcical nature which makes its appeal as much
through the medium of one's love of the ludicrous as through that of
one's interest in the romance of adventure. Those who are acquainted
with Egypt will see in him one of the types of naif, delightful children
of the Nile, whose decorous introduction into the parlour of the nations
of to-day is requiring such careful rehearsal.
For his journey the High Priest gave Wenamon a sum of money, and as
credentials he handed him a number of letters addressed to Egyptian and
Syrian princes, and intrusted to his care a particularly sacred little
image of Amon-Ra, known as Amon-of-the-Road, which had probably
accompanied other envoys to the Kingdoms of the Sea in times past, and
would be recognised as a token of the official nature of any embassy
which carried it.
Thus armed Wenamon set out from El Hibeh--probably the ancient Hetbennu,
the capital of the Eighteenth Province of Upper Egypt--on the sixteenth
day of the eleventh month of the fifth year of the reign of Rameses XII.
(1113 B.C.), and travelled down the Nile by boat to Tanis, a distance of
some 200 miles. On his arrival at this fair city of the Delta, whose
temples and palaces rose on the borders of the swamps at the edge of the
sea, Wenamon made his way to the palace of Nesubanebded, and handed to
him the letters which he had received from the High Priest. These were
caused to be read aloud; and Nesubanebded, hearing that Wenamon was
desirous of reaching the Lebanon as soon as possible, made the necessary
arrangements for his immediate despatch upon a vessel which happened
then to be lying at the quay under the command of a Syrian skipper named
Mengebet, who was about to set out for the Asiatic coast. On the first
day of the twelfth month, that is to say fourteen days after his
departure from his native town, Wenamon set sail from Tanis, crossing
the swamps and heading out into "the Great Syrian Sea."
The voyage over the blue rippling Mediterranean was calm and prosperous
as the good ship sailed along the barren shores of the land of the
Shasu, along the more mountainous coast of Edom, and thence northwards
past the cities of Askalon and Ashdod. To Wenamon, however, the journey
was fraught with anxiety. He was full of fears as to his reception in
Syria, for the first of his misfortunes had befallen him. Although he
had with him both money and the image of Amon-of-the-Road, in the
excitement and hurry of his departure he had entirely forgotten to
obtain again the bundle of letters of introduction which he had given
Nesubanebded to read; and thus there were grave reasons for supposing
that his mission might prove a complete failure. Mengebet was evidently
a stern old salt who cared not a snap of the fingers for Amon or his
envoy, and whose one desire was to reach his destination as rapidly as
wind and oars would permit; and it is probable that he refused bluntly
to return to Tanis when Wenamon informed him of the oversight. This and
the inherent distrust of an Egyptian for a foreigner led Wenamon to
regard the captain and his men with suspicion; and one must imagine him
seated in the rough deck-cabin gloomily guarding the divine image and
his store of money. He had with him a secretary and probably two or
three servants; and one may picture these unfortunates anxiously
watching the Syrian crew as they slouched about the deck. It is further
to be remembered that, as a general rule, the Egyptians are most
extremely bad sailors.
After some days the ship arrived at the little city of Dor, which
nestled at the foot of the Ridge of Carmel; and here they put in to
replenish their supplies. Wenamon states in his report that Dor was at
this time a city of the Thekel or Sicilians, some wandering band of
sea-rovers having left their native Sicily to settle here, at first
under the protection of the Egyptians, but now independent of them. The
King of Dor, by name Bedel, hearing that an envoy of the High Priest of
Amon-Ra had arrived in his harbour, very politely sent down to him a
joint of beef, some loaves of bread, and a jar of wine, upon which
Wenamon must have set to with an appetite, after subsisting upon the
scanty rations of the sea for so long a time.
It may be that the wine was more potent than that to which the Egyptian
was accustomed; or perhaps the white buildings of the city, glistening
in the sunlight, and the busy quays, engrossed his attention too
completely: anyhow, the second of his misfortunes now befel him. One of
the Syrian sailors seized the opportunity to slip into his cabin and to
steal the money which was hidden there. Before Wenamon had detected the
robbery the sailor had disappeared for ever amidst the houses of Dor.
That evening the distracted envoy, seated upon the floor of his cabin,
was obliged to chronicle the list of stolen money, which list was
afterwards incorporated in his report in the following manner:--
One vessel containing gold amounting to 5 debens,
Four vessels containing silver amounting to 20 "
One wallet containing silver amounting to 11 "
---------
Total of what was stolen: gold, 5 debens; silver, 31 debens.
A deben weighed about 100 grammes, and thus the robber was richer by
500 grammes of gold, which in those days would have the purchasing value
of about £600 in our money, and 3100 grammes of silver, equal to about
£2200.[1]
[Footnote 1: See Weigall: Catalogue of Weights and Balances in
the Cairo Museum, p. xvi.]
[Illustration: PL. XII. A reed box for holding clothing, discovered in
the tomb of Yuaa and Tuau.
--CAIRO MUSEUM.]
[_Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha._
Wenamon must have slept little that night, and early on the following
morning he hastened to the palace of King Bedel to lay his case before
him. Fortunately Bedel did not ask him for his credentials, but with the
utmost politeness he gave his consideration to the affair. Wenamon's
words, however, were by no means polite, and one finds in them a
blustering assurance which suggests that he considered himself a
personage of extreme consequence, and regarded a King of Dor as nothing
in comparison with an envoy of Amon-Ra.
"I have been robbed in your harbour," he cried, so he tells us in the
report, "and, since you are the king of this land, you must be regarded
as a party to the crime. You must search for my money. The money belongs
to Nesubanebded, and it belongs to Herhor, my lord" (no mention,
observe, of the wretched Rameses XII.), "and to the other nobles of
Egypt. It belongs also to Weret, and to Mekmel, and to Zakar-Baal the
Prince of Byblos."[2] These latter were the persons to whom it was to be
paid.
[Footnote 2: The translation is based on that of Prof. Breasted.]
The King of Dor listened to this outburst with Sicilian politeness, and
replied in the following very correct terms: "With all due respect to
your honour and excellency," he said, "I know nothing of this complaint
which you have lodged with me. If the thief belonged to my land and went
on board your ship in order to steal your money, I would advance you the
sum from my treasury while they were finding the culprit. But the thief
who robbed you belonged to your ship. Tarry, however, a few days here
with me and I will seek him."
Wenamon, therefore, strode back to the vessel, and there remained,
fuming and fretting, for nine long days. The skipper Mengebet, however,
had no reason to remain at Dor, and seems to have told Wenamon that he
could wait no longer. On the tenth day, therefore, Wenamon retraced his
steps to the palace, and addressed himself once more to Bedel. "Look,"
he said to the king, when he was ushered into the royal presence, "you
have not found my money, and therefore you had better let me go with my
ship's captain and with those...." The rest of the interview is lost in
a lacuna, and practically the only words which the damaged condition of
the papyrus permits one now to read are, "He said, 'Be silent!'" which
indicates that even the patience of a King of Dor could be exhausted.
When the narrative is able to be resumed one finds that Wenamon has set
sail from the city, and has travelled along the coast to the proud city
of Tyre, where he arrived one afternoon penniless and letterless,
having now nothing left but the little Amon-of-the-Road and his own
audacity. The charms of Tyre, then one of the great ports of the
civilised world, were of no consequence to the destitute Egyptian, nor
do they seem to have attracted the skipper of his ship, who, after his
long delay at Dor, was in no mood to linger. At dawn the next morning,
therefore, the journey was continued, and once more an unfortunate
lacuna interrupts the passage of the report. From the tattered fragments
of the writing, however, it seems that at the next port of call--perhaps
the city of Sidon--a party of inoffensive Sicilian merchants was
encountered, and immediately the desperate Wenamon hatched a daring
plot. By this time he had come to place some trust in Mengebet, the
skipper, who, for the sake of his own good standing in Egypt, had shown
himself willing to help the envoy of Amon-Ra in his troubles, although
he would not go so far as to delay his journey for him; and Wenamon
therefore admitted him to his councils. On some pretext or other a party
led by the Egyptian paid a visit to these merchants and entered into
conversation with them. Then, suddenly overpowering them, a rush was
made for their cash-box, which Wenamon at once burst open. To his
disappointment he found it to contain only thirty-one debens of silver,
which happened to be precisely the amount of silver, though not of gold,
which he had lost. This sum he pocketed, saying to the struggling
merchants as he did so, "I will take this money of yours, and will keep
it until you find my money. Was it not a Sicilian who stole it, and no
thief of ours? I will take it."
With these words the party raced back to the ship, scrambled on board,
and in a few moments had hoisted sail and were scudding northwards
towards Byblos, where Wenamon proposed to throw himself on the mercy of
Zakar-Baal, the prince of that city. Wenamon, it will be remembered, had
always considered that he had been robbed by a Sicilian of Dor,
notwithstanding the fact that only a sailor of his own ship could have
known of the existence of the money, as King Bedel seems to have pointed
out to him. The Egyptian, therefore, did not regard this forcible
seizure of silver from these other Sicilians as a crime. It was a
perfectly just appropriation of a portion of the funds which belonged to
him by rights. Let us imagine ourselves robbed at our hotel by Hans the
German waiter: it would surely give us the most profound satisfaction to
take Herr Schnupfendorff, the piano-tuner, by the throat when next he
visited us, and go through his pockets. He and Hans, being of the same
nationality, must suffer for one another's sins, and if the magistrate
thinks otherwise he must be regarded as prejudiced by too much study of
the law.
Byblos stood at the foot of the hills of Lebanon, in the very shadow of
the great cedars, and it was therefore Wenamon's destination. Now,
however, as the ship dropped anchor in the harbour, the Egyptian
realised that his mission would probably be fruitless, and that he
himself would perhaps be flung into prison for illegally having in his
possession the famous image of the god to which he could show no written
right. Moreover, the news of the robbery of the merchants might well
have reached Byblos overland. His first action, therefore, was to
conceal the idol and the money; and this having been accomplished he sat
himself down in his cabin to await events.
The Prince of Byblos certainly had been advised of the robbery; and as
soon as the news of the ship's arrival was reported to him he sent a
curt message to the captain saying simply, "Get out of my harbour." At
this Wenamon gave up all hope, and, hearing that there was then in port
a vessel which was about to sail for Egypt, he sent a pathetic message
to the prince asking whether he might be allowed to travel by it back to
his own country.
No satisfactory answer was received, and for the best part of a month
Wenamon's ship rode at anchor, while the distracted envoy paced the
deck, vainly pondering upon a fitting course of action. Each morning the
same brief order, "Get out of my harbour," was delivered to him by the
harbour-master; but the indecision of the authorities as to how to treat
this Egyptian official prevented the order being backed by force.
Meanwhile Wenamon and Mengebet judiciously spread through the city the
report of the power of Amon-of-the-Road, and hinted darkly at the wrath
which would ultimately fall upon the heads of those who suffered the
image and its keeper to be turned away from the quays of Byblos. No
doubt, also, a portion of the stolen debens of silver was expended in
bribes to the priests of the city, for, as we shall presently see, one
of them took up Wenamon's cause with the most unnatural vigour.
All, however, seemed to be of no avail, and Wenamon decided to get away
as best he could. His worldly goods were quietly transferred to the ship
which was bound for the Nile; and, when night had fallen, with
Amon-of-the-Road tucked under his arm, he hurried along the deserted
quay. Suddenly out of the darkness there appeared a group of figures,
and Wenamon found himself confronted by the stalwart harbour-master and
his police. Now, indeed, he gave himself up for lost. The image would be
taken from him, and no longer would he have the alternative of leaving
the harbour. He must have groaned aloud as he stood there in the black
night, with the cold sea wind threatening to tear the covers from the
treasure under his arm. His surprise, therefore, was unbounded when the
harbour-master addressed him in the following words: "Remain until
morning here near the prince."
The Egyptian turned upon him fiercely. "Are you not the man who came to
me every day saying, "Get out of my harbour?" he cried. "And now are
you not saying, 'Remain in Byblos?' your object being to let this ship
which I have found depart for Egypt without me, so that you may come to
me again and say, 'Go away.'"
The harbour-master in reality had been ordered to detain Wenamon for
quite another reason. On the previous day, while the prince was
sacrificing to his gods, one of the noble youths in his train, who had
probably seen the colour of Wenamon's debens, suddenly broke into a
religious frenzy, and so continued all that day, and far into the night,
calling incessantly upon those around him to go and fetch the envoy of
Amon-Ra and the sacred image. Prince Zakar-Baal had considered it
prudent to obey this apparently divine command, and had sent the
harbour-master to prevent Wenamon's departure. Finding, however, that
the Egyptian was determined to board the ship, the official sent a
messenger to the prince, who replied with an order to the skipper of the
vessel to remain that night in harbour.
Upon the following morning a deputation, evidently friendly, waited on
Wenamon, and urged him to come to the palace, which he finally did,
incidentally attending on his way the morning service which was being
celebrated upon the sea-shore. "I found the prince," writes Wenamon in
his report, "sitting in his upper chamber, leaning his back against a
window, while the waves of the Great Syrian Sea beat against the wall
below. I said to him, 'The mercy of Amon be with you!' He said to me,
'How long is it from now since you left the abode of Amon?' I replied,
'Five months and one day from now.'"
The prince then said, "Look now, if what you say is true, where is the
writing of Amon which should be in your hand? Where is the letter of the
High Priest of Amon which should be in your hand?"
"I gave them to Nesubanebded," replied Wenamon.
"Then," says Wenamon, "he was very wroth, and he said to me, 'Look here,
the writings and the letters are not in your hand. And where is the fine
ship which Nesubanebded would have given you, and where is its picked
Syrian crew? He would not put you and your affairs in the charge of this
skipper of yours, who might have had you killed and thrown into the sea.
Whom would they have sought the god from then?--and you, whom would they
have sought you from then?' So said he to me, and I replied to him,
'There are indeed Egyptian ships and Egyptian crews that sail under
Nesubanebded, but he had at the time no ship and no Syrian crew to give
me.'"
The prince did not accept this as a satisfactory answer, but pointed out
that there were ten thousand ships sailing between Egypt and Syria, of
which number there must have been one at Nesubanebded's disposal.
"Then," writes Wenamon, "I was silent in this great hour. At length he
said to me, 'On what business have you come here?' I replied, 'I have
come to get wood for the great and august barge of Amon-Ra, king of the
gods. Your father supplied it, your grandfather did so, and you too
shall do it.' So spoke I to him."
The prince admitted that his fathers had sent wood to Egypt, but he
pointed out that they had received proper remuneration for it. He then
told his servants to go and find the old ledger in which the
transactions were recorded, and this being done, it was found that a
thousand debens of silver had been paid for the wood. The prince now
argued that he was in no way the servant of Amon, for if he had been he
would have been obliged to supply the wood without remuneration. "I am,"
he proudly declared, "neither your servant nor the servant of him who
sent you here. If I cry out to the Lebanon the heavens open and the logs
lie here on the shore of the sea." He went on to say that if, of his
condescension, he now procured the timber Wenamon would have to provide
the ships and all the tackle. "If I make the sails of the ships for
you," said the prince, "they may be top-heavy and may break, and you
will perish in the sea when Amon thunders in heaven; for skilled
workmanship comes only from Egypt to reach my place of abode." This
seems to have upset the composure of Wenamon to some extent, and the
prince took advantage of his uneasiness to say, "Anyway, what is this
miserable expedition that they have had you make (without money or
equipment)?"
At this Wenamon appears to have lost his temper. "O guilty one!" he said
to the prince, "this is no miserable expedition on which I am engaged.
There is no ship upon the Nile which Amon does not own, and his is the
sea, and his this Lebanon of which you say, 'It is mine.' Its forests
grow for the barge of Amon, the lord of every ship. Why Amon-Ra himself,
the king of the gods, said to Herhor, my lord, 'Send me'; and Herhor
made me go bearing the statue of this great god. Yet see, you have
allowed this great god to wait twenty-nine days after he had arrived in
your harbour, although you certainly knew he was there. He is indeed
still what he once was: yes, now while you stand bargaining for the
Lebanon with Amon its lord. As for Amon-Ra, the king of the gods, he is
the lord of life and health, and he was the lord of your fathers, who
spent their lifetime offering to him. You also, you are the servant of
Amon. If you will say to Amon, 'I will do this,' and you execute his
command, you shall live and be prosperous and be healthy, and you shall
be popular with your whole country and people. Wish not for yourself a
thing belonging to Amon-Ra, king of the gods. Truly the lion loves his
own! Let my secretary be brought to me that I may send him to
Nesubanebded, and he will send you all that I shall ask him to send,
after which, when I return to the south, I will send you all, all your
trifles again."
"So spake I to him," says Wenamon in his report, as with a flourish of
his pen he brings this fine speech to an end. No doubt it would have
been more truthful in him to say, "So would I have spoken to him had I
not been so flustered"; but of all types of lie this is probably the
most excusable. At all events, he said sufficient to induce the prince
to send his secretary to Egypt; and as a token of good faith Zakar-Baal
sent with him seven logs of cedar-wood. In forty-eight days' time the
messenger returned, bringing with him five golden and five silver vases,
twenty garments of fine linen, 500 rolls of papyrus, 500 ox-hides, 500
coils of rope, twenty measures of lentils, and five measures of dried
fish. At this present the prince expressed himself most satisfied, and
immediately sent 300 men and 300 oxen with proper overseers to start the
work of felling the trees. Some eight months after leaving Tanis,
Wenamon's delighted eyes gazed upon the complete number of logs lying at
the edge of the sea, ready for shipment to Egypt.
The task being finished, the prince walked down to the beach to inspect
the timber, and he called to Wenamon to come with him. When the Egyptian
had approached, the prince pointed to the logs, remarking that the work
had been carried through although the remuneration had not been nearly
so great as that which his fathers had received. Wenamon was about to
reply when inadvertently the shadow of the prince's umbrella fell upon
his head. What memories or anticipations this trivial incident aroused
one cannot now tell with certainty. One of the gentlemen-in-waiting,
however, found cause in it to whisper to Wenamon, "The shadow of
Pharaoh, your lord, falls upon you"--the remark, no doubt, being
accompanied by a sly dig in the ribs. The prince angrily snapped, "Let
him alone"; and, with the picture of Wenamon gloomily staring out to
sea, we are left to worry out the meaning of the occurrence. It may be
that the prince intended to keep Wenamon at Byblos until the uttermost
farthing had been extracted from Egypt in further payment for the wood,
and that therefore he was to be regarded henceforth as Wenamon's king
and master. This is perhaps indicated by the following remarks of the
prince.
"Do not thus contemplate the terrors of the sea," he said to Wenamon.
"For if you do that you should also contemplate my own. Come, I have not
done to you what they did to certain former envoys. They spent seventeen
years in this land, and they died where they were." Then, turning to an
attendant, "Take him," he said, "and let him see the tomb in which they
lie."
"Oh, don't let me see it," Wenamon tells us that he cried in anguish;
but, recovering his composure, he continued in a more valiant strain.
"Mere human beings," he said, "were the envoys who were then sent.
There was no god among them (as there now is)."
The prince had recently ordered an engraver to write a commemorative
inscription upon a stone tablet recording the fact that the king of the
gods had sent Amon-of-the-Road to Byblos as his divine messenger and
Wenamon as his human messenger, that timber had been asked for and
supplied, and that in return Amon had promised him ten thousand years of
celestial life over and above that of ordinary persons. Wenamon now
reminded him of this, asking him why he should talk so slightingly of
the Egyptian envoys when the making of this tablet showed that in
reality he considered their presence an honour. Moreover, he pointed out
that when in future years an envoy from Egypt should read this tablet,
he would of course pronounce at once the magical prayers which would
procure for the prince, who would probably then be in hell after all, a
draught of water. This remark seems to have tickled the prince's fancy,
for he gravely acknowledged its value, and spoke no more in his former
strain. Wenamon closed the interview by promising that the High Priest
of Amon-Ra would fully reward him for his various kindnesses.
Shortly after this the Egyptian paid another visit to the sea-shore to
feast his eyes upon the logs. He must have been almost unable to contain
himself in the delight and excitement of the ending of his task and his
approaching return, in triumph to Egypt; and we may see him jauntily
walking over the sand, perhaps humming a tune to himself. Suddenly he
observed a fleet of eleven ships sailing towards the town, and the song
must have died upon his lips. As they drew nearer he saw to his horror
that they belonged to the Sicilians of Dor, and we must picture him
biting his nails in his anxiety as he stood amongst the logs. Presently
they were within hailing distance, and some one called to them asking
their business. The reply rang across the water, brief and terrible;
"Arrest Wenamon! Let not a ship of his pass to Egypt." Hearing these
words the envoy of Amon-Ra, king of the gods, just now so proudly
boasting, threw himself upon the sand and burst into tears.
The sobs of the wretched man penetrated to a chamber in which the
prince's secretary sat writing at the open window, and he hurried over
to the prostrate figure. "Whatever is the matter with you?" he said,
tapping the man on the shoulder.
Wenamon raised his head, "Surely you see these birds which descend on
Egypt," he groaned. "Look at them! They have come into the harbour, and
how long shall I be left forsaken here? Truly you see those who have
come to arrest me."
With these words one must suppose that Wenamon returned to his weeping,
for he says in his report that the sympathetic secretary went off to
find the prince in order that some plan of action might be
formulated. When the news was reported to Zakar-Baal, he too began to
lament; for the whole affair was menacing and ugly. Looking out of the
window he saw the Sicilian ships anchored as a barrier across the mouth
of the harbour, he saw the logs of cedar-wood strewn over the beach, he
saw the writhing figure of Wenamon pouring sand and dust upon his head
and drumming feebly with his toes; and his royal heart was moved with
pity for the misfortunes of the Egyptian.
[Illustration: PL. XIII. A festival scene of singers and dancers from a
tomb-painting of Dynasty XVII.
--THEBES]
[_Copied by H. Petrie._
Hastily speaking to his secretary, he told him to procure two large jars
of wine and a ram, and to give them to Wenamon on the chance that they
might stop the noise of his lamentations. The secretary and his servants
procured these things from the kitchen, and, tottering down with them to
the envoy, placed them by his side. Wenamon, however, merely glanced at
them in a sickly manner, and then buried his head once more. The failure
must have been observed from the window of the palace, for the prince
sent another servant flying off for a popular Egyptian lady of no
reputation, who happened to be living just then at Byblos in the
capacity of a dancing-girl. Presently she minced into the room, very
much elated, no doubt, at this indication of the royal favour. The
prince at once ordered her to hasten down on to the beach to comfort her
countryman. "Sing to him," he said. "Don't let his heart feel
apprehension."
Wenamon seemed to have waved the girl aside, and we may picture the
prince making urgent signs to the lady from his window to renew her
efforts. The moans of the miserable man, however, did not cease, and the
prince had recourse to a third device. This time he sent a servant to
Wenamon with a message of calm assurance. "Eat and drink," he said, "and
let not your heart feel apprehension. You shall hear all that I have to
say in the morning." At this Wenamon roused himself, and, wiping his
eyes, consented to be led back to his rooms, ever turning, no doubt, to
cast nervous glances in the direction of the silent ships of Dor.
On the following morning the prince sent for the leaders of the
Sicilians and asked them for what reason they had come to Byblos. They
replied that they had come in search of Wenamon, who had robbed some of
their countrymen of thirty-one debens of silver. The prince was placed
in a difficult position, for he was desirous to avoid giving offence
either to Dor or to Egypt from whence he now expected further payment;
but he managed to pass out on to clearer ground by means of a simple
stratagem.
"I cannot arrest the envoy of Amon in my territory," he said to the men
of Dor. "But I will send him away, and you shall pursue him and arrest
him."
The plan seems to have appealed to the sporting instincts of the
Sicilians, for it appears that they drew off from the harbour to await
their quarry. Wenamon was then informed of the scheme, and one may
suppose that he showed no relish for it. To be chased across a bilious
sea by sporting men of hardened stomach was surely a torture for the
damned; but it is to be presumed that Zakar-Baal left the Egyptian some
chance of escape. Hastily he was conveyed on board a ship, and his
misery must have been complete when he observed that outside the harbour
it was blowing a gale. Hardly had he set out into the "Great Syrian Sea"
before a terrific storm burst, and in the confusion which ensued we lose
sight of the waiting fleet. No doubt the Sicilians put in to Byblos once
more for shelter, and deemed Wenamon at the bottom of the ocean as the
wind whistled through their own bare rigging.
The Egyptian had planned to avoid his enemies by beating northwards when
he left the harbour, instead of southwards towards Egypt; but the
tempest took the ship's course into its own hands and drove the frail
craft north-westwards towards Cyprus, the wooded shores of which were,
in course of time, sighted. Wenamon was now indeed 'twixt the devil and
the deep sea, for behind him the waves raged furiously, and before him
he perceived a threatening group of Cypriots awaiting him upon the
wind-swept shore. Presently the vessel grounded upon the beach, and
immediately the ill-starred Egyptian and the entire crew were prisoners
in the hands of a hostile mob. Roughly they were dragged to the capital
of the island, which happened to be but a few miles distant, and with
ignominy they were hustled, wet and bedraggled, through the streets
towards the palace of Hetebe, the Queen of Cyprus.
As they neared the building the queen herself passed by, surrounded by a
brave company of nobles and soldiers. Wenamon burst away from his
captors, and bowed himself before the royal lady, crying as he did so,
"Surely there is somebody amongst this company who understands
Egyptian." One of the nobles, to Wenamon's joy, replied, "Yes, I
understand it."
"Say to my mistress," cried the tattered envoy, "that I have heard even
in far-off Thebes, the abode of Amon, that in every city injustice is
done, but that justice obtains in the land of Cyprus. Yet see, injustice
is done here also this day."
This was repeated to the queen, who replied, "Indeed!--what is this that
you say?"
Through the interpreter Wenamon then addressed himself to Hetebe. "If
the sea raged," he said, "and the wind drove me to the land where I now
am, will you let these people take advantage of it to murder me, I who
am an envoy of Amon? I am one for whom they will seek unceasingly. And
as for these sailors of the prince of Byblos, whom they also wish to
kill, their lord will undoubtedly capture ten crews of yours, and will
slay every man of them in revenge."
This seems to have impressed the queen, for she ordered the mob to stand
on one side, and to Wenamon she said, "Pass the night ..."
Here the torn writing comes to an abrupt end, and the remainder of
Wenamon's adventures are for ever lost amidst the dust of El Hibeh. One
may suppose that Hetebe took the Egyptian under her protection, and that
ultimately he arrived once more in Egypt, whither Zakar-Baal had perhaps
already sent the timber. Returning to his native town, it seems that
Wenamon wrote his report, which for some reason or other was never
despatched to the High Priest. Perhaps the envoy was himself sent for,
and thus his report was rendered useless; or perhaps our text is one of
several copies.
There can be no question that he was a writer of great power, and this
tale of his adventures must be regarded as one of the jewels of the
ancient Egyptian language. The brief description of the Prince of
Byblos, seated with his back to the window, while the waves beat against
the wall below, brings vividly before one that far-off scene, and
reveals a lightness of touch most unusual in writers of that time. There
is surely, too, an appreciation of a delicate form of humour observable
in his account of some of his dealings with the prince. It is appalling
to think that the peasants who found this roll of papyrus might have
used it as fuel for their evening fire; and that, had not a drifting
rumour of the value of such articles reached their village, this little
tale of old Egypt and the long-lost Kingdoms of the Sea would have gone
up to empty heaven in a puff of smoke.
CHAPTER VI.
THE STORY OF THE SHIPWRECKED SAILOR.
When the early Spanish explorers led their expeditions to Florida, it
was their intention to find the Fountain of Perpetual Youth, tales of
its potent waters having reached Peter Martyr as early as 1511. This
desire to discover the things pertaining to Fairyland has been,
throughout history, one of the most fertile sources of adventure. From
the days when the archaic Egyptians penetrated into the regions south of
the Cataracts, where they believed that the inhabitants were other than
human, and into Pount, the "Land of the Ghosts," the hope of Fairyland
has led men to search the face of the earth and to penetrate into its
unknown places. It has been the theme of countless stories: it has
supplied material for innumerable songs.
And in spite of the circumambulations of science about us, in spite of
the hardening of all the tissues of our imagination, in spite of the
phenomenal development of the commonplace, this desire for a glimpse of
the miraculous is still set deeply in our hearts. The old quest of
Fairyland is as active now as ever it was. We still presume, in our
unworthiness, to pass the barriers, and to walk upon those paths which
lead to the enchanted forests and through them to the city of the Moon.
At any moment we are ready to set forth, like Arthur's knights, in
search of the Holy Grail.
The explorer who penetrates into Central Africa in quest of King
Solomon's mines is impelled by a hope closely akin to that of the
Spaniards. The excavator who digs for the buried treasures of the Incas
or of the Egyptians is often led by a desire for the fabulous. Search is
now being made in the western desert of Egypt for a lost city of
burnished copper; and the Anglo-Egyptian official is constantly urged by
credulous natives to take camels across the wilderness in quest of a
town whose houses and temples are of pure gold. What archæologist has
not at some time given ear to the whispers that tell of long-lost
treasures, of forgotten cities, of Atlantis swallowed by the sea? It is*
not only children who love the tales of Fairyland. How happily we have
read Kipling's 'Puck of Pook's Hill,' De la Motte Fouqué's 'Undine,'
Kenneth Grahame's 'Wind in the Willows,' or F.W. Bain's Indian stories.
The recent fairy plays--Barry's "Peter Pan," Maeterlinck's "Blue Bird,"
and the like--have been enormously successful. Say what we will, fairy
tales still hold their old power over us, and still we turn to them as a
relief from the commonplace.
*Transcriber's note: In the original text the word "is" is omitted.
Some of us, failing to find Fairyland upon earth, have transferred it
to the kingdom of Death; and it has become the hope for the future. Each
Sunday in church the congregation of business men and hard-worked women
set aside the things of their monotonous life, and sing the songs of the
endless search. To the rolling notes of the organ they tell the tale of
the Elysian Fields: they take their unfilled desire for Fairyland and
adjust it to their deathless hope of Heaven. They sing of crystal
fountains, of streets paved with gold, of meadows dressed with living
green where they shall dwell as children who now as exiles mourn. There
everlasting spring abides and never-withering flowers; there ten
thousand times ten thousand clad in sparkling raiment throng up the
steeps of light. Here in the church the most unimaginative people cry
aloud upon their God for Fairyland.
"The roseate hues of early dawn,
The brightness of the day,
The crimson of the sunset sky,
How fast they fade away!
Oh, for the pearly gates of Heaven,
Oh, for the golden floor...."
They know no way of picturing the incomprehensible state of the future,
and they interpret it, therefore, in terms of the fairy tale.
I am inclined to think that this sovereignty of the fairies is
beneficial. Fairy tales fill the minds of the young with knowledge of
the kindly people who will reward with many gifts those that are
charitable to the old; they teach a code of chivalry that brings as its
reward the love of the beautiful princess in the tower; they tell of
dangers overcome by courage and perseverance; they suggest a contact
with nature which otherwise might never be developed. Where angels and
archangels overawe by their omnipotence, the microscopic fairies who can
sit singing upon a mushroom and dangle from the swaying stem of a
bluebell, carry the thoughts down the scale of life to the little and
really important things. A sleepy child will rather believe that the
Queen of the Fairies is acting sentry upon the knob of the bedpost than
that an angel stands at the head of the cot with great wings spread in
protection--wings which suggest the probability of claws and a beak to
match.
The dragons which can only be slain by the noble knight, the
enchantments which can only be broken by the outwitting of the evil
witch, the lady who can only be won by perils bravely endured, form the
material of moral lessons which no other method of teaching could so
impress upon the youthful mind.
And when mature years are attained the atmosphere of Fairyland remains
with us. The lost songs of the little people drift through the brain,
recalling the infinite possibilities of beauty and goodness which are so
slightly out of reach; the forgotten wonder of elfs and brownies
suggests itself to us from the heart of flowers and amidst the leaves of
trees. The clear depths of the sea take half their charm from the
memory of the mermaid's palace; the silence of forests is rich with the
expectancy of the Knight of the Golden Plume; the large spaces of
kitchens and corridors are hushed for the concealment of Robin
Goodfellow.
It is the elusiveness, the enchantment, of Fairyland which, for the
mature mind, constitutes its greatest value and charm; it is a man's
desire for the realms of Midsummer-night that makes the building of
those realms in our childhood so valuable. We are constantly
endeavouring to recapture the grace of that intangible kingdom, and the
hope of ultimate success retains the elasticity of the mind. Held fast
by the stiffened joints of reason and closeted with the gout of science,
we are fettered prisoners in the world unless there be the knowledge
that something eludes us to lead us on. We know quite well that the
fairies do not exist, but at the same time we cannot deny that the
elusive atmosphere of Fairyland is one with that of our fondest dreams.
Who has not, upon a grey morning, awakened from sleep with the knowledge
that he has passed out from a kingdom of dream more dear than all the
realms of real life? Vainly we endeavour to recall the lost details, but
only the impression remains. That impression, however, warms the tone of
our whole day, and frames our thoughts as it were with precious stones.
Thus also it is with the memory of our childhood's idea of Fairyland:
the impression is recalled, the brain peers forward, the thoughts go on
tiptoe, and we feel that we have caught a glimpse of Beauty. Indeed, the
recollection of the atmosphere created in our youthful minds by means of
fairy tales is perhaps the most abundant of the sources of our knowledge
of Beauty in mature years.
I do not suppose that I am alone in declaring that some of the most
tender feelings of childhood are inspired by the misfortunes of the
Beast in the story of "Beauty and the Beast"; and the Sleeping Beauty is
the first love of many a small boy. Man, from his youth up, craves
enchantment; and though the business of life gives him no opportunity
for the indulging in day-dreams, there are few of us indeed who have not
at some time sought the phantom isles, and sought in vain. There is no
stormy night, when the wind moans through the trees, and the moon-rack
flies overhead, but takes something of its mystery from the recollection
of the enchantments of the dark ages. The sun does not sink into the sea
amidst the low-lying clouds but some vague thought is brought to mind of
the uncharted island whereon that maiden lies sleeping whose hair is
dark as heaven's wrath, and whose breast is white like alabaster in the
pathway of the moon. There she lies in the charmed circle under the
trees, where none may enter until that hour when some pale, lost mariner
shall surprise the secret of the pathway, and, coming suddenly upon her,
shall kiss her shadowed lips. Vague, elusive, undefined, as such
fancies must be, they yet tinge the thoughts of almost every man at
certain moments of his life, and set him searching for the enchantment
of bygone days. Eagerly he looks for those
"...Magic casements opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn";
and it is the fact of their unreality that gives them their haunting
value.
The following story, preserved in a papyrus now at St Petersburg,
describes a mysterious island whereon there dwelt a monster most lovable
and most forlorn: a creature so tenderly drawn, indeed, that the reader
will not fail to enthrone him in the little company of the nobility of
the kingdom of the fairy tale. Translations of the story by two or three
savants have appeared; but the present version, which I give in its
literal form, has been prepared especially for this volume by Mr Alan
Gardiner; and, coming from him, it may be said to be the last word of
the science upon the subject of this difficult text.
The scene with which the story opens is clearly indicated by the
introductory sentences, though actually it is not described. A large
war-galley had come swinging down the Nile from the land of Wawat in the
south, the oars flashing in the Nubian sunlight. On the left the granite
rocks of the island of Bigeh towered above the vessel; on the right the
island of Philæ, as yet devoid of buildings, rested placidly on the
blue waters. Ahead were the docks of Shallal, where the clustered boats
lay darkly against the yellow of the desert, and busy groups of figures,
loading and unloading cargoes, moved to and fro over the sand. Away to
the left, behind Bigeh, the distant roar of the First Cataract could be
heard as the waters went rushing down from Nubia across the frontier
into Egypt.
[Illustration: PL. XIV. A sailor of Lower Nubia and his son.]
[_Photo by E. Bird._
The great vessel had just returned from the little-known country of
Ethiopia, which bordered the Land of the Ghosts, having its frontiers
upon the shores of the sea that encircled the world; and the sailors
were all straining their eyes towards these docks which formed the
southernmost outpost of Egypt, their home. The greatest excitement
prevailed on deck; but in the cabin, erected of vari-coloured cloth in
the stern of the vessel, the noble leader of the expedition which was
now at its conclusion lay in a troubled sleep, tossing nervously upon
his bed. His dreams were all of the terrible ordeal which was before
him. He could take no pleasure in his home-coming, for he was driven
nigh crazy by the thought of entering the presence of the great Pharaoh
himself in order to make his report.
It is almost impossible to realise nowadays the agonies of mind that a
man had to suffer who was obliged to approach the incarnation of the sun
upon earth, and to crave the indulgence of this god in regard to any
shortcomings in the conduct of the affairs intrusted to him. Of all the
kings of the earth the Pharaoh was the most terrible, the most
thoroughly frightening. Not only did he hold the lives of his subjects
in his hand to do with them as he chose, but he also controlled the
welfare of their immortal souls; for, being a god, he had dominion over
the realms of the dead. To be censured by the Pharaoh was to be
excommunicated from the pleasures of this earth and outlawed from the
fair estate of heaven. A well-known Egyptian noble named Sinuhe, the
hero of a fine tale of adventure, describes himself as petrified with
terror when he entered the audience-chamber. "I stretched myself on my
stomach," he writes, "and became unconscious before him (the Pharaoh).
This god addressed me kindly, but I was as a man overtaken by the
twilight: my soul departed, my flesh trembled; my heart was no more in
my body that I should know life from death."[1] Similarly another
personage writes: "Remember the day of bringing the tribute, when thou
passest into the Presence under the window, the nobles on each side
before his Majesty, the nobles and ambassadors (?) of all countries.
They stand and gaze at the tribute, while thou fearest and shrinkest
back, and thy hand is weak, and thou knowest not whether it is death or
life that is before thee; and thou art brave (only) in praying to thy
gods: 'Save me, prosper me this one time.'"[2]
[Footnote 1: Sinuhe, 254-256.]
[Footnote 2: Papyrus Koller, 5, 1-4.]
Of the Pharaoh it is written--
"Thine eye is clearer than the stars of heaven;
Thou seest farther than the sun.
If I speak afar off, thine ear hears;
If I do a hidden deed, thine eye sees it."[1]
[Footnote 1: Anastasi Papyri, 4, 5, 6 ff.]
Or again--
"The god of taste is in thy mouth,
The god of knowledge is in thy heart;
Thy tongue is enthroned in the temple of truth;
God is seated upon thy lips."[2]
[Footnote 2: Kubban stela.]
To meet face to face this all-knowing, all-seeing, celestial creature,
from whom there could be no secrets hid nor any guilt concealed, was an
ordeal to which a man might well look forward with utter horror. It was
this terrible dread that, in the tale with which we are now concerned,
held the captain of this Nubian vessel in agony upon his couch.
As he lay there, biting his finger-nails, one of the ship's officers,
himself a former leader of expeditions, entered the cabin to announce
their arrival at the Shallal docks.
"Good news, prince," said he cheerfully to his writhing master. "Look,
we have reached home. They have taken the mallet and driven in the
mooring-post; the ship's cable has been put on land. There is
merrymaking and thanksgiving, and every man is embracing his fellow. Our
crew has returned unscathed, without loss to our soldiers. We have
reached the end of Wawat, we have passed Bigeh. Yes, indeed, we have
returned safely; we have reached our own land."
At this the prince seems to have groaned anew, much to the distress of
his friend, who could but urge him to pull himself together and to play
the man.
"Listen to me, prince," he begged, "for I am one void of exaggeration.
Wash yourself, pour water on your fingers."
The wretched, man replied, it would seem, with a repetition of his
fears; whereupon the old sailor seems to have sat down by his side and
to have given him a word of advice as to how he should behave in the
king's presence. "Make answer when you are addressed," he said; "speak
to the king with a heart in you; answer without restraint. For it is a
man's mouth that saves him.... But do as you will: to talk to you is
wearisome (to you)."
Presently the old sailor was seized with an idea. He would tell a story,
no matter whether it were strictly true or not, in which his own
adventures should be set forth. He would describe how he was wrecked
upon an unknown island, how he was saved from death, and how, on his
return, he conducted into the Pharaoh's presence. A narration of his own
experiences before his sovereign might give heart to his captain, and
might effectually lift the intolerable burden of dread from the princely
shoulders.
"I will relate to you," he began, "a similar thing which befell me my
very self. I was making a journey to the mines of the sovereign ..."
The prince may here be supposed to have sat up and given gloomy
attention to his friend's words, for Egyptians of all ages have loved a
good story, and tales of adventures in the south were, in early times,
most acceptable. The royal gold mines referred to were probably situated
at the southern-most end of the eastern Egyptian desert. To reach them
one would take ship from Kossair or some other Red Sea port, sail down
the coast to the frontiers of Pount, the modern Somaliland, and then
travel inland by caravan. It was a perilous undertaking, and, at the
time when this story was written, the journey must have furnished
material for amazing yarns.
"I went down on the Great Green Sea," continued the speaker, "in a ship
one hundred and fifty cubits[1] in length and forty cubits in breadth,
and in it were a hundred and fifty sailors, picked men of Egypt. They
scanned the heavens and they scanned the earth, and their hearts were
stouter than lions. They foretold the storm or ever it came, and the
tempest when as yet it was not."
[Footnote 1: The average cubit was about 20-1/2 inches.]
A storm arose while they were out of sight of land, and rapidly
increased in violence, until the waves, according to the very restrained
estimate of the narrator, were eight cubits high--that is to say, about
thirteen or fourteen feet. To one who was accustomed to the waves of the
Nile this would be a great height; and the passage thus suggests that
the scribe was an untravelled man. A vessel of 150 cubits, or about 250
feet, in length might have been expected to ride out a storm of this
magnitude; but, according to the story, she went to pieces, and the
whole ship's company, with the single exception of the teller of the
tale, were drowned. The survivor managed to cling to a plank of wood,
which was driven by the wind towards the shores of an uncharted island,
and here at length he was cast up by the waves.
Not far from the beach there was a small thicket, and to this the
castaway hastened, sheltering therein from the fury of the storm. For
three days in deep despair he lay hidden, "without a companion," as he
said, "save my heart;" but at last the tempest subsided, the sun shone
in the heavens once again, and the famished mariner was able to go in
search of food, which, to his delight, he found in abundance.
The scene upon which he gazed as he plucked the fruit of the laden trees
was most mysterious, and all that he saw around him must have had an
appearance not altogether consistent with reality, for, indeed, the
island was not real. It had been called into existence, perhaps, at the
bidding of some god to relieve the tedium of an eternal afternoon, and
suddenly it had appeared, floating upon the blue waters of the ocean.
How long it had remained there, how long it would still remain, none
could tell, for at any moment the mind of the god might be diverted, and
instantly it would dissolve and vanish as would a dream. Beneath the
isle the seas moved, and there in the darkness the fishes of the deep,
with luminous, round eyes, passed to and fro, nibbling the roots of the
trees above them. Overhead the heavens stretched, and around about
spread the expanse of the sea upon which no living thing might be seen,
save only the dolphins as they leapt into the sunshine and sank again
amidst the gleaming spray.
There was abundant vegetation upon the island, but it does not appear to
have looked quite real. The fig-trees were heavy with fruit, the vines
were festooned from bough to bough, hung with clusters of grapes, and
pomegranates were ripe for the plucking. But there seems to have been an
unearthliness about them, as though a deep enchantment were upon them.
In the tangled undergrowth through which the bewildered sailor walked
there lay great melons and pumpkins. The breeze wafted to his nostrils
the smell of the incense-trees; and the scent of the flowers, after the
storm, must have made every breath he breathed a pleasure of Paradise to
him. Moving over the luxuriant ground, he put up flights of wonderful
birds which sped towards the interior, red, green, and golden, against
the sky. Monkeys chattered at him from the trees, and sprang from
branch to branch amidst the dancing flowers. In shadowed pools of clear
water fishes were to be seen, gliding amidst the reeds; and amongst the
rocks beside the sea the castaway could look down upon the creatures of
the deep imprisoned between the tides.
Food in all forms was to hand, and he had but to fill his arms with the
good things which Fate had provided. "I found there," he said, "figs,
grapes, and all manner of goodly onions; melons and pomegranates were
there, and pumpkins of every kind. Fishes were there and fowls: there
was nought that was lacking in it. I satisfied myself, and set upon the
ground the abundance of that with which my arms were filled. I took the
fire-borer and kindled a fire, and made a burnt-offering to the gods."
Seated in the warm sunshine amidst the trees, eating a roast fowl
seasoned with onions or some equally palatable concoction, he seems to
have found the life of a shipwrecked mariner by no means as distressing
as he had anticipated; and the wording of the narrative appears to be so
arranged that an impression of comfortable ease and security may
surround his sunlit figure. Suddenly, however, all was changed. "I
heard," said he, "a sound as of thunder, and I thought it was the waves
of the sea." Then "the trees creaked and the earth trembled"; and, like
the Egyptian that he was, he went down on his shaking hands and knees,
and buried his face in the ground.
At length "I uncovered my face," he declared, "and I found it was a
serpent that came, of the length of thirty cubits"--about fifty
feet--"and his tail was more than two cubits" in diameter. "His skin was
overlaid with gold, and his eyebrows were of real lapis lazuli, and he
was exceeding perfect."
"He opened his mouth to me," he continued, "as I lay on my stomach
before him, and said to me: 'Who brought thee, who brought thee, little
one?--who brought thee? If thou delayest to tell me who brought thee to
this island I will cause thee to know thyself (again only) when thou art
ashes, and art become that which is not seen'"--that is to say, a ghost.
"Thus you spoke to me," whispered the old sailor, as though again
addressing the serpent, who, in the narration of these adventures, had
become once more a very present reality to him, "but I heard it not. I
lay before thee, and was unconscious."
Continuing his story, he told how the great serpent lifted him tenderly
in his golden mouth, and carried him to his dwelling-place, setting him
down there without hurt, amongst the fruit-trees and the flowers. The
Egyptian at once flung himself upon his stomach before him, and lay
there in a stupor of terror. The serpent, however, meant him no harm,
and indeed looked down on him with tender pity as he questioned him
once more.
"Who brought thee, who brought thee, little one?" he asked again, "Who
brought thee to this island of the Great Green Sea, whereof the (under)
half is waves?"
On his hands and knees before the kindly monster the shipwrecked
Egyptian managed to regain possession of his faculties sufficiently to
give an account of himself.
"I was going down to the mines," he faltered, "on a mission of the
sovereign, in a ship one hundred and fifty cubits in length and forty in
breadth, and in it were one hundred and fifty sailors, picked men of
Egypt. They scanned the heavens and they scanned the earth, and their
hearts were stouter than lions. They foretold the storm or ever it came,
and the tempest when as yet it was not. Every one of them, his heart was
stout and his arm strong beyond his fellow. There was none unproven
amongst them. The storm arose while that we were on the Great Green Sea,
before we touched land; and as we sailed it redoubled (its strength),
and the waves thereof were eight cubits. There was a plank of wood to
which I clung. The ship perished, and of them that were in her not one
was left saving me alone, who now am at your side. And I was brought to
this island by the waves of the Great Green Sea."
At this point the man seems to have been overcome once more with
terror, and the serpent, therefore, hastened to reassure him.
"Fear not, little one," he said in his gentle voice; "fear not. Let not
thy face be dismayed. If thou hast come to me it is God who has let thee
live, who has brought thee to this phantom isle in which there is naught
that is lacking, but it is full of all good things. Behold, thou shalt
pass month for month until thou accomplish four months upon this island.
And a ship shall come from home, and sailors in it whom thou knowest,
and thou shalt go home with them, and shalt die in thine own city."
"How glad is he," exclaimed the old mariner as he related his adventures
to the prince, "how glad is he that recounts what he has experienced
when the calamity is passed!" The prince, no doubt, replied with a
melancholy grunt, and the thread of the story was once more taken up.
There was a particular reason why the serpent should be touched and
interested to hear how Providence had saved the Egyptian from death, for
he himself had survived a great calamity, and had been saved from an
equally terrible fate, as he now proceeded to relate.
"I will tell to thee the like thereof," he said, "which happened in this
island. I dwelt herein with my brothers, and my children were among
them. Seventy-two serpents we were, all told, with my offspring and my
brothers; nor have I yet mentioned to thee a little girl brought to me
by fortune. A star came down, and all these went up in the flames. And
it happened so that I was not together with them when they were
consumed; I was not in their midst. I could have died (of grief) for
them when I found them as a single pile of corpses."
It is clear from the story that this great serpent was intended to be
pictured as a sad and lonely, but most lovable, character. All alone
upon this ghostly isle, the last of his race, one is to imagine him
dreaming of the little girl who was taken from him, together with all
his family. Although fabulous himself, and half divine, he was yet the
victim of the gods, and was made to suffer real sorrows in his unreal
existence. Day by day he wandered over his limited domain, twisting his
golden body amidst the pumpkins, and rearing himself above the
fig-trees; thundering down to the beach to salute the passing dolphins,
or sunning himself, a golden blaze, upon the rocks. There remained
naught for him to do but to await the cessation of the phantasy of his
life; and yet, though his lot was hard, he was ready at once to
subordinate his sorrows to those of the shipwrecked sailor before him.
No more is said of his distress, but with his next words he seems to
have dismissed his own misfortunes, and to have attempted to comfort the
Egyptian.
"If thou art brave," he said, "and restrainest thy longing, thou shalt
press thy children to thy bosom and kiss thy wife, and behold thy
house--that is the best of all things. Thou shalt reach home, and shalt
dwell there amongst thy brothers."
"Thereat," said the mariner, "I cast me upon my stomach and touched the
ground before him, and I said to him: 'I will tell of thy might to the
Sovereign, I will cause him to be acquainted with thy greatness. I will
let bring to thee perfume and spices, myrrh and sweet-scented woods, and
incense of the sanctuaries wherewithal every god is propitiated. I will
recount all that has befallen me, and that which I have seen by his
might; and they shall praise thee in that city before the magistrates of
the entire land. I will slaughter to thee oxen as a burnt-offering,
geese will I pluck for thee, and I will let bring to thee vessels laden
with all the goodly things of Egypt, as may be (fitly) done to a god who
loves men in a distant land, a land unknown to men.'"
At these words the serpent opened his golden mouth and fell to laughing.
The thought that this little mortal, grovelling before him, could
believe himself able to repay the kindnesses received tickled him
immensely.
"Hast thou not much incense (here, then)?" he laughed. "Art not become a
lord of frankincense? And I, behold I am prince of Pount," the land of
perfumes, "and the incense, _that_ is my very own. As for the spices
which thou sayest shall be brought, they are the wealth of this island.
But it shall happen when thou hast left this place, never shalt thou see
this island more, for it shall be changed to waves."
The teller of the story does not relate in what manner he received this
well-merited reproof. The gentle monster, no doubt, was tolerant of his
presumptuousness, and soon put him at his ease again. During the whole
period of the Egyptian's residence on the island, in fact, the golden
serpent seems to have been invariably kind to him. The days passed by
like a happy dream, and the spell of the island's enchantment possessed
him so that, in after times, the details of the events of every day were
lost in the single illusion of the whole adventure.
At last the ship arrived, as it had been foretold, and the sailor
watched her passing over the hazy sea towards the mysterious shore. "I
went and got me up into a tall tree," he said, "and I recognised those
that were in it. And I went to report the matter (to the serpent), and I
found that he knew it."
Very tenderly the great monster addressed him. "Fare thee well, little
one," he said "Fare thee well to thy house. Mayest thou see thy children
and raise up a good name in thy city. Behold, such are my wishes for
thee."
"Then," continued the sailor, "I laid me on my stomach, my arms were
bended before him. And he gave me a freight of frankincense, perfume and
myrrh, sweet-scented woods and antimony, giraffes' tails, great heaps
of incense, elephant tusks, dogs, apes and baboons, and all manner of
valuable things. And I loaded them in that ship, and I laid myself on my
stomach to make thanksgiving to him. Then he said to me: 'Behold, thou
shalt come home in two months, and shalt press thy children to thy
bosom, and shalt flourish in their midst; and there thou shalt be
buried.'"
[Illustration: PL. XV. A Nile boat passing the hills of Thebes.]
[_Photo by E. Bird._]
To appreciate the significance of these last words it is necessary to
remember what an important matter it was to an Egyptian that he should
be buried in his native city. In our own case the position upon the map
of the place where we lay down our discarded bones is generally not of
first-rate importance, and the thought of being buried in foreign lands
does not frighten us. Whether our body is to be packed away in the
necropolis of our city, or shovelled into a hole on the outskirts of
Timbuctoo, is not a matter of vital interest. There is a certain
sentiment that leads us to desire interment amidst familiar scenes, but
it is subordinated with ease to other considerations. To the Egyptian,
however, it was a matter of paramount importance. "What is a greater
thing," says Sinuhe in the tale of his adventures in Asia, "than that I
should be buried in the land in which I was born?" "Thou shalt not die
in a foreign land; Asiatics shall not conduct thee to the tomb," says
the Pharaoh to him; and again, "It is no little thing that thou shalt
be buried without Asiatics conducting thee."[1] There is a stela now
preserved in Stuttgart, in which the deceased man asks those who pass
his tomb to say a prayer for his soul; and he adjures them in these
words: "So truly as ye wish that your native gods should praise you, and
that ye should be established in your seats, and that ye should hand
down your offices to your children: that ye should reach your homes in
safety, and recount your travels to your wives;--then say a prayer,"
&c.[2]
[Footnote 1: Sinuhe, B. 159, 197, 258.]
[Footnote 2: Zeit. Aeg. Spr., 39 (1901), p. 118.]
The serpent was thus giving the castaway a promise which meant more to
him than all the other blessings, and it was with a light heart indeed
that he ran down to the beach to greet his countrymen. "I went down to
the shore where the ship was," he continued, "and I called to the
soldiers which were in that ship, and I gave praises upon the shore to
the lord of this island, and likewise did they which were in the ship."
Then he stepped on board, the gangway was drawn up, and, with a great
sweep of the oars, the ship passed out on to the open sea. Standing on
deck amongst the new cargo, the officers and their rescued friend bowed
low to the great serpent who towered above the trees at the water's
edge, gleaming in the sunshine. "Fare thee well, little one," his deep
voice rolled across the water; and again they bowed in obeisance to him.
The main-sail was unfurled to the wind, and the vessel scudded bravely
across the Great Green Sea; but for some time yet they must have kept
their eyes upon the fair shape of the phantom island, as the trees
blended into the hills and the hills at last into the haze; and their
vision must have been focussed upon that one gleaming point where the
golden serpent, alone once more with his memories, watched the ship
moving over the fairy seas.
"So sailed we northwards," said the sailor, "to the place of the
Sovereign, and we reached home in two months, in accordance with all
that he had said. And I entered in before the Sovereign, and I brought
to him this tribute which I had taken away from within this island. Then
gave he thanksgivings for me before the magistrates of the entire land.
And I was made a 'Follower,' and was rewarded with the serfs of such an
one."
The old sailor turned to the gloomy prince as he brought his story to an
end. "Look at me," he exclaimed, "now that I have reached land, now that
I have seen (again in memory) what I have experienced. Hearken thou to
me, for behold, to hearken is good for men."
But the prince only sighed the more deeply, and, with a despairing
gesture, replied: "Be not (so) superior, my friend! Doth one give water
to a bird on the eve, when it is to be slain on the morrow?" With these
words the manuscript abruptly ends, and we are supposed to leave the
prince still disconsolate in his cabin, while his friend, unable to
cheer him, returns to his duties on deck.
PART III.
RESEARCHES IN THE TREASURY.
"...And he, shall be,
Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,
Who loved, who suffered countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or seal'd within the iron hills?"
--TENNYSON.
CHAPTER VII.
RECENT EXCAVATIONS IN EGYPT.
There came to the camp of a certain professor, who was engaged in
excavating the ruins of an ancient Egyptian city, a young and
faultlessly-attired Englishman, whose thirst for dramatic adventure had
led him to offer his services as an unpaid assistant digger. This
immaculate personage had read in novels and tales many an account of the
wonders which the spade of the excavator could reveal, and he firmly
believed that it was only necessary to set a "nigger" to dig a little
hole in the ground to open the way to the treasuries of the Pharaohs.
Gold, silver, and precious stones gleamed before him, in his
imagination, as he hurried along subterranean passages to the vaults of
long-dead kings. He expected to slide upon the seat of his very
well-made breeches down the staircase of the ruined palace which he had
entered by way of the skylight, and to find himself, at the bottom, in
the presence of the bejewelled dead. In the intervals between such
experiences he was of opinion that a little quiet gazelle shooting would
agreeably fill in the swiftly passing hours; and at the end of the
season's work he pictured himself returning to the bosom of his family
with such a tale to tell that every ear would be opened to him.
On his arrival at the camp he was conducted to the site of his future
labours; and his horrified gaze was directed over a large area of
mud-pie, knee-deep in which a few bedraggled natives slushed their way
downwards. After three weeks' work on this distressing site, the
professor announced that he had managed to trace through the mud the
outline of the palace walls, once the feature of the city, and that the
work here might now be regarded as finished. He was then conducted to a
desolate spot in the desert, and until the day on which he fled back to
England he was kept to the monotonous task of superintending a gang of
natives whose sole business it was to dig a very large hole in the sand,
day after day and week after week.
It is, however, sometimes the fortune of the excavator to make a
discovery which almost rivals in dramatic interest the tales of his
youth. Such as experience fell to the lot of Emil Brugsch Pasha when he
was lowered into an ancient tomb and found himself face to face with a
score of the Pharaohs of Egypt, each lying in his coffin; or again, when
Monsieur de Morgan discovered the great mass of royal jewels in one of
the pyramids at Dachour. But such "finds" can be counted on the fingers,
and more often an excavation is a fruitless drudgery. Moreover, the
life of the digger is not often a pleasant one.
[Illustration: PL. XVI. The excavations on the site of the city
of Abydos.]
[_Photo by the Author._
It will perhaps be of interest to the reader of romances to illustrate
the above remarks by the narration of some of my own experiences; but
there are only a few interesting and unusual episodes in which I have
had the peculiarly good fortune to be an actor. There will probably be
some drama to be felt in the account of the more important discoveries
(for there certainly is to the antiquarian himself); but it should be
pointed out that the interest of these rare finds pales before the
description, which many of us have heard, of how the archæologists of a
past century discovered the body of Charlemagne clad in his royal robes
and seated upon his throne,--which, by the way, is quite untrue. In
spite of all that is said to the contrary, truth is seldom stranger than
fiction; and the reader who desires to be told of the discovery of
buried cities whose streets are paved with gold should take warning in
time and return at once to his novels.
If the dawning interest of the reader has now been thoroughly cooled by
these words, it may be presumed that it will be utterly annihilated by
the following narration of my first fruitless excavation; and thus one
will be able to continue the story with the relieved consciousness that
nobody is attending.
In the capacity of assistant to Professor Flinders Petrie, I was set,
many years ago, to the task of excavating a supposed royal cemetery in
the desert behind the ancient city of Abydos, in Upper Egypt. Two mounds
were first attacked; and after many weeks of work in digging through the
sand, the superstructure of two great tombs was bared. In the case of
the first of these several fine passages of good masonry were cleared,
and at last the burial-chamber was reached. In the huge sarcophagus
which was there found great hopes were entertained that the body and
funeral-offerings of the dead prince would be discovered; but when at
last the interior was laid bare the solitary article found was a copy of
a French newspaper left behind by the last, and equally disgusted,
excavator. The second tomb defied the most ardent exploration, and
failed to show any traces of a burial. The mystery was at last solved by
Professor Petrie, who, with his usual keen perception, soon came to the
conclusion that the whole tomb was a dummy, built solely to hide an
enormous mass of rock chippings the presence of which had been a puzzle
for some time. These masons' chippings were evidently the output from
some large cutting in the rock, and it became apparent that there must
be a great rock tomb in the neighbourhood. Trial trenches in the
vicinity presently revealed the existence of a long wall, which, being
followed in either direction, proved to be the boundary of a vast court
or enclosure built upon the desert at the foot of a conspicuous cliff. A
ramp led up to the entrance; but as it was slightly askew and pointed
to the southern end of the enclosure, it was supposed that the rock
tomb, which presumably ran into the cliff from somewhere inside this
area, was situated at that end. The next few weeks were occupied in the
tedious task of probing the sand hereabouts, and at length in clearing
it away altogether down to the surface of the underlying rock. Nothing
was found, however; and sadly we turned to the exact middle of the
court, and began to work slowly to the foot of the cliff. Here, in the
very middle of the back wall, a pillared chamber was found, and it
seemed certain that the entrance to the tomb would now be discovered.
The best men were placed to dig out this chamber, and the excavator--it
was many years ago--went about his work with the weight of fame upon his
shoulders and an expression of intense mystery upon his sorely
sun-scorched face. How clearly memory recalls the letter home that week,
"We are on the eve of a great discovery"; and how vividly rises the
picture of the baking desert sand into which the sweating workmen were
slowly digging their way! But our hopes were short-lived, for it very
soon became apparent that there was no tomb entrance in this part of the
enclosure. There remained the north end of the area, and on to this all
the available men were turned. Deeper and deeper they dug their way,
until the mounds of sand thrown out formed, as it were, the lip of a
great crater. At last, some forty or fifty feet down, the underlying
rock was struck, and presently the mouth of a great shaft was exposed
leading down into the bowels of the earth. The royal tomb had at last
been discovered, and it only remained to effect an entrance. The days
were now filled with excitement, and, the thoughts being concentrated on
the question of the identity of the royal occupant of the tomb, it was
soon fixed in our minds that we were about to enter the burial-place of
no less a personage than the great Pharaoh Senusert III. (Sesostris),
the same king whose jewels were found at Dachour.
One evening, just after I had left the work, the men came down to the
distant camp to say that the last barrier was now reached and that an
entrance could be effected at once. In the pale light of the moon,
therefore, I hastened back to the desert with a few trusted men. As we
walked along, one of these natives very cheerfully remarked that we
should all probably get our throats cut, as the brigands of the
neighbourhood got wind of the discovery, and were sure to attempt to
enter the tomb that night. With this pleasing prospect before us we
walked with caution over the silent desert. Reaching the mound of sand
which surrounded our excavation, we crept to the top and peeped over
into the crater. At once we observed a dim light below us, and almost
immediately an agitated but polite voice from the opposite mound called
out in Arabic, "Go away, mister. We have all got guns." This remark was
followed by a shot which whistled past me; and therewith I slid down the
hill once more, and heartily wished myself safe in my bed. Our party
then spread round the crater, and at a given word we proposed to rush
the place. But the enemy was too quick for us, and after the briefest
scrimmage, and the exchanging* of a harmless shot or two, we found
ourselves in possession of the tomb, and were able to pretend that we
were not a bit frightened.
*Transcriber's note: Original text read "exhanging".
Then into the dark depths of the shaft we descended, and ascertained
that the robbers had not effected an entrance. A long night watch
followed, and the next day we had the satisfaction of arresting some of
the criminals. The tomb was found to penetrate several hundred feet into
the cliff, and at the end of the long and beautifully worked passage the
great royal sarcophagus was found--empty! So ended a very strenuous
season's work.
If the experiences of a digger in Professor Petrie's camp are to be
regarded as typical, they will probably serve to damp the ardour of
eager young gentlemen in search of ancient Egyptian treasure. One lives
in a bare little hut constructed of mud, and roofed with cornstalks or
corrugated iron; and if by chance there happened to be a rain storm, as
there was when I was a member of the community, one may watch the frail
building gently subside in a liquid stream on to one's bed and books.
For seven days in the week one's work continues, and it is only to the
real enthusiast that that work is not monotonous and tiresome.
A few years later it fell to my lot to excavate for the Government the
funeral temple of Thutmosis III. at Thebes, and a fairly large sum was
spent upon the undertaking. Although the site was most promising in
appearances, a couple of months' work brought to light hardly a single
object of importance, whereas exactly similar sites in the same
neighbourhood had produced inscriptions of the greatest value. Two years
ago I assisted at an excavation upon a site of my own selection, the net
result of which, after six weeks' work, was one mummified cat! To sit
over the work day after day, as did the unfortunate promoter of this
particular enterprise, with the flies buzzing around his face and the
sun blazing down upon him from a relentless sky, was hardly a
pleasurable task; and to watch the clouds of dust go up from the
tip-heap, where tons of unprofitable rubbish rolled down the hillside
all day long, was an occupation for the damned. Yet that is excavating
as it is usually found to be.
Now let us consider the other side of the story. In the Valley of the
Tombs of the Kings at Thebes excavations have been conducted for some
years by Mr Theodore M. Davis, of Newport, Rhode Island, by special
arrangement with the Department of Antiquities of the Egyptian
Government; and as an official of that Department I have had the
privilege of being present at all the recent discoveries. The finding of
the tomb of Yuaa and Tuau a few years ago was one of the most
interesting archæological events of recent times, and one which came
somewhere near to the standard of romance set by the novelists. Yuaa and
Tuau were the parents of Queen Tiy, the discovery of whose tomb is
recorded in the next chapter. When the entrance of their tomb was
cleared, a flight of steps was exposed, leading down to a passage
blocked by a wall of loose stones. In the top right-hand corner a small
hole, large enough to admit a man, had been made in ancient times, and
through this we could look down into a dark passage. As it was too late
in the day to enter at once, we postponed that exciting experience until
the morrow, and some police were sent for to guard the entrance during
the night. I had slept the previous night over the mouth, and there was
now no possibility of leaving the place for several more nights, so a
rough camp was formed on the spot.
Here I settled myself down for the long watch, and speculated on the
events of the next morning, when Mr Davis and one or two well-known
Egyptologists were to come to the valley to open the sepulchre.
Presently, in the silent darkness, a slight noise was heard on the
hillside, and immediately the challenge of the sentry rang out. This
was answered by a distant call, and after some moments of alertness on
our part we observed two figures approaching us. These, to my surprise,
proved to be a well-known American artist and his wife,[1] who had
obviously come on the expectation that trouble was ahead; but though in
this they were certainly destined to suffer disappointment, still, out
of respect for the absolute unconcern of both visitors, it may be
mentioned that the mouth of a lonely tomb already said by native rumour
to contain incalculable wealth is not perhaps the safest place in the
world. Here, then, on a level patch of rock we three lay down and slept
fitfully until the dawn. Soon after breakfast the wall at the mouth of
the tomb was pulled down, and the party passed into the low passage
which sloped down to the burial chamber. At the bottom of this passage
there was a second wall blocking the way; but when a few layers had been
taken off the top we were able to climb, one by one, into the chamber.
[Footnote 1: Mr and Mrs Joseph Lindon Smith.]
[Illustration: PL. XVII. Excavating the Osireion at Abydos. A chain of
boys handing up baskets of sand to the
surface.]
[_Photo by the Author._
Imagine entering a town house which had been closed for the summer:
imagine the stuffy room, the stiff, silent appearance of the furniture,
the feeling that some ghostly occupants of the vacant chairs have just
been disturbed, the desire to throw open the windows to let life into
room once more. That was perhaps the first sensation as we stood, really
dumfounded, and stared around at the relics of the life of over three
thousand years ago, all of which were as new almost as when they graced
the palace of Prince Yuaa. Three arm-chairs were perhaps the first
objects to attract the attention: beautiful carved wooden chairs,
decorated with gold. Belonging to one of these was a pillow made of down
and covered with linen. It was so perfectly preserved that one might
have sat upon it or tossed it from this chair to that without doing it
injury. Here were fine alabaster vases, and in one of these we were
startled to find a liquid, like honey or syrup, still unsolidified by
time. Boxes of exquisite workmanship stood in various parts of the room,
some resting on delicately wrought legs. Now the eye was directed to a
wicker trunk fitted with trays and partitions, and ventilated with
little apertures, since the scents were doubtless strong. Two most
comfortable beds were to be observed, fitted with springy string
mattresses and decorated with charming designs in gold. There in the far
corner, placed upon the top of a number of large white jars, stood the
light chariot which Yuaa had owned in his lifetime. In all directions
stood objects gleaming with gold undulled by a speck of dust, and one
looked from one article to another with the feeling that the entire
human conception of Time was wrong. These were the things of yesterday,
of a year or so ago. Why, here were meats prepared for the feasts in the
Underworld; here were Yuaa's favourite joints, each neatly placed in a
wooden box as though for a journey. Here was his staff, and here were
his sandals,--a new pair and an old. In another corner there stood the
magical figures by the power of which the prince was to make his way
through Hades. The words of the mystical "Chapter of the Flame" and of
the "Chapter of the Magical Figure of the North Wall" were inscribed
upon them; and upon a great roll of papyrus twenty-two yards in length
other efficacious prayers were written.
But though the eyes passed from object to object, they ever returned to
the two lidless gilded coffins in which the owners of this room of the
dead lay as though peacefully sleeping. First above Yuaa and then above
his wife the electric lamps were held, and as one looked down into their
quiet faces there was almost the feeling that they would presently open
their eyes and blink at the light. The stern features of the old man
commanded one's attention, again and again our gaze was turned from this
mass of wealth to this sleeping figure in whose honour it had been
placed here.
At last we returned to the surface to allow the thoughts opportunity to
collect themselves and the pulses time to quiet down, for, even to the
most unemotional, a discovery of this kind, bringing one into the very
presence of the past, has really an unsteadying effect. Then once more
we descended, and made the preliminary arrangements for the cataloguing
of the antiquities. It was now that the real work began, and, once the
excitement was past, there was a monotony of labour to be faced which
put a very considerable strain on the powers of all concerned. The hot
days when one sweated over the heavy packing-cases, and the bitterly
cold nights when one lay at the mouth of the tomb under the stars,
dragged on for many a week; and when at last the long train of boxes was
carried down to the Nile _en route_ for the Cairo Museum, it was with a
sigh of relief that the official returned to his regular work.
This, of course, was a very exceptional discovery. Mr Davis has made
other great finds, but to me they have not equalled in dramatic interest
the discovery just recorded. Even in this royal valley, however, there
is much drudgery to be faced, and for a large part of the season's work
it is the excavator's business to turn over endless masses of rock
chippings, and to dig huge holes which have no interest for the patient
digger. Sometimes the mouth of a tomb is bared, and is entered with the
profoundest hopes, which are at once dashed by the sudden abrupt ending
of the cutting a few yards from the surface. At other times a
tomb-chamber is reached and is found to be absolutely empty.
At another part of Thebes the well-known Egyptologist, Professor
Schiaparelli, had excavated for a number of years without finding
anything of much importance, when suddenly one fine day he struck the
mouth of a large tomb which was evidently intact. I was at once informed
of the discovery, and proceeded to the spot as quickly as possible. The
mouth of the tomb was approached down a flight of steep, rough steps,
still half-choked with _débris_. At the bottom of this the entrance of a
passage running into the hillside was blocked by a wall of rough stones.
After photographing and removing this, we found ourselves in a long, low
tunnel, blocked by a second wall a few yards ahead. Both these walls
were intact, and we realised that we were about to see what probably no
living man had ever seen before: the absolutely intact remains of a rich
Theban of the Imperial Age--_i.e._, about 1200 or 1300 B.C. When this
second wall was taken down we passed into a carefully-cut passage high
enough to permit of one standing upright.
At the end of this passage a plain wooden door barred our progress. The
wood retained the light colour of fresh deal, and looked for all the
world as though it had been set up but yesterday. A heavy wooden lock,
such as is used at the present day, held the door fast. A neat bronze
handle on the side of the door was connected by a spring to a wooden
knob set in the masonry door-post; and this spring was carefully sealed
with a small dab of stamped clay. The whole contrivance seemed so modern
that Professor Schiaparelli called to his servant for the key, who quite
seriously replied, "I don't know where it is, sir." He then thumped the
door with his hand to see whether it would be likely to give; and, as
the echoes reverberated through the tomb, one felt that the mummy, in
the darkness beyond, might well think that his resurrection call had
come. One almost expected him to rise, like the dead knights of Kildare
in the Irish legend, and to ask, "Is it time?" for the three thousand
years which his religion had told him was the duration of his life in
the tomb was already long past.
Meanwhile we turned our attention to the objects which stood in the
passage, having been placed there at the time of the funeral, owing to
the lack of room in the burial-chamber. Here a vase, rising upon a
delicately shaped stand, attracted the eye by its beauty of form; and
here a bedstead caused us to exclaim at its modern appearance. A
palm-leaf fan, used by the ancient Egyptians to keep the flies off their
wines and unguents, stood near a now empty jar; and near by a basket of
dried-up fruit was to be seen. This dried fruit gave the impression that
the tomb was perhaps a few months old, but there was nothing else to be
seen which suggested that the objects were even as much as a year old.
It was almost impossible to believe, and quite impossible to realise,
that we were standing where no man had stood for well over three
thousand years; and that we were actually breathing the air which had
remained sealed in the passage since the ancient priests had closed the
entrance thirteen hundred years before Christ.
Before we could proceed farther, many flashlight photographs had to be
taken, and drawings made of the doorway; and after this a panel of the
woodwork had to be removed with a fret-saw in order that the lock and
seal might not be damaged. At last, however, this was accomplished, and
the way into the tomb-chamber was open. Stepping through the frame of
the door, we found ourselves in an unencumbered portion of the floor,
while around us in all directions stood the funeral furniture, and on
our left the coffins of the deceased noble and his wife loomed large.
Everything looked new and undecayed, and even the order in which the
objects were arranged suggested a tidying-up done that very morning. The
gravel on the floor was neatly smoothed, and not a speck of dust was
anywhere to be observed. Over the large outer coffin a pall of fine
linen was laid, not rotting and falling to pieces like the cloth of
mediæval times we see in our museums, but soft and strong like the
sheets of our beds. In the clear space before the coffin stood a wooden
pedestal in the form of a miniature lotus column. On the top of this,
resting on three wooden prongs, was a small copper dish, in which were
the ashes of incense, and the little stick used for stirring them. One
asked oneself in bewilderment whether the ashes here, seemingly not
cold, had truly ceased to glow at a time when Rome and Greece were
undreamt of, when Assyria did not exist, and when the Exodus of the
Children of Israel was yet unaccomplished.
On low tables round cakes of bread were laid out, not cracked and
shrivelled, but smooth and brown, with a kind of white-of-egg glaze upon
them. Onions and fruit were also spread out; and the fruit of the _dôm_
palm was to be seen in plenty. In various parts of the chamber there
were numerous bronze vessels of different shapes, intended for the
holding of milk and other drinkables.
Well supplied with food and drink, the senses of the dead man were
soothed by a profusion of flowers, which lay withered but not decayed
beside the coffin, and which at the time of the funeral must have filled
the chamber with their sweetness. Near the doorway stood an upright
wooden chest closed with a lid. Opening this, we found it to contain the
great ceremonial wig of the deceased man, which was suspended from a
rail passing across the top of the chest, and hung free of the sides and
bottom. The black hair was plaited into hundreds of little tails, but in
size the wig was not unlike those of the early eighteenth century in
Europe. Chairs, beds, and other pieces of furniture were arranged around
the room, and at one side there were a number of small chests and boxes
piled up against the wall. We opened one or two of these, and found them
to contain delicate little vases of glass, stone, and metal, wrapped
round with rags to prevent them breaking. These, like everything else
in the tomb, were new and fresh, and showed no trace of the passing of
the years.
The coffins, of course, were hidden by the great casing in which each
rested, and which itself was partly hidden by the linen pall. Nothing
could be touched for many days, until photographs had been taken and
records made; and we therefore returned through the long passage to the
light of the day.
There must have been a large number of intact tombs to be found when
first the modern interest in Egyptian antiquities developed; but the
market thus created had to be supplied, and gangs of illicit diggers
made short work of the most accessible tombs. This illegal excavation,
of course, continues to some extent at the present day, in spite of all
precautions, but the results are becoming less and less proportionate to
the labour expended and risk taken. A native likes best to do a little
quiet digging in his own back yard and to admit nobody else into the
business. To illustrate this, I may mention a tragedy which was brought
to my notice a few years ago. A certain native discovered the entrance
of a tomb in the floor of his stable, and at once proceeded to worm his
way down the tunnel. That was the end of the native. His wife, finding
that he had not returned two hours or so later, went down the newly
found tunnel after him. That was the end of her also. In turn, three
other members of the family went down into the darkness; and that was
the end of them. A native official was then called, and, lighting his
way with a candle, penetrated down the winding passage. The air was so
foul that he was soon obliged to retreat, but he stated that he was just
able to see in the distance ahead the bodies of the unfortunate
peasants, all of whom had been overcome by what he quaintly described as
"the evil lighting and bad climate." Various attempts at the rescue of
the bodies having failed, we gave orders that this tomb should be
regarded as their sepulchre, and that its mouth should be sealed up.
According to the natives, there was evidently a vast hoard of wealth
stored at the bottom of this tomb, and the would-be robbers had met
their death at the hands of the demon in charge of it, who had seized
each man by the throat as he came down the tunnel and had strangled him.
The Egyptian peasants have a very strong belief in the power of such
creatures of the spirit world. A native who was attempting recently to
discover hidden treasure in a certain part of the desert, sacrificed a
lamb each night above the spot where he believed the treasure to lie, in
order to propitiate the _djin_ who guarded it. On the other hand,
however, they have no superstition as regards the sanctity of the
ancient dead, and they do not hesitate on that ground to rifle the
tombs. Thousands of graves have been desecrated by these seekers after
treasure, and it is very largely the result of this that scientific
excavation is often so fruitless nowadays. When an excavator states that
he has discovered a tomb, one takes it for granted that he means a
_plundered_ tomb, unless he definitely says that it was intact, in which
case one calls him a lucky fellow and regards him with green envy.
And thus we come back to my remarks at the beginning of this chapter,
that there is a painful disillusionment awaiting the man who comes to
dig in Egypt in the hope of finding the golden cities of the Pharaohs or
the bejewelled bodies of their dead. Of the latter there are but a few
left to be found. The discovery of one of them forms the subject of the
next chapter.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE TOMB OF TIY AND AKHNATON.[1]
[Footnote 1: A few paragraphs in this chapter also appear in my
'Life and Times of Akhnaton, Pharaoh of Egypt.'
(Wm. Blackwood & Sons, 1910.)]
In January 1907 the excavations in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings
at Thebes, which are being conducted each year by Mr Davis, brought to
light the entrance of a tomb which, by its style, appeared to be that of
a royal personage of the XVIIIth Dynasty. The Valley lies behind the
cliffs which form the western boundary of Thebes, and is approached by a
long winding road running between the rocks and rugged hills of the
Lybian desert. Here the Pharaohs of the XVIIIth to the XXth Dynasties
were buried in large sepulchres cut into the sides of the hills; and the
present excavations have for their object the removal of the _débris_
which has collected at the foot of these hills, in order that the tombs
hidden beneath may be revealed. About sixty tombs are now open, some of
which were already known to Greek and Roman travellers; and there are
probably not more than two or three still to be discovered.
When this new tomb-entrance was uncovered I was at once notified, and
proceeded with all despatch to the Valley. It was not long before we
were able to enter the tomb. A rough stairway led down into the
hillside, bringing us to the mouth of a passage which was entirely
blocked by a wall of built stones. On removing this wall we found
ourselves in a small passage, descending at a sharp incline to a chamber
which could be seen a few yards farther on. Instead of this passage
being free from _débris_, however, as we had expected on finding the
entrance-wall intact, it was partly filled with fallen stones which
seemed to be the ruins of an earlier entrance-wall. On top of this heap
of stones lay one of the sides of a large funeral shrine, almost
entirely blocking the passage. This shrine, as we later saw, was in the
form of a great box-like sarcophagus, made of cedar-wood covered with
gold, and it had been intended as an outer covering for the coffin of
the deceased person. It was, however, not put together: three sides of
it were leaning against the walls of the burial-chamber, and the fourth
was here in the passage. Either it was never built up, or else it was in
process of being taken out of the tomb again when the work was
abandoned.
[Illustration: PL. XVIII. The entrance of the tomb of Queen Tiy, with
Egyptian policeman standing beside it. On
the left is the later tomb of Rameses X.]
[_Photo by R. Paul._
To pass this portion of the shrine which lay in the passage without
doing it damage was no easy matter. We could not venture to move it, as
the wood was rotten; and indeed, for over a year it remained in its
original position. We therefore made a bridge of planks within a few
inches of the low roof, and on this we wriggled ourselves across into
the unencumbered passage beyond. In the funeral-chamber, besides the
other portions of the shrine, we found at one corner a splendid coffin,
in the usual form of a recumbent figure, inlaid in a dazzling manner
with rare stones and coloured glass. The coffin had originally lain upon
a wooden bier, in the form of a lion-legged couch; but this had
collapsed and the mummy had fallen to the ground, the lid of the coffin
being partly thrown off by the fall, thus exposing the head and feet of
the body, from which the bandages had decayed and fallen off. In the
powerful glare of the electric light which we carried, the bare skull,
with a golden vulture upon it, could be seen protruding from the remains
of the linen bandages and from the sheets of flexible gold-foil in
which, as we afterwards found, the whole body was wrapped. The
inscription on the coffin, the letters of which were made of rare
stones, gave the titles of Akhnaton, "the beautiful child of the Sun";
but turning to the shrine we found other inscriptions stating that King
Akhnaton had made it for his mother, Queen Tiy, and thus no immediate
reply could be given to those at the mouth of the tomb who called to us
to know which of the Pharaoh's of Egypt had been found.
In a recess in the wall above the body there stood four alabaster
"canopy" jars, each with a lid exquisitely sculptured in the form of a
human head. In another corner there was a box containing many little
toilet vases and utensils of porcelain. A few alabaster vases and other
objects were lying in various parts of the chamber, arranged in some
sort of rough order.
Nothing, of course, could yet be touched, and for several days, during
the lengthy process of photographing and recording the contents of the
tomb _in situ_, no further information could be obtained as to the
identity of the owner of the tomb. The shrine was certainly made for
Queen Tiy, and so too were the toilet utensils, judging by an
inscription upon one of them which gave the names of Tiy and her
husband, King Amenhotep III., the parents of Akhnaton. It was,
therefore, not a surprise when a passing doctor declared the much broken
bones to be those of a woman--that is to say, those of Queen Tiy. For
reasons which will presently become apparent, it had been difficult to
believe that Akhnaton could have been buried in this Valley, and one was
very ready to suppose that the coffin bearing his name had but been
given by him to his mother.
The important discovery was now announced, and considerable interest and
excitement. At the end of the winter the various archæologists departed
to their several countries, and it fell to me to despatch the
antiquities to the Cairo Museum, and to send the bones, soaked in wax to
prevent their breakage, to Dr Elliot Smith, to be examined by that
eminent authority. It may be imagined that my surprise was considerable
when I received a letter from him reading--"Are you sure that the bones
you sent me are those which were found in the tomb? Instead of the bones
of an old woman, you have sent me those of a young man. Surely there is
some mistake."
There was, however, no mistake. Dr Elliot Smith later informed me that
the bones were those of a young man of about twenty-eight years of age,
and at first this description did not seem to tally with that of
Akhnaton, who was always thought to have been a man of middle age. But
there is now no possibility of doubt that the coffin and mummy were
those of this extraordinary Pharaoh, although the tomb and funeral
furniture belonged to Queen Tiy. Dr Elliot Smith's decision was, of
course, somewhat disconcerting to those who had written of the mortal
remains of the great Queen; but it is difficult to speak of Tiy without
also referring to her famous son Akhnaton, and in these articles he had
received full mention.
About the year B.C. 1500 the throne of Egypt fell to the young brother
of Queen Hatshepsut, Thutmosis III., and under his vigorous rule the
country rose to a height of power never again equalled. Amenhotep II.
succeeded to an empire which extended from the Sudan to the Euphrates
and to the Greek Islands; and when he died he left these great
possessions almost intact to his son, Thutmosis IV., the grandfather of
Akhnaton. It is important to notice the chronology of this period. The
mummy of Thutmosis IV. has been shown by Dr Elliot Smith to be that of a
man of not more than twenty-six years of age; but we know that his son
Amenhotep III. was old enough to hunt lions at about the time of his
father's death, and that he was already married to Queen Tiy a year
later. Thus one must suppose that Thutmosis IV. was a father at the age
of thirteen or fourteen, and that Amenhotep III. was married to Tiy at
about the same age. The wife of Thutmosis IV. was probably a Syrian
princess, and it must have been during her regency that Amenhotep III.
married Tiy, who was not of royal blood. Amenhotep and Tiy introduced
into Egypt the luxuries of Asia; and during their brilliant reign the
Nile Valley was more open to Syrian influence than it had ever been
before. The language of Babylon was perhaps the Court tongue, and the
correspondence was written in cuneiform instead of in the hieratic
script of Egypt. Amenhotep III., as has been said, was probably partly
Asiatic; and there is, perhaps, some reason to suppose that Yuaa, the
father of Queen Tiy, was also a Syrian. One has, therefore, to picture
the Egyptian Court at this time as being saturated with foreign ideas,
which clashed with those of the orthodox Egyptians.
Queen Tiy bore several children to the King; but it was not until they
had reigned over twenty years that a son and heir was born, whom they
named Amenhotep, that being changed later to Akhnaton. It is probable
that he first saw the light in the royal palace at Thebes, which was
situated on the edge of the desert at the foot of the western hills. It
was an extensive and roomy structure, lightly built and gaily decorated.
The ceiling and pavements of its halls were fantastically painted with
scenes of animal life: wild cattle ran through reedy swamps beneath
one's feet, and many-coloured fish swam in the water; while overhead
flights of pigeons, white against a blue sky, passed across the hall,
and the wild duck hastened towards the open casements. Through curtained
doorways one might obtain glimpses of a garden planted with flowers
foreign to Egypt; and on the east of the palace the King had made a
great pleasure-lake for the Queen, surrounded by the trees of Asia.
Here, floating in her golden barge, which was named _Aton-gleams_, the
Queen might look westwards over the tree-tops to the splendid Theban
hills towering above the palace, and eastwards to the green valley of
the Nile and the three great limestone hills beyond. Amenhotep III. has
been rightly called the "Magnificent," and one may well believe that his
son Akhnaton was born to the sound of music and to the clink of golden
wine-cups. Fragments of countless thousands of wine-jars and blue
fayence drinking-vessels have been found in the ruins of the palace;
and contemporary objects and paintings show us some of the exquisitely
wrought bowls of gold and silver which must have graced the royal
tables, and the charming toilet utensils which were to be found in the
sleeping apartments.
While the luxurious Court rejoiced at the birth of this Egypto-Asiatic
prince, one feels that the ancient priesthood of Amon-Ra must have stood
aloof, and must have looked askance at the baby who was destined one day
to be their master. This priesthood was perhaps the proudest and most
conservative community which conservative Egypt ever produced. It
demanded implicit obedience to its stiff and ancient conventions, and it
refused to recognise the growing tendency towards religious speculation.
One of the great gods of Syria was Aton, the god of the sun; and his
recognition at the Theban Court was a source of constant irritation to
the ministers of Amon-Ra.
Probably they would have taken stronger measures to resist this foreign
god had it not been for the fact that Atum of Heliopolis, an ancient god
of Egypt, was on the one hand closely akin to Ra, the associated deity
with Amon, and on the other hand to Aton of Syria. Thus Aton might be
regarded merely as another name for Ra or Amon-Ra; but the danger to the
old _régime_ lay in the fact that with the worship of Aton there went a
certain amount of freethought. The sun and its warm rays were the
heritage of all mankind; and the speculative mind of the Asiatic,
always in advance of the less imaginative Egyptian, had not failed to
collect to the Aton-worship a number of semi-philosophical teachings far
broader than the strict doctrines of Amon-Ra could tolerate.
[Illustration: PL. XIX. Toilet-spoons of carved wood, discovered in
tombs of the Eighteenth Dynasty. That on the
right has a movable lid.
--CAIRO MUSEUM.]
[_Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha._
There is much reason to suppose that Queen Tiy was the prime factor in
the new movement. It may, perhaps, be worth noting that her father was a
priest of the Egyptian god Min, who corresponded to the North Syrian
Aton in his capacity as a god of vegetation; and she may have imbibed
something of the broader doctrines from him. It is the barge upon _her_
pleasure-lake which is called _Aton-gleams_, and it is _her_ private
artist who is responsible for one of the first examples of the new style
of art which begins to appear at this period. Egyptian art was bound
down by conventions jealously guarded by the priesthood, and the slight
tendency to break away from these, which now becomes apparent, is
another sign of the broadening of thought under the reign of Amenhotep
III. and Tiy.
King Amenhotep III. does not seem to have been a man of strong
character, and in the changes which took place at this time he does not
appear to have taken so very large a part. He always showed the most
profound respect for, and devotion to, his Queen; and one is inclined to
regard him as a tool in her hands. According to some accounts he reigned
only thirty years, but there are contemporary monuments dated in his
thirty-sixth year, and it seems probable that for the last few years he
was reigning only in name, and that in reality his ministers, under the
regency of Queen Tiy, governed the land. Amenhotep III. was perhaps
during his last years insane or stricken with some paralytic disease,
for we read of an Asiatic monarch sending a miracle-working image to
Egypt, apparently for the purpose of attempting to cure him. It must
have been during these six years of absolute power, while Akhnaton was a
boy, that the Queen pushed forward her reforms and encouraged the
breaking down of the old traditions, especially those relating to the
worship of Amon-Ra.
Amenhotep III. died in about the forty-ninth year of his age, after a
total reign of thirty-six years; and Akhnaton, who still bore the name
of Amenhotep, ascended the throne. One must picture him now as an
enthusiastic boy, filled with the new thought of the age, and burning to
assert the broad doctrines which he had learned from his mother and her
friends, in defiance of the priests of Amon-Ra. He was already married
to a Syrian named Nefertiti, and certainly before he was fifteen years
of age he was the father of two daughters.
The new Pharaoh's first move, under the guidance of Tiy, was to proclaim
Aton the only true god, and to name himself high priest of that deity.
He then began to build a temple dedicated to Aton at Karnak; but it must
have been distasteful to observe how overshadowed and dwarfed was this
new temple by the mighty buildings in honour of the older gods which
stood there. Moreover, there must have been very serious opposition to
the new religion in Thebes, where Amon had ruled for so many centuries
unchallenged. In whatever direction he looked he was confronted with
some evidence of the worship of Amon-Ra: he might proclaim Aton to be
the only god, but Amon and a hundred other deities stared down at him
from every temple wall. He and his advisers, therefore, decided to
abandon Thebes altogether and to found a new capital elsewhere.
Akhnaton selected a site for the new city on the west bank of the river,
at a point now named El Amarna, about 160 miles above Cairo. Here the
hills recede from the river, forming a bay about three miles deep and
five long; and in this bay the young Pharaoh decided to build his
capital, which was named "Horizon of Aton." With feverish speed the new
buildings were erected. A palace even more beautiful than that of his
parents at Thebes was prepared for him; a splendid temple dedicated to
Aton was set up amidst a garden of rare trees and brilliant flowers;
villas for his nobles were erected, and streets were laid out. Queen
Tiy, who seems to have continued to live at Thebes, often came down to
El Amarna to visit her son; but it seems to have been at his own wish
rather than at her advice that he now took the important step which set
the seal of his religion upon his life.
Around the bay of El Amarna, on the cliffs which shut it off so
securely, the King caused landmarks to be made at intervals, and on
these he inscribed an oath which some have interpreted to mean that he
would never again leave his new city. He would remain, like the Pope in
the Vatican, for the rest of his days within the limits of this bay;
and, rather than be distracted by the cares of state and the worries of
empire, he would shut himself up with his god and would devote his life
to his religion. He was but a youth still, and, to his inexperienced
mind, this oath seemed nothing; nor in his brief life does it seem that
he broke it, though at times he must have longed to visit his domains.
The religion which this boy, who now called himself Akhnaton, "The Glory
of Aton," taught was by no means the simple worship of the sun. It was,
without question, the most enlightened religion which the world at that
time had ever known. The young priest-king called upon mankind to
worship the unknown power which is behind the sun, that power of which
the brilliant sun was the visible symbol, and which might be discerned
in the fertilising warmth of the sun's rays. Aton was originally the
actual sun's disk; but Akhnaton called his god "Heat which is in Aton,"
and thus drew the eyes of his followers towards a Force far more
intangible and distant than the dazzling orb to which they bowed down.
Akhnaton's god was the force which created the sun, the something which
penetrated to this earth in the sun's heat and caused the vegetation to
grow.
Amon-Ra and the gods of Egypt were for the most part but deified
mortals, endued with monstrous, though limited, power, and still having
around them traditions of exaggerated human deeds. Others had their
origin in natural phenomena--the wind, the Nile, the sky, and so on. All
were terrific, revengeful, and able to be moved by human emotions. But
Akhnaton's god was the intangible and yet ever-present Father of
mankind, made manifest in sunshine. The youthful High Priest called upon
his followers to search for their god not in the confusion of battle or
behind the smoke of human sacrifices, but amidst the flowers and trees,
amidst the wild duck and the fishes. He preached an enlightened
nature-study; he was perhaps the first apostle of the Simple Life. He
strove to break down conventional religion, and ceaselessly urged his
people to worship in Truth, simply, without an excess of ceremonial.
While the elder gods had been manifest in natural convulsions and in the
more awful incidents of life, Akhnaton's kindly god could be seen in the
chick which broke out of its egg, in the wind which filled the sails of
the ships, in the fish which leapt from the water. Aton was the joy
which caused the young sheep "to dance upon their feet," and the birds
to "flutter in their marshes." He was the god of the simple pleasures of
life, and Truth was the watchword of his followers.
It may be understood how the boy longed for truth in all things when one
remembers the thousand exaggerated conventions of Egyptian life at this
time. Court etiquette had developed to a degree which rendered life to
the Pharaoh an endless round of unnatural poses of mind and body. In the
preaching of his doctrine of truth and simplicity, Akhnaton did not fail
to call upon his subjects to regard their Pharaoh not as a god but as a
man. It was usual for the Pharaoh to keep aloof from his people:
Akhnaton was to be found in their midst. The Court demanded that their
lord should drive in solitary state through the city: Akhnaton sat in
his chariot with his wife and children, and allowed the artist to
represent him joking with his little daughter, who has mischievously
poked the horses with a stick. In representing the Pharaoh, the artist
was expected to draw him in some conventional attitude of dignity:
Akhnaton insisted upon being shown in all manner of natural
attitudes--now leaning languidly upon a staff, now nursing his children,
now caressing his wife.
As has been said, one of the first artists to break away from the
ancient conventions was in the service of Queen Tiy, and was probably
under her influence. But in the radical change in the art which took
place, Akhnaton is definitely stated to have been the leader, and the
new school acknowledge that they were taught by the King. The new art is
extraordinary, and it must be owned that its merit lies rather in its
originality than in its beauty. An attempt is made to do away with the
prescribed attitudes and the strict proportions, and to portray any one
individual with his natural defects. Some of the sculptured heads,
however, which have come down to us, and notably the four "canopic"
heads found in this tomb, are of wonderful beauty, and have no trace of
traditional mannerisms, though they are highly idealised. The King's
desire for light-heartedness led him to encourage the use of bright
colours and gay decorations in the palace. Some of the ceiling and
pavement paintings are of great beauty, while the walls and pillars
inlaid with coloured stones must have given a brilliancy to the halls
unequalled in Egypt at any previous time.
The group of nobles who formed the King's Court had all sacrificed much
in coming to the new capital. Their estates around Thebes had been left,
their houses abandoned, and the tombs which were in process of being
made for them in the Theban hills had been rendered useless. The King,
therefore, showered favours upon them, and at his expense built their
houses and constructed sepulchres for them. It is on the walls of these
tombs that one obtains the main portion of one's information regarding
the teachings of this wonderful youth, who was now growing into
manhood. Here are inscribed those beautiful hymns to Aton which rank so
high in ancient literature. It is unfortunate that space does not allow
more than a few extracts from the hymns to be quoted here; but something
of their beauty may be realised from these. (Professor Breasted's
translation.)
"Thy dawning is beautiful in the horizon of heaven,
O living Aton, Beginning of life!
When thou risest in the eastern horizon of heaven
Thou fillest every land with thy beauty."
"Though thou art afar, thy rays are on earth;
Though thou art on high, thy footprints are the day."
"When thou settest in the western horizon of heaven
The world is in darkness like the dead.
Men sleep in their chambers, their heads are wrapt up.
Every lion cometh forth from his den.
The serpents, they sting.
Darkness reigns, the world is in silence:
He that made them has gone to rest in his horizon."
"Bright is the earth when thou risest in the horizon ...
When thou sendest forth thy rays
The two lands of Egypt are in daily festivity,
Awake and standing upon their feet,
For thou hast raised them up.
Their limbs bathed, they take their clothing,
Their arms uplifted in adoration to thy dawning.
Then in all the world they do their work."
"All cattle rest upon their herbage, all trees and plants flourish.
The birds flutter in their marshes, their wings uplifted in
adoration to thee.
All the sheep dance upon their feet,
All winged things fly; they live when thou hast shone upon them."
"The barques sail up-stream and down-stream alike,...
The fish in the river leap up before thee,
And thy rays are in the midst of the great sea."
"Thou art he who createst the man-child in woman ...
Who giveth life to the son in the body of his mother;
Who soothest him that he may not weep,
A nurse even in the womb."
"When the chick crieth in the egg-shell,
Thou givest him breath therein to preserve him alive ...
He cometh forth from the egg, to chirp with all his might.
He runneth about upon his two feet."
"How manifold are all thy works!
They are hidden from before us."
There are several verses of this hymn which are almost identical with
Psalm civ., and those who study it closely will be forced to one of two
conclusions: either that Psalm civ. is derived from this hymn of the
young Pharaoh, or that both are derived from some early Syrian hymn to
the sun. Akhnaton may have only adapted this early psalm to local
conditions; though, on the other hand, a man capable of bringing to pass
so great a religious revolution in Egypt may well be credited with the
authorship of this splendid song. There is no evidence to show that it
was written before the King had reached manhood.
Queen Tiy probably did not now take any further part in a movement which
had got so far out of her hands. She was now nearly sixty years old, and
this, to one who had been a mother so early in life, was a considerable
age. It seems that she sometimes paid visits to her son at El Amarna,
but her interest lay in Thebes, where she had once held so brilliant a
Court. When at last she died, therefore, it is not surprising to find
that she was buried in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. The tomb
which has been described above is most probably her original sepulchre,
and here her body was placed in the golden shrine made for her by
Akhnaton, surrounded by the usual funeral furniture. She thus lay no
more than a stone's throw from her parents, whose tomb was discovered
two years ago, and which was of very similar size and shape.
After her death, although preaching this gentle creed of love and simple
truth, Akhnaton waged a bitter and stern war against the priesthoods of
the old gods. It may be that the priesthoods of Amon had again attempted
to overthrow the new doctrines, or had in some manner called down the
particular wrath of the Pharaoh. He issued an order that the name of
Amon was to be erased and obliterated wherever it was found, and his
agents proceeded to hack it out on all the temple walls. The names also
of other gods were erased; and it is noticeable in this tomb that the
word _mut_, meaning "mother," was carefully spelt in hieroglyphs which
would have no similarity to those used in the word _Mut_, the
goddess-consort of Amon. The name of Amenhotep III., his own father, did
not escape the King's wrath, and the first syllables were everywhere
erased.
As the years went by Akhnaton seems to have given himself more and more
completely to his new religion. He had now so trained one of his nobles,
named Merira, in the teachings of Aton that he was able to hand over to
him the high priesthood of that god, and to turn his attention to the
many other duties which he had imposed upon himself. In rewarding
Merira, the King is related to have said, "Hang gold at his neck before
and behind, and gold on his legs, because of his hearing the teaching of
Pharaoh concerning every saying in these beautiful places." Another
official whom Akhnaton greatly advanced says: "My lord advanced me
because I have carried out his teaching, and I hear his word without
ceasing." The King's doctrines were thus beginning to take hold; but one
feels, nevertheless, that the nobles followed their King rather for the
sake of their material gains than for the spiritual comforts of the
Aton-worship. There is reason to suppose that at least one of these
nobles was degraded and banished from the city.
But while Akhnaton was preaching peace and goodwill amidst the flowers
of the temple of Aton, his generals in Asia Minor were vainly struggling
to hold together the great empire created by Thutmosis III. Akhnaton had
caused a temple of Aton to be erected at one point in Syria at least,
but in other respects he took little or no interest in the welfare of
his foreign dominions. War was not tolerated in his doctrine: it was a
sin to take away life which the good Father had given. One pictures the
hardened soldiers of the empire striving desperately to hold the nations
of Asia faithful to the Pharaoh whom they never saw. The small garrisons
were scattered far and wide over Syria, and constantly they sent
messengers to the Pharaoh asking at least for some sign that he held
them in mind.
There is no more pathetic page of ancient history than that which tells
of the fall of the Egyptian Empire. The Amorites, advancing along the
sea-coast, took city after city from the Egyptians almost without a
struggle. The chiefs of Tunip wrote an appeal for help to the King: "To
the King of Egypt, my lord,--The inhabitants of Tunip, thy servant." The
plight of the city is described and reinforcements are asked for, "And
now," it continues, "Tunip thy city weeps, and her tears are flowing,
and there is no help for us. For twenty years we have been sending to
our lord the King, the King of Egypt, but there has not come a word to
us, no, not one." The messengers of the beleaguered city must have found
the King absorbed in his religion, and must have seen only priests of
the sun where they had hoped to find the soldiers of former days. The
Egyptian governor of Jerusalem, attacked by Aramæans, writes to the
Pharaoh, saying: "Let the King take care of his land, and ... let send
troops.... For if no troops come in this year, the whole territory of my
lord the King will perish." To this letter is added a note to the
King's secretary, which reads, "Bring these words plainly before my
lord the King: the whole land of my lord the King is going to ruin."
So city after city fell, and the empire, won at such cost, was gradually
lost to the Egyptians. It is probable that Akhnaton had not realised how
serious was the situation in Asia Minor. A few of the chieftains who
were not actually in arms against him had written to him every now and
then assuring him that all was well in his dominions; and, strange to
relate, the tribute of many of the cities had been regularly paid. The
Asiatic princes, in fact, had completely fooled the Pharaoh, and had led
him to believe that the nations were loyal while they themselves
prepared for rebellion. Akhnaton, hating violence, had been only too
ready to believe that the despatches from Tunip and elsewhere were
unjustifiably pessimistic. He had hoped to bind together the many
countries under his rule, by giving them a single religion. He had hoped
that when Aton should be worshipped in all parts of his empire, and when
his simple doctrines of love, truth, and peace should be preached from
every temple throughout the length and breadth of his dominions, then
war would cease and a unity of faith would hold the lands in harmony one
with the other.
When, therefore, the tribute suddenly ceased, and the few refugees came
staggering home to tell of the perfidy of the Asiatic princes and the
fall of the empire, Akhnaton seems to have received his deathblow. He
was now not more than twenty-eight years of age; and though his
portraits show that his face was already lined with care, and that his
body was thinner than it should have been, he seems to have had plenty
of reserve strength. He was the father of several daughters, but his
queen had borne him no son to succeed him; and thus he must have felt
that his religion could not outlive him. With his empire lost, with
Thebes his enemy, and with his treasury wellnigh empty, one feels that
Akhnaton must have sunk to the very depths of despondency. His religious
revolution had ruined Egypt, and had failed: did he, one wonders, find
consolation in the sunshine and amidst the flowers?
His death followed speedily; and, resting in the splendid coffin in
which we found him, he was laid in the tomb prepared for him in the
hills behind his new capital. The throne fell to the husband of one of
his daughters, Smenkhkara, who, after an ephemeral reign, gave place to
another of the sons-in-law of Akhnaton, Tutankhaton. This king was
speedily persuaded to change his name to Tutankhamon, to abandon the
worship of Aton, and to return to Thebes. Akhnaton's city fell into
ruins, and soon the temples and palaces became the haunt of jackals and
the home of owls. The nobles returned with their new king to Thebes, and
not one remained faithful to those "teachings" to which they had once
pretended to be such earnest listeners.
[Illustration: PL. XX. The coffin of Akhnaton lying in the tomb of
Queen Tiy.]
[_Photo by R. Paul._
The fact that the body in the new tomb was that of Akhnaton, and not of
Queen Tiy, gives a new reading to the history of the burial. When
Tutankhamon returned to Thebes, Akhnaton's memory was still, it appears,
regarded with reverence, and it seems that there was no question of
leaving his body in the neighbourhood of his deserted palace, where,
until the discovery of this tomb, Egyptologists had expected to find it.
It was carried to Thebes, together with some of the funeral furniture,
and was placed in the tomb of Queen Tiy, which had been reopened for the
purpose. But after some years had passed and the priesthood of Amon-Ra
had again asserted itself, Akhnaton began to be regarded as a heretic
and as the cause of the loss of Egypt's Asiatic dominions. These
sentiments were vigorously encouraged by the priesthood, and soon
Akhnaton came to be spoken of as "that criminal," and his name was
obliterated from his monuments. It was now felt that his body could no
longer lie in state together with that of Queen Tiy in the Valley of the
Tombs of the Kings. The sepulchre was therefore opened once more, and
the name Akhnaton was everywhere erased from the inscriptions. The tomb,
polluted by the presence of the heretic, was no longer fit for Tiy, and
the body of the Queen was therefore carried elsewhere, perhaps to the
tomb of her husband Amenhotep III. The shrine in which her mummy had
lain was pulled to pieces and an attempt was made to carry it out of the
tomb; but this arduous task was presently abandoned, and one portion of
the shrine was left in the passage, where we found it. The body of
Akhnaton, his name erased, was now the sole occupant of the tomb. The
entrance was blocked with stones, and sealed with the seal of
Tutankhamon, a fragment of which was found; and it was in this condition
that it was discovered in 1907.
The bones of this extraordinary Pharaoh are in the Cairo Museum; but, in
deference to the sentiments of many worthy persons, they are not
exhibited. The visitor to that museum, however, may now see the
"canopic" jars, the alabaster vases, the gold vulture, the gold
necklace, the sheets of gold in which the body was wrapped, the toilet
utensils, and parts of the shrine, all of which we found in the
burial-chamber.
CHAPTER IX.
THE TOMB OF HOREMHEB.
In the last chapter a discovery was recorded which, as experience has
shown, is of considerable interest to the general reader. The romance
and the tragedy of the life of Akhnaton form a really valuable addition
to the store of good things which is our possession, and which the
archæologist so diligently labours to increase. Curiously enough,
another discovery, that of the tomb of Horemheb, was made by the same
explorer (Mr Davis) in 1908; and as it forms the natural sequel to the
previous chapter, I may be permitted to record it here.
Akhnaton was succeeded by Smenkhkara, his son-in-law, who, after a brief
reign, gave place to Tutankhamon, during whose short life the court
returned to Thebes. A certain noble named Ay came next to the throne,
but held it for only three years. The country was now in a chaotic
condition, and was utterly upset and disorganised by the revolution of
Akhnaton, and by the vacillating policy of the three weak kings who
succeeded him, each reigning for so short a time. One cannot say to
what depths of degradation Egypt might have sunk had it not been for the
timely appearance of Horemheb, a wise and good ruler, who, though but a
soldier of not particularly exalted birth, managed to raise himself to
the vacant throne, and succeeded in so organising the country once more
that his successors, Rameses I., Sety I., and Rameses II., were able to
regain most of the lost dominions, and to place Egypt at the head of the
nations of the world.
Horemheb, "The Hawk in Festival," was born at Alabastronpolis, a city of
the 18th Province of Upper Egypt, during the reign of Amenhotep III.,
who has rightly been named "The Magnificent," and in whose reign Egypt
was at once the most powerful, the most wealthy, and the most luxurious
country in the world. There is reason to suppose that Horemheb's family
were of noble birth, and it is thought by some that an inscription which
calls King Thutmosis III. "the father of his fathers" is to be taken
literally to mean that that old warrior was his great-or
great-great-grandfather. The young noble was probably educated at the
splendid court of Amenhotep III., where the wit and intellect of the
world was congregated, and where, under the presidency of the beautiful
Queen Tiy, life slipped by in a round of revels.
As an impressionable young man, Horemheb must have watched the gradual
development of freethought in the palace, and the ever-increasing
irritation and chafing against the bonds of religious convention which
bound all Thebans to the worship of the god Amon. Judging by his future
actions, Horemheb did not himself feel any real repulsion to Amon,
though the religious rut into which the country had fallen was
sufficiently objectionable to a man of his intellect to cause him to
cast in his lot with the movement towards emancipation. In later life he
would certainly have been against the movement, for his mature judgment
led him always to be on the side of ordered habit and custom as being
less dangerous to the national welfare than a social upheaval or change.
Horemheb seems now to have held the appointment of captain or commander
in the army, and at the same time, as a "Royal Scribe," he cultivated
the art of letters, and perhaps made himself acquainted with those legal
matters which in later years he was destined to reform.
When Amenhotep III. died, the new king, Akhnaton, carried out the
revolution which had been pending for many years, and absolutely banned
the worship of Amon, with all that it involved. He built himself a new
capital at El Amârna, and there he instituted the worship of the sun, or
rather of the heat or power of the sun, under the name of Aton. In so
far as the revolution constituted a breaking away from tiresome
convention, the young Horemheb seems to have been with the King. No one
of intelligence could deny that the new religion and new philosophy
which was preached at El Amârna was more worthy of consideration on
general lines than was the narrow doctrine of the Amon priesthood; and
all thinkers must have rejoiced at the freedom from bonds which had
become intolerable. But the world was not ready, and indeed is still not
ready, for the schemes which Akhnaton propounded; and the unpractical
model-kingdom which was uncertainly developing under the hills of El
Amârna must have already been seen to contain the elements of grave
danger to the State.
Nevertheless the revolution offered many attractions. The frivolous
members of the court, always ready for change and excitement, welcomed
with enthusiasm the doctrine of the moral and simple life which the King
and his advisers preached, just as in the decadent days before the
French Revolution the court, bored with licentiousness, gaily welcomed
the morality-painting of the young Greuze. And to the more
serious-minded, such as Horemheb seems to have been, the movement must
have appealed in its imperial aspect. The new god Aton was largely
worshipped in Syria, and it seems evident that Akhnaton had hoped to
bind together the heterogeneous nations of the empire by a bond of
common worship. The Asiatics were not disposed to worship Amon, but Aton
appealed to them as much as any god, and Horemheb must have seen great
possibilities in a common religion.
It is thought that Horemheb may be identified amongst the nobles who
followed Akhnaton to El Amârna, and though this is not certain, there is
little doubt that he was in high favour with the King at the time. To
one whose tendency is neither towards frivolity nor towards fanaticism,
there can be nothing more broadening than the influence of religious
changes. More than one point of view is appreciated: a man learns that
there are other ruts than that in which he runs, and so he seeks the
smooth midway. Thus Horemheb, while acting loyally towards his King, and
while appreciating the value of the new movement, did not exclude from
his thoughts those teachings which he deemed good in the old order of
things. He seems to have seen life broadly; and when the new religion of
Akhnaton became narrowed and fanatical, as it did towards the close of
the tragic chapter of that king's short life, Horemheb was one of the
few men who kept an open mind.
Like many other nobles of the period, he had constructed for himself a
tomb at Sakkâra, in the shadow of the pyramids of the old kings of
Egypt; and fragments of this tomb, which of course was abandoned when he
became Pharaoh, are now to be seen in various museums. In one of the
scenes there sculptured Horemheb is shown in the presence of a king who
is almost certainly Akhnaton; and yet in a speech to him inscribed
above the reliefs, Horemheb makes reference to the god Amon whose very
name was anathema to the King. The royal figure is drawn according to
the canons of art prescribed by Akhnaton, and upon which, as a protest
against the conventional art of the old order, he laid the greatest
stress in his revolution; and thus, at all events, Horemheb was in
sympathy with this aspect of the movement. But the inscriptions which
refer to Amon, and yet are impregnated with the Aton style of
expression, show that Horemheb was not to be held down to any one mode
of thought. Akhnaton was, perhaps, already dead when these inscriptions
were added, and thus Horemheb may have had no further reason to hide his
views; or it may be that they constituted a protest against that
narrowness which marred the last years of a pious king.
Those who read the history of the period in the last chapter will
remember how Akhnaton came to persecute the worshippers of Amon, and how
he erased that god's name wherever it was written throughout the length
and breadth of Egypt. Evidently with this action Horemheb did not agree;
nor was this his only cause for complaint. As an officer, and now a
highly placed general of the army, he must have seen with feelings of
the utmost bitterness the neglected condition of the Syrian provinces.
Revolt after revolt occurred in these states; but Akhnaton, dreaming and
praying in the sunshine of El Amârna, would send no expedition to
punish the rebels. Good-fellowship with all men was the King's
watchword, and a policy more or less democratic did not permit him to
make war on his fellow-creatures. Horemheb could smell battle in the
distance, but could not taste of it. The battalions which he had trained
were kept useless in Egypt; and even when, during the last years of
Akhnaton's reign, or under his successor Smenkhkara, he was made
commander-in-chief of all the forces, there was no means of using his
power to check the loss of the cities of Asia. Horemheb must have
watched these cities fall one by one into the hands of those who
preached the doctrine of the sword, and there can be little wonder that
he turned in disgust from the doings at El Amârna.
During the times which followed, when Smenkhkara held the throne for a
year or so, and afterwards, when Tutankhamon became Pharaoh, Horemheb
seems to have been the leader of the reactionary movement. He did not
concern himself so much with the religious aspect of the questions:
there was as much to be said on behalf of Aton as there was on behalf of
Amon. But it was he who knocked at the doors of the heart of Egypt, and
urged the nation to awake to the danger in the East. An expedition
against the rebels was organised, and one reads that Horemheb was the
"companion of his Lord upon the battlefield on that day of the slaying
of the Asiatics." Akhnaton had been opposed to warfare, and had dreamed
that dream of universal peace which still is a far-off light to mankind.
Horemheb was a practical man in whom such a dream would have been but
weakness; and, though one knows nothing more of these early campaigns,
the fact that he attempted to chastise the enemies of the empire at this
juncture stands to his credit for all time.
Under Tutankhamon the court returned to Thebes, though not yet
exclusively to the worship of Amon; and the political phase of the
revolution came to an end. The country once more settled into the old
order of life, and Horemheb, having experienced the full dangers of
philosophic speculation, was glad enough to abandon thought for action.
He was now the most powerful man in the kingdom, and inscriptions call
him "the greatest of the great, the mightiest of the mighty, presider
over the Two Lands of Egypt, general of generals," and so on. The King
"appointed him to be Chief of the Land, to administer the laws of the
land as Hereditary Prince of all this land"; and "all that was done was
done by his command." From chaos Horemheb was producing order, and all
men turned to him in gratitude as he reorganised the various government
departments.
The offices which he held, such as Privy Councillor, King's Secretary,
Great Lord of the People, and so on, are very numerous; and in all of
these he dealt justly though sternly, so that "when he came the fear of
him was great in the sight of the people, prosperity and health were
craved for him, and he was greeted as 'Father of the Two Lands of
Egypt.'" He was indeed the saviour and father of his country, for he had
found her corrupt and disordered, and he was leading her back to
greatness and dignity.
[Illustration: PL. XXI. Head of a granite statue of the god Khonsu,
probably dating from about the period of
Horemheb.
--CAIRO MUSEUM.]
[_Photo by Beato._
At this time he was probably a man of about forty years of age. In
appearance he seems to have been noble and good to look upon. "When he
was born," says the inscription, "he was clothed with strength: the hue
of a god was upon him"; and in later life, "the form of a god was in his
colour," whatever that may mean. He was a man of considerable eloquence
and great learning. "He astonished the people by that which came out of
his mouth," we are told; and "when he was summoned before the King the
palace began to fear." One may picture the weak Pharaoh and his corrupt
court, as they watched with apprehension the movements of this stern
soldier, of whom it was said that his every thought was "in the
footsteps of the Ibis,"--the ibis being the god of wisdom.
On the death of Tutankhamon, the question of inviting Horemheb to fill
the vacant throne must have been seriously considered; but there was
another candidate, a certain Ay, who had been one of the most important
nobles in the group of Akhnaton's favourites at El Amârna, and who had
been the loudest in the praises of Aton. Religious feeling was at the
time running high, for the partizans of Amon and those of Aton seem to
have been waging war on one another; and Ay appears to have been
regarded as the man most likely to bridge the gulf between the two
parties. A favourite of Akhnaton, and once a devout worshipper of Aton,
he was not averse to the cults of other gods; and by conciliating both
factions he managed to obtain the throne for himself. His power,
however, did not last for long; and as the priests of Amon regained the
confidence of the nation at the expense of those of Aton, so the power
of Ay declined. His past connections with Akhnaton told against him, and
after a year or so he disappeared, leaving the throne vacant once more.
There was now no question as to who should succeed. A princess named
Mutnezem, the sister of Akhnaton's queen, and probably an old friend of
Horemheb, was the sole heiress to the throne, the last surviving member
of the greatest Egyptian dynasty. All men turned to Horemheb in the hope
that he would marry this lady, and thus reign as Pharaoh over them,
perhaps leaving a son by her to succeed him when he was gathered to his
fathers. He was now some forty-five years of age, full of energy and
vigour, and passionately anxious to have a free hand in the carrying out
of his schemes for the reorganisation of the government. It was
therefore with joy that, in about the year 1350 B.C., he sailed up to
Thebes in order to claim the crown.
He arrived at Luxor at a time when the annual festival of Amon was being
celebrated, and all the city was _en fête_. The statue of the god had
been taken from its shrine at Karnak, and had been towed up the river to
Luxor in a gorgeous barge, attended by a fleet of gaily-decorated
vessels. With songs and dancing it had been conveyed into the Luxor
temple, where the priests had received it standing amidst piled-up
masses of flowers, fruit, and other offerings. It seems to have been at
this moment that Horemheb appeared, while the clouds of incense streamed
up to heaven, and the morning air was full of the sound of the harps and
the lutes. Surrounded by a crowd of his admirers, he was conveyed into
the presence of the divine figure, and was there and then hailed as
Pharaoh.
From the temple he was carried amidst cheering throngs to the palace
which stood near by; and there he was greeted by the Princess Mutnezem,
who fell on her knees before him and embraced him. That very day, it
would seem, he was married to her, and in the evening the royal heralds
published the style and titles by which he would be known in the future:
"Mighty Bull, Ready in Plans; Favourite of the Two Goddesses, Great in
Marvels; Golden Hawk, Satisfied with Truth; Creator of the Two Lands,"
and so forth. Then, crowned with the royal helmet, he was led once more
before the statue of Amon, while the priests pronounced the blessing of
the gods upon him. Passing down to the quay before the temple the figure
of the god was placed once more upon the state-barge, and was floated
down to Karnak; while Horemheb was led through the rejoicing crowds back
to the palace to begin his reign as Pharaoh.
In religious matters Horemheb at once adopted a strong attitude of
friendship towards the Amon party which represented the old order of
things. There is evidence to show that Aton was in no way persecuted;
yet one by one his shrines were abandoned, and the neglected temples of
Amon and the elder gods once more rang with the hymns of praise.
Inscriptions tell us that the King "restored the temples from the
marshes of the Delta to Nubia. He fashioned a hundred images with all
their bodies correct, and with all splendid costly stones. He
established for them daily offerings every day. All the vessels of their
temples were wrought of silver and gold. He equipped them with priests
and with ritual-priests, and with the choicest of the army. He
transferred to them lands and cattle, supplied with all equipment." By
these gifts to the neglected gods, Horemheb was striving to bring Egypt
back to its normal condition, and in no way was he prejudiced by any
particular devotion to Amon.
A certain Patonemheb, who had been one of Akhnaton's favourites in the
days of the revolution, was appointed High Priest of Ra--the older
Egyptian form of Aton who was at this time identified with that god--at
the temple of Heliopolis; and this can only be regarded as an act of
friendship to the Aton-worshippers. The echoing and deserted temples of
Aton in Thebes, and El Amârna, however, were now pulled down, and the
blocks were used for the enlarging of the temple of Amon,--a fact which
indicates that their original dedication to Aton had not caused them to
be accursed.
The process of restoration was so gradual that it could not have much
disturbed the country. Horemheb's hand was firm but soothing in these
matters, and the revolution seems to have been killed as much by
kindness as by force. It was probably not till quite the end of his
reign that he showed any tendency to revile the memory of Akhnaton; and
the high feeling which at length brought the revolutionary king the name
of "that criminal of El Amârna" did not rise till half a century later.
The difficulties experienced by Horemheb in steering his course between
Amon and Aton, in quietly restoring the old equilibrium without in any
way persecuting those who by religious convictions were
Aton-worshippers, must have been immense; and one cannot but feel that
the King must have been a diplomatist of the highest standing. His
unaffected simplicity won all hearts to him; his toleration and
broadness of mind brought all thoughtful men to his train; and his
strong will led them and guided them from chaos to order, from fantastic
Utopia to the solid old Egypt of the past. Horemheb was the preacher of
Sanity, the apostle of the Normal, and Order was his watchword.
The inscriptions tell us that it was his custom to give public
audiences to his subjects, and there was not a man amongst those persons
whom he interviewed whose name he did not know, nor one who did not
leave his presence rejoicing. Up and down the Nile he sailed a hundred
times, until he was able truly to say, "I have improved this entire
land; I have learned its whole interior; I have travelled it entirely in
its midst." We are told that "his Majesty took counsel with his heart
how he might expel evil and suppress lying. The plans of his Majesty
were an excellent refuge, repelling violence and delivering the
Egyptians from the oppressions which were around them. Behold, his
Majesty spent the whole time seeking the welfare of Egypt, and searching
out instances of oppression in the land."
It is interesting, by the way, to note that in his eighth year the King
restored the tomb of Thutmosis IV., which had been robbed during the
revolution; and the inscription which the inspectors left behind them
was found on the wall when Mr Theodore Davis discovered the tomb a few
years ago. The plundering of the royal tombs is a typical instance of
the lawlessness of the times. The corruption, too, which followed on the
disorder was appalling; and wherever the King went he was confronted by
deceit, embezzlement, bribery, extortion, and official tyranny. Every
Government officer was attempting to obtain money from his subordinates
by illegal means; and _bakshish_--that bogie of the Nile Valley--cast
its shadow upon all men.
Horemheb stood this as long as he could; but at last, regarding justice
as more necessary than tact, we are told that "his Majesty seized a
writing-palette and scroll, and put into writing all that his Majesty
the King had said to himself." It is not possible to record here more
than a few of the good laws which he then made, but the following
examples will serve to show how near to his heart were the interests of
his people.
It was the custom for the tax-collectors to place that portion of a
farmer's harvest, which they had taken, upon the farmer's own boat, in
order to convey it to the public granary. These boats often failed to be
returned to their owners when finished with, and were ultimately sold by
the officials for their own profit. Horemheb, therefore, made the
following law:--
"If the poor man has made for himself a boat with its
sail, and, in order to serve the State, has loaded it
with the Government dues, and has been robbed of the
boat, the poor man stands bereft of his property and
stripped of his many labours. This is wrong, and the
Pharaoh will suppress it by his excellent measures. If
there be a poor man who pays the taxes to the two
deputies, and he be robbed of his property and his boat,
my majesty commands: that every officer who collects the
taxes and takes the boat of any citizen, this law shall
be executed against him, and his nose shall be cut off,
and he shall be sent in exile to Tharu. Furthermore,
concerning the tax of timber, my majesty commands that
if any officer find a poor man without a boat, then he
shall bring him a craft belonging to another man in which
to carry the timber; and in return for this let the
former man do the loading of the timber for the latter."
The tax-collectors were wont to commandeer the services of all the
slaves in the town, and to detain them for six or seven days, "so that
it was an excessive detention indeed." Often, too, they used to
appropriate a portion of the tax for themselves. The new law, therefore,
was as follows:--
"If there be any place where the officials are
tax-collecting, and any one shall hear the report saying
that they are tax-collecting to take the produce for
themselves, and another shall come to report saying, 'My
man slave or my female slave has been taken away and
detained many days at work by the officials,' the
offender's nose shall be cut off, and he shall be sent to
Tharu."
One more law may here be quoted. The police used often to steal the
hides which the peasants had collected to hand over to the Government as
their tax. Horemheb, having satisfied himself that a tale of this kind
was not merely an excuse for not paying the tax, made this law:--
"As for any policeman concerning whom one shall hear it
said that he goes about stealing hides, beginning with
this day the law shall be executed against him, by
beating him a hundred blows, opening five wounds, and
taking from him by force the hides which he took."
To carry out these laws he appointed two chief judges of very high
standing, who are said to have been "perfect in speech, excellent in
good qualities, knowing how to judge the heart." Of these men the King
writes: "I have directed them to the way of life, I have led them to the
truth, I have taught them, saying, 'Do not receive the reward of
another. How, then, shall those like you judge others, while there is
one among you committing a crime against justice?'" Under these two
officials Horemheb appointed many judges, who went on circuit around the
country; and the King took the wise step of arranging, on the one hand,
that their pay should be so good that they would not be tempted to take
bribes, and, on the other hand, that the penalty for this crime should
be most severe.
So many were the King's reforms that one is inclined to forget that he
was primarily a soldier. He appears to have made some successful
expeditions against the Syrians, but the fighting was probably near his
own frontiers, for the empire lost by Akhnaton was not recovered for
many years, and Horemheb seems to have felt that Egypt needed to learn
to rule herself before she attempted to rule other nations. An
expedition against some tribes in the Sudan was successfully carried
through, and it is said that "his name was mighty in the land of Kush,
his battle-cry was in their dwelling-places." Except for a semi-military
expedition which was dispatched to the land of Punt, these are the only
recorded foreign activities of the King; but that he had spent much
time in the organisation and improvement of the army is shown by the
fact that three years after his death the Egyptian soldiers were
swarming over the Lebanon and hammering at the doors of the cities of
Jezreel.
Had he lived for another few years he might have been famous as a
conqueror as well as an administrator, though old age might retard and
tired bones refuse their office. As it is, however, his name is written
sufficiently large in the book of the world's great men; and when he
died, about B.C. 1315, after a reign of some thirty-five years, he had
done more for Egypt than had almost any other Pharaoh. He found the
country in the wildest disorder, and he left it the master of itself,
and ready to become once more the master of the empire which Akhnaton's
doctrine of Peace and Goodwill had lost. Under his direction the purged
worship of the old gods, which for him meant but the maintenance of some
time-proved customs, had gained the mastery over the chimerical worship
of Aton; without force or violence he had substituted the practical for
the visionary; and to Amon and Order his grateful subjects were able to
cry, "The sun of him who knew thee not has set, but he who knows thee
shines; the sanctuary of him who assailed thee is overwhelmed in
darkness, but the whole earth is now in light."
The tomb of this great Pharaoh was cut in the rocks on the west side of
the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, not far from the resting-place of
Amenhotep II. In the days of the later Ramesside kings the
tomb-plunderers entered the sepulchre, pulled the embalmed body of the
king to pieces in the search for hidden jewels, scattered the bones of
the three members of his family who were buried with him, and stole
almost everything of value which they found. There must have been other
robberies after this, and finally the Government inspectors of about
B.C. 1100 entered the tomb, and, seeing its condition, closed its mouth
with a compact mass of stones. The torrents of rain which sometimes fall
in winter in Egypt percolated through this filling, and left it
congealed and difficult to cut through; and on the top of this hard mass
tons of rubbish were tossed from other excavations, thus completely
hiding the entrance.
In this condition the tomb was found by Mr Davis in February 1908. Mr
Davis had been working on the side of the valley opposite to the tomb of
Rameses III., where the accumulations of _débris_ had entirely hidden
the face of the rocks, and, as this was a central and likely spot for a
"find," it was hoped that when the skin of rubbish had been cleared away
the entrance of at least one royal tomb would be exposed. Of all the
XVIIIth-Dynasty kings, the burial-places of only Thutmosis II.,
Tutankhamon, and Horemheb remained undiscovered, and the hopes of the
excavators concentrated on these three Pharaohs.
After a few weeks of digging, the mouth of a large shaft cut into the
limestone was cleared. This proved to lead into a small chamber
half-filled with rubbish, amongst which some fine jewellery, evidently
hidden here, was found. This is now well published by Mr Davis in
facsimile, and further mention of it here is unnecessary. Continuing the
work, it was not long before traces of another tomb became apparent, and
in a few days' time we were able to look down from the surrounding
mounds of rubbish upon the commencement of a rectangular cutting in the
rock. The size and style of the entrance left no doubt that the work was
to be dated to the end of the XVIIIth Dynasty, and the excavators were
confident that the tomb of either Tutankhamon or Horemheb lay before
them. Steps leading down to the entrance were presently uncovered, and
finally the doorway itself was freed from _débris_.
On one of the door-posts an inscription was now seen, written in black
ink by one of the Government inspectors of B.C. 1100. This stated, that
in the fourth year of an unknown king the tomb had been inspected, and
had been found to be that of Horemheb.
[Illustration: PL. XXII. The mouth of the tomb of Horemheb at the time
of its discovery. The author is seen emerging
from the tomb after the first entrance had
been effected. On the hillside the workmen
are grouped.]
[_Photo by Lady Glyn._
We had hoped now to pass into the tomb without further difficulty, but
in this we were disappointed, for the first corridor was quite choked
with the rubbish placed there by the inspectors. This corridor led down
at a steep angle through the limestone hillside, and, like all other
parts of the tomb, it was carefully worked. It was not until two days
later that enough clearing had been done to allow us to crawl in over
the rubbish, which was still piled up so nearly to the roof that there
was only just room to wriggle downwards over it with our backs pressing
against the stone above. At the lower end of the corridor there was a
flight of steps towards which the rubbish shelved, and, sliding down the
slope, we were here able to stand once more. It was obvious that the
tomb did not stop here, and work, therefore, had to be begun on the
rubbish which choked the stairway in order to expose the entrance to
further passages. A doorway soon became visible, and at last this was
sufficiently cleared to permit of our crawling into the next corridor,
though now we were even more closely squeezed between the roof and the
_débris_ than before.
The party which made the entrance consisted of Mr Davis; his assistant,
Mr Ayrton; Mr Harold Jones; Mr Max Dalison, formerly of the Egypt
Exploration Fund; and myself. Wriggling and crawling, we pushed and
pulled ourselves down the sloping rubbish, until, with a rattling
avalanche of small stones, we arrived at the bottom of the passage,
where we scrambled to our feet at the brink of a large rectangular well,
or shaft. Holding the lamps aloft, the surrounding walls were seen to be
covered with wonderfully preserved paintings executed on slightly
raised plaster. Here Horemheb was seen standing before Isis, Osiris,
Horus, and other gods; and his cartouches stood out boldly from amidst
the elaborate inscriptions. The colours were extremely rich, and, though
there was so much to be seen ahead, we stood there for some minutes,
looking at them with a feeling much akin to awe.
The shaft was partly filled with rubbish, and not being very deep, we
were able to climb down it by means of a ladder, and up the other side
to an entrance which formed a kind of window in the sheer wall. In
entering a large tomb for the first time, there are one or two scenes
which fix themselves upon the memory more forcefully than others, and
one feels as though one might carry these impressions intact to the
grave. In this tomb there was nothing so impressive as this view across
the well and through the entrance in the opposite wall. At one's feet
lay the dark pit; around one the gaudy paintings gleamed; and through
the window-like aperture before one, a dim suggestion could be obtained
of a white-pillared hall. The intense eagerness to know what was beyond,
and, at the same time, the feeling that it was almost desecration to
climb into those halls which had stood silent for thousands of years,
cast a spell over the scene and made it unforgetable.
This aperture had once been blocked up with stones, and the paintings
had passed across it, thus hiding it from view, so that a robber
entering the tomb might think that it ended here. But the trick was an
old one, and the plunderers had easily detected the entrance, had pulled
away the blocks, and had climbed through. Following in their footsteps,
we went up the ladder and passed through the entrance into the pillared
hall. Parts of the roof had fallen in, and other parts appeared to be
likely to do so at any moment. Clambering over the _débris_ we descended
another sloping corridor, which was entered through a cutting in the
floor of the hall, originally blocked up and hidden. This brought us
into a chamber covered with paintings, like those around the well; and
again we were brought to a standstill by the amazingly fresh colours
which arrested and held the attention.
We then passed on into the large burial-hall, the roof of which was
supported by crumbling pillars. Slabs of limestone had broken off here
and there and had crashed down on to the floor, bringing with them
portions of the ceiling painted with a design of yellow stars on a black
ground. On the walls were unfinished paintings, and it was interesting
to notice that the north, south, east, and west were clearly marked upon
the four walls for ceremonial purposes.
The main feature towards which our eyes were turned was the great
pink-granite sarcophagus which stood in the middle of the hall. Its
sides were covered with well-cut inscriptions of a religious nature; and
at the four corners there were figures of Isis and Nephthys, in relief,
with their wings spread out as though in protection around the body.
Looking into the sarcophagus, the lid having been thrown off by the
plunderers, we found it empty except for a skull and a few bones of more
than one person. The sarcophagus stood upon the limestone floor, and
under it small holes had been cut, in each of which a little wooden
statue of a god had been placed. Thus the king's body was, so to speak,
carried on the heads of the gods, and held aloft by their arms. This is
a unique arrangement, and has never before been found in any burial.
In all directions broken figures of the gods were lying, and two defaced
wooden statues of the king were overthrown beside the sarcophagus.
Beautiful pieces of furniture, such as were found by Mr Davis in the
tomb of Yuaa and Thuau, were not to be expected in the sepulchre of a
Pharaoh; for whereas those two persons were only mortals and required
mortal comforts in the Underworld, the king was a god and needed only
the comfort of the presence of other gods. Dead flowers were found here
and there amidst the _débris_, these being the remnant of the masses of
garlands which were always heaped around and over the coffin.
Peering into a little chamber on the right, we saw two skulls and some
broken bones lying in the corner. These appeared to be female, and one
of the skulls may have been that of Mutnezem, the queen. In another
small chamber on the left there was a fine painting of Osiris on the
back wall; and, crouching at the foot of this, a statuette of a god with
upraised hands had been placed. As we turned the corner and came upon it
in the full glare of the lamps, one felt that the arms were raised in
horror at sight of us, and that the god was gasping with surprise and
indignation at our arrival. In the floor of another ante-chamber a
square hole was cut, leading down to a small room. A block of stone had
neatly fitted over the opening, thus hiding it from view; but the
robbers had detected the crack, and had found the hiding-place. Here
there were a skull and a few bones, again of more than one person.
Altogether there must have been four bodies buried in the tomb; and it
seems that the inspectors, finding them strewn in all directions, had
replaced one skull in the sarcophagus, two in the side room, and one in
this hiding-place, dividing up the bones between these three places as
they thought fit. It may be that the king himself was buried in the
underground chamber, and that the sarcophagus was a sort of blind; for
he had seen the destruction caused by robbers in the tomb of Thutmosis
IV., which he had restored, and he may have made this attempt to secure
the safety of his own body. Whether this be so or not, however, Fate has
not permitted the body of the great king to escape the hands of the
destroyer, and it will now never be known with certainty whether one of
these four heads wore the crown of the Pharaohs.
The temperature was very great in the tomb, and the perspiration
streamed down our faces as we stood contemplating the devastation. Now
the electric lamps would flash upon the gods supporting the ransacked
sarcophagus, lighting for a moment their grotesque forms; now the
attention would concentrate upon some wooden figure of a
hippopotamus-god or cow-headed deity; and now the light would bring into
prominence the great overthrown statue of the king. There is something
peculiarly sensational in the examining of a tomb which has not been
entered for such thousands of years, but it must be left to the
imaginative reader to infuse a touch of that feeling of the dramatic
into these words. It would be hopeless to attempt to put into writing
those impressions which go to make the entering of a great Egyptian
sepulchre so thrilling an experience: one cannot describe the silence,
the echoing steps, the dark shadows, the hot, breathless air; nor tell
of the sense of vast Time the penetrating of it which stirs one so
deeply.
The air was too bad to permit of our remaining long so deep in the
bowels of the earth; and we presently made our way through halls and
corridors back to the upper world, scrambling and crashing over the
_débris_, and squeezing ourselves through the rabbit-hole by which we
had entered. As we passed out of this hot, dark tomb into the brilliant
sunlight and the bracing north wind, the gloomy wreck of the place was
brought before the imagination with renewed force. The scattered bones,
the broken statues, the dead flowers, grouped themselves in the mind
into a picture of utter decay. In some of the tombs which have been
opened the freshness of the objects has caused one to exclaim at the
inaction of the years; but here, where vivid and well-preserved
wall-paintings looked down on a jumbled collection of smashed fragments
of wood and bones, one felt how hardly the Powers deal with the dead.
How far away seemed the great fight between Amon and Aton; how futile
the task which Horemheb accomplished so gloriously! It was all over and
forgotten, and one asked oneself what it mattered whether the way was
difficult or the battle slow to win. In the fourth year of the reign of
Horemheb a certain harper named Neferhotep partly composed a song which
was peculiarly appropriate to the tune which ran in one's head at the
opening of the tomb of this Pharaoh whom the harper served--
"(1.) Behold the dwellings of the dead. Their walls fall
down; their place is no more: they are as though they had
never existed. (2.) That which hath come into being must
pass away again. The young men and maidens go to their
places; the sun riseth at dawn, and setteth again in the
hills of the west. Men beget and women conceive. The
children, too, go to the places which are appointed for
them. O, then, be happy! Come, scents and perfumes are
set before thee: _mahu_-flowers and lilies for the arms
and neck of thy beloved. Come, songs and music are before
thee. Set behind thee all cares; think only upon
gladness, until that day cometh whereon thou shalt go
down to the land which loveth silence."
Horemheb must often have heard this song sung in his palace at Thebes by
its composer; but did he think, one wonders, that it would be the walls
of his own tomb which would fall down, and his own bones which would be
almost as though they had never existed?
PART IV.
THE PRESERVATION OF THE TREASURY.
"Laugh and mock if you will at the worship of stone
idols, but mark ye this, ye breakers of images, that in
one regard the stone idol bears awful semblance of
Deity--the unchangefulness in the midst of change--the
same seeming will, and intent for ever and ever
inexorable!... And we, we shall die, and Islam will
wither away, and the Englishman straining far over to
hold his loved India, will plant a firm foot on the banks
of the Nile and sit in the seats of the Faithful, and
still that sleepless rock will lie watching and watching
the works of the new busy race, with those same sad
earnest eyes, and the same tranquil mien everlastingly."
--KINGLAKE: _Eothen_ (1844).
CHAPTER X.
THEBAN THIEVES.
Thebes was the ancient capital of Egypt, and its ruins are the most
extensive in the Nile Valley. On the east bank of the river, at the
modern towns of Luxor and Karnak, there are the remains of mighty
temples; and on the west bank, in the neighbourhood of the village of
Gurneh, tombs, mortuary chapels, and temples, literally cover the
ground. The inhabitants of these three places have for generations
augmented their incomes by a traffic in antiquities, and the peasants of
Gurneh have, more especially, become famous as the most hardy pilferers
of the tombs of their ancestors in all Egypt. In conducting this
lucrative business they have lately had the misfortune to be recognised
as thieves and robbers by the Government, and it is one of my duties to
point this out to them. As a matter of fact they are no more thieves
than you or I. It is as natural for them to scratch in the sand for
antiquities as it is for us to pick flowers by the roadside:
antiquities, like flowers, are the product of the soil, and it is
largely because the one is more rare than the other that its
promiscuous appropriation has been constituted an offence. The native
who is sometimes child enough to put his eyes out rather than serve in
the army, who will often suffer all manner of wrongs rather than carry
his case to the local courts, and who will hide his money under his bed
rather than trust it to the safest bank, is not likely to be intelligent
enough to realise that, on scientific grounds, he is committing a crime
in digging for scarabs. He is beginning to understand that in the eyes
of the law he is a criminal, but he has not yet learnt so to regard
himself. I here name him thief, for officially that is his designation;
but there is no sting in the word, nor is any insult intended. By all
cultured persons the robbery of antiquities must be regarded as a grave
offence, and one which has to be checked. But the point is ethical; and
what has the Theban to do with ethics? The robbery of antiquities is
carried out in many different ways and from many different motives.
Sometimes it is romantic treasure hunting that the official has to deal
with; sometimes it is adventurous robbery with violence; sometimes it is
the taking advantage of chance discoveries; sometimes it is the
pilfering of objects found in authorised excavations; and sometimes it
is the stealing of fragments smashed from the walls of the ancient
monuments. All these forms of robbery, except the last, may call for the
sympathy of every reader of these lines who happens not to have
cultivated that vaguely defined "archæological sense" which is,
practically, the product of this present generation alone; and in the
instances which are here to be given the point of view of the "Theban
thief" will be readily appreciated.
[Illustration: PL. XXIII. A modern Theban Fellah-woman and her child.]
[_Photo by E. Bird._
Treasure hunting is a relic of childhood that remains, like all other
forms of romance and adventure, a permanently youthful feature in our
worn old hearts. It has been drilled into us by the tales of our
boyhood, and, in later life, it has become part of that universal desire
to get something for nothing which lies behind our most honest efforts
to obtain the goods of this world. Who has not desired the hidden wealth
of the late Captain Kidd, or coveted the lost treasure of the Incas? I
recently wrote an article which was entitled "Excavations in Egypt," but
the editor of the magazine in which it appeared hastily altered these
words to "Treasure Hunting in Egypt," and thereby commanded the
attention of twice the number of readers. Can we wonder, then, that this
form of adventure is so often met with in Egypt, the land of hidden
treasure? The Department of Antiquities has lately published a
collection of mediæval traditions with regard to this subject, which is
known as the Book of the Pearl. In it one is told the exact places where
excavations should be made to lay bare the wealth of the ancients. "Go
to such and such a spot," says this curious book, "and dig to the depth
of so many cubits, and you will find a trap-door; descend through this
and you will find a chamber wherein are forty jars filled with gold.
Take what you want, and give thanks to God." Many of the sites referred
to have been literally hacked out of all recognition by the picks and
spades of thousands of gold-seekers; and it may be that sometimes their
efforts have been rewarded, since a certain amount of genuine
information is embodied in the traditions. Sir Gaston Maspero, the
Director-General of the Department of Antiquities, tells a story of how
a native came to him asking permission to excavate at a certain spot
where he believed treasure to be hidden. Sir Gaston accompanied him to
the place, and a tunnel was bored into what appeared to be virgin sand
and rock. At the end of the first day's work the futility of his labours
was pointed out to the man, but he was not to be daunted. For two more
days he stood watching the work from morn to nightfall with hope burning
in his eyes, and on the following morning his reward came. Suddenly the
ground gave way before the picks of the workmen, and a hole was seen
leading into a forgotten cave. In this cave the implements of mediæval
coiners were discovered, and an amount of metal, false and true, was
found which had been used by them in the process of their business.
A short time ago a man applied for permission to perform a similar kind
of excavation at a place called Nag Hamadi, and in my absence
permission was given him. On my return the following report was
submitted: "... Having reached the spot indicated the man started to
blow the stones by means of the Denamits. Also he slaught a lamb,
thinking that there is a treasure, and that when the lamb being slaught
he will discover it at once." In plainer English, the man had blown up
the rocks with dynamite, and had attempted to further his efforts by
sacrificing a lamb to the _djin_ who guarded the treasure. The _djin_,
however, was not thus to be propitiated, and the gold of the Pharaohs
was never found. More recently the watchmen of the famous temple of Dêr
el Bahri found themselves in trouble owing to the discovery that part of
the ancient pavement showed signs of having been raised, stone by stone,
in order that the ground below might be searched for the treasure which
a tradition, such as those in the Book of the Pearl, had reported as
lying hid there.
Almost as romantic as treasure hunting is robbery with violence. We all
remember our boyhood's fascination for piracy, smuggling, and the
profession of Dick Turpin; and to the Theban peasant, who is essentially
youthful in his ideas, this form of fortune hunting has irresistible
attractions. When a new tomb is discovered by authorised archæologists,
especially when it is situated in some remote spot such as the Valley of
the Kings, there is always some fear of an armed raid; and police guard
the spot night and day until the antiquities have been removed to Cairo.
The workmen who have been employed in the excavation return to their
homes with wonderful tales of the wealth which the tomb contains, and in
the evening the discovery is discussed by the women at the well where
the water is drawn for the village, with the result that it very soon
assumes prodigious proportions, inflaming the minds of all men with the
greed of gold. Visitors often ask why it is that the mummies of the
Pharaohs are not left to lie each in its own tomb; and it is argued that
they look neither congruous nor dignified in the glass cases of the
museum. The answer is obvious to all who know the country: put them back
in their tombs, and, without continuous police protection, they will be
broken into fragments by robbers, bolts and bars notwithstanding. The
experiment of leaving the mummy and some of the antiquities _in situ_
has only once been tried, and it has not been a complete success. It was
done in the case of the tomb of Amenhotep II. at Thebes, the mummy being
laid in its original sarcophagus; and a model boat, used in one of the
funeral ceremonies, was left in the tomb. One night the six watchmen who
were in charge of the royal tombs stated that they had been attacked by
an armed force; the tomb in question was seen to have been entered, the
iron doors having been forced. The mummy of the Pharaoh was found lying
upon the floor of the burial-hall, its chest smashed in; and the boat
had disappeared, nor has it since been recovered. The watchmen showed
signs of having put up something of a fight, their clothes being riddled
with bullet-holes; but here and there the cloth looked much as though it
had been singed, which suggested, as did other evidence, that they
themselves had fired the guns and had acted the struggle. The truth of
the matter will never be known, but its lesson is obvious. The mummy was
put back into its sarcophagus, and there it has remained secure ever
since; but one never knows how soon it will be dragged forth once more
to be searched for the gold with which every native thinks it is
stuffed.
Some years ago an armed gang walked off with a complete series of
mortuary reliefs belonging to a tomb at Sakkârah. They came by night,
overpowered the watchmen, loaded the blocks of stone on to camels, and
disappeared into the darkness. Sometimes it is an entire cemetery that
is attacked; and, if it happens to be situated some miles from the
nearest police-station, a good deal of work can be done before the
authorities get wind of the affair. Last winter six hundred men set to
work upon a patch of desert ground where a tomb had been accidently
found, and, ere I received the news, they had robbed a score of little
graves, many of which must have contained objects purchasable by the
dealers in antiquities for quite large sums of money. At Abydos a tomb
which we had just discovered was raided by the villagers, and we only
regained possession of it after a rapid exchange of shots, one of which
came near ending a career whose continuance had been, since birth, a
matter of great importance to myself. But how amusing the adventure must
have been for the raiders!
The appropriation of treasure-trove come upon by chance, or the digging
out of graves accidentally discovered, is a very natural form of robbery
for the natives to indulge in, and one which commends itself to the
sympathies of all those not actively concerned in its suppression. There
are very few persons even in western countries who would be willing to
hand over to the Government a hoard of gold discovered in their own back
garden. In Egypt the law is that the treasure-trove thus discovered
belongs to the owner of the property; and thus there is always a certain
amount of excavation going on behind the walls of the houses. It is also
the law that the peasants may carry away the accumulated rubbish on the
upper layers of ancient town sites, in order to use it as a fertiliser
for their crops, since it contains valuable phosphates. This work is
supervised by watchmen, but this does not prevent the stealing of almost
all the antiquities which are found. As illegal excavators these
_sebakhîn_, or manure-diggers, are the worst offenders, for they search
for the phosphates in all manner of places, and are constantly coming
upon tombs or ruins which they promptly clear of their contents. One
sees them driving their donkeys along the roads, each laden with a sack
of manure, and it is certain that some of these sacks contain
antiquities. In Thebes many of the natives live inside the tombs of the
ancient nobles, these generally consisting of two or three rock-hewn
halls from which a tunnel leads down to the burial-chamber. Generally
this tunnel is choked with _débris_, and the owner of the house will
perhaps come upon it by chance, and will dig it out, in the vain hope
that earlier plunderers have left some of the antiquities undisturbed.
It recently happened that an entire family was asphyxiated while
attempting to penetrate into a newly discovered tunnel, each member
entering to ascertain the fate of the previous explorer, and each being
overcome by the gases. On one occasion I was asked by a native to
accompany him down a tunnel, the entrance of which was in his stable, in
order to view a sarcophagus which lay at the bottom. We each took a
candle, and, crouching down to avoid the low roof, we descended the
narrow, winding passage, the loose stones sliding beneath our feet. The
air was very foul; and below us there was the thunderous roar of
thousands of wings beating through the echoing passage--the wings of
evil-smelling bats. Presently we reached this uncomfortable zone. So
thickly did the bats hang from the ceiling that the rock itself seemed
to be black; but as we advanced, and the creatures took to their wings,
this black covering appeared to peel off the rock. During the entire
descent this curious spectacle of regularly receding blackness and
advancing grey was to be seen a yard or so in front of us. The roar of
wings was now deafening, for the space into which we were driving the
bats was very confined. My guide shouted to me that we must let them
pass out of the tomb over our heads. We therefore crouched down, and a
few stones were flung into the darkness ahead. Then, with a roar and a
rush of air, they came, bumping into us, entangling themselves in our
clothes, slapping our faces and hands with their unwholesome wings, and
clinging to our fingers. At last the thunder died away in the passage
behind us, and we were able to advance more easily, though the ground
was alive with the bats maimed in the frantic flight which had taken
place, floundering out of our way and squeaking shrilly. The sarcophagus
proved to be of no interest, so the encounter with the bats was to no
purpose.
The pilfering of antiquities found during the course of authorised
excavations is one of the most common forms of robbery. The overseer
cannot always watch the workmen sufficiently closely to prevent them
pocketing the small objects which they find, and it is an easy matter to
carry off the stolen goods, even though the men are searched at the end
of the day. A little girl minding her father's sheep and goats in the
neighbourhood of the excavations, and apparently occupying her hands
with the spinning of flax, is perhaps the receiver of the objects. Thus
it is more profitable to dig for antiquities even in authorised
excavations than to work the water-hoist, which is one of the usual
occupations of the peasant. Pulling the hoisting-pole down, and swinging
it up again with its load of water many thousands of times in the day,
is monotonous work; whereas digging in the ground, with the eyes keenly
watching for the appearance of antiquities, is always interesting and
exciting. And why should the digger refrain from appropriating the
objects which his pick reveals? If he does not make use of his
opportunities and carry off the antiquities, the western director of the
works will take them to his own country and sell them for his own
profit. All natives believe that the archæologists work for the purpose
of making money. Speaking of Professor Flinders Petrie, a peasant said
to me the other day: "He has worked five-and-twenty years now; he must
be _very_ rich." He would never believe that the antiquities were given
to museums without any payment being made to the finder.
The stealing of fragments broken out of the walls of "show" monuments is
almost the only form of robbery which will receive general condemnation.
That this vandalism is also distasteful to the natives themselves is
shown by the fact that several better-class Egyptians living in the
neighbourhood of Thebes subscribed, at my invitation, the sum of £50 for
the protection of certain beautiful tombs. When they were shown the
works undertaken with their money, they expressed themselves as being
"pleased with the delicate inscriptions in the tombs, but very awfully
angry at the damage which the devils of ignorant people had made." A
native of moderate intelligence can quite appreciate the argument that
whereas the continuous warfare between the agents of the Department of
Antiquities and the illegal excavators of small graves is what might be
called an honourable game, the smashing of public monuments cannot be
called fair-play from whatever point of view the matter is approached.
Often revenge or spite is the cause of this damage. It is sometimes
necessary to act with severity to the peasants who infringe the rules of
the Department, but a serious danger lies in such action, for it is the
nature of the Thebans to revenge themselves not on the official directly
but on the monuments which he is known to love. Two years ago a native
illegally built himself a house on Government ground, and I was obliged
to go through the formality of pulling it down, which I did by obliging
him to remove a few layers of brickwork around the walls. A short time
afterwards a famous tomb was broken into and a part of the paintings
destroyed; and there was enough evidence to show that the owner of
this house was the culprit, though unfortunately he could not be
convicted. One man actually had the audacity to warn me that any
severity on my part would be met by destruction of monuments. Under
these circumstances an official finds himself in a dilemma. If he
maintains the dignity and prestige of his Department by punishing any
offences against it, he endangers the very objects for the care of which
he is responsible; and it is hard to say whether under a lax or a severe
administration the more damage would be done.
[Illustration: PL. XXIV. A modern Gournawi beggar.]
[_Photo by E. Bird._
The produce of these various forms of robbery is easily disposed of.
When once the antiquities have passed into the hands of the dealers
there is little chance of further trouble. The dealer can always say
that he came into possession of an object years ago, before the
antiquity laws were made, and it is almost impossible to prove that he
did not. You may have the body of a statue and he the head: he can
always damage the line of the breakage, and say that the head does not
belong to that statue, or, if the connection is too obvious, he can say
that he found the head while excavating twenty years ago on the site
where now you have found the body. Nor is it desirable to bring an
action against the man in a case of this kind, for it might go against
the official. Dealing in antiquities is regarded as a perfectly
honourable business. The official, crawling about the desert on his
stomach in the bitter cold of a winter's night in order to hold up a
convoy of stolen antiquities, may use hard language in regard to the
trade, but he cannot say that it is pernicious as long as it is confined
to minor objects. How many objects of value to science would be
destroyed by their finders if there was no market to take them to! One
of the Theban dealers leads so holy a life that he will assuredly be
regarded as a saint by future generations.
The sale of small antiquities to tourists on the public roads is
prohibited, except at certain places, but of course it can be done with
impunity by the exercise of a little care. Men and boys and even little
girls as they pass will stare at you with studying eyes, and if you seem
to be a likely purchaser, they will draw from the folds of their
garments some little object which they will offer for sale. Along the
road in the glory of the setting sun there will come as fine a young man
as you will see on a day's march. Surely he is bent on some noble
mission: what lofty thoughts are occupying his mind, you wonder. But as
you pass, out comes the scarab from his pocket, and he shouts, "Wanty
scarab, mister?--two shillin'," while you ride on your way a greater
cynic than before.
Some years ago a large inscribed stone was stolen from a certain temple,
and was promptly sold to a man who sometimes traded in such objects.
This man carried the stone, hidden in a sack of grain, to the house of
a friend, and having deposited it in a place of hiding, he tramped home,
with his stick across his shoulders, in an attitude of deep unconcern.
An enemy of his, however, had watched him, and promptly gave
information. Acting on this the police set out to search the house. When
we reached the entrance we were met by the owner, and a warrant was
shown to him. A heated argument followed, at the end of which the
infuriated man waved us in with a magnificent and most dramatic gesture.
There were some twenty rooms in the house, and the stifling heat of a
July noon made the task none too enjoyable. The police inspector was
extremely thorough in his work, and an hour had passed before three
rooms had been searched. He looked into the cupboards, went down on his
knees to peer into the ovens, stood on tiptoe to search the fragile
wooden shelves (it was a heavy stone which we were looking for), hunted
under the mats, and even peeped into a little tobacco-tin. In one of the
rooms there were three or four beds arranged along the middle of the
floor. The inspector pulled off the mattresses, and out from under each
there leapt a dozen rats, which, if I may be believed, made for the
walls and ran straight up them, disappearing in the rafter-holes at the
top. The sight of countless rats hurrying up perpendicular walls may be
familiar to some people, but I venture to call it an amazing spectacle,
worthy of record. Then came the opening of one or two
travelling-trunks. The inspector ran his hand through the clothes which
lay therein, and out jumped a few more rats, which likewise went up the
walls. The searching of the remaining rooms carried us well through the
afternoon; and at last, hot and weary, we decided to abandon the hunt.
Two nights later a man was seen walking away from the house with a heavy
sack on his back; and the stone is now, no doubt, in the Western
hemisphere.
The attempt to regain a lost antiquity is seldom crowned with success.
It is so extremely difficult to obtain reliable information; and as soon
as a man is suspected his enemies will rush in with accusations.
Thirty-eight separate accusations were sent in against a certain
head-watchman during the first days after the fact had leaked out that
he was under suspicion. Not one of them could be shown to be true.
Sometimes one man will bring a charge against another for the betterment
of his own interests. Here is a letter from a watchman who had resigned,
but wished to rejoin, "To his Exec. Chief Dircoter of the tembels. I
have honner to inform that I am your servant X, watchman on the tembels
before this time. Sir from one year ago I work in the Santruple (?) as a
watchman about four years ago. And I not make anything wrong and your
Exec. know me. Now I want to work in my place in the tembel, because the
man which in it he not attintive to His, but alway he in the coffee....
He also steal the scribed stones. Please give your order to point me
again. Your servant, X." "The coffee" is, of course, the _café_ which
adjoins the temple.
A short time ago a young man came to me with an accusation against his
own father, who, he said, had stolen a statuette. The tale which he told
was circumstantial, but it was hotly denied by his infuriated parent. He
looked, however, a trifle more honest than his father, and when a
younger brother was brought in as witness, one felt that the guilt of
the old man would be the probable finding. The boy stared steadfastly at
the ground for some moments, however, and then launched out into an
elaborate explanation of the whole affair. He said that he asked his
father to lend him four pounds, but the father had refused. The son
insisted that that sum was due to him as his share in some transaction,
and pointed out that though he only asked for it as a loan, he had in
reality a claim to it. The old man refused to hand it over, and the son,
therefore, waited his opportunity and stole it from his house, carrying
it off triumphantly to his own establishment. Here he gave it into the
charge of his young wife, and went about his business. The father,
however, guessed where the money had gone; and while his son was out,
invaded his house, beat his daughter-in-law on the soles of her feet
until she confessed where the money was hidden, and then, having
obtained it, returned to his home. When the son came back to his house
he learnt what had happened, and, out of spite, at once invented the
accusation which he had brought to me. This story appeared to be true in
so far as the quarrel over the money was concerned, but that the
accusation was invented proved to be untrue.
Sometimes the peasants have such honest faces that it is difficult to
believe that they are guilty of deceit. A lady came to the camp of a
certain party of excavators at Thebes, holding in her hand a scarab. "Do
tell me," she said to one of the archæologists, "whether this scarab is
genuine. I am sure it must be, for I bought it from a boy who assured me
that he had stolen it from your excavations, and he looked such an
honest and truthful little fellow."
In order to check pilfering in a certain excavation in which I was
assisting we made a rule that the selected workmen should not be allowed
to put unselected substitutes in their place. One day I came upon a man
whose appearance did not seem familiar, although his back was turned to
me. I asked him who he was, whereupon he turned upon me a countenance
which might have served for the model of a painting of St John, and in a
low, sweet-voice he told me of the illness of the real workman, and of
how he had taken over the work in order to obtain money for the purchase
of medicine for him, they being friends from their youth up. I sent him
away and told him to call for any medicine he might want that evening.
I did not see him again until about a week later, when I happened to
meet him in the village with a policeman on either side of him, from one
of whom I learned that he was a well-known thief. Thus is one deceived
even in the case of real criminals: how then can one expect to get at
the truth when the crime committed is so light an affair as the stealing
of an antiquity?
The following is a letter received from one of the greatest thieves in
Thebes, who is now serving a term of imprisonment in the provincial
gaol:--
"SIR GENERAL INSPECTOR,--I offer this application stating
that I am from the natives of Gurneh, saying the
following:--
'On Saturday last I came to your office and have been
told that my family using the sate to strengthen against
the Department. The result of this talking that all these
things which somebody pretends are not the fact. In fact
I am taking great care of the antiquities for the purpose
of my living matter. Accordingly, I wish to be appointed
in the vacant of watching to the antiquities in my
village and promise myself that if anything happens I do
hold myself resposible.'"
I have no idea what "using the sate to strengthen" means.
It is sometimes said that European excavators are committing an offence
against the sensibilities of the peasants by digging up the bodies of
their ancestors. Nobody will repeat this remark who has walked over a
cemetery plundered by the natives themselves. Here bodies may be seen
lying in all directions, torn limb from limb by the gold-seekers; here
beautiful vases may be seen smashed to atoms in order to make more rare
the specimens preserved. The peasant has no regard whatsoever for the
sanctity of the ancient dead, nor does any superstition in this regard
deter him in his work of destruction. Fortunately superstition sometimes
checks other forms of robbery. _Djins_ are believed to guard the hoards
of ancient wealth which some of the tombs are thought to contain, as,
for example, in the case of the tomb in which the family was
asphyxiated, where a fiend of this kind was thought to have throttled
the unfortunate explorers. Twin brothers are thought to have the power
of changing themselves into cats at will; and a certain Huseyn Osman, a
harmless individual enough, and a most expert digger, would turn himself
into a cat at night-time, not only for the purpose of stealing his
brother Muhammed Osman's dinner, but also in order to protect the tombs
which his patron was occupied in excavating. One of the overseers in
some recent excavations was said to have power of detecting all
robberies on his works. The archæologist, however, is unfortunately
unable to rely upon this form of protection, and many are the schemes
for the prevention of pilfering which are tried.
In some excavations a sum of money is given to the workman for every
antiquity found by him, and these sums are sufficiently high to prevent
any outbidding by the dealers. Work thus becomes very expensive for the
archæologist, who is sometimes called upon to pay £10 or £20 in a day.
The system has also another disadvantage, namely, that the workmen are
apt to bring antiquities from far and near to "discover" in their
diggings in order to obtain a good price for them. Nevertheless, it
would seem to be the most successful of the systems. In the Government
excavations it is usual to employ a number of overseers to watch for the
small finds, while for only the really valuable discoveries is a reward
given.
For finding the famous gold hawk's head at Hieraconpolis a workman
received £14, and with this princely sum in his pocket he went to a
certain Englishman to ask advice as to the spending of it. He was
troubled, he said, to decide whether to buy a wife or a cow. He admitted
that he had already one wife, and that two of them would be sure to
introduce some friction into what was now a peaceful household; and he
quite realised that a cow would be less apt to quarrel with his first
wife. The Englishman, very properly, voted for the cow, and the peasant
returned home deep in thought. While pondering over the matter during
the next few weeks, he entertained his friends with some freedom, and
soon he found to his dismay that he had not enough money left to buy
either a wife or a cow. Thereupon he set to with a will, and soon spent
the remaining guineas in riotous living. When he was next seen by the
Englishman he was a beggar, and, what was worse, his taste for evil
living had had several weeks of cultivation.
The case of the fortunate finder of a certain great _cache_ of mummies
was different. He received a reward of £400, and this he buried in a
very secret place. When he died his possessions descended to his sons.
After the funeral they sat round the grave of the old man, and very
rightly discussed his virtues until the sun set. Then they returned to
the house and began to dig for the hidden money. For some days they
turned the sand of the floor over; but failing to find what they sought,
they commenced operations on a patch of desert under the shade of some
tamarisks where their father was wont to sit of an afternoon. It is said
that for twelve hours they worked like persons possessed, the men
hacking at the ground, and the boys carrying away the sand in baskets to
a convenient distance. But the money was never found.
It is not often that the finders of antiquities inform the authorities
of their good fortune, but when they do so an attempt is made to give
them a good reward. A letter from the finder of an inscribed statue, who
wished to claim his reward, read as follows: "With all delight I please
inform you that on 8th Jan. was found a headless temple of granite
sitting on a chair and printed on it."
I will end this chapter as I began it, in the defence of the Theban
thieves. In a place where every yard of ground contains antiquities, and
where these antiquities may be so readily converted into golden guineas,
can one wonder that every man, woman, and child makes use of his
opportunities in this respect to better his fortune? The peasant does
not take any interest in the history of mankind, and he cannot be
expected to know that in digging out a grave and scattering its
contents, through the agency of dealers, over the face of the globe, he
loses for ever the facts which the archæologist is striving so hard to
obtain. The scientific excavator does not think the antiquities
themselves so valuable as the record of the exact arrangement in which
they were found. From such data alone can he obtain his knowledge of the
manners and customs of this wonderful people. When two objects are found
together, the date of one being known and that of the other unknown, the
archæological value of the find lies in the fact that the former will
place the latter in its correct chronological position. But if these two
objects are sold separately, the find may perhaps lose its entire
significance. The trained archæologist records every atom of information
with which he meets; the native records nothing. And hence, if there is
any value at all in the study of the history of mankind, illegal
excavation must be stopped.
CHAPTER XI.
THE FLOODING OF LOWER NUBIA.
The country of Lower Nubia lies between the First and Second Cataracts
of the Nile. The town of Aswan, once famous as the frontier outpost of
Egypt and now renowned as a winter resort for Europeans and Americans,
stands some two or three miles below the First Cataract; and two hundred
miles southwards, at the foot of the Second Cataract, stands Wady Halfa.
About half-way between these two points the little town of Derr nestles
amidst its palms; and here the single police-station of the province is
situated. Agriculturally the land is extremely barren, for the merest
strip of cultivation borders the river, and in many reaches the desert
comes down to the water's edge. The scenery is rugged and often
magnificent. As one sails up the Nile the rocky hills on either side
group themselves into bold compositions, rising darkly above the palms
and acacias reflected in the water. The villages, clustered on the
hillsides as though grown like mushrooms in the night, are not
different in colour to the ground upon which they are built; but here
and there neatly whitewashed houses of considerable size are to be
observed. Now we come upon a tract of desert sand which rolls down to
the river in a golden slope; now the hills recede, leaving an open bay
wherein there are patches of cultivated ground reclaimed from the
wilderness; and now a dense but narrow palm-grove follows the line of
the bank for a mile or more, backed by the villages at the foot of the
hills.
The inhabitants are few in number. Most of the males have taken service
as cooks, butlers, waiters, and bottle-washers in European houses or
hotels throughout Egypt; and consequently one sees more women than men
pottering about the villages or working in the fields. They are a fine
race, clean in their habits and cheery in character. They can be
distinguished with ease from the Egyptian _fellahîn_; for their skin has
more the appearance of bronze, and their features are often more
aquiline. The women do not wear the veil, and their dresses are draped
over one shoulder in a manner unknown to Egypt. The method of dressing
the hair, moreover, is quite distinctive: the women plait it in
innumerable little strands, those along the forehead terminating in
bead-like lumps of bee's-wax. The little children go nude for the first
six or eight years of their life, though the girls sometimes wear around
their waists a fringe made of thin strips of hide. The men still carry
spears in some parts of the country, and a light battle-axe is not an
uncommon weapon.
There is no railway between Aswan and Halfa, all traffic being conducted
on the river. Almost continuously a stream of native troops and English
officers passes up and down the Nile bound for Khartoum or Cairo; and in
the winter the tourists on steamers and _dahabiyehs_ travel through the
country in considerable numbers to visit the many temples which were
here erected in the days when the land was richer than it is now. The
three most famous ruins of Lower Nubia are those of Philae, just above
Aswan; Kalabsheh, some forty miles to the south; and Abu Simbel, about
thirty miles below Halfa: but besides these there are many buildings of
importance and interest. The ancient remains date from all periods of
Egyptian history; for Lower Nubia played an important part in Pharaonic
affairs, both by reason of its position as the buffer state between
Egypt and the Sudan, and also because of its gold-mining industries. In
old days it was divided into several tribal states, these being governed
by the Egyptian Viceroy of Ethiopia; but the country seldom revolted or
gave trouble, and to the present day it retains its reputation for
peacefulness and orderly behaviour.
Owing to the building, and now the heightening, of the great Nile dam at
Aswan, erected for the purpose of regulating the flow of water by
holding back in the plenteous autumn and winter the amount necessary to
keep up the level in the dry summer months, the whole of the valley from
the First Cataract to the neighbourhood of Derr will be turned into a
vast reservoir, and a large number of temples and other ruins will be
flooded. Before the dam was finished the temples on the island of Philae
were strengthened and repaired so as to be safe from damage by the
water; and now every other ruin whose foundations are below the future
high-water level has been repaired and safeguarded.
In 1906 and 1907 the present writer was dispatched to the threatened
territory to make a full report on the condition of the monuments
there;[1] and a very large sum of money was then voted for the work. Sir
Gaston Maspero took the matter up in the spirit which is associated with
his name; Monsieur Barsanti was sent to repair and underpin the temples;
French, German, and English scholars were engaged to make copies of the
endangered inscriptions and reliefs; and Dr Reisner, Mr C. Firth, and
others, under the direction of Captain Lyons, were entrusted with the
complete and exhaustive excavation of all the cemeteries and remains
between the dam and the southern extremity of the reservoir. As a result
of this work, not one scrap of information of any kind will be lost by
the flooding of the country.
[Footnote 1: Weigall: 'A Report on the Antiquities of Lower Nubia.'
(Department of Antiquities, Cairo, 1907.)]
As was to be expected, the building and raising of the dam caused
consternation amongst the archæologically interested visitors to Egypt,
and very considerably troubled the Egyptologists. Philae, one of the
most picturesque ruins on the Nile, was to be destroyed, said the more
hysterical, and numerous other buildings were to meet with the same
fate. A very great deal of nonsense was written as to the vandalism of
the English; and the minds of certain people were so much inflamed by
the controversy that many regrettable words were spoken. The Department
of Antiquities was much criticised for having approved the scheme,
though it was more generally declared that the wishes of that Department
had not been consulted, which was wholly untrue. These strictures are
pronounced on all sides at the present day, in spite of the very
significant silence and imperturbation (not to say supination) of
Egyptologists, and it may therefore be as well to put the matter plainly
before the reader, since the opinion of the person who is in charge of
the ruins in question, has, whether right or wrong, a sort of interest
attached to it.
In dealing with a question of this kind one has to clear from the brain
the fumes of unbalanced thought and to behold all things with a level
head. Strong wine is one of the lesser causes of insobriety, and there
is often more damage done by intemperance of thought in matters of
criticism than there is by actions committed under the influence of
other forms of immoderation. We are agreed that it is a sad spectacle
which is to be observed in the Old Kent Road on a Saturday night, when
the legs of half the pedestrians appear to have lost their cunning. We
say in disgust that these people are intoxicated. What, then, have we to
say regarding those persons whose brains are unbalanced by immoderate
habits of thought, who are suffering from that primary kind of
intoxication which the dictionary tells us is simply a condition of the
mind wherein clear judgment is obscured? There is sometimes a debauchery
in the reasoning faculties of the polite which sends their opinions
rollicking on their way just as drink will send a man staggering up the
highroad. Temperance and sobriety are virtues which in their relation to
thought have a greater value than they possess in any other regard; and
we stand in more urgent need of missionaries to preach to us sobriety of
opinion, a sort of critical teetotalism, than ever a drunkard stood in
want of a pledge.
This case of Philae and the Lower Nubian temples illustrates my meaning.
On the one hand there are those who tell us that the island temple, far
from being damaged by its flooding, is benefited thereby; and on the
other hand there are persons who urge that the engineers concerned in
the making of the reservoir should be tarred and feathered to a man.
Both these views are distorted and intemperate. Let us endeavour to
straighten up our opinions, to walk them soberly and decorously before
us in an atmosphere of propriety.
It will be agreed by all those who know Egypt that a great dam was
necessary, and it will be admitted that no reach of the Nile below Wady
Halfa could be converted into a reservoir with so little detriment to
_modern_ interests as that of Lower Nubia. Here there were very few
cultivated fields to be inundated and a very small number of people to
be dislodged. There were, however, these important ruins which would be
flooded by such a reservoir, and the engineers therefore made a most
serious attempt to find some other site for the building. A careful
study of the Nile valley showed that the present site of the dam was the
only spot at which a building of this kind could be set up without
immensely increasing the cost of erection and greatly adding to the
general difficulties and the possible dangers of the undertaking. The
engineers had, therefore, to ask themselves whether the damage to the
temples weighed against these considerations, whether it was right or
not to expend the extra sum from the taxes. The answer was plain enough.
They were of opinion that the temples would not be appreciably damaged
by their flooding. They argued, very justly, that the buildings would be
under water for only five months in each year, and for seven months the
ruins would appear to be precisely as they always had been. It was not
necessary, then, to state the loss of money and the added
inconveniences on the one hand against the total loss of the temples
on the other. It was simply needful to ask whether the temporary and
apparently harmless inundation of the ruins each year was worth avoiding
at the cost of several millions of precious Government money; and,
looking at it purely from an administrative point of view, remembering
that public money had to be economised and inextravagantly dealt with, I
do not see that the answer given was in any way outrageous. Philae and
the other temples were not to be harmed: they were but to be closed to
the public, so to speak, for the winter months.
[Illustration: PL. XXV. The island and temples of Philæ when the
reservoir is empty.]
[_Photo by R. Glendinning._
This view of the question is not based upon any error. In regard to the
possible destruction of Philae by the force of the water, Mr Somers
Clarke, F.S.A., whose name is known all over the world in connection
with his work at St Paul's Cathedral and elsewhere, states definitely[1]
that he is convinced that the temples will not be overthrown by the
flood, and his opinion is shared by all those who have studied the
matter carefully. Of course it is possible that, in spite of all the
works of consolidation which have been effected, some cracks may appear;
but during the months when the temple is out of water each year, these
may be repaired. I cannot see that there is the least danger of an
extensive collapse of the buildings; but should this occur, the entire
temple will have to be removed and set up elsewhere. Each summer and
autumn when the water goes down and the buildings once more stand as
they did in the days of the Ptolemies and Romans, we shall have ample
time and opportunity to discuss the situation and to take all proper
steps for the safeguarding of the temples against further damage; and
even were we to be confronted by a mass of fallen ruins, scattered
pell-mell over the island by the power of the water, I am convinced that
every block could be replaced before the flood rose again. The temple of
Maharraka was entirely rebuilt in three or four weeks.
[Footnote 1: Proc. Soc. Antiq., April 20, 1898.]
Now, as to the effect of the water upon the reliefs and inscriptions
with which the walls of the temples at Philae are covered. In June 1905
I reported[1] that a slight disintegration of the surface of the stone
was noticeable, and that the sharp lines of the hieroglyphs had become
somewhat blurred. This is due to the action of the salts in the
sandstone; but these salts have now disappeared, and the disintegration
will not continue. The Report on the Temples of Philae, issued by the
Ministry of Public Works in 1908, makes this quite clear; and I may add
that the proof of the statement is to be found at the many points on the
Nile where there are the remains of quay walls dating from Pharaonic
times. Many of these quays are constructed of inscribed blocks of a
stone precisely similar in quality to that used at Philae; and although
they have been submerged for many hundreds of years, the lines of the
hieroglyphs are almost as sharp now as they ever were. The action of the
water appears to have little effect upon sandstone, and it may thus be
safely predicted that the reliefs and inscriptions at Philae will not
suffer.
[Footnote 1: Les Annales du Service des Antiquites
d'Egypte, vii. 1, p. 74.]
There still remain some traces of colour upon certain reliefs, and these
will disappear. But archæologically the loss will be insignificant, and
artistically it will not be much felt. With regard to the colour upon
the capitals of the columns in the Hall of Isis, however, one must admit
that its destruction would be a grave loss to us, and it is to be hoped
that the capitals will be removed and replaced by dummies, or else most
carefully copied in facsimile.
Such is the case of Philae when looked at from a practical point of
view. Artistically and sentimentally, of course, one deeply regrets the
flooding of the temple. Philae with its palms was a very charming sight,
and although the island still looks very picturesque each year when the
flood has receded and the ground is covered with grasses and vegetation,
it will not again possess quite the magic that once caused it to be
known as the "pearl of Egypt." But these are considerations which are to
be taken into account with very great caution as standing against the
interest of modern Egypt. If Philae were to be destroyed, one might,
very properly, desire that modern interests should not receive sole
consideration; but it is not to be destroyed, or even much damaged, and
consequently the lover of Philae has but two objections to offer to the
operations now proceeding: firstly, that the temples will be hidden from
sight during a part of each year; and secondly, that water is an
incongruous and unharmonious element to introduce into the sanctuaries
of the gods.
Let us consider these two objections. As to the hiding of the temple
under the water, we have to consider to what class of people the
examination of the ruins is necessary. Archæologists, officials,
residents, students, and all natives, are able to visit the place in the
autumn, when the island stands high and dry, and the weather is not
uncomfortably hot. Every person who desires to see Philae in its
original condition can arrange to make his journey to Lower Nubia in the
autumn or early winter. It is only the ordinary winter tourist who will
find the ruins lost to view beneath the brown waters; and while his
wishes are certainly to be consulted to some extent, there can be no
question that the fortunes of the Egyptian farmers must receive the
prior attention. And as to the incongruity of the introduction of the
water into these sacred precincts, one may first remark that water
stands each year in the temples of Karnak, Luxor, the Ramesseum,
Shenhur, Esneh, and many another, introduced by the natural rise of the
Nile, thus giving us a quieting familiarity with such a condition; and
one may further point out that the presence of water in the buildings is
not (speaking archæologically) more discordant than that of the palms
and acacias which clustered around the ruins previous to the building of
the dam, and gave Philae its peculiar charm. Both water and trees are
out of place in a temple once swept and garnished, and it is only a
habit of thought that makes the trees which grow in such ruins more
congruous to the eye than water lapping around the pillars and taking
the fair reflections of the stonework.
What remains, then, of the objections? Nothing, except an undefined
sense of dismay that persists in spite of all arguments. There are few
persons who will not feel this sorrow at the flooding of Philae, who
will not groan inwardly as the water rises; and yet I cannot too
emphatically repeat that there is no real cause for this apprehension
and distress.
A great deal of damage has been done to the prestige of the archæologist
by the ill-considered outbursts of those persons who have allowed this
natural perturbation to have full sway in their minds. The man or woman
who has protested the loudest has seldom been in a position even to
offer an opinion. Thus every temperate thinker has come to feel a
greater distaste for the propaganda of those persons who would have
hindered the erection of the dam than for the actual effects of its
erection. Vegetarians, Anti-Vivisectionists, Militant Suffragists,
Little Englanders, and the like, have taught us to beware of the signs
and tokens of the unbalanced mind; and it becomes the duty of every
healthy person to fly from the contamination of their hysteria, even
though the principles which lie at the base of their doctrines may not
be entirely without reason. We must avoid hasty and violent judgment as
we would the plague. No honest man will deny that the closing of Philae
for half the year is anything but a very regrettable necessity; but it
has come to this pass, that a self-respecting person will be very chary
in admitting that he is not mightily well satisfied with the issue of
the whole business.
Recently a poetic effusion has been published bewailing the "death" of
Philae, and because the author is famous the world over for the charm of
his writing, it has been read, and its lament has been echoed by a large
number of persons. It is necessary to remind the reader, however, that
because a man is a great artist it does not follow that he has a sober
judgment. The outward appearance, and a disordered opinion on matters of
everyday life, are often sufficient indication of this intemperance of
mind which is so grave a human failing. A man and his art, of course,
are not to be confused; and perhaps it is unfair to assess the art by
the artist, but there are many persons who will understand my meaning
when I suggest that it is extremely difficult to give serious attention
to writers or speakers of a certain class. Philae is _not_ dead. It may
safely be said that the temples will last as long as the dam itself. Let
us never forget that Past and Present walk hand in hand, and, as between
friends, there must always be much "give and take." How many millions of
pounds, I wonder, has been spent by the Government, from the revenues
derived from the living Egyptians, for the excavation and preservation
of the records of the past? Will the dead not make, in return, this
sacrifice for the benefit of the striving farmers whose money has been
used for the resuscitation of their history?
A great deal has been said regarding the destruction of the ancient
inscriptions which are cut in such numbers upon the granite rocks in the
region of the First Cataract, many of which are of great historical
importance. Vast quantities of granite have been quarried for the
building of the dam, and fears have been expressed that in the course of
this work these graffiti may have been blasted into powder. It is
necessary to say, therefore, that with the exception of one inscription
which was damaged when the first quarrymen set to work upon the
preliminary tests for suitable stone, not a single hieroglyph has been
harmed. The present writer numbered all the inscriptions in white paint
and marked out quarrying concessions, while several watchmen were set to
guard these important relics. In this work, as in all else, the
Department of Antiquities received the most generous assistance from
the Department concerned with the building of the dam; and I should like
to take this opportunity of saying that archæologists owe a far greater
debt to the officials in charge of the various works at Aswan than they
do to the bulk of their own fellow-workers. The desire to save every
scrap of archæological information has been dominant in the minds of all
concerned in the work throughout the whole undertaking.
Besides the temples of Philae there are several other ruins which will
be flooded in part by the water when the heightening of the reservoir is
completed. On the island of Bigeh, over against Philae, there is a
little temple of no great historical value which will pass under water.
The cemeteries on this island, and also on the mainland in this
neighbourhood, have been completely excavated, and have yielded most
important information. Farther up stream there stands the little temple
of Dabôd. This has been repaired and strengthened, and will not come to
any harm; while all the cemeteries in the vicinity, of course, have been
cleared out. We next come to the fortress and quarries of Kertassi,
which will be partly flooded. These have been put into good order, and
there need be no fear of their being damaged. The temple of Tafeh, a few
miles farther to the south, has also been safeguarded, and all the
ancient graves have been excavated.
Next comes the great temple of Kalabsheh which, in 1907, when my report
was made, was in a sorry state. The great hall was filled with the ruins
of the fallen colonnade and its roof; the hypostyle hall was a mass of
tumbled blocks over which the visitor was obliged to climb; and all the
courts and chambers were heaped up with _débris_. Now, however, all this
has been set to rights, and the temple stands once more in its glory.
The water will flood the lower levels of the building each year for a
few months, but there is no chance of a collapse taking place, and the
only damage which is to be anticipated is the loss of the colour upon
the reliefs in the inner chambers, and the washing away of some later
Coptic paintings, already hardly distinguishable, in the first hall.
The temple is not very frequently visited, and it cannot be said that
its closing for each winter will be keenly felt; and since it will
certainly come to no harm under the gentle Nile, I do not see that its
fate need cause any consternation. Let those who are able visit this
fine ruin in the early months of winter, and they will be rewarded for
their trouble by a view of a magnificent temple in what can only be
described as apple-pie order. I venture to think that a building of this
kind washed by the water is a more inspiring sight than a tumbled mass
of ruins rising from amidst an encroaching jumble of native hovels.
Farther up the river stands the temple of Dendur. This will be partly
inundated, though the main portion of the building stands above the
highest level of the reservoir. Extensive repairs have been carried out
here, and every grave in the vicinity has been examined. The fortress of
Koshtamneh, which is made of mud-bricks, will be for the most part
destroyed; but now that a complete record of this construction has been
made, the loss is insignificant. Somewhat farther to the south stands
the imposing temple of Dakkeh, the lower levels of which will be
flooded. This temple has been most extensively patched up and
strengthened, and no damage of any kind will be caused by its
inundation. The vast cemeteries in the neighbourhood have all been
excavated, and the remains of the town have been thoroughly examined.
Still farther to the south stands the mud-brick fortress of Kubban,
which, like Koshtamneh, will be partly destroyed; but the detailed
excavations and records which have here been made will prevent any loss
being felt by archæologists. Finally, the temple of Maharraka requires
to be mentioned. This building in 1907 was a complete ruin, but it was
carefully rebuilt, and now it is quite capable of withstanding the
pressure of the water. From this point to the southern end of the new
reservoir there are no temples below the new flood-level; and by the
time that the water is raised every grave and other relic along the
entire banks of the river will have been examined.
To complete these works it is proposed to erect a museum at Aswan
wherein the antiquities discovered in Lower Nubia should be exhibited;
and a permanent collection of objects illustrating the arts, crafts, and
industries of Lower Nubia at all periods of its history, should be
displayed. It is a question whether money will be found for the
executing of this scheme; but there can be no doubt that a museum of
this kind, situated at the virtual capital of Lower Nubia, would be a
most valuable institution.
In 1907 the condition of the monuments of Lower Nubia was very bad. The
temples already mentioned were in a most deplorable state; the
cemeteries were being robbed, and there was no proper organisation for
the protection of the ancient sites. There are, moreover, several
temples above the level of high water, and these were also in a sad
condition. Gerf Husen was both dirty and dilapidated; Wady Sabua was
deeply buried in sand; Amada was falling to pieces; Derr was the
receptacle for the refuse of the town; and even Abu Simbel itself was in
a dangerous state. In my report I gave a gloomy picture indeed of the
plight of the monuments. But now all this is changed. Sir Gaston Maspero
made several personal visits to the country; every temple was set in
order; many new watchmen were appointed; and to-day this territory may
be said to be the "show" portion of this inspectorate. Now, it must be
admitted that the happy change is due solely to the attention to which
the country was subjected by reason of its flooding; and it is not the
less true because it is paradoxical that the proposed submersion of
certain temples has saved all the Lower Nubian monuments from rapid
destruction at the hands of robbers, ignorant natives, and barbarous
European visitors. What has been lost in Philae has been gained a
thousand-fold in the repairing and safeguarding of the temples, and in
the scientific excavation of the cemeteries farther to the south.
Here, then, is the sober fact of the matter. Are the English and
Egyptian officials such vandals who have voted over a hundred thousand
pounds for the safeguarding of the monuments of Lower Nubia? What
country in the whole world has spent such vast sums of money upon the
preservation of the relics of the Past as has Egypt during the last
five-and-twenty years? The Government has treated the question
throughout in a fair and generous manner; and those who rail at the
officials will do well to consider seriously the remarks which I have
dared to make upon the subject of temperate criticism.
CHAPTER XII.
ARCHÆOLOGY IN THE OPEN.
In this chapter I propose to state the case in favour of the
archæologist who works abroad in the field, in contrast to him who
studies at home in the museum, in the hope that others will follow the
example of that scholar to whom this volume is dedicated, who does both.
I have said in a previous chapter that the archæologist is generally
considered to be a kind of rag-and-bone man: one who, sitting all his
life in a dusty room, shuns the touch of the wind and takes no pleasure
in the vanities under the sun. Actually, this is not so very often a
true description of him. The ease with which long journeys are now
undertaken, the immunity from insult or peril which the traveller now
enjoys, have made it possible for the archæologist to seek his
information at its source in almost all the countries of the world; and
he is not obliged, as was his grandfather, to take it at second-hand
from the volumes of mediæval scholars. Moreover, the necessary
collections of books of reference are now to be found in very diverse
places; and thus it comes about that there are plenty of archæologists
who are able to leave their own museums and studies for limited periods.
And as regards his supposed untidy habits, the phase of cleanliness
which, like a purifying wind, descended suddenly upon the world in the
second half of the nineteenth century, has penetrated even to libraries
and museums, removing every speck of dust therefrom. The archæologist,
when engaged in the sedentary side of his profession, lives nowadays in
an atmosphere charged with the odours of furniture-polish and
monkey-brand. A place less dusty than the Victoria and Albert Museum in
South Kensington, or than the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, could not
easily be imagined. The disgusting antiquarian of a past generation,
with his matted locks and stained clothing, could but be ill at ease in
such surroundings, and could claim no brotherhood with the majority of
the present-day archæologists. Cobwebs are now taboo; and the misguided
old man who dwelt amongst them is seldom to be found outside of
caricature, save in the more remote corners of the land.
[Illustration: PL. XXVI. A relief representing Queen Tiy, from the tomb
of Userhat at Thebes. This relief was stolen
from the tomb, and found its way to the
Brussels Museum, where it is shown in the
damaged condition seen in Plate xxvii.]
[_Photo by H. Carter._
The archæologist in these days, then, is not often confined permanently
to his museum, though in many cases he remains there as much as
possible; and still less often is he a person of objectionable
appearance. The science is generally represented by two classes of
scholar: the man who sits in the museum or library for the greater part
of his life, and lives as though he would be worthy of the
furniture-polish, and the man who works in the field for a part of the
year and then lives as though he regarded the clean airs of heaven in
even higher estimation. Thus, in arguing the case for the field-worker,
as I propose here to do, there is no longer the easy target of the dusty
antiquarian at which to hurl the javelin. One cannot merely urge a musty
individual to come out into the open air: that would make an easy
argument. One has to take aim at the less vulnerable person of the
scholar who chooses to spend the greater part of his time in a smart
gallery of exhibits or in a well-ordered and spotless library, and whose
only fault is that he is too fond of those places. One may no longer
tease him about his dusty surroundings; but I think it is possible to
accuse him of setting a very bad example by his affection for "home
comforts," and of causing indirectly no end of mischief. It is a fact
that there are many Greek scholars who are so accustomed to read their
texts in printed books that they could not make head nor tail of an
original document written in a cursive Greek hand; and there are not a
few students of Egyptian archæology who do not know the conditions and
phenomena of the country sufficiently to prevent the occurrence of
occasional "howlers" in the exposition of their theories.
There are three main arguments which may be set forward to induce
Egyptologists to come as often as possible to Egypt, and to urge their
students to do so, instead of educating the mind to the habit of working
at home.
Firstly, the study of archæology in the open helps to train the young
men in the path of health in which they should go. Work in the Egyptian
desert, for example, is one of the most healthy and inspiring pursuits
that could be imagined; and study in the shrines overlooking the Nile,
where, as at Gebel Silsileh, one has to dive into the cool river and
swim to the sun-scorched scene of one's work, is surely more
invigorating than study in the atmosphere of the British Museum. A
gallop up to the Tombs of the Kings puts a man in a readier mood for a
morning's work than does a drive in an omnibus along Tottenham Court
Road; and he will feel a keenness as he pulls out his note-book that he
can never have experienced in his western city. There is, moreover, a
certain amount of what is called "roughing it" to be endured by the
archæologist in Egypt; and thus the body becomes toughened and prepared
for any necessary spurt of work. To rough it in the open is the best
medicine for tired heads, as it is the finest tonic for brains in a
normal condition.
In parenthesis an explanation must be given of what is meant here by
that much misunderstood condition of life which is generally known as
"roughing it." A man who is accustomed to the services of two valets
will believe that he is roughing it when he is left to put the diamond
studs in his evening shirts with his own fingers; and a man who has
tramped the roads all his life will hardly consider that he is roughing
it when he is outlawed upon the unsheltered moors in late autumn. The
degree of hardship to which I refer lies between these two extremes. The
science of Egyptology does not demand from its devotees a performance of
many extreme acts of discomfort; but, during the progress of active
work, it does not afford many opportunities for luxurious
self-indulgence, or for any slackness in the taking of exercise.
As a protest against the dilettante antiquarian (who is often as
objectionable a character as the unwashed scholar) there are certain
archæologists who wear the modern equivalent of a hair shirt, who walk
abroad with pebbles in their shoes, and who speak of the sitting upon an
easy-chair as a moral set-back. The strained and posed life which such
savants lead is not to be regarded as a rough one; for there is constant
luxury in the thought of their own toughness, and infinite comfort in
the sense of superiority which they permit themselves to feel. It is not
roughing it to feed from a bare board when a tablecloth adds
insignificantly to the impedimenta of the camp: it is pretending to
rough it. It is not roughing it to eat tinned food out of the tin when a
plate costs a penny or two: it is either hypocrisy or slovenliness.
To rough it is to lead an exposed life under conditions which preclude
the possibility of indulging in certain comforts which, in their place
and at the right time, are enjoyed and appreciated. A man may well be
said to rough it when he camps in the open, and dispenses with the
luxuries of civilisation; when he pours a jug of water over himself
instead of lying in ecstasy in an enamelled bath; eats a meal of two
undefined courses instead of one of five or six; twangs a banjo to the
moon instead of ravishing his ear with a sonata upon the grand piano;
rolls himself in a blanket instead of sitting over the library fire;
turns in at 9 P.M. and rises ere the sun has topped the hills instead of
keeping late hours and lying abed; sleeps on the ground or upon a narrow
camp-bed (which occasionally collapses) instead of sprawling at his ease
in a four-poster.
A life of this kind cannot fail to be of benefit to the health; and,
after all, the work of a healthy man is likely to be of greater value
than that of one who is anæmic or out of condition. It is the first duty
of a scholar to give attention to his muscles, for he, more than other
men, has the opportunity to become enfeebled by indoor work. Few
students can give sufficient time to physical exercise; but in Egypt the
exercise is taken during the course of the work, and not an hour is
wasted. The muscles harden and the health is ensured without the
expending of a moment's thought upon the subject.
Archæology is too often considered to be the pursuit of weak-chested
youths and eccentric old men: it is seldom regarded as a possible
vocation for normal persons of sound health and balanced mind. An
athletic and robust young man, clothed in the ordinary costume of a
gentleman, will tell a new acquaintance that he is an Egyptologist,
whereupon the latter will exclaim in surprise: "Not really?--you don't
look like one." A kind of mystery surrounds the science. The layman
supposes the antiquarian to be a very profound and erudite person, who
has pored over his books since a baby, and has shunned those games and
sports which generally make for a healthy constitution. The study of
Egyptology is thought to require a depth of knowledge that places its
students outside the limits of normal learning, and presupposes in them
an unhealthy amount of schooling. This, of course, is absurd.
Nobody would expect an engineer who built bridges and dams, or a great
military commander, to be a seedy individual with longish hair, pale
face, and weak eyesight; and yet probably he has twice the brain
capacity of the average archæologist. It is because the life of the
antiquarian is, or is generally thought to be, unhealthy and sluggish
that he is so universally regarded as a worm.
Some attempt should be made to rid the science of this forbidding
aspect; and for this end students ought to do their best to make it
possible for them to be regarded as ordinary, normal, healthy men. Let
them discourage the popular belief that they are prodigies, freaks of
mental expansion. Let their first desire be to show themselves good,
useful, hardy, serviceable citizens or subjects, and they will do much
to remove the stigma from their profession. Let them be acquainted with
the feeling of a bat or racket in the hands, or a saddle between the
knees; let them know the rough path over the mountains, or the
diving-pool amongst the rocks, and their mentality will not be found to
suffer. A winter's "roughing it" in the Theban necropolis or elsewhere
would do much to banish the desire for perpetual residence at home in
the west; and a season in Egypt would alter the point of view of the
student more considerably than he could imagine. Moreover, the
appearance of the scholar prancing about upon his fiery steed (even
though it be but an Egyptian donkey) will help to dispel the current
belief that he is incapable of physical exertion; and his reddened face
rising, like the morning sun, above the rocks on some steep pathway over
the Theban hills will give the passer-by cause to alter his opinion of
those who profess and call themselves Egyptologists.
As a second argument a subject must be introduced which will be
distasteful to a large number of archæologists. I refer to the
narrow-minded policy of the curators of certain European and American
museums, whose desire it is at all costs to place Egyptian and other
eastern antiquities actually before the eyes of western students, in
order that they and the public may have the entertainment of examining
at home the wonders of lands which they make no effort to visit. I have
no hesitation in saying that the craze for recklessly bringing away
unique antiquities from Egypt to be exhibited in western museums for the
satisfaction of the untravelled man, is the most pernicious bit of folly
to be found in the whole broad realm of archæological misbehaviour.
A museum has three main justifications for its existence. In the first
place, like a home for lost dogs, it is a repository for stray objects.
No curator should endeavour to procure for his museum any antiquity
which could be safely exhibited on its original site* and in its original
position. He should receive only those stray objects which otherwise
would be lost to sight, or those which would be in danger of
destruction. The curator of a picture gallery is perfectly justified in
purchasing any old master which is legitimately on sale; but he is not
justified in obtaining a painting direct from the walls of a church
where it has hung for centuries, and where it should still hang. In the
same way a curator of a museum of antiquities should make it his first
endeavour not so much to obtain objects direct from Egypt as to gather
in those antiquities which are in the possession of private persons who
cannot be expected to look after them with due care.
*Transcriber's note: Original text read "sight".
In the second place, a museum is a store-house for historical documents
such as papyri and ostraca, and in this respect it is simply to be
regarded as a kind of public library, capable of unlimited and perfectly
legitimate expansion. Such objects are not often found by robbers in the
tombs which they have violated, nor are they snatched from temples to
which they belong. They are almost always found accidentally, and in a
manner which precludes any possibility of their actual position having
much significance. The immediate purchase, for example, by museum agents
of the Tell el Amarna tablets--the correspondence of a great
Pharaoh--which had been discovered by accident, and would perhaps have
been destroyed, was most wise.
In the third place, a museum is a permanent exhibition for the
instruction of the public, and for the enlightenment of students
desirous of obtaining comparative knowledge in any one branch of their
work, and for this purpose it should be well supplied not so much with
original antiquities as with casts, facsimiles, models, and
reproductions of all sorts.
To be a serviceable exhibition both for the student and the public a
museum does not need to possess only original antiquities. On the
contrary, as a repository for stray objects, a museum is not to be
expected to have a complete series of original antiquities in any
class, nor is it the business of the curator to attempt to fill up the
gaps by purchase, except in special cases. To do so is to encourage the
straying of other objects. The curator so often labours under the
delusion that it is his first business to collect together as large a
number as possible of valuable masterpieces. In reality that is a very
secondary matter. His first business, if he is an Egyptologist, is to
see that Egyptian masterpieces remain in Egypt so far as is practicable;
and his next is to save what has irrevocably strayed from straying
further. If the result of this policy is a poor collection, then he must
devote so much the more time and money to obtaining facsimiles and
reproductions. The keeper of a home for lost dogs does not search the
city for a collie with red spots to complete his series of collies, or
for a peculiarly elongated dachshund to head his procession of those
animals. The fewer dogs he has got the better he is pleased, since this
is an indication that a larger number are in safe keeping in their
homes. The home of Egyptian antiquities is Egypt, a fact which will
become more and more realised as travelling is facilitated.
But the curator generally has the insatiable appetite of the collector.
The authorities of one museum bid vigorously against those of another at
the auction which constantly goes on in the shops of the dealers in
antiquities. They pay huge prices for original statues, vases, or
sarcophagi: prices which would procure for them the finest series of
casts or facsimiles, or would give them valuable additions to their
legitimate collection of papyri. And what is it all for? It is not for
the benefit of the general public, who could not tell the difference
between a genuine antiquity and a forgery or reproduction, and who would
be perfectly satisfied with the ordinary, miscellaneous collection of
minor antiquities. It is not for that class of Egyptologist which
endeavours to study Egyptian antiquities in Egypt. It is almost solely
for the benefit of the student and scholar who cannot, or will not, go
to Egypt. Soon it comes to be the curator's pride to observe that
savants are hastening to his museum to make their studies. His civic
conceit is tickled by the spectacle of Egyptologists travelling long
distances to take notes in his metropolitan museum. He delights to be
able to say that the student can study Egyptology in his well-ordered
galleries as easily as he can in Egypt itself.
All this is as wrong-headed as it can be. While he is filling his museum
he does not seem to understand that he is denuding every necropolis in
Egypt. I will give one or two instances of the destruction wrought by
western museums. I them at random from my memory.
In the year 1900 the then Inspector-General of Antiquities in Upper
Egypt discovered a tomb at Thebes in which there was a beautiful relief
sculptured on one of the walls, representing Queen Tiy. This he
photographed (Plate XXVI.), and the tomb was once more buried. In 1908 I
chanced upon this monument, and proposed to open it up as a "show place"
for visitors; but alas!--the relief of the queen had disappeared, and
only a gaping hole in the wall remained. It appears that robbers had
entered the tomb at about the time of the change of inspectors; and,
realising that this relief would make a valuable exhibit for some
western museum, they had cut out of the wall as much as they could
conveniently carry away--namely, the head and upper part of the figure
of Tiy. The hieroglyphic inscription which was sculptured near the head
was carefully erased, in case it should contain some reference to the
name of the tomb from which they were taking the fragment; and over the
face some false inscriptions were scribbled in Greek characters, so as
to give the stone an unrecognisable appearance. In this condition it was
conveyed to a dealer's shop, and it now forms one of the exhibits in the
Royal Museum at Brussels. The photograph on Plate XXVII. shows the
fragment as it appears after being cleaned.
[Illustration: PL. XXVII. A Relief representing Queen Tiy, from the tomb
of Userhat, Thebes.
--BRUSSELS MUSEUM.
(See PL. xxvi.)]
[_Photo by T. Capart._
In the same museum, and in others also, there are fragments of beautiful
sculpture hacked out of the walls of the famous tomb of Khaemhat at
Thebes. In the British Museum there are large pieces of wall-paintings
broken out of Theban tombs. The famous inscription in the tomb of Anena
at Thebes, which was one of the most important texts of the early
XVIIIth Dynasty, was smashed to pieces several years ago to be sold in
small sections to museums; and the scholar to whom this volume is
dedicated was instrumental in purchasing back for us eleven of the
fragments, which have now been replaced in the tomb, and, with certain
fragments in Europe, form the sole remnant of the once imposing stela.
One of the most important scenes out of the famous reliefs of the
Expedition to Pount, at Dêr el Bahri, found its way into the hands of
the dealers, and was ultimately purchased by our museum in Cairo. The
beautiful and important reliefs which decorated the tomb of Horemheb at
Sakkâra, hacked out of the walls by robbers, are now exhibited in six
different museums: London, Leyden, Vienna, Bologna, Alexandria, and
Cairo. Of the two hundred tombs of the nobles now to be seen at Thebes,
I cannot, at the moment, recall a single one which has not suffered in
this manner at some time previous to the organisation of the present
strict supervision.
The curators of western museums will argue that had they not purchased
these fragments they would have fallen into the hands of less desirable
owners. This is quite true, and, indeed, it forms the nearest approach
to justification that can be discovered. Nevertheless, it has to be
remembered that this purchasing of antiquities is the best stimulus to
the robber, who is well aware that a market is always to be found for
his stolen goods. It may seem difficult to censure the purchaser, for
certainly the fragments were "stray" when the bargain was struck, and it
is the business of the curator to collect stray antiquities. But why
were they stray? Why were they ever cut from the walls of the Egyptian
monuments? Assuredly because the robbers knew that museums would
purchase them. If there had been no demand there would have been no
supply.
To ask the curators to change their policy, and to purchase only those
objects which are legitimately on sale, would, of course, be as futile
as to ask the nations to disarm. The rivalry between museum and museum
would alone prevent a cessation of this indiscriminate traffic. I can
see only one way in which a more sane and moral attitude can be
introduced, and that is by the development of the habit of visiting
Egypt and of working upon archæological subjects in the shadow of the
actual monuments. Only the person who is familiar with Egypt can know
the cost of supplying the stay-at-home scholar with exhibits for his
museums. Only one who has resided in Egypt can understand the fact that
Egypt itself is the true museum for Egyptian antiquities. He alone can
appreciate the work of the Egyptian Government in preserving the remains
of ancient days.
The resident in Egypt, interested in archæology, comes to look with a
kind of horror upon museums, and to feel extraordinary hostility to what
may be called the museum spirit. He sees with his own eyes the
half-destroyed tombs, which to the museum curator are things far off and
not visualised. While the curator is blandly saying to his visitor:
"See, I will now show you a beautiful fragment of sculpture from a
distant and little-known Theban tomb," the white resident in Egypt, with
black murder in his heart, is saying: "See, I will show you a beautiful
tomb of which the best part of one wall is utterly destroyed that a
fragment might be hacked out for a distant and little-known European
museum."
To a resident in Europe, Egypt seems to be a strange and barbaric land,
far, far away beyond the hills and seas; and her monuments are thought
to be at the mercy of wild Bedwin Arabs. In the less recent travel books
there is not a published drawing of a temple in the Nile valley but has
its complement of Arab figures grouped in picturesque attitudes. Here a
fire is being lit at the base of a column, and the black smoke curls
upwards to destroy the paintings thereon; here a group of children sport
upon the lap of a colossal statue; and here an Arab tethers his camel at
the steps of the high altar. It is felt, thus, that the objects
exhibited in European museums have been _rescued_ from Egypt and
recovered from a distant land. This is not so. They have been snatched
from Egypt and lost to the country of their origin.
He who is well acquainted with Egypt knows that hundreds of watchmen,
and a small army of inspectors, engineers, draughtsmen, surveyors, and
other officials now guard these monuments, that strong iron gates bar
the doorways against unauthorised visitors, that hourly patrols pass
from monument to monument, and that any damage done is punished by long
terms of imprisonment; he knows that the Egyptian Government spends
hundreds of thousands of pounds upon safeguarding the ancient remains;
he is aware that the organisation of the Department of Antiquities is an
extremely important branch of the Ministry of Public Works. He has seen
the temples swept and garnished, the tombs lit with electric light, and
the sanctuaries carefully rebuilt. He has spun out to the Pyramids in
the electric tram or in a taxi-cab; has strolled in evening dress and
opera hat through the halls of Karnak, after dinner at the hotel; and
has rung up the Theban Necropolis on the telephone.
A few seasons' residence in Egypt shifts the point of view in a
startling manner. No longer is the country either distant or insecure;
and, realising this, the student becomes more balanced, and he sees both
sides of the question with equal clearness. The archæologist may
complain that it is too expensive a matter to come to Egypt. But why,
then, are not the expenses of such a journey met by the various museums?
A hundred pounds will pay for a student's winter in Egypt and his
journey to and from that country. Such a sum is given readily enough
for the purchase of an antiquity; but surely rightly-minded students are
a better investment than wrongly-acquired antiquities.
It must now be pointed out, as a third argument, that an Egyptologist
cannot study his subject properly unless he be thoroughly familiar with
Egypt and the modern Egyptians.
A student who is accustomed to sit at home, working in his library or
museum, and who has never resided in Egypt, or has but travelled for a
short time in that country, may do extremely useful work in one way and
another, but that work will not be faultless. It will be, as it were,
lop-sided; it will be coloured with hues of the west, unknown to the
land of the Pharaohs and antithetical thereto. A London architect may
design an apparently charming villa for a client in Jerusalem, but
unless he knows by actual and prolonged experience the exigencies of the
climate of Palestine, he will be liable to make a sad mess of his job.
By bitter experience the military commanders learnt in South Africa that
a plan of campaign prepared in England was of little use to them. The
cricketer may play a very good game upon the home ground, but upon a
foreign pitch the first straight ball will send his bails flying into
the clear blue sky.
An archæologist who attempts to record the material relating to the
manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians cannot complete his task,
or even assure himself of the accuracy of his statements, unless he has
studied the modern customs and has made himself acquainted with the
permanent conditions of the country. The modern Egyptians, as has been
pointed out in chapter ii. (page 28), are the same people as those who
bowed the knee to Pharaoh, and many of their customs still survive. A
student can no more hope to understand the story of Pharaonic times
without an acquaintance with Egypt as she now is than a modern statesman
can hope to understand his own times solely from a study of the past.
Nothing is more paralysing to a student of archæology than continuous
book-work. A collection of hard facts is an extremely beneficial mental
exercise, but the deductions drawn from such a collection should be
regarded as an integral part of the work. The road-maker must also walk
upon his road to the land whither it leads him; the shipbuilder must
ride the seas in his vessel, though they be uncharted and unfathomed.
Too often the professor will set his students to a compilation which
leads them no farther than the final fair copy. They will be asked to
make for him, with infinite labour, a list of the High Priests of Amon;
but unless he has encouraged them to put such life into those figures
that each one seems to step from the page to confront his recorder,
unless the name of each calls to mind the very scenes amidst which he
worshipped, then is the work uninspired and as deadening to the student
as it is useful to the professor. A catalogue of ancient scarabs is
required, let us suppose, and students are set to work upon it. They
examine hundreds of specimens, they record the variations in design,
they note the differences in the glaze or material. But can they picture
the man who wore the scarab?--can they reconstruct in their minds the
scene in the workshop wherein the scarab was made?--can they hear the
song of the workmen or their laughter when the overseer was not nigh? In
a word, does the scarab mean history to them, the history of a period,
of a dynasty, of a craft? Assuredly not, unless the students know Egypt
and the Egyptians, have heard their songs and their laughter, have
watched their modern arts and crafts. Only then are they in a position
to reconstruct the picture.
Theodore Roosevelt, in his Romanes lecture at Oxford, gave it as his
opinion that the industrious collector of facts occupied an honourable
but not an exalted position; and he added that the merely scientific
historian must rest content with the honour, substantial, but not of the
highest type, that belongs to him who gathers material which some time
some master shall arise to use. Now every student should aim to be a
master, to _use_ the material which he has so laboriously collected; and
though at the beginning of his career, and indeed throughout his life,
the gathering of material is a most important part of his work, he
should never compile solely for the sake of compilation, unless he be
content to serve simply as a clerk of archæology.
An archæologist must be an historian. He must conjure up the past; he
must play the Witch of Endor. His lists and indices, his catalogues and
note-books, must be but the spells which he uses to invoke the dead. The
spells have no potency until they are pronounced: the lists of the kings
of Egypt have no more than an accidental value until they call before
the curtain of the mind those monarchs themselves. It is the business of
the archæologist to awake the dreaming dead: not to send the living to
sleep. It is his business to make the stones tell their tale: not to
petrify the listener. It is his business to put motion and commotion
into the past that the present may see and hear: not to pin it down,
spatchcocked, like a dead thing. In a word, the archæologist must be in
command of that faculty which is known as the historic imagination,
without which Dean Stanley was of opinion that the story of the past
could not be told.
But how can that imagination be at once exerted and controlled, as it
must needs be, unless the archæologist is so well acquainted with the
conditions of the country about which he writes that his pictures of it
can be said to be accurate? The student must allow himself to be
saturated by the very waters of the Nile before he can permit himself
to write of Egypt. He must know the modern Egyptians before he can
construct his model of Pharaoh and his court.
In a recent London play dealing with ancient Egypt, the actor-manager
exerted his historic imagination, in one scene, in so far as to
introduce a _shadoof_ or water-hoist, which was worked as a naturalistic
side-action to the main incident. But, unfortunately, it was displayed
upon a hillside where no water could ever have reached it; and thus the
audience, all unconsciously, was confronted with the remarkable
spectacle of a husbandman applying himself diligently to the task of
ladelling thin air on to crops that grew upon barren sand. If only his
imagination had been controlled by a knowledge of Egypt, the picture
might have been both true and effective.
When the mummy of Akhnaton was discovered and was proved to be that of a
man of twenty-eight years of age, many persons doubted the
identification on the grounds that the king was known to have been
married at the time when he came to the throne, seventeen years before
his death,[1] and it was freely stated that a marriage at the age of ten
or eleven was impossible and out of the question. Thus it actually
remained for the writer to point out that the fact of the king's death
occurring seventeen years after his marriage practically fixed his age
at his decease at not much above twenty-eight years, so unlikely was it
that his marriage would have been delayed beyond his eleventh year.
Those who doubted the identification on such grounds were showing all
too clearly that the manners and customs of the Egyptians of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, so many of which have come down
intact from olden times, were unknown to them.
[Footnote 1: Weigall: Life of Akhnaton, p. 56.]
Here we come to the root of the trouble. The Egyptologist who has not
resided for some time in Egypt is inclined to allow his ideas regarding
the ancient customs of the land to be influenced by his
unconsciously-acquired knowledge of the habits of the west. Men do not
marry before the age of eighteen or twenty in Europe: therefore they did
not do so in Egypt. There are streams of water upon the mountains in
Europe: therefore water may be hoisted upon the hillsides in Egypt. But
is he blind that he sees not the great gulf fixed between the ways of
the east and those of his accustomed west? It is of no value to science
to record the life of Thutmosis III. with Napoleon as our model for it,
nor to describe the daily life of the Pharaoh with the person of an
English king before our mind's eye. Our European experience will not
give us material for the imagination to work upon in dealing with Egypt.
The setting for our Pharaonic pictures must be derived from Egypt alone;
and no Egyptologist's work that is more than a simple compilation is of
value unless the sunlight and the sandy glare of Egypt have burnt into
his eyes, and have been reflected on to the pages under his pen.
The archæologist must possess the historic imagination, but it must be
confined to its proper channels. It is impossible to exert this
imagination without, as a consequence, a figure rising up before the
mind partially furnished with the details of a personality and fully
endowed with the broad character of an individual. The first lesson,
thus, which we must learn is that of allowing no incongruity to appear
in our figures. A king whose name has survived to us upon some monument
becomes at once such a reality that the legends concerning him are apt
to be accepted as so much fact. Like John Donne once* says--
"Thou art so true, that thoughts of thee suffice
To make dreams truth, and fables histories."
*Transcriber's note: Original text read "one".
But only he who has resided in Egypt can judge how far the fables are to
be regarded as having a nucleus of truth. In ancient history there can
seldom be sufficient data at the Egyptologist's disposal with which to
build up a complete figure; and his puppets must come upon the stage
sadly deficient, as it were, in arms, legs, and apparel suitable to
them, unless he knows from an experience of modern Egyptians how to
restore them and to clothe them in good taste. The substance upon which
the imagination works must be no less than a collective knowledge of the
people of the nation in question. Rameses must be constructed from an
acquaintance with many a Pasha of modern Egypt, and his Chief Butler
must reflect the known characteristics of a hundred Beys and Effendis.
Without such "padding" the figures will remain but names, and with names
Egyptology is already overstocked.
It is remarkable to notice how little is known regarding the great
personalities in history. Taking three characters at random: we know
extremely little that is authentic regarding King Arthur; our knowledge
of the actual history of Robin Hood is extremely meagre; and the precise
historian would have to dismiss Cleopatra in a few paragraphs. But let
the archæologist know so well the manners and customs of the period with
which he is dealing that he will not, like the author of the stories of
the Holy Grail, dress Arthur in the armour of the thirteenth century,
nor fill the mind of Cleopatra with the thoughts of the Elizabethan
poet; let him be so well trained in scientific cautiousness that he will
not give unquestioned credence to the legends of the past; let him have
sufficient knowledge of the nation to which his hero or heroine belonged
to be able to fill up the lacunæ with a kind of collective appreciation
and estimate of the national characteristics,--and I do not doubt that
his interpretations will hold good till the end of all history.
The student to whom Egypt is not a living reality is handicapped in his
labours more unfairly than is realised by him. Avoid Egypt, and though
your brains be of vast capacity, though your eyes be never raised from
your books, you will yet remain in many ways an ignoramus, liable to be
corrected by the merest tourist in the Nile valley. But come with me to
a Theban garden that I know, where, on some still evening, the dark
palms are reflected in the placid Nile, and the acacias are mellowed by
the last light of the sunset; where, in leafy bowers, the grapes cluster
overhead, and the fig-tree is burdened with fruit. Beyond the broad
sheet of the river rise those unchangeable hills which encompass the
Valley of the Tombs of the Kings; and at their foot, dimly seen in the
evening haze, sit the twin colossi, as they have sat since the days of
Amenhotep the Magnificent. The stars begin to be seen through the leaves
now that the daylight dies, and presently the Milky Way becomes
apparent, stretching across the vault of the night, as when it was
believed to be the Nile of the Heavens.
The owls hoot to one another through the garden; and at the edge of the
alabaster tank wherein the dusk is mirrored, a frog croaks unseen amidst
the lilies. Even so croaked he on this very ground in those days when,
typifying eternity, he seemed to utter the endless refrain, "I am the
resurrection, I am the resurrection," into the ears of men and maidens
beneath these self-same stars.
And now a boat floats past, on its way to Karnak, silhouetted against
the last-left light of the sky. There is music and song on board. The
sound of the pipes is carried over the water and pulses to the ears,
inflaming the imagination with the sorcery of its cadences and stirring
the blood by its bold rhythm. The gentle breeze brings the scent of many
flowers to the nostrils, and with these come drifting thoughts and
undefined fancies, so that presently the busy considerations of the day
are lulled and forgotten. The twilight seems to cloak the extent of the
years, and in the gathering darkness the procession of the centuries is
hidden. Yesterday and to-day are mingled together, and there is nothing
to distinguish to the eye the one age from the other. An immortal,
brought suddenly to the garden at this hour, could not say from direct
observation whether he had descended from the clouds into the twentieth
century before or the twentieth century after Christ; and the sound of
the festal pipes in the passing boat would but serve to confuse him the
more.
In such a garden as this the student will learn more Egyptology than he
could assimilate in many an hour's study at home; for here his five
senses play the student and Egypt herself is his teacher. While he may
read in his books how this Pharaoh or that feasted o' nights in his
palace beside the river, here, not in fallible imagination but in actual
fact, he may see Nilus and the Libyan desert to which the royal eyes
were turned, may smell the very perfume of the palace garden, and may
hearken to the self-same sounds that lulled a king to sleep in
Hundred-gated Thebes.
Not in the west, but only by the waters of the Nile will he learn how
best to be an historian of ancient Egypt, and in what manner to make his
studies of interest, as well as of technical value, to his readers, for
he will here discover the great secret of his profession. Suddenly the
veil will be lifted from his understanding, and he will become aware
that Past and Present are so indissoluble as to be incapable of separate
interpretation or single study. He will learn that there is no such
thing as a distinct Past or a defined Present. "Yesterday this day's
madness did prepare," and the affairs of bygone times must be
interpreted in the light of recent events. The Past is alive to-day, and
all the deeds of man in all the ages are living at this hour in
offspring. There is no real death. The earthly grave will not hide, nor
the mountain tomb imprison, the actions of the men of old Egypt, so
consequent and fruitful are all human affairs. This is the knowledge
which will make his work of lasting value; and nowhere save in Egypt can
he acquire it. This, indeed, is the secret of the Sphinx; and only at
the lips of the Sphinx itself can he learn it.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
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by Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
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