Chapter XXXIII: Appendix: V (3)

[152] There are tombs in some of the ravines behind the temples, which, however, we did not see.

[153] Tosko is on the eastern bank, and not, as in Keith Johnston’s map, on the west.

[154] This is one of the temples erected by Rameses the Great, and, I believe, not added to by any of his successors. The colossi, the Osiride columns, the sphinxes (now battered out of all human semblance) were originally made in his image. The cartouches are all his, and in one of the inner chambers there is a list of his little family. All these chambers were accessible till three or four years ago, when a party of German travelers carried off some sculptured tablets of great archæological interest; after which act of spoliation the entrance was sanded up by order of Mariette Bey. See, also, with regard to the probable date of the earthquake at this place, chap. xviii, p. 321.

[155] Not only near this nameless town, but in many other parts between Abou Simbel and Philæ, we found the old alluvial soil lying as high as from twenty to thirty feet above the level of the present inundations.

[156] Ar. _Birbeh_, temple.

[157] “The Nile receives its last tributary, the Atbara, in Lat. 17° 42’ north, at the northern extremity of the peninsular tract anciently called the Island of Meröe, and thence flows north (a single stream without the least accession) through twelve degrees of latitude; or, following its winding course, at least twelve hundred miles to the sea.”--“Blackie’s Imperial Gazetteer,” 1861. A careful survey of the country would probably bring to light the dry beds of many more such tributaries as the one described above.

[158] Of this wall, Burckhardt notices that “it has fallen down, apparently from some sudden and violent concussion, as the stones are lying on the ground in layers, as when placed in the wall; a proof that they must have fallen all at once.”--“Travels in Nubia:” Ed. 1819, p. 100. But he has not observed the inscription which is in large characters, and consists of three lines on three separate layers, of stones. The idle man copied the original upon the spot, which copy has since been identified with an ex-voto of a Roman soldier published in Boeckh’s “Corpus Inscr. Græc.,” of which the following is a translation:

“The vow of Verecundus the soldier, and his most pious parents, and Gaius his little brother, and the rest of his brethren.”

[159] A clew, however, might possibly be found to the date. There is a rudely sculptured tableau--the only piece of sculpture in the place--on a detached wall near the standing columns. It represents Isis worshiped by a youth in a short toga. Both figures are lumpish and ill-modeled; and Isis, seated under a conventional fig-tree, wears her hair erected in stiff rolls over her forehead, like a diadem. It is the face and stiffly dressed hair of Marciana, the sister of Trajan, as shown upon the well-known coin engraved in Smith’s “Dic. of Greek and Roman Biography,” vol. ii, p. 939. Maharrakeh is the Hiera Sycaminos, or place of the sacred fig-tree, where ends the Itinerary of Antoninus.

[160] _See The Scarabæus Sacer_, by C. Woodrooffe, B. A.--a paper (based on notes by the late Rev. C. Johns) read before the Winchester and Hampshire Scientific and Literary Society, Nov. 8, 1875. _Privately printed._

[161] See chap. x, p. 163. Dakkeh (the Pselcis of the Greeks and Romans, the Pselk of the Egyptians) was at one time regarded as the confine of Egypt and Ethiopia, and would seem to have been a great military station. The inscribed potsherds here are chiefly receipts and accounts of soldiers’ pay. The walls of the temple outside, and of the chambers within, abound also in free-hand graffiti, most of which are written in red ink. We observed some that appeared to be trilingual.

[162] “Less than a quarter of a mile to the south are the ruins of a small sandstone temple with clustered columns; and on the way, near the village, you pass a stone stela of Amenemhat III, mentioning his eleventh year.”--“Murray’s Hand-book for Egypt,” p. 481. M. Maspero, writing of Thothmes III, says: “Sons fils et successeur, Amenhotep III, fit construire en face de Pselkis une forteresse importante.”--“Hist. Ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient,” chap, iii, p. 113.

At Kobban also was found the famous stela of Rameses II, called the Stela of Dakkeh; see chap. xv, p. 238. In this inscription, a cast from which is at the Louvre, Rameses II is stated to have caused an artesian well to be made in the desert between this place and Gebel Oellaky, in order to facilitate the working of the gold mines of those parts.

[163] “According to Ptolemy, Metachompso should be opposite Pselcis, where there are extensive brick ruins. If so, Metachompso and Contra Pselcis must be the same town.”--“Topography of Thebes,” etc.; Sir G. Wilkinson. Ed. 1835, p. 488. M. Vivien de St. Martin is, however, of opinion that the Island of Derar, near Maharrakeh, is the true Metachompso. See “Le Nord de l’Afrique,” section vi, p. 161. Be this as it may, we at all events know of one great siege that this fortress sustained, and of one great battle fought beneath its walls. “The Ethiopians,” says Strabo, “having taking advantage of the withdrawal of part of the Roman forces, surprised and took Syene, Elephantine and Philæ, enslaved the inhabitants, and threw down the statues of Cæsar. But Petronius, marching with less than ten thousand infantry and eight hundred horse against an army of thirty thousand men, compelled them to retreat to Pselcis. He then sent deputies to demand restitution of what they had taken and the reason which had induced them to begin the war. On their alleging that they had been ill treated by the monarchs, he answered that these were not the sovereigns of the country--but Cæsar. When they desired three days for consideration and did nothing which they were bound to do, Petronius attacked and compelled them to fight. They soon fled, being badly commanded and badly armed, for they carried large shields made of raw hides, and hatchets for offensive weapons. Part of the insurgents were driven to the city, others fled into the uninhabited country, and such as ventured upon the passage of the river escaped to a neighboring island, where there were not many crocodiles, on account of the current.... Petronius then attacked Pselcis, and took it.”--Strabo’s “Geography,” Bohn’s translation, 1857, vol. iii, pp. 267-268. This island to which the insurgents fled may have been the large sand island which here still occupies the middle of the river and obstructs the approach to Dakkeh. Or they may have fled to the Island of Derar, seven miles higher up. Strabo does not give the name of the island.

[164] “C’est un ouvrage non achevé du temps de l’Empereur Auguste. Quoique peu important par son étendue, ce monument m’a beaucoup interessé, puisqu’il est entièrement relatif à l’incarnation d’Osiris sous forme humaine, sur la terre.”--_Lettres écrites d’Égypte_, etc.: Champollion. Paris, 1868; p. 126.

[165] I observed mauve here, for the first and only time, and very brilliant ultramarine. There are also traces of gilding on many of the figures.

[166] See chap. xii, p. 199.

[167] Talmis: (_Kalabsheh_).

[168] Taphis: (_Tafah_).

[169] Blemyes: The Blemeys were a nomadic race of Berbers, supposed to be originally of the tribe of Bilmas of Tibbous in the central desert, and settled as early as the time of Eratosthenes in that part of the Valley of the Nile which lies between the first and second cataracts. See “Le Nord de l’Afrique,” by M. V. de St. Martin. Paris, 1863, section iii, p. 73.

[170] See “The Habitations of Man in All Ages.” V. le Duc. Chap. ix, p. 93.

[171] They probably mark the site of a certain Coptic monastery described in an ancient Arabic manuscript quoted by E. Quatremere, which says that “in the town of Tafah there is a fine monastery called the monastery of Ansoun. It is very ancient; but so solidly built, that after so great a number of years it still stands uninjured. Near this monastery, facing the mountain, are situated fifteen villages.” See “Mémoires Hist. et Géographiques sur l’Égypte et le Nubia,” par E. Quatremere. Paris, 1811, vol. ii, p. 55.

The monastery and the villages were, doubtless, of Romano-Egyptian construction in the first instance, and may originally have been a sacred college, like the sacred college of Philæ.

[172] “The peasants of Tafah relate that they are the descendants of the few Christian inhabitants of the city who embraced the Mohammadan faith when the country was conquered by the followers of the prophet; the greater part of the brethren having either fled or been put to death on the event taking place. They are still called Oulad el Nusara, or the Christian progeny.”--“Travels in Nubia:” Burckhardt. London, 1819, p. 121.

[173] In these secret chambers (the entrance to which was closed by a block of masonry so perfectly fitted as to defy detection) were kept the images of gold and silver and lapis lazuli, the precious vases, the sistrums, the jeweled collars, and all the portable treasures of the temples. We saw a somewhat similar pit and small chamber in a corner of the Temple of Dakkeh, and some very curious crypts and hiding-places under the floor of the dark chamber to the east of the sanctuary at Philæ, all of course long since broken open and rifled. But we had strong reason to believe that the painter discovered the whereabouts of a hidden chamber or passage to the west of the sanctuary, yet closed, with all its treasures probably intact. We had, however, no means of opening the wall, which is of solid masonry.

[174] Ar. _Tambooshy_--_i. e._, saloon skylight.

[175] “Sebek est un dieu solaire. Dans un papyrus de boulak, il est appelé fils d’Isis, et il combat les enemis d’Osiris; c’est une assimilation complète à Horus, et c’est à ce titre qu’il était adoré à Ombos.”--“Dic. Arch.” P. Pierret. Paris, 1875.

[176] See chap. xi, p. 184.

[177] “Le point de départ de la mythologie Égyptienne est une Triade.” Champollion, _Letters d’Égypte_, etc., XI Lettre. Paris, 1868. These Triads are best studied at Gerf Hossayn and Kalabsheh.

[178] “L’un (paroi du sud) représente une déesse nourissant de son lait divin le roi Horus, encore enfant. L’Égypte n’a jamais, comme la Grèce, atteint l’idéal du beau ... mais en tant qu’art Égyptien, le bas-relief du Spéos de Gebel-Silsileh est une des plus belles œuvres que l’on puisse voir. Nulle part, en effet, la ligne n’est plus pure, et il règne dans ce tableau une certaine douceur tranquille qui charme et étonne à la fois.”--“Itinéraire de la Haut Égypte.” A Mariette: 1872, p. 246.

[179] See “Sallier Papyrus No. 2.” Hymn to the Nile--translation by C. Maspero. 4to Paris, 1868.

[180] _Ta-ur-t_, or Apet the Great. “Cette Déesse à corps d’hippopotame debout et à mamelles pendantes, paraît être une sorte de déesse nourrice. Elle semble, dans le bas temps, je ne dirai pas se substituer à Maut, mais compléter le rôle de cette déesse. Elle est nommée la grande nourrice; et présidait aux chambres où étaient représentées les naissances des jeunes divinités.”--“Dict. Arch. P. Pierret. Paris, 1875.

“In the Heavens, this goddess personified the constellation Ursa Major, or the Great Bear.”--“Guide to the First and Second Egyptian Rooms.” S. Birch. London, 1874.

[181] For a highly interesting account of the rock-cut inscriptions, graffiti, and quarry-marks at Silsilis, in the desert between Assûan and Philæ, and in the valley called Soba Rigolah, see Mr. W. M. F. Petrie’s recent volume entitled “A Season’s Work in Egypt,” 1877.

[182] Letter of M. Mariette to Vicomte E. de Rougé: “Révue Archéologique,” vol. ii, p. 33, 1860.

[183] Edfu is the elder temple; Denderah the copy. Where the architect of Denderah has departed from his model it has invariably been for the worse.

[184] _Horus_:--“Dieu adoré dans plusieurs nomes de la basse Égypte. Le personnage d’Horus se rattache sous des noms différents, à deux generations divines. Sous le nom de Haroëris il est né de Seb et Nout, et par consequent frère d’Osiris, dont il est le fils sous un autre nom.... Horus, armé d’un dard avec lequel il transperce les ennemis d’Osiris, est appelé Horus le Justicier.”--“Dict. Arch.,” P. Pierret, article “_Horus_.”

[185] _Hathor_:--“Elle est, comme Neith, Naut, et Nout, la personnification de l’espace dans lequel se meut le soleil, dont Horus symbolize le lever: aussi son nom, Hat-hor, signifie-t-il litteralement, _l’habitation d’Horus_.”--“Ibid.,” article “Hathor.”

[186] “Rapport sur line Mission en Égypte.” Vicomte E. de Rougé. See “Révue Arch. Nouvelle Série,” vol. x, p. 63.

[187] “Textes Géographiques du Temple d’Edfou,” by M. J. de Rougé. “Révue Arch.,” vol. xii, p. 209.

[188] See Professor Revillout’s “Seconde Mémoire sur les Blemmyes,” 1888, for an account of how the statues of Isis and other deities were taken once a year from the temples of Philæ for a trip into Ethiopia.

[189] See Appendix III, “Religious Belief of the Ancient Egyptians.”

[190] Not only the names of the chambers, but their dimensions in cubits and subdivisions of cubits are given. See “Itinéraire de la Haute Égypte.” A. Marietta Bey. 1872, p. 241.

[191] This was, no doubt, an interment of the period of the twenty-third or twenty-fourth dynasty, the style of which is thus described by Marietta: “Succèdent les caisses à fond blanc. Autour de celles çi court une légende en hiéroglyphes de toutes couleurs. Le devant du couvercle est divisé horizontalement en tableaux où alternent les représentations et les textes tracés en hiéroglyphes verdâtres. La momie elle-même est hermétiquement enfermée dans un cartonnage cousu par derrière et peint de couleurs tranchantes.”--“Notice des Monuments à Boulak. p. 46. Paris, 1872.

[192] Diodorus, “Biblioth Hist.,” Bk. i, chap. iv. The fault of inaccuracy ought, however, to be charged to Hecatæus, who was the authority followed here by Diodorus.

[193] Possibly the Smendes of Manetho, and the Ba-en-Ded whose cartouche is found by Brugsch on a sarcophagus in the museum at Vienna; see “Hist. d’Égypte,” chap, x, p. 213, ed. 1859. Another claimant to this identification is found in a king named Se-Mentu, whose cartouches were found by Mariette on some small gold tablets at Tanis.

[194] Letter xiv, p. 235, _Lettres d’Égypte_; Paris, 1868. See also chap. xviii, of the present work; p. 319.

[195] See Champollion, Letter xiv, foot note, p. 418.

[196] The sitting colossus of the Ramesseum was certainly the largest perfect statue in Egypt when Diodorus visited the Valley of the Nile, for the great standing colossus of Tanis had long before his time been cut up by Sheshonk III for building purposes; but that the Tanite colossus much exceeded the colossus of Ramesseum in height and bulk is placed beyond doubt by the scale of the fragments discovered by Mr. Petrie in the course of his excavations in 1884. According to his very cautious calculations, the figure alone of the Tanite was nine hundred inches, or seventy-five feet, high; or somewhere between seventy and eighty feet. “To this,” says Mr. Petrie, “we must add the height of the crown, which would proportionately be some fourteen and one-half feet. To this again must be added the base of the figure, which was thinner than the usual scale, being only twenty-seven inches thick. Thus the whole block appears to have been about one thousand one hundred inches, or say ninety-two feet, high. This was, so far as is known, the largest statue ever executed.” The weight of the figure is calculated by Mr. Petrie at about nine hundred tons; _i. e._, one hundred tons more than the colossus of the Ramesseum. That it stood upon a suitable pedestal cannot be doubted; and with the pedestal, which can scarcely have been less than eighteen or twenty feet in height, the statue must have towered some one hundred and twenty feet above the level of the plain. See “Tanis,” part i, pp. 22, 23. [Note to second edition.]

[197] The syenite colossus, of which the British Museum possesses the head, and which is popularly known as the Young Memnon, measured twenty-four feet in height before it was broken up by the French.

[198] See wood-cut No. 340 in Sir G. Wilkinson’s “Manners and Custums of the Ancient Egyptians,” vol. i, ed. 1871.

[199] Among these are _Abot_, or abode; meaning the abode of Amen; _Ta-Uaboo_, the mound; _Ta-Api_, the head or capital, etc. See “Recherches sur le nom Égyptien de Thèbes.” Chabas: 1863; “Textes Géographiques d’Edfoo,” J. de Rougé: “Revue Arch. Nouvelle Série,” vol. xii, 1865; etc.

[200] The “Great Harris Papyrus” is described by Dr. Birch as “one of the finest, best written and best preserved that has been discovered in Egypt. It measures one hundred and thirty-three feet long by sixteen and three-quarter inches broad, and was found with several others in a tomb behind Medinet Habu. Purchased soon after by the late A. C. Harris of Alexandria, it was subsequently unrolled and divided into seventy-nine leaves and laid down on cardboard. With the exception of some small portions which are wanting in the first leaf, the text is complete throughout.” The papyrus purports to be a post mortem address of the king, Rameses III, recounting the benefits he had conferred upon Egypt by his administration, and by his delivery of the country from foreign subjection. It also records the immense gifts which he had conferred on the temples of Egypt, of Amen at Thebes, Tum at Heliopolis, and Ptah at Memphis, etc. “The last part is addressed to the officers of the army, consisting partly of Sardinian and Libyan mercenaries, and to the people of Egypt, in the thirty-second year of his reign, and is a kind of posthumous panegyrical discourse, or political will, like that of Augustus discovered by Ancyra. The papyrus itself consists of the following divisions, three of which are preceded by large colored plates or vignettes: Introduction; donations to the Thebau deities; donations to the gods of Heliopolis; donations to the gods of Memphis; donations to the gods of the north and south; summary of donations; historical speech and conclusion. Throughout the monarch speaks in the first person, the list excepted.” Introduction to “Annals of Rameses III;” S. Birch. “Records of the Past,” vol. vi, p. 21; 1876.

[201] “Rameses III was one of the most remarkable monarchs in the annals of Egypt. A period of political confusion and foreign conquest of the country preceded his advent to the throne. His father, Setnecht, had indeed succeeded in driving out the foreign invaders and re-establishing the native dynasty of the Theban kings, the twentieth of the list of Manetho. But Rameses had a great task before him, called to the throne at a youthful age.... The first task of Rameses was to restore the civil government and military discipline. In the fifth year he defeated the Maxyes and Libyans with great slaughter when they invaded Egypt, led by five chiefs; and in the same year he had also to repulse the Satu, or eastern foreigners who had attacked Egypt. The maritime nations of the west, it appears, had invaded Palestine and the Syrian coast in his eighth year, and, after taking Carchemish, a confederation of the _Pulusata_, supposed by some to be the Pelasgi, _Tekkaru_ or Teucri, _Sakalusa_ or Siculi, _Tanau_ or Daunians, if not Danai, and Uasasa or Osci, marched to the conquest of Egypt. It is possible that they reached the mouth of the eastern branch of the Nile. But Rameses concentrated an army at Taha, in Northern Palestine, and marched back to defend the Nile. Assisted by his mercenary forces, he inflicted a severe defeat on the confederated west, and returned with his prisoners to Thebes. In his eleventh year the Mashuasha or Maxyes, assisted by the Tahennu or Libyans, again invaded Egypt, to suffer a fresh defeat, and the country seems from this period to have remained in a state of tranquillity.... The vast temple at Medinet Habu, his palaces and treasury, still remain to attest his magnificence and grandeur; and if his domestic life was that of an ordinary Egyptian monarch, he was as distinguished in the battlefield as the palace. Treason, no doubt, disturbed his latter days, and it is not known how he died; but he expired after a reign of thirty-one years and some months, and left the throne to his son, it is supposed, about B.C. 1200.” See “Remarks Upon the Cover of the Granite Sarcophagus of Rameses III:” S. Birch, LL.D., Cambridge, 1876.

[202] “There is reason to believe that this is only a fragment of the building, and foundations exist which render it probable that the whole was originally a square of the width of the front, and had other chambers, probably in wood or brick, besides those we now find. This would hardly detract from the playful character of the design, and when colored, as it originally was, and with its battlements or ornaments complete, it must have formed a composition as pleasing as it is unlike our usual conceptions of Egyptian art.”--“Hist. of Architecture,” by J. Fergusson, Bk. i, ch. iv, p. 118, Lond., 1865.

[203] Medinet Habu continued, up to the period of the Arab invasion, to be inhabited by the Coptic descendants of its ancient builders. They fled, however, before Amr and his army, since which time the place has been deserted. It is not known whether the siege took place at the time of the Arab invasion, or during the raid of Cambyses; but, whenever it was, the place was evidently forced by the besiegers. The author of Murray’s “Hand-book” draws attention to the fact that the granite jambs of the doorway leading to the smaller temple are cut through exactly at the place where the bar was placed across the door.

[204] Herodotus, Bk. ii, chap. 122.

[205] “A Medinet Habou, dans son palais, il s’est fait représenter jouant aux dames avec des femmes qui, d’après certaines copies, semblent porter sur la tête les fleurs symboliques de l’Égypte supérieure et inférieure, comme les deésses du monde supérieur et inférieur, ou du ciel et de la terre. Cette dualité des deésses, qui est indiquée dans les scènes religieuses et les textes sacrés par la réunion de Satis et Anoucis, Pasht et Bast, Isis et Nephthys, etc., me fait penser que les tableaux de Medinet Habou peuvent avoir été considérés dans les légendes populaires comme offrant aux yeux l’allégorie de la scène du jeu de dames entre le roi et la deésse Isis, dont Hérodote a fait la Déméter Égyptienne, comme il a fait d’Osiris le Dionysus du même peuple.”--“Le Roi Rhampsinite et le Jeu des Dames,” par S. Birch. “Revue Arch: Nouvelle Série,” vol. xii, p. 58, Paris: 1865.

[206] Baal, written sometimes Bar, was, like Sutekh, a god borrowed from the Phœnician mythology. The worship of Baal seems to have been introduced into Egypt during the nineteenth dynasty. The other god here mentioned, Mentu or Month, was a solar deity adored in the Thebaid, and especially worshiped at Hermonthis, now Erment; a modern town of some importance, the name of which is still almost identical with the Per-Mentu of ancient days. Mentu was the Egyptian, and Baal the Phœnician, god of war.

[207] From one of the inscriptions at Medinet Habu, quoted by Chabas. See “Antiquité Historique,” ch. iv, p. 238. Ed. 1873.

[208] It is a noteworthy fact (and one which has not, so far as I know, been previously noticed) that while the Asiatic and African chiefs represented in these friezes are insolently described in the accompanying hieroglyphic inscriptions as “the vile Libyan,” “the vile Kushite,” “the vile Mashuasha,” and so forth, the European leaders, though likewise prostrate and bound, are more respectfully designated as “the Great of Sardinia,” “the Great of Sicily,” “the Great of Etruria,” etc. May this be taken as an indication that their strength as military powers was already more formidable than that of the Egyptians’ nearer neighbors?

[209] The grand blue of the ceiling of the colonnade of the Great Hypæthral Court is also very remarkable for brilliancy and purity of tone; while to those interested in decoration the capital and abacus of the second column to the right on entering this court-yard, offers an interesting specimen of polychrome ornamentation on a gold-colored ground.

[210] Inscriptions at Medinet Habu. See Chabas’ “Antiquité Historique,” chap. iv. Paris: 1876.

[211] The whole of this chronicle is translated by M. Chabas in “L’Antiquité Historique,” chap. iv, p. 246 _et seq._ It is also engraved in full in Rosellini (“Monumenti Storici”); and has been admirably photographed by both M. Hammerschmidt and Signor Beata.

[212] These two statues--the best-known, probably, of all Egyptian monuments--have been too often described, painted, engraved and photographed, to need more than a passing reference. Their featureless faces, their attitude, their surroundings, are familiar as the pyramids, even to those who know not Egypt. We all know that they represent Amenhotep, or Amunoph III; and that the northernmost was shattered to the waist by the earthquake of B.C. 27. Being heard to give out a musical sound during the first hour of the day, the statue was supposed by the ancients to be endowed with a miraculous voice. The Greeks, believing it to represent the fabled son of Tithonus and Aurora, gave it the name of Memnon; notwithstanding that the Egyptians themselves claimed the statues as portraits of Amenhotep III. Prefects, consuls, emperors and empresses, came “to hear Memnon,” as the phrase then ran. Among the famous visitors who traveled thither on this errand, we find Strabo, Germanicus, Hadrian and the Empress Sabina. Opinion is divided as to the cause of this sound. There is undoubtedly a hollow space inside the throne of this statue, as may be seen by all who examine it from behind; and Sir G. Wilkinson, in expressing his conviction that the musical sound was a piece of priestly jugglery, represents the opinion of the majority. The author of a carefully considered article in the _Quarterly Review_, No. 276, April, 1875, coincides with Sir D. Brewster in attributing the sound to a transmission of rarefied air through the crevices of the stone, caused by the sudden change of temperature consequent on the rising of the sun. The statue, which, like its companion, was originally one solid monolith of gritstone, was repaired with sandstone during the reign of Septimius Severus.

[213] This deification of the dead was not deification in the Roman sense; neither was it canonization in the modern sense. The Egyptians believed the justified dead to be assimilated, or rather identified, in the spirit with Osiris, the beneficient judge and deity of the lower world. Thus, in their worship of ancestry, they adored not mortals immortalized, but the dead in Osiris, and Osiris in the dead.

It is worth noting, by the way, that notwithstanding the subsequent deification of Seti I, Rameses I remained, so to say, the tutelary saint of the temple. He alone is represented with the curious pointed and upturned beard, like a chamois horn reversed, which is the peculiar attribute of deity.

[214] There is among the funereal tablets of the Boulak collection a small bas-relief sculpture representing the arrival of a family of mourners at the tomb of a deceased ancestor. The statue of the defunct sits at the upper end. The mourners are laden with offerings. One little child carries a lamb; another a goose. A scribe stands by, waiting to register the gifts. The tablet commemorates one Psamtik-nefar-Sam, a hierogrammate under some king of the twenty-sixth dynasty. The natural grace and simple pathos with which this little frieze is treated lift it far above the level of ordinary Egyptian art, and bear comparison with the class of monuments lately discovered on the Eleusinian road at Athens.

[215] “Une dignité tout à fait particulier est celle que les inscriptions hiéroglyphiques désignent par le titre ‘prophète de la pyramide, de tel Pharaon.’ Il parait qu’après sa mort chaque roi était vénéré par un culte spécial.” “Histoire d’Egypte:” Brugsch. 2d ed., chap, v., p. 35. Leipzig: 1875.

[216] There is a very curious window at the end of this sanctuary, with grooves for the shutter, and holes in which to slip and drop the bar by which it was fastened.

[217] The Gate of the King.

[218] These funerary statues are represented each on a stand or platform, erect, with one foot advanced, as if walking, the right hand holding the ankh, or symbol of life, the left hand grasping a staff. The attitude is that of the wooden statue at Boulak; and it is worth remark that the figures stand detached, with no support at the back, which was never the case with those carved in stone or granite. There can be no doubt that this curious series of funerary statues represent those which were actually placed in the tomb; and that the ceremonies here represented were actually performed before them, previous to closing the mouth of the sepulcher. One of these very wooden statues, from this very tomb, was brought to England by Belzoni, and is now in the British Museum (No. 854, Central Saloon). The wood is much decayed, and the statue ought undoubtedly to be placed under glass. The tableaux representing the above ceremonies are well copied in Rosellini, “Mon. del Culto,” plates 60-63.

[219] A remarkable inscription in this tomb, relating the wrath of Ra and the destruction of mankind, is translated by M. Naville, vol. iv, Pt. i, “Translations of the Biblical Arch. Society.” In this singular myth, which bears a family resemblance to the Chaldæan record of the flood, the deluge is a deluge of human blood. The inscription covers the walls of a small chamber known as the Chamber of the Cow.

[220] The longest tomb in the valley, which is that of Seti I, measures four hundred and seventy feet in length to the point where it is closed by the falling in of the rock; and the total depth of its descent is about one hundred and eighty feet. The tomb of Rameses III (No. 11) measures in length four hundred and five feet, and descends only thirty-one feet. The rest average from about three hundred and fifty to one hundred and fifty feet in length, and the shortest is excavated to a distance of only sixty-five feet.

We visited, however, one tomb in the Assaseef, which in extent far exceeds any of the tombs of the kings. This astonishing excavation, which consists of a bewildering labyrinth of halls, passages, staircases, pits and chambers, is calculated at twenty-three thousand eight hundred and nine square feet. The name of the occupant was Petamunap, a priest of uncertain date.

[221] Apophis, in Egyptian _Apap_; the great serpent of darkness, over whom Ra must triumph after he sets in the west, and before he again rises in the east.

[222] Kheper, the scarab deity. See chap. vi, p. 90.

[223] Symbolical of darkness.

[224] The crocodile represents Sebek. In one of the Boulak papyri, this god is called the son Isis, and combats the enemies of Osiris. Here he combats Apophis in behalf of Ra.

[225] The tomb numbered three in the first small ravine to the left as one rides up the valley bears the cartouches of Rameses II. The writer crawled in as far as the choked condition of the tomb permitted, but the passage becomes quite impassable after the first thirty or forty yards.

[226] When first seen by Sir G. Wilkinson, these harpers were still in such good preservation that he reported of one, at least, if not both, as obviously blind. The harps are magnificent, richly inlaid and gilded, and adorned with busts of the king. One has eleven strings, the other fourteen.

[227] The sarcophagus of Seti I, which was brought to England by Belzoni, is in Sir J. Soane’s Museum. It is carved from a single block of the finest alabaster, and is covered with incised hieroglyphic texts and several hundred figures, descriptive of the passage of the sun through the hours of the night. See “Le Sarcophage de Seti I.” P. Pierret. “Révue Arch.,” vol. xxi, p. 285: 1870. The sarcophagus of Rameses III is in the Fitz-William Museum, Cambridge, and the lid thereof is in the Egyptian collection of the Louvre. See “Remarks on the Sarcophagus of Rameses III.” S. Birch, LL.D.; Cambridge, 1876. Also “Notice Sommaire des Monuments Égyptiens du Louvre.” E. De Rougé, p. 51: Paris, 1873.

[228] Abbot Papyrus, British Museum. This papyrus, which has been translated by M. Chabas (“Mélanges Égyptologiques,” 3d Serie: Paris and Chalon, 1870), gives a list of royal tombs inspected by an Egyptian Commission in the month of Athyr (year unknown) during the reign of Rameses IX. Among the tombs visited on this occasion mention is especially made of “the funeral monument of the king En-Aa, which is at the north of the Amenophium of the terrace. The monument is broken into from the back, at the place where the stela is placed before the monument, and having the statue of the king upon the front of the stela, with his hound, named Bahuka, between his legs. Verified this day, and found intact.” Such was the report of the writer of this papyrus of 3000 years ago. And now comes one of the wonders of modern discovery. It was but a few years ago that Mariette, excavating in that part of the Necropolis called the Assaseef, which lies to the north of the ruins of the Amenophium, discovered the remains of the tomb of this very king, and the broken stela bearing upon its face a full-length bas-relief of King En-Aa (or Entef-Aa), with three dogs before him and one between his legs; the dog Bahuka having his name engraved over his back in hieroglyphic characters. See “Tablet of Antefaa II.” S. Birch, LL.D. “Transactions of the Biblical Arch. Society.” vol. iv, part i, p. 172.

[229] The beautiful jewels found upon the mummy of Queen Aah-Hotep show how richly the royal dead were adorned, and how well worth plundering their sepulchers must have been. These jewels have been so often photographed, engraved and described, that they are familiar to even those who have not seen them in the Boulak Museum. The circumstances of the discovery were suspicious, the mummy (in its inner mummy-case only) having been found by Marietta’s diggers in the loose sand but a few feet below the surface, near the foot of the hillside known as Drah Abu’l Neggah, between Gournah and the opening to the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. When it is remembered that the great outer sarcophagus of this queen was found in 1881 in the famous vault at Dayr-el-Bahari, where so many royal personages and relics were discovered “at one fell swoop;” and when to this is added the curious fact that the state ax of Prince Kames, and a variety of beautiful poniards and other miscellaneous objects of value were found laid in the loose folds of this queen’s outer wrappings, it seems to me that the mystery of her unsepulchered burial is susceptible of a very simple explanation. My own conviction is that Queen Aah-Hotep’s mummy had simply been brought thither from the depths of the said vault by the Arabs who had for so many years possessed the secret of that famous hidding-place, and that it was temporarily buried in the sand till a convenient opportunity should occur for transporting to Luxor. Moreover, it is significant that no jewels were found upon the royal mummies in the Dayr-el-Bahari vault, for the reason, no doubt, that they had long since been taken out and sold. The jewels found with Aah-Hotep may, therefore, have represented the final clearance, and have been collected from a variety of other royal mummy-cases. That the state ax of Prince Kames was among them does not, I imagine, prove that Prince Kames was the husband of Queen Aah-Hotep, but only that he himself was also a tenant of that historic vault. The actual proof that he was her husband lies in the fact that the bracelets on her wrists, the diadem on her head, and the pectoral ornament on her breast, were engraved, or inlaid, with the cartouches of that prince. [Note to second edition.]

[230] There is in one of the papyri of the Louvre a very curious illustration, representing--first, the funeral procession of one Neb-Set, deceased; second, the interior of the sepulcher, with the mummy, the offerings, and the furniture of the tomb, elaborately drawn and colored. Among the objects here shown are two torches, three vases, a coffer, a mirror, a Kohl bottle, a pair of sandals, a staff, a vase for ointment, a perfume bottle and an ablution jar. “These objects, all belonging to the toilette (for the coffer would have contained clothing), were placed in the tomb for that day of waking which the popular belief promised to the dead. The tomb was, therefore, furnished like the abodes of the living.”--Translated from T. Devéria, “Catalogue des Manuscrits Égyptiens du Louvre:” Paris, 1875, p. 80. The plan of the sepulcher of Neb-Set is also drawn upon this papyrus; and the soul of the deceased, represented as a human-headed bird, is shown flying down toward the mummy. A fine sarcophagus in the Boulak Museum (No. 84) is decorated in like manner with a representation of the mummy on its bier being visited, or finally rejoined, by the soul. I have also in my own collection a funeral papyrus vignetted on one side with this same subject; and bearing on the reverse side an architectural elevation of the monument erected over the sepulcher of the deceased.

[231] “King Rhampsinitus (Rameses III) was possessed, they said, of great riches in silver, indeed, to such an amount that none of the princes, his successors, surpassed or even equaled his wealth.”--Herodotus, Book ii, chap. 121.

[232] Impossible from the Egyptian point of view. “That the body should not waste or decay was an object of anxious solicitude; and for this purpose various bandlets and amulets, prepared with certain magical preparations, and sanctified with certain spells or prayers, of even offerings and small sacrifices, were distributed over various parts of the mummy. In some mysterious manner the immortality of the body was deemed as important as the passage of the soul; and at a later period the growth or natural reparation of the body was invoked as earnestly as the life or passage of the soul to the upper regions.”--See “Introduction to the Funereal Ritual,” S. Birch, LL.D., in vol. v, of Bunsen’s “Egypt:” Lond. 1867.

[233] “The Ancient Egyptians,” Sir G. Wilkinson; vol. i, chap. ii, wood-cut No. 92. Lond., 1871.

[234] The old French House is now swept away, with the rest of the modern Arab buildings which encumbered the ruins of the Temple of Luxor (see foot note, pp. 130, 131).

[235] Mehemet Ali gave this house to the French, and to the French it belonged till pulled down three years ago by Professor Maspero. [Note to second edition.]

[236] _Samak_: a large flat fish, rather like a brill.

[237] _Dall_: roast shoulder of lamb.

[238] _Kebobs_: small lumps of meat grilled on skewers.

[239] _Kuftah_: broiled mutton.

[240] _Pilaff_: boiled rice, mixed with a little butter, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

[241] _Mish-mish_: apricots (preserved).

[242] _Kunáfah_: a rich pudding made of rice, almonds, cream, cinnamon, etc.

[243] _Rus Blebban_: rice cream.

[244] _Totleh_: sweet jelly, incrusted with blanched almonds.

[245] The kemengeh is a kind of small two-stringed fiddle, the body of which is made of half a cocoanut shell. It has a very long neck, and a long foot that rests upon the ground, like the foot of a violoncello; and it is played with a bow about a yard in length. The strings are of twisted horsehair.

[246] “The Copts are Christians of the sect called Jacobites, Eutychians, Monophysites and Monothelites, whose creed was condemned by the Council of Chalcedon in the reign of the Emperor Marcian. They received the appellation of ‘Jacobites,’ by which they are generally known, from Jacobus Baradæus, a Syrian, who was a chief propagator of the Eutychian doctrines.... The religious orders of the Coptic church consist of a patriarch, a metropolitan of the Abyssinians, bishops, arch-priests, priests, deacons and monks. In Abyssinia, Jacobite Christianity is still the prevailing religion.” See “The Modern Egyptians,” by E. W. Lane. Supplement 1, p. 531, London: 1860.

[247] The bishop was for the most part right. The Coptic _is_ the ancient Egyptian language (that is to say, it is late and somewhat corrupt Egyptian) written in Greek characters instead of in hieroglyphs. For the abolition of the ancient writing was, next to the abolition of the images of the gods, one of the first great objects of the early church in Egypt. Unable to uproot and destroy the language of a great nation, the Christian fathers took care so to reclothe it that every trace of the old symbolism should disappear and be forgotten. Already, in the time of Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 211), the hieroglyphic style had become obsolete. The secret of reading hieroglyphs, however, was not lost till the time of the fall of the Eastern empire. How the lost key was recovered by Champollion is told in a quotation from Mariette Bey, in the foot note to p. 191, chapter xii, of this book. Of the relation of Coptic to Egyptian, Champollion says: “La Lange Égyptienne antique ne différait en rien de la langue appelée vulgairement Copte ou Cophte.... Les mots Égyptiens écrits en caractères hieroglyphiques sur les monuments les plus anciens de Thèbes, et en caractères Grecs dans les livres Coptes, ne différent en général que par l’absence de certaines voyelles médiales omises, selon la méthode orientale, dans l’orthographe primitive.”--“Grammaire Égyptiene,” p. 18.

The bishop, though perfectly right in stating that Coptic and Egyptian were one, and that the Coptic was a distinct language having no affinity with the Greek, was, however, entirely wrong in that part of his explanation which related to the alphabet. So far from eight Greek letters having been added to the Coptic alphabet upon the introduction of Christianity into Egypt, there was no such thing as a Coptic alphabet previous to that time. The Coptic alphabet is the Greek alphabet as imposed upon Egypt by the fathers of the early Greek church; and that alphabet being found insufficient to convey all the sounds of the Egyptian tongue, eight new characters were borrowed from the demotic to supplement the deficiency.

[248] This machine is called the Nóreg.

[249] The number of pigeons kept by the Egyptian fellahin is incredible. Mr. Zincke says on this subject that “the number of domestic pigeons in Egypt must be several times as great as the population,” and suggests that if the people kept pigs they would keep less pigeons. But it is not as food chiefly that the pigeons are encouraged. They are bred and let live in such ruinous numbers for the sake of the manure they deposit on the land. M. About has forcibly demonstrated the error of this calculation. He shows that the pigeons do thirty million francs’ worth of damage to the crop in excess of any benefit they may confer upon the soil.

[250] The Arabic name of the modern village, Arabát-el-Madfûneh, means literally Arabat the Buried.

[251] _Teni_, or more probably Tini, called by the Greeks This or Thinis. It was the capital of the Eighth Nome. “Quoique nous ayons très-peu de chose à rapporter sur l’histoire de la ville de Teni qui à la basse époque sous la domination romaine, n’était connue que parses teinturiers en pourpre, elle doit avoir jouri d’une très grande renommée chez les anciens Égyptiens. Encore an temps du XIX dynastie les plus hauts fonctionnaires de sang royal étaient distingués par le titre de ‘Princes de Teni.’”--“Hist. d’Égypte. Brugsch, vol. i. chap. v, p. 29; Leipzig, 1874.

NOTE TO SECOND EDITION.--“Des monuments trouvés il y a deux ans, me portent a croire que Thini était située assez loin a l’Est au village actuel de Aoulad-Yahia.” Letter of Prof. G. Maspero to the author, April, 1878.

[252] The ancient name of Egypt was _Kem_, _Khem_, or _Kam_, signifying Black, or the Black Land; in allusion to the color of the soil.

[253] “Mena, tel que nous le presente la tradition, est le type le plus complet du monarque Égyptian. Il est à la fois constructeur et législateur; il fonde le grande temple de Phtah à Memphis et régle le culte des dieux. Il est guerrier, et conduit les expéditions hors de ses frontières.”--“Hist. Ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient.” G. Maspero. Chap. ii, p. 55: Paris, 1876.

“N’oublions pas qu’avant Ménès l’Égypte était divisée en petits royaumes indépendants que Ménès réunit le premier sous un sceptre unique. Il n’est pas impossible que des monuments de cette antique période de l’histoire Égyptienne subsistent encore.”--“Itinéraire de la Haute Égypte.” A Mariette Bey. Avant Propos, p. 40. Alexandrie, 1872.

[254] See opening address of Professor R. Owen, C. B., etc., “Report of Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Orientalists, Ethnological Section;” London, 1874. Also a paper on “The Ethnology of Egypt,” by the same, published in the “Journal of the Anthropological Institute,” vol. iv, No. 1, p. 246: Lond., 1874.

[255] M. Mariette, in his great work on the excavations at Abydus, observes that these seven vaulted sanctuaries resemble sarcophagi of the form most commonly in use; namely, oblong boxes with vaulted lids. Two sarcophagi of this shape are shown in cut 496 of Sir G. Wilkinson’s second volume (see figures 1 and 6), “A Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians,” vol. ii, chap. x; Lond., 1871. Of the uses and purport of the temple, he also says: “What do we know of the _dée mère_ that presided at its construction? What was done in it? Is it consecrated to a single divinity, who would be Osiris; or to seven gods, who would be the seven gods of the seven vaulted chambers; or to the nine divinities enumerated in the lists of deities dispersed in various parts of the temple?... One leaves the temple in despair, not at being unable to make out its secret from the inscriptions, but on finding that its secret has been kept for itself alone, and not trusted to the inscriptions.”--“Description des Fouilles d’Abydos.” Mariette Bey. Paris, 1869. “Les sept chambres voûtées du grand temple d’Abydos sont relatifs aux cérémonies que le roi devait y célébrer successivement. Le roi se présentait au côté droit de la porte, parcourait la salle dans tout son pourtour et sortait par le côté gauche. Des statues étaient disposées dans la chambre. Le roi ouvrait la porte ou naos où elles étaient enfermées. Dès que la statue apparaissait è ses yeux il lui offrait l’encens, il enlevait le vêtement qui la couvrait, il lui imposait les mains, il la parfumait, il la recouvrait de son vêtement,” etc. Mariette Bey. “Itinéraire de la Haute Égypte: Avant Propos, p. 62. Alex. 1872. There is at the upper end of each of these seven sanctuaries a singular kind of false door, or recess, conceived in a style of ornament more Indian than Egyptian, the cutting being curiously square, deep, and massive, the surface of the relief-work flattened, and the whole evidently intended to produce its effect by depths of shadow in the incised portions rather than by sculpturesque relief. These recesses, or imitation doors, may have been designed to serve as backgrounds to statues, but are not deep enough for niches. There is a precisely similar recess sculptured on one of the walls of the westernmost chamber in the Temple of Gournah.

[256] These are all representations of minor gods commonly figured in the funereal papyri, but very rarely seen in the temple sculptures. The frog Goddess, for instance, is Hek, and symbolizes eternity. She is a very ancient divinity, traces of her being found in monuments of the fifth dynasty. The goose-headed god is Seb, another very old god. The object called the Nilometer was a religious emblem signifying stability, and probably stands in this connection as only a deified symbol.

[257] Rameses II is here shown with the side-lock of youth. This temple, founded by Seti I, was carried on through the time when Rameses the Prince was associated with his father upon the throne, and was completed by Rameses the King, after the death of Seti I. The building is strictly coeval in date and parallel in style with the Temple of Gournah and the Specs of Bayt-el-Welly.

[258] These seventy-six Pharaohs (represented by their cartouches) were probably either princes born of families originally from Abydus, or were sovereigns who had acquired a special title to veneration at this place on account of monuments or pious foundations presented by them to the holy city. A similar tablet, erected apparently on the same principles though not altogether to the same kings, was placed by Thothmes III in a side chamber of the Great Temple at Karnak, and is now in the Louvre.

The great value of the present monument consists in its chronological arrangement. It is also of the most beautiful execution, and in perfect preservation. “Comme perfection de gravure, comme conservation, comme étendue, il est peu de monuments qui la depassent.” See “La Nouvelle Table d’Abydos,” par A. Mariette Bey: “Révue Arch.,” vol. vii. “Nouvelle Série,” p. 98. This volume of the “Review” also contains an engraving in outline of the tablet.

[259] See “Itinéraire de la Haute Égypte:” A. Mariette Bey: p. 147. Alex. 1872.

[260] “Ibid,” p. 148. The hope here expressed was, however, not fulfilled; tombs of the fourth or fifth dynasties being, I believe, the earliest discovered. [Note to second edition.]

[261] “It is said that these persons, as well as the sheik, make use of certain words (that is, repeat prayers and invocations) on the day preceding this performance, to enable them to endure without injury the tread of the horse; and that some not thus prepared, having ventured to lie down to be ridden over, have, on more than one occasion, been either killed or severely injured. The performance is considered as a miracle vouchsafed through supernatural power, and which has been granted to every successive sheik of the Saädiyeh.” See Lane’s “Modern Egyptians,” chap. xxiv, p. 453. Lond., 1860.

[262] This barbarous rite has been abolished by the present khedive. [Note to second edition.]

[263] See “Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Khedive,” J. B. Zincke, chap. ix, p. 72. Lond., 1873. Also “La Sculpture Égyptienne,” par E. Soldi, p. 57. Paris, 1876. Also “The Ethnology of Egypt,” by Professor Owen, C. B. “Journal of Anthropological Institute,” vol. iv, 1874, p. 227. The name of this personage was Ra-em-ka.

[264] It is in the great vestibule that we find the statue of Ti. See chap. iv, p. 55.

[265] There is no evidence to show that the statues of Sepa and Nesa in the Louvre are older than the fourth dynasty.

[266] “Enfin nous signalerons l’importance des statues de Meydoum au point de vue ethnographique. Si la race Égyptienne était à cette époque celle dout les deux statues nous offrent le type, il faut convenir qu’elle ne ressemblait en rien à la race qui habitait le nord de l’Égypte quelques années seulement après Snefrou.”--“Cat. du Musée de Boulaq.” A. Mariette Bey. P. 277; Paris. 1872.

Of the heads of these two statues Professor Owen remarks that “the brain-case of the male is a full oval, the parietal bosses feebly indicated; in vertical contour the fronto parietal part is little elevated, rather flattened than convex; the frontal sinuses are slightly indicated; the forehead is fairly developed but not prominent. The lips are fuller than in the majority of Europeans; but the mouth is not prognathic.... The features of the female conform in type to those of the male, but show more delicacy and finish.... The statue of the female is colored of a lighter tint than that of the male, indicating the effects of better clothing and less exposure to the sun. And here it may be remarked that the racial character of complexion is significantly manifested by such evidences of the degree of tint due to individual exposure.... The primitive race-tint of the Egyptians is perhaps more truly indicated by the color of the princes in these painted portrait-statues than by that of her more scantily clad husband or male relative.”--“The Ethnology of Egypt,” by Sir Richard Owen, K. C. B. “Journal of Anthropological Institute,” vol. iv, Lond., 1874; p. 225 _et seq._

[267] The word _pyramid_, for which so many derivations have been suggested, is shown in the geometrical papyrus of the British Museum to be distinctly Egyptian, and is written _Per-em-us_.

[268] “On sait par une stèle du musée de Boulaq, que le grand Sphinx antérieur au Rois Chéops de la IV Dynastie.”--“Dic. d’Arch. Égyptienne:” Article _Sphinx_. P. Pierret. Paris, 1875.

[It was the opinion of Mariette, and it is the opinion of Professor Mapero, that the sphinx dates from the inconceivable remote period of the _Horshesu_, or “followers of Horus;” that is to say, from those prehistoric times when Egypt was ruled by a number of petty chieftains, before Mena welded the ancient principalities into a united kingdom. Those principalities then became the nomes, or provinces, of historic times; and the former local chieftains became semi-independent feudatories, such as we find surviving with undiminished authority and importance during the twelfth dynasty.--[Note to second edition.]