Temples And Tombs Of Thebes
We have seen that it was in the Theban period that Egypt emerged from
her isolation, and for the first time came into contact with Western
Asia. This grand turning-point in Egyptian history seemed to be the
appropriate place at which to pause in the description of our latest
knowledge of Egyptian history, in order to make known the results of
archaeological discovery in Mesopotamia and Western Asia generally. The
descr
ption has been carried down past the point of convergence of the
two originally isolated paths of Egyptian and Babylonian civilization,
and what new information the latest discoveries have communicated to us
on this subject has been told in the preceding chapters. We now have to
retrace our steps to the point where we left Egyptian history and resume
the thread of our Egyptian narrative.
The Hyksos conquest and the rise of Thebes are practically
contemporaneous. The conquest took place perhaps three or four hundred
years after the first advancement of Thebes to the position of capital
of Egypt, but it must be remembered that this position was not retained
during the time of the XIIth Dynasty. The kings of that dynasty, though
they were Thebans, did not reign at Thebes. Their royal city was in the
North, in the neighbourhood of Lisht and Medum, where their pyramids
were erected, and their chief care was for the lake province of the
Fayyum, which was largely the creation of Amenemhat III, the Moeris
of the Greeks. It was not till Thebes became the focus of the
national resistance to the Hyksos that its period of greatness began.
Henceforward it was the undisputed capital of Egypt, enlarged and
embellished by the care and munificence of a hundred kings, enriched by
the tribute of a hundred conquered nations.
But were we to confine ourselves to the consideration only of the latest
discoveries of Theban greatness after the expulsion of the Hyksos, we
should be omitting much that is of interest and importance. For the
Egyptians the first grand climacteric in their history (after the
foundation of the monarchy) was the transference of the royal power from
Memphis and Herakleopolis to a Theban house. The second, which followed
soon after, was the Hyksos invasion. The two are closely connected in
Theban history; it is Thebes that defeated Herakleopolis and conquered
Memphis; it is Theban power that was overthrown by the Hyksos; it is
Thebes that expelled them and initiated the second great period of
Egyptian history. We therefore resume our narrative at a point before
the great increase of Theban power at the time of the expulsion of the
Hyksos, and will trace this power from its rise, which followed
the defeat of Herakleopolis and Memphis. It is upon this epoch--the
beginning of Theban power--that the latest discoveries at Thebes have
thrown some new light.
More than anywhere else in Egypt excavations have been carried on at
Thebes, on the site of the ancient capital of the country. And here, if
anywhere, it might have been supposed that there was nothing more to be
found, no new thing to be exhumed from the soil, no new fact to be added
to our knowledge of Egyptian history. Yet here, no less than at Abydos,
has the archaeological exploration of the last few years been especially
successful, and we have seen that the ancient city of Thebes has a great
deal more to tell us than we had expected.
The most ancient remains at Thebes were discovered by Mr. Newberry in
the shape of two tombs of the VIth Dynasty, cut upon the face of the
well-known hill of Shekh Abd el-Kurna, on the west bank of the Nile
opposite Luxor. Every winter traveller to Egypt knows, well the ride
from the sandy shore opposite the Luxor temple, along the narrow pathway
between the gardens and the canal, across the bridges and over the
cultivated land to the Ramesseum, behind which rises Shekh Abd el-Kurna,
with its countless tombs, ranged in serried rows along the scarred and
scarped face of the hill. This hill, which is geologically a fragment of
the plateau behind which some gigantic landslip was sent sliding in the
direction of the river, leaving the picturesque gorge and cliffs of Der
el-Bahari to mark the place from which it was riven, was evidently the
seat of the oldest Theban necropolis. Here were the tombs of the Theban
chiefs in the period of the Old Kingdom, two of which have been found
by Mr. Newberry. In later times, it would seem, these tombs were largely
occupied and remodelled by the great nobles of the XVIIIth Dynasty, so
that now nearly all the tombs extant on Shekh Abd el-Kurna belong to
that dynasty.
Of the Thebes of the IXth and Xth Dynasties, when the Herakleopolites
ruled, we have in the British Museum two very remarkable statues--one of
which is here illustrated--of the steward of the palace, Mera. The tomb
from which they came is not known. Both are very beautiful examples
of the Egyptian sculptor's art, and are executed in a style eminently
characteristic of the transition period between the work of the Old and
Middle Kingdoms. As specimens of the art of the Hierakonpolite period,
of which we have hardly any examples, they are of the greatest interest.
Mera is represented wearing a different head-dress in each figure; in
one he has a short wig, in the other a skullcap.
When the Herakleopolite dominion was finally overthrown, in spite of the
valiant resistance of the princes of Asyut, and the Thebans assumed the
Pharaonic dignity, thus founding the XIth Dynasty, the Theban necropolis
was situated in the great bay in the cliffs, immediately north of Shekh
Abd el-Kurna, which is known as Der el-Bahari. In this picturesque part
of Western Thebes, in many respects perhaps the most picturesque
place in Egypt, the greatest king of the XIth Dynasty, Neb-hapet-Ra
Mentuhetep, excavated his tomb and built for the worship of his ghost
a funerary temple, which he called Akh-aset, "Glorious-is-its-
Situation," a name fully justified by its surroundings. This temple is
an entirely new discovery, made by Prof. Naville and Mr. Hall in 1903.
The results obtained up to date have been of very great importance,
especially with regard to the history of Egyptian art and architecture,
for our sources of information were few and we were previously not very
well informed as to the condition of art in the time of the XIth
Dynasty.
The new temple lies immediately to the south of the great XVIIIth
Dynasty temple at Der el-Bahari, which has always been known, and which
was excavated first by Mariette and later by Prof. Naville, for the
Egypt Exploration Fund. To the results of the later excavations we shall
return. When they were finally completed, in the year 1898, the great
XVIIIth Dynasty temple, which was built by Queen Hatshepsu, had been
entirely cleared of debris, and the colonnades had been partially
restored (under the care of Mr. Somers Clarke) in order to make a roof
under which to protect the sculptures on the walls. The whole mass of
debris, consisting largely of fallen talus from the cliffs above,
which had almost hidden the temple, was removed; but a large tract lying
to the south of the temple, which was also covered with similar mounds
of debris, was not touched, but remained to await further investigation.
It was here, beneath these heaps of debris, that the new temple was
found when work was resumed by the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1903. The
actual tomb of the king has not yet been revealed, although that of
Neb-hetep Mentuhetep, who may have been his immediate predecessor,
was discovered by Mr. Carter in 1899. It was known, however, and still
uninjured in the reign of Ramses IX of the XXth Dynasty. Then, as we
learn from the report of the inspectors sent to examine the royal tombs,
which is preserved in the Abbott Papyrus, they found the pyramid-tomb
of King Xeb-hapet-Ra which is in Tjesret (the ancient Egyptian name for
Der el-Bahari); it was intact. We know, therefore, that it was intact
about 1000 B.C. The description of it as a pyramid-tomb is interesting,
for in the inscription of Tetu, the priest of Akh-aset, who was buried
at Abydos, Akh-aset is said to have been a pyramid. That the newly
discovered temple was called Akh-aset we know from several inscriptions
found in it. And the most remarkable thing about this temple is that in
its centre there was a pyramid. This must be the pyramid-tomb which was
found intact by the inspectors, so that the tomb itself must be close
by. But it does not seem to have been beneath the pyramid, below which
is only solid rock. It is perhaps a gallery cut in the cliffs at the
back of the temple.
The pyramid was then a dummy, made of rubble within a revetment of heavy
flint nodules, which was faced with fine limestone. It was erected on a
pyloni-form base with heavy cornice of the usual Egyptian pattern. This
central pyramid was surrounded by a roofed hall or ambulatory of small
octagonal pillars, the outside wall of which was decorated with coloured
reliefs, depicting various scenes connected with the sed-heb or
jubilee-festival of the king, processions of the warriors and magnates
of the realm, scenes of husbandry, boat-building, and so forth, all of
which were considered appropriate to the chapel of a royal tomb at that
period. Outside this wall was an open colonnade of square pillars.
The whole of this was built upon an artificially squared rectangular
platform of natural rock, about fifteen feet high. To north and south of
this were open courts. The southern is bounded by the hill; the northern
is now bounded by the Great Temple of Hat-shepsu, but, before this was
built, there was evidently a very large open court here. The face of the
rock platform is masked by a wall of large rectangular blocks of fine
white limestone, some of which measure six feet by three feet six
inches. They are beautifully squared and laid in bonded courses of
alternate sizes, and the walls generally may be said to be among the
finest yet found in Egypt. We have already remarked that the architects
of the Middle Kingdom appear to have been specially fond of fine masonry
in white stone. The contrast between these splendid XIth Dynasty walls,
with their great base-stones of sandstone, and the bad rough masonry of
the XVIIIth Dynasty temple close by, is striking. The XVIIIth Dynasty
architects and masons had degenerated considerably from the standard of
the Middle Kingdom.
This rock platform was approached from the east in the centre by an
inclined plane or ramp, of which part of the original pavement of wooden
beams remains in situ.
Excavated by Mr. Hall, 1904, for the Egypt Exploration Fund.
To right and left of this ramp are colonnades, each of twenty-two square
pillars, all inscribed with the name and titles of Mentuhetep. The walls
masking the platform in these colonnades were sculptured with various
scenes, chiefly representing boat processions and campaigns against the
Aamu or nomads of the Sinaitic peninsula. The design of the colonnades
is the same as that of the Great Temple, and the whole plan of this
part, with its platform approached by a ramp flanked by colonnades,
is so like that of the Great Temple that we cannot but assume that the
peculiar design of the latter, with its tiers of platforms approached by
ramps flanked by colonnades, is not an original idea, but was directly
copied by the XVIIIth Dynasty architects from the older XIth Dynasty
temple which they found at Der el-Bahari when they began their work.
Excavated by M. Naville, 1896; repaired by Mr. Howard
Carter, 1904.
The supposed originality of Hatshepsu's temple is then non-existent;
it was a copy of the older design, in fact, a magnificent piece of
archaism. But Hatshepsu's architects copied this feature only; the
actual arrangements on the platforms in the two temples are as
different as they can possibly be. In the older we have a central
pyramid with a colonnade round it, in the newer may be found an open
court in front of rock-cave shrines.
XIth DYNASTY TEMPLE, DER EL-BAHARI, 1904.]
Before the XIth Dynasty temple was set up a series of statues of King
Mentuhetep and of a later king, Amenhetep I, in the form of Osiris, like
those of Usertsen (Senusret) I at Lisht already mentioned. One of these
statues is in the British Museum. In the south court were discovered
six statues of King Usertsen (Senusret) III, depicting him at different
periods of his life. Pour of the heads are preserved, and, as the
expression of each differs from that of the other, it is quite evident
that some show him as a young, others as an old, man.
PILLARS]
Of The XIth Dynasty Temple At Dee El-Bahari. About 2500 B.C.
The face is of the well-known hard and lined type which is seen also in
the portraits of Amenemhat III, and was formerly considered to be that
of the Hyksos. Messrs. Newberry and Garstang, as we have seen, consider
it to be so, indirectly, as they regard the type as having been
introduced into the XIIth Dynasty by Queen Nefret, the mother of
Usertsen (Sen-usret) III. This queen, they think, was a Hittite
princess, and the Hittites were practically the same thing as the
Hyksos. We have seen, however, that there is very little foundation for
this view, and it is more than probable that this peculiar physiognomy
is of a type purely Egyptian in character.
On The Platform Of The XIth Dynasty Temple, Der El-Bahari,
1904.
On the platform, around the central pyramid, were buried in small
chamber-tombs a number of priestesses of the goddess Hathor, the
mistress of the desert and special deity of Der el-Bahari. They were
all members of the king's harim, and they bore the title of "King's
Favourite." As told in a previous chapter, all were buried at one
time, before the final completion of the temple, and it is by no means
impossible that they were strangled at the king's death and buried round
him in order that their ghosts might accompany him in the next world,
just as the slaves were buried around the graves (or secondary graves)
of the 1st Dynasty kings at Aby-dos. They themselves, as also already
related, took with them to the next world little waxen figures which
when called upon could by magic be turned into ghostly slaves. These
images were ushabtiu, "answerers," the predecessors of the little
figures of wood, stone, and pottery which are found buried with the
dead in later times. The priestesses themselves were, so to speak, human
ushabtiu, for royal use only, and accompanied the kings to their final
resting-place.
With the priestesses was buried the usual funerary furniture
characteristic of the period. This consisted of little models of
granaries with the peasants bringing in the corn, models of bakers and
brewers at work, boats with their crews, etc., just as we find them
in the XIth and XIIth Dynasty tombs at el-Bersha and Beni Hasan. These
models, too, were supposed to be transformed by magic into actual
workmen who would work for the deceased, heap up grain for her, brew
beer for her, ferry her over the ghostly Nile into the tomb-world, or
perform any other services required.
Some of the stone sarcophagi of the priestesses are very elaborately
decorated with carved and painted reliefs depicting each deceased
receiving offerings from priests, one of whom milks the holy cows of
Hathor to give her milk. The sarcophagi were let down into the tomb in
pieces and there joined together, and they have been removed in the same
way. The finest is a unique example of XIth Dynasty art, and it is now
preserved in the Museum of Cairo.
TRANSPORT TO CAIRO.]
In memory of the priestesses there were erected on the platform behind
the pyramid a number of small shrines, which were decorated with the
most delicately coloured carvings in high relief, representing chiefly
the same subjects as those on the sarcophagi. The peculiar style of
these reliefs was previously unknown. In connection with them a most
interesting possibility presents itself.
STEAMER AT LUXOR, FOR THE EGYPT EXPLORATION FUND.]
We know the name of the chief artist of Mentuhetep's reign. He was
called Mertisen, and he thus describes himself on his tombstone from
Abydos, now in the Louvre: "I was an artist skilled in my art. I knew
my art, how to represent the forms of going forth and returning, so that
each limb may be in its proper place. I knew how the figure of a man
should walk and the carriage of a woman, the poising of the arm to
bring the hippopotamus low, the going of the runner. I knew how to make
amulets, which enable us to go without fire burning us and without the
flood washing us away. No man could do this but I, and the eldest son
of my body. Him has the god decreed to excel in art, and I have seen
the perfections of the work of his hands in every kind of rare stone,
in gold and silver, in ivory and ebony." Now since Mertisen and his son
were the chief artists of their day, it is more than probable that they
were employed to decorate their king's funerary chapel. So that in all
probability the XIth Dynasty reliefs from Der el-Bahari are the work
of Mertisen and his son, and in them we see the actual "forms of going
forth and returning, the poising of the arm to bring the hippopotamus
low, the going of the runner," to which he refers on his tombstone. This
adds a note of personal interest to the reliefs, an interest which is
often sadly wanting in Egypt, where we rarely know the names of the
great artists whose works we admire so much. We have recovered the names
of the sculptor and painter of Seti I's temple at Abydos and that of the
sculptor of some of the tombs at Tell el-Amarna, but otherwise very few
names of the artists are directly associated with the temples and tombs
which they decorated, and of the architects we know little more. The
great temple of Der el-Bahari was, however, we know, designed by Senmut,
the chief architect to Queen Hatshepsu.
It is noticeable that Mertisen's art, if it is Mertisen's, is of a
peculiar character. It is not quite so fully developed as that of the
succeeding XIIth Dynasty. The drawing of the figures is often peculiar,
strange lanky forms taking the place of the perfect proportions of the
IVth-VIth and the XIIth Dynasty styles. Great elaboration is bestowed
upon decoration, which is again of a type rather archaic in character
when compared with that of the XIIth Dynasty. We are often reminded of
the rude sculptures which used to be regarded as typical of the art of
the XIth Dynasty, while at the same time we find work which could not
be surpassed by the best XIIth Dynasty masters. In fact, the art of
Neb-hapet-Ra's reign was the art of a transitional period. Under the
decadent Memphites of the VIIth and VIIIth Dynasties, Egyptian art
rapidly fell from the high estate which it had attained under the Vth
Dynasty, and, though good work was done under the Hierakonpolites, the
chief characteristic of Egyptian art at the time of the Xth and early
XIth Dynasties is its curious roughness and almost barbaric appearance.
When, however, the kings of the XIth Dynasty reunited the whole land
under one sceptre, and the long reign of Neb-hapet-Ra Mentuhetep enabled
the reconsolidation of the realm to be carried out by one hand, art
began to revive, and, just as to Neb-hapet-Ra must be attributed the
renascence of the Egyptian state under the hegemony of Thebes, so must
the revival of art in his reign be attributed to his great artists,
Mertisen and his son. They carried out in the realm of art what their
king had carried out in the political realm, and to them must be
attributed the origin of the art of the Middle Kingdom which under the
XIIth Dynasty attained so high a pitch of excellence. The sculptures
of the king's temple at Der el-Bahari, then, are monuments of the
renascence of Egyptian art, after the state of decadence into which it
had fallen during the long civil wars between South and North; it is
a reviving art, struggling out of barbarism to regain perfection, and
therefore has much about it that seems archaic, stiff, and curious when
compared with later work. To the XVIIIth Dynasty Egyptian it would no
doubt have seemed hopelessly old-fashioned and even semi-barbarous, and
he had no qualms about sweeping it aside whenever it appeared in the
way of the work of his own time; but to us this very strangeness
gives additional charm and interest, and we can only be thankful that
Mertisen's work has lasted (in fragments only, it is true) to our own
day, to tell us the story of a little known chapter in the history of
ancient Egyptian art.
From this description it will have been seen that the temple is an
important monument of the Egyptian art and architecture of the Middle
Kingdom. It is the only temple of that period of which considerable
traces have been found, and on that account the study of it will be of
the greatest interest. It is the best preserved of the older temples of
Egypt, and at Thebes it is by far the most ancient building recovered.
Historically it has given us a new king of the XIth Dynasty,
Sekhahe-tep-Ra Mentuhetep, and the name of the queen of Neb-hapet-Ra
Mentuhetep, Aasheit, who seems to have been an Ethiopian, to judge from
her portrait, which has been discovered. It is interesting to note that
one of the priestesses was a negress.
The name Neb-hapet-Ra may be unfamiliar to those readers who are
acquainted with the lists of the Egyptian kings. It is a correction
of the former reading, "Neb-kheru-Ra," which is now known from these
excavations to be erroneous. Neb-hapet-Ra (or, as he used to be called,
Neb-kheru-Ra) is Mentuhetep III of Prof. Petrie's arrangement. Before
him there seem to have come the kings Mentuhetep Neb-hetep (who is also
commemorated in this temple) and Neb-taui-Ra; after him, Sekhahetep-Ra
Mentuhetep IV and Seankhkara Mentuhetep V, who were followed by an
Antef, bearing the banner or hawk-name Uah-ankh. This king was followed
by Amenemhat I, the first king of the XIIth Dynasty. Antef Uah-ankh may
be numbered Antef I, as the prince Antefa, who founded the XIth Dynasty,
did not assume the title of king.
Other kings of the name of Antef also ruled over Egypt, and they used to
be regarded as belonging to the XIth Dynasty; but Prof. Steindorff
has now proved that they really reigned after the XIIIth Dynasty, and
immediately before the Sekenenras, who were the fighters of the Hyksos
and predecessors of the XVIIIth Dynasty. The second names of Antef III
(Seshes-Ra-up-maat) and Antef IV (Seshes-Ra-her-her-maat) are exactly
similar to those of the XIIIth Dynasty kings and quite unlike those of
the Mentuheteps; also at Koptos a decree of Antef II (Nub-kheper-Ra) has
been found inscribed on a doorway of Usertsen (Senusret) I; so that
he cannot have preceded him. Prof. Petrie does not yet accept these
conclusions, and classes all the Antefs together with the Mentuheteps in
the XIth Dynasty. He considers that he has evidence from Herakleopolis
that Antef Xub-kheper-Ra (whom he numbers Antef V) preceded the XIIth
Dynasty, and he supposes that the decree of Nub-kheper-Ra at Koptos is
a later copy of the original and was inscribed during the XIIth Dynasty.
But this is a difficult saying. The probabilities are that Prof.
Steindorff is right. Antef Uah-ankh must, however, have preceded the
XIIth Dynasty, since an official of that period refers to his father's
father as having lived in Uah-ankh 's time.
The necropolis of Der el-Bahari was no doubt used all through the period
of the XIth and XIIth Dynasties, and many tombs of that period have been
found there. A large number of these were obliterated by the building
of the great temple of Queen Hatshepsu, in the northern part of the
cliff-bay. We know of one queen's tomb of that period which runs right
underneath this temple from the north, and there is another that is
entered at the south side which also runs down underneath it. Several
tombs were likewise found in the court between it and the XIth Dynasty
temple. We know that the XVIIIth Dynasty temple was largely built over
this court, and we can see now the XIth Dynasty mask-wall on the west of
the court running northwards underneath the mass of the XVIIIth Dynasty
temple. In all probability, then, when the temple of Hatshepsu
was built, the larger portion of the Middle Kingdom necropolis (of
chamber-tombs reached by pits), which had filled up the bay to the north
of the Mentuhetep temple, was covered up and obliterated, just as
the older VIth Dynasty gallery tombs of Shekh Abd el-Kurna had been
appropriated and altered at the same period.
The kings of the XIIth and XIIIth Dynasties were not buried at Thebes,
as we have seen, but in the North, at Dashur, Lisht, and near the
Fayymn, with which their royal city at Itht-taui had brought them into
contact. But at the end of the XIIIth Dynasty the great invasion of the
Hyksos probably occurred, and all Northern Egypt fell under the Arab
sway. The native kings were driven south from the Fayymn to Abydos,
Koptos, and Thebes, and at Thebes they were buried, in a new necropolis
to the north of Der el-Bahari (probably then full), on the flank of a
long spur of hill which is now called Dra' Abu-'l-Negga, "Abu-'l-Negga's
Arm." Here the Theban kings of the period between the XIIIth and XVIIth
Dynasties, Upuantemsaf, Antef Nub-kheper-Ra, and his descendants, Antefs
III and IV, were buried. In their time the pressure of foreign invasion
seems to have been felt, for, to judge from their coffins, which show
progressive degeneration of style and workmanship, poverty now afflicted
Upper Egypt and art had fallen sadly from the high standard which it had
reached in the days of the XIth and XIIth Dynasties. Probably the later
Antefs and Sebekemsafs were vassals of the Hyksos. Their descendants
of the XVIIth Dynasty were buried in the same necropolis of Dra'
Abu-'l-Negga, and so were the first two kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty,
Aahmes and Amenhetep I. The tombs of the last two have not yet been
found, but we know from the Abbott Papyrus that Amenhetep's was
here, for, like that of Menttihetep III, it was found intact by the
inspectors. It was a gallery-tomb of very great length, and will be a
most interesting find when it is discovered, as it no doubt eventually
will be. Aahmes had a tomb at Abydos, which was discovered by Mr.
Currelly, working for the Egypt Exploration Fund. This, however, like
the Abydene tomb of Usert-sen (Senusret) III, was in all likelihood a
sham or secondary tomb, the king having most probably been buried at
Thebes, in the Dra' Abu-'l-Negga. The Abydos tomb is of interesting
construction. The entrance is by a simple pit, from which a gallery
runs round in a curving direction to a great hall supported by eighteen
square pillars, beyond which is a further gallery which was never
finished. Nothing was found in the tomb. On the slope of the mountain,
due west of and in a line with the tomb, Mr. Currelly found a
terrace-temple analogous to those of Der el-Bahari, approached not
by means of a ramp but by stairways at the side. It was evidently the
funerary temple of the tomb.
Grandmother of Aahmes, the conqueror of the Hyksos and
founder of the XVIIIth Dynasty. About 1700 B. C. British
Museum. From the photograph by Messrs. Mansell & Co.
The secondary tomb of Usertsen (Senusret) III at Abydos, which has
already been mentioned, was discovered in the preceding year by Mr. A.
E. P. Weigall, and excavated by Mr. Currelly in 1903. It lies north of
the Aahmes temple, between it and the main cemetery of Abydos. It is a
great bab or gallery-tomb, like those of the later kings at Thebes,
with the usual apparatus of granite plugs, barriers, pits, etc., to
defy plunderers. The tomb had been plundered, nevertheless, though it is
probable that the robbers were vastly disappointed with what they
found in it. Mr. Currelly ascribes the absence of all remains to the
plunderers, but the fact is that there probably never was anything in
it but an empty sarcophagus. Near the tomb Mr. Weigall discovered
some dummy mastabas, a find of great interest. Just as the king had a
secondary tomb, so secondary mastabas, mere dummies of rubble like the
XIth Dynasty pyramid at Der el-Bahari, were erected beside it to look
like the tombs of his courtiers. Some curious sinuous brick walls which
appear to act as dividing lines form a remarkable feature of this sham
cemetery. In a line with the tomb, on the edge of the cultivation,
is the funerary temple belonging to it, which was found by Mr.
Randall-Maclver in 1900. Nothing remains but the bases of the fluted
limestone columns and some brick walls. A headless statue of Usertsen
was found.
We have an interesting example of the custom of building a secondary
tomb for royalties in these two necropoles of Dra' Abu-'l-Negga and
Abydos. Queen Teta-shera, the grandmother of Aahmes, a beautiful
statuette of whom may be seen in the British Museum, had a small pyramid
at Abydos, eastward of and in a line with the temple and secondary tomb
of Aahmes. In 1901 Mr. Mace attempted to find the chamber, but could
not. In the next year Mr. Currelly found between it and the Aahmes
tomb a small chapel, containing a splendid stele, on which Aahmes
commemorates his grandmother, who, he says, was buried at Thebes and had
a mer-ahat at Abydos, and he records his determination to build her
also a pyramid at Abydos, out of his love and veneration for her memory.
It thus appeared that the pyramid to the east was simply a dummy,
like Usertsen's mastabas, or the Mentuhetep pyramid at Der el-Bahari.
Teta-shera was actually buried at Dra' Abu-'l-Negga. Her secondary
pyramid, like that of Aahmes himself, was in the "holy ground" at
Abydos, though it was not an imitation bab, but a dummy pyramid of
rubble. This well illustrates the whole custom of the royal primary and
secondary tombs, which, as we have seen, had obtained in the case of
royal personages from the time of the 1st Dynasty, when Aha had two
tombs, one at Nakada and the other at Abydos. It is probable that all
the 1st Dynasty tombs at Abydos are secondary, the kings being really
buried elsewhere. After their time we know for certain that Tjeser and
Snefru had duplicate tombs, possibly also Unas, and certainly Usertsen
(Senusret) III, Amenemhat III, and Aahmes; while Mentuhetep III and
Queen Teta-shera had dummy pyramids as well as their tombs. Ramses III
also had two tombs, both at Thebes. The reasons for this custom were
two: first, the desire to elude plunderers, and second, the wish to give
the ghost a pied-a-terre on the sacred soil of Abydos or Sakkara.
As the inscription of Aahmes which records the building of the dummy
pyramid of Teta-shera is of considerable interest, it may here be
translated. The text reads: "It came to pass that when his Majesty the
king, even the king of South and North, Neb-pehti-Ra, Son of the Sun,
Aahmes, Giver of Life, was taking his pleasure in the tjadu-hall,
the hereditary princess greatly favoured and greatly prized, the king's
daughter, the king's sister, the god's wife and great wife of the king,
Nefret-ari-Aahmes, the living, was in the presence of his Majesty. And
the one spake unto the other, seeking to do honour to These There,*
which consisteth in the pouring of water, the offering upon the altar,
the painting of the stele at the beginning of each season, at the
Festival of the New Moon, at the feast of the month, the feast of the
going-forth of the Sem-priest, the Ceremonies of the Night, the Feasts
of the Fifth Day of the Month and of the Sixth, the Hak-festival, the
Uag-festival, the feast of Thoth, the beginning of every season of
heaven and earth. And his sister spake, answering him: 'Why hath one
remembered these matters, and wherefore hath this word been said?
Prithee, what hath come into thy heart?' The king spake, saying: 'As for
me, I have remembered the mother of my mother, the mother of my father,
the king's great wife and king's mother Teta-shera, deceased, whose
tomb-chamber and mer-ahat are at this moment upon the soil of Thebes
and Abydos. I have spoken thus unto thee because my Majesty desireth to
cause a pyramid and chapel to be made for her in the Sacred Land, as a
gift of a monument from my Majesty, and that its lake should be dug, its
trees planted, and its offerings prescribed; that it should be provided
with slaves, furnished with lands, and endowed with cattle, with
hen-ka priests and kher-heb priests performing their duties, each
man knowing what he hath to do.' Behold! when his Majesty had thus
spoken, these things were immediately carried out. His Majesty did these
things on account of the greatness of the love which he bore her, which
was greater than anything. Never had ancestral kings done the like for
their mothers. Behold! his Majesty extended his arm and bent his hand,
and made for her the king's offering to Geb, to the Ennead of Gods, to
the lesser Ennead of Gods... [to Anubis] in the God's Shrine, thousands
of offerings of bread, beer, oxen, geese, cattle... to [the Queen
Teta-shera]." This is one of the most interesting inscriptions
discovered in Egypt in recent years, for the picturesqueness of its
diction is unusual.
* A polite periphrasis for the dead.
As has already been said, the king Amenhetep I was also buried in the
Dra' Abu-'l-Negga, but the tomb has not yet been found. Amenhetep I and
his mother, Queen Nefret-ari-Aahmes, who is mentioned in the inscription
translated above, were both venerated as tutelary demons of the Western
Necropolis of Thebes after their deaths, as also was Mentuhetep III. At
Der el-Bahari both kings seem to have been worshipped with Hathor, the
Mistress of the Waste. The worship of Amen-Ra in the XVIIIth Dynasty
temple of Der el-Bahari was a novelty introduced by the priests of Amen
at that time. But the worship of Hathor went on side by side with that
of Amen in a chapel with a rock-cut shrine at the side of the Great
Temple. Very possibly this was the original cave-shrine of Hathor, long
before Mentuhetep's time, and was incorporated with the Great Temple and
beautified with the addition of a pillared hall before it, built
over part of the XIth Dynasty north court and wall, by Hatshepsu's
architects.
The Great Temple, the excavation of which for the Egypt Exploration Fund
was successfully brought to an end by Prof. Naville in 1898, was erected
by Queen Hatshepsu in honour of Amen-Ra, her father Thothmes I, and her
brother-husband Thothmes II, and received a few additions from Thothmes
III, her successor. He, however, did not complete it, and it fell into
disrepair, besides suffering from the iconoclastic zeal of the heretic
Akhunaten, who hammered out some of the beautifully painted scenes upon
its walls. These were badly restored by Ramses II, whose painting is
easily distinguished from the original work by the dulness and badness
of its colour.
The peculiar plan and other remarkable characteristics of this temple
are well known. Its great terraces, with the ramps leading up to them,
flanked by colonnades, which, as we have seen, were imitated from the
design of the old XIth Dynasty temple at its side, are familiar from a
hundred illustrations, and the marvellously preserved colouring of its
delicate reliefs is known to every winter visitor to Egypt, and can be
realized by those who have never been there through the medium of Mr.
Howard Carter's wonderful coloured reproductions, published in Prof.
Naville's edition of the temple by the Egypt Exploration Fund. The Great
Temple stands to-day clear of all the debris which used to cover it, a
lasting monument to the work of the greatest of the societies which busy
themselves with the unearthing of the relics of the ancient world.
Prof. Nayille, 1893-8 and 1903-6, for the Egypt Exploration Fund
The two temples of Der el-Bahari will soon stand side by side, as they
originally stood, and will always be associated with the name of the
society which rescued them from oblivion, and gave us the treasures
of the royal tombs at Abydos. The names of the two men whom the Egypt
Exploration Fund commissioned to excavate Der el-Bahari and Abydos, and
for whose work it exclusively supplied the funds, Profs. Naville and
Petrie, will live chiefly in connection with their work at Der el-Bahari
and Abydos.
The Egyptians called the two temples Tjeserti, "the two holy places,"
the new building receiving the name of Tjeser-tjesru, "Holy of
Holies," and the whole tract of Der el-Bahari the appellation Tjesret,
"the Holy." The extraordinary beauty of the situation in which they are
placed, with its huge cliffs and rugged hillsides, may be appreciated
from the photograph which is taken from a steep path half-way up the
cliff above the Great Temple. In it we see the Great Temple in the
foreground with the modern roofs of two of its colonnades, devised in
order to protect the sculptures beneath them, the great trilithon gate
leading to the upper court, and the entrance to the cave-shrine of
Amen-Ra, with the niches of the kings on either side, immediately at the
foot of the cliff. In the middle distance is the duller form of the XIth
Dynasty temple, with its rectangular platform, the ramp leading up
to it, and the pyramid in the centre of it, surrounded by pillars,
half-emerging from the great heaps of sand and debris all around. The
background of cliffs and hills, as seen in the photograph, will serve to
give some idea of the beauty of the surroundings,--an arid beauty, it is
true, for all is desert. There is not a blade of vegetation near; all
is salmon-red in colour beneath a sky of ineffable blue, and against the
red cliffs the white temple stands out in vivid contrast.
The second illustration gives a nearer view of the great trilithon
gate in the upper court, at the head of the ramp. The long hill of Dra'
Abu-'l-Negga is seen bending away northward behind the gate.
Of The Xviiith Dynasty Temple At Dek El-Bahari. About 1500
B.C.
This is the famous gate on which the jealous Thothmes III chiselled out
Hatshepsu's name in the royal cartouches and inserted his own in
its place; but he forgot to alter the gender of the pronouns in the
accompanying inscription, which therefore reads "King Thothmes III, she
made this monument to her father Amen."
Among Prof. Naville's discoveries here one of the most important is that
of the altar in a small court to the north, which, as the inscription
says, was made in honour of the god Ra-Harmachis "of beautiful white
stone of Anu." It is of the finest white limestone known. Here also were
found the carved ebony doors of a shrine, now in the Cairo Museum. One
of the most beautiful parts of the temple is the Shrine of Anubis, with
its splendidly preserved paintings and perfect columns and roof of
white limestone. The effect of the pure white stone and simplicity of
architecture is almost Hellenic.
The Shrine of Hathor has been known since the time of Mariette, but in
connection with it some interesting discoveries have been made during
the excavation of the XIth Dynasty temple. In the court between the two
temples were found a large number of small votive offerings, consisting
of scarabs, beads, little figures of cows and women, etc., of blue
glazed faience and rough pottery, bronze and wood, and blue glazed
ware ears, eyes, and plaques with figures of the sacred cow, and other
small objects of the same nature. These are evidently the ex-votos of
the XVIIIth Dynasty fellahin to the goddess Hathor in the rock-shrine
above the court. When the shrine was full or the little ex-votos broken,
the sacristans threw them over the wall into the court below, which thus
became a kind of dust-heap. Over this heap the sand and debris gradually
collected, and thus they were preserved. The objects found are of
considerable interest to anthropological science.
The Great Temple was built, as we have said, in honour of Thothmes I
and II, and the deities Amen-Ra and Hathor. More especially it was the
funerary chapel of Thothmes I. His tomb was excavated, not in the Dra'
Abu-l-Negga, which was doubtless now too near the capital city and not
in a sufficiently dignified position of aloofness from the common herd,
but at the end of the long valley of the Wadiyen, behind the cliff-hill
above Der el-Bahari. Hence the new temple was oriented in the direction
of his tomb. Immediately behind the temple, on the other side of the
hill, is the tomb which was discovered by Lepsius and cleared in 1904
for Mr. Theodore N. Davis by Mr. Howard Carter, then chief inspector of
antiquities at Thebes. Its gallery is of very small dimensions, and it
winds about in the hill in corkscrew fashion like the tomb of Aahmes at
Aby-dos. Owing to its extraordinary length, the heat and foul air in the
depths of the tomb were almost insupportable and caused great difficulty
to the excavators. When the sarcophagus-chamber was at length reached,
it was found to contain the empty sarcophagi of Thothmes I and of
Hatshepsu. The bodies had been removed for safe-keeping in the time of
the XXIst Dynasty, that of Thothmes I having been found with those
of Set! I and Ramses II in the famous pit at Der el-Bahari, which was
discovered by M. Maspero in 1881. Thothmes I seems to have had another
and more elaborate tomb (No. 38) in the Valley of the Tombs of the
Kings, which was discovered by M. Loret in 1898. Its frescoes had been
destroyed by the infiltration of water.
The fashion of royal burial in the great valley behind Der el-Bahari
was followed during the XVIIIth, XIXth, and XXth Dynasties. Here in the
eastern branch of the Wadiyen, now called the Biban el-Muluk, "the
Tombs of the Kings," the greater number of the mightiest Theban Pharaohs
were buried. In the western valley rested two of the kings of the
XVIIIth Dynasty, who desired even more remote burial-places, Amenhetep
III and Ai. The former chose for his last home a most kingly site.
Ancient kings had raised great pyramids of artificial stone over their
graves. Amenhetep, perhaps the greatest and most powerful Pharaoh of
them all, chose to have a natural pyramid for his grave, a mountain for
his tumulus. The illustration shows us the tomb of this monarch, opening
out of the side of one of the most imposing hills in the Western Valley.
No other king but Amenhetep rested beneath this hill, which thus marks
his grave and his only.
It is in the Eastern Valley, the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings
properly speaking, that the tombs of Thothmes I and Hatshepsu lie, and
here the most recent discoveries have been made. It is a desolate spot.
As we come over the hill from Der el-Bahari we see below us in the
glaring sunshine a rocky canon, with sides sometimes sheer cliff,
sometimes sloped by great falls of rock in past ages. At the bottom
of these slopes the square openings of the many royal tombs can be
descried. [See illustration.] Far below we see the forms of tourists
and the tomb-guards accompanying them, moving in and out of the openings
like ants going in and out of an ants' nest. Nothing is heard but the
occasional cry of a kite and the ceaseless rhythmical throbbing of the
exhaust-pipe of the electric light engine in the unfinished tomb of
Ramses XI. Above and around are the red desert hills. The Egyptians
called it "The Place of Eternity."
WESTERN VALLEY, THEBES.]
In this valley some remarkable discoveries have been made during the
last few years. In 1898 M. Grebaut discovered the tomb of Amenhetep
II, in which was found the mummy of the king, intact, lying in its
sarcophagus in the depths of the tomb. The royal body now lies there
for all to see. The tomb is lighted with electricity, as are all the
principal tombs of the kings. At the head of the sarcophagus is a single
lamp, and, when the party of visitors is collected in silence around the
place of death, all the lights are turned out, and then the single
light is switched on, showing the royal head illuminated against the
surrounding blackness. The effect is indescribably weird and impressive.
The body has only twice been removed from the tomb since its burial, the
second time when it was for a brief space taken up into the sunlight to
be photographed by Mr.. Carter, in January, 1902. The temporary removal
was carefully carried out, the body of his Majesty being borne up
through the passages of the tomb on the shoulders of the Italian
electric light workmen, preceded and followed by impassive Arab
candle-bearers. The workmen were most reverent in their handling of the
body of " il gran re," as they called him.
In the tomb were found some very interesting objects, including a model
boat (afterwards stolen), across which lay the body of a woman. This
body now lies, with others found close by, in a side chamber of the
tomb. One may be that of Hatshepsu. The walls of the tomb-chamber are
painted to resemble papyrus, and on them are written chapters of the
"Book of What Is in the Underworld," for the guidance of the royal
ghost.
In 1902-3 Mr. Theodore Davis excavated the tomb of Thothmes IV. It
yielded a rich harvest of antiquities belonging to the funeral state of
the king, including a chariot with sides of embossed and gilded leather,
decorated with representations of the king's warlike deeds, and much
fine blue pottery, all of which are now in the Cairo Museum. The
tomb-gallery returns upon itself, describing a curve. An interesting
point with regard to it is that it had evidently been violated even in
the short time between the reigns of its owner and Horem-heb, probably
in the period of anarchy which prevailed at Thebes during the reign
of the heretic Akhunaten; for in one of the chambers is a hieratic
inscription recording the repair of the tomb in the eighth year of
Horemheb by Maya, superintendent of works in the Tombs of the Kings. It
reads as follows: "In the eighth year, the third month of summer, under
the Majesty of King Tjeser-khepru-Ra Sotp-n-Ra, Son of the Sun, Horemheb
Meriamen, his Majesty (Life, health, and wealth unto him!) commanded
that orders should be sent unto the Fanbearer on the King's Left Hand,
the King's Scribe and Overseer of the Treasury, the Overseer of the
Works in the Place of Eternity, the Leader of the Festivals of Amen
in Karnak, Maya, son of the judge Aui, born of the Lady Ueret, that he
should renew the burial of King Men-khepru-Ra, deceased, in the August
Habitation in Western Thebes." Men-khepru-Ra was the prenomen or
throne-name of Thothmes IV. Tied round a pillar in the tomb is still a
length of the actual rope used by the thieves for crossing the chasm,
which, as in many of the tombs here, was left open in the gallery to bar
the way to plunderers. The mummy of the king was found in the tomb of
Amenhetep II, and is now at Cairo.
The discovery of the tomb of Thothmes I and Hat-shepsu has already been
described. In 1905 Mr. Davis made his latest find, the tomb of Iuaa
and Tuaa, the father and mother of Queen Tii, the famous consort of
Amenhetep III and mother of Akhunaten the heretic. Readers of Prof.
Maspero's history will remember that Iuaa and Tuaa are mentioned on one
of the large memorial scarabs of Amenhetep III, which commemorates his
marriage. The tomb has yielded an almost incredible treasure of funerary
furniture, besides the actual mummies of Tii's parents, including a
chariot overlaid with gold. Gold overlay of great thickness is found on
everything, boxes, chairs, etc. It was no wonder that Egypt seemed the
land of gold to the Asiatics, and that even the King of Babylon begs
this very Pharaoh Amenhetep to send him gold, in one of the letters
found at Tell el-Amarna, "for gold is as water in thy land." It is
probable that Egypt really attained the height of her material wealth
and prosperity in the reign of Amenhetep III. Certainly her dominion
reached its farthest limits in his time, and his influence was felt from
the Tigris to the Sudan. He hunted lions for his pleasure in Northern
Mesopotamia, and he built temples at Jebel Barkal beyond Dongola. We see
the evidence of lavish wealth in the furniture of the tomb of Iuaa and
Tuaa. Yet, fine as are many of these gold-overlaid and overladen objects
of the XVIIIth Dynasty, they have neither the good taste nor the charm
of the beautiful jewels from the XIIth Dynasty tombs at Dashur. It is
mere vulgar wealth. There is too much gold thrown about. "For gold is as
water in thy land." In three hundred years' time Egypt was to know what
poverty meant, when the poor priest-kings of the XXIst Dynasty could
hardly keep body and soul together and make a comparatively decent show
as Pharaohs of Egypt. Then no doubt the latter-day Thebans sighed for
the good old times of the XVIIIth Dynasty, when their city ruled a
considerable part of Africa and Western Asia and garnered their riches
into her coffers. But the days of the XIIth Dynasty had really been
better still. Then there was not so much wealth, but what there was (and
there was as much gold then, too) was used sparingly, tastefully, and
simply. The XIIth Dynasty, not the XVIIIth, was the real Golden Age of
Egypt.
From the funeral panoply of a tomb like that of Iuaa and Tuaa we can
obtain some idea of the pomp and state of Amenhetep III. But the remains
of his Theban palace, which have been discovered and excavated by Mr. C.
Tytus and Mr. P. E. Newberry, do not bear out this idea of magnificence.
It is quite possible that the palace was merely a pleasure house,
erected very hastily and destined to fall to pieces when its owner tired
of it or died, like the many palaces of the late Khedive Ismail. It
stood on the border of an artificial lake, whereon the Pharaoh and his
consort Tii sailed to take their pleasure in golden barks. This is now
the cultivated rectangular space of land known as the Birket Habu, which
is still surrounded by the remains of the embankment built to retain its
waters, and becomes a lake during the inundation. On the western shore
of this lake Amenhetep erected the "stately pleasure dome," the
remains of which still cover the sandy tract known as el-Malkata, "the
Salt-pans," south of the great temple of Medinet Habu. These remains
consist merely of the foundations and lowest wall-courses of a
complicated and rambling building of many chambers, constructed of
common unburnt brick and plastered with white stucco on walls and
floors, on which were painted beautiful frescoes of fighting bulls,
birds of the air, water-fowl, fish-ponds, etc., in much the same style
as the frescoes of Tell el-Amarna executed in the next reign. There
were small pillared halls, the columns of which were of wood, mounted
on bases of white limestone. The majority still remain in position. In
several chambers there are small daises, and in one the remains of a
throne, built of brick and mud covered with plaster and stucco, upon
which the Pharaoh Amenhetep sat. This is the palace of him whom the
Greeks called Memnon, who ruled Egypt when Israel was in bondage and
when the dynasty of Minos reigned in Crete. Here by the side of his
pleasure-lake the most powerful of Egyptian Pharaohs whiled away his
time during the summer heats. Evidently the building was intended to be
of the lightest construction, and never meant to last; but to our ideas
it seems odd that an Egyptian Pharaoh should live in a mud palace. Such
a building is, however, quite suited to the climate of Egypt, as are the
modern crude brick dwellings of the fellahin. In the ruins of the
palace were found several small objects of interest, and close by was
an ancient glass manufactory of Amenhetep III's time, where much of the
characteristic beautifully coloured and variegated opaque glass of the
period was made.
The tombs of the magnates of Amenhetep III's reign and of the reigns
of his immediate predecessors were excavated, as has been said, on the
eastern slope of the hill of Shekh 'Abd el-Kurna, where was the earliest
Theban necropolis. No doubt many of the early tombs of the time of the
VIth Dynasty were appropriated and remodelled by the XVIIIth Dynasty
magnates. We have an instance of time's revenge in this matter, in the
case of the tomb of Imadua, a great priestly official of the time of
the XXth Dynasty. This tomb previously belonged to an XVIIIth Dynasty
worthy, but Imadua appropriated it three hundred years later and covered
up all its frescoes with the much begilt decoration fashionable in his
period. Perhaps the XVIIIth Dynasty owner had stolen it from an original
owner of the time of the VIth Dynasty. The tomb has lately been cleared
out by Mr. Newberry.
Much work of the same kind has been done here of late years by Messrs.
Newberry and R. L. Mond, in succession. To both we are indebted for the
excavation of many known tombs, as well as for the discovery of many
others previously unknown. Among the former was that of Sebekhetep,
cleared by Mr. Newberry. Se-bekhetep was an official of the time of
Thothmes III. From his tomb, and from others in the same hill, came many
years ago the fine frescoes shown in the illustration, which are among
the most valued treasures of the Egyptian department of the British
Museum. They are typical specimens of the wall-decoration of an XVIIIth
Dynasty tomb. On one may be seen a bald-headed peasant, with staff in
hand, pulling an ear of corn from the standing crop in order to see if
it is ripe. He is the "Chief Reaper," and above him is a prayer that the
"great god in heaven" may increase the crop. To the right of him is a
charioteer standing beside a car and reining back a pair of horses, one
black, the other bay. Below is another charioteer with two white
horses. He sits on the floor of the car with his back to them, eating
or resting, while they nibble the branches of a tree close by. Another
scene is that of a scribe keeping tally of offerings brought to the
tomb, while fellahm are bringing flocks of geese and other fowl, some in
crates. The inscription above is apparently addressed by the goose-herd
to the man with the crates. It reads: "Hasten thy feet because of the
geese! Hearken! thou knowest not the next minute what has been said
to thee!" Above, a reis with a stick bids other peasants squat on the
ground before addressing the scribe, and he is saying to them: "Sit ye
down to talk." The third scene is in another style; on it may be seen
Semites bringing offerings of vases of gold, silver, and copper to the
royal presence, bowing themselves to the ground and kissing the dust
before the throne. The fidelity and accuracy with which the racial type
of the tribute-bearers is given is most extraordinary; every face
seems a portrait, and each one might be seen any day now in the Jewish
quarters of Whitechapel.
The first two paintings are representative of a very common style of
fresco-pictures in these tombs. The care with which the animals
are depicted is remarkable. Possibly one of the finest Egyptian
representations of an animal is the fresco of a goat in the tomb of
Gen-Amen, discovered by Mr. Mond. There is even an attempt here at
chiaroscuro, which is unknown to Egyptian art generally, except at Tell
el-Amarna. Evidently the Egyptian painters reached the apogee of
their art towards the end of the XVIIIth Dynasty. The third, the
representation of tribute-bearers, is of a type also well known at
this period. In all the chief tombs we have processions of Egyptians,
Westerners, Northerners, Easterners, and Southerners, bringing tribute
to the Pharaoh. The North is represented by the Semites, the East by the
Punites (when they occur), the South by negroes, the West by the Keftiu
or people of Crete and Cyprus. The representations of the last-named
people have become of the very highest interest during the last few
years, on account of the discoveries in Crete, which have revealed to
us the state and civilization of these very Keftiu. Messrs. Evans
and Halbherr have discovered at Knossos and Phaistos the cities and
palace-temples of the king who sent forth their ambassadors to far-away
Egypt with gifts for the mighty Pharaoh; these ambassadors were painted
in the tombs of their hosts as representative of the quarter of the
world from which they came.
The two chief Egyptian representations of these people, who since they
lived in Greece may be called Greeks, though their more proper title
would be "Pe-lasgians," are to be found in the tombs of Rekhmara and
Senmut, the former a vizier under Thothmes III, the latter the
architect of Hatshepsu's temple at Der el-Bahari. Senmut's tomb is a
new rediscovery. It was known, as Rekhmara's was, in the early days of
Egyptological science, and Prisse d'Avennes copied its paintings. It was
afterwards lost sight of until rediscovered by Mr. Newberry and Prof.
Steindorff.
1500 B.C.
The tomb of Rekhmara (No. 35) is well known to every visitor to Thebes,
but it is difficult to get at that of Senmut (No. 110); it lies at the
top of the hill round to the left and overlooking Der el-Bahari,
an appropriate place for it, by the way. In some ways Senmut's
representations are more interesting than Rekhmara's. They are more
easily seen, since they are now in the open air, the fore hall of the
tomb having been ruined; and they are better preserved, since they have
not been subjected to a century of inspection with naked candles and
pawing with greasy hands, as have Rekhmara's frescoes. Further, there
is no possibility of mistaking what they represent. From right to
left, walking in procession, we see the Minoan gift-bearers from Crete,
carrying in their hands and on their shoulders great cups of gold and
silver, in shape like the famous gold cups found at Vaphio in Lakonia,
but much larger, also a ewer of gold and silver exactly like one of
bronze discovered by Mr. Evans two years ago at Knossos, and a huge
copper jug with four ring-handles round the sides. All these vases are
specifically and definitely Mycenaean, or rather, following the new
terminology, Minoan. They are of Greek manufacture and are carried on
the shoulders of Pelasgian Greeks. The bearers wear the usual Mycenaean
costume, high boots and a gaily ornamented kilt, and little else, just
as we see it depicted in the fresco of the Cupbearer at Knossos and
in other Greek representations. The coiffure, possibly the most
characteristic thing about the Mycenaean Greeks, is faithfully
represented by the Egyptians both here and in Rekhmara's tomb. The
Mycenaean men allowed their hair to grow to its full natural length,
like women, and wore it partly hanging down the back, partly tied up
in a knot or plait (the kepas of the dandy Paris in the Iliad) on the
crown of the head. This was the universal fashion, and the Keftiu are
consistently depicted by the XVIIIth Dynasty Egyptians as following it.
The faces in the Senmut fresco are not so well portrayed as those in the
Rekhmara fresco. There it is evident that the first three ambassadors
are faithfully depicted, as the portraits are marked. The procession
advances from left to right. The first man, "the Great Chief of the
Kefti and the Isles of the Green Sea," is young, and has a remarkably
small mouth with an amiable expression. His complexion is fair rather
than dark, but his hair is dark brown. His lieutenant, the next in
order, is of a different type,--elderly, with a most forbidding visage,
Roman nose, and nutcracker jaws. Most of the others are very much
alike,--young, dark in complexion, and with long black hair hanging
below their waists and twisted up into fantastic knots and curls on the
tops of their heads. One, carrying on his shoulder a great silver vase
with curving handles and in one hand a dagger of early European Bronze
Age type, is looking back to hear some remark of his next companion.
Any one of these gift-bearers might have sat for the portrait of
the Knossian Cupbearer, the fresco discovered by Mr. Evans in the
palace-temple of Minos; he has the same ruddy brown complexion, the same
long black hair dressed in the same fashion, the same parti-coloured
kilt, and he bears his vase in much the same way. We have only to allow
for the difference of Egyptian and Mycenaean ways of drawing. There is
no doubt whatever that these Keftiu of the Egyptians were Cretans of the
Minoan Age. They used to be considered Phoenicians, but this view was
long ago exploded. They are not Semites, and that is quite enough.
Neither are they Asiatics of any kind. They are purely and simply
Mycenaean, or rather Minoan, Greeks of the pre-Hellenic period--Pelasgi,
that is to say.
Probably no discovery of more far-reaching importance to our knowledge
of the history of the world generally and of our own culture especially
has ever been made than the finding of Mycenae by Schliemann, and
the further finds that have resulted therefrom, culminating in the
discoveries of Mr. Arthur Evans at Knossos. Naturally, these discoveries
are of extraordinary interest to us, for they have revealed the
beginnings and first bloom of the European civilization of to-day. For
our culture-ancestors are neither the Egyptians, nor the Assyrians, nor
the Hebrews, but the Hellenes, and they, the Aryan-Greeks, derived most
of their civilization from the pre-Hellenic people whom they found in
the land before them, the Pelasgi or "Mycenaean" Greeks, "Minoans," as we
now call them, the Keftiu of the Egyptians. These are the ancient Greeks
of the Heroic Age, to which the legends of the Hellenes refer; in their
day were fought the wars of Troy and of the Seven against Thebes, in
their day the tragedy of the Atridse was played out to its end, in their
day the wise Minos ruled Knossos and the AEgean. And of all the events
which are at the back of these legends we know nothing. The hieroglyphed
tablets of the pre-Hellenic Greeks lie before us, but we cannot read
them; we can only see that the Minoan writing in many ways resembled
the Egyptian, thus again confirming our impression of the original early
connection of the two cultures.
In view of this connection, and the known close relations between Crete
and Egypt, from the end of the XIIth Dynasty to the end of the XVIIIth,
we might have hoped to recover at Knossos a bilingual inscription in
Cretan and Egyptian hieroglyphs which would give us the key to the
Minoan script and tell us what we so dearly wish to know. But this hope
has not yet been realized. Two Egyptian inscriptions have been found at
Knossos, but no bilingual one. A list of Keftian names is preserved in
the British Museum upon an Egyptian writing-board from Thebes with what
is perhaps a copy of a single Cretan hieroglyph, a vase; but again,
nothing bilingual. A list of "Keftian words" occurs at the head of a
papyrus, also in the British Museum, but they appear to be nonsense,
a mere imitation of the sounds of a strange tongue. Still we need
not despair of finding the much desired Cretan-Egyptian bilingual
inscription yet. Perhaps the double text of a treaty between Crete and
Egypt, like that of Ramses II with the Hittites, may come to light.
Meanwhile we can only do our best with the means at our hand to trace
out the history of the relations of the oldest European culture with
the ancient civilization of Egypt. The tomb-paintings at Thebes are very
important material. Eor it is due to them that the voice of the doubter
has finally ceased to be heard, and that now no archaeologist questions
that the Egyptians were in direct communication with the Cretan
Mycenaeans in the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty, some fifteen hundred years
before Christ, for no one doubts that the pictures of the Keftiu are
pictures of Mycenaeans.
As we have seen, we know that this connection was far older than the
time of the XVIIIth Dynasty, but it is during that time and the Hyksos
period that we have the clearest documentary proof of its existence,
from the statuette of Abnub and the alabastron lid of King Khian,
found at Knossos, down to the Mycenaean pottery fragments found at Tell
el-Amarna, a site which has been utterly abandoned since the time of
the heretic Akhunaten (B.C. 1430), so that there is no possibility of
anything found there being later than his time. That the connection
existed as late as the time of the XXth Dynasty we know from the
representations of golden Buegelkannen or false-necked vases of
Mycenaean form in the tomb of Ramses III in the Biban el-Muluk, and of
golden cups of Vaphio type in the tomb of Imadua, already mentioned.
This brings the connection down to about 1050 B.C