G. Maspero - History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12)

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[Illustration: Spines]

[Illustration: Cover]

HISTORY OF EGYPT CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA

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

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

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

CONTAINING OVER TWELVE HUNDRED COLORED PLATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Volume VI.

LONDON

THE GROLIER SOCIETY

PUBLISHERS

[Illustration: Frontispiece]

[Illustration: Titlepage]

[Illustration: 001.jpg Page Image]

_THE CLOSE OF THE THEBAN EMPIRE--(continued)_

_RAMSES III.: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS--POPULATION--THE PREDOMINANCE OF AMON
AND HIS HIGH PRIESTS._

_The Theban necropolis: mummies--The funeral of a rich Theban: the
procession of the offerings and the funerary furniture, the crossing
of the Nile, the tomb, the farewell to the dead, the sacrifice, the
coffins, the repast of the dead, the song of the Harper--The common
ditch--The living inhabitants of the necropolis: draughtsmen, sculptors,
painters--The bas-reliefs of the temples and the tombs, wooden
statuettes, the smelting of metals, bronze--The religions of the
necropolis: the immorality and want of discipline among the people:
workmen s strikes._

_Amon and the beliefs concerning him: his kingdom over the living and
the dead, the soul's destiny according to the teaching of Amon--Khonsu
and his temple; the temple of Amon at Karnak, its revenue, its
priesthood--The growing influence of the high priests of Amon under
the sons of Ramses III.: Hamsesnakluti, Amenothes; the violation of the
royal burying-places--Hrihor and the last of the Ramses, Smendes and the
accession to power of the XXIst dynasty: the division of Egypt into two
States--The priest-kings of Amon masters of Thebes under the suzerainty
of the Tanite Pharaohs--The close of the Theban empire._

[Illustration: 003.jpg Page Image]

CHAPTER I--THE CLOSE OF THE THEBAN EMPIRE--(continued)

_Ramses III.: Manners and Customs--Population--The predominance of Amon
and his high priests._

Opposite the Thebes of the living, Khafitnibus, the Thebes of the dead,
had gone on increasing in a remarkably rapid manner. It continued to
extend in the south-western direction from the heroic period of
the XVIIIth dynasty onwards, and all the eminence and valleys were
gradually appropriated one after the other for burying-places. At the
time of which I am speaking, this region formed an actual town, or
rather a chain of villages, each of which was grouped round some
building constructed by one or other of the Pharaohs as a funerary
chapel. Towards the north, opposite Karnak, they clustered at
Drah-abu'l-Neggah around pyramids of the first Theban monarchs, at
Qurneh around the mausolae of Ramses I. and Seti I., and at Sheikh
Abd el-Qurneh they lay near the Amenopheum and the Pamonkaniqimit,
or Ramesseum built by Ramses II. Towards the south they diminished
in number, tombs and monuments becoming fewer and appearing at wider
intervals; the Migdol of Ramses III. formed an isolated suburb, that of
Azamit, at Medinet-Habu; the chapel of Isis, constructed by Amenothes,
son of Hapu, formed a rallying-point for the huts of the hamlet of
Karka;* and in the far distance, in a wild gorge at the extreme limit
of human habitations, the queens of the Ramesside line slept their last
sleep.

* The village of Karka or Kaka was identified by Brugsch
with the hamlet of Deir el-Medineh: the founder of the
temple was none other than Amenothes, who was minister under
Amenothes III.

[Illustration: 004.jpg THE THEBAN CEMETERIES]

Each of these temples had around it its enclosing wall of dried brick,
and the collection of buildings within this boundary formed the Khiru,
or retreat of some one of the Theban Pharaohs, which, in the official
language of the time, was designated the "august Khiru of millions of
years."

[Illustration: 005.jpg THE NECROPOLIS OF SHEIKH AND EL-QURNEH]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato.

A sort of fortified structure, which was built into one of the corners,
served as a place of deposit for the treasure and archives, and could be
used as a prison if occasion required.*

* This was the hliatmu, the dungeon, frequently mentioned in
the documents bearing upon the necropolis.

The remaining buildings consisted of storehouses, stables, and houses
for the priests and other officials. In some cases the storehouses were
constructed on a regular plan which the architect had fitted in with
that of the temple. Their ruins at the back and sides of the Ramesseum
form a double row of vaults, extending from the foot of the hills to
the border of the cultivated lands. Stone recesses on the roof furnished
shelter for the watchmen.* The outermost of the village huts stood among
the nearest tombs. The population which had been gathered together there
was of a peculiar character, and we can gather but a feeble idea of its
nature from the surroundings of the cemeteries in our own great cities.
Death required, in fact, far more attendants among the ancient Egyptians
than with us. The first service was that of mummification, which
necessitated numbers of workers for its accomplishment. Some of the
workshops of the embalmers have been discovered from time to time at
Sheikh Abd el-Qurneh and Deir el-Bahari, but we are still in ignorance
as to their arrangements, and as to the exact nature of the materials
which they employed. A considerable superficial space was required, for
the manipulations of the embalmers occupied usually from sixty to eighty
days, and if we suppose that the average deaths at Thebes amounted to
fifteen or twenty in the twenty-four hours, they would have to provide
at the same time for the various degrees of saturation of some twelve to
fifteen hundred bodies at the least.**

* The discovery of quantities of ostraca in the ruins of
these chambers shows that they served partly for cellars.

** I have formed my estimate of fifteen to twenty deaths per
day from the mortality of Cairo during the French
occupation. This is given by R. Desgenettes, in the
_Description de l'Egypte_, but only approximately, as many
deaths, especially of females, must have been concealed from
the authorities; I have, however, made an average from the
totals, and applied the rate of mortality thus obtained to
ancient Thebes. The same result follows from calculations
based on more recent figures, obtained before the great
hygienic changes introduced into Cairo by Ismail Pacha, i.e.
from August 1, 1858, to July 31, 1859, and from May 24,
1865, to May 16, 1866, and for the two years from April 2,
1869, to March 21, 1870, and from April 2, 1870, to March
21, 1871.

Each of the corpses,moreover, necessitated the employment of at least
half a dozen workmen to wash it, cut it open, soak it, dry it, and
apply the usual bandages before placing the amulets upon the canonically
prescribed places, and using the conventional prayers.

[Illustration: 007.jpg HEAD OF A THEBAN MUMMY]

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

There was fastened to the breast, immediately below the neck, a stone
or green porcelain scarab, containing an inscription which was to be
efficacious in preventing the heart, "his heart which came to him from
his mother, his heart from the time he was upon the earth," from rising
up and witnessing against the dead man before the tribunal of Osiris.*
There were placed on his fingers gold or enamelled rings, as talismans
to secure for him the true voice.**

* The manipulations and prayers were prescribed in the "Book
of Embalming."

** The prescribed gold ring was often replaced by one of
blue or green enamel.

The body becomes at last little more than a skeleton, with a covering of
yellow skin which accentuates the anatomical, details, but the head, on
the other hand, still preserves, where the operations have been properly
conducted, its natural form. The cheeks have fallen in slightly, the
lips and the fleshy parts of the nose have become thinner and more
drawn than during life, but the general expression of the face remains
unaltered.

[Illustration: 008.jpg THE MANUFACTURE AND PAINTING OF THE CARTONNAGE]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after Rosellini.

A mask of pitch was placed over the visage to preserve it, above
which was adjusted first a piece of linen and then a series of bands
impregnated with resin, which increased the size of the head to twofold
its ordinary bulk. The trunk and limbs were bound round with a first
covering of some pliable soft stuff, warm to the touch. Coarsely
powdered natron was scattered here and there over the body as an
additional preservative. Packets placed between the legs, the arms and
the hips, and in the eviscerated abdomen, contained the heart, spleen,
the dried brain, the hair, and the cuttings of the beard and nails. In
those days the hair had a special magical virtue: by burning it while
uttering certain incantations, one might acquire an almost limitless
power over the person to whom it had belonged. The ernbalmers,
therefore, took care to place with the mummy such portions of the hair
as they had been obliged to cut off, so as to remove them out of the way
of the perverse ingenuity of the sorcerers.

[Illustration: 009.jpg WRAPPING OF THE MUMMY, UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE
"MAN OF THE ROLL"]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Rosellini.

Over the first covering of the mummy already alluded to, there was
sometimes placed a strip of papyrus or a long piece of linen, upon which
the scribe had transcribed selections--both text and pictures--from "The
Book of the going forth by Day:" in such cases the roll containing the
whole work was placed between the legs. The body was further wrapped in
several bandages, then in a second piece of stuff, then in more bands,
the whole being finally covered with a shroud of coarse canvas and a
red linen winding-sheet, sewn together at the back, and kept in place by
transverse bands disposed at intervals from head to foot. The son of the
deceased and a "man of the roll" were present at this lugubrious toilet,
and recited at the application of each piece a prayer, in which its
object was defined and its duration secured. Every Egyptian was supposed
to be acquainted with the formulas, from having learned them during his
lifetime, by which he was to have restored to him the use of his limbs,
and be protected from the dangers of the world beyond. These were
repeated to the dead person, however, for greater security, during the
process of embalming, and the son of the deceased, or the master of the
ceremonies, took care to whisper to the mummy the most mysterious parts,
which no living ear might hear with impunity. The wrappings having
been completed, the deceased person became aware of his equipment, and
enjoyed all the privileges of the "instructed and fortified Manes." He
felt himself, both mummy and double, now ready for the tomb.

Egyptian funerals were not like those to which we are accustomed--mute
ceremonies, in which sorrow is barely expressed by a furtive tear:
noise, sobbings, and wild gestures were their necessary concomitants.
Not only was it customary to hire weeping women, who tore their hair,
filled the air with their lamentations, and simulated by skilful actions
the depths of despair, but the relatives and friends themselves did not
shrink from making an outward show of their grief, nor from disturbing
the equanimity of the passers-by by the immoderate expressions of their
sorrow. One after another they raised their voices, and uttered some
expression appropriate to the occasion: "To the West, the dwelling of
Osiris, to the West, thou who wast the best of men, and who always hated
guile." And the hired weepers answered in chorus: "O chief,* as thou
goest to the West, the gods themselves lament." The funeral _cortege_
started in the morning from the house of mourning, and proceeded at a
slow pace to the Nile, amid the clamours of the mourners.

* The "chief" is one of the names of Osiris, and is applied
naturally to the dead person, who has become an Osiris by
virtue of the embalming.

The route was cleared by a number of slaves and retainers. First came
those who carried cakes and flowers in their hands, followed by others
bearing jars full of water, bottles of liqueurs, and phials of perfumes;
then came those who carried painted boxes intended for the provisions
of the dead man, and for containing the Ushabtiu, or "Respondents." The
succeeding group bore the usual furniture required by the deceased
to set up house again, coffers for linen, folding and arm chairs,
state-beds, and sometimes even a caparisoned chariot with its quivers.
Then came a groom conducting two of his late master's favourite horses,
who, having accompanied the funeral to the tomb, were brought back
to their stable. Another detachment, more numerous than the others
combined, now filed past, bearing the effects of the mummy; first the
vessels for the libations, then the cases for the Canopic jars, then the
Canopic jars themselves, the mask of the deceased, coloured half in gold
and half in blue, arms, sceptres, military batons, necklaces, scarabs,
vultures with encircling wings worn on the breast at festival-times,
chains, "Respondents," and the human-headed sparrow-hawk, the emblem of
the soul. Many of these objects were of wood plated with gold, others
of the same material simply gilt, and others of solid gold, and thus
calculated to excite the cupidity of the crowd. Offerings came next,
then a noisy company of female weepers; then a slave, who sprinkled at
every instant some milk upon the ground as if to lay the dust; then
a master of the ceremonies, who, the panther skin upon his shoulder,
asperged the crowd with perfumed water; and behind him comes the hearse.

[Illustration: 012.jpg THE FUNERAL OF HARMHABI]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after a coloured print in Wilkinson.
The cut on the following page joins this on the right.

The latter, according to custom, was made in the form of a
boat--representing the bark of Osiris, with his ark, and two guardians,
Isis and Nephthys--and was placed upon a sledge, which was drawn by a
team of oxen and a relay of fellahin. The sides of the ark were, as
a rule, formed of movable wooden panels, decorated with pictures and
inscriptions; sometimes, however, but more rarely, the panels were
replaced by a covering of embroidered stuff or of soft leather. In
the latter case the decoration was singularly rich, the figures and
hieroglyphs being cut out with a knife, and the spaces thus left filled
in with pieces of coloured leather, which gave the whole an appearance
of brilliant mosaic-work.*

* One of these coverings was found in the hiding-place at
Deir el-Bahari; it had belonged to the Princess Isimkhobiu,
whose mummy is now at Gizeh.

[Illustration: 013.jpg THE FUNERAL OF HABMHABI]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the coloured print in
Wilkinson. The left side of this design fits on to the right
of the preceding cut.

In place of a boat, a shrine of painted wood, also mounted upon a
sledge, was frequently used. When the ceremony was over, this was left,
together with the coffin, in the tomb.*

* I found in the tomb of Sonnozmu two of these sledges with
the superstructure in the form of a temple. They are now in
the Gizeh Museum.

The wife and children walked as close to the bier as possible, and
were followed by the friends of the deceased, dressed in long linen
garments,* each of them bearing a wand. The ox-driver, while goading his
beasts, cried out to them: "To the West, ye oxen who draw the hearse,
to the West! Your master comes behind you!" "To the West," the friends
repeated; "the excellent man lives no longer who loved truth so dearly
and hated lying!"**

** The whole of this description is taken from the pictures
representing the interment of a certain Harmhabi, who died
at Thebes in the time of Thfitmosis IV.

* These expressions are taken from the inscriptions on the
tomb of Rai

[Illustration: 014.jpg THE BOAT CARRYING THE MUMMY]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from pictures in the tomb of
Nofirhotpu at Thebes.

This lamentation is neither remarkable for its originality nor for its
depth of feeling. Sorrow was expressed on such occasions in prescribed
formulas of always the same import, custom soon enabling each individual
to compose for himself a repertory of monotonous exclamations of
condolence, of which the prayer, "To the West!" formed the basis,
relieved at intervals by some fresh epithet. The nearest relatives
of the deceased, however, would find some more sincere expressions of
grief, and some more touching appeals with which to break in upon the
commonplaces of the conventional theme. On reaching the bank of the Nile
the funeral cortege proceeded to embark.*

* The description of this second part of the funeral
arrangements is taken from the tomb of Harmhabi, and
especially from that of Nofirhotpu.

[Illustration: 015.jpg THE BOATS CONTAINING THE FEMALE WEEPERS AND THE
PEOPLE OF THE HOUSEHOLD]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from paintings on the tomb of
Nofirhotpu at Thebes.

They blended with their inarticulate cries, and the usual protestations
and formulas, an eulogy upon the deceased and his virtues, allusions
to his disposition and deeds, mention of the offices and honours he had
obtained, and reflections on the uncertainty of human life--the whole
forming the melancholy dirge which each generation intoned over its
predecessor, while waiting itself for the same office to be said over it
in its turn.

The bearers of offerings, friends, and slaves passed over on hired
barges, whose cabins, covered externally with embroidered stuffs of
several colours, or with _applique_ leather, looked like the pedestals
of a monument: crammed together on the boats, they stood upright with
their faces turned towards the funeral bark. The latter was supposed to
represent the Noshemit, the mysterious skiff of Abydos, which had been
used in the obsequies of Osiris of yore.

[Illustration: 016.jpg THE BOATS CONTAINING THE FRIENDS AND THE FUNERARY
FURNITURE]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from paintings on the tomb of
Nofirhotpu at Thebes.

It was elegant, light, and slender in shape, and ornamented at bow and
stern with a lotus-flower of metal, which bent back its head gracefully,
as if bowed down by its own weight. A temple-shaped shrine stood in
the middle of the boat, adorned with bouquets of flowers and with
green palm-branches. The female members of the family of the deceased,
crouched beside the shrine, poured forth lamentations, while two
priestesses, representing respectively Isis and Nephthys, took up
positions behind to protect the body. The boat containing the female
mourners having taken the funeral barge in tow, the entire flotilla
pushed out into the stream. This was the solemn moment of the
ceremony--the moment in which the deceased, torn away from his earthly
city, was about to set out upon that voyage from which there is no
return. The crowds assembled on the banks of the river hailed the dead
with their parting prayers: "Mayest thou reach in peace the West from
Thebes! In peace, in peace towards Abydos, mayest thou descend in peace
towards Abydos, towards the sea of the West!"

[Illustration: 017.jpg A CORNER OF THE THEBAN NECROPOLIS]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a stele in the Gizeh Museum.

This crossing of the Nile was of special significance in regard to
the future of the soul of the deceased: it represented his pilgrimage
towards Abydos, to the "Mouth of the Cleft" which gave him access to
the other world, and it was for this reason that the name of Abydos is
associated with that of Thebes in the exclamations of the crowd. The
voices of the friends replied frequently and mournfully: "To the West,
to the West, the land of the justified! The place which thou lovedst
weeps and is desolate!" Then the female mourners took up the refrain,
saying: "In peace, in peace, to the West! O honourable one, go in peace!
If it please God, when the day of Eternity shall shine, we shall see
thee, for behold thou goest to the land which mingles all men together!"
The widow then adds her note to the concert of lamentations: "O my
brother, O my husband, O my beloved, rest, remain in thy place, do not
depart from the terrestrial spot where thou art! Alas, thou goest away
to the ferry-boat in order to cross the stream! O sailors, do not hurry,
leave him; you, you will return to your homes, but he, he is going away
to the land of Eternity! O Osirian bark, why hast thou come to take away
from me him who has left me!" The sailors were, of course, deaf to her
appeals, and the mummy pursued its undisturbed course towards the last
stage of its mysterious voyage.

The majority of the tombs--those which were distributed over the plain
or on the nearest spurs of the hill--were constructed on the lines of
those brick-built pyramids erected on mastabas which were very common
during the early Theban dynasties. The relative proportions of the parts
alone were modified: the mastaba, which had gradually been reduced to
an insignificant base, had now recovered its original height, while the
pyramid had correspondingly decreased, and was much reduced in size. The
chapel was constructed within the building, and the mummy-pit was sunk
to a varying depth below. The tombs ranged along the mountain-side were,
on the other hand, rock-cut, and similar to those at el-Bersheh and
Beni-Hasan.

[Illustration: 018.jpg PAINTING IN THE FIFTH TOMB OF THE KINGS TO THE
RIGHT]

The heads of wealthy families or the nobility naturally did not leave to
the last moment the construction of a sepulchre worthy of their rank and
fortune. They prided themselves on having "finished their house which is
in the funeral valley when the morning for the hiding away of their body
should come." Access to these tombs was by too steep and difficult a
path to allow of oxen being employed for the transport of the mummy: the
friends or slaves of the deceased were, therefore, obliged to raise the
sarcophagus on their shoulders and bear it as best they could to the
door of the tomb.

[Illustration: 019.jpg THE FAREWELL TO THE MUMMY, AND THE DOUBLE
RECEIVED BY THE GODDESS]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the paintings in the Theban
tombs.

The mummy was then placed in an upright position on a heap of sand, with
its back to the wall and facing the assistants, like the master of some
new villa who, having been accompanied by his friends to see him take
possession, turns for a moment on the threshold to take leave of
them before entering. A sacrifice, an offering, a prayer, and a fresh
outburst of grief ensued; the mourners redoubled their cries and threw
themselves upon the ground, the relatives decked the mummy with flowers
and pressed it to their bared bosoms, kissing it upon the breast and
knees. "I am thy sister, O great one! forsake me not! Is it indeed thy
will that I should leave thee? If I go away, thou shalt be here alone,
and is there any one who will be with thee to follow thee? O thou
who lovedst to jest with me, thou art now silent, thou speakest
not!" Whereupon the mourners again broke out in chorus: "Lamentation,
lamentation! Make, make, make, make lamentation without ceasing as loud
as can be made. O good traveller, who takest thy way towards the land of
Eternity, thou hast been torn from us! O thou who hadst so many around
thee, thou art now in the land which bringest isolation! Thou who
lovedst to stretch thy limbs in walking, art now fettered, bound,
swathed! Thou who hadst fine stuffs in abundance, art laid in the linen
of yesterday!" Calm in the midst of the tumult, the priest stood and
offered the incense and libation with the accustomed words: "To thy
double, Osiris Nofirhotpu, whose voice before the great god is true!"
This was the signal of departure, and the mummy, carried by two men,
disappeared within the tomb: the darkness of the other world had laid
hold of it, never to let it go again.

The chapel was usually divided into two chambers: one, which was of
greater width than length, ran parallel to the facade; the other, which
was longer than it was wide, stood at right angles with the former,
exactly opposite to the entrance. The decoration of these chambers
took its inspiration from the scheme which prevailed in the time of the
Memphite dynasties, but besides the usual scenes of agricultural labour,
hunting, and sacrifice, there were introduced episodes from the public
life of the deceased, and particularly the minute portrayal of the
ceremonies connected with his burial.

[Illustration: 021.jpg NICHE IN THE TOMB OF MENNA]

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