History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12)

Volume Ii., Part a.

LONDON

THE GROLIER SOCIETY

PUBLISHERS

THE POLITICAL CONSTITUTION OF EGYPT

THE KING, QUEEN, AND ROYAL PRINCES--PHARAONIC ADMINISTRATION

FEUDALISM AND THE EGYPTIAN PRIESTHOOD, THE MILITARY--THE CITIZENS AND THE COUNTRY-PEOPLE.

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

The king and the royal family--Double nature and titles of the sovereign: his Horus-names, and the progressive formation of the Pharaonic Protocol--Royal etiquette an actual divine worship; the insignia and prophetic statues of Pharaoh, Pharaoh the mediator between the gods and his subjects--Pharaoh in family life; his amusements, his occupations, his cares--His harem: the women, the queen, her origin, her duties to the king--His children: their position in the State; rivalry among them during the old age and at the death of their father; succession to the throne, consequent revolutions.

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

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

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

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

Chapter I--the Political Constitution of Egypt

The king, the queen, and the royal princes--Administration under the Pharaohs--Feudalism and the Egyptian priesthood, the military--The citizens and country people.

Between the Fayûm and the apex of the Delta, the Lybian range expands and forms a vast and slightly undulating table-land, which runs parallel to the Nile for nearly thirty leagues. The Great Sphinx Harmakhis has mounted guard over its northern extremity ever since the time of the Followers of Horus.

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

Hewn out of the solid rock at the extreme margin of the mountain-plateau, he seems to raise his head in order that he may be the first to behold across the valley the rising of his father the Sun. Only the general outline of the lion can now be traced in his weather-worn body. The lower portion of the head-dress has fallen, so that the neck appears too slender to support the weight of the head. The cannon-shot of the fanatical Mamelukes has injured both the nose and beard, and the red colouring which gave animation to his features has now almost entirely disappeared. But in spite of this, even in its decay, it still bears a commanding expression of strength and dignity. The eyes look into the far-off distance with an intensity of deep thought, the lips still smile, the whole face is pervaded with calmness and power. The art that could conceive and hew this gigantic statue out of the mountain-side, was an art in its maturity, master of itself and sure of its effects. How many centuries were needed to bring it to this degree of development and perfection!

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

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

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

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

From a distance these chapels have the appearance of truncated pyramids, varying in size according to the fortune or taste of the owner; there are some which measure 30 to 40 ft. in height, with a façade 160 ft. long, and a depth from back to front of some 80 ft., while others attain only a height of some 10 ft. upon a base of 16 ft. square.*

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

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

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

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

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

The doors face east, sometimes north or south, but never west. One of these is but the semblance of a door, a high narrow niche, contrived so as to face east, and decorated with grooves framing a carefully walled-up entrance; this was for the use of the dead, and it was believed that the ghost entered or left it at will. The door for the use of the living, sometimes preceded by a portico, was almost always characterized by great simplicity. Over it is a cylindrical tympanum, or a smooth flagstone, bearing sometimes merely the name of the dead person, sometimes his titles and descent, sometimes a prayer for his welfare, and an enumeration of the days during which he was entitled to receive the worship due to ancestors. They invoked on his behalf, and almost always precisely in the same words, the "Great God," the Osiris of Mendes, or else Anubis, dwelling in the Divine Palace, that burial might be granted to him in Amentît, the land of the West, the very great and very good, to him the vassal of the Great God; that he might walk in the ways in which it is good to walk, he the vassal of the Great God; that he might have offerings of bread, cakes, and drink, at the New Year's Feast, at the feast of Thot, on the first day of the year, on the feast of Ûagaît, at the great fire festival, at the procession of the god Mînû, at the feast of offerings, at the monthly and half-monthly festivals, and every day.

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