History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12)

Volume Vi.

LONDON

THE GROLIER SOCIETY

PUBLISHERS

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--Khonsû 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.: Hamsesnaklûti, Amenôthes; the violation of the royal burying-places--Hrihor and the last of the Ramses, Smendês 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.

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, Khafîtnîbûs, 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 mausolæ of Ramses I. and Seti I., and at Sheikh Abd el-Qurneh they lay near the Amenopheum and the Pamonkaniqîmît, 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 Azamît, at Medinet-Habu; the chapel of Isis, constructed by Amenôthes, son of Hapû, 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 Deîr el-Medineh: the founder of the temple was none other than Amenôthes, who was minister under Amenôthes III.

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

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 hliatmû, 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 Deîr el-Baharî, 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.

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.

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.

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.

Continue reading History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) free in the Wunder reader →