Part 13 (1/2)
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-Krna, on the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor. Every winter traveller to Egypt knows, well the ride from the sandy sh.o.r.e opposite the Luxor temple, along the narrow pathway between the gardens and the ca.n.a.l, across the bridges and over the cultivated land to the Ramesseum, behind which rises Shekh Abd el-Krna, 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 n.o.bles of the XVIIIth Dynasty, so that now nearly all the tombs extant on Shekh Abd el-Krna 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 ill.u.s.trated--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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 320.jpg STATUE OF MERA]
When the Herakleopolite dominion was finally overthrown, in spite of the valiant resistance of the princes of Asyt, and the Thebans a.s.sumed 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-Krna, 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 ma.s.s 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_.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 324.jpg XIth DYNASTY WALL: DeR EL-BAHARI.]
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 t.i.tles 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 a.s.sume 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 325.jpg XVIIIth DYNASTY WALL, DBR EL-BAHARI.]
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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 326.jpg EXCAVATION OF THE NORTH LOWER COLONNADE OF THE 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 327.jpg GRANITE THRESHOLD AND OCTAGONAL SANDSTONE 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 Hitt.i.te princess, and the Hitt.i.tes 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 328.jpg EXCAVATION OF THE TOMB OF A PRIESTESS,]
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 G.o.ddess 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 t.i.tle 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.