Part 14 (1/2)
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 wors.h.i.+pped with Hathor, the Mistress of the Waste. The wors.h.i.+p 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 ill.u.s.trations, 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 334.jpg THE TWO TEMPLES OF DES EL-BAHARI.] Excavated by 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 a.s.sociated 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 ill.u.s.tration 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 346.jpg THE UPPER COURT AND TRILITHON 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 p.r.o.nouns 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 G.o.d 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 h.e.l.lenic.
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 _faence_ 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 G.o.ddess 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 fas.h.i.+on 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-Mulk_, ”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 ill.u.s.tration 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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 ill.u.s.tration.] 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.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: 350.jpg THE TOMB-MOUNTAIN OF AMENHETEF III, IN THE 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 princ.i.p.al 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sages of the tomb on the shoulders of the Italian electric light workmen, preceded and followed by impa.s.sive 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 h.o.r.em-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 h.o.r.emheb 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, h.o.r.emheb 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 Dashr. 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.