Part 15 (1/2)
In the time of Ramses II some of these Asia Minor tribes had marched against Egypt as allies of the Hitt.i.tes. We find among them the Luka or Lycians, the Dardenui (Dardanians, who may possibly have been at that time in the Troad, or elsewhere, for all these tribes were certainly migratory), and the Masa (perhaps the Mysians). With the Cretans of Ramses Ill's time must be reckoned the Pulesta, who are certainly the Philistines, then most probably in course of their traditional migration from Crete to Palestine. In Philistia recent excavations by Mr. Welch have disclosed the unmistakable presence of a late Mycenaean culture, and we can only ascribe this to the Philistines, who were of Cretan origin.
Thus we see that all these Northern tribal names hold together with remarkable persistence, and in fact refuse to be identified with any tribes but those of Asia Minor and the aegean. In them we see the broken remnants of the old Minoan (Keftian) power, driven hither and thither across the seas by intestinal feuds, and ”winding the skein of grievous wars till every man of them perished,” as Homer says of the heroes after the siege of Troy. These were in fact the wanderings of the heroes, the period of _Sturm und Drang_ which succeeded the great civilized epoch of Minos and his thala.s.socracy, of Knossos, Phaistos, and the Keftius.
On the walls of the temple of Medinet Hab, Ramses III depicted the portraits of the conquered heroes who had fallen before the Egyptian onslaught, and he called them heroes, _tuher_ in Egyptian, fully recognizing their Berserker gallantry. Above all in interest are the portraits of the Philistines, those Greeks who at this very time seized part of Palestine (which takes its name from them), and continued to exist there as a separate people (like the Normans in France) for at least two centuries. Goliath the giant was, then, a Greek; certainly he was of Cretan descent, and so a Pelasgian.
Such are the conclusions to which modern discovery in Crete has impelled us with regard to the pictures of the Keftiu at Shekh 'Abd el-Krna. It is indeed a new chapter in the history of the relations of ancient Egypt with the outside world that Dr. Arthur Evans has opened for us. And in this connection some American work must not be overlooked. An expedition sent out by the University of Pennsylvania, under Miss Harriet Boyd, has discovered much of importance to Mycenaean study in the ruins of an ancient town at Gournia in Crete, east of Knossos. Here, however, little has been found that will bear directly on the question of relations between Mycenaean Greece and Egypt.
The Theban necropoles of the New Empire are by no means exhausted by a description of the Tombs of the Kings and Shekh 'Abd el-Krna; but few new discoveries have been made anywhere except in the picturesque valley of the Tombs of the Queens, south of Shekh 'Abd el-Krna. Here the Italian Egyptologist, Prof. Schiaparelli, has lately discovered and excavated some very fine tombs of the XIXth and XXth Dynasties. The best is that of Queen Nefertari, one of the wives of Ramses II. The colouring of the reliefs upon these walls is extraordinarily bright, and the portraits of the queen, who has a very beautiful face, with aquiline nose, are wonderfully preserved. She was of the dark type, while another queen, t.i.ti by name, who was buried close by, was fair, and had a retrousse nose. Prof. Schiaparelli also discovered here the tombs of some princes of the XXth Dynasty, who died young. All the tombs are much alike, with a single short gallery, on the walls of which are mythological scenes, figures of the prince and of his father, the king, etc., painted in a crude style, which shows a great degeneration from that of the XVIIIth Dynasty tombs.
We now leave the great necropolis and turn to the later temples of the Western Bank at Thebes. These were of a funerary character, like those of Der el-Bahari, already described. The most imposing of all in some respects is the Ramesseum, where lies the huge granite colossus of Ramses II, prostrate and broken, which Diodorus knew as the statue of Osymandyas. This name is a late corruption of Ramses II's throne-name, User-maat-Ra, p.r.o.nounced simare. The temple has been cleared by Mr. Howard Carter for the Egyptian government, and the small town of priests' houses, magazines, and cellars, to the west of it, has been excavated by him. This is quite a little Pompeii, with its small streets, its houses with the stucco still clinging to the walls, its public altar, its market colonnade, and its gallery of statues. The statues are only of brick like the walls, and roughly shaped and plastered, but they were portraits, undoubtedly, of celebrities of the time, though we do not know of whom. On either side are the long magazines in which were kept the possessions of the priests of the Ramesseum, the grain from the lands with which they were endowed, and everything meet to be offered to the ghost of the king whom they served.
The plan of the place had evidently been altered after the time of Ramses II, as remains of overbuilding were found here and there. The magazines were first investigated in 1896 by Prof. Petrie, who also found in the neighbourhood the remains of a number of small royal funerary temples of the XVIIIth Dynasty, all looking in the direction of the hill, beyond which lay the tombs of the kings.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 372.jpg THE VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF THE QUEENS AT THEBES.]
In which Prof. Schiaparelli discovered the tomb of Ramses II's wife (1904).
We may now turn to Luxor, where immediately above the landing-place of the steamers and dahabiyas rise the stately coloured colonnades of the Temple of Luxor. Unfortunately, modern excavations have not been allowed to pursue their course to completion here, as in the first great colonnaded court, which was added by Ramses II to the original building of Amenhetep III, Tutankhamen, and h.o.r.emheb, there still remains the Mohammedan Mosque of Abu-'l-Haggag, which may not be removed.
Abu-'l-Haggag, ”the Father of Pilgrims” (so called on account of the number of pilgrims to his shrine), was a very holy shekh, and his memory is held in the greatest reverence by the Luksuris. It is unlucky that this mosque was built within the court of the Great Temple, and it cannot be removed till Moslem religious prejudices become at least partially ameliorated, and then the work of completely excavating the Temple of Luxor may be carried out.
Between Luxor and Karnak lay the temple of the G.o.ddess Mut, consort of Amen and protectress of Thebes. It stood in the part of the city known as Asheru. This building was cleared in 1895 at the expense and under the supervision of two English ladies, Miss Benson and Miss Gourlay.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 374.jpg THE NILE-BANK AT LUXOR]
With A Dahabiya And A Steamer Of The Anglo-American Nile Company.
The temple had always been remarkable on account of the prodigious number of seated figures of the lioness-headed G.o.ddess Sekhemet, or Pakhet, which it contains, dedicated by Amenhetep III and Sh.e.s.h.enk I; most of those in the British Museum were brought from this temple.
The excavators found many more of them, and also some very interesting portrait-statues of the late period which had been dedicated there.
The most important of these was the head and shoulders of a statue of Mentuemhat, governor of Thebes at the time of the sack of the city by Ashur-bani-pal of a.s.syria in 668 B.C. In Miss Benson's interesting book, _The Temple of Mut in Asher_, it is suggested, on the authority of Prof.
Petrie, that his facial type is Cypriote, but this speculation is a dangerous one, as is also the similar speculation that the wonderful portrait-head of an old man found by Miss Benson [* Plate vii of her book.] is of Philistine type. We have only to look at the faces of elderly Egyptians to-day to see that the types presented by Mentuemhat and Miss Benson's ”Philistine” need be nothing but pure Egyptian. The whole work of the clearing was most efficiently carried out, and the Cairo Museum obtained from it some valuable specimens of Egyptian sculpture.
The Great Temple of Karnak is one of the chief cares of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities. Its paramount importance, so to speak, as the cathedral temple of Egypt, renders its preservation and exploration a work of constant necessity, and its great extent makes this work one which is always going on and which probably will be going on for many years to come. The Temple of Karnak has cost the Egyptian government much money, yet not a piastre of this can be grudged. For several years past the works have been under the charge of M. Georges Legrain, the well-known engineer and draughtsman who was a.s.sociated with M. de Morgan in the work at Dashr. His task is to clear out the whole temple thoroughly, to discover in it what previous investigators have left undiscovered, and to restore to its original position what has fallen.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 376.jpg THE GREAT TEMPLE OP KAKNAK.]
The left-hand obelisk is the highest in Egypt, and was erected by Hatshepsu; the right-hand obelisk was put up by Thothmes III. No general work of restoration is contemplated, nor would this be in the slightest degree desirable. Up to the present M. Legrain has certainly carried out all three branches of his task with great success. An unforeseen event has, however, considerably complicated and r.e.t.a.r.ded the work.
In October, 1899, one of the columns of the side aisles of the great Hypostyle Hall fell, bringing down with it several others. The whole place was a chaotic ruin, and for a moment it seemed as though the whole of the Great Hall, one of the wonders of the world, would collapse.
The disaster was due to the gradual infiltration of water from the Nile beneath the structure, whose foundations, as is usual in Egypt, were of the flimsiest description. Even the most imposing Egyptian temples have jerry-built foundations; usually they are built on the top of the wall-stumps of earlier buildings of different plan, filled in with a confused ma.s.s of earlier slabs and weak rubbish of all kinds. Had the Egyptian buildings been built on sure foundations, they would have been preserved to a much greater extent even than they are. In such a climate as that of Egypt a stone building well built should last for ever.
M. Legrain has for the last five years been busy repairing the damage.
All the fallen columns are now restored to the perpendicular, and the capitals and architraves are in process of being hoisted into their original positions. The process by which M. Legrain carries out this work has been already described. He works in the old Egyptian fas.h.i.+on, building great inclines or ramps of earth up which the pillar-drums, the capitals, and the architrave-blocks are hauled by manual labour, and then swung into position. This is the way in which the Egyptians built Karnak, and in this way, too, M. Le-grain is rebuilding it. It is a slow process, but a sure one, and now it will not be long before we shall see the hall, except its roof, in much the same condition as it was when Seti built it. Lovers of the picturesque will, however, miss the famous leaning column, hanging poised across the hall, which has been a main feature in so many pictures and photographs of Karnak. This fell in the catastrophe of 1899, and naturally it has not been possible to restore it to its picturesque, but dangerous, position.
The work at Karnak has been distinguished during the last two years by two remarkable discoveries. Outside the main temple, to the north of the Hypostyle Hall, M. Legrain found a series of private sanctuaries or shrines, built of brick by personages of the XVIIIth Dynasty and later, in order to testify their devotion to Amen. In these small cells were found some remarkable statues, one of which is ill.u.s.trated. It is one of the most perfect of its kind. A great dignitary of the XVIIIth Dynasty is seen seated with his wife, their daughter standing between them.
Round his neck are four chains of golden rings, with which he had been decorated by the Pharaoh for his services. It is a remarkable group, interesting for its style and workmans.h.i.+p as well as for its subject. As an example of the formal hieratic type of portraiture it is very fine.
The other and more important discovery of the two was made by M. Legrain on the south side of the Hypo-style Hall.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 379.jpg THE GREAT TEMPLE OP KAKNAK.]
The left-hand obelisk is the highest in Egypt, and was erected by Hatshepsu; the right-hand obelisk was put up by Thothmes III.