year by year the patient research of the archeologist unearths new discoveries, confirming or contradicting those already made, and translating, as it were, into actual fact much that had previously been considered legendary. and still, year by year, till the whole history is laid bare, the process is likely to continue. comparatively late discoveries at abydos have converted the mythical kings of the first dynasty into real human beings, living and dying thousands of years ago. their burial places have been found, and menes, aha-mena, is no longer a suppositious, but a real character. weapons, furniture, vases, drinking vessels, jewelry, etc., with the names of various kings upon them, have been dug up and may now be seen at abydos, in the university museum in london, in that of the university of pennsylvania, and in other places.
among these we come upon the first memorial of a queen. from out of the darkness of the centuries stretches forth a woman’s arm laden with bracelets, and tells of the common humanity which unites us. it is thus described: “the most important piece of gold work discovered consists of the bracelets of the queen of zer.[27] the queen’s arm had been broken off long ago, when the tomb was originally plundered, and hidden in a hole in the wall. there it had been overlooked alike by the builders of the osiris shrine, by the coptic destroyers, and by the arabs employed by the french mission, until it was discovered by professor petrie’s workmen, with the four bracelets in their original order. each is made in a different and somewhat elaborate design, partly in gold and partly in beads of amethyst, turquoise or lazuli.” these “finds” also include the tomb of a young girl, “bener-ab” (sweet of heart), whom some fancied to be the daughter of ment, which contained an ivory figure dressed in flowing robes. and still another “find” includes some plaited locks and a fringe of curly false hair.
the early egyptian comes upon the historic stage very much decorated as to head, very decollete as to garments. no indian with war paint and feathers was more elaborately gotten up. so that his peruke hung in curled or braided locks about him, or, if of royal blood, he wore his crown or double crown, all else seemed of minor importance. we can imagine him lightly attired, treading the streets of modern london and straying into the law courts, where he would encounter judges and barristers in their wigs of office. doubtless he would bow and touch his head significantly, intimating that a common bond of taste united them.
so important were these coiffures that one of the earliest offices of which we find record is that of “superintendent of wigs and head-dresses,”[28] and among the treasures of various museums are specimens of these belongings of royalty.
reproduced in almost every book on egypt are those most ancient portrait statues of general ra-hotep and his wife, the princess nefert. one authority assigns them to the third dynasty, and already the wig was in full flow. the gentleman wears a comparatively modest head covering, but the lady’s was of portentous size and thickness, falling in curls on either side of her face, with its artless, unaffected expression. doubtless the fashionable world of that day thought the wig gave “a presence”—as an english dame said of caps—to the wearer. general ra-hotep had married a lady of rank, of royal blood, his superior in that respect, but both were deemed important enough to have their massive statues cut, sitting in the usual ceremonial attitude, bolt upright, the knees and feet closely pressed together. “a statue of dignity culminating in a bust of beneficence.”
the egyptian ideal was a studied dignity of posture. the greeks, aiming at the grace and beauty of nature, sculptured their figures in the various attitudes of the human form, as also, in a degree, did the romans. while we see on coins and in old manuscripts the saxon and early norman kings with knees and feet wide apart, and this also is the ceremonial chinese attitude.
but even with a formal prescribed position of the figure the early egyptian faces were evidently true to nature to an extent not the case in later times. there is an individuality about them which makes us feel that we see a truthful[29] personification. in the old empire the realistic school is found side by side with conventional art. in the fourth dynasty especially we see conventional figures and portrait heads, while in the fifth all is more natural. to this last belongs the fine limestone statue of a scribe now in the louvre. a slender but powerful figure, square in the shoulders, with slight legs and long, flat feet, seated in an oriental manner and writing on a parchment unrolled on his knee. the flesh tints a pale red, a false beard, bronze for the brows, eyes enamelled alabaster and crystal, and a nail for the pupil.
another portrait statue of great celebrity is that of the “wooden man” reproduced in a plaster cast in almost every museum. it is half life-size, probably the foreman of a gang of laborers, is called “ra emka,” and was found at the sakkarah pyramid. its age has been said to be six thousand years. it had originally eyes of opaque white quartz, pupils of rock crystal, bronze eyelids, and arms made separately, with a staff of office in one hand, and was once covered with linen, plastered and painted. the arabs called it “sheikel belel, or belud,” “village chief.” a mutilated statue of his wife was found beside him, only the head and trunk being entire. the face was of the common egyptian type, with rather a peevish expression, in contrast to the husband’s more urbane and amiable look. statues of a certain sepi and his wife, attributed to the third dynasty, are also in the louvre.
the outline of the physiognomy of general ra-hotep and ra-emka are not unlike in type.[30] the princess nefert has buff flesh tints, her husband’s are somewhat darker, and both have the crystal eyes which impart such a lifelike appearance. a dignified and portly pair, who gaze steadily out above the head of the sight-seer in the gizeh museum. this collection, first gathered at boulak and later removed to gizeh, is the youngest but the richest in portrait statues of private individuals. most are in what is called the hieratic attitude, with the left arm close to the body, the left hand holding a roll of papyrus, the right leg advanced, the right hand raised, as if grasping a staff, or perhaps, as at the resurrection, holding the book of the dead. with menes the first distinct record of dynasties begins, so far as yet discovered, and mooted points remain for the student as to which reigned simultaneously and which in succession. the first two dynasties were thinites, from tini, greek this, near abydos, in upper egypt, seat of the worship of osiris, where their tombs and various remains, as above referred to, have been found. one of the most ancient is a fragment of jewelry bearing the name of mena, who is said to have founded memphis, to have turned aside the course of the river to build his city, to have reigned sixty-two years, and, finally, to have been killed by a hippopotamus or crocodile. zer, or teta, understood medicine and wrote astronomical books; of others it is said that one wrote the sacred books, another introduced animal worship, and another was a giant. of this first dynasty there seem to have been some seven or eight kings.
[31]
as early as the second dynasty, under binothris, a law was passed admitting women to sovereignty, and thereafter, from time to time, as guardian, regent, or independent ruler, a woman held sway. as goddesses above, so the woman below had her share of authority. the queen by incantations protected the king when in his priestly robe he offered sacrifices, played the sistrum (a sort of religious instrument) to drive away evil spirits, offered libations, poured perfumes and cast flowers. she walked behind the king in processions, gave audiences with him and governed for him, as the goddess isis for osiris, in his absence. the worship of the bull apis, destined to so wide a popularity, was also introduced in this dynasty.
no extended or separate account of the queens, with one or two exceptions, can be found in the writers on egypt, but here and there we come across the mention of certain names and brief stories or conflicting statements in regard to them. several are spoken of by maspero in his account of these earliest times. but to mertytefs or mertitifsi chiefly clings any sort of history which can vitalize her for us. we read of mirisonku, daughter of kheops and sister and wife of khephren, of mirtitifsi, of khuit, of miriri-ankh-nas, and of meri-s-ankh, of the sixth dynasty, worshipper of the gods. another writer gives meri-s-ankh as the queen of sneferu or khafra, and hentsen as kufu’s daughter, says that hatshepset made scarabs of menkaura, and mentions a statue of ra-en-usa, of the fifth dynasty. a stele in gizeh, found at[32] abydos and of the fifth dynasty, represents the royal spouse pepi-ankhnes and the “chef” aou seated on each side of a table of offerings. the city of this gave its name to the yet earliest known kings, but memphis, “the haven of the good,” was the great metropolis in the time of mertitefs.
queen mertitefs is said to have been first the wife of king seneferu, “the betterer,” whose mother is given by one authority as queen hapunimait. mertytefs was, some say, of the third, some of the fourth dynasty. in a limestone group in the leyden museum (among the oldest portrait statues in the world) sit the queen, the mysterious ka, which may be briefly described as the embodied spirit, and her secretary, a priest named kenun. without a secretary or scribe no royal personage’s list of attendants was complete. it was hardly the private correspondence which occupied their time, as in later days, though the habit of letter writing then existed, but so many items had to be noted down. the queen and her ka sit side by side, with black hair and buff flesh tints just alike.
seneferu, founder of the fourth dynasty, is the first king of whom we have contemporary monuments, and the fourth is sometimes called the “pyramid dynasty.” during this reign the kingdom was prosperous, the arts flourished, and foreign conquests were made. the king left a good name, and was worshipped till the ptolemaic period.
diodorus stated that in the marriage contracts[33] the wife was to control her husband. be that as it may, she was doubtless, as in modern times, the ruler of the household. mertytefs was young, some say fourteen, and probably beautiful, when she married seneferu, whom she survived, and, possessing the usual charm of widows, she again married the cheops of herodotus, the khufu of manetho, of whom a small ivory has been recently found by professor petrie at abydos, the builder of the great pyramid. marriette assigns the date 4234 b. c., and brugsch 3733 b. c. to this period, while petrie gives from the time of the first dynasty to the sixth 4777 b. c. to 3503 b. c. some writers interpolate a certain ratatef, sometimes said to be the son, sometimes the brother of khufu.
the building of a pyramid as his sepulchre was one of the chief occupations, might almost say the amusements or pleasures, of a king, as the building of a house in modern times affords constant study and entertainment to the constructor, and day after day he goes to watch its progress. the thought of death had no terror for the egyptians—to the king it was simply a new world, peopled with gods and goddesses, among whom he would take an honored place. his pyramid was the book, the autobiography, often an illustrated one, that he published, filled with accounts of his deeds and prowess and certain to give him name and fame with posterity. the word pyramid is said to mean “king’s grave,” and thus reveals its purpose.
so, slowly, under the eyes of queen mertytefs rose these gigantic and marvellous structures.[34] what matter, if the object were accomplished, that hundreds of lives were sacrificed in the ceaseless and laborious toil under a tropic sun. herodotus says it took one hundred thousand, pliny three hundred thousand, men twenty years in the building. we can imagine the queen from time to time going in state to view the progress of the work and helping it on with her suggestions. some traditions tell that khufu was specially tyrannical and cruel, and even stopped praying to the gods to press on his great enterprise. the rock testimony styles him brave and a conqueror.
“egypt is the monumental land of the earth, as the egyptians are the monumental people,” says bunsen. the history of egypt goes, as it were, against the stream; the earliest monuments are between cairo and siout, in lower egypt, the latest temples in nubia, upper egypt.
the pyramids, whose entrances pointed to the north star, and which were perhaps two thousand years old when abraham was born, looked from a distance like isolated mountain peaks or faint blue triangles outlined against the sky, and the clear air made them seem nearer than they were. they occupied the whole horizon as one advanced beyond the plain of tombs. “anear,” says miss edwards, “a mighty shadow, sharp and distinct, divided the sunlight where it fell, as its great original divided the sunlight in the upper air and darkened the space it covered like an eclipse—registering sixty centuries of history.” in the early times the three large pyramids were probably almost central in the embrace[35] of the city, which stretched away westward from the nile in “a succession of gardens, squares, palaces and monuments, girdling the lake with beautiful villages and climbing, with its terraces, grottoes, shrines and marble pavilions, the very sides of the cliffs two leagues from the nile. from the top of the great pyramid of cheops to-day one views the broad domes and the minarets of cairo, the hills beyond and a palm grove on the site of ancient memphis,” says bayard taylor. “over the rich palm trees the blue streak of the river and the plain beyond you see the phantoms of two pyramids in the haze which still curtains the libyan desert. northward, beyond the parks and palaces of shoba, the nile stretches his two great arms towards the sea, dotted far into the distance with sails that flash in the sun.” many other pyramids are in sight, while higher than st. peter’s, rome, st. paul’s, london, or the capitol at washington, the greatest of them, this enormous structure of past ages still dominates the plain. a modern poet has said of them:
“amid the deserts of a mystic land,
like sibyls waiting for a doom far-seen,
apart in awful solitude they stand,
with thoughts unending caravan between.”
even then it was probably a magnificent city in which queen mertytefs dwelt. colossal gateways, with the disk and extended wings above, pillars on which lights burned at night, avenues of sphinxes, palaces along the river bank, columns[36] with carved capitals, with the lotus in bud and bloom, as well as other plants, and gorgeously painted shafts, temples of red sandstone, with forests of pillars, lakes surrounded with trees and flowering shrubs, oranges, scarlet pomegranates, olives, figs, vines, and everywhere crowds of freemen and troops of slaves.
the sphinx, previously sculptured, doubtless underwent some work of restoration at this time, and is said by certain authorities to bear the features of chephren aggrandized, by others that it was in the image of the god harmachis. the arabs named it “abuthol, father of terrors.” its present state called forth from an illiterate voyager of modern times the caustic remark, “they keep it in shocking repair!” maspero believed the sphinx belonged to the period of the horshesu, “followers of horus,” chiefs of the clans gathered into one kingdom under menes.
the book of the dead, which laid down rules, as we may say, both for the dead and the living, belonged to the fourth dynasty, and the fragments of it which have descended to us are the source of much of our information about this ancient land and people.
besides the serious business of pyramid building, the kings and queens had their amusements of other sorts. the harp and flute were known in the fourth dynasty, and music, singing and dancing no doubt date from the garden of eden. dwarfs were favorite pets, and a story is told of a frolic of king seneferu’s, who, for diversion, kept a boat manned with girls whose airy costumes[37] consisted of network. perchance he may not have been so sober-minded a person as his successor in the queen’s affections. khufu built the great pyramid, and perhaps rebuilt the temple of isis near the sphinx, also a temple at denderah, added to or restored later, first by thothmes iv and afterwards by some of the ptolemies.
mertytefs or khufu’s sons and daughters are spoken of by rawlinson, and a daughter, hents or hentsen, was buried under a small pyramid near her father. there is a tradition that he sold his daughter for money to carry on the building of his pyramid, while she, sharing in the profits, built one for herself. the king consecrated gold and copper statues to isis in honor of his daughter. other stories tell of treasures buried in the pyramids which were appropriated by the sovereigns of other centuries.
tutors, or “nurses,” as they were called, were appointed for the royal children, and possibly the queen’s secretary, kenun, may have held this position. record is made of a certain shap-siska-fankhu, who was governor of the “house of the royal children,” in the fifth dynasty. shafra or khafra was thought to be son-in-law to khufu and his wife; meri-ankh-s, or meri-s-ankh, whose tomb is at sakkarah, was a priestess of the god thoth. she was high in confidence and favor, and bore at least two sons. her husband, or another son of khufu, was high priest at heliopolis.
mertytefs was evidently a lady of great vigor, capacity and attraction, for two reigns did not[38] exhaust her powers, and under the succeeding king, kafra or chafra, probably son-in-law or nephew, and builder of the second pyramid of gizeh, she still in a measure held sway. the name signified “beloved of her father,” but she was evidently beloved of fortune also, for her sun sinks in splendor as the “administrator of the great hall of the palace,” where she had probably innumerable slaves to oversee and do her bidding, “mistress of the royal wardrobe” and “superintendent of the chamber of wigs and head-dresses”—three important offices. yet are women of forty on the nile said to be as old as those of sixty in europe. not this lady surely, else were her brilliant career briefly run. to account for this singular history one commentator allows her a hundred and six years, another a hundred and thirty. a lady’s age is always a mystery. perhaps she never told it, but “let concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on her damask cheek,” and after these lapses of centuries it may be we shall never be set right on this point.
the statue of king chefren, with his novel head-dress, serene expression, and paucity of underwear, is familiar, but the upper class figures were always more conventional, the lower more realistic. a new king meant usually a new city, a new palace, and a new tomb, and architecture flourished in these distant periods.
the duties of the queen dowager were doubtless arduous. “administrator of the great hall” probably included the direction and control of a large retinue of servants and the preparations[39] for feast and audiences. “mistress of the royal wardrobe” was perhaps a less onerous position, owing to the brevity of the then fashionable costume. at some periods men wore but two garments, women but one—a sort of narrow chemise of fine linen, through which the limbs could be plainly seen, with or without a strap over the shoulders. another costume was a light skirt with long shoulder straps and bound by a girdle, the ends falling in front. over this usually a full skirt of fine linen, with sleeves below the elbows and broad skirt falling to the ground.
both men and women adorned themselves with necklaces and bracelets, and used stibium to darken under the eyelids—while the nails, hands and feet were stained with henna, which gave them an orange tint. occasionally, also, an added decoration was a line drawn from the corner of the eye to the temple. in the earliest times foot covering was seldom worn indoors.
but to be “superintendent of the chamber of wigs and head-dresses” could have been no sinecure. wigs! wigs! wigs! we can imagine them in the room devoted to them, on shelves, in boxes, and on stands. upon this department of his wardrobe the egyptian spent much time and care. with head closely shaven, and frequently the chin also divested of all natural endowment, he had unlimited opportunity to add what he considered improvement of an artificial character. he wore a manufactured beard, caps of a striped material, and wigs made both of human hair and sheep’s wool. the wigs consisted of rows of little curls beginning at different[40] points and cut round and square. the shorter covered the head or neck, and the longer lay on the shoulders; a wig in the berlin museum shows both short curls and long. in other instances braids and plaits were preferred to curls. the peculiarity of the egyptian head was a prominent back, and this doubtless had to be considered in the shape of the wig selected. the pages who served the king and queen in their private apartments often wore a crown of natural flowers.
the women appear usually to have worn the wigs over their own hair, which sometimes escaped below. it also hung down in two tresses on the breast, and the young princes wore a side lock before the ear, as did the youthful god horus. so much pride did females take in their hair that an especially fine lock was sometimes cut off and buried with them.
it was all deemed an important subject. a certain shapsesre of later time, superintendent at court, a wig-maker by profession, had four statues of himself made for his tomb, each with a different style of wig!
the king wore a sort of handkerchief, a cap, or a helmet. the white crown of upper egypt was a curious, high, white, conical cap; that of lower egypt was red, had a high, narrow back and a metal ornament bent obliquely forward. they were, after a time, worn together. the upreared uraeus or asp was the sign of royalty. the goddess ra-nu was represented with the asp which was worn by the queen, with the addition of the vulture with drooping or outspread[41] wings, the winged sum disk and other costly head-dresses.
a great stele found at the pyramid of gizeh is dedicated to the memory of a princess who, after being a great favorite in the court of seneferu and khufu, was subsequently attached to the private house of kafra, and her history seems to run strangely parallel with that of the queen—if she herself be not intended.
four or five thousand years before christ are the dates assigned to this period. we must grope and work somewhat at random in the reconstruction of our mosaic. yet does queen mertytefs stand out with a certain lifelikeness. imagination plays around her active figure, and she looks out at us from the shadows, not with languorous, soft glances and gentle movements, but with vivacity and power in her black eyes and an attractive and capable face. none but a woman of power and capacity, we may be sure, could have been “administrator of the great hall.”