Part 10

If, however, they are portraits of a man, the circumstances of their discovery compel us to declare that he must be the king Khouniatonou; but how are we to be convinced of this when we remember the grotesque silhouette that the sculptors of El-Amarna have given him? To believe them, he would have been physically a sort of degenerate, tall, weakly, with hips and chest like a woman’s, a neck without consistency, an absurd head, a flat, almost non-existent forehead, an enormous nose, an ugly mouth, a massive chin.[62] He seems to have liked these caricatures, and his friends, imitating him from a desire to flatter him, altered more or less the shape of their own bodies in order that they might resemble that of his. Documents of different origins prove, however, that he was not, or had not always been, the queer figure that is attributed to him. The Louvre alone possesses two such witnesses. The first, which came to the Museum in its early days, is a charming statuette in yellow soapstone. The king is seated, but he has lost the bottom of the legs, which a modern restorer has skilfully replaced. He wears the _coufeh_ with hanging ends, the bust is bare; in his right hand he holds the hooked staff and the sacred whip emblems of royalty; the left hand is indolently stretched over the thigh. The body is young, the muscling supple and thick, and although he sinks down a little, he has not the squat attitude we know so well. The face and neck are somewhat slender, and contain the characteristics that, exaggerated later, lent themselves almost naturally to caricature. It is, in fact, the effigy of the young king sculptured at Thebes at the time when he was only Amenôphis IV, but when he demanded that he should be represented as he was, or as he saw himself, without reference to the conventional type of the Pharaoh. In the second piece, a statue of which only the head and shoulders remain, he is some years older. He is armed for war, and his neck, too slender, has bent under the weight of the helmet, as if thenceforth incapable of supporting it. It is the profile of the bas-reliefs of El-Amarna with the rounded spine and the particular curve that projects the head forward; the forehead, nose and mouth only differ from those of the statuette in that they are thinner. A plaster mask in the Cairo Museum which Petrie considers to have been moulded on the corpse immediately after the sovereign’s death, but which is undoubtedly a studio model, testifies to a condition of physiological degeneracy that did not before exist. It presents the emaciated features of the bas-reliefs and their bony texture, it is true, but without their extreme exaggerations. When it was question of a statue, the sculptor forbade himself the liberties that his colleagues, commissioned to decorate the tombs, allowed themselves with the master: he represented him just as he was at the moment, and the physiognomy was sufficiently original for him to be certain of always deriving from it a work that would force the attention of the spectators.

And now let us compare each of these pieces with our Canopic heads. The profile of Khouniatonou helmeted is not as strong as theirs, due perhaps to the contusions undergone by the surface of the stone during a long sojourn in a damp soil where saltpetre was abundant, but each of the elements may be superposed and adjusted, forehead, nose, eyes, mouth, chin, in an absolutely satisfying manner: it merely seems that the artist of the Canopic heads saw his model in better health than that of the statue. The resemblance, although less complete, with the statuette of yellow soapstone is still apparent. No unprejudiced observer with the series in front of him can come to any other conclusion than that we have in it portraits of one and the same man. Leaving out the slight differences due to the chisel, there is no more deviation between the group of statues and the best of our heads than there is between that and the three found with it. There is divergence in one point only: in the two statues the head bends and leans forward more or less; in the Canopic jars it is erect without weakness. A moment’s reflection will show that it could not be otherwise. However greatly we are moved by the beauty of the work, we must not forget that our four heads belong, not to art pure and simple, but to industrial art, and that their purpose imposed special rules on the master who chiselled them. They were prosaic lids for the receptacles in which the entrails of the Pharaoh were placed, and it was necessary that the median axis of the vase properly so-called should coincide exactly with that of the lid. There was a question of equilibrium to be managed between the two constituent elements of the Canopic jar; the sculptor must straighten the neck of his model, and consequently correct the impression of lassitude given by the statues, by an appearance of vigour. If we examine the portraits of Khouniatonou and his successors in company of a physician, certain anatomical details that at the first glance we did not trouble about--the depression of the temples, the obliquity of the eyes, the contraction of the sides of the nostrils, the pinching of the mouth, the attenuation of the neck--assume an etiological value that the archæologist was far from suspecting. Dr. Baÿ, studying the faces of Khouniatonou, Touatânkhamânou, and Harmhâbi with me, diagnosed symptoms of consumption more or less advanced. If Khouniatonou died of the disease when thirty years old, we need not be greatly surprised.

I do not insist upon this kind of research, in which I am not competent, and I leave it to the reader to decide if I have or have not proved the identity of the person represented by our four heads to be that of Khouniatonou, the heresiarch. One of them at least is a masterpiece, and the others possess qualities that assure them a high place in the estimation of connoisseurs, but to which of the great Egyptian schools ought we to attribute them? We may hesitate between two: the Theban, to which most of the artists who filled the royal laboratories then belonged, and the Hermopolitan, in the province of which was El-Amarna, the favourite residence of the sovereign. It was certainly the latter school that worked at the hypogeums and sculptured the pictures. We find in them its defects: harsh, rough composition, a tendency to caricature the human form and to multiply comic episodes; but also its good qualities: suppleness, movement, life, freedom of execution. The few figures in alto-relievo that have escaped destruction, those, for instance, that accompany two of the large front stelæ, are of the same style as the bas-reliefs, but we do not find in them any of the characteristics that we have noted as proper to the monuments of the Louvre or to our Canopic jars. Just as the others show an unfinished, worn aspect, these are carefully finished in the least details: it is the perfect chiselling and high polish of the Theban masters and their strong, dignified way of posing the figure and expressing the physiognomy of the model. Whoever has seen the statues of Thoutmôsis III, Amenôthes II, the so-called Taîa, and Touatânkhamânou in the Cairo Museum will not doubt for a moment that our four heads are from the hands of persons belonging to the same school: they belong to the Theban school, and more particularly, I think, to that portion of the Theban school which, a few years later, decorated the temple of Gournah, the Memnonium of Abydos, and the hypogeum of Setouî I.

XIV

A HEAD OF THE PHARAOH HARMHABI

(_Boulaq Museum_)

The whole is composed of about ten pieces, collected in 1860 in one of the halls of the temple of Karnak, and put together with plaster, for good or ill, by one of the workmen belonging to the Museum. The cementing was not always done with rigorous accuracy, and one of the largest fragments, that which forms the centre of the head-dress, is slightly out of the perpendicular. Last year I tried to remedy the awkwardness of the restorer, but without success; if an attempt was made to separate the badly joined pieces, there would be a risk of reducing them to powder. But the irregularities in the joining are sufficiently slight not to injure the general aspect. In its present condition it is just the mutilated bust of a king with the uræus and the double crown on the brow; the broken object that leans against the left side is the end of a staff of office, terminated with a ram’s head, the emblem of Khnoum or Theban Amon. If we would form some idea of what the body was like, it is sufficient to look at any of the statues with the insignia that adorn the museums, that of Ramses II at Boulaq[63] or of Setouî I in the Louvre.[64] The king was standing, with his back against a sort of pillar covered with inscriptions, and holding the staff in his hand: as he looked in certain religious ceremonies when he escorted the ark of Amon-Râ through the halls and court-yards of the temple. What remain of the hieroglyphic legends do not give any name. Mariette was tempted to recognize it as Menephtah, son of Ramses II,[65] but he has not anywhere explained the motives that led him to that identification. The lugubrious tone of the black granite spoils the first impression, but an examination, even if only a superficial one, soon reveals the subtlety of the work. The head, under the enormous pschent, is full of charm and delicacy. The face is young, with an expression of gentle melancholy rare among the Pharaohs of the great Theban period. The nose is straight, thin, and well attached to the forehead; the long eye turns up at the temples. The wide, full lips, somewhat tightened at the corners as if for smiling, are boldly cut with sharply defined edges. The chin is scarcely rendered heavy by the weight of the artificial beard. Every detail is treated with as much skill as if the sculptor had been manipulating a soft stone like limestone, and not one of the materials that offer all the obstacles possible to the chisel. The sureness of the execution is carried so far that the spectator forgets the difficulty of the work in order to think solely of its intrinsic value. It is a pity that Egyptian artists did not sign their works: the name of the master to whom we owe this deserves to have come down to us.

It remains to see who was the king whose portrait he has transmitted to us. When a Pharaoh ascended the throne, the sculptors of the city where he then was, Memphis, Thebes, Tanis, or another, hastened to make a certain number of copies of his portrait, full face or in profile; these were immediately sent into the provinces, in order that his face might be everywhere substituted for that of the former sovereign on the buildings in course of erection. Thus in the Boulaq Museum we have several series of royal heads, some discovered at Tanis,[66] some in the Fayoum,[67] others at Memphis,[68] which show what was the procedure in such a case. The type, once carefully fixed, did not change during the whole of the reign. Ramses II, who was nearly a hundred years old when he died, after reigning for sixty-seven years, kept the features of a young man even to his latest monuments. The rule contains numerous exceptions, especially when it is a question of statues commissioned in one of the capitals of the country, and executed by artists who could see their subject at close quarters and register the changes time produced in his face. Of the two Chephrên exhibited at Boulaq, one is young and smiling,[69] the other old and saddened by age.[70] But if there are examples of sovereigns who, ascending the throne early, were sometimes represented as they were at different periods of their life, I know of none who were rejuvenated by the sculptors when they reached the throne at a late age. The head of the statue with which we are here concerned is that of a young man, almost a youth, and that is sufficient for me to rule out Menephtah. Menephtah was fifty at least when he succeeded his father,[71] and his portrait, as it is to be seen at Karnak, does not in any way resemble the personage whose image is preserved in the Boulaq statue. The other princes of the XIXth and XXth Dynasties, Setouî II, Siphtah Menephtah, Amenmeses, Setinakht, of whom we have only a few poor portraits, have no more claim to be commended than their great predecessors Setouî I or Ramses II: the disturbed times in which they lived scarcely admitted of works of careful composition. Like Menephtah, Ramses I was too old at his accession, and besides, we have his portrait at Gournah. And, moreover, the style of the piece recalls at first sight that of the Turin statues belonging to the XVIIIth Dynasty, and then we must eliminate _a priori_ a certain number of statues of which we possess the exact description. Neither Ahmôsis I, nor the Thouthmôsis, nor the Amenhotpou have anything in common with our personage; and for even a stronger reason we cannot recognize in him the characteristic physiognomy of Khounaton and Aî. Proceeding from one exclusion to another, we come to restrict the choice to three princes, Touatânkhâmonou, Sânakht, and Harmhabi. Sânakht had only an ephemeral reign; Touatânkhâmonou has only left us insignificant monuments; Harmhabi, on the contrary, appears to have been one of the most important sovereigns of his time. A young man at the accession, he restored the temples of Amon despoiled by his heretic predecessors, and re-established the Egyptian power that had been weakened for a moment in Syria and Ethiopia. Last year and this year I cleared away the rubbish from two of the pylons he had built and decorated at Karnak; his portrait was sculptured on them numerous times, and the outlines are sufficiently well preserved for us to see in the king of the bas-reliefs the original of the Boulaq bust. I attribute the statue of which Mariette found the remains to Harmhabi, the Armaïs of the Greeks.

In conclusion, I may observe that the fragments, when carefully examined, show no trace of having been broken by a hammer; the statue was not destroyed by the hand of man, the case with a certain number of the monuments at Karnak. The great earthquake of the year 27 B.C., which put the temple of Amon almost into the condition in which we see it, brought down the ceilings of the halls; all the objects underneath were injured by the blocks or architraves then violently thrown to the ground and crushed under the weight of the ruins. Our Harmhabi did not escape the common lot: it needed Mariette’s great patience to restore the little we possess of him.

XV

THE COLOSSUS OF RAMSES II AT BEDRECHEÎN[72]

Ramses II, Sesostris, having restored the portions of the great temple of Phtah at Memphis, which bordered the sacred lake on the west and south, had colossi erected in front of the doors, destined to perpetuate his memory and his features for all “who should come after him on the earth, priests, magicians, scribes,” and who should recite a prayer to the gods on his behalf. The sacristans appointed as guides to the profane, and the dragomans who act as showmen of the wonders of Egypt, never fail to draw the tourist’s attention to these statues; it gives them an opportunity to relate some amusing story like those collected by Herodotus and transmitted to us by him as authentic history. One day Darius I wished to consecrate his image in the neighbourhood, but the high priest opposed his purpose: “Sesostris,” he said, “has conquered all the nations that obey you, and the Scythians to boot, on whom you never succeeded in inflicting much harm. There is then no reason why your monument should be placed by the side of that of a Pharaoh whom you have neither surpassed nor equalled!” When Memphis fell and became Christian, the fame of the colossi died away. When it perished and its temple of Phtah was dismantled stone by stone to serve for the building of Cairo, they were thrown down, and for the most part cut up into grindstones, whence they passed into the lime-kiln. One of them, however, thrown from its pedestal and lying face downwards on the ground, was covered with rubbish, and preserved from destruction by that happy chance. Brought to light by Caviglia at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it had the good luck to please travellers, and owed it to them to have escaped the mania for destruction that possesses the fellahs.

All Europeans in turn who have visited Egypt have admired it. It lies along the side of the path under the palm-trees of Bedrecheîn at the bottom of a muddy ditch. At the period of the inundation, water fills it and covers the statue for some weeks; then it gradually reappears, the shoulder and the leg first, then the bust and face, until it is all high and dry again in its hole. Its Pharaoh was standing, walking, the arms close against the sides. The name of Ramses II is to be read on the cartouche engraved on the buckle of the waistband that fastened his petticoat. Nitre has destroyed one side of the face and body, but what remains suffices to show the excellence of the work. The profile is that of the young Ramses, with low forehead, large aquiline nose, rather a large mouth, and a haughty expression. The base is at some distance off, and farther away still, to the south, a smaller colossus in wood, débris of walls, and fragments of statues point out the position of ancient chambers. The palm forest which flourishes on the site harasses excavation and prevents us from reconstituting the plan. The building or group of buildings that our colossus adorned went along the south bank of the sacred reservoir on which the mysteries of Phtah and the Memphian gods were celebrated on the canonical days. In spite of the long period of time, alluvial matter has not succeeded in entirely filling the lake. The place is marked by a noticeable depression, and the earth which fills it, instead of being planted with date-trees, is sown with corn; it is like a square basin the edges of which are drawn downwards from the surrounding ground. The rise of the river partly restores the original aspect of the spot, but the setting of porticoes and pylons which framed it has vanished; it is replaced by clumps of big trees, under which is situated the village of Tell-el-Khanzîr.

It seems that Mohammed-Ali formerly gave Ramses II to England; the fact is not exactly proven, and to admit it definitely a more serious authority than that of one or several of the “Travellers’ Guides to Egypt” would be required. The English have not availed themselves of the doubtful tradition to remove the colossus: they were satisfied to set it up again. They did not succeed at the first attempt, and two trials made by Messrs. Garwood and Anderson failed ignominiously enough. General Stephenson, who long commanded the army, was more successful. He first had the ambitious project of setting the statue on its feet again, but as the subscription opened for that purpose did not produce sufficient money, he contented himself with raising it up above the level of the inundation. The operations, conducted by Major Arthur Bagnold, of the Engineers, were begun on January 20, 1887.[73] Having drawn off the water, he applied eight lifting jacks of differing force along the body: the effort was directed alternately to the head and the feet: as soon as the whole mass was raised a little more than a foot and a half, huge beams were slipped underneath, and the hollow was filled up with broken potsherds collected in the ruins of the ancient city, reduced to tiny pieces and beaten so as to form a compact bed. The work was finished on April 16th. The colossus now lies on its back, the face to the sky. A pent-house shelters the head; a thick brick wall surrounds it and protects it from the gaze of the inquisitive crowd. Its guardian dwells beside it in a small two-roomed house where Major Bagnold installed him, and he only shows it to visitors on payment of two Egyptian piastres: it costs about sixpence to see it at the bottom of the new funnel in which it is plunged. The “Service des Antiquités” employs a portion of the tax in keeping it in good condition. Another Ramses in granite and a stele of Apries found in the neighbourhood were afterwards placed there, and complete the little open air museum.

The Arabs call the colossus _Abou’l-Hol_, the father of the Terror, like the great Sphinx. I do not know what they think now that it is under lock and key in its enclosure, but they were really frightened of it when it was, so to speak, at large. The ancient Egyptians believed that statues, human and divine, were animated by a spirit, a _double_, detached from the soul of the person they represented. The _double_ ate, drank, even spoke at need, and pronounced oracles; it has survived the religion and civilization of the ancient people, but the changes that have taken place around it seem to have soured its character. It plays evil tricks on those who approach its hiding-place, injures them, at need even kills them: Arab writers have a thousand tales of persons who suffered because they imprudently attacked a monument and the spirit that guards it. The means of rendering the _Afrite_ powerless is to destroy, if not the whole statue, at least its face: that is why so many Pharaohs have their noses broken or faces damaged. The spirit of Ramses II walked in the palm forest at night, and it was therefore imprudent to venture in the vicinity at twilight. Every time that I was obliged to go that way at sunset, my donkey-boy mumbled prayers and urged on his beast. One evening when I asked him if he was afraid of some _Afrite_, he entreated me to keep silence, assuring me that it was ill to speak of such things, and that if I persisted some accident would happen to me. In fact, my donkey stumbled in the middle of the forest and threw me against the trunk of a palm-tree: if the donkey-boy had not caught me and averted the blow, I should have smashed my head. From that time, whenever there was talk of the danger in speaking disrespectfully of the spirit that lives in the statue, what had happened to me was always quoted. The whole of Egypt is full of analogous superstitions, the greater number of which are derived from the ancient beliefs, and have been transmitted from generation to generation from the time of the Pharaohs, the builders of the Pyramids.[74]

XVI

EGYPTIAN JEWELLERY IN THE LOUVRE[75]