The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 01

CHAPTER II. THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM

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THE FIRST DYNASTY

_Thinites_

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 4400-4133 B.C.]]

The first human king who, according to Greek authors as well as according to the Egyptian lists of kings, ruled over the Nile Valley was Menes, called Mena in Egyptian. His family came from Teni, a spot in Middle Egypt, the Greek This [or Thinis] in Abydos, a place which formed a certain religious centre of the kingdom down to a late period. Menes himself, it is true, soon quitted the place and built his residence on another more favourably situated spot, the place where the fruitful plains of the Delta began. This new capital is Memphis, the city that flourished down to the latest periods of Egyptian history as a royal residence and a commercial centre. The foundation of the place is to-day exposed to the flooding of the Nile; this was already the case in ancient days, and the king was forced to protect the ground from this danger by a powerful dam. The dike which he constructed is in the neighbourhood of the place called Cocheiche. And this dike to this day secures the whole province of Gizeh from the floods.

This danger of flooding is less to be apprehended from the Nile itself than from the natural canal, called Bahr Yusuf [“River of Joseph”], which skirts the Libyan Desert. Thus the topographical conditions of this place have hardly varied at all from the time of Menes. The ruined site of ancient Memphis is now traced by only a few monuments, and the excavations here have been very unproductive, while even in the days of the Arabs the remnants of the town aroused the highest admiration in Arabian authors. At all events the name has remained, and to this day the great mound at Mitraheni is called Tel-el-Monf, the mound of Monf. The ancient Egyptian name was Men-nefer, “the good place,” the sacred name Ha-kha-Ptah, “the house of the divine person of Ptah,” just as Ptah has remained for all time the chief god of the city. From this name, with but little right, it has been sought to derive the Greek name of the country of Egypt.

The acts, which for the rest are ascribed to Menes, are just those with which the first prince of a country is usually accredited. According to the Greeks he founded in Memphis the great temple of Ptah, the very first temple in Egypt; he regulated the service in the temple and the honouring of the god; he further was responsible for the introduction of the cult of Apis. Finally, he even discovered the alphabet, according to Anticlides, fifteen years (it would probably be more reasonable to read it 15,000) before Phoroneus, the architect of Argos.

Diodorus obliges us with the additional information that King Menes once was pursued by his own dogs, that he fled into Lake Mœris and was carried to the opposite shore on the back of a crocodile. In gratitude for, and in memory of, his marvellous deliverance he founded, so goes the tale, the town of Crocodilopolis, and introduced the veneration of crocodiles, to whom he surrendered the use of the lake. For himself he raised here a memorial pyramid and founded the famous Labyrinth. As for his character, according to the legend, he was a luxurious prince, who discovered the art of dressing a meal, and taught his subjects to eat in a reclining posture. In conflict with this is the account of Manetho, which depicts him as the first warrior-prince, and makes him fight the Libyans. According to Manetho he met his death through being swallowed by a hippopotamus. According to a widely spread but quite unauthentic story, he had in earlier life lost his only son Maneros, and the nation had composed a dirge on the subject entitled “Maneros,” of which text and melody are supposed to have survived for long.

Down to a late period Menes was honoured as a god in Egypt. In this capacity he appears on the Tablet of Abydos as the first of the kings; his statue is carried round in a procession in the Ramesseum, and even in the time of the Ptolemies, a priest of the statues of Nectanebo I, by the name of Un-nefer, was entrusted with his worship. His name lasted in Egypt even longer than his worship; it was borne by one of the most important Coptic saints, who lived at the beginning of the fourth century and to whom a church in old Cairo is yet dedicated.

Teta: Styled Athothis I by Eratosthenes, he is supposed to have ruled for fifty-nine years. According to Manetho, he constructed the royal castle of Memphis and wrote a work on anatomy, being particularly occupied with medicine. The latter supposition is rendered more complete to a certain extent by the account, due to the Ebers papyrus, that a method for making the hair grow described accurately therein, was supposed to have been discovered by our king’s mother, Shesh. For the rest we have no information of his period, except that in the reign of the son of Menes a double-headed crane revealed itself; this was supposed to be a sign of long prosperity for Egypt. We may possibly explain this legend from the circumstance that the names of the two successors of Menes are formed with the names of the crane-headed or ibis-headed god, Tehuti.

Ata: A great plague broke out in his reign.

Hesep-ti: [Within the past few years the correct reading of this name has been shown to be Sem-ti. His Horus name is Ten.]

Sem-en-ptah: [This name is also read Semsu.] According to Manetho there was a great pestilence in this reign.

THE SECOND DYNASTY

_Thinites_

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 4135-3766 B.C.]]

[There is a king whose Horus name is read Hotep-Sekhemui, and who is placed by some authorities early in the IInd Dynasty, but as yet we do not even know his name as king of United Egypt.] Ka-ka-u. [Under this king the worship of the Apis bulls was instituted.] Baneter-en. This is the Biophis of Eusebius. Of high importance for the whole of Egyptian history is the observation of Manetho that this king declared female succession to be legitimate. In the course of the history of Egypt we shall indeed frequently have occasion to note what immense weight this people attached to female succession, and how it is this which in innumerable instances gives the colour of legitimacy to the assumption of the throne by a sovereign or a dynasty. John of Antioch makes the Nile flow with honey for eleven days in the reign of Binothris, while Manetho postpones this miracle until the reign of Nefercheres.[d]

THE THIRD DYNASTY

_Memphites_

Unfortunately we cannot as yet positively identify Necherophes on the tablets and monuments. A new arrangement, and one that has much in its favour, is to connect him with Neb-ka or Neb-ka-Ra (No. 4, in Wiedemann’s table). This would join Seker-nefer-ka with Sesochris (No. 8, IInd Dynasty) with the additional support that “ochris” is plainly the Greek equivalent of “Seker”; and T´efa with Cheneres, although the latter assumption is admittedly the merest guesswork. This brings T´er-sa (or Zeser, as it is more often spelled) opposite Tosorthros. We know that Zeser built the step-pyramid of Saqqarah and Manetho says that Tosorthros “built a house of hewn stones.” He is the most important sovereign of the dynasty. Manetho further credits him with bringing the art of writing to perfection; he is also supposed to have been a physician, and for this reason the divine Æsculapius of the Greeks. From Tosertasis to the end of the dynasty there are differences of opinion in regard to order or identification, and consequently we are still at sea with regard to Tyreïs, Mesochris, and Soüphis.

THE PYRAMID DYNASTY

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 3766 B.C.]]

The IVth Dynasty has a peculiar and unique interest for the casual observer of Egyptian history, because it was the time when the world-famous pyramids were erected, the pyramids which were accounted among the wonders of the world in classical antiquity, and the name of which has stood almost as a synonym of Egypt for all succeeding generations. If one were to list the wonders of the world in our day, the legitimate number would swell far beyond the classical estimate of seven; but it may be doubted if among them all there would be any more justly accounted wonderful than these same pyramids. Even if constructed to-day, they would be accounted marvellous structures; and, dating as they do from remotest antiquity, when the devices of the modern mechanic were yet undreamed of, they seem almost miraculous. Nothing that any other land can show at all rivals or duplicates them; they are unique, like Egypt herself.

What adds to the unique interest of the pyramids is the fact that we know almost nothing of their builders, except what these structures themselves relate. The pyramids epitomise the history of an epoch. They are the standing witness that Egypt in that epoch was inhabited by a highly civilised people. But practically all that we know of this people is that they were the builders of the pyramids. Even that is much, however, and we shall advantageously dwell at length upon these monuments, viewing them from as many standpoints as possible--through the eyes of Diodorus on the one hand, and of the most recent European explorers on the other.[a]

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 3733-3633 B.C.]]

Diodorus, voicing the traditions of his time, gives the following entertaining account of these marvels:[2]

“Chemmis [Khufu or Cheops], the Eighth King from Remphis, was of Memphis, and reign’d Fifty Years. He built the greatest of the Three Pyramids, which were accounted amongst the Seven Wonders of the World. They stand towards Lybia a Hundred and Twenty Furlongs from Memphis, and Five and Forty from Nile. The Greatness of these Works, and the excessive Labour of the Workmen seen in them, do even strike the Beholders with Admiration and Astonishment. The greatest being Four-square, took up on every Square Seven Hundred Foot of Ground in the Basis, and above Six Hundred Foot in height, spiring up narrower by little and little, till it come up to the Point, the Top of which was Six Cubits Square. It’s built of solid Marble throughout, of rough Work, but of perpetual Duration: For though it be now a Thousand Years since it was built (some say above Three Thousand and Four Hundred) yet the Stones are as firmly joynted, and the whole Building as intire and without the least decay, as they were at the first laying and Erection. The Stone, they say, was brought a long way off, out of Arabia, and that the Work was rais’d by making Mounts of Earth; Cranes and other Engines being not known at that time. And that which is most to be admir’d at, is to see such a Foundation so imprudently laid, as it seems to be, in a Sandy Place, where there’s not the least Sign of any Earth cast up, nor Marks where any Stone was cut and polish’d; so that the whole Pile seems to be rear’d all at once, and fixt in the midst of Heaps of Sand by some God, and not built by degrees by the Hands of Men. Some of the Egyptians tell wonderful things, and invent strange Fables concerning these Works, affirming that the Mounts were made of Salt and Salt-Peter, and that they were melted by the Inundation of the River, and being so dissolv’d, everything was washt away but the Building itself. But this is not the Truth of the thing; but the great Multitude of Hands that rais’d the Mounts, the same carry’d back the Earth to the Place whence they dug it, for they say there were Three Hundred and Sixty Thousand Men imploy’d in this Work, and the Whole was scarce compleated in Twenty Years time.

“When this King was dead, his Brother Cephres [Khaf-Ra] succeeded him, and reign’d Six and Fifty Years: Some say it was not his Brother, but his Son Chabryis that came to the Crown: But all agree in this, that the Successor, in imitation of his Predecessor, erected another Pyramid like to the former, both in Structure and Artificial Workmanship, but not near so large, every square of the Basis being only a Furlong in Breadth.

“Upon the greater Pyramid was inscrib’d the value of the Herbs and Onions that were spent upon the Labourers during the Works, which amounted to above Sixteen Hundred Talents.

“There’s nothing writ upon the lesser: The Entrance and Ascent is only on one side, cut by steps into the main Stone. Although the Kings design’d these Two for their Sepulchers, yet it hapen’d that neither of them were there buri’d. For the People, being incens’d at them by reason of the Toyl and Labour they were put to, and the cruelty and oppression of their Kings, threatened to drag their Carkasses out of their Graves, and pull them by piece-meal, and cast them to the Dogs; and therefore both of them upon their Beds commanded their Servants to bury them in some obscure place.

“After him reign’d Mycerinus [Mencheres] (otherwise call’d Cherinus) the Son of him who built the first Pyramid. This Prince began a Third, but died before it was finish’d; every square of the Basis was Three Hundred Foot. The Walls for fifteen Stories high were Black Marble like that of Thebes, the rest was of the same Stone with the other Pyramids. Though the other Pyramids went beyond this in greatness, yet this far excell’d the rest in the Curiosity of the Structure and the largeness of the Stones. On that side of the Pyramid towards the North, was inscrib’d the Name of the Founder Mecerinus. This King, they say, detesting the severity of the former Kings, carried himself all his Days gently and graciously towards all his Subjects, and did all that possibly he could to gain their Love and Good Will towards him; besides other things, he expended vast Sums of Money upon the Oracles and Worship of the Gods; and bestowing large Gifts upon honest Men whom he judg’d to be injur’d, and to be hardly dealt with in the Courts of Justice.

“There are other Pyramids, every Square of which are Two Hundred Foot in the Basis; and in all things like unto the other, except in bigness. It’s said that these Three last Kings built them for their Wives.

“It is not in the least doubted, but that these Pyramids far excel all the other Works throughout all Egypt, not only in the Greatness and Costs of the Building, but in the Excellency of the Workmanship: For the Architects (they say) are much more to be admir’d than the Kings themselves that were at the Cost. For those perform’d all by their own Ingenuity, but these did nothing but by the Wealth handed to them by descent from their Predecessors, and by the Toyl and Labour of other Men.”[e]

A MODERN ACCOUNT OF THE PYRAMIDS

The Egyptians of the Theban period were compelled to form their opinions of the Pharaohs of the Memphite dynasties in the same way as we do, less by the positive evidence of their acts than by the size and number of their monuments: they measured the magnificence of Cheops [Khufu] by the dimensions of his pyramid, and all nations having followed this example, Cheops has continued to be one of the three or four names of former times which sound familiar to our ears. The hills of Gizeh in his time terminated in a bare, wind-swept tableland. A few solitary mastabas were scattered here and there on its surface, similar to those whose ruins still crown the hill of Dahshur.

The Sphinx, buried even in ancient times to its shoulders, raised its head halfway down the eastern slope, at its southern angle; beside him the temple of Osiris, lord of the Necropolis, was fast disappearing under the sand; and still farther back, old abandoned tombs honeycombed the rock.

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 3733 B.C.]]

Cheops [Khufu] chose a site for his pyramid on the northern edge of the plateau, whence a view of the city of the White Wall, at the same time of the holy city of Heliopolis, could be obtained. A small mound which commanded this prospect was roughly squared, and incorporated into the masonry; the rest of the site was levelled to receive the first course of stones.

The pyramid when completed had a height of 476 feet on a base 764 feet square; but the decaying influence of time has reduced these dimensions to 450 and 730 feet respectively. It possessed, up to the Arab conquest, its polished facing, coloured by age, and so subtly jointed that one would have said that it was a single slab from top to bottom. The work of facing the pyramid began at the top; that of the point was first placed in position, then the courses were successively covered until the bottom was reached.

In the interior every device had been employed to conceal the exact position of the sarcophagus, and to discourage the excavators whom chance or persistent search might have put upon the right track. Their first difficulty would be to discover the entrance under the limestone casing. It lay hidden almost in the middle of the northern face, on the level of the eighteenth course, at about forty-five feet above the ground. A movable flagstone, working on a stone pivot, disguised it so effectively that no one except the priests and custodians could have distinguished this stone from its neighbours. When it was tilted up, a yawning passage was revealed, three and a half feet in height, with a breadth of four feet. The passage is an inclined plane, extending partly through the masonry and partly through the solid rock for a distance of 318 feet; it passes through an unfinished chamber and ends in cul-de-sac 59 feet farther on.

The Great Pyramid was called Khut, “the Horizon,” in which Khufu had to be swallowed up, as his father, the Sun, was engulfed every evening in the horizon of the west. It contained only the chambers of the deceased, without a word of inscription, and we should not know to whom it belonged, if the masons, during its construction, had not daubed here and there in red paint among their private marks the name of the king and the date of his reign. Worship was rendered to this Pharaoh in a temple constructed a little in front of the eastern side of the pyramid, but of which nothing remains but a mass of ruins.

Pharaoh had no need to wait until he was mummified before he became a god; religious rites in his honour were established on his ascension; and many of the individuals who made up his court attached themselves to his double long before his double had become disembodied. They served him faithfully during their life, to repose finally in his shadow in the little pyramids and mastabas which clustered around him. Of Dadef-Ra (or Tatf-Ra), his immediate successor, we can probably say that he reigned eight years.

[This is according to the Abydos and Saqqarah lists, but his chronological position is still uncertain. The inscription of Mertitefs, one of Sneferu’s queens, mentions that she was later a favourite of Khufu, and even in her old age, of Khaf-Ra. This, if true, would leave no space for Dadef-Ra between these reigns, so he was either a co-regent or successor. In the XXVIth Dynasty his priests give, in several instances, the succession as Khufu, Khaf-Ra, Dadef-Ra. Professor Petrie identifies him with the Rhatoises of Manetho, and so makes him the third successor of Khufu, but Professor Maspero, in his reading “Dadef-Ra,” distinctly dissents from any such recognition. It is possible that this king is the same person as the Prince Hortotef, son of Khufu, who, as the hero of a famous tale, is one of the best-known characters of early Egyptian literature.]

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 3666-3600 B.C.]]

But Khaf-Ra (or Khephren), the next son, who succeeded to the throne, erected temples and a gigantic pyramid, like his father. He placed it some 394 feet to the southwest of that of Cheops (Khufu); and called it Ur, “the Great.” It is, however, smaller than its neighbour, and attains a height of only 443 feet, but at a distance the difference in height disappears, and many travellers have thus been led to attribute the same elevation to the two.

The internal arrangements of the pyramid are of the simplest character; they consist of a granite-built passage carefully concealed in the north face, running at first at an angle of 25°, and then horizontally, until stopped by a granite barrier at a point which indicates a change of direction; a second passage, which begins on the outside, at a distance of some yards in advance of the base of the pyramid, and proceeds, after passing through an unfinished chamber, to rejoin the first; finally, a chamber hollowed in the rock, but surmounted by a pointed roof of fine limestone slabs. The sarcophagus was of granite, and, like that of Khufu, bore neither the name of a king nor the representation of a god.

Of Khaf-Ra’s sons, Men-kau-Ra (the Mycerinus of the Greeks), who was his successor, could scarcely dream of excelling his father and grandfather; his pyramid, “the Supreme” (Her), barely attained an elevation of 216 feet, and was exceeded in height by those which were built at a later date. Up to one-fourth of its height it was faced with syenite, and the remainder, up to the summit, with limestone. For lack of time, doubtless, the dressing of the granite was not completed, but the limestone received all the polish it was capable of taking. The enclosing wall was extended to the north so as to meet, and be of one width with, that of the Second Pyramid. The temple was connected with the plain by a long and almost straight causeway, which ran for the greater part of its course upon an embankment raised above the neighbouring ground.

The arrangement of the interior of the pyramid is somewhat complicated, and bears witness to changes brought about unexpectedly in the course of construction. The original central mass probably did not exceed 180 feet in breadth at the base, with a vertical height of 154 feet. It contained a sloping passage cut into the hill itself, and an oblong low-roofed cell devoid of ornament. The main bulk of the work had been already completed, and the casing not yet begun, when it was decided to modify the proportions of the whole. Men-kau-Ra was not, it appears, the eldest son and appointed heir of Khaf-Ra; while still a mere prince he was preparing for himself a pyramid similar to those which lie near “the Horizon,” when the deaths of his father and brother called him to the throne.

What was sufficient for him as a child, was no longer suitable for him as a Pharaoh; the mass of the structure was increased to its present dimensions, and a new inclined passage was effected in it, at the end of which a hall panelled with granite gave access to a kind of antechamber. The latter communicated by a horizontal corridor with the first vault, which was deepened for the occasion; the old entrance, now no longer of use, was roughly filled up.

Men-kau-Ra did not find his last resting-place in this upper level of the interior of the pyramid: a narrow passage, hidden behind the slabbing of the second chamber, descended into a secret crypt, lined with granite and covered with a barrel-vaulted roof. The sarcophagus was a single block of blue-black basalt, polished, and carved into the form of a house, with a façade having three doors and three openings in the form of windows, the whole framed in a rounded moulding and surmounted by a projecting cornice such as we are accustomed to see on the temples. The mummy-case of cedar-wood had a man’s head, and was shaped to the form of the human body; it was neither painted nor gilt, but an inscription in two columns, cut on its front, contained the name of the Pharaoh, and a prayer on his behalf.

The example given by Khufu, Khaf-Ra, and Men-kau-Ra was by no means lost in later times. From the beginning of the IVth to the end of the XIVth Dynasty--during more than fifteen hundred years--the construction of pyramids was a common state affair, provided for by the administration.

Not only did the Pharaohs build them for themselves, but the princes and princesses belonging to the family of the Pharaohs constructed theirs, each one according to his resources; three of these secondary mausoleums are ranged opposite the eastern side of “the Horizon,” three opposite the southern face of “the Supreme,” and everywhere else--near Abusir, at Saqqarah, at Dahshur, or in the Fayum--the majority of the royal pyramids attracted around them a more or less numerous cortège of pyramids of princely foundation often debased in shape and faulty in proportion.[f]

THE BUILDERS OF THE PYRAMIDS

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 3766-3566 B.C.]]

Sneferu is the first ruler of Egypt of whose deeds we know something. A relief with an inscription in Wady Magharah on the peninsula of Sinai represents him as slaying the robber-like tribes of the desert, the Mentu, with a club. According to the inscriptions of the XIIth Dynasty in Sarbut-el-Hadim, it appears that he was considered as founder of the Egyptian dominion in the peninsula of Sinai. His memory was honoured for many years; his worship was often mentioned, and in literary works his bountiful reign was also called to mind. He was probably buried in the Great Pyramid, which has the appearance of terraces, at Medum, the opening of which was begun a short while ago. In one of the neighbouring tombs a statue was found of its architect, Henka, and probably the remaining tombs at Medum belong to this epoch.

Sneferu’s successor Khufu, the Cheops of Herodotus, was the builder of the largest pyramid. The construction of temples was also attributed to him (the temple of the “Lady of the Pyramids,” Isis, in Gizeh, and the planning of the temple of Denderah), and the town of Menat Khufu bears his name. He also fought in the peninsula of Sinai. In front of the immense sepulchre of the king, his wives or other relatives are buried in three small pyramids, and around them in mastabas the nobles of his court. What the Greeks relate concerning the oppression of Egypt by Khufu and Khaf-Ra and of their ungodliness, whilst Men-kau-Ra as the builder of the small Pyramid is looked on as a righteous and just ruler, are their own words which they place in the mouth of the Egyptians; such a conception is remote from the truth, and the picture which we gain from the tombs of the period is throughout bright and cheerful. Certainly every contemporary was proud of having taken part in this giant construction.

After the short reign of Tatf-Ra followed Khaf-Ra, the builder of the second pyramid of Gizeh, to which time probably dates back the enigmatically immense construction of granite and alabaster to the south of the Great Sphinx; the fragments of nine statues of the king were found in it. His next followers were Men-kau-Ra, the Mycerinus of Herodotus, the builder of the third pyramid at Gizeh, and Shepses-ka-f, of whom we learn something definite through the biography of Ptah-Shepses, buried in Saqqarah. He had formerly been brought up at the court of Men-kau-Ra with the children of the king; he grew up under Shepses-ka-f, who gave him his eldest daughter to wife, loaded him with honours, and appointed him as secretary to all constructions which he planned to build.

The circumstance, that there is no mention of warlike expeditions either in this biography or in other monuments of this epoch, but that peaceful undertakings, journeys, and festivals, and above all, the constructions of the king, are continually quoted, is an important sign of the character of the times.

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 3566-3300 B.C.]]

Manetho now makes three kings follow for thirty-eight years, who are nowhere mentioned in the inscriptions, and then begins a new dynasty (the Vth), with Usercheres, which sprang from Elephantine. But in the monuments it is stated that Shepses-ka-f was immediately followed by Uskaf (or User-ka-f) [Usercheres]. At the most, only short interregnums can have intervened, and Prince Sechem-ka-Ra lived under five kings, Khaf-Ra, Men-kau-Ra, Shepses-ka-f, Uskaf, and Sahu-Ra, whose reigns occupied about a century. It is very probable that a new family came to the throne either in a peaceful or violent manner; in the Turin papyrus the portion which probably contained Uskaf’s reign has completely fallen out.

We learn very little of Uskaf or Usercheres. His successor Sahu-Ra, on the contrary, is one of the most renowned rulers of the time. He also fought in Wady Magharah. The next kings cannot be placed in their order with certainty. The Turin papyrus allows eight reigns, mostly short, to follow, and at the fifth introduces a gap; the lists of Abydos and Saqqarah have only given us three names. Only Nefer-ar-ka-Ra and especially An, the first king who gave himself a title (User-en-Ra), were at all important. Then followed Men-kau-hor (reign of eight years), Assa, with the name of Tat-ka-Ra (twenty-eight years), and Unas (thirty years), of whom the first and second, like An, left monuments commemorative of their victories on the peninsula of Sinai.

The first epoch of Egyptian history closes with the reign of Unas. Almost three hundred years had passed since Sneferu had built up his pyramid and celebrated his victory in Wady Magharah. Throughout the whole period Memphis was the central point of the kingdom, and its necropolis almost the only source of our instruction. After the death of Unas--it is not known whether he died in peace or was overthrown by a revolution--a new race ascended the throne and the centre of Egyptian life begins gradually to shift itself. The Turin papyrus rightly makes the first principal division here, and gives the sum of all the reigns from Menes to Unas; but the figures are unfortunately lost to us.

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 3866-3300 B.C.]]

Here follows a table of kings in which the lists of Manetho for the IIIrd, IVth, and Vth Dynasties are compared with the lists of the Turin papyrus, the Abydos tablet, the Saqqarah tablet, and the wall list of Karnak.[b] It will be recalled that these lists, taken together, furnish us with the chief information at present accessible as to the true sequence of the early Egyptian rulers. Notwithstanding its somewhat forbidding appearance at first glance, this tablet will repay careful study. It illustrates the way in which the different lists must be pieced together in an attempt to form a complete record. It shows, also, how widely the Hellenised names of Manetho’s list differ from the Egyptian originals; suggesting the extent to which surmise must sometimes enter into identification. Indeed, it would be hard to tell which were the greater misfortune: the disappearance of Manetho’s history, or the accident by which the Turin papyrus was broken into scores of little pieces only to be restored in an unscientific and almost worthless condition by Seyffarth.[a]

========================================+================================ Turin Papyrus [P.], Abydos Tablet [A.], | Manetho Saqqarah Tablet [S.] Karnak [K.] | ----------------------------------------+-------------------------------- 1. Zeser, P. A. S. |Dyn. III--2 Tosorthros 29 years Gap in dynasty 19 years | 6 Tosertasis 19 years 2. Zeser Teta, P. A. S. 6 years | 3. Set´es, A.; Neb-ka-Ra, S. 6 years | 4. Nefer-ka-Ra, A.; Huni, S. 24 years | 5. Sneferu, A. S. K. 24 years |Dyn. IV--1 Soris 29 years 6. Khufu, A. S. 23 years | 2 Suphis 63 years 7. Tatf-Ra, A. S. 8 years | 8. Khaf-Ra, A. S. ? years | 3 Suphis 66 years 9. Men-kau-Ra, A. S. ? years | 4 Mencheres 63 years 10. Shepses-ka-f, A. S. ? years | 5 Rhatoises 25 years | 6 Bicheris 22 years | 7 Sebercheres 7 years | 8 Tamphthis 9 years 11. [Us-ka-f, A. S.] [missing] | Dyn. V--1 Usercheres 28 years 12. [A. S. K.] Sahu-Ra 18-38 years | 2 Sephres 13 years Here belong: | 13.{Kakaa, A.; and Monum. 4 years | 14.{Nefer-Ra, A. 2 years | 15.{Nefer-ar-ka-Ra, S.; and | { Monum. 7 years | 3 Nephercheres 20 years 16.{Shepses-ka-Ra, S. 12 years | 4 Sisires 7 years 17.{Nefer-kha-Ra, S. ? years}| 5 Cheres 20 years { Gap in Dynasty}| 18.{Akau-hor, Monum. 7 years}| 19.{and perhaps Ahtes ? years}| 20. [User-en-Ra, An. A. K.] 10-30 years}| 6 Rhathures 44 years 21. Men-kau-hor, P. A. S. 8 years | 7 Mencheres 9 years 22. Tat-ka-Ra, Assa., | P. A. S. K. 28 years| 8 Tancheres 44 years 23. Unas, P. A. S. 30 years| 9 Onnos 33 years | ------------ | Total of seventeen reigns, 236-276 years| ----------------------------------------+-------------------------------- To these must be added six reigns; the |Totals give 277 years for duration of which is unknown. | Dyn. IV, 248 for Dyn. V, | differing from the sums of | the single reigns. ========================================+================================

If we allow fifteen years for each of the six missing reigns, we get for the period from Zeser to Unas about 350 years. For the something like nineteen kings of the Turin Papyrus from Menes to Zeser (exclusive) there falls, then, about 350 years, from Menes to Sneferu (exclusive) therefore, about 350, from Sneferu to Unas about 300, which agrees very well with the indications on the monuments. (According to the most reliable of the reported figures of Manetho the first three dynasties lasted 769 years, the IVth and Vth 525 years.)[b]

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 3566-3300 B.C.]]

Very recent discoveries have thrown a certain amount of light on the obscurities of the Vth Dynasty, particularly with reference to the kings Nos. 13-19 bracketed in the above table. The latest research has developed:

(1) That Kakaa (No. 13) must be only another, and probably personal, name of either Nefer-ar-ka-Ra or Shepses-ka-Ra, probably of the former.

(2) That the Akau-hor of a few monuments is probably the personal name of Nefer-kha-Ra (Saqqarah tablet); now read Nefer-f-Ra.

We may also now reject the Nefer-Ra (No. 14) and the Ahtes (No. 19) and consider the Vth Dynasty, beginning with Uskaf and ending with Unas to consist of nine kings, and to have lasted about two hundred and twenty years.

Various monuments have come down to us from the Vth Dynasty, including inscriptions on steles and tablets, an alabaster vase, a polished ink slab and scarabs. Among the most interesting remains of the period is a papyrus roll found in 1893 at Saqqarah near the Step Pyramid. This papyrus contains an account of the reign of King Tat-ka-Ra or Assa, and it is believed to be the oldest fragment of manuscript in existence. A much more famous papyrus roll, the so-called Prisse Papyrus--sometimes called the oldest book in the world--now in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, is believed to be a copy of an original written in the time of Assa. The Prisse Papyrus itself dates from the XIIth Dynasty. It was written by one Ptah-hotep, spoken of in the book itself as “Son of the King, of his body,” which phrase may mean that the author was actually the son of the king (Brugsch) or, that he was really a relative of the monarch, perhaps his uncle (Petrie). The document itself has a peculiar interest aside from its age. It is the philosophical moralising of an old man who, plaintively lamenting the infirmities of age, casts a regretful glance on by-gone times; yet whose view on the whole is wise and optimistic. “It does the heart good and rejoices the mind,” says Brugsch, “to follow that old harangue which preserves the intimate thought of the age of the prince, embracing the whole course of human existence in simple, childish words. Here is a noble lesson on the true greatness of man, for throughout he breathes a spirit of human purity which finds the only true greatness in a modest mind.”

Professor Mahaffy, speaking in a somewhat similar vein, calls attention to the fact that the morals, the aspirations, and the unsolved social problems of the remote time in which Ptah-hotep wrote bear a singular resemblance to those of to-day, pointing the moral that humanity has not greatly changed in essentials during the intervening five or six thousand years.

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 3300-3166 B.C.]]

After the Vth Dynasty, which was regarded by the author of the Turin Papyrus as closing an epoch, there is a period of five hundred years or more during which relatively little is known of Egyptian history. According to the lists of Manetho, this period saw the rise and fall of various dynasties which, vaguely as they are known, have passed into traditional history as Dynasties VI to X. The Turin Papyrus and the lists of Abydos, Saqqarah, and Karnak supply us with various names, mostly unsuggestive of the names of Manetho. There are, however, two or three exceptions to this, notably the king named third in Manetho’s VIth Dynasty, Philos, who is believed to represent the monarch named on all the other lists as Meri-Ra, or, as he is more generally known, Pepi, the latter being his family name. This monarch, who probably lived about 3200 B.C., was the Ramses II of his epoch. He has left us more monuments than any other ruler before the XIIth Dynasty. These include a pyramid at Saqqarah, rock inscriptions in steles at Elephantine and elsewhere, statuettes, canopic jars, cylinders, and scarabs. The most notable of all the monuments ascribed to him is the Red Sphinx of Tanis, now in the Louvre in Paris, which, if really his,--the matter is still not quite decided among the best authorities,--is the oldest sphinx known. If authentic, the face of this sphinx probably furnishes a representation of Pepi which is doubtless the most ancient portrait in existence.

A great builder and monument-maker, he was a great conqueror as well, waging successful wars against the Aamu and Herusha, who inhabited the desert east of the Delta. He even extended his conquests against “the land of the Terehbah,” which, it has been surmised, may be Syria; or which may possibly have been even farther to the north: the similarity of names suggests that the people referred to may have been the Tibareni, one of the smaller peoples of Asia Minor. In any event, the warlike expedition against this unknown people was made in ships.

The most interesting thing about King Pepi remains to be told. This is the manner in which records of his deeds have come down to us. The various monuments left by the king himself contain scant reference to his accomplishments. The inscription that enables us to gain glimpses of the life of the greatest monarch of his epoch is not the inscription of the monarch himself, but of one of his servants. This officer of the king bore the name of Una. He was of unknown origin, and there is no reason to suppose that he was of royal blood; but he attained to the highest distinction. He had come to be, according to the inscription over his tomb, “Crown bearer of the Majesty (of the King), Superintendent of the storehouse, and Registrar (Sacred Scribe) of the docks” for King Teta, the predecessor of King Pepi.

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 3166-3033 B.C.]]

On the death of his master, Una appears to have passed into the service of the next incumbent, Pepi, as “Chief of the coffer of the Majesty (of the King) with the rank of Companion, Scribe, Priest of the place of his pyramid.” “His Majesty was satisfied with me (beyond all) his servants,” declares Una. “(He gave me also) to hear all things. I was alone with the Royal Scribe, and officer of all the secrets. The King was satisfied with me more than any of his chiefs, of his family, of his servants.”

The inscription then goes on to detail the services rendered by Una to Pepi, and his son Mer-en-Ra as well. He fully earned all of his titles and honours. He would seem to have been in charge, not merely of household affairs, building operations, the moving of monuments and the like, but to have been commander-in-chief of the armies, and the efficient agent of Pepi in his conquests at home and abroad, as he says: “ He sent me five times, to subdue the land of Herusha to subdue their revolt by this force. His Majesty was pleased at it beyond everything Saying, have revolted the Negroes of this tribe of the land of Khetam, safely to Takhisa; I sailed again in boats with this force. I subdued this country from the extreme frontier on the North of the land of Herusha. Then was ordered this army on the road. They subdued them also smiting all opponents there. The place was thrown under my sandals. The King of Upper and Lower Egypt Mer-en-Ra the Divine Lord the ever living gave me to be a Duke, Governor of the South ascending from Abu to the North of the nome Letopolis. I very much pleased His Majesty, I greatly pleased His Majesty to the Satisfaction of His Majesty.”

One of the most interesting passages in the inscription of Una is that in which he gives details of the transportation of the pyramid Kha-nefer of Mer-en-Ra, making for it “a boat of burthen in the little dock 60 cubits in length and thirty in its breadth, put together in 17 days in the month of Epiphi.” There was not water enough in the river to tow the pyramid safely, but the inscription continues: “It was done by me forthwith before the god (King). His Majesty the Divine Lord ordered and sent me to excavate four docks in the South for three boats of burthen, four transports in the small basin of the land of Uauat. Then the rulers of the countries of Araret, Aam, and Ma, supplied the wood for them. It was made in about a year at the time of the inundation loaded with very much granite for the Kha-nefer pyramid of Mer-en-Ra.” (Birch’s[g] translation.)

Aside from its intrinsic interest, this inscription of Una has a peculiar historical importance as illustrating a phase of life in Egypt that we shall not see duplicated among the Semitic nations of Asia; the fact, namely, that a mere subject of the king could leave a permanent record of his deeds. In Babylonia and Assyria it is the monarch always who speaks from the inscriptions; the name of a subject is never mentioned. It is not so very often, even in Egypt, that the name of a subject is heard, but the fact that this sometimes occurs marks a distinct difference between the character of the Egyptian and Asiatic civilisations.

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 3066-3033 B.C.]]

One other monarch of the VIth Dynasty has gained traditional fame; this time through the pages of Herodotus. This is the Queen Nitocris. Herodotus, to be sure, gives us no clew as to the age when this female monarch ruled, but the name appears in the lists of Manetho. Herodotus was attracted by the picturesque story told him in reference to Nitocris by the Egyptian priests. He asserts that of the names of three hundred and thirty sovereigns, successors of Menes, recited to him from a book by the Egyptian priests, only one was a female native of the country. He continues: “The female was called Nitocris, which was also the name of the Babylonian princess. They affirm that the Egyptians having slain her brother, who was their sovereign, she was appointed his successor; and that afterwards, to avenge his death, she destroyed by artifice a great number of Egyptians. By her orders a large subterraneous apartment was constructed professedly for festivals, but in reality for a different purpose. She invited to this place a great number of those Egyptians whom she knew to be the principal instruments of her brother’s death, and then by a private canal introduced the river amongst them. They added, that to avoid the indignation of the people, she suffocated herself in an apartment filled with ashes.” (Herodotus, II, 99.)

The Turin papyrus gives the name of Nit-aqert as one of the Pharaohs of the VIth Dynasty, so it would appear that Herodotus was writing of an actual personage, whether or not the story that he tells was well founded. Manetho says of Nitocris that she governed twelve years, “the noblest and most beautiful woman of that period, fair, and at the same time the builder of the Third Pyramid.” Brugsch, commenting upon this, says: “It is difficult to discover the historical foundation for the tale of Herodotus, and we would only say that it must indicate that about the time of Queen Nitocris, internecine murders and dissensions began in the kingdom, awakened by the poisonous envy of the pretenders to the throne.” As to Manetho’s assertion that Nitocris built the Third Pyramid, it has been explained by Perring that the Third Pyramid was transformed and enlarged at a later date. It is suggested that “Queen Nitocris took possession of Men-kau-Ra’s tomb, left the king’s sarcophagus in a lower vault, and placed her own in the chamber in front. If we are to be guided by the ruined fragments of bluish basalt which lie on the spot, she had the surface of the monument faced with that costly decoration of highly polished granite, which afterward served inventive Greek story-tellers with a foundation for the tale of Rhodopis, the hetaira, who reduced her friends to beggary that she might obtain vast sums of money for the building of the pyramid.”

THE BEAUTIFUL NITOCRIS

Various romances have become associated with traditions in reference to Nitocris. She was credited with supernatural witchery, and it was said that after her death her naked spirit haunted the pyramid she was alleged to have built, and that by the magic of her mere smile she drove her lovers mad. The story of her revenge upon the men who, in a riot, had killed her brother the king, is given by Herodotus as above. The brother she avenged was Menthesouphis, whom Meyer places at some distance from her in the line. Round this same Nitocris gathered other legends, among them the original of our Cinderella story. According to this version, Nitocris was originally a courtesan named Rhodopis (“Rosy-cheeked”--a translation into Greek of the name Nitocris). Once when she was bathing in the river, an eagle stole one of her little gilded sandals, and flying away let it fall into the lap of the king, who was holding a court of justice in the open air. He was so taken with the beauty of the tiny shoe that he had a search made for the woman whom it fitted, and made her his queen.

Beyond the historical narratives of Una, and the traditions about Nitocris, only shreds of knowledge are forthcoming regarding the monarchs of the long epoch with which we are dealing. The epoch as a whole is well characterised in the words of Brugsch:[a]

A profound darkness falls over Egyptian history after the time of Ne-fer-ka-Ra, shrouding even the faintest traces of the existence of kings whose empty names the tablets of Abydos and Saqqarah have preserved to us, names without deeds, sounds without meaning, like the inscriptions on the tombs of unknown, obscure men. Unless we are deceived, we may here picture a state split up into petty kingdoms and scourged by civil war and regicide, from whose _haq_ or princes no saviour arose to strike down the refractory with the strong arm, grasp with a firm hand the loosened rein, and once more establish a central government.[h]

In a few words may be added certain more or less inchoate details as to the few monarchs of the VIth to Xth Dynasties upon whose history the most recent research has thrown some rays of light.

As for the VIth Dynasty, the most modern attempts at disentanglement place a Mer-en-Ra II and a Neter-ka-Ra after Nefer-ka-Ra; Mer-en-Ra II to correspond with the Menthesuphis of Manetho as distinct from the Methusuphis [Mer-en-Ra I] of the same historian. The Neter-ka-Ra occurs only on the Abydos Tablet, and is followed by Men-ka-Ra, which is also found nowhere else. But there is some reason to believe that the bearer of this name is identical with the Nit-aqert of the Turin papyrus and the Nitocris of Manetho, and in this connection the confusion between Men-kau-Ra and Nitocris is susceptible of another and perhaps better explanation than that offered by Perring; for although the Third Pyramid has been enlarged, the manner of its enlargement shows that it was done in the age of the Pyramid builders and not so late as the end of the VIth Dynasty. Therefore it is better to accept M. Maspero’s theory of the alterations as given in a preceding page; while the similarity of the names Men-kau-Ra and Men-ka-Ra will show how Manetho was led into the error of assigning the building of the Third Gizeh Pyramid to Queen Nitocris.

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 3033-2700 B.C.]]

The VIIth and VIIIth Dynasties fell through causes of disintegration and decay. The capital was transferred to Heracleopolis, presumably because of the intrusion of an outside people into the Delta.

Some authorities assign the dislodgment of the native dynasty to a perplexing line of foreign kings whose position still defies definition; but Professor Petrie writing in 1901 says: “The group of foreign kings, mainly known by scarabs and cylinders, Khyan, Samqan, Anthar, Yaqebar, Shesha, and Uazed, are probably of the XVth-XVIth Dynasties, though some connections place them shortly before the XIIth Dynasty.” All we yet know of the intrusion is concisely stated by Eduard Meyer: “We may with some certainty assume that strange Syrian races attacked Egypt and probably ruled the land or part of it for a while.”

Two legitimate kings of the IXth or Xth Dynasty now stand out prominently; Ab-meri-Ra (Kheti) who may be the Achthoes of Manetho, the first of his recorded IXth Dynasty, and Ka-meri-Ra. But the most interesting historical information of this period is from three tombs of the princes of Assiut; Kheti I, Tefa-ba, and Kheti II.

The Thebans had now practically obtained their independence, and certain circumstances indicate that the beginning of the XIth Dynasty was contemporary with the Xth. Such a state of affairs will explain the singular fact that Manetho assigns only forty-three years to the XIth Dynasty. For it is held that he ignored contemporaneous dynasties, and therefore may have rejected about one hundred and twenty years, during which period he does not recognise the XIth Dynasty as legitimate.[a]

FOOTNOTES

[2] [Here and in subsequent excerpts from Diodorus we use a seventeenth-century translation.]