CHAPTER XI.

Thebes; its People, Temples, and Tombs—Close of the Nineteenth Dynasty.

In an inscription on the walls of the rock-temple at Abu-simbel, Rameses is represented as saying to the god Ptah, ‘I have cared for the land to create for thee a new Egypt, such as it existed in the olden times,’ and he specially mentions the splendid sanctuary he had built for that deity in Memphis. And not at Memphis alone, but everywhere throughout the land, from the city of Rameses in the north to the wonderful rock-temples of the south, we can see the magnificent traces left by the hand of this mighty sovereign. In Thebes itself, he added a grand court to the temple of Luxor founded by Amenhotep III. of the preceding dynasty. This temple was connected by an avenue of sphinxes with the still more magnificent ‘great Temple of Amen,’ the foundation of which had been laid by Amenemhat I., not long after the close of the civil wars, and before the Hyksos invasion.

However the Egyptian temples might differ in size or splendour, the idea and plan were alike—so that it has been said, ‘If you have seen one temple, you have seen all.’ A wall of enclosure surrounded the precincts, which were adorned with trees, flowers, and artificial lakes. The temple itself was approached by an avenue of sphinxes. Before the entrance stood obelisks and colossal statues. On either side of the gateway rose the pylons—massive towers, broader at the base than at the summit; they were covered with pictorial and sculptured representations of the great events of the day, and above them rose the tall masts of cedar wood, whence floated the gay streamers on days of festival and rejoicing. Passing through between the pylons, a vast court was entered, surrounded by columns and open to the sky. Beyond were halls, the roofs supported on pillars, and in these the light glimmered but faintly amidst the forest of majestic columns. Each hall or court was of less size than the one before it, and the innermost sanctuary was small, dark, and mysterious in its solemn obscurity. Here was the sacred shrine (containing some hidden emblem or image of the god), which on solemn occasions was brought out and carried in procession through the city or down the river. These shrines or arks are seen depicted in brightly coloured tints on the bas-reliefs. The sacred bark is standing on an altar, which is covered by a red cloth. On two lesser altars stand flowers and vessels for libation or for incense. In the centre of the boat is the ark itself, a sort of chest partially veiled, in which is for ever hidden the mystic symbol of the god. In the bark are small images of men kneeling in adoration, and immense artificial lotus and papyrus flowers. Tall banners or sun-screens stand behind, ready to be carried in solemn state in the processions. On the prow of the boat is the sacred hawk, and behind it a sphinx, emblem of the king. Underneath are the shafts on which it rests when it is taken from the altar and borne on the shoulders of the priests. Not only the mystic shrine itself, but statues or images of the gods were frequently carried in procession with music, song, and universal rejoicings—queens and princesses deeming it an honour to take part, carrying the sistrum or musical instrument used in the service of the gods. As a rule the people probably were allowed only to enter the vast outer court, kings and priests alone penetrating to the interior recesses, where sacrifices were offered and incense ascended in clouds. Sublimity and mystery were the ideas expressed in these Egyptian temples,[54] with their vast halls and shrouded recesses. Comparatively little thought and care were expended on private residences, which were simple and unpretending. The poor were content if they had shelter from the heat and a place of storage for their goods. In the construction of the houses belonging to the richer classes the leading idea was still protection from the heat, so that the windows were small, and had wooden shutters. The walls inside were decorated with paintings, and even the outside was gaily tinted by this colour-loving people, who coloured everything that would admit of it. On the flat roofs of the houses much time was spent, as also in the beautiful gardens watered by small canals in the absence of rain, and adorned with fish-ponds, trees, and abundance of flowers. A late Greek writer goes so far as to say that ‘flowers of every sort grew all the year round, and that roses and violets especially grew at all seasons.’ Be that as it may, the love of the Egyptians for flowers was very great. Flowers are used on all occasions—in social banquets they are in profusion, and they are never wanting in the funeral solemnities; they furnish both decorations for the rooms and houses and oblations for the gods.

The house was generally built round a court-yard planted with trees and refreshed by a fountain. In the country the farm-yards and sheds were at some distance from the dwelling-house; the cattle were tied up at feeding-time to rings placed in rows, and were often fed by the hand. Around the country-houses were orchards of fig-trees, together with sycamore, peach, pomegranate, date, olive, and almond trees, besides others of names and kinds unknown. Monkeys were sometimes employed in gathering the fruit, and we see from the pictures that they did not fail to help themselves at the same time. Our museums show us the tables and chairs of all sorts that were used by the Egyptians—common chairs, camp-stools, and arm-chairs of elegant workmanship, sometimes of ebony inlaid with ivory. There are the double chairs where the master and mistress of the house sat when receiving their guests—couches, footstools, carpets which served as bedding, and the wooden rests on which the head was placed at night. Children’s toys of all kinds may be seen, and a variety of musical instruments; for music was much studied, and was employed not only in the service of the temples, but in the social gatherings of the people, which seem to have been frequent. But both music and dancing on such occasions appear to have been performed for the amusement of the guests, who are themselves only lookers-on. Buffoons also exhibited, who seem generally to have been negroes; they are oddly dressed in a bit of bullock’s hide, with the tail attached and tags hanging like beads from their elbows. The chase was a most popular amusement, and besides stags, hares, etc., there was the exciting sport of hunting wilder beasts, wolves, jackals, and lions in the desert lands. Fowling and fishing were common pastimes. We do not meet with the least trace of anything approaching to gladiatorial shows; such scenes would have been abhorrent to the Egyptian nature. Amongst indoor games we see odd and even—_mora_ (a guessing game), draughts, and others unknown to us. Athletic games and outdoor exercises were encouraged amongst children, and there was a great fondness for playing ball, especially amongst the girls, who attained great skill in the exercise, sometimes catching two or three balls at a time. There was great freedom in social intercourse, and women mixed in society quite as freely as men.[55]

The Egyptians have, in fact, painted their social life for us themselves in fullest detail, whether it is the king standing proudly in his war-chariot and striking down his foe, or the potter patiently turning his wheel; the priest officiating in the temple rites, or the fisherman directing his tiny craft upon the river. We see the baker kneading the dough with his feet, and the flat loaves being carried round to the customers; the shoemaker, sitting on his three-legged stool, is busy fashioning the leather sandal; spinning-wheel and loom are producing the ‘fine linen’ of Egypt, and the needle is skilful in beautiful embroidered work. The pottery is of varied and graceful form, the jewellery of exquisite workmanship. Glass is fashioned, and so is brightly tinted porcelain ware; veneering too is practised with much skill.

We may picture to ourselves the active life and gay animation that reigned in the streets of the mighty city that had grown up around the great temples of Amen, or, on the broad waters of the stream, the scene of constant traffic, where boats laden with merchandise, fishing vessels, and gay-looking pleasure-boats went to and fro in ceaseless motion. The Nile valley is of unusual breadth on both sides of the river here, and forms a sort of amphitheatre closed in by mountain ranges of varied outlines. It seemed hidden away out of the invader’s track, the ‘great city’ in all her imperial beauty, _Apu_, the ‘city of thrones,’ or _Nu_, ‘the city,’ as her people called her of old. The sky is of a deeper blue than in the northern part of the country; and in spite of ceaseless sunshine the fields are clothed in richest verdure. Here, as everywhere, light and colour reign, the shadows themselves are luminous, so radiant is the light, and the colour harmonies of the sunset are thus described:—

‘The western horizon is a furnace of molten gold, the stems and foliage of the palm trees are likewise gold, and through this dazzling glow the purple tints of the hills can just be perceived. The sky and the Nile become in turn rose-coloured and violet, like the colour of an amethyst; then the light dies away.’[56]

Let us follow the western sun, and cross the stream, leaving behind us the life and animation of the great city. Here, too, is a city—Western Thebes[57]—and its streets contain a population vaster far than that upon the other side. But all is silent here; no man buys or sells or joins in festive mirth. It is the City of the Dead. Here lie in countless numbers the embalmed bodies of those who have passed away generation after generation: kings and priests—men, women, children—the freeman and the slave. The hills encircling the plain are pierced and honeycombed in all directions with passages and tombs. Here are the ‘eternal dwellings’ of those who on the other side inhabit ‘hostelries’ as strangers of a day. And far more thought and care are bestowed upon those than upon these.[58] There are large common tombs, in which the bodies of the poor lie ranged side by side. And there are the funeral chambers of the rich, with their sculptured façades, whence winding galleries lead into the heart of the rock. Shafts are sunk, false passages that lead nowhere are constructed. Everything is done that human ingenuity can suggest, if only the body hidden there might never be seen or handled again.[59] Nor is the silent city of the dead without its stately palaces and temples. The two colossal twin statues of Amenhotep III. sit there upon the plain, and behind them is his magnificent temple. A little farther is the Ramesseum, a great temple erected by Rameses ‘to his name,’ and to the memory of his ancestors, marvellous for size and splendour. In the face of the limestone cliff to the north-west arises the stately terraced temple of Queen Hatasu, and not far off is the narrow gorge leading to the desolate valley of the ‘tombs of the kings.’

The priests attached to the service of these temples must have lived in the neighbourhood and kept up intercourse with the world outside, and in Western Thebes were the dwellings of all those whose business was with the bodies of the dead,—of those who first opened the corpse, who were reckoned ceremonially unclean, and of those who skilfully embalmed and bandaged it afterwards. Not a day could have passed on which some company of mourners, rich or poor, did not land—their ‘dark freight, a vanished life;’ whilst now and again a gorgeous funeral procession wound its way through the narrow defile, bearing beneath a funeral tent of exquisite workmanship the body of some prince or princess of the Pharaoh’s house to its last long home in the western hills.

One day in the year (as we should say, on All Souls’ Day) the family and friends of the departed assembled amidst the dead. On that day the silent city was alive and Eastern Thebes deserted. All day long boats of every sort plied to and fro, and the western plain was covered with vast crowds bringing flowers and garlands and funeral gifts. Within the funeral chambers, richly and brightly adorned with paintings and sculptures, the family groups assembled, the scenes around awakening vivid associations of the past. The sound of human talk was heard, and the voice of minstrelsy and song. The feast is spread, and here, says a modern writer[60] who has vividly described the whole scene, the assembled family in their social union ‘remembered their departed ones as if they were travellers who had found happiness in a distant land, and whom they might hope to see once again sooner or later.’ In fact, at the feast thus spread the dead were always looked upon as guests, although unseen, and were addressed in the festive songs. One of these songs, known as the ‘Lay of the Harper,’ has been preserved. It is in memory of a priest of Amen named Neferhotep; part is to the following effect:—

‘Truly is he now at rest, faithfully his work fulfilled. Men go hence since days of Ra. Youths arise to take their place.’

‘Holy prophet,[61] keep the feast-day! Fragrant oil, delicious balsam, lo, we bring, and flowery wreaths twine we round her breast and arms: Her thy sister dearly loved, resting ever by thy side.’

‘Lift the song and strike the chords, in the presence chamber here! Leave all idle cares behind, and be mindful, Man, of joy, till thy day for going hence, when the traveller findeth rest, in the silence-loving land.’

‘Holy prophet, keep the feast-day! Perfect thou and pure of heart. They who lived have passed away—are as though they had not been. Thy soul dwells amongst them there, by the sacred river’s side, drinking of the crystal stream.’

‘Holy prophet, keep the feast-day! Neferhotep, pure of heart.... Nought might all his works avail, to add one moment to his years....’

‘Mind thee of the day, O man, when thou too must take thy way to the land whence none return. Good for thee then an honest life. For he who loveth Right is blest.’

‘Brave nor coward flee the grave. Proud and humble meet one fate. Give, then, freely, as ’tis meet. Isis will bless the good. Happy shall thine old age prove.’

The memorial chambers in which these feasts were celebrated were adorned with pictures and carving representing the familiar scenes of daily life, but in the gloomy recesses beyond mystic and awful scenes are depicted. The representations of the gods, not often met with in earlier times, had now become common and familiar; and so does Amenti itself cease to be the ‘hidden’ world, and the scenes and events of the life after death appear in visible though mystic shape. The Egyptian from of old believed in the judgment before Osiris, but now it was depicted. The heart is seen weighed in the balance; Osiris is enthroned as judge; Thoth records the result.[62] The trials that await the spirit take bodily form as foul and hideous monsters that must be encountered and overcome; good and guardian powers appear as star-crowned genii of light; and for the impure spirit the furnace of purifying fire is kindled, behind which stands a figure holding in his hand the emblem of the purity that must be won.

Nor is it the conflicts and triumphs of the human spirit alone that are portrayed, but the conflicts and triumphs of the gods themselves. We read in a very ancient chapter of the sacred book: ‘I am Ra in his first supremacy—the great god, self-existing. There was a battle-field of the gods prepared when I spake.’ Later on a more tangible shape and form is given to this great battle. In the tomb of Seti I. we may see it all in allegory and mystic symbol. Here is depicted in a series of tableaux the ‘passage of the Sun through the hours of the day and of the night,’ _i.e._ of the visible and invisible world, beholding and ruling all, both mortal and immortal. Ra in his bark, the ‘ancient and unknown One in his mystery,’ accompanied by gods and spirits, finds the ‘field of battle prepared.’ The serpent of evil, Apepi, lies in wait, hidden beneath the waves of the celestial rivers—the ether. After a hard struggle he is drawn out and destroyed, and the heavenly bark disappears in peace behind the western horizon, received by the mother goddess Nut.[63] A hymn addressed to Ra, ‘Lord of the horizon,’ celebrates his triumph: ‘Thou awakenest, triumphant and blessed One, thou who comest in radiance and travellest in thy disk! Thy divine bark[64] speeds on, blest by thy mother Nut each day; thy foes fall as thou turnest thy face to the western heaven. Glad are the mariners of thy bark; Ra hath quelled his impious foe, he striketh down the evil one, thou breakest his strength, casting him into the fire that encircleth in its season the children of wickedness.’

An eminent writer who has devoted himself to the study of ancient religions says:—‘In spite of the abundance of materials, in spite of the ruins of temples and numberless statues and half-deciphered papyri—I must confess that we have not yet come very near the beatings of the heart that gave life to all this strange and mysterious grandeur.’[65] This is only what might be expected; for the symbolism of any religion is apt to assume an unmeaning and often a grotesque appearance in the eyes of men professing another faith, and no religion was ever so pervaded by symbolism as that of ancient Egypt. Symbols are not, in any sense, works of art; they are never chosen for intrinsic worth or beauty,[66] and are valueless, excepting for the sake of some association of idea, which led to their selection. They are intended to represent, but not seldom also to veil, thoughts and mysteries that cannot be uttered in language, or _expressed_ in any form or image. But in all religions there is a tendency to separate the symbol from the thought, and this, carried to its fullest extent, ends in idolatry; the mere symbol seems to the ignorant and superstitious to be endowed with power and divine attributes, and becomes itself a god. That which gave the Egyptian religion an especially strange and even absurd aspect, in the eyes of Greek and Roman travellers of a later day, was its use of living symbols, _i.e._ of the sacred animals, which was then so excessive as to have become its prominent feature on first sight, and which led to idolatry of the most base and degraded kind.

There are a few traces of the existence of animal worship under the early dynasties; they are but few, however, and, so far as I am aware, no notice of sacred animals occurs between the age of Khufu and the reign of Rameses II. Nor are the gods depicted in the memorial chambers of the departed before the times of the eighteenth dynasty. Under Thothmes III., their figures are constantly met with, often with the head of the symbolic creature that was their emblem (see p. 119). The reason for the selection is often plain. The bull or the ram might denote undaunted strength and the protection of the weak, the hawk unerring sight, the crocodile terror, the scarabæus tender foresight and unwearied care for its offspring. And not only were the gods represented under the form of these and other objects, but the living animals themselves were symbolic and sacred. Each district had its own sacred animal, fed and tended with the devoutest care. Certain of them, however, attained to far greater celebrity than the rest—the Ram of Mendes; Mnevis, the bull sacred to Ra, at Heliopolis; and, above all, Apis, the bull sacred to Ptah, at Memphis. The eldest son of Rameses, named Khamus, who was governor of Memphis, was also high priest of Ptah, and more especially under his form or manifestation as Apis. It requires very little knowledge of human nature, and very little acquaintance with history, to feel assured that the crowds who gathered round these symbolic creatures would regard them with superstitious reverence, and that to not a few the animal would be no longer a symbol but a god.

Animal worship grew and developed immensely after the days of Rameses. At a later period we find Greek and Roman travellers noticing it with curiosity or contempt. Herodotus and Strabo saw the sacred crocodiles in the Fayoum, adorned with golden ornaments, and fed with the flesh of the sacrifices. Diodorus tells us of the furious wrath of Egyptian villagers against a Roman soldier who had killed a cat. The comic writers of Greece and the satirists of Rome made merry over these peculiar deities.

‘You are never done laughing every day of your lives at the Egyptians,’ says an early Christian writer to his heathen contemporaries. Philo, the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria, tells us that foreigners coming to Egypt knew not what to do for laughter at the divine animals, but that in the end they were themselves overpowered by the superstition. There were not wanting those who, acknowledging that the animals were to be regarded merely as symbolic, based their arguments against the custom on that very ground.[67] The days of foreign criticism were, however, as yet in the distant future when the kings of the nineteenth dynasty were on the throne.

The growth of animal worship seems to speak of degradation in the national religion, and there are not wanting at the same time evidences both of a decay in the national morality and of a decline in art. When art is required to work by the acre its productions are not likely to be distinguished by high excellence or exquisite finish. In the drawings of the time of Rameses the heads indeed are still good and the portraits characteristic, but the figures are ill-drawn in the extreme, and often most hastily finished off. Egyptian art suffered severely under the influence of certain fixed rules concerning the drawing and the proportion of figures. Under the earlier dynasties there are signs of greater freedom of treatment than prevailed at a later period, when the conventional rules, which no one ventured to infringe, had checked the progress of all true art by putting a stop to its free exercise. This following of a stereotyped pattern, combined with the absence of perspective, gives the Egyptian drawings a very odd and stiff appearance. The portraiture remained excellent, and much spirit was often shown in the drawing of animals and in humorous scenes; indeed, the manner in which, in hieroglyphic writing, the individual character of an animal or bird is given in a few minute lines is quite wonderful. The graceful outline of their pottery, the exquisite workmanship of their jewellery, show how much true artistic power was there, had it only been allowed free scope. But there never was a nation that clung so tenaciously to fixed laws and forms. Their monarchy, their religion, lasted unchanged as no other has yet done;[68] the very fashion of their dress varied but little with the centuries, and their magnificent temples were built and rebuilt on the same scheme. But already, under the nineteenth dynasty, other influences were strongly at work. The Delta was full of foreign settlers, and the names of some of its cities were Semitic. Literature was affected, and the younger writers of the day were given to introducing Semitic words and phrases—just as an English or German author does with French. Whole bodies of mercenary troops were employed in the army under a special commander; others were used in the naval service, which was never very popular in Egypt, but which was becoming of more and more importance. Others again, not judged fit for these branches, were reduced to serfage, being employed in the service of the kings and of the temples, or in still harder bondage on the public buildings, in the quarries, or the mines. Many of these, we learn, were branded with the name of the god or master to whom they were assigned, and here we see at once the arising of that distrust and fear which always beset the ease of the owners of the slave. Slavery was universal in the ancient world, but in Egypt it had always worn a milder aspect than it ever assumed in any other country, unless it were Greece, much of whose early civilisation came from the land of the Nile. Even in the days of harsher servitude at which we have now arrived, there were no such hideous cruelties as we meet with in the blood-stained pages of Roman, Carthaginian, or American slavery. The Egyptian slave was well fed, and by the moral and religious code maltreatment of a slave was an offence. We do not know the legal code on this subject, but the moral tone is clearly shown in the confession every ruler had to make before Osiris: ‘I have allowed no master to maltreat his slave.’ But moral feeling can grow blunt, and maltreatment was not wanting in the days of Rameses II.

The Hebrew colony in Goshen, so warmly welcomed by the Hyksos kings, must have been regarded with distrust on the accession of the native dynasty, which ‘knew not Joseph,’ and had the utmost aversion for aught that was connected with the rulers he had served. Under Rameses, or one of his predecessors, the Hebrews had been reduced to cruel bondage; ‘they built for Pharaoh treasure-cities, Pithom and Raamses.’[69] Their future deliverer, rescued from death by a princess of the royal house,[70] must have spent many years at Zoan, the favourite residence of Rameses, which was close to the district of Goshen, and there he would have the opportunity at any moment of ‘going out to his brethren and looking upon their burdens.’

Moses did not return from his exile during the lifetime of Rameses, but ‘in _process of time_’ that sovereign died.[71] On the accession of Menephtah the hardships of the people were intensified, but their deliverance was close at hand. There is no need to relate the familiar story of their marvellous escape, and of the pursuit, in which so many of the chosen chariots and horses of Menephtah perished.

No inscriptions or records have, as yet, been found relating to the long sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, to the oppression, or to the exodus, though there can be little doubt that some of the highest interest might be brought to light were the exploration of the historic sites of the Delta undertaken in earnest.[72] The chief event recorded of the reign of Menephtah is connected with the western boundary. On the north-east the frontier district bristled with fortresses, where sentinels kept their daily and nightly watch. The great military route that started thence was well guarded, and a regular communication kept up with the Egyptian garrisons, which were still maintained in some parts of Syria. By the same road there was a constant commercial intercourse with Phœnicia, and probably also to some extent with the distant Khetan allies;—we find, at any rate, from an incidental allusion, that during a famine in that land, the lives of the people were saved by corn sent from Egypt at Menephtah’s direction. But on the western frontier, the limits were not so definite. There was less anxiety and less watchfulness. Whilst the utmost thought and vigilance had been exerted in the north-east, the west had been left practically undefended. Whole districts had long been harassed by the inroads of the Libyan tribes, and cultivation had ceased. The invaders had even gained a firm footing in some places, and had ventured to settle themselves in the neighbourhood of the towns, whilst the fortifications of Memphis itself had been suffered to fall into neglect. The Libyan people apparently regarded these settlements as a sort of advanced posts, and in the fifth year of Menephtah they were followed up by the further advance upon Egypt of an immense host, composed of the Libyans, their mercenary troops, and allies drawn from every part of North Africa, and possibly from more distant regions still. Tidings were brought the king that Marmaiu, the Libyan king, had ‘sought out the best of all the combatants and of all the quick runners, and had brought his wife and children with him’—being apparently sure of success, and intent on finding a new home in the rich Egyptian land. No little alarm was excited throughout the country and even in the army itself, for we are told that the king addressed his troops ‘with flashing eyes,’ and upbraided them with trembling like geese, and not knowing what to do or how to meet the enemy. ‘The pillagers,’ he said, ‘are devastating the country; they have come, following their chief, that they may gain cultivated lands, and fill their mouths with food daily. Fain would they establish themselves in Khemi.... Behold, I am your shepherd. Who is like me to keep life in his children? Should they be anxious and frightened like birds?’ These remonstrances were received in silence. Then the king proceeded to declare that he would not ‘await the enemy’s approach, so that the land should be wasted by the advance of the foreign peoples. Their king is like a dog; he brags with his mouth, but his courage is naught.’ Pharaoh’s own heart, however, may not have been quite at ease, in spite of his brave speeches, when he retired to rest that night—but his confidence was revived by a dream. The god Ptah appeared to him, and put a scimitar into his hand, exhorting him to ‘put away dejection and desponding thoughts.’ ‘What am I to do?’ inquired the king. Ptah, in reply, directed him to proceed with all his forces, and join battle with the foe at Pi-ari-sheps (Prosopis). Accordingly, he there attacked the confederates, and gained a complete victory. The brunt of the battle, however, seems to have been borne by the mercenary troops. ‘For six hours,’ says the narrative, ‘the foreign mercenaries of his majesty hewed down the foe. The sword gave no mercy, and the land was full of corpses.’ The fugitives, amongst whom was the Libyan king himself, were pursued by the horsemen. All the goods and ornaments of the hostile prince were captured, and the skin tents of the Libyans burnt upon the field of battle. More than 14,000 were reckoned amongst the slain, and over 9000 were made prisoners. The battle of Prosopis secured tranquillity upon the frontier for a considerable time.

The reign of Seti Menephtah II. affords very little worthy of notice. It was quiet and uneventful, but was followed by a period of confusion and civil war. The names of rival kings are preserved, but the details of the history are very obscure. A good general impression, however, of the disastrous scenes amidst which the nineteenth dynasty closed is given by Rameses III., first king of the succeeding dynasty. ‘The land,’ he tells us, ‘had fallen into confusion; each man did as he chose; there was no sovereign master. The princes of the nomes bore sway, and men slaughtered each other through fear and jealousy. The end of these years of calamity was that Aarsu, a Syrian by birth, gained the chief supremacy, and the whole land did him homage. The gods fared no better than men; their images were overthrown, and no oblations were brought to the temples.

‘Then was Setnekht, the beloved of Amen, raised up by the gods. He was like Set in the day of his wrath, and terrible like the god of war. He took command of the whole country, and destroyed the evil-doers who had wasted Lower Egypt; he purified the great throne of Khemi, and restored that which had been disturbed. Each man saw and knew his brother again, from whom he had been separated as by a wall. The sacrifices were reinstated for the gods. He made me heir of the throne of Seb, and ruler of the lands of Khemi. Then he sought repose among the gods; the royal bark crossed the river, and he entered his eternal dwelling-place in Western Thebes.’

FOOTNOTES:

[54] In one hall, forming only a _part_ of the temple in which it stands, the Cathedral of Notre Dame, at Paris, could stand without touching the walls!

[55] For the foregoing particulars and some of the following, see Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson’s _Ancient Egyptians_.

[56] Ampère, _Voyage en Egypte et Nubie_.

[57] Thebes was indeed always considered as two cities. Homer makes it plural, and it has ever since been so—_Thebæ_.

[58] The Greek writer Diodorus Siculus says: ‘The Egyptians call their houses hostelries, since they can enjoy them for a brief space only; whereas their tombs are the eternal dwelling-places of the future.’

[59] For some parts of the description of the cities of Thebes, see Karl Oppel’s _Land der Pyramiden_.

[60] Ebers, in his Egyptian novel of the time of Rameses II., _Uarda_.

[61] Addressed to the departed seer.

[62] I am not sure at how early a date the judgment scene is depicted in any existing funeral papyri; but I believe there is no doubt that neither that nor any ‘other world’ scene occurs in the tombs of the earlier dynasties, so far as they are yet known.

[63] Notice the similarity of thought underlying this myth and that of Osiris and Set.

[64] This idea of a sacred bark appears also in the form assigned to the sacred shrine, p. 177.

[65] Max Müller, _Science of Religion_.

[66] Take in illustration the symbols on any national flag. There is no intrinsic beauty in three coloured stripes, or in the grotesque figures of lions rampant. Yet for the sake of the nation of which they have become symbolic, men will die sooner than surrender the banners on which they are depicted. It is the same with the symbols of rival religions. How fierce the conflict waged by Saracen and Christian beneath the respective symbols of the Crescent and the Cross!

[67] The biographer of Apollonius of Tyana records the following conversation. ‘The beasts and birds,’ says Apollonius, ‘may derive dignity from such representations, but the gods will lose theirs.’ ‘I think,’ says his opponent, ‘you slight our mode of worship before you have given it a fair examination. For surely what we are speaking of is wise, if anything Egyptian is so; the Egyptians do not venture to give any form to their deities, they only give them in symbols which have an occult meaning, that renders them venerable.’ Apollonius, however, is not convinced: he admits that the mind forms to itself an idea which it pictures better than any art can do, but he complains that the Egyptian custom takes from the gods the very power of appearing beautiful either to the eye or to the mind. Porphyry also regards the worship as symbolic; he says that ‘under the semblance of animals the Egyptians worship the universal power which the gods have revealed in the various forms of living nature.’ These quotations and those in the text are taken from Le Page Renout’s _Hibbert Lectures_.

[68] We may, perhaps, except the Chinese.

[69] Recent investigation has identified Tel-el-Maschuta, a spot not far from the modern Ismailia, as the site of both the Pithom and the Succoth of the Old Testament; the former was the sacred, the latter the civil name of the city, which is thus shown to have been one of the store-cities built by the Israelites (Ex. i. II), and also the first stage reached by them on their journey (Ex. xii. 37; xiii. 20). The word _Ar_, meaning storehouse, occurs in the inscription by which M. Naville first identified Pithom-Succoth.

[70] Generally supposed to have been a daughter of Rameses, but if Moses was eighty when he stood before the successor of that monarch, that would have been impossible.

[71] Ex. ii. 23. How well this incidental allusion coincides with the sixty-seven years’ reign of Rameses II.!

[72] Such an investigation has been recently undertaken by the _Egypt Exploration Fund_. The extent to which it may be carried depends entirely on the means placed at its disposal.