NEW LI GMT ANCIENT G-MASPB NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT THE COVER OF ONE OF THE BIG COFFINS IN DAVIS'S TOMB. Frontispiece. NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT BY G. MASPERO MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE, PROFESSOR AT THE COLLEGE DE FRANCE, DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SERVICE DES ANTIOJJITES, CAIRO TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY ELIZABETH LEE NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY First Edition, 1908 Second Edition, 1909 [All rights reserved] THE GETTY CENTER LIBRARY AUTHOR'S NOTE I HAVE been trying for about fifteen years to bring a science supposed to be only comprehensible to ex- perts within the reach of ordinary men, and it would be gratifying to find that I have not wasted my time, and that through my efforts, some portion of the general public have become interested in it. I have drawn my material from everything that can be dis- cussed with educated people without demanding any- thing more than a little attention : excavations, religion, travels, popular customs, literature, history, have each and all furnished me with subjects. The result is a " living picture " of the researches made in the domain of Egyptology during a period of fifteen years. I have faithfully stated the opinions of others, and have more freely expressed my own opinions than I imagined I had, before re-reading the sheets. Recent discoveries have proved some of them to be true, others are still doubtful. In the groundwork of the essays, however, I have made no changes, beyond a few modifications in the style and manner of expression. NOTE ON THE SPELLING OF THE EGYPTIAN NAMES ( Written specially for the English edition) THE transcriptions of the Egyptian names in this volume differ so materially from those in general use in England that a word of explanation in regard to them seems advisable. For such barbarous pronunciations as Thoutmes, Ahmes, Rausorma, I have substituted Thoutm6sis, Ahmosis, Ousimare's, a vocalization nearer that of the ancient pronunciation. Some of the vowel sounds, 1 like those of the three names just quoted, are derived from the Greeks, or from the Egyptians of the Grasco- Roman period ; others are deduced by analogy with Greek transcriptions from forms the exact transliteration of which has not been preserved for us by the ancients. The reader will easily recognize the former in those where I have kept the Greek or Latin terminations es, os, or us, is, ous; where those terminations are wanting, the form is deduced by analogy, or determined in accordance with the rules of grammar. Thus Amenothes (Amenhotep), Khamois (Kha-em-uas), Harmakhis (Hor-em-Khou) are pronunciations justified by the Greek renderings ; Amenemhait (Amenemhat), Hatshopsouitou (Hatasou, Hashepsou) are grammatical deductions. Many points are still doubtful, and some of the vowel sounds will have to be modified in the future ; but they have at least the merit of testifying to an effort towards the truth, and of undeceiving the public who, on the faith of the Egyptologists, accept as legitimate, pronunciations which would have been considered monstrous by the Egyptians themselves. An error is easily corrected when it first arises, but if it is allowed to persist it is an exceedingly difficult matter to eradicate it. No better proof can be given than the persistence of the form Hatasou for the name of the great queen who shared the throne of the Pharaohs with Thoutmosis III. For the sake of uniformity, I have adopted the orthography and vocalization of the Graeco- Roman period, in the same way as in France we use the French forms, Clovis, Clotaire, Thierry, for the Merovingian kings in order not to introduce very dissimilar words into our history books. We must, however, remember that the vocalization and pronunciation of names do not remain unchanged 1 They should be pronounced as in French. vii viii NOTE during the course of history. Not to mention dialect forms which would be too difficult to determine, 1 established a long while ago, partly by means of the Assyrian transcriptions, that many names of which the tonic syllable is vocalized in 0, Su, in the Greek period, have the same syllable vocalized in a under the second Theban empire, in the vernacular of the age of the Ramses : the Amenothes, /. e. the Amenhotpe of Manethon is Amanhatpe in the inscriptions of El- Amarna. The recent discovery of Hittite archives confirms that fact, for they give among others, for the Ramses Meiamoun Ousimares of the Ptolemaic age, a Ouashmariya Riamasha Maiamanou, which corresponds with an Egyptian pronunciation Ouasimariya Riamasa(ou) Maiamanou. But I did not think it advisable to introduce those variants into a book intended for the general public. CONTENTS I. THE DIPLOMATIC ARCHIVES OF EL-AMARNA IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY B.C. SUSA AND THE DIEULAFOYS I II. THE OLDEST KNOWN EXPLORERS OF THE AFRICAN DESERT . . . . . . . . 12 III. THE TOMBS OF THEBES 22 IV. NAVILLE AND BUBASTIS ..... 33 V. SYRIA FROM THE EIGHTEENTH TO THE FOUR- TEENTH CENTURY B.C. AS IT APPEARS IN THE EGYPTIAN MONUMENTS 42 VI. EGYPT AND THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES . . 53 VII. A FORGOTTEN CAPITAL OF PHARAONIC EGYPT . 63 VIII. THE TEMPLE OF DEiR EL-BAHARf . . . 75 IX. A TRILINGUAL INSCRIPTION IN PRAISE OF C. CORNELIUS CALLUS, PREFECT OF EGYPT . . 84 X. ON AN EGYPTIAN- MONUMENT CONTAINING THE NAME OF ISRAEL .... .91 XI. COPTOS ........ 97 XII. THE TOMB OF ANTINOUS AT ROME . . .103 XIII. A PHILOSOPHICAL DIALOGUE BETWEEN AN EGYPTIAN AND HIS SOUL 109 XIV. AN EGYPTIAN BOOK OF MAGIC OF THE FIRST CENTURY A.D. . . . . . . . Il6 XV. ARCHAIC EGYPT 122 XVI. EGYPTIAN BELIEF IN LUCKY AND UNLUCKY DAYS 128 XVII. THE EGYPTIAN 'BOOK OF THE DEAD' . . .137 XVIII. EGYPTIAN ANIMATED STATUES .... 144 ix CONTENTS XIX. WHAT THE EGYPTIANS SCRIBBLED ON THEIR WALLS 150 XX. EGYPTIAN LOVE POETRY 157 XXI. CAN THE PRONUNCIATION OF THE HIEROGLYPHIC INSCRIPTIONS BE DISCOVERED? . . . 163 XXII. CONCERNING A RECENTLY DISCOVERED FRAG- MENT OF A COPTIC NOVEL . . . .169 XXIII. AN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PROVINCIAL TOWN . 176 XXIV. A NEW EGYPTIAN TALE 182 XXV. HOW AN EGYPTIAN STATESMAN BECAME A GOD 189 XXVI EGYPTIAN FORMULAS FOR THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN 196 XXVII. CONCERNING A FRAGMENT OF OLD EGYPTIAN ANNALS ....... 203 XXVIII. MUMMIES OF ANIMALS IN ANCIENT EGYPT . 208 XXIX. THE FORTUNE OF AN EGYPTIAN GOD THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO . . . .215 XXX. THE PALACE OF AN EGYPTIAN PHARAOH AT THEBES . . . . . . .221 XXXI. AN EGYPTIAN BOOK OF PROPHECIES . . 228 XXXII. THE EGYPTIAN ORIGIN OF THE ATTIC DIONYSUS 234 XXXIII. A NEW TOMB IN THE VALLEY OF THE THEBAN KINGS ....... 241 XXXIV. THE OASIS OF AMMON 248 XXXV. ON THE REPRODUCTION OF EGYPTIAN BAS- RELIEFS .... . . 254 XXXVI. THE TREASURE OF TOUKH-EL-GARMOUS . . 260 XXXVII. A NEW TREATISE ON EGYPTIAN MEDICINE . 266 XXXVIII. THE COW OF DE!R EL-BAHARI . . .272 XXXIX. THE TEMPLES OF THE SUN IN ARCHAIC EGYPT 278 XL. CONCERNING A RECENT DISCOVERY OF EGYPTIAN GOLDSMITHS' WORK . . . . .284 XLI. THE TOMB OF QUEEN TfYI . . . .29! XLII. THE PURPOSE OF THE WOODEN TOYS FOUND IN EGYPTIAN TOMBS 299 INDEX 307 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Cover of one of the big Coffins in Davis's Tomb Frontispiece Facing page The Audience-Chambers of the old Palace at Susa . 10 The Site of the City of Elephantine*, seen from Assouan . . . . .' . .' , . 12 The Pigmy Khnoumhotpou in the Museum at Cairo . 20 One of the Walls in the Tomb of Nakhouiti . . 28 The Site of the Temple of Bastit at Bubastis during Naville's excavations 34 Pharaoh Thoutmosis 1 1 1, from a Statue in the Museum at Cairo 50 The Temple of Hatshopsouitou at Deir El-Bahari after Naville's excavations 74 The Name of Israel on the triumphal Stela of Menephtah 92 King Sanuosrit (Usertesen) I bringing the Oar and Rudder to Minu of Coptos 98 The Barberini Obelisk raised by Hadrian for Antinous 102 The so-called Palette of Narmer, a Monument of Archaic Egypt 122 The god Khonsou. Head of a Statue found in the Temple of Khonsou at Karnak . . . . 146 A French graffito from Bonaparte's Army in Egypt . 150 A Bas-relief from a provincial school of sculpture at Denderah 178 Amenothe's, son of Paapis, a Statue from Karnak in the Cairo Museum u 188 xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Amenothe's' Oracle in the Temple of Phtah at Karnak Facing pagt 192 One of the faces of the Palermo Stone, a fragment of the Egyptian Annals . . >. 204 The Mummy of a Hawk in its Coffin .... 208 One of the Chairs in Davis's Tomb, with its Cushion 242 A Girl's Chariot in Davis's Tomb .... 246 A Bas-relief in the Tomb of Kemnikai at Sakkarah . 258 A Silver Bowl and a Rhyton from the find of Toukh- el-Garmous 260 A Gold Bracelet from the find of Toukh-el-Garmous 262 The Shrine and Cow in situ at Deir El-Bahart . . 272 The Shrine and Cow in the Museum at Cairo . . 276 The Temple of the Sun at Abousir, from Borchardt's Restoration ,, 278 Queen Tiyi * . 294 THE DIPLOMATIC ARCHIVES OF EL-AMARNA IN THE FOUR- TEENTH CENTURY B.C. SUSA AND THE DIEULAFOYS ABOUT the end of the fourteenth century B.C. the relations of Egypt with foreign powers were regulated by officials attached to the house of Pharaoh who always accompanied the king in his travels. Some of them are to be seen in the paintings in the Theban tombs, where they appear as dignified, solemn personages, with the large wigs and the long pleated white linen cloaks worn by people of importance. They introduced the Syrian or Kushite ambassadors, and if the strangers were not already acquainted with the etiquette proper to the audience, instructed them how to cover their faces with their hands in the presence of the king, to show their dread of him by broken exclamations, to rub their noses against the ground, and to approach the foot of the throne on their knees. They interpreted the speeches made in foreign tongues, presented the gifts, and verified the credentials. They had under them secretaries to compose the protocols, interpreters and scribes for African and Asiatic languages, translators, clerks, and archivists. Big terra-cotta jars served for portfolios in which to keep dispatches; these were carried in the 2 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT monarch's train by asses, or in a special boat, until, the business finished, they were consigned to the oblivion of a lumber-room. In 1887 the fellaheen, who act as guides to the ruins of El-Amarna, discovered several of these diplomatic jars in a corner of the palace of Amenothes IV. They broke them, shared the contents, and sold them to the dealers in antiquities; three museums, those of Gizeh, London, and Berlin, possess nearly the whole find. MM. Abel and Winckler in Berlin, and Messrs. Bezold and Budge in London published a copy or fac- simile of the documents; M. Hale'vy turned into French as much as he could decipher. The lacunae are numer- ous, the language difficult, and the details of the negotiations often escape us; but the general sense comes out clearly enough in the parts we can read with certainty, and we can gather a distinct idea of the foreign policy of Egypt in those far-off days. The form and aspect are very curious. Imagine tablets of clay varying in thickness and shape between the size of a cuttle-fish bone and that of a small sponge- cake. The messenger who carried many of them ran the risk of literally sinking under the weight of the state affairs of Babylon and Memphis; the return journey was much pleasanter, for the Egyptians did not use such heavy material, and Pharaoh's reply was written on papyrus. The writing is a variety of the cuneiform. Chaldaean conquerors had often invaded Syria during the preceding centuries, and had imposed their civilization on it. The peoples living between Mount Taurus and the Egyptian frontiers had adopted the Babylonian system of weights and measures; they imitated Babylonian models in arts and in industries, and adopted Babylonian fashions in dress, ornaments and hair-dressing. Probably the Phoenicians already possessed their alphabet, the source of ours, but they reserved it for their private needs; in their communica- SUSA AND THE DIEULAFOYS 3 tions with their neighbours or with their Egyptian suzerains they preferred cuneiform writing. And not only the Semitic-speaking states practised that cumber- some method of writing, the Asiatic tribes of the Taurus and the Middle Euphrates imitated it, and some of their letters have come down to us, but they have not yet found an interpreter. The dispatches in the current language are all addressed to two Pharaohs only, Amenothes III and his son Amenothes IV, and they seem to cover a period of from fifteen to twenty years. A few of them emanate from very exalted monarchs, kings of the Mitanni, kings of Alasia, kings of Nineveh or of Babylon, who address the King of Egypt as an equal, and, according to etiquette, call him brother. The larger number of his correspondents are of lower rank, sheikhs, emirs, governors of towns who recommend themselves to the kindness of "their lord, their god, their sun." The formulas gush forth from their stylets, and many of their mis- sives are merely strings of polite phrases in which no fact of importance is to be distinguished. They all make anxious inquiry about the master's health, and he expands in kind wishes for the ladies of the harem, the royal children, the nobles, the infantry, the cavalry, in fact for the whole nation. With such courteous people Pharaoh could not have been behindhand in com- pliments, but we do not know in what terms he couched them. His replies are still hidden, awaiting the blessed stroke of the pick-axe that shall restore them to the light of day. Women were often concerned in these diplomatic relations. The unlimited polygamy which then flour- ished played a large part in political combinations. Each sovereign possessed numerous sisters, daughters or nieces of whom he disposed at will, and however full his harem might be, he could always find a place 4 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT for the stranger who brought him a new alliance. Every time an Egyptian army invaded Syria, its successes brought as many recruits to Pharaoh's harem as towns taken or petty kings subdued. The princesses were reckoned in the ransom of their fathers or brothers, and were a pledge for the loyalty of the family, but their position at court was somewhat precarious ; for one who was privileged to receive the title of queen, a hundred or more never advanced beyond the position of secondary wife or of mere concubine. The highest rank belonged to the daughters of the "solar" blood of Egypt, heirs like their brothers, and who often had rights superior to theirs over the crown; the strangers came afterwards, and only when Egyptians failed. The kings of Babylon or of the Mitanni, who knew the laws of the neighbouring countries, might be reluctant to accept for their daughters a servitude which humiliated them and their relatives, but the advantages of an alliance with Pharaoh were so considerable that in the end they overcame their repugnance, and one after the other sacrificed all the princesses at their disposal. They would have liked to receive in exchange, if not a daughter or a sister, at least a distant relative of their powerful ally. But Amenothes III had the pride of his race, and replied to his brother of Babylon that " no Egyptian lady had ever been given to a foreign vassal." Once arrived at Thebes the Asiatics were lost to their own people; the doors of the women's apart- ments closed behind them, and no one ever knew what became of them. If a father or brother made inquiries, and if he demanded a guarantee of their existence, Pharaoh sometimes ordered that the ambas- sador charged with the inquiry should be admitted to the private part of the palace. The poor man was greatly embarrassed ; he was introduced to a lady, richly dressed, and with painted face, who declared herself to SUSA AND THE DIEULAFOYS 5 be she whom he sought, but he had no means of prov- ing that she spoke the truth. The brides brought with them a train of servants, slaves, and scribes, a trousseau, furniture, jewels, and gold and silver treasure which assured their maintenance. It was the custom for the son-in-law to give his father-in-law a present in propor- tion to the value of the dowry, and he acquitted himself of this expensive obligation, but without enthusiasm. It was a case for endless recrimination ; whatever was paid him, the Syrian declared that it was not equivalent to his daughter. Sometimes he refused to accept the gift ; more often he claimed a supplement by grumbling letters, or he pointed out with zest the contrast between Egyptian parsimony and his own generosity. Side by side with the documents that reveal these little-known sides of the sovereign's private life, others show us the political situation in those parts of Syria that were under his influence. The Egyptians never possessed a regular empire in Asia, divided into pro- vinces, and administered by a governor directly appointed by them. They occupied a few scattered fortresses on the strategic routes, but the rest remained in the hands of the native nobles who had held them at the moment of the invasion. These surrendered after a short resistance, paid an annual tribute in precious metals or in the products of local industry, and undertook to fight the enemies of their suzerain whosoever they might be. With that exception they continued their former way of life, keeping their religion, their laws, their customs; they made alliances with or fought each other, they pillaged towns, laid waste fields, plundered caravans, and robbed or mur- dered Pharaoh's messengers. Pharaoh interfered in their affairs as little as possible, but they harassed him unceasingly with their grievances and recriminations. The El-Amarna find contains about fifty of these terra- cotta documents relating to a quarrel between Rib- Adda, a noble of Byblos, and a certain Abdashirta, into which other nobles of the Phoenician coast and of Coelo-Syria were drawn. Both factions implored the unfortunate Amenothes IV to intervene in their favour, and so we have now and again the two opposite versions of the same event. They mutually accuse each other of treason, of cheating, of murder; they beg the aid of troops, of ten, twenty, fifty archers, and imply that their adversary is openly or secretly in connivance with Pharaoh's enemies, preferably with the Khatis. The intrigues and disputes in this province offer a faithful picture of what was happening elsewhere. Fighting was going on from one end of the territory to the other, and peace no more reigned among the vassals of the king of Egypt than it did among the nobles of medieval France in the eleventh century. It is to be noted that a large number of the names mentioned in the Old Testament or by classical geographers are mentioned in these inscriptions, Tyre, Sidon, Berytes, Accho, Damas- cus, Gaza, even Jerusalem. I need scarcely emphasize what deep interest this authentic collection of letters written by inhabitants of Canaan more than a century before the entry of the Hebrews into the Promised Land possesses in relation to biblical criticism. All who have admired the archers of Susa in the Louvre will be glad to see them again in the coloured plates with which M. Dujardin has adorned M. Dieu- lafoy's work. 1 Never before have the cold and brilliant tones of enamelled brick been reproduced with such exactness and fidelity. Doubtless the impression of semi-latent life, which is felt in presence of the originals, is not felt in looking at the copies; no artifice, however perfect, could reproduce it. It is due to the incessant 1 M. Dieulafoy : LAcropole de Suse, Paris, 1893. SUSA AND THE DIEULAFOYS 7 play of light on the prominence of the reliefs, and to the thickness of the enamels; and the spectator con- tinually increases the illusion by the modifications of the light he himself unconsciously produces with each of his movements. When, however, the picture is looked at at one fixed point, the light does not shift; directly the light becomes still the appearance of life is lost. M. Dieulafoy has related elsewhere the adventures of the mission to which France owes the most beautiful works of ancient Persian civilization. He is now at- tempting to utilize the materials he has brought back, and by their means to reconstruct a history of the Susian acropolis. The Greeks regarded Susa as the perfect type of those Asiatic capitals by the side of which the cities of Hellas seemed insignificant villages. Its name alone awoke even in the most unimaginative minds an idea of almost superhuman grandeur and beauty : palaces panelled with cedar and gold, sup- ported on gigantic columns; gardens as big as pro- vinces, in which the deer might be hunted for whole days without leaving the enclosure; mysterious temples in which the sacred fire was never extinguished; troops of women and of eunuchs; the Immortals with their priceless robes and weapons; a horde of nobles, friends, relatives, and alone, apart from the crowd, the Great King, the king of kings, who, with his nod, could set the world in an uproar, and precipitate Asia upon divided Greece. The past might be guessed from what was seen in the present; its masters had always ruled over a powerful empire, the oldest known after Egypt and Babylon. The citadel was situated on a lofty mound of rubbish between two of the numerous arms which the Oulai hollows out in the black earth. An amphitheatre of snow mountains was vaguely outlined behind it from east to north; in the west the alluvial plains were spread out, and the view extended over fields, 8 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT rivers, and woods as far as the marshes that divide Elam from Chaldaea. Whether the enemy descended from the tableland of Iran or came up from the shallows of the Euphrates, Susa could perceive his approach from afar, and had more time than was needed to prepare a warm welcome for him. M. Dieulafoy discovered only the ruins of the old fortress which fell under the blows of the Assyrians; but from them he has been able to make out almost the whole plan of the Persian fortress. He patiently followed the traces of the walls on the ground, he cleared away the rubbish from those portions which seemed to offer some interesting peculiarity of con- struction, and succeeded in reconstructing in imagina- tion the whole of the ramparts, towers, ditches, and gates which protected the king's palace. To have a subject so difficult as archaic fortification treated by an expert who combines technical knowledge with a true feeling for antiquity, is rare good fortune both for archaeologists and historians. M. Dieulafoy rapidly reviewed Egypt, Babylonia, Syria, and Assyria; he examined what each of the great oriental nations in- vented for attack and defence, and the conclusions to which this inquiry has led him must considerably modify current opinion. The Egyptian citadels are conceived for the most part on a plan of the simplest regularity. The reason is, I think, to do with the nature of the ground rather than with the engineers' lack of skill. The inundation which recurs almost on a fixed day, and transforms the cities into so many islands scattered unevenly over the surface of an im- mense lake, makes the approaches very difficult during several months of the year. It was an advantage for the inhabitants, but it imposed plans of severe simplicity. It was necessary that the water should flow along the walls without meeting any obstacle which should check SUSA AND THE DIEULAFOYS g its impetuosity. The slightest excrescence would have caused eddies likely to menace the solidity of the place ; the river would slowly but surely have worn away the ramparts, as it wears away the promontories which jut out beyond the line of the banks, and one fine day would have carried them away. Therefore the greater number of Egyptian citadels form a parallelogram of thick, com- pact, rectilineal walls, without towers or other excres- cences. The Chaldaeans, who, like the Egyptians, in- habited lands subject to annual inundations, seem to have protected their towns in a similar manner. As far as we can tell up to the present time, they were regular enclosures of a sufficient thickness to resist the battering-ram and sapping, but almost smooth on the outer side, or furnished with towers that were little higher than the ramparts. To find fortifications of a more ingenious conception, and more in keeping with our customs, we must go to countries where the rivers do not overflow, to Canaan or to Assyria. M. Dieulafoy has very cleverly restored the aspect of the Ninevite and Babylonian citadels by consulting the pictures on the monuments; he then verified the results obtained on the ground itself, comparing them with certain facts with which the excavations at Susa had furnished him. The large Susian towns were sur- rounded with a triple fence, the arrangement of which singularly recalls the plans adopted by the Byzantine emperors at Constantinople. To attack them was a formidable enterprise, and needed much time, patience, and tenacity, many men and many engines of war. The walls were too high for scaling, and the engineers of that time were ignorant of the art of undermining the foundations; they had to demolish and pull down the ramparts by blows of the battering-ram, or by means of metal hooks, to break or burn the gates, and to carry on all their operations amid a hail of arrows, stones, io NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT and heavy beams. The contour of the building was wonderfully adapted to allow the defenders to kill as many of the enemy as possible; even when the breach was opened and the town occupied, all was not lost, for the keep offered them a safe shelter whence they could make a long resistance while waiting their deliver- ance by a succouring army. The fortresses of Susa, after braving the efforts of the Assyrians, defied those of the Greeks. Treason delivered them to Alexander, but none of the generals who attacked them during the wars which followed, succeeded in entering them by force, although the garrisons consisted of only a handful of men. Abandoned by the Parthians and the Sassa- nides, they were mere heaps of ruins when the Arabs invaded the country and converted it to Islamism. The millions of unbaked bricks of which they were built, decomposed by the sun and half liquefied by the rain, gradually became amalgamated, and form now a com- pact mass, which at first yields no trace of the work of human hands; only those who have prosecuted their researches under similar conditions will realize the patience and sagacity required to ascertain the thickness of the beds of brick, the direction of the face, the per- spective and intersection of the walls. Who does not remember the ingenious reconstruc- tions of the palaces in the Susian Acropolis by M. and Madame Dieulafoy at the French exhibition of 1889? In the book before me they fill several skilfully engraved plates. They were partly audience chambers in which the Great King deigned to reveal himself to the nobles of the court and to foreign ambassadors on days of solemn festival. The restoration is doubtful in more than one place, and further excavations may extract information from the earth which will give the problem a different aspect. But many points are established with sufficient certainty to enable us to judge from the SUSA AND THE DIEULAFOYS u work of M. Dieulafoy what Persian architecture was. There is only one type which properly belongs to it, that of crouching bulls, joined in couples by the middle of the body and surmounting the capitals of the columns ; the rest is borrowed from diverse peoples, from Assyria and Babylonia, from Egypt, from Asia Minor, from Greece. It must, however, be admitted that Persian architects understood how to construct grand and original buildings out of those differing elements. M. Dieulafoy has briefly indicated the sources, and his comparisons between the coloured bas-reliefs of Susa, and various Asiatic or Greek works of a semi- archaic style are most ingenious. Just as nobles and princes belonging to all the nations that Cyrus or Darius had conquered, were to be seen at the court, workmen and artists of every nationality crowded the scaffoldings; each worked in his own fashion, and derived something from or lent something to his neigh- bour, the Susian to the Egyptian, and he in his turn to the Greek or the Assyrian. The lotus of the Nile was associated with types of animals from the banks of the Euphrates, and the Immortals of the royal guard were draped like the figures on the Lycian reliefs. Persian art was as composite as the Persian Empire, and the loans that it made right and left had no more time to commingle into one harmonious whole than the various nationalities had to combine themselves into one people. II THE OLDEST KNOWN EXPLORERS OF THE AFRICAN DESERT THE most ancient explorers of Africa have recently risen from their graves. They are Egyptians, who belong to one of the most powerful families of the country, to that of the lords of Assouan and Elephan- tine". They lived somewhere about the year 3500 B.C. two or three centuries are of no consequence in deal- ing with dates in the history of ancient Eastern empires. I cannot say that these explorers penetrated far into the interior of the Dark Continent, but their expeditions were long, fatiguing, dangerous, profitable. They in- spired them with so much pride, and brought them so many good things, that they desired to preserve their memory for posterity, and engraved the narrative in their tombs. In 1892 Schiaparelli copied and pub- lished the memoirs of one of them, named Hirkhouf. 1 De Morgan and Bouriant discovered several others 2 in 1893, equally as illustrious in their day, and as unknown in ours, as Hirkhouf. The inscriptions are mutilated in varying degrees, and what remains often serves only to make us regret what is lost; they prove, however, that the Egyptians who are always represented as home- keeping and hostile to travelling possessed active minds and a spirit of enterprise. 1 E. Schiaparelli : " Una tomba egiziana inedita della VI* dinastia, con inscrizioni storiche e geografiche," Rome, 1892. (Extract from the Memoirs of the Reale Accademia dei Lt'ncei, Ser. 4% at Vol. x, Pt. I.) 2 Cf. De lafrontiere de Nubie ct Kom-Ombo^ 1893, pp. 143-599. EXPLORERS OF THE AFRICAN DESERT 13 Elephantine played the same part in ancient times as Assouan does in modern times; it was the most fre- quented commercial market of the Soudan. It filled a small portion of a little island, supported on several blocks of granite, which had been successively joined to each other by banks of sand, and over which the Nile had spread a thick covering of mud. Acacias, mulberry-trees, date-trees, and dom-palms, either as hedges bordering the paths, or as a screen in front of the river, or in clumps in the middle of the fields, pro- vided shade. Half-a-dozen norias, arranged like a bat- tery along the river-banks, pumped up the water day and night, with their incessant, monotonous grinding noise. The inhabitants did not waste an inch of their narrow domain; they managed to sow everywhere little patches of millet and barley, clover and vegetables. A few buffaloes and cows fed discreetly in the corners, innumerable chickens and pigeons roved around marauding. The ancient town was situated to the south, on a high granite plateau, out of the way of the inundation. The ruins are some 872 yards in extent, and are grouped round a ruined temple, the oldest parts of which do not go further back than the sixteenth century B.C. The town was surrounded by a high wall, and a conduit house built of dried bricks, situated on the south-east of a neighbouring island, allowed it to open or close the outlet of the cataract at will. On the east, but separated by a channel about 100 yards wide, stood Syene on the side of the hill, like a suburb of Elephan- tine". Marshy pasture land covered the actual site of Assouan, and there were gardens, vines which pro- duced a wine famous throughout the valley, and a forest of date-trees and acacias running northwards along the edge of the water. The bazaars and streets of the twin cities must have presented at that period quite an interest- ing variety of types and costumes : Nubians, Soudanese 14 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT negroes, and perhaps Arabs, rubbed shoulders with Libyans and the Egyptians of the Delta. On the other side of the river, the left bank, vast cemeteries offered one asylum to the diverse races. The tombs of the princes occupied an irregular line on the side of the steep hill which dominates the entrance of the port. A roughly constructed flight of steps of unhewn stone led from the bank to the entrance of the hypogeum. The mummy, after slowly climbing the ascent on the shoul- ders of its bearers, paused for a moment on the platform at the door of the chapel. The decoration did not admit of much variety; it was almost entirely displayed on the outer side of the walls which enclose the bay, and which is distinctly seen from the streets of Elephan- tine". A long inscription covers the lintel and the up- rights, and the portrait of the dead man stands right and left, as if to guard safely his eternal home. Mekhou is the first of the nobles whose adventures are known to us. He lived under Pioupi II, who is the Pharaoh before the last of the Vlth Dynasty. 1 His cousin Hirkhouf made three successive journeys during the reign of Metesouphis I, Pioupi IPs predecessor. Metesouphis I was still quite young when he came to Elephantin6 in the fifth year of his reign. There the chief nomad races of the desert, the Ouaouaitou, the Mazaiou, the people of Iritit, paid him homage, and their submission doubtless encouraged him to send an expedition into the district, as little visited then as it is to-day, that lies along the left bank of the Nile as far as Derr. His choice fell on Iroui, Hirkhouf 's father, and on Hirkhouf himself. " His Majesty sent me with my father, Iroui, to the land of Amami to open up the road to that country ; I accomplished it in seven months, and brought back all kinds of commodities, for which I was 1 See inscription of Mekhou in J. de Morgan : De la frontftre de V Egypt d Kom-Ombo, p. 147. EXPLORERS OF THE AFRICAN DESERT 15 highly praised." 1 This was only, so to speak, a trial trip, in which he served his apprenticeship under his father's tuition. He soon set out again, and this time alone. " I set out by the Elephantin6 route; I travelled in the land of Iritit, then in the land of Makhir, then in Dar-risi, which belongs to Iritit, for the space of eight months; I travelled there, and brought back great store of commodities of all kinds, such as had never before been brought into Egypt. I travelled through the territories of the Prince of Sitou, which belongs to the people of Iritit. I traversed those regions, a prowess accomplished by none of the chiefs of caravans who had gone before me to the land of Amami." 2 Returned home, the king did not allow him to remain long in- active. " His Majesty sent me a third time to the land of Amami ; I left Elephantin by the road of the oasis, and found the Prince of Amami about to march towards the country of the Timihou, to make war on them, at the western corner of the sky. I accompanied him against the Timihou, and helped him to conquer them so thoroughly that he paid homage to all the gods of Pharaoh. I then won over the Prince of Amami, and traversed Amami from the country of Iritit to the bor- ders of Sitou. I found the Prince of Iritit, Sitou, and the people of Ouaouit living in peace. I travelled with 300 asses laden with incense, ebony, ivory, rhinoceros skins, leopard skins, and all sorts of excellent commodities." 3 Egyptian soldiers escorted him, as well as auxiliaries from Amami, and the sheikhs of Iritit had to furnish him with asses, oxen, and the provisions needed to maintain the little army. When he reached the frontiers of Egypt, Pharaoh sent " the Lord Ouni to meet him with a boat laden with confectionery, good things, and 1 Inscription of Hirkhouf, B, I. 4-5. 2 Ibid., B, I. 5-10. 3 Ibid., B, I. 10-14, and C, I. 1-5. 16 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT beer" 1 to comfort him after the privations he had endured in the course of his travels. Hirkhouf cared nothing for oratorical developments; he said what he had to say, baldly, never suspecting that more could be desired of him than the names of the peoples among whom he travelled, and a brief list of the articles he brought back. His bare information must be supplemented by the testimony of more recent adven- turers acting under similar conditions. Like the Arab travellers of the Middle Ages, the Egyptians of the Ancient Empire traversed the world for the sake of trade; they set out on their discoveries with a pack of trumpery wares, and returned from them with bales of valuable merchandise. It will perhaps be asked why the rulers of Elephantine", who had considerable troops at their disposal, did not resort to brute force to cut a way through the Nubian tribes. They did not hesitate on occasion to send bands of soldiers to the right or left of the Valley of the Nile, to the Red Sea, or to the oases of the Libyan desert; indeed, their incursions into those regions brought them oxen, slaves, wood, coal, a few ounces of gold, a few packets of amethysts, or of green felspar, used for jewellery; they always gained some- thing thereby, and the royal treasury disdained no con- tribution, however small. But their armies never went very far; directly they desired to carry their depreda- tions to any great distance, the Nubian mountains stopped their foot soldiers, and the rapids of the second cataract offered an almost insuperable obstacle to their boats. They were obliged to lay down their arms, and to become perforce peaceful traders ; their caravans could then traverse in safety routes from which their soldiers would not have escaped unharmed. And Hirkhouf, or Mekhou, had to act by the king's decree. The objects chosen for barter were those that had most value in 1 Inscription of Hirkhouf, C, I. 8-9. EXPLORERS OF THE AFRICAN DESERT 17 small compass and were of light weight : small glass wares, jewellery, coarse cutlery, strong perfumes, gaudy stuffs which, fifty centuries later, still have charm for the natives of Africa. They paid for these costly treasures in gold dust or bullion, ostrich feathers, lion or leopard skins, elephants' teeth, cowries, blocks of ebony wood, incense, myrrh, gum arabic. Monkeys, especially baboons, were greatly esteemed in Egypt. They amused the nobles who chained them to their chairs on days of solemn festival; the traders willingly undertook to try and bring them back alive. The way was exhausting, the journey interminable ; the asses, the sole beasts of burden possessed or used in those regions, could only manage short stages, and it took many months to cover distances that a caravan of camels accomplishes in a few weeks. The routes they chose were those in which wells or springs occur at not too distant intervals, and the necessity of often watering the asses, and the impos- sibility of carrying a large provision of water, compelled the explorer to take tortuous or complicated routes. It is thus easy to understand that Hirkhouf and his con- temporaries did not penetrate very far into the mystery of Africa. The countries that they were so proud of having visited were not so very distant from Egypt, Amami and Iritit in the desert, south-west of Elephantine^ be- tween the first and second cataract ; the Timihou, situated towards the western corner of the sky, were the Berbers who peopled the oases. In short, the nobles of Elephan- tine" exerted themselves under the Pharaohs of the Vlth Dynasty to discover Nubia and the Libyan desert. The knowledge gained was scarcely more than the names of races, mingled with marvellous tales or mytho- logical legends. The Nile had its source in a divine river which enveloped the sky, and on which the Boat of the Sun continually sailed, the river-ocean of Greek tradition ; having reached the southern regions of the i8 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT firmament, an arm was detached, and fell on the earth in a tumultuous cascade. The point where it touched our world was first placed at the first cataract, and then, as geographical knowledge widened, it was put further south. It is obvious that its neighbourhood should be inhabited by special races, intermediary between men and gods. All the travellers who approached it drew attention to the existence of an Island of Doubles, where a serpent with a human voice reigned over the doubles of the dead, and of a land of Manes, the name of which sufficiently indicates its nature. The last of the coun- tries similar to Egypt was Pouanit, the land of gold and incense, which extended along the coast of the Red Sea. The traders who frequented it purchased objects or creatures hailing from the fabulous regions of the ex- treme south; what they sought most and found least was a particular kind of pygmy, whose name, Danga, curiously resembles that of several African tribes. The first Danga was brought into Egypt a little less than a century before Hirkhouf,under Pharaoh Assi, of the Vth Dynasty. The pygmy had been welcomed at court as a sort of buffoon, useful for charming away the sovereign's ennui by his savage cries and gestures, and, above all, by a sort of ballet that he performed alone admirably, called the Dance of the god. 1 The god whose dance he imitated was himself a dwarf, with a big head covered with long hair, a bearded face, and enormous limbs, and clothed in a leopard skin. He was named Bisou, and came originally from the ports of Pouanit, early becoming naturalized in Egypt. Bisou, both jovial and grim, both warrior and musician, expressed his varia- tions of temper in warlike mimicry with sword and shield, or in joyous movements to the tune of the little 1 Inscription of Hirkhouf, D, I. 6-9. The Danga reminds us of the Satyrs who, according to Diodorus (I. 18), were brought to Osiris in Ethiopia, and whom he attached to his army. EXPLORERS OF THE AFRICAN DESERT 19 triangular harp of the desert tribes, on which he accompanied himself. The Danga of the time of Assi had so greatly aston- ished the courtiers by his agility, that ever since they had tried to procure a similar buffoon; but the species was rare, and years passed without any success in re- placing him. The admiration which he had inspired produced unexpected results. Souls, even those of the Pharaohs themselves, could not penetrate into the para- dise of Osiris except by crossing an arm of the sea which divided it from the land of the living. A magic ferry- boat undertook the service on certain days, but the ferry- man did not admit all and sundry of the would-be pas- sengers : they had to prove their right to embark, and to answer a hundred captious questions on transcendental theology before he consented to ferry them across. A prayer, doubtless composed a short while after the reign of Assi, when the memory of the Danga was still fresh, shows us the ferry-boat at its post awaiting the Manes. Suddenly a noise is heard among the gods and the souls on the bank; the Danga arrives, and he must be taken without delay to Pharaoh Osiris, who has sought him in vain until now, and who expects great pleasure from his dancing. The ferryman immediately loses his head, takes on board the soul which gives itself out to be the Danga, pilots it without asking a single question to the port of paradise, and puts it ashore at the steps leading to the tribunal of Osiris, where it will represent the qualities of the Danga it so cleverly usurped. 1 The ideal thing for an Egyptian explorer entrusted with an official mission was to come across a Danga, and to transport it alive into Egypt. Hirkhouf was more fortunate than many others; during his third journey he purchased one that the hazards of trade ha3 brought 1 Papi I, i. 400-404 ; Mirinrf i., 570-571 ; cf. Maspero : Etudes de Mythologie et d'Arch/ologie Egyptiennes^ Vol. ii, pp. 429-443. to the land of Amami, and which came originally from the Land of Manes. The emotions of the court were greatly stirred at the good news, for Assi's Danga was the last that had been seen there, and the strange play- thing was only known by tradition. Metesouphis, who had sent Hirkhouf on his travels, had just died after a reign of ten years; he took his rest in one of the pyra- mids of Sakkarah, whence he was not to come forth until 1 88 1, to exhibit himself to admiring tourists in one of the glass cases in the Boulak museum, and to show us 'what the mummy of a king was like in 3500 B.C. His youngest brother, Pioupi II, succeeded him, when he was about twenty years old, and the joy with which he welcomed the messenger who announced the capture of the Danga may well be imagined. The council of minis- ters was assembled, the king dispatched a scroll in which he overwhelmed Hirkhouf with compliments, and ordered him to bring his prisoner without delay. The royal missive was later engraved in the tomb of the traveller opposite Elephantine ! Pioupi II wished to give his faithful subject a reward so that in times to come, when speaking of the great honours of which such or such a personage had been the recipient, it might still be said, " They did for him what his Majesty did for Hirkhouf when he returned from his travels in Amami with the Danga!" The pygmies were so wild, and fear of losing them so great, that the government itself formulated the precautions to be taken against their escape. " When he is with you in the boat, arrange to place watchful persons on each side of the boat, so that he may not fall into the water; arrange that watchful persons shall sleep at night with him in his bed, and that they shall be changed ten times each night." A boat of the royal fleet was put at Hirkhouf's disposal, and all 'the civil, military, and religious officials of the kingdom were ordered to furnish him with provisions To face page 20. THE PIGMY KHNOUMHOTPOU IN THE MUSEUM AT CAIRO. EXPLORERS OF THE AFRICAN DESERT 21 on his way. 1 The sands of Sakkarah, which preserved the mummy of Metesouphis for us, still hide, perhaps, that of the poor creature who so greatly amused his successor. The Cairo museum possesses the embalmed body of one of the favourite gazelles of Queen Moutem- hait; why should it not be enriched one day by that of the pygmy favourite of Pioupi II ? Nothing is lost in Egypt, and research there restores not only, as else- where, the narrative of events, but also the persons of those who took part in them ; both the materials and the heroes of history are disinterred from under the ruins. Expeditions like those of Hirkhouf were frequent, and produced more lasting results than the capture of a dancing pygmy, and a sovereign's favour for a traveller. The peoples frequented by the traders of Elephantine", through hearing of Egypt, its industry, its wealth, its armies, ended by conceiving for her an admiration some- what mingled with fear; they learned to consider her a superior power, and the Pharaoh a god whom no one dared resist. When, later, an army commanded by the Pharaoh himself came against them, they were prepared to submit ; once subdued, they rapidly adopted the man- ners, costume, religion, and language of their con- querors. The caravans of explorers did the pioneer work; the soldiers followed them, and formed the great Egypt which, stretching from Khartoum to the sea, ruled the eastern world for more than six centuries. We have seen the same order of events reproduced long after in neighbouring regions in the case of European travellers and traders. 1 Inscription of Hirkhouf, D, I. 1-25. Ill THE TOMBS OF THEBES TOURISTS in Egypt who spend at Thebes the three or four days arranged by the promoters of rapid travel, see at least one of the tombs hollowed out in the hills on the left bank of the river. For this excursion the official itinerary allows three or four hours of an afternoon already well filled with an expedition through the Valley of the Kings, and a luncheon at Deir El-Bahari. Usu- ally Hypogeum No. 33 is visited, that of Rakhmiriya, and if only the paintings could be distinguished it would be one of the most interesting; but unfortunately the lower records, the only ones sufficiently lighted by the flame of the candles or of the smoky torches, have been greatly damaged by the generations of fellaheen who turned these mortuary chapels into dwelling-rooms. Travellers come away with an impression of splashes of colour, spread, as it were, by chance, over dirty walls, diversified here and there by columns of damaged hiero- glyphics. The lamentable spectacle usually quenches their curiosity, and most of them refuse to enter the two or three other grottoes of a similar kind recommended to them by their dragoman. Those who persevere find elsewhere fresher tones, clearer pictures, and scenes more easily recognizable, but there are everywhere enor- mous lacunae which hinder them from imagining what a completely finished hypogeum was like, or from under- standing the decoration. In order to make it intelligible as a whole, it would be necessary to transcribe what 22 THE TOMBS OF THEBES 23 remains in each, and, putting the fragments together, to reconstruct, piece by piece, the three or four types of decoration most common in the immense necropolis. The work not only demands time, patience, and self- denial, but also resistance to fatigue and discouragement. The members of the Cairo Mission undertook the task, some with real enthusiasm, others with praiseworthy resignation; the twenty odd tombs they have so far copied are published, and the enormous service rendered to science can be judged from this small sample. 1 Every one wished to have a residence of his own in the hill of Thebes. The land of the dead, like the land of the living, belonged to the king and the gods, and a plot of ground there had to be acquired for money in the same way as the site of a garden, a meadow, or a corn-field. The king sometimes granted a well-situated plot to his servants. If he desired to reward one of them handsomely, he bestowed on him a slice of the hill, or had a chapel, corridors, a vault, indeed the whole dwelling required for a mummy, hewn out at his own expense. The inscriptions in such a case told how such a one received his sepulchre by the gracious command of Pharaoh, and that fact gave him a title of honour with posterity. The others applied to the gods, that is, to the temples, to negociate the purchase of an Eternal Home, and doubtless paid a high price. The ground procured, they had no need to trouble about the architect who should utilize it; it is almost certain that most of the syringes were prepared in advance and already hollowed out or even partly decorated at the time of purchase. The temples had companies of quarry-men, master-masons, designers, sculptors, painters who regularly worked for them, and whom they placed at the 1 Memoirs published by the members of the French Archaeological Mission in Cairo : Vol. v, Tombeaux Thebaiens^ published by MM. Virey, Bdnedite, Bouriant, Boussac, Maspero. 24 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT disposal of their customers. The ordinary tombs were planned in one way at the same epoch : a straight fa$ade cut out in the rock so as to allow of a little platform in front, a low door, sometimes entirely bare, sometimes flanked on either side by a figure representing the pro- prietor, and a few columns of hieroglyphics recording his titles; beyond, a narrow oblong chamber parallel to the facade; then, opposite the door, a corridor perpen- dicular to the chamber, or a second chamber terminated by a niche containing one or two statues, often sculp- tured in the rock itself. That was the exterior chapel where the relatives came to bring the votive offerings to their dead on days fixed by the ritual. It was closed by a wooden door, which offered slight protection against malefactors or the curious. The vault proper was better guarded; it was reached either by steep galleries which penetrated far into the mountain, or by shafts hidden in the ground of one of the rooms or of the platform, in most unexpected places and easy of concealment. The grants of land were crowded together, following the strata of the rock. Here might be seen groups of five or six; there, twenty or thirty in file; isolated grants were rare, at least in the centre, at Assasif, Cheikh- Abd-el-Gournah, or Gournet-Mourrai. The hills, per- forated in every direction, seem to be gigantic hives, the honeycomb of which suddenly upset in confusion and exposed to the light of day, brings the half-opened cells to view. In certain spots the galleries are so close to- gether that the rock wall which divides them measures only something between twenty-four inches and eight inches. The Copt monks, who inhabited them from the fifth century onwards, pierced or suppressed the partition walls in order to facilitate communication between the hermitages. Earthquakes have cracked the party-walls, the weight of the upper strata has crushed them, and the ceiling has fallen in. Near Assasif a whole hill has thus THE TOMBS OF THEBES 25 given way, and several portions of Cheikh-Abd-el- Gournah appear to be only awaiting a pretext to subside, through the destruction wrought by the careless work of men and the imperceptible wear and tear of time. As soon as the chambers were rough hewn by the masons, the sculptors and painters appeared on the scene. The hill of Thebes, unlike that of Memphis, is not of a compact and smooth consistency which lends itself to the chisel. The limestone, even in places where the quality is good, has been split and broken in the geological ages, and the cracks are filled up with infiltra- tions of black or red earth ; it often looks like a cake of puff-paste impregnated with chocolate and encrusted with enormous raisins of flint. It needed some skill to manipulate and fill in the cracks and depressions of the material in order to form a smooth surface on which the sculptor could work his reliefs; a great amount of trouble and labour produced only a poor result because the coatings and slabs of limestone with which the wall was patched soon gave way and the holes showed through the decoration. Therefore painting was often substituted for what sculpture could only accomplish with difficulty. To render the surface paintable, it was merely necessary to spread a rough layer of black clay or of common earth mixed with straw over the floor and wall, and then to give it a coat of milk of lime, or of white colour. Whether sculptured or painted the decoration never greatly varied. The artists to whom it was entrusted possessed two or three series of pictures, the combination of which formed the ideal decoration, as it were, of the tomb. The first series comprised scenes from the private or public life of the dead man, as well as the representation of the crafts needed to keep up a great house; the second series showed the funeral rites from the time the corpse became a mummy until the moment when the gods of the other world, Anubis the 26 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT jackal and Amentit the mistress of the west, took posses- sion of the mummy wreathed in flowers. Some showed the ceremonies performed on the statue to accustom it to receive the offerings and nourish the soul; others presented to the spectators the different destinies of the human remains, its journeyings through the regions of darkness, its struggles against infernal monsters, its happiness in the paradise of Osiris or on the Boat of the Sun. Such decoration in its entirety would have required miles of wall space; therefore only frag- ments of it are to be found. The Pharaohs, even, flinched at the expense, and contented themselves with the most important parts. Rich men obtained some hundreds of yards, and as the ladder of fortune was descended, the space became restricted. The ordinary tomb would comprise only a sort of epitome, always conceived in the same terms unless the customer or his family expressed a desire for the substitution of some particular conception, or some particular picture. There is not the slightest difficulty in reconstructing the tomb even in the smallest details : the plates published by the members of the Cairo Mission would enable a mason and a painter accustomed to deal with buildings to erect it, if they so desired, in a corner of Paris exactly as it was. The choice of subjects was not left, however, to the caprice of the undertakers or their employers; it corre- sponded to the needs of the Theban soul and to the prevailing idea of posthumous existence. The soul was nourished on votive offerings and absorbed their sub- stance at first in reality, and then, when the rapidity with which new generations forgot the old ones was perceived, in symbol. The limestone or wooden figure of an animal or of a loaf of bread, the drawing of the same animal or loaf traced on the wall of the hypogeum, and endowed by the prayers of consecration with a sort THE TOMBS OF THEBES 27 of mysterious vitality, represented for the shade, the soul, the double dwelling in the bottom of the vault, the living animal or the kneaded and baked wheaten loaf. The designer had then to choose from his sketch-books one of the many motives dealing with alimentation. Did the dead man desire bread ? The artist would sketch the field and the canals by which it was irrigated, the oxen drawing the plough and the sower scattering the seed; then the harvest, and the reapers, scythe in hand, cutting the corn, the threshing of the ears, the grain stored in the granary. The vines were represented on a panel of the wall at the side, with the gathering of the grapes, the wine-pressing and the pouring of the unfermented liquor into jars. The dead man assisted in these labours in company with his wife, dressed in new clothes and wearing a new wig as on the days of his earthly harvests; everything represented in the fresco belonged to him, and his soul, in contemplating the representation of the objects, secured their effective pos- session. The soul composed its bill of fare from the pictures with which the tomb was painted, and by virtue of formulas, the images became materialized to provide it with food, and yet were never destroyed nor diminished. Elsewhere might be represented the hunting of the river fowl or of the desert animals, fishing in the marshes, all the pleasures which, loved of the Egyptian, not only afforded him distraction from the toils of existence, but were also profitable ; the fish were split open, cured, and preserved in his presence in the picture, and formed a reserve to which he could turn when he was tired of game or meat. The left wall of the chapel sufficed to contain these rural episodes. On the right the master of the tomb was seated with his wife, and received from the hands of his children the meal prepared from the produce of his labours and of his excursions into the desert. The provisions were spread before 28 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT him in bowls, in rush baskets, on small tables, on terra- cotta dishes, on mats of esparto grass; nothing that is eaten in Egypt was wanting : grapes, figs, cucumbers, water-melons, the onions that the Hebrews regretted at Sinai, weakly cabbages, chickens, gazelles' legs, calves' heads, cutlets, and scattered among them many differ- ent kinds of bread and cakes. Meanwhile half-naked dancing girls turned and twisted on the wall in their amorous dances, like the almehs of our day ; flutes trilled, tambourines boomed, the harpist invited the dead master and the survivors to " spend a happy day," for nothing endures in this world, and " bodies are born only to live while the gods decree. The sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, men procreate and women bear children," and generations pass away one after the other without keeping any of the worldly goods they pos- sessed. " Forgetting all ills, oh Nofirhotpou, wise priest with pure hands, think only of the happiness of the day when thou shalt reach the land which loves silence, and that notwithstanding, the heart of the son who loves thee shall not cease to beat ! . . . Obey thy desires, and seek thy happiness so long as thou remainest on the earth, wear not thy heart in repining until the day comes when the impassive god hearkens not to those who implore from him a longer period of life. The lamentations of his friends do not help a man to be consoled in the tomb. Spend a happy day and enjoy it to thy utmost. For, verily, no man carries his possessions with him when he dies; verily, no one who has departed this life has ever returned." 1 The most characteristic example of this type is in the tomb of Nakhouiti ; 2 there is nothing more delicate, more 1 G. Be'ne'dite : " Le Tombeau de Nofirhotpou," MJmotres, V, 529- 599- 2 G. Maspero: "Le Tombeau de Nakhouiti," M