Pyramids of Gizeh.January 17, 1843.
Theinscription composed in commemoration of the birthday festival of His Majesty has become a stone tablet, after the manner of the ancient steles and proscynemata. Here it is:—
and its contents, which, the more they assimilate with the Egyptian style, become proportionately awkward in the German, are as follows:—
“Thus speak the servants of the King, whose name is the Sun and Rock of Prussia, Lepsius the scribe, Erbkam the architect, the brothers Weidenbach the painters, Frey the painter, Franke the former, Bonomi the sculptor, Wild the architect:—Hail to the Eagle, Shelterer of the Cross, the King, the Sun and Rock of Prussia, the son of the Sun, freer of the land, Frederick William the Fourth, the Philopator, his country’s father, the gracious, the favourite of wisdom and history, the guardian of the Rhine stream, chosen by Germany, the giver of life. May the highest God grant the King and his wife, the Queen Elisabeth, the life-rich one, the Philometor, her country’s mother, the gracious, a fresh-springing life on earth for long, and a blessed habitation in Heaven for ever. In the year of our Saviour 1842, in the tenth month, and the fifteenth day, on the seven and fortieth birthday of His Majesty, on the pyramid of King Cheops; in the third year, the fifth month, the ninth day of the Government of His Majesty; in the year 3164 from the commencement of the Sothis period under King Menephthes.”
Upon a large and expressly hewn and prepared stone, at some height, by the entrance to the Pyramid of Cheops, we have left the hieroglyphical inscription upon a space of five feet in breadth, and four feet in height, painted in with oil-colours.
It seemed good to me, that the Prussian Expedition, while it dedicated this tablet to the much-respected prince who had sent the Expedition hither, should leave some trace of its activity in this field, where it had been reserved for that enterprise to gather in the plenteous materials for the first chapter of all scientific history.
Do not imagine, however, that these are the weighty labours that have kept us so long here. It is from the advantage which we possess over former travellers that places like these have the right to detain us until we have exhausted them. We already know that the grand ruins of the Thebaïc plain cannot discover anything to us of similar interest to the Memphitic period of the Old Empire.
At some time we must of course leave off, and then always with the certainty that we leave much behind us, of the greatest interest, that has still to be won. I had already determined upon our departure some days since, when a row of tombs were discovered of a new period, a new architecture, a new style in the figures and hieroglyphics, with other titles, and, as it might have been expected, with other royal names.
Our historical gain is by no means perfected, nor is it even general. I was quite right in giving up the task of reconstructing the third dynasty after monuments, while in Europe. Nor have I yet found a single cartouche that can be safely assigned to a period previous to the fourth dynasty. The builders of the Great Pyramid seem to assert their right to form the commencement of monumental history, even if it be clear that they were not the first builders and monumental writers. We have already found some hitherto unknown cartouches and variants of others, such as:—
[Hieroglyphs: Keka. Heraku. Useskef. Ana.]
The name that I have hitherto treated as Amchura shows, in the complete and painted inscriptions, which throw not a little light upon the figurative meanings of the hieroglyphic writings, a totally different sign, to the well-known group,hieroglyphamchu, viz.:[hieroglyph], the pronunciation of which is yet uncertain to me.[13]
In the classification of the pyramids there is nothing to be altered. It cannot be doubted, after our researches, that the second pyramid really is to be assigned to Shafra (more correctly Chafra the Chephren of Herodotus), as the first to Chufu (Cheops), and the third to Menkera (Mycerinos, Mencherinos). I think I have found the path from the valley to the second pyramid; it leads right up to its temple, by the Sphinx, but wasprobably destroyed at an early period. The number of pyramids, too, is continually increasing. At Abu Roash I have found three pyramids in the place of that single one already known, and two fields of tombs; also near Zauiet el Arrian, an almost forgotten village, there once stood two pyramids, and a great field of ruins is adjoining. The careful researches and measurements of Perring, in his fine work upon the pyramids, save us much time and trouble. Therefore we could give ourselves more to the tombs and their hieroglyphical paintings, which are altogether wanting in the pyramids. But nothing is yet completed, nothing is ripe for definitive arrangement, though comprehensive views are now opened. Our portfolios begin to swell; much has been cast in gypsum; among other things, the great stele of the first year of Tuthmosis IV. between the paws of the Sphinx.
Pyramids of Gizeh.January 28, 1843.
I haveordered ten camels to come here to-morrow night, that we may depart early, before sunrise, the day after, with our already somewhat extensive collection of original monuments and gypsum casts, for Cairo, where we shall deposit them until our return from the south. This will be the commencement of our movement toward Saqâra. A row of very recently discovered tombs, of the dynasties immediately following that of Cheops, has once retarded our departure. The fifth dynasty, which appears as an Elephantine contemporaneous dynasty in Africanus,[14]and was not at all to be expected as such here, now lies completed before us, and in general precisely as I had constructed it in Europe. The gaps have been filled up with three kings, whose names were then unknown. Also some kings, formerly hanging in mid-air, have been won for the seventh and eighth dynasties, of which we had previously no monumental names whatever. The proof of the fifth dynasty following the fourth immediately would in itself richly recompense us for our stay of several months at this place; and besides this, we have still much to dowith structures, sculptures, and inscriptions, which, by the continually increasing certitude of the royal names, are formed into one cultivated epoch, dating about the year 4000B.C.One can never recall these till now incredible dates too often to the memory of one’s-self and others; the more criticism is challenged, and obliged to give a serious examination to the matter, the better for the cause. Conviction will follow criticism, and then we shall arrive at the consequences that are linked with it in every branch of archæology.
With this letter you will receive a roll containing several drawings which have been copied from the tombs here. They are splendid specimens of the oldest architecture, sculpture, and painting that art-history has to show, and the most beautiful and best preserved of all those that we have found in the Necropolis. I hope we shall some day see these chambers fully erected in the New Museum at Berlin.[15]They would certainly be the most beautiful trophy that we could bring with us from Egypt. Their transportation would probably be attended with some difficulty; for you may judge by the dimensions that ordinary means will not suffice to do it. I have therefore asked, in a letter addressed directly to His Majesty the King, whether it would not be possible to send a vessel next year, or at the close of the expedition, with some workpeople and tools, in order to take thesemonuments to pieces more carefully than we can do, and bring them with the rest of the collections to Berlin.
Six of the enclosed leaves are drawings of a tomb which I myself discovered under the sand, and the paintings of which are almost as fresh and perfect as you may perceive them in the drawing.[16]It was the last resting-place of Prince Merhet, who, as he was a priest of Chufu (Cheops), named one of his sons Chufu-mer-nuteru, and possessed eight villages, the names of which were compounded with that of Chufu; and the position of the grave on the west side of the pyramid of Chufu, as well as perfect identity of style in the sculptures, renders it more than probable that Merhet was the son of Chufu, by which the whole representations are rendered more interesting. This prince was also “Superintendent-General of the royal buildings,” and thus had the rank of Ober-hof Baurath (High Court-architect), a great and important post in these times of magnificent architecture, and which we have often found under the direction of princes and members of the royal family. It is therefore to be conjectured that he also over-looked the building of the Great Pyramid. Would not this alone have justified the undertaking of transporting to Berlin the well-joined grave-chamber of this princely architect, which will otherwise be destroyed at a longer or shorter period by the Arabs, and built into their ovens, or burnt in their kilns! There, at least, it would be preserved, and accessible for the admiration or scientific ardour of the curious, as indeed European art and science teaches us to respect and value such monuments. For its re-erection it would require a width of 6 métres 30´, a height of 4 m. 60’, and a depth of 3 m. 80´; and such a space can certainly be reserved for it in the New Museum.[17]
I must remark, in addition, that such chambers form only a very small portion of the tomb, and were not intended for the mummy. The tomb of Prince Merhet is more than 70 feet long, 45 broad, and 15 high. It is massively constructed of great blocks of freestone, with slanting outer surfaces. The chamber only is covered with rafters, and one, or in this case two, square shafts lead from the flat roof through the building into living rock, at the bottom of which, sixty feet below, rock-chambers open at each side, in which the sarcophagi were placed. The remains of the reverend skull of the Cheoptic prince, which I found in his mummy-chamber, I havecarefully preserved. To my sorrow we found but little more, because this grave, like most of the others, has long been broken into. Originally the entrance was closed with a stone slab. Only the supersurfacial chamber remained open always, and was therefore adorned with representations and inscriptions. Thither were brought the offerings to the departed. It was dedicated to the religious belief of the dead person, and thus answered to the temple that was built before each pyramid for the adoration of its royal inmate. In the same way as those temples, so these chambers always open to the east. The shafts, like the pyramids, lie behind to the west, because the departed was supposed to be in the west, whither he had gone with the setting sun to Osiris in Amente.
Finally, the seventh leaf contains two pillars and their architrave, from the tomb of a royal relative, who was also the prophet of four kings, named Ptah-nefru-be’u. The grave was constructed at a later period than that of Prince Merhet, in the fifth dynasty of Manetho.[18]It belongs to a whole group of tombs, the architectural disposition and intercommunication of which are very curious, and which I have therefore laid quite open to the daylight, while before neither the entrance nor anything else but the crown of the outer wall was to be seen.
I also send you the complete plan of it, besides that of the neighbouring graves, but only think of bringing the architrave and the twofinely-painted pillars of the southern space, which may be easily removed. On the architrave the legend of the departed is inscribed, who is also represented on the four sides of the pillars in full size. In front, on the north pillar, is seen the father of the dead person, Ami; on the southern one is his grandfather, Aseskef-anch. The pillars are about twelve feet in height, are slim, and are always without capitals, but with an abacus.
At the tomb of Prince Merhet I have had the whole chamber isolated, but have given up the design of taking it down for the present, as the season is not the most favourable for transporting it. I have therefore filled this grave and the other with sand, and to-morrow, on my arrival in Cairo, I shall obtain an order interdicting the removal of any of the stones of those tombs which we had opened. For it is most annoying to see great caravans of camels coming hither from the neighbouring villages, and going off in long strings loaded with slabs for building. Fortunately,—for what is not fortunate under circumstances!—the lazy Fellahs are rather attracted by the tombs of the age of the Psammetici than by those of the older dynasties, the great blocks of which are not handy enough for them. I am more seriously alarmed, however, for the tombs of the fifth and seventh dynasties, which are built of more moderately sized stones. Yesterday the robbers threw down a fine, steady, fully-inscribed pillar when our backs were turned. Their efforts to break it up seem not to havebeen successful. The people have become so feeble here, that, with all their mischievous industry, their powers are not sufficient to destroy what their mighty ancestors had raised.
Some days ago, we found, standing in its original place in a grave of the beginning of the seventh dynasty, an obelisk of but a few feet in height, but well preserved, and bearing the name of the person to whom the tomb was erected. This form of monument, which plays so conspicuous a part in the New Empire, is thus thrown some dynasties farther back into the Old Empire than even the obelisk of Heliopolis.
Saqâra.March 18, 1843.
Ashort time ago, I made a trip, in company with Abeken and Bonomi, to the more distant pyramids of Lisht and Meidûm. The latter interested me particularly, as it has solved for me the riddle of pyramidal construction, on which I had long been employed.[19]It lies almostin the valley of the plain, close by the Bahr Jussuf, and is only just removed from the level of inundation, but it towers so loftily and grandly from the low neighbourhood that it attracts attention from a great distance. From a casing of rubbish that surrounds almost the half of it, to the height of 120 feet, a square, sharp-edged centre rises after the manner of a tower, which lessens but little at the top,i. e.in an angle of 74°. At the elevation of another 100 feet there is a platform on which, in the same angle, stands a slenderer tower of moderate height, which again supports the remains of a third elevation in the middle of its flat upper side. The walls of the principal tower are mostly polished, flat, but are interrupted by rough bands, the reason of which seems hardly comprehensible. On a closer examination, however, I found also within the half-ruined building, round the foot, smoothened walls rising at the same angle as the tower, before which there lay other walls, following each other like shells. At last I discovered that the whole structure had proceeded from a little pyramid, which had been built in steps to about the height of 40 feet, and had then been enlarged and raised in all directions by a stone casing of 15 to 20 feet in breadth, till at last the great steps were filled out to a surface, and the whole received the usual pyramidal form.
This gradual accumulation explains the monstrous size of single pyramids among so many smaller ones. Each king commenced the construction of his pyramid at his accession; hemade it but small at first, in order to secure himself a perfect grave even if his reign should be but short. With the passing years of his government, however, he enlarged it by adding outer casings, until he thought himself near the end of his days. If he died during the erection of it, the outermost casing only was finished, and thus the size of the pyramid stood ever in proportion to the length of the king’s reign. Had the other determinative relations remained the same in the lapse of ages, one might have told off the number of years of each monarch’s reign by the casings of the pyramids, like the annual rings of trees.
Yet the great enigma of the bearded giant Sphinx remains unsolved! When and by whom was this colossus raised, and what was its signification? We must leave this question to be decided by our future and more fortunate successors. It is almost half-buried in sand, and the granite stele of eleven feet in height between his paws, forming alone the back wall of a small temple erected here, was altogether concealed; for the immense excavations which were undertaken by Caviglia, in 1818, have long since tracelessly disappeared. By the labour of some sixty to eighty persons for several days, we arrived almost at the base of the stele, which I had immediately sketched, pressed in paper, and cast, in order to erect it at Berlin. This stele, on which the Sphinx itself is represented, was erected by Tuthmosis IV., and is dated in the first years of his government; he must therefore have foundthe colossus there. We are accustomed to find the Sphinx in Egypt used as the sign for a king, and, indeed, usually as some particular king, whose features it would appear to preserve, and therefore they are always Androsphinxes, with the solitary exception of a female Sphinx, which represents the wife of King Horus. In hieroglyphical writings the Sphinx is named Neb, “the Lord,” and forms, among other instances, the middle syllable of the name of King Necta-neb-us.
But what king is represented by the monster? It stands before the second pyramid, that of Shafra (Chephren), not directly in the axis, but parallel with the sides of the temple lying before it, and precisely as if the northern rock by the Sphinx had been intended for a corresponding sculpture; besides this, it was usual for Sphinxes, Rams, statues, and obelisks, to be placed in pairs before the entrances of the temples. What a mighty impression, however, would two such giant guardians, between which the ancient pathway to the temple of Chephren led, have made upon the approaching worshipper! They would have been worthy of that age of colossal monuments, and in right proportions to the pyramid behind. I cannot deny that this connection would best satisfy me. What would have induced the Thebaïc kings of the eighteenth dynasty, the only ones of the New Empire to be thought of, to adorn the Memphitic Necropolis with such a world-wonder without any connection with its surrounding objects? Add to this, that in an almost destroyed line of the Tuthmosis stele,King Chephren is named; a portion of his royal cartouche, unfortunately quite single, is yet preserved; it undoubtedly had some reference to the builder of the pyramid lying behind it.
But the question again arises:—If King Chephren be here represented, why does it not bear his name? On the contrary, it is named Har-em-chu, “Horus in the horizon,” that is to say, the Sungod, the type of all kings, and Harmachis, in a Greek inscription found before the Sphinx. It does not seem at all unlikely to me, that upon this rests the fable of Pliny, according to which a King Amasis (Armasis? Ἅρμαχις) lies interred within the Sphinx;[20]for in a real burial there can be no belief. Another consideration is that I have not found the representation of the Sphinx in those most ancient times of the pyramid builders; but that must not be accepted as conclusive, as the Sphinx is not often found in the inscriptions and representations of the new empire.[21]In short, the Œdipus for this king of all Sphinxes is yet wanting. Whoever would drain the immeasurable sand-flood which buries the tombs themselves, and lay open the base of the Sphinx, the ancient temple path, and the surrounding hills, could easily decide it.
But with the enigmas of history there are joined many riddles and wonders of nature, which I must not leave quite unnoticed. The newest of all, at least, I must describe.
I had descended with Abeken into a mummy pit, to open some newly-discovered sarcophagi, and was not a little astonished, upon descending, to find myself in a regular snow-drift of locusts, which, almost darkening the heavens, flew over our heads from the south-west from the desert in hundreds of thousands to the valley. I took it for a single flight, and called my companions from the tombs where they were busy, that they might see this Egyptian wonder ere it was over. But the flight continued; indeed the work-people said it had begun an hour before. Then we first observed that the whole region near and far was covered with locusts. I sent an attendant into the desert, to discover the breadth of the flock. He ran for the distance of a quarter of an hour, then returned and told us that, as far as he could see, there was no end to them. I rode home in the midst of the locust shower. At the edge of the fruitful plain they fell down in showers; and so it went on the whole day till the evening, and so the next day from morning till evening, and the third; in short, to the sixth day, indeed in weaker flights much longer. Yesterday it did seem that a storm of rain in the desert had knocked down and destroyed the last of them. The Arabs are now lighting great fires of smoke in the fields, and clattering and making loud noises all day long to preserve their crops from the unexpected invasion. It will, however, do little good.Like a new animated vegetation, these millions of winged spoilers cover even the neighbouring sandhills, so that scarcely anything is to be seen of the ground; and when they rise from one place, they immediately fall down somewhere in the neighbourhood; they are tired with their long journey, and seem to have lost all fear of their natural enemies, men, animals, smoke, and noise, in their furious wish to fill their stomachs, and in the feeling of their immense number. The most wonderful thing, in my estimation, is their flight over the naked wilderness and the instinct which has guided them from some oasis over the inhospitable desert to the fat soil of the Nile vale. Fourteen years ago, it seems, this Egyptian plague last visited Egypt with the same force. The popular idea is, that they are sent by the comet which we have observed for twelve days in the south-west, and which, as it is now no longer obscured by the rays of the moon, stretches forth its stately tail across the heavens in the hours of night. The zodiacal light, too, so seldom seen in the north, has lately been visible for several nights in succession.
At this place have I first been able to settle my account with Gizeh, and to put together the historical results of the investigation. I have every reason to rejoice at the consequences; the fourth and fifth dynasties are completed all except one king.
I have just received the rather illegible drawing of a stone in a wall at the village of Abusir, which presents a row of kings of the fourth and fifth dynasties, and, as it would seem, in chronological order. I am on the point of riding over to see the original.
Saqâra.April 13, 1843.
I hastento inform you of an event which I should not like to be first communicated to you from other quarters, and perhaps with distorted exaggeration. Our camp was attacked and robbed a few nights since by an armed band, but none of our party have been seriously hurt, and nothing has been lost that is not to be replaced. The matter is past, and the consequences can only be favourable to us; but I must first go back a few days in my report.
On the 3rd of April, H.R.H. Prince Albrecht returned from Upper Egypt to Cairo; next day I went to town and submitted a portion of our labours to him, in which he took the more lively interest as he had already seen more of the wonder-land than we, and had only omitted to visit the pyramid fields. On his former arrival in Cairo I was absent with Abeken and Bonomi on a journey of several days’ duration in the Faiûm. The Prince came just in time for some Mohammedan festivals, which I should have neglected but for his presence. On the sixth was the entrance of the solemnly-welcomed caravan of pilgrims from Mecca, and a few days later, the birthday festival of the prophet “Mulid e’Nebbi,” one of the most original feasts throughout the Orient. The principal parts fall to the share of the Derwishes, who arrange processions during the day, and in the evening exhibit their terrible dance named Sikr in the gaily-lighted tents erected among the trees of the Ezbekîeh; thirty to forty of this religious sect place themselves in a circle, and begin to move their bodies backward and forward, according to the time, first slowly, and then more violently, at last with the most cruel strains upon the nerves; at the same time they repeat their maxim rhythmically with a loud howling voice, “Lâ ilâha ill’ Allah” (no God but Allah), gradually lowering and softening the tone until it is resembles a faint snore: at length, their powers wholly exhausted, some fall down, others withdraw reelingly, and the broken circle, after a short pause, is replaced by another.
What a fearful, barbarous worship, which the astounded multitude, great and small, gentle and simple, gaze upon seriously and with stupid respect, and in which it not unfrequently takes a part! The invoked deity is manifestly much less an object of reverence than the fanatic saints who invoke him; for mad, idiotic, or other psychologically-diseased persons, are very generally looked upon as holy by the Mohammedans, and treated with great respect. It is the demoniacal, incomprehensibly-acting, and therefore fearfully-observed power of nature, that the natural man always reveres when he perceives it, because he is sensible of some connection between it and his intellectual power, without being able to command it; first in the mighty elements, then in the wondrous but obscure law-governed instincts of animals, and, at last, in the yet more overpowering exstatical, or generally abnormal mental condition of his own race. We must decidedly look upon the Egyptian animal-worship, as far as it was not the covering for deeper and more refined doctrines, as resting upon the same idea of a worship of nature;[22]and the reverence occasionally manifesting itself among some nations of mentally-diseased men may be regarded as a curious branch of the same feeling. Whether such conditions really exist, or whether, as with thederwishes, they are artificially produced and purposely fostered, is not criticised by the masses, and it is much the same in individual cases. In such apresence one would feel oneself overcome by a mysterious feeling of dread, and would not care to express repugnance, or even to manifest it by signs, or by a token of having even observed anything, for fear of diverting to oneself the storm of brute passion.
The nine days’ festival closes with a peculiar ceremony calleddoseh, the treading, but which I was myself prevented from witnessing. The sheîkh of the Saadîeh-derwishesrides to the chief sheîkh of all thederwishesof Egypt, El Bekri. On the way thither, a great number of these holy folk, and others too, who fancy themselves not a whit behindhand in piety, throw themselves flat on the ground, with their faces downward, and so that the feet of one lie close to the head of the next; over this living carpet, the sheikh rides on his horse, which is led on each side by an attendant, in order to compel the animal to the unnatural march. Each man’s body receives two treads of the horse; most of them jump up again without hurt, but whoever suffers serious, or, as it occasionally happens, mortal injury, has the additional ignominy to bear, for not having pronounced, or for not being able to pronounce, the proper prayers and magical charms that alone could save him.[23]
On the 7th of April, I and Erbkam accompanied the prince to the pyramids, and first to those of Gizeh. The pyramid of Cheops was ascended, and the inside visited; the beautiful tomb ofPrince Merhet I had had laid open for the purpose of showing it. Then we left for our camp at Saqâra.
Here we heard that a barefaced robbery had been committed in Abeken’s tent the night before. While he was asleep, with a light burning, after his return from Cairo, his knapsack, pistols, and a few other matters lying about, were stolen; as the thief was departing, a noise was perceived by the guard, but the darkness precluded all pursuit.
After the prince had inspected the most beautiful tomb of Saqâra, we rode across the plain to Mitrahinneh to visit the mound of Memphis, and the half-buried colossus of Ramses Miamun (Sesostris), the face of which is almost perfectly preserved.[24]Late at night, we arrived again in Cairo, after sixteen hours of motion, scarcely interrupted by short pauses of rest; the unusual fatigue, however, rather raised the lively taste for travelling in the prince’s mind than otherwise.
The next day the mosques of the city were visited, which are partly worthy of notice for their magnificence, and are partly of interest in the history of mediæval art on account of the earliest specimen of the general application of the pointed arch. The questions touching this characteristic architectural branch of the so-called Gothic style had employed me so much some years ago, that I could not avoid pursuing the old traces; thepointed arch is found in the oldest mosques up to the ninth century. With the conquest of Sicily by the Arabs, this form of the arch was carried over to the island, where the next conquerors, the Normans, found it in the eleventh century, and were led to employ it much. To deny some historical connection between the Norman pointed arch of Palermo and our northern style appears to me to be impossible; the admission of such a connection would certainly render it more difficult to explain of the sporadically but not lawlessly used rows of pointed arches which occur in the cathedral of Naumburg in the eleventh century, and at Memleben already in the tenth. The theorists will not yet admit this; but I must await the confutation of these reasons.[25]
The Nilometer on the island of Roda, which we visited after the mosques, also contains a row of pointed arches, which belong to the original building, going back to the ninth century, as the carefully-examined Kufic inscriptions testify.
Egypt does not only lay claim to the oldest employment, and therefore probable invention, of the pointed arches, but also upon that of the circular arch.[26]Near the pyramids a groupof tombs may be seen, the single blocks of which manifest the proper concentric way of cutting. They belong to the twenty-sixth Manethonic dynasty of the Psammetici,i. e.in the seventh and sixth centuriesB.C., are therefore of about the same antiquity as theCloaca maximaand theCarcer Mamertinusat Rome. We have also found tombs with vaults of Nile bricks, that go back as far as the era of the pyramids. Now I deny, in contradistinction to the opinion of others, that the brick arch, the single flat bricks of which are only placed concentrically by the aid of the trowel, admits of a previous knowledge of the actual principle of the arch, and particularly with respect to its sustaining power, of which denial there is already proof in the fact that before the Psammetici there is no instance of a concentrically laid arch, but many pseudo-arches, cut, as it were, in horizontal layers. But where the brick arch was ancient, we may also most naturally place the origin of the later concentric stone arch, or at least admit of its appearing contemporaneously in other lands.
I was about to accompany the prince the next morning to the interesting institution of Herr Lieder, when Erbkam unexpectedly arrived from our camp. He reported that on the previous night, between three and four o’clockA.M., a number of shots were suddenly fired in the neighbourhood ofour tents, and at the same time a crowd of more than twenty people rushed into the encampment. Our tents stand on a small surface before the rock tombs, which are excavated half-way up the steep wall of the Libyan Vale, and have a considerable terrace in front, formed by the rubbish. Almost the only way in which it was to be approached was on one side by a gorge that passes down from above by our tents. Thence the attack was made. It was first directed against the tent which served as asalōnfor our whole society. This soon fell down in a mass. Then followed the other great tent in which slept Erbkam, Frey, Ernst Weidenbach, and Franke. This was also torn down, and covered up its inhabitants, who had great difficulty in creeping out from among the ropes and tent-cloths. Besides this, all the guns had been placed in one tent together on the previous day, at the visit of the prince, and fastened to the centre pole, so that they were not at hand. The guards, cowardly in the extreme, and knowing that they had made themselves liable to punishment, even if such a thing had happened without their being in fault, immediately fled with loud cries in every direction, and have not yet returned. The thieves now stuck to what was nearest at hand, rolled everything they could lay hold of down the hill, and were soon lost in the plains below. Their shots had evidently been blank, for no one had been hurt by them; but they had gained their object of rendering the confusion greater. Only Ernst Weidenbach and a few of our attendants were wounded in thehead or shoulders by blows from gunstocks, bludgeons, or stones, but they were none of them dangerous. The things stolen will have bitterly disappointed the expectation of the thieves. The great trunks scarcely contained anything but European clothes and other things that no Arab can use. A number of coloured sketches is most to be regretted, the artistical Sunday amusement of the talented Frey.
We are perfectly aware of the quarter whence this attack originated. We live on the frontier of the territory of Abusir, an Arab village long bearing but a doubtful reputation, between Kafr-el-Batran, at the foot of the pyramids of Gizeh and Saqâra. By Arabs (’Arab, pl.’Urbân) I mean, according to custom, those inhabitants of the land who have settled in the valley of the Nile, at a late period, and have built villages with some show of right. They distinguish themselves very markedly, by their free origin and manlier character, from the Fellahs (Fellah‘, pl.Fellah‘in), those original tillers of the soil, who, by centuries of slavery, have been pressed down and enervated, and who could not withstand the invading Islam. A Bedouin (Bedaui, pl.Bedauîn) is ever the free son of the desert, hovering upon the coasts of the inhabited lands. Along the pyramids, therefore, there are situated a number of Arab villages. To them belong the three places named above. The sheikh of Abusir, a young, handsome, and enterprising man, had a kind of claim, by the reason of our camp lying on his border, to post a number of excellently-paid guards around us. Ipreferred, however, to withdraw ourselves to the protection of the sheîkh of Saqâra, a mightier man and more to be relied on, whom I had previously known, and to whose district the larger portion of the scene of our labours belonged. This determination cost the people of Abusir a service, and us their friendship, as I had already observed for some time without troubling myself further about it. Evidently, they had now taken advantage of my absence in Cairo, with several attendants, to carry out this design. To Abusir the traces led through the plain; a little active boy, the grandson of an old Turk of the Mameluke time, the only stranger dwelling in Abusir, with whom we occasionally changed visits, seems to have served as a spy. This boy, who was often in our camp, must have carried out the first robbery, in Abukir’s tent, with which he was well acquainted.
The attack was a serious matter, and a precedent for the future, if it were left unpunished. I immediately went with Herr von Wagner to Sherif Pasha, the minister, in order to discover the thieves.
In a few days the plain beneath our camp wore an animated appearance. The Mudhir (governor) of the province came, with a magnificent train, and a great flock of under-officers and servants, and pitched his varied camp at the foot of the mountain. We interchanged visits of politeness, and conversed upon the event. The Mudhir told me at once that the actual thieves would never be discovered, at least never broughtto confession, as each one knew that it would cost him his neck. But the second day the sheikhs of Saqâra and Abusir, with a number of suspected persons, were brought up to be judged. Neither confrontation nor examination succeeded in obtaining any decision, as it was expected. The punishment was therefore summarily executed; one after the other they were shut in the stocks, with their faces down and their soles up, and pitifully beaten, often to fainting, with long whips, called kurwatch, the thongs of which are strips of hippopotamus skin. It was in vain that I represented that I really saw no reason for punishing these persons precisely, and I was still more astonished when our reverend old friend the sheîkh of Saqâra, for whose innocence I had pledged my strongest belief, was led down and laid in the dust like all the others. I expressed my surprise to the Mudhir, and protested seriously against it, but received for answer that the punishment could not be spared him, for though we had not been exactly upon his soil, yet we had received our guides from him, who had run away, and until now had not returned. With much difficulty I obtained a shortening of the proceeding, but he was already scarcely sensible, and he had to be carried to the tent, where his feet were bound up. The whole matter ended with an indemnification in money for the worth of the stolen things, which I purposely estimated at a large sum, as every loss in money remains for years in the memory of the Arab, while he forgets his thrashing, or, indeed,exults in it, when he no longer feels it. “Nezel min e’ semmâ e’ nebût, bárakah min Allah,” say the Arabs,i.e.“Down came the stick from heaven, a blessing of Allah.” Even at the proportioning of the fine, the sum we had asked was so divided that the rich sheikh of Saqâra had to pay a much larger share than he of Abusir, a partiality in which the request of the respected old Turk of Abusir, from the Turkish mudhir, no doubt had its due weight.
As soon as the money was counted out, I went to our sheîkh of Saqâra, whose unmerited ill-fortune seriously discomforted me, and returned him publicly the half of his money, with the confidential assurance that the rest should be restored on the departure of the Mudhir. This was so unexpected on the part of the reverend sheikh, that he long stared at me incredulously, then kissed my hands and feet, and called me his best friend on earth,—I, who had just been at least the indirect cause of his stately beard having been mingled with the dust, and of his feet being beaten into week-enduring pain. His surprised pleasure did not, however, so much have me for its object as the unexpected sight of the money, that never fails in its magical effects on the Arab.
There is in the Arab a remarkable mixture of noble pride and low avarice, which is at first quite incomprehensible to the European. His free, noble carriage and imperturbable rest seem to express nothing but a proud feeling of honour. But against the least prospect of profit thismelts like wax in the sun, and the most debasing usage is of no consideration when money is at stake, but is creepingly borne. One of these two natures appears at first to be but apparent or delusive; but the contradiction comes back in every shape, in little things and great, too often not to cause the conviction that it is characteristic of the Arab, if not of the whole cast. The Egyptians had so degenerated already in the Roman æra, that Ammianus Marcellinus could say of them, “Erubescit apud eos, si quis non infitiando tributa plurimas in corpore vibices ostendat;” just in the same way the Fellah to-day points to his red weals with a contented smile as soon as the tax-gatherer had departed,minusa few of his desired piastres, notwithstanding his instruments of torture.[27]
Cairo.April 22, 1843.
A severe cold, which has for some time stopped my usual activity, has brought me hither from our camp near Saqâra. The worst of it is, that we are obliged to postpone our journey, although we should all have liked to quit Saqâra. Certainly everything that such a place offers is of the highest importance; but its wealth almost brings us into a dilemma here. To the most important, but most difficult and time-occupying pursuit, belongs that of Erbkam, our architect. He has the great task allotted him of making the detailed plans of the desert coasts, in about the centre of which we lie. This extent of country embraces the almost unbroken chain of tomb-fields, from the pyramid of Rigah to those of Dahshûr. The single plans of the northern fields of Abu Roash, Gizeh, Zauiet el Arrian, are already completed. The sketches of Perring, useful as they are, cannot be compared with ours. Whole Necropolis, with the pyramids belonging to them, have been discovered, partly by myself, partly by Erbkam. Some of the hitherto unknown pyramids are even now from eighty to a hundred feet in height, others are almost worn away, but were originally of considerable size, as is shown by the extent of their ground plans.My return to Saqâra will, it is to be hoped, be the signal of our departure.
We shall proceed by land to the Faiûm, that province branching into the wilderness. The season of the year is still most beautiful, and the desert journey will no doubt be more conducive to our health than the Nile passage, which we formerly intended.
My health will, it is to be hoped, not long detain me here, for with every day my impatience increases to leave the living city of the Mamelukes, for the solemn Necropolis of the ancient Pharaohs. And yet it might give you more pleasure, perhaps, could I picture to you, in colours or words, how it looks from this my window.
I live on the great place of the Ezbekîeh, in the most handsome and populous part of the city. Formerly there was a large lake in the middle, but it is now transformed into gardens. All around run broad streets, parted off for riders and walkers, and shaded by high trees. There the whole East flits by me with its gay, manifold, and always picturesque forms; the poor with blue or white tucked-up dresses, the rich with long garments of the most various stuffs, with silken kaftans, or fine clothes in delicate broken colours, with white, red, green, or black turbans, or with the noble but little-becoming Turkishtarbush; then Greeks with their dandifiedfustanellas, or Arabian sheîkhs in their wide, antiquely-draped mantle: the children quite, or half, naked, with shaven heads, from which a single lock stands up on their bare polls like a handle; the womenwith veiled faces, whose black-rimmed eyes glance ghostly from out the holes cut in the covering. All these and a hundred other indescribable forms go, creep, dash by on foot, on asses, mules, dromedaries, camels, horses, only not in carriages; for they were employed much more in the Pharoahic times than now. If I look upward from the street, I see on one side a prospect of magnificent mosques with their cupolas and slender minarets shooting into the air, with long rows of generally carelessly-built, but now and then richly-ornamented houses, distinguished by artistically-carved lattices, and elegant balconies; on the other side my view is bounded by green palmtrees, or leaf-wealthy sycamores and acacias. In the far back-ground at last, beyond the level roofs and their green interruptions, there come forth on the Libyan horizon the far-lighting sister-pair of the two great pyramids, sunny amidst the fine æther in sharply-broken lines. What a difference to the mongrel Alexandria, where the oriental nature of the country and the mightily progressed culture of Europe still strive for the mastery. It seems to me as if I had already penetrated to the inmost heart of the East of the present.
At the Ruins of the Labyrinth.May 31, 1843.
Aftermy return to the camp at Saqâra, I required but three days to finish our labours there. I made a last visit to the ruins of ancient Memphis, the plan of which had, meanwhile, been completed by Erbkam; a few interesting discoveries closed our examination.
On the 19th of May we at length departed with twenty camels, two dromedaries, thirteen donkies, and a horse. As I am speaking of camels and dromedaries, it may not be superfluous to remark what is here understood by those terms; for in Europe, an inaccurate, or at least negligent distinction is made between both, which is not known here. We call Camel what the Frenchman namesdromadaire, and dromedary (Trampelthier, trampling beast) what he nameschameau. The first has one hump, the other two. Thus Dromedaries orchameauxcould not be spoken of at all in Egypt, for there are no bi-humped animals, although they occur now and then in single-humped families. In Syria and Farther Asia, there would again be no camels ordromadaires; at least the single-humped animals are very rare. In fact, it is very immaterial, and taken by itself, should hardly warrant the distinction of another species, whether or not thefat hump on the back is divided into two. At the present time the orientals make no distinction between them, and the ancients evidently did the same, for the single-humped animals do not carry more easily than the others, nor do they run faster, nor does the rider sit between the two humps more securely than on one, for these are as entirely built over by the saddle as the single hump. However, a great distinction is made, though not a naturalistic one, between the strong and unwieldy burthen camel, commonly calledgémel, and the younger, more active, thoroughly-broken riding camel, which is calledheggîn, because the Mekka pilgrims (hágg, pl.heggâg) have a great estimation for good riding animals. An Arab takes it as ill when any one calls his slender, well-bred camel agémel, as one would feel angry at having one’s thorough-bred horse called a plough-horse or dray-horse. The meaning, indeed, ofdromedariusorcamelus dromas, χάμηλος δρομάς with the ancients, was nothing more, as the name proves, than a runner, of the lighter, more rideable race.
As the latter are far more expensive, it is often difficult to obtain even a few of the better kind of animals from the Arabs who are bound to produce them; the greater part of our company was obliged to be contented with the usual beasts of burthen; mine was, however, passable, and was at least calledheggînby the Arabs.
I did not await the general break up of the camp, at which our Sheîkh of Saqâra and he of Mitrahinneh were present, but rode forward withErbkam along the desert. On the way he took the plan of a pyramid with its neighbourhood, that I had remarked on a former occasion. We have now noted in all sixty-seven pyramids, almost twice as many as are found in Perring. The topographical plans of Erbkam are indeed a treasure.
Shortly after sundown we came to the first pyramid of Lisht, where we found our camp already pitched. Next morning I had the caravan broken up early, and stayed behind with Erbkam in order to employ ourselves in the examination and surveying of the two pyramids, somewhat apart from each other, in this alone-standing tomb-field. At 2 o’clock we followed, and arrived about 7 o’clock in the evening at our tents, which were erected on the south side of the stately pyramid of Meidûm. To the pyramid of Illahûn was another short day’s journey, and from hence,[28]through the mouth of the Faiûm, about three hours. We set out very late. I left Erbkam and Ernst Weidenbach behind in order to bring their researches on paper, and rode off with a couple of servants half an hour before the train, in order to reach the labyrinth by another and more interesting way along the Bahr Jussuf, and to fix upon a place for the encampment.
Here we are since the 31st of May, settled at the south side of the pyramid of Mœris, upon the ruins of the labyrinth. That we are fully justified in employing these terms, I was quitesure, as soon as I had surveyed the locality rapidly. I did not think that it would be so easy to determine this.
As soon as Erbkam had measured off a small plan and had committed it to paper, I had workmen got together by the Mudhir of Medînet el Faiûm, the governor of the province, trenches drawn through the ruins and excavations made in four or five places at once; one hundred and eight people were at work to-day: these I allow to encamp for the night on the north side of the pyramid, with the exception of the people of Howara, the nearest village, who return home every night. They have their foremen, and bread is brought to them; they are counted every morning, and paid every evening; each man receives a piastre, about two silvergroschens,[29]each child half a one, occasionally thirty paras, (forty go to a piaster) when they were very industrious. The men must each bring a hoe, and a shallow plaited basket, calledmaktaf. The children, forming by far the greater number, need only come with baskets. The maktafs are filled by the men, and carried away by the children on their heads; this is done in processions, which are kept in strict order and activity by overseers.
Their chief delight, and a considerable strengthener during their daily work, is song. They have certain simple melodies, which at a distance make an almost melancholy impression by reason of their great monotony; but near, they are hardlybearable, by reason of the pitiless duration of the yelling voices that often continue the same tune for hours together. Only the knowledge that by forbearance I assist so many in carrying half the burden of the day, and materially hasten their labours, has ever deterred me from meddling in this, though I am often driven from my tent in despair to seek rest for my ears in some distant sphere of activity. In the performance of the two-lined stanzas, the only change is, that the first line is sung by a single voice, the second by the whole chorus, while every fourth of a bar is marked by a clap of the hands,e.g.