Hatasu.
Hatasu.
No such lengthened gap exists between Hatshepsut and the previous kings as we have noted earlier in our study. She was in direct descent, being the great-grand-daughter of Aahmes and Nefertari-Aahmes, and the grand-daughter of Amenhotep or Amenophis I. Her father was Tutmes or Tahutmes I, “Thut’s child,” and her mother, probably his sister, Aahmes, A’mose orAmensi, of whom there is a profile portrait in one of Maspero’s books. Some things suggest that the mother of Queen Amensi was of different and higher birth than the mother of Tahutmes, and this may account for the position which seemed at once accorded to Hatshepsut. Another legend states that the god Amen was Hatshepsut’s father, and being of divine origin, a sort of Minerva sprung from the brain of Jupiter, she took unquestioned the first place; but she was evidently of the blood royal and the arrangement which gave her precedence of her brothers and claim to the crown did not seem to be disputed. Every princess at her birth received the title of “royal consort.” A son and daughter of Tahutmes, probably older than Hatshepsut, died in childhood, the former named Uatmes (who by some is believed to be brother rather than son of Tahutmes) and a daughter Kheb-no-fru-ra or Nefer’kebt. Tahutmes himself is considered the son of Amenhotep I and Queen Sen-semb.
Tahutmes I, like his predecessors, was a warrior. He fought in the north, made conquests in Palestine and Syria and penetrated into Mesopotamia. A stele, erected east of the Euphrates, bore record of his victories, but his daughter adopted a different policy. She and her brother regarded many of these conquests as empty possessions, difficult to retain and of no real value to the kingdom, so preferred to abandon them.
Hatshepsut rejoiced in the usual wealth of names, in addition to or instead of that by which she is most generally known, Hatasu, eachwriter selecting a different one for his own reasons. These were Hatshopsitou, Hasheps, Hatshepsut, which seems to be generally used by Petrie, Khnumt-Amen, Chuemtamun, the throne name Ra-ma-ka, Maat-ka-ra, etc., as derived from different languages and given by different authorities.
The Egyptian’s awe of and respect for his monarch was usually so great that he hesitated to speak of him directly, but used some circumlocution or descriptive phrase. The name of the god Ra seems to have been frequently, though not invariably, introduced. This was the principal solar deity of Egypt, the “sun-god,” the “father of gods and men,” the chief seat of this very ancient worship being Heliopolis. The sun’s disk was his emblem, and he was pictured as hawk-headed.
The tie between Tahutmes I and his daughter, admirable wherever seen, was one of close affection, and the former doubtless recognized and took pride in the ability of his gifted child. The male historians, with one or two exceptions, seem rather grudgingly to admit Hatasu’s claims, pass somewhat slightingly over her achievements and attribute to her successors what may really be her due. Miss Edwards, on the contrary, is fired with enthusiasm, encircles this queenly figure with the halo of her own poetic imagination and claims for her certain engineering works which others believe to be the performance of her successors.
There is one familiar portrait bust, a copy of which is in the Metropolitan Museum in NewYork and in other places, which has been appropriated by different authorities to different queens. It is a smiling, womanly face, with well-rounded lips and a dimpled chin. Mariette calls it Queen Ti, Maspero believes it to be the wife of Horemheb, and Miss Edwards claims it as Hatasu. The original, in limestone and of colossal size, is at Gizeh. It is a masterpiece of Egyptian art and was found in a chamber back of the obelisk of Hatasu at Karnak, which perhaps gives color to Miss Edwards’ theory. She says of it, “the eyes laugh, the lips all but speak, and every feature is alive with a vivacious charm which is the rarest achievement in sculpture.” Certainly, if it be this queen, beauty and charm were added to mental capacity. A half-mocking smile wreathes the lips and seems to suggest a keen sense of humor.
Maspero describes her, probably in later life, and says her portraits have “refined features and a proud and energetic expression. The oval of the face is elongated, cheeks a little hollow, eyes deep set under arch of brows, lips thin and tightly closed.” Many little statuettes, headless statues, etc., exist in various places. The temple of Deir el Bahri was approached by an avenue of sphinxes, each figure head being a portrait of the queen, two of which are preserved at Berlin. One, brought from Thebes and thought to be done in comparatively recent years with brows and eyes inlaid, is in the Metropolitan Museum. Her Ka statue was in her temple in the shape of a small bearded man, which was probably taken at the period when she wore male attire. It hasthe Ka arms and the Ka name of the queen, grasps the ankh and feather of Ma in its right hand, and a human headed staff, also like the queen, in its left. Her cartouch is on the shoulder of the previously mentioned statue and the father and daughter are often united in a double cartouch.
Hatshepsut has been called the Semiramis, the Catharine, and the Elizabeth of Egyptian history. Bold and clever, no ideal womanly soul was this, but the masculine grasp, the masculine intellect was hers. Strong but centered on a few her love was probably not given to the many; her attachment to her father cannot be doubted. Her ambition and determination to keep the royal power is evident, but it was not the ambition of the soldier and the conqueror. She loved power, she wished to rule, but the belongings of others did not excite her cupidity. Her desire was to build up her own kingdom, and the way to that was not, in her eyes, through annexation and conquest. No claims of posterity, no pleas for “the cause of humanity” stained her pathway with blood. One of her boasts was that she had imported and caused to grow a great variety of trees. Some philosopher has said that he who can make two blades of grass grow where one grew before is the greatest benefactor of his race, and some such credit as this seems rightfully to belong to Queen Hatshepsut.
The early historians, whose mistakes later discoveries have corrected, combined Hatshepsut and Nitocris, calling this composite figure Amen-Nitocris, and said that she was the last of theMemphite sovereigns and by a marriage with Thothmes united the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt. That she was handsome among women and brave among men, that she governed with splendor, added to the temple of Karnak and built the smallest of the pyramids. But the patient research of scholars has disentangled the two stories and given to each her own meed of fame.
The mummy of Tahutmes I was among those found at Deir el Bahri and the body showed him to have been a man of vigor, with a fine form. His coffin and other relics, bricks with his name, etc., were also found. Of his mother Sensenb there was a picture on the walls of the temple at Deir el Bahri as of Hatshepsut’s mother, Queen Aahmes, wearing the royal asp and head-dress. In these the conventional form is of course strictly preserved and yet there is a certain individuality. Pictures (reproductions of them) may be seen in Petrie’s and Mahaffy’s history of Egypt, as in other places. An ivory wand of Queen Aahmes, scarabs, etc., remain. Queen Mut’nefert appears to have been another wife of Tahutmes I and mother of Tahutmes II. She was said to have been a daughter of Amenhotep and appears on the statue of her son Tahutmes II at Karnak as “royal daughter, royal wife.” “A fine statue of her,” says Petrie, “made of sandstone, was found in the chapel of Uazmes and bears the inscription ‘The good god, lord of both lands, Aa’kheperren’ra (Tahutmes II) made by him his monuments of his mother; royal wife, royal mother, Mut’nefert, makheru.’”These relics seem to give proof of the respect and affection of the children for their parents, but beyond our limited knowledge of the bare facts of their relationships the two queens are but mere names and we turn to the more clearly defined and striking figure of the great queen Hatshepsut.
In the latter part of his reign Tahutmes I associated his daughter with him in the imperial power, as he had probably taken her into his counsel previously in matters of state policy and shared with her all the pleasures of his daily life. Their mutual devotion and his high appreciation of her great abilities is evident, even after the lapse of centuries.
The two half-brothers of Hatshepsut were Tahutmes II and Tahutmes III, or as later authorities say Tahutmes III was son of Tahutmes II, the latter proved to be a ruler of great ability, but neither seemed to hold the place in the father’s regard that she did, and being much younger were naturally not equally companionable to him. The limestone statue of Queen Mut-nefert, mother of Tahutmes II, before referred to, was found at Thebes in 1886 and is now at Gizeh. Her son had it carved and it was in the ruins of a little temple. She is seated, in a long white robe, which shows the form and the flesh is colored yellow. The whole is refined and well proportioned, and despite the mutilation of the nose one notices the sweetness of expression, lightened by large eyes. To this day one sees the type near Thebes. The mother of Tahutmes III was more truly a concubine and was calledthe Lady As’t, she was a royal mother but not a royal wife.
Shortly before her father’s death, according to the Egyptian custom, Hatshepsut married her brother Tahutmes II, who shared the throne with her or she with him, but it is evident she was the ruling spirit. There is little doubt that she was the elder of the two; it is estimated that at this time she was about twenty-four and Tahutmes seventeen. A somewhat similar instance to this is narrated by the African traveller, Captain A. St. H. Gibbons, who describes an ancient custom which he found prevailing at Nalolo, whereby the eldest surviving sister of the ruling king was invested with the prerogatives of a queen, without whose advice and consent her brother could not arrange matters of state. She was absolute in her own district, held the power of life and death over her subjects and wedded or deposed a husband at will.
A statue of Tahutmes II exists at Gizeh, which bears some resemblance to the ancient King Chafre. He is not of large size, has fine pathetic eyes, a gentle expression and perhaps resembles his mother. That no love was lost between the consorts is evident from the fact that Hatsheput conferred such special marks of favor upon her architect Semut, and after the death of Tahutmes II (in which old historians, some of them, though perhaps unfairly, were disposed to implicate her) she erased his name from many of the monuments, giving all honor, where possible, to her father or keeping it for herself, to the great bewilderment of later day students. Sheis said to have detained Tahutmes II, in his younger days, in Buto, away from her palace and the seat of power, and doubtless relegated him to the background wherever she could. No more than Queen Elizabeth perhaps had custom and conventionality permitted her to stand quite alone, would she have accepted a consort.
Dress, which had for many reigns and centuries remained unchanged, began somewhat to alter at the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty and more rapidly later. The highest orders of women wore petticoats or gowns secured at the waist by a colored sash, or a strap over the shoulder and over this a large loose robe of the finest linen and tied in front and under the breast, the right arm was left exposed at religious ceremonies and funerals. Another description says that the long tunic, called a basui, was suspended by straps or bracers over the shoulders or a short petticoat with the body strapped over the shoulder and a loose upper garment, which exposed the breast and which could be easily laid aside. There also came changes in the patterns of beads, mode of glazing, hair dressing, furniture and the painting of tombs. The net work of beads was of course largely used for the decoration of mummies. The admixture of blood with Syrian and other captives, as wives and concubines, seemed to introduce a new ideal type, with small features and fascinating, graceful figures. The ends of the braided hair were fringed during the Middle Empire, and during the New the face was framed with wonderful plaits and short tresses,which were secured with combs. Or, more naturally, it hung loose or was bound with a fillet. Female servants wore their hair fastened at the back of the head with loops or plaits. They had a plain garment with short sleeves, but threw off the upper part when working. In the earliest times, as has before been said, men seemed to care for dress more than women. From the queen to the peasant female attire was similar, and from the Fourth to the Eighteenth Dynasty there was little change. About the time of Hatshepsut it assumed a new character, and the upper part of the body was also clothed. At one period color and pattern had been almost excluded and the higher classes wore linen so fine that the figure showed through. Bands woven or embroidered were later added, but their neighbors, the Syrians, always wore more elaborate embroidery than the Egyptians. Shend’ot was the name of the royal dress under the Old Empire. Men wore a short skirt round the hips, and a second was added during the Middle Empire; in one century this was short and narrow, in another wide and shapeless, and in a third, peculiarly folded; the breast was also covered, and the apron, now chiefly a female appanage, was then exclusively the property of men.
Costumes differed with classes, yet, as with us, a fashion initiated by uppertendom would sometimes descend and spread. The lords and the priests and priestesses in offering sacrifices bore a panther skin thrown over the shoulder, the small head and forepaws hanging down. To the hindpaws long ribbons were attached, whichwere drawn forward, and it was the fashion to play with them when sitting idle. Perhaps it was an aid to conversation thus to trifle, as with Madame de Stael’s well-known sprig of poplar. Soldiers and merchants wore white garments bordered with colored fringes. Policemen carried staves, and priests went about in long white robes with aprons and jewelled collars.
The woman’s short petticoat under the tunic, called a basni, was white, red, yellow and sometimes, in the Middle Empire, green. The higher orders sometimes secured the petticoat at the waist with a colored sash. Occasionally there was only one sleeve for the left arm. The cloak of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties fell over the arms with a short sleeve added and at the end of the Twentieth Dynasty there was a thick underdress. The bare foot of the earliest times, as has been shown, was later sandalled and shod.
As time went on the tendency seemed to be more and more to vary from the fashions of the Garden of Eden and to add to the amount of clothing. The more civilized the nation the more elaborate the covering. The primitive Egyptian thought more of painting and rouging the face and oiling the limbs, of both living and dead, than he did of dress. Two colors were chiefly used, green, with which under the Old Empire they put a line below the eye, and black for brows and lids, to make the eyes look larger and more brilliant. The eyelids were dyed with mestem, the finger nails made red with henna. For this, of course, many kohl pots and mirrorswere needed. The latter were of burnished metal, chiefly of copper, round, with wooden or ivory handles and ornamented with carved lotus buds. Necklaces and bracelets on the upper arm and wrist were worn by both men and women, but the latter only used anklets. Earrings were round, single loops of gold, and rings, especially on the third finder and thumb, were numerous.
Of the daily life of a queen we have no detailed account, but various pictures and inscriptions make a sort of outline which study and imagination may fill up and not be utterly astray. One writer has sketched some such programme as this, of course that of a queen who was herself regent, or ruled in her own right. After the first meal of the day the queen would go to the throne room and listen to reports, petitions, etc., doubtless attended by scribes, who were more ubiquitous than even the modern reporter, to note down everything and extol her majesty’s power, clemency and charm. Before the heat grew excessive she might walk in the garden or among the colonnades of the palace or ride out to take the air and view the public works which were in process of building.
Neither horses nor camels are represented on the monuments in the earliest times. Persons of distinction were borne in chariots or chairs carried by bands of slaves, and the ass or mule was the beast of burden. A royal chariot was sometimes adorned by a burnished shield rising above the back, carved with open work and lined with silk. It had two wheels, and a pair of horses were attached to the car by a single trace, theirheads held up by a bridle made fast to a hook in front of the saddle. The long reins passed through a loop at the side; the horses’ heads were adorned with plumes, and the harness and housings ornamented with the royal devices in gold, silver and brass. Sometimes for ladies there was a seat, one in each chariot, but the usual rule was not to have any, a man stood. Says one writer, “When the queen rides she stands on a dais borne at speed by six horses abreast, and looks like a flying goddess.” Thus perhaps our fancy may paint Queen Hatshepsut.
Later came the mid-day dinner, usual in Egypt, then doubtless a rest during the hottest hours, after which the reception of ambassadors and court dignitaries and an evening given more to pleasures, such as music and watching the acrobatic sports and juggling of trained performers and the dancing of female slaves. The guest whom the queen delighted to honor had a special place assigned him at table, portions sent to him from the royal dishes and sometimes, as a particular mark of favor, had a gold chain placed about his neck by the monarch’s own hand.
The throne room was probably a magnificent apartment of immense size with a polished floor, on which were laid the skins of beasts. Enormous statues of the gods, chief among them, Osiris and Isis, were ranged on either side, between tall granite columns with lotus capitals, looking like a forest of great trees. The throne of ivory stood on a raised platform, to which one ascended by steps, guarded on either side by carven figures of sphinxes and crouching animals.Behind were again immense statues of Justice and Truth. The steps were of valuable marbles, and the throne itself inlaid with jewels, all the numbers and designs were symbolic, the footstool was of precious marbles, in a gold frame, and above the throne was a canopy of silk upheld by slender white and gold columns and embroidered with the stars and constellations. Bands of soldiers and officers, richly attired, waited upon the queen. She, on all solemn occasions, wore the double crown of Egypt, which one writer describes as a graceful conical bonnet of white silk, ending in a knob like a pomegranite, the color white, of Upper, as the outer band of gold lined with red silk, was of Lower Egypt, the vulture wings and the raised asp. Her garments were of finest linen with silk robe of white and green and a girdle adorned with diamonds and precious stones. With these or similar surroundings we imagine Queen Hatshepsut.
There is a picture in Erman of King “Tuet-anch-amun” giving audience to a governor of Ethiopia. The king wears his war helmet and carries a whip and sceptre, while the governor bears a sceptre and fan as sign of rank. The king is called “Lord of Hermothis.” Sceptre and whip doubtless Hatshepsut could wield right royally, but the war bonnet she probably had little occasion for. Some writers claim that it was her father’s conquests which gave her immunity from warfare and that it was her peaceful reign and neglect to keep the wild tribes in orderly submission that paved the way for the career of bloodshed which distinguished her great successor,Tahutmes III, so that on this question, as on most, there will always remain a wide difference of opinion. But that a peaceful reign is in many respects a great blessing and a justifiable cause of pride to its successful promoter, and that peace and not war is the ideal state, cannot be denied.
The coronation of Hatshepsut, the building of her great temple at Deir el Bahri and the expedition to Punt are events of such moment that they deserve a volume rather than the narrow space of a single chapter to do them justice.
An inscription in the temple of Karnak reads thus, it is as it were the deed of gift of the royal father Tahutmes I to his favorite child, and addressed to the god Amen: “I bestow the Black Land and the Red Land upon my daughter, the queen of Lower and Upper Egypt Ma-Ka-ra, living eternally. Thou hast transmitted the world into her power, thou hast chosen her as king.” Hatshepsut claimed divine origin in that the god Amen had taken upon him the person of her father and in an especial manner considered herself the daughter of the god. Hatshepset spelled with the e means “the first among the favorite women,” but the queen changed the e to u and later called herself Hatshepsut, which signifies “the first among the great and honorable nobles of the kingdom,” which she considered more befitting her exalted position.
The Eighteenth Dynasty is included in the Golden Age of Egyptian history, and in no period was its power more widely felt, its individual monarchs more remarkable or its architectural and literary remains grander or more impressive.
Before his death Tahutmes I seems to have had celebrated the marriage of his two children,his daughter of twenty-four and his son of seventeen. All things combined to put Hatshepsut in the first place, her more royal heritage, by the mother’s side, her father’s devotion to her, her superiority in years and her more striking talents, while Tahutmes II was perhaps both physically and mentally her inferior. Death at last had severed the tie which bound father and daughter together, but no such tender feeling seems to have existed between the two now occupying the throne, hers was the dominant will, hers is the prominent figure. After this she frequently wore male attire and the dress and ornaments belonging to a king, and doubtless, had it been a matter of choice, she would have been a man.
She styles herself “King Horus abounding in divine gifts, mistress of diadems, rich in years (not a claim the modern lady is ever anxious to establish) the golden Horus, goddess of diadems, queen of Upper and Lower Egypt, daughter of the sun, consort of Ammon, daughter of Ammon, living forever and dwelling in his breast.” Another inscription reads, speaking of her by her name Cheremtamun, “He has created (her) in order to exalt his splendor. She who creates beings like the god Chefr’a. She whose diadems shine like those of the god of the horizon.”
She used both the male and female sign and the title, “daughter of the sun.” As the sphinx bore sometimes a male, sometimes a female head, so this strange and wonderful woman assumed now the one, now the other character. A curious life this old Egyptian history brings before us, so permeated as it was with the constantthought of death and its belief, real or assumed, in the actual intercourse with a race of superior beings, gods, and yet set forth in the lowest images of the brute creation. To the poor and uneducated doubtless as in all idolatrous countries, the semblance seemed the reality and their thought did not pierce beyond the image before them, but the more intellectual and spiritual minds must have rent the veil of sense and stretched out longingly to the infinite beyond, if peradventure they might “feel after and find” the truly godlike.
Hatshepsut did not at once set to work, like the early kings, to build a pyramid in which she might herself be interred. Mundane subjects at first occupied her, and later she built a memorial to her father in the form of an obelisk which described his powers and virtues, and temples for the worship and to the glory of the gods.
Probably the regulation of the country and the administration of internal affairs occupied the earliest years of Hatshepsut’s rule, after the death of Tahutmes I, but in them she was also preparing for the expedition which was one of the great features of her reign and took place in its ninth year. Punt, a country on the eastern bank of the Red Sea, had been, to some extent, known to the Egyptians in the earliest times, those of Chafre’ of the Fourth Dynasty. “Under the name of Punt,” says one writer, “the old inhabitants of Kemi meant a distant land washed by the great ocean, full of valleys and hills, abounding in ebony and other rich woods, balsams, spices, precious metals and stones and of animals,hunting-leopards, panthers, dog-headed apes, etc.” It was the Ophir of the Egyptians, the present coast of Somali, perhaps the land in sight of Arabia, but separated by the Red Sea.
Old traditions said that it was the original seat of the gods, and from it had travelled the holy ones to the Nile valley, at their head Amen, called Kak, as king of Punt, Horus and Hathor. This last was the queen and ruler of Punt, Hor, the holy morning star, which rose to the west of the land. The god Bes also was peculiarly associated with the country. Under the last king of the Eleventh Dynasty is said to have taken place the first journey to Ophir and Punt, and the envoys sent were attended by three thousand men and brought back spices and precious stones. After that it seemed to relapse in the popular imagination into a sort of fairyland which was inhabited by strange serpents.
Like a new Columbus the great queen decided to attempt the rediscovery and exploration of these distant shores. Amen of Thebes, the lord of gods, it is said, had suggested the thought to her, “because he held this ruler so dear, dearer than any other king who had been in this country.” Pictures and accounts of this expedition were afterwards placed in illustration on the walls of the temple of Deir-el-Bahari, built by the queen, and the inscription concludes with the statement that nothing like it had been done under any king before. “And,” says an authority on these subjects, “it speaks the truth. Hatasu showed her people the way to the land whose products were later to fill the treasuries not onlyof the Pharaohs, but also of the Phoenicians and the Jews.”
It was a peaceful expedition, perhaps the only one that had ever been sent forth, this voyage of discovery, nearly sixteen hundred years before the Christian Era; but of course great preparations and even some military ones had to be made that in case of unexpected attack they might be prepared. Ships were built for the expedition, and doubtless years passed between the time of the first conception of the enterprise and its execution.
An inscription by the picture of the squadron thus describes it. “Departure of the squadron of the Lord of the two Worlds, traversing the great sea on the Good Way to the Land of the gods, in obedience to the will of the King of the gods, Amen of Thebes. He commanded that there should be brought to him the marvellous products of the Land of Punt, for he loveth the Queen Hatasu above all other kings that have ruled this land.”
A canal connecting the Nile with the Red Sea which has been attributed to Seti I Miss Edwards claims as an engineering feat of Hatasu, as it would shorten the length of the voyage rather than to take the almost inconceivably long trip around the west coast of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope, the Mosambique Channel and the coast of Zanzibar.
The ships, five in number, were large and stately for the time. They are described as having a narrow keel with stern and prow high above the water, seventy feet in length and withno cabin accommodations. A raised platform at either end, with a balustrade, probably afforded some shelter to the officers. A single mast supported the spreading sail, there were no decks and the hull was fitted with seats for the rowers. After the Old Empire all large boats were adapted for sailing, as well as rowing. Other vessels of this or a little later time were one-decked galleys with thirty oars, with seats and shrines and the stern ornamented with figures of animals. The cabin of those of royal or high rank was a stately house, with roof and pillars, sides brightly colored, in the fore, large paintings and the stern a gigantic lotus. The blade of the oar was like a bouquet of flowers with the head of the king at top, the sails the richest cloth of gay colors. A royal vessel of this description belonged to King Thothmes III, Hatasu’s successor and was called “Star of the two countries.”
Another description speaks of war ships having the poop twisted, with armed mariners in helmets of brass, with four short masts and on each a large castle containing bowmen with steel-headed arrows. Upon the prow a sort of fortress, the soldiers carrying long spears and oval shields decorated with hieroglyphics in brilliant colors. Above the rowers large black Ethiopians in steel cuirasses and long swords. The captains in variegated armor and accompanied by a thousand soldiers and three hundred rowers. The prow ornamented with a lion’s head and colossal shoulders across a broad gilded image of the feathered globe of the sun, the emblem of Egyptand the inscription, “Mistress of the World.” But Hatasu’s fleet was going on a peaceful errand and required no such panoply of war. Experienced seamen managed it, while soldiers, ambassadors and, some say, even ladies, accompanied it and bore with them a variety of presents to win the friendship and favor of the inhabitants of this strange land. The envoys had a small guard of soldiers, but all included did not number more than two hundred and ten men.
The voyagers were met with a friendly welcome and returned with stores of treasures. The inhabitants of Punt lived in little round shaped huts, built on stages and reached by ladders, all under the shade of spreading palms. A picture on the wall of the temple shows the prince of the land Parihu by name, with his wife, Ati or Aty, the latter fat and ungainly (though probably considered a specimen of great beauty by her countrymen), with a donkey to ride upon, followed by two sons and a young daughter, the last giving promise of rivaling her mother in rotundity of outline. Gold, spices, ivory, incense bearing trees, to the number of thirty-one, precious gums, used in the service of the temple, and various animals were brought back to Egypt as a result of this most successful journey. The return was celebrated by a high festival in the temple. Hatshepsut or Hatasu appeared in fullest royal attire, adorned in the richest manner, a helmet on her head, a spotted leopard skin covering her shoulders and her limbs “perfumed like fresh dew.” She offered incense to the god Amen, as his priestess, bearingtwo bowls full and weighing out gold with her own hand. This was before the sacred boat of Amen Ra, with a ram’s head at each end, and carried by high priests, also in leopard skins. The Naka, or incense bearing trees, were borne in tubs, and the weights for weighing the precious metals were gold rings in the shape of recumbent oxen.
Later, as was his iconoclastic wont, Rameses II destroyed some of these pictures and inscriptions and inserted his own name.
Although the name of Tahutmes II, husband and co-ruler with the queen, is not specially mentioned in connection with this great expedition, he shared in the after festival. He, too, designated by his court name of King Menkhefer-ka-ra, offered incense in the boat of Amen, carried on the shoulders of men. “Thus,” says Miss Edwards, “to the sound of trumpets and drums, with waving of green boughs and shouts of triumph, and followed by an ever gathering crowd, the great procession takes its way between avenues of sphinxes, past obelisks and pylons, and up one magnificent flight of steps after another till the topmost terrace of the Great Temple is reached, where the Queen herself welcomed them to the presence of Hathor, the Beautiful, the Lady of the Western Mountain, the Goddess Regent of the Land of Punt.”
At what period is not exactly known, but of course earlier than this, since he is believed to have designed the beautiful temple of Deir el Bahri, the queen called to her assistance the servicesof the architect Senmut, whose statue is in the Berlin Museum. He, it is implied, usurped the place in Hatasu’s affection which rightfully belonged to her husband, but of this it is not possible to speak with any degree of certainty or authority. We only know that he was a man of great ability in his own line, of intelligent mind and skillful hand, and was highly appreciated by her majesty. In an inscription in the Berlin Museum he says his lady ruler made him “great in both countries” and “chief of the chiefs” in the whole of Egypt. The buildings which the queen and he erected are said to be among the most tasteful, complete and brilliant in the land. He was of lowly birth, and therefore his position was the more surprising. He appears to have occupied in the queen’s counsels something of the place of Disraeli to Queen Victoria, whose Jewish origin made his occupancy of the position he gained remarkable. After Senmut’s death Hatasu raised to him a stone memorial as a token of gratitude, with his portrait in black granite and in an attitude of repose. On his shoulder were the short but significant words, “there was not found in writing his ancestors.” He is also introduced in an inscription, as himself speaking, where he used the male pronoun “he” in mentioning the queen refers to his own services and ends with styling her “the lord of the country, the King of Makara.”
Senmut was evidently the chief counsellor and favorite of Hatshepsut, but there was also another highly regarded officer who shared withor succeeded him in the queen’s favor and good graces. This was a certain Aahmes, who had also served her father, Thothmes, or Tahutmes I, and whose tomb was discovered by Brugsch, and bears this inscription, “I was during my existence in the favor of the king, and was rewarded by His Holiness, and a divine woman gave me further reward, the defunct great queen Makara (Hashop), because I brought up her daughter, the great queen’s daughter, the defunct Nofrerura.” It is of course plain that he survived the queen, but we do not know whether he met with equal favor at the hand of her successor. Possibly the mother’s heart, little given to tenderness, may have had an especial softness towards this “nurse” or tutor of her dead child, her father’s trusted servant and perhaps, on that very account, hers also.
Two children were born to the queen, both daughters, Neferura, the heiress, who is spoken of as “the mistress of both lands,” who died in the beginning of the reign of Tahutmes III, and Hatasu Meri or Merytra, who it is estimated was born about 1512 B. C. and became heiress Princess, inheriting all her mother’s rights. To establish the throne more firmly therefore, she was married to Tahutmes III. This king was long supposed to be the youngest son of Tahutmes I, but the latest authorities, although they do not speak with absolute assurance, incline to believe he was the son of Tahutmes II, by a concubine, hence he was in one case the uncle, and in the other the half or step-brother of the youngprincess, but with a less direct title to the throne than she. A certain Renekheb is also spoken of as a tutor of the young queen. This marriage appears to have taken place when they were both children and before the death of Tahutmes II, which is proved by the cartouches of Tahutmes II and Tahutmes III being found together upon some of the monuments, and at the same time suggests that the juvenile pair, nominally at least, shared in the government.
Tahutmes II, born about 1533 B. C., appears to have died at about thirty, in 1503, and some writers maintain that Hatshepsut usurped the power which rightfully belonged to Tahutmes III, but Miss Edwards (ever ready to champion her heroine) finds in the above fact strong proof that the queen really protected the interests of her young half-brother or nephew. While Petrie admits that it would be unlikely and perhaps even unnatural that a capable and ambitious woman, still in the prime of life, should immediately hand over the reins of government, placed in her hands by her father, to a young and inexperienced boy and justifies her retention of them, the more that it was she and not he who had the stronger legal claim. Be this as it may, if Tahutmes III owed gratitude to Hatshepsut for care or protection he showed her little return. Whether from the general unpopularity of mothers-in-law, from her treatment of his brother or uncle, from the feeling that he was suppressed and kept in the background, or from some unknown cause, he evidently hated her. When he came into power he endeavoredto destroy the memorials of her from off the earth and cause her memory even to be forgotten. He injured or erased her name constantly and whenever possible and substituted that of his brother or himself.
Tahutmes I had continued the building of Thebes and set up his two granite obelisks. Tahutmes II and Hatshepsut continued building at Karnak, the temple having been in existence, it is said, as far back as the Eleventh Dynasty. So gigantic was the scale on which these architectural works were undertaken that one life seldom saw their completion. Like the coral reef the temples grew and were added to, monarch after monarch of succeeding generations taking a share in the general design.
Tahutmes I had raised at Karnak two obelisks seventy feet in height, his daughter’s far outdid them, for hers were the loftiest then known in Egypt, a flawless block of red granite or rose quartz, rising 108 or 109 feet into the air. This was erected in the sixteenth year of her reign and after the death of her husband, which took place some dozen or more years after that of his father. Probably the ceremonial mourning was observed for him, but the heart of Hatshepsut was hard and cold and even if we exonerate her from the implication of being directly concerned in his decease, which stands “not proven,” there seems little doubt that she rejoiced to be comparatively free and hold the reins of power exclusively in her own hands. Nothing seemed missing from her life or her pursuits, which she followed withrenewed energy and appeared more constantly than ever in male attire, the short kilt and sandals, the war helmet and even perhaps, as in her reproduction, a beard. Architecture was evidently of great interest to her as to many of her predecessors and obelisks and temples still, after the lapse of centuries, bear witness to her power and skill.
It took nineteen months from its first inception to the completion of her great obelisk and even so, when one thinks of its magnificent proportions, the work seems to have proceeded with wonderful celerity. Inscriptions by Senmut record the quarrying. Her brother’s name appears at the side. One face was covered with gold, which the queen is believed to have weighed out with her own hand. The beautifully carved centre was inlaid with electrum or silver gilt and related to herself. “Amen-Khnum Hatasu, the golden Horus, Lord of the two lands hath dedicated to her father, Amen of Thebes, two obelisks of Maket stone (red granite) hewn from the quarries of the South. Their summits were sheathed with pure gold, taken from the chiefs of all nations.” “His Majesty gave these two gilded obelisks to her father, Amen, that her name should live forever in his temple,” and adds towards the conclusion, “when Ra arises betwixt them as he journeys upward from the heavenly horizon they flood the two Egypts with the glory of their brightness.” Rosellini says, speaking of the fineness of the work, “every figure seems rather to have been impressed with a seal than graven with a chisel.”An inscription at the bottom states that it was erected to her father, Tahutmes I. This obelisk, with its mate, was to occupy a place in the centre court of the palace at Karnak. Dr. Naville, the explorer, discovered the burial chamber of Tahutmes in 1893 and a great altar erected by the queen.
In an inscription on part of the rock-cut temple of Speos Artemidos, south Beni-hasan, reciting her re-establishment of Egyptian power and worship after destruction by the Hyksos, Hatshepsut says: “The abode of the mistress of Qes (Kusae on west side) was fallen in ruin, the earth had covered her beautiful sanctuary and children played over her temple—I cleared and rebuilt it anew—I restored that which was in ruins and I completed that which was left unfinished. For there had been Amu in the midst of the Delta and in Hanar and the foreign hoardes of their number had destroyed the ancient works. They reigned ignorant of the god Ra.”
The temple of Deir-el-Bahri or “Dayre-el-Bahari,” its present Arabic name, was perhaps the greatest work of Hatshepsut’s life and enough of the ruins still remained for the clever French architect, M. Brune, to reconstruct its plan for us. The site was one that would have been chosen by the Greeks for a theatre, but the Egyptian dedicated it to what he deemed a higher object, the worship of the gods. Situated on a green plain, near the tombs of the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty, it was a magnificent natural amphitheatre on the shore of the river and, terrace byterrace, rose from the edge of the water to its steep background of golden brown rock, in which the inner temple, the “holy of holies,” was excavated. Of its structure Senmut or Sen-Maut was the presiding genius. The name “Dayre-el-Bahari” means North church, or monastery, and was, of course, applied to it in later times from the ruins of an old monastery which was yet young and modern beside the original erection. An avenue of sphinxes connected the landing for boats with the four terraces. These were supported by earth-works and stone and guarded by hawk-headed figures, in marble, bearing the uraeus. Columns also supported it, some of them polygonal in shape, with the head of the goddess Hathor as a capitol, and were later restored and kept in order till the time of the Ptolemies. “This temple,” says one writer, “was a splendid specimen of Egyptian Art history, whether we consider the treatment of the stone or the richness of the colored decorations,” and it was unique in design and differed from all others. In the inner recesses of the rock-cut chambers was a picture of the queen, representing her as sucking the milk of the sacred cow, the incarnation of the goddess Hathor, thereby intimating her divine origin.
Some sixteen or seventeen years after the death of Tahutmes II the cartouch of Tahutmes III becomes associated with that of Hatshepsut and then her brilliant career terminates, but the end is wrapped in mystery. Whether she voluntarily laid aside her royal power, which seems unnatural and unlikely, whether she met with foul play orwhether she died a natural death, we know not The remains of many others of her family, more or less illustrious, were found, but hers were not among them. Her place of sepulture was discovered by Mr. Rhind in 1841 in a cliff side near her temple, but, strange to say, was again lost sight of, and her successor, showing plainly his feeling towards her, has constantly chiselled out her name. A party of modern travelers, however, claim to have rediscovered it.
Her cartouch, which may be seen in Baedaker and other works, seems comparatively simple, beside the more elaborate ones of other monarchs. It is a circle with a dot in the centre, a small seated female figure, wearing the plumes of a goddess and below two right angles joined. The three hieroglyphic signs are explained to mean “Ma, the sitting figure of the goddess of Truth, Law and Justice; Ka, represented by the hieroglyphic of the uplifted arms and signifying Life, and the sun’s disk, representing Ra, the supreme solar god of the universe.”
Many memorials of this great queen, spite of the efforts made to destroy them, remain to us. The ruins of the temple, the great obelisks, one of which is still standing, various statues and statuettes, many sun-dried brick with her cartouch and that of her father, some of which can be seen in our own Metropolitan Museum in New York, a cabinet in wood and ivory, her standard, her signet ring in turquoise and gold, in the possession of an English gentleman, and, most interesting of all perhaps, the remains of her thronechair, now in the British Museum. It is made of a dark wood, not natural to Egypt, and probably from the land of Punt. The legs are decorated with ucilisks in gold, and the carven hoof of some animal. The other parts are ornamented with hieroglyphics in gold and silver and one fragmentary royal oval in which the name of Hatasu appears and thereby identifies the owner of the throne.
Thus ends in comparative mystery, darkness and silence this brilliant life, of which we were long in ignorance.
Says Curtis in his charming “Nile Notes”: “The history of Eastern life is embroidered to our youngest eyes in that airy arabesque—an Eastern book cannot be written without a dash of the Arabian Nights—the East throughout hath that fine flavor.”
The great Hatasu was no more and after her no woman held such extended and absolute sway. The next queen whose name occurs at all prominently is Maut-a-mua, or Maut-em-va, “Mother of the boat,” wife of Tahutmes IV and mother of Amenophis III. She appears to have held the regency after her husband’s death till her son assumed full power, or if not actually in this official position, to have had great influence with him. The tie between mother and son was a close one and even his marriage did not seem to weaken it.
But before entering upon such fragmentary history of her as remains to us it may be well to enumerate briefly the lists of sovereigns which connects Hatasu or Hatshepsut with her great grandson’s or great nephew’s wife. Her half-brother or step son-in-law, Tahutmes or Thothmes III, sometimes called the Alexander of Egypt, who succeeded or wrested the power from her hands, had a long reign of fifty-three or fifty-four years. Hatshepsut died at fifty-nine, and Tahutmes III ascended the throne at thirty-one years of age. The computation of his reign probably dates from the time he was first associated withhis sister or stepmother in the regal power. He was one of the most noted of the Egyptian kings, laid aside the peace policy of his predecessors and entered on a series of wars and conquests, marked with many cruelties. The records of his military expeditions are said to give us great insight into the condition of Syria and Palestine about the fifteenth century B. C. He, like his predecessor, was interested in architecture, builded and added to the temples and showed individual taste in his additions. He has left more monuments behind him than any of the Egyptian kings but Rameses II. He built at Heliopolis, Memphis, Thebes, Elephantine and nearly every town in Nubia. Four of his obelisks have come down to us—one in Rome, one in Constantinople, one in London and one in New York. These last bear the popular title of “Cleopatra’s needle,” though erected in a much earlier time than the era of that renowned queen. The first, “the greatest of all extant monoliths,” is standing before the church of St. John Lateran, at Rome. Many, many years were occupied in its preparation. Obelisks were generally erected in pairs and occasionally several of them in succession formed an avenue. In the temple of Deir el Bahri are pictures of Hatshepset and Tahutmes III making offerings to the gods. Says Baedaker: “On the upper part of the right wall is a noteworthy scene. Makere, Hatshepsut I, Thutmosis III, and the Princess Ranofru sacrificing to the boat of Ammon, behind which stands Thutmosis I with his consort, Aahmes, and their little daughter, Binofru. A similar scene was representedabove the recess on the left wall; the kneeling Thutmosis III and the Princess Binofra may still be distinguished.” The statues of Tahutmes III are numerous, but not colossal.
He “took to wife” in the old Eastern phrase, Hatasu-Meri, daughter of the great Hatshepsut and his own near relative, but our knowledge of her is extremely limited. She evidently did not inherit her mother’s characteristics and possibly did not live any great length of time. Or if her husband transferred to her any portion of the dislike which he so evidently bore her mother he may have purposely kept her in the background, but in any case she cannot be looked upon as an assertive character. Her second name is given as Meri or Merira and there is a picture of her on a throne behind, not beside, her husband. She is, however, attired as a goddess, with whip, ankh and tall plumes. This is at Medinet Habu; again she is spoken of as Meryt-ra Hatshepset, mother of Amenophis II, and a scene in a tomb represents her, accompanied by her son. A female sphinx representing her with her husband’s name inscribed was found in the temple of Isis and is now in the Baracco collection at Rome and casts are at Turin and Berlin. One inscription, and possibly more, remain, however, speaking of her as “beloved consort,” or some other form expressing a degree of affection, but at this late period it is impossible to determine whether it was the usual conventional phrase or had some foundation in truth. She lived and died, butwhether her life was a long and happy one or short and sorrowful we cannot tell.
The reign of Tahutmes III is among the longest in history. It was, however, exceeded by some monarchs, Louis XIV, seventy-two years. George III and Queen Victoria over sixty, Henry III occupied the throne fifty-six years, Edward III fifty, and there was also one of the Mogul Emperors, as well as others. A glass vase in the British Museum, said to be the oldest in existence, bears the name of Tahutmes III. There are various mementoes or memorials of him in different places, the most personal perhaps, his coffin, much damaged and stripped of its gilding, which may be seen in the Gizeh Museum.
Amenophis or Amenhotep II, son probably of Hatasu-Meri, succeeded his father. Of him also we read as a warrior and a cruel one, bringing back the bodies of several kings whom he had slain with his own hand. The Egyptians were said not to be so cruel in battle as the Assyrians, but there seems little to choose between them. There is a picture of Amenophis II on the wall at Abd-el-Gurneh, as a child on the lap of a nurse, the heads and backs of five Asiatics serving him as a footstool, implying doubtless that he himself would be, or his father before him had been, a warrior and a conqueror. There is also a kneeling statue of him, in later life, holding a globular vase in his hand. He succeeded to the throne when young, perhaps at eighteen, and his reign was comparatively short as was that of his son and successor, Tahutmes IV. His queen wasnamed Ta-aa and is recorded on a double statue of her and her son, Tahutmes IV. She is called “royal mother and wife,” showing her to be his mother. We knew less of her than of almost any of the queens, that she continued the royal line and her name seems but brief record of her.
Of Tahutmes IV it is said that he spent much time in youth in hunting and field sports. He married Mautamua, or Maut-em-va, or as she is again spoken of, Moutetemarait, possibly an Ethiopian princess. Various inter-marriages, as in modern times not unfrequently, making the families in adjacent kingdoms near of kin.
The name of Tahutmes IV is especially associated with the great Sphinx and we cannot doubt the whole matter was of much interest to the queen also. The god Harmaehis appeared to the king in a dream and promised him his special favor if he would dig out the Sphinx which bore his image and lay half buried in the sand. The monarch obeyed, restored and repaired the grand monument and built a temple at its base. This stands between the two extended paws, on one of which the king’s name has been found inscribed. It was an open temple with an altar and on the breast of the colossus was the memorial stone with the king’s name, made of red granite.
Dreams seem to have borne a special art in the family history. The queen also had a noted dream. It was said that she was sleeping in the most beautiful room in the palace and awoke and saw her husband by her side. Then a few moments after the figure of the god Amen appearedand, when she cried out in alarm, he predicted the birth of her son and vanished in clouds of sweet perfume. Hence the young king was considered in a sense the son of the god. Mautamua is elsewhere called a princess of Mitanni and seems to have been won with difficulty by the young Egyptian prince or kin. One of the tablets found says: “When the father of Nimmuriya (Tahutmes IV) sent to Artotama my grandfather and asked for his daughter to wife, my grandfather refused his request, and though he sent the fifth time and the sixth time he would not give her to him. It was only after he had sent the seventh time that he gave her to him, being compelled for many reasons.” This was among the noted collection of the Tel-el-Amarna tablets and is believed by late authorities to refer to Queen Maut-amua, who is also spoken of as the divine wife and mother.
The queen’s home was in Thebes, which had succeeded Memphis as the great city of the Empire, standing, it is said, to Ethiopia and Egypt “in the relation occupied by Rome to Mediæval Christianity, the capital sacerdotal city of all who worshipped the god Amen.” On the wall of what is called the “Birth Room” at the temple of Luxor are various reliefs relating to the birth of Amenophis III, showing Queen Maut-a-mua, the nurses, the goddess Isis and others. In one the Queen, after the birth of her son (Ra-ma-neb), is seen kneeling on a kind of dais. The goddess Hathor kneels facing her with the babe in her arms. The Ka of both are repeated, makingdouble figures, and the sacred cow suckles the child. For some reason, not given, Amenophis III was particularly rich in Ka names, for he had seven. Another relief shows Hathor presenting the child to the goddess Safekh, and to Amen-Ra, the god of Thebes. Behind Amen-Ra stands the god Nilus and behind him another carrying three ankhs or life signs for the family, throne and Ka name. Safekh dips her pen in ink to record his birth; the royal and Ka ovals are inscribed above. Says Miss Edwards: “Each sovereign on succeeding to the throne not only assumed a throne name, but took also a name for his Ka. The throne name was enclosed in a royal oval, or cartouch, like the family name, but the Ka name was represented as if inscribed above the false doorway, just where the name of a deceased person would be inscribed above the actual door of his sepulchre.”
As the goddess Safekh was the patron deity of libraries we may judge that the king had intellectual tastes, though we know him to have been something of an athlete and a great sportsman. Indeed, it was to this last that he owed his wife, for it was on a hunting expedition that he encountered and fell in love with her. Queen Maut-amua and her daughter-in-law, Ti or Thi, were associated much together, as were Queen Aahotep and her daughter-in-law, Nefertari-Aahmes, though not so generally considered divinities as were the founders of the race.
Maut-a-mua must have been a woman of intellect, capacity and attraction since she was her son’s guardian, and probably regent, and his attachmentto her seems to have been strong and enduring. She lived many years after her husband, whose reign was brief, lasting not more than eight or nine years.
The likenesses of these various kings and queens are often found among the wall pictures in the tombs and are reproduced in many of the books on Egypt. The bas-reliefs and statues which decorated temples and tombs were mostly painted. Says Maspero: “That the Egyptians studied from Nature is proved by the facility with which they seized likenesses and drew the appropriate movements of animals. These figures are strange, but they live and have a certain charm.” To paint men brown and women yellow was the rule, but to this there were occasional exceptions. At Sackuarah, in the time of the Fifth Dynasty, the flesh tint of the men is yellow, while at Istamboul, or Abu Simbel, it is red, as also in the tombs of the epoch of Thotmosis IV.
The early Egyptian is said to have had a fine forehead, small, aquiline nose and a well-formed chin. The picture preserved of Queen Maut-a-mua, with the royal asp above her forehead, gives a long, slightly aquiline nose and a small, well-shaped chin. It is rather startling, in turning to her daughter-in-law, Ti, to find this face repeated in a sort of caricature, devoid of beauty. As in most cases, doctors differ as to the amount of reliance that can be placed upon the verisimilitude of the portraits and statues of these various kings and queens that have come down to us. Some authorities maintain that there existed an idealconventional type, to which the actual bore little or no resemblance, and point out how each is but the modification of the other. Some again claim for them considerable authenticity. Perhaps a middle ground may come nearest to the truth. The conventional type no doubt dominated the painter’s or sculptor’s mind. But when the statues are proved to have been executed in the lifetime of the original it seems likely that some resemblance was aimed at, and the differences that exist go to show this. Also in many cases they belonged to the same family, and may well have had features common to all; as in later times the Hapsburgh jaw was handed down from generation to generation. How hard we have found it to reconcile the picture in the various galleries with the reputation of the charming, beautiful and unhappy Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, and yet doubtless there was a resemblance. How often, too, the photograph of a near and dear friend has an utterly unfamiliar aspect. So that we may fairly admit that even in these ancient times statues and pictures (at least in some cases) a suggestion of the original may remain to us.
The head of Tahutmes IV, which is preserved in a statue or statuette, gives a pleasing face, with an amiable expression. At Luxor, Queen Maut-a-mua appears without the king, but with her son, whose paternity is ascribed to Amen. There is also a picture of the king, smiting some negroes, and behind is a queen called Ai’at who is spoken of as royal daughter, sister and wife, but it is thought this may be intended for an ideograph of the “goddess queen,” Maut-a-mua, as there is no other trace of her. On one private tomb is a picture of Amenophis III and his mother, and there are also various small remains in the way of scarabs, rings, etc. In one of the reliefs in the “Birth Room,” before referred to, the god Amen and the queen are seated upon the hieroglyphic symbol for heaven and supported by the goddesses Selqet and Neith.
King Amenophis III did not resemble his mother. It is quite a different face, with good features and a resolute, though pensive expression. The forehead is high, the eyes full, the nose long but rounded at the end, the upper lip short, and the chin prognathous. He is described as amiable and generous, and showed deference and strong affection both for mother and wife. He seems among the most pleasing of the Egyptian kings. Engaged in wars, devoted to hunting, especially the chase of the lion, which led him far afield, he was yet, as were many of his predecessors, deeply interested in architectural enterprises and the era is noted for the spirit and beauty of its sculpture. Court and colonnade at Karnak were of his building, and on the walls of various apartments are pictures of the coronation of the king and other details of his life.
He is best known to us, and his fame rests chiefly on the marvellous colossi which he erected, “the grandest the world has ever seen.” They are sixty feet high, and when they wore the crown of an Egyptian king, which has since been destroyed, towered seventy feet into the air, a solidblock of sandstone. Miss Martineau, a traveller of comparatively modern times, thus describes the impression they made upon her. “There they sit, together yet apart, in the midst of the plain, serene and vigilant, still keeping their untired watch over the lapse of ages and the eclipse of Europe. I can never believe that anything else so majestic as this pair has been conceived of by the imagination of Art, nothing certainly, even in Nature, ever affected me so unspeakably. The pair, sitting alone amid the expanse of verdure, with islands of ruins behind them, grow more striking to us every day. The impression of sublime tranquility which they convey, when seen from distant points, is confirmed by a nearer approach. There they sit, keeping watch, hands on knees, gazing straight forward, seeming, though so much of the face is gone, to be looking over to the monumental piles on the other side of the river, which became gorgeous temples after these throne seats were placed here—the most immovable thrones that have ever been established on the earth.”
It is rarely that the name of an Egyptian sculptor is preserved, but this case is an exception. An inscription records his name and his naturally proud and exultant feelings at the completion of his work. He was called Amen-hotep or Amen-hept, and thus speaks: “I immortalized the name of the king and no one has done the like of me in my works. I executed two portrait statues of the king, astonishing for their breadth and height, their completed form dwarfed the temple tower;forty cubits was their measure: they were cut in the splendid sandstone mountain, on either side the eastern and the western, I caused to be built lightships whereon the statues were carried up the river; they were emplaced in their sublime temple; they will last as long as heaven. A joyful event was it when they were landed at Thebes and raised up in their place.”
The stone is of a yellowish brown color and very difficult to work. Both statues represent the king and stood before a temple which he built, but of which the veriest fragments remain. We are reminded somewhat by the sculptor’s triumphant pæan of the good Un’e, who was minister to Pepi VI and so exulted in his work and position. Fond as Amenophis was of both his mother and his foreign wife, for whose pleasure and diversion he constructed a great lake, neither of them sit beside him or share the honor of so majestic a statue, as we might suppose, especially as regards his wife, would have been the case; he immortalizes himself alone. Two figures of queens, Maut-a-mua and Ti, are, however sculptured at the base of the statues; they measure eighteen feet in height, but appear small beside the colossi. Says one visitor, the surface of the statues was originally beautifully polished. The thrones on which they are seated are covered with sculptures; the god Hapi (the Nile) is weaving together the lotus lily and papyrus plant, implying the rule of the monarch over Upper and Lower Egypt.
Homer calls Amenophis III, the Memnon ofthe Greeks, “the most stately of living men,” and according to a later legend he was the son of Aurora. It was during the Roman imperial epoch that they were taken for the statues of Memnon, who slew Nestor’s son, Antiochus, in the Trojan war, and was himself slain by Achilles, and to explain the fact that the Trojan hero should thus appear in Egypt a legend was invented. The so-called “vocal Memnon,” the more Eastern of the statues, greeted his mother, Eos, with musical sounds and the morning dews were supposed to be the tears which the goddess shed upon her beloved child. The two statues stood at the end of an avenue of gigantic figures, leading to the temple of Amen, and from the river to the temple, a mile in length, went the Strada Regia, the royal street of Thebes.
Says our own Curtis, who has written so charmingly of his Egyptian experiences: “Yearly comes the Nile humbly to his feet, and leaving them pays homage. Then receding slowly leaves water plants wreathed around the throne, on which he is sculptured as a good genius harvesting the lotus, and brings a hundred travellers to perpetuate the homage. These sublime sketches in stone are an artist’s work. In those earlier days Art was not content with the grace of Nature, but coped with its proportions. Vain attempts, but glorious!” The fact of this musical note being heard from “the darling of the dawn” is recorded on the base of the statue, and is mentioned by Strabo, the elder Pliny and many others. Sandy beaches sometimes emit musical sounds and somethingin the structure of the rock, warmed by the rays of the rising sun, may have caused the sounds to be heard, or they may have been produced by artificial means, at the instance of the priests, striving to impress the people. The true origin of the mystery was never discovered, though its existence seems well attested, and eventually the sounds ceased, probably as the result of an earthquake or the restoration of the figures which was undertaken by a later king. Another theory lays the injury of the statues at the door of Cambyses, who was credited with all possible crimes, and a sculptured inscription reads: “I wrote after having heard Memnon. Cambyses has wounded me. A stone cut into the image of the sun-king. I had once the sweet voice of Memnon, but Cambyses has deprived me of the accents which express joy and grief.”
The sounds are said by some authorities to have been heard during a period of two hundred and twenty years. Travellers in ancient times (like the modern vandal) were very fond of scribbling their names on monuments, which should be held in more respect, and a number of these, including some of their remarks and silly verses, have been found on the base of the statue and refer to the sounds. At the time of their erection the level of the Nile was evidently different from that of the present day for its waters, as Curtis has said, now occasionally leave the feet of the giant pair.
Amenophis III began quarrying stone for his numerous architectural works in the first and second years of his reign from quarries near Silseleh,and his palace was said to resemble that subsequently built by his son at Tel-el-Amarna in some respects. Scarabs bearing the name of this king are to be seen in our own New York Museum, as also in various other places, but those of Tahutmes III are still more frequent here. The tomb of Amenophis III was found in the west valley of the Tombs of the Kings by a French expedition.
Queen Maut-a-mua had the pleasure, we may believe, of seeing a number of grandchildren, as Amenophis III had four sons and three daughters, if not others unmentioned, and so kindly seem to have been the family relations that we may perhaps picture her with her son’s wife in the midst of the home circle spoiling them quite like a modern grandmother. Up to this period the men of the family appear to have been a stalwart, good-looking race, while the women probably possessed more beauty than their pictures would lead us to infer. Of the general outline of their history we have some knowledge, but seldom or never can we definitely place the day of their birth or that of their death. So at what exact period Queen Maut-a-mua passed away we cannot state, only we may believe she was watched over by filial affection to the last, was buried amid tears and lamentations, and had all due funeral rites observed, even if she was not numbered among those royalties who were specially regarded as divinities, the founders of the race, and to whom divine honors were subsequently paid, yet is she occasionally spoken of as “the goddess queen.”