History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Vol. 2 — 01 - Vol. 02, Ch. 01: The Political Constitution of Egypt, pt. 1

Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.

You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.

gutenberg.

org.

If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) Author: G. Maspero Editor: A. H.

Sayce Translator: M. L.

McClure Release date: December 16, 2005 [eBook #17322] Most recently updated: December 13, 2020 Language: English Other information and formats: www.

gutenberg.

org/ebooks/17322 Credits: Produced by David Widger *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF EGYPT, CHALDÆA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA, VOLUME 2 (OF 12) *** Produced by David Widger [Illustration: Spines] [Illustration: Cover] HISTORY OF EGYPT CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA

By G. MASPERO, Honorable Doctor of Civil Laws, and Fellow of Queen’s College, Oxford; Member of the Institute and Professor at the College of France Edited by A. H.

SAYCE, Professor of Assyriology, Oxford Translated by M. L.

McCLURE, Member of the Committee of the Egypt Exploration Fund CONTAINING OVER TWELVE HUNDRED COLORED PLATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS Volume II.

, Part A. LONDON

THE GROLIER SOCIETY

PUBLISHERS

[Illustration: Frontispiece] [Illustration: Titlepage] _THE POLITICAL CONSTITUTION OF EGYPT_

_THE KING, QUEEN, AND ROYAL PRINCES--PHARAONIC ADMINISTRATION_ _FEUDALISM AND THE EGYPTIAN PRIESTHOOD, THE MILITARY--THE CITIZENS AND THE COUNTRY-PEOPLE.

_ _The cemeteries of Gizeh and Saqqâra: the Great Sphinx; the mastabas, their chapel and its decoration, the statues of the double, the sepulchral vault--Importance of the wall-paintings and texts of the mastabas in determining the history of the Memphite dynasties.

_ _The king and the royal family--Double nature and titles of the sovereign: his Horus-names, and the progressive formation of the Pharaonic Protocol--Royal etiquette an actual divine worship; the insignia and prophetic statues of Pharaoh, Pharaoh the mediator between the gods and his subjects--Pharaoh in family life; his amusements, his occupations, his cares--His harem: the women, the queen, her origin, her duties to the king--His children: their position in the State; rivalry among them during the old age and at the death of their father;

succession to the throne, consequent revolutions.

_ _The royal city: the palace and its occupants--The royal household and its officers: Pharaoh’s jesters, dwarfs, and magicians--The royal domain and the slaves, the treasury and the establishments which provided for its service: the buildings and places for the receipt of taxes--The scribe, his education, his chances of promotion: the career of Amten, his successive offices, the value of his personal property at his death.

_ _Egyptian feudalism: the status of the lords, their rights, their amusements, their obligations to the sovereign--The influence of the gods: gifts to the temples, and possessions in mortmain; the priesthood, its hierarchy, and the method of recruiting its ranks--The military: foreign mercenaries; native militia, their privileges, their training.

_ _The people of the towns--The slaves, men without a master--Workmen and artisans; corporations: misery of handicraftsmen--Aspect of the towns: houses, furniture, women in family life--Festivals; periodic markets, bazaars: commerce by barter, the weighing of precious metals.

_ _The country people--The villages; serfs, free peasantry--Rural domains;

the survey, taxes; the bastinado, the corvée--Administration of justice, the relations between peasants and their lords; misery of the peasantry;

their resignation and natural cheerfulness; their improvidence; their indifference to political revolutions.

_ [Illustration: 003. jpg PAGE IMAGE] CHAPTER I--THE POLITICAL CONSTITUTION OF EGYPT

_The king, the queen, and the royal princes--Administration under the Pharaohs--Feudalism and the Egyptian priesthood, the military--The citizens and country people.

_ Between the Fayûm and the apex of the Delta, the Lybian range expands and forms a vast and slightly undulating table-land, which runs parallel to the Nile for nearly thirty leagues.

The Great Sphinx Harmakhis has mounted guard over its northern extremity ever since the time of the Followers of Horus.

Illustration: Drawn by Boudier, from _La Description de l’Egypte,_ A. , vol. v.

pl.

7. vignette, which is also by Boudier, represents a man bewailing the dead, in the attitude adopted at funerals by professional mourners of both sexes; the right fist resting on the ground, while the left hand scatters on the hair the dust which he has just gathered up.

The statue is in the Gîzeh Museum.

Hewn out of the solid rock at the extreme margin of the mountain-plateau, he seems to raise his head in order that he may be the first to behold across the valley the rising of his father the Sun.

Only the general outline of the lion can now be traced in his weather-worn body.

The lower portion of the head-dress has fallen, so that the neck appears too slender to support the weight of the head.

The cannon-shot of the fanatical Mamelukes has injured both the nose and beard, and the red colouring which gave animation to his features has now almost entirely disappeared.

But in spite of this, even in its decay, it still bears a commanding expression of strength and dignity.

The eyes look into the far-off distance with an intensity of deep thought, the lips still smile, the whole face is pervaded with calmness and power.

The art that could conceive and hew this gigantic statue out of the mountain-side, was an art in its maturity, master of itself and sure of its effects.

How many centuries were needed to bring it to this degree of development and perfection!

[Illustration: 004. jpg THE MASTABA OF KHOMTINI IN THE NECROPOLIS OF GÎZEH]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Lepsius.

The cornerstone at the top of the mastaba, at the extreme left of the hieroglyphic frieze, had been loosened and thrown to the ground by some explorer; the artist has restored it to its original position.

In later times, a chapel of alabaster and rose granite was erected alongside the god; temples were built here and there in the more accessible places, and round these were grouped the tombs of the whole country.

The bodies of the common people, usually naked and uncoffined, were thrust under the sand, at a depth of barely three feet from the surface.

Those of a better class rested in mean rectangular chambers, hastily built of yellow bricks, and roofed with pointed vaulting.

No ornaments or treasures gladdened the deceased in his miserable resting-place; a few vessels, however, of coarse pottery contained the provisions left to nourish him during the period of his second existence.

Some of the wealthy class had their tombs cut out of the mountain-side;

but the majority preferred an isolated tomb, a “mastaba,” * comprising a chapel above ground, a shaft, and some subterranean vaults.

* “The Arabic word ‘mastaba,’ plur.

‘masatib,’ denotes the stone bench or platform seen in the streets of Egyptian towns in front of each shop.

A carpet is spread on the ‘mastaba,’ and the customer sits upon it to transact his business, usually side by side with the seller.

In the necropolis of Saqqâra, there is a temple of gigantic proportions in the shape of a ‘mastaba.

’The inhabitants of the neighbourhood call it ‘Mastabat-el-Farâoun,’ the seat of Pharaoh, in the belief that anciently one of the Pharaohs sat there to dispense justice.

The Memphite tombs of the Ancient Empire, which thickly cover the Saqqâra plateau, are more or less miniature copies of the ‘Mastabat-el- Farâoun.

’Hence the name of mastabas, which has always been given to this kind of tomb, in the necropolis of Saqqâra.

” From a distance these chapels have the appearance of truncated pyramids, varying in size according to the fortune or taste of the owner; there are some which measure 30 to 40 ft. in height, with a façade 160 ft. long, and a depth from back to front of some 80 ft. , while others attain only a height of some 10 ft. upon a base of 16 ft. square.

* * The mastaba of Sabû is 175 ft. 9 in.

long, by about 87 ft. 9 in.

deep, but two of its sides have lost their facing;

that of Ranimait measures 171 ft. 3 in.

by 84 ft. 6 in.

on the south front, and 100 ft. on the north front.

On the other hand, the mastaba of Papû is only 19 ft. 4 in.

by 29 ft. long, and that of KMbiûphtah 42 ft. 4 in.

by 21 ft. 8 in.

The walls slope uniformly towards one another, and usually have a smooth surface; sometimes, however, their courses are set back one above the other almost like steps.

[Illustration: 006. jpg THE GREAT SPHINX OF GÎZEH PARTIALLY UNCOVERED, AND THE PYRAMID OF KHEPHREN]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey, taken in the course of the excavations begun in 1886, with the funds furnished by a public subscription opened by the _Journal des Débats.

_ The brick mastabas were carefully cemented externally, and the layers bound together internally by fine sand poured into the interstices.

Stone mastabas, on the contrary, present a regularity in the decoration of their facings alone; in nine cases out of ten the core is built of rough stone blocks, rudely cut into squares, cemented with gravel and dried mud, or thrown together pell-mell without mortar of any kind.

The whole building should have been orientated according to rule, the four sides to the four cardinal points, the greatest axis directed north and south; but the masons seldom troubled themselves to find the true north, and the orientation is usually incorrect.

* * Thus the axis of the tomb of Pirsenû is 17° east of the magnetic north.

In some cases the divergence is only 1° or 2°, more often it is 6°, 7°, 8°, or 9°, as can be easily ascertained by consulting the work of Mariette.

The doors face east, sometimes north or south, but never west.

One of these is but the semblance of a door, a high narrow niche, contrived so as to face east, and decorated with grooves framing a carefully walled-up entrance; this was for the use of the dead, and it was believed that the ghost entered or left it at will.

The door for the use of the living, sometimes preceded by a portico, was almost always characterized by great simplicity.

Over it is a cylindrical tympanum, or a smooth flagstone, bearing sometimes merely the name of the dead person, sometimes his titles and descent, sometimes a prayer for his welfare, and an enumeration of the days during which he was entitled to receive the worship due to ancestors.

They invoked on his behalf, and almost always precisely in the same words, the “Great God,” the Osiris of Mendes, or else Anubis, dwelling in the Divine Palace, that burial might be granted to him in Amentît, the land of the West, the very great and very good, to him the vassal of the Great God; that he might walk in the ways in which it is good to walk, he the vassal of the Great God; that he might have offerings of bread, cakes, and drink, at the New Year’s Feast, at the feast of Thot, on the first day of the year, on the feast of Ûagaît, at the great fire festival, at the procession of the god Mînû, at the feast of offerings, at the monthly and half-monthly festivals, and every day.

[Illustration: 008. jpg TETINIÔNKHÛ, SITTING BEFORE THE FUNERAL REPAST] Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original monument which is preserved in the Liverpool Museum; cf.

Gatty, _Catalogue of the Mayer Collection;_ I. Egyptian Antiquities, No. 294, p. 45. The chapel is usually small, and is almost lost in the great extent of the building.

* It generally consists merely of an oblong chamber, approached by a rather short passage.

** * Thus the chapel of the mastaba of Sabu is only 14 ft. 4 in.

long, by about 3 ft. 3 in.

deep, and that of the tomb of Phtahshopsisû, 10 ft. 4 in.

by 3 ft. 7 in.

** The mastaba of Tinti has four chambers, as has also that of Assi-ônkhû; but these are exceptions, as may be ascertained by consulting the work of Mariette.

Most of those which contain several rooms are ancient one-roomed mastabas, which have been subsequently altered or enlarged;

this is the case with the mastabas of Shopsi and of Ankhaftûka.

A few, however, were constructed from the outset with all their apartments--that of Râônkhûmai, with six chambers and several niches; that of Khâbiûphtah, with three chambers, niches, and doorway ornamented with two pillars;

that of Ti, with two chambers, a court surrounded with pillars, a doorway, and long inscribed passages; and that of Phtahhotpû, with seven chambers, besides niches.

[Illustration: 009. jpg THE FAÇADE AND THE STELE OF THE TOMB OF PHTAHSHOPSISU AT SAQQARA]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Dûhichen.

At the far end, and set back into the western wall, is a huge quadrangular stele, at the foot of which is seen the table of offerings, made of alabaster, granite or limestone placed flat upon the ground, and sometimes two little obelisks or two altars, hollowed at the top to receive the gifts mentioned in the inscription on the exterior of the tomb.

The general appearance is that of a rather low, narrow doorway, too small to be a practicable entrance.

The recess thus formed is almost always left empty; sometimes, however, the piety of relatives placed within it a statue of the deceased.

Standing there, with shoulders thrown back, head erect, and smiling face, the statue seems to step forth to lead the double from its dark lodging where it lies embalmed, to those glowing plains where he dwelt in freedom during his earthly life: another moment, crossing the threshold, he must descend the few steps leading into the public hall.

On festivals and days of offering, when the priest and family presented the banquet with the customary rites, this great painted figure, in the act of advancing, and seen by the light of flickering torches or smoking lamps, might well appear endued with life.

It was as if the dead ancestor himself stepped out of the wall and mysteriously stood before his descendants to claim their homage.

The inscription on the lintel repeats once more the name and rank of the dead.

Faithful portraits of him and of other members of his family figure in the bas-reliefs on the door-posts.

[Illustration: 010. jpg STELE IN THE FORM OF A DOOR] The little scene at the far end represents him seated tranquilly at table, with the details of the feast carefully recorded at his side, from the first moment when water is brought to him for ablution, to that when, all culinary skill being exhausted, he has but to return to his dwelling, in a state of beatified satisfaction.

The stele represented to the visitor the door leading to the private apartments of the deceased;

the fact of its being walled up for ever showing that no living mortal might cross its threshold.

The inscription which covered its surface was not a mere epitaph informing future generations who it was that reposed beneath.

It perpetuated the name and genealogy of the deceased, and gave him a civil status, without which he could not have preserved his personality in the world beyond; the nameless dead, like a living man without a name, was reckoned as non-existing.

Nor was this the only use of the stele; the pictures and prayers inscribed upon it acted as so many talismans for ensuring the continuous existence of the ancestor, whose memory they recalled.

They compelled the god therein invoked, whether Osiris or the jackal Anubis, to act as mediator between the living and the departed; they granted to the god the enjoyment of sacrifices and those good things abundantly offered to the deities, and by which they live, on condition that a share of them might first be set aside for the deceased.

By the divine favour, the soul or rather the doubles of the bread, meat, and beverages passed into the other world, and there refreshed the human double.

It was not, however, necessary that the offering should have a material existence, in order to be effective; the first comer who should repeat aloud the name and the formulas inscribed upon the stone, secured for the unknown occupant, by this means alone, the immediate possession of all the things which he enumerated.

The stele constitutes the essential part of the chapel and tomb.

In many cases it was the only inscribed portion, it alone being necessary to ensure the identity and continuous existence of the dead man; often, however, the sides of the chamber and passage were not left bare.

When time or the wealth of the owner permitted, they were covered with scenes and writing, expressing at greater length the ideas summarized by the figures and inscriptions of the stele.

[Illustration: 014. jpg A REPRESENTATION OF THE DOMAINS OF THE LORD TI, BRINGING TO HIM OFFERINGS IN PROCESSION]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin taken from a “squeeze” taken from the tomb of Ti.

The domains are represented as women.

The name is written before each figure with the designation of the landowner.

Neither pictorial effect nor the caprice of the moment was permitted to guide the artist in the choice of his subjects; all that he drew, pictures or words, bad a magical purpose.

Every individual who built for himself an “eternal house,” either attached to it a staff of priests of the double, of inspectors, scribes, and slaves, or else made an agreement with the priests of a neighbouring temple to serve the chapel in perpetuity.

Lands taken from his patrimony, which thus became the “Domains of the Eternal House,” rewarded them for their trouble, and supplied them with meats, vegetables, fruits, liquors, linen and vessels for sacrifice.

[Illustration: 015. jpg THE REPRESENTATION OF THE LORD TI ASSISTING AT THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE SACRIFICE AND OFFERINGS]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Dumichen, Besultate, vol. i.

pl.

13. In theory, these “liturgies” were perpetuated from year to year, until the end of time; but in practice, after three or four generations, the older ancestors were forsaken for those who had died more recently.

Notwithstanding the imprecations and threats of the donor against the priests who should neglect their duty, or against those who should usurp the funeral endowments, sooner or later there came a time when, forsaken by all, the double was in danger of perishing for want of sustenance.

In order to ensure that the promised gifts, offered in substance on the day of burial, should be maintained throughout the centuries, the relatives not only depicted them upon the chapel walls, but represented in addition the lands which produced them, and the labour which contributed to their production.

On one side we see ploughing, sowing, reaping, the carrying of the corn, the storing of the grain, the fattening of the poultry, and the driving of the cattle.

A little further on, workmen of all descriptions are engaged in their several trades: shoemakers ply the awl, glassmakers blow through their tubes, metal founders watch over their smelting-pots, carpenters hew down trees and build a ship; groups of women weave or spin under the eye of a frowning taskmaster, who seems impatient of their chatter.

Did the double in his hunger desire meat?

He might choose from the pictures on the wall the animal that pleased him best, whether kid, ox, or gazelle; he might follow the course of its life, from its birth in the meadows to the slaughter-house and the kitchen, and might satisfy his hunger with its flesh.

The double saw himself represented in the paintings as hunting, and to the hunt he went; he was painted eating and drinking with his wife, and he ate and drank with her; the pictured ploughing, harvesting, and gathering into barns, thus became to him actual realities.

In fine, this painted world of men and things represented upon the wall was quickened by the same life which animated the double, upon whom it all depended: the _picture_ of a meal or of a slave was perhaps that which best suited the _shade_ of guest or of master.