History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Vol. 2 — 18 - Vol. 02, Ch. 02: The Memphite Empire, pt. 6

Nothing on the contemporary monuments, it is true, gives indication of a violent change attended by civil war, or resulting from a revolution at court: the construction and decoration of the tombs continued without interruption and without indication of haste, the sons-in-law of Shopsiskaf and of Mykerinos, their daughters and grandchildren, possess under the new kings, the same favour, the same property, the same privileges, which they had enjoyed previously.

It was stated, however, in the time of the Ptolemies, that the Vth dynasty had no connection with the IVth; it was regarded at Memphis as an intruder, and it was asserted that it came from Elephantine.

* The tradition was a very old one, and its influence is betrayed in a popular story, which was current at Thebes in the first years of the New Empire.

Kheops, while in search of the mysterious books of Thot in order to transcribe from them the text for his sepulchral chamber,** had asked the magician Didi to be good enough to procure them for him; but the latter refused the perilous task imposed upon him.

* Such is the tradition accepted by Manetho.

Lepsius thinks that the copyists of Manetho were under some distracting influence, which made them transfer the record of the origin of the VIth dynasty to the Vth: it must have been the VIth dynasty which took its origin from Elephantine.

I think the safest plan is to respect the text of Manetho until we know more, and to admit that he knew of a tradition ascribing the origin of the Vth dynasty to Elephantine.

** The Great Pyramid is mute, but we find in other pyramids inscriptions of some hundreds of lines.

The author of the story, who knew how much certain kings of the VIth dynasty had laboured to have extracts of the sacred books engraved within their tombs, fancied, no doubt, that his Kheops had done the like, but had not succeeded in procuring the texts in question, probably on account of the impiety ascribed to him by the legends.

It was one of the methods of explaining the absence of any religious or funereal inscription in the Great Pyramid.

“‘Sire, my lord, it is not I who shall bring them to thee.

’ His Majesty asks: ‘Who, then, will bring them to me?

’ Didi replies, ‘It is the eldest of the three children who are in the womb of Rudîtdidît who will bring them to thee.

’ His Majesty says: ‘By the love of Râ!

what is this that thou tellest me; and who is she, this Rudîtdidît?

’ Didi says to him: ‘She is the wife of a priest of Râ, lord of Sakhîbû.

She carries in her womb three children of Râ, lord of Sakhîbû, and the god has promised to her that they shall fulfil this beneficent office in this whole earth,* and that the eldest shall be the high priest at Heliopolis.

” His Majesty, his heart was troubled at it, but Didi says to him: “‘What are these thoughts, sire, my lord?

Is it because of these three children?

Then I say to thee: ‘Thy son, his son, then one of these.

’”** The good King Kheops doubtless tried to lay his hands upon this threatening trio at the moment of their birth; but Râ had anticipated this, and saved his offspring.

When the time for their birth drew near, the Majesty of Râ, lord of Sakhîbû, gave orders to Isis, Nephthys, Maskhonît, Hiquît,*** and Khnûmû: “Come, make haste and run to deliver Budîtdidît of these three children which she carries in her womb to fulfil that beneficent office in this whole earth, and they will build you temples, they will furnish your altars with offerings, they will supply your tables with libations, and they will increase your mortmain possessions.

” * This kind of circumlocution is employed on several occasions in the old texts to designate royalty.

It was contrary to etiquette to mention directly, in common speech, the Pharaoh, or anything belonging to his functions or his family.

Cf.

pp. 28, 29 of this History.

** This phrase is couched in oracular form, as befitting the reply of a magician.

It appears to have been intended to reassure the king in affirming that the advent of the three sons of Râ would not be immediate: his son, then a son of this son, would succeed him before destiny would be accomplished, and one of these divine children succeed to the throne in his turn.

The author of the story took no notice of Dadufrî or Shopsiskaf, of whose reigns little was known in his time.

*** Hiquît as the frog-goddess, or with a frog’s head, was one of the mid-wives who is present at the birth of the sun every morning.

Her presence is, therefore, natural in the case of the spouse about to give birth to royal sons of the sun.

The goddesses disguised themselves as dancers and itinerant musicians: Khnûmû assumed the character of servant to this band of nautch-girls and filled the bag with provisions, and they all then proceeded together to knock at the door of the house in which Budîtdidît was awaiting her delivery.

The earthly husband Baûsîr, unconscious of the honour that the gods had in store for him, introduced them to the presence of his wife, and immediately three male children were brought into the world one after the other.

Isis named them, Maskhonît predicted for them their royal fortune, while Khnûmû.

infused into their limbs vigour and health;

the eldest was called Ûsirkaf, the second Sahûrî, the third Kakiû.

Kaûsîr was anxious to discharge his obligation to these unknown persons, and proposed to do so in wheat, as if they were ordinary mortals: they had accepted it without compunction, and were already on their way to the firmament, when Isis recalled them to a sense of their dignity, and commanded them to store the honorarium bestowed upon them in one of the chambers of the house, where henceforth prodigies of the strangest character never ceased to manifest themselves.

Every time one entered the place a murmur was heard of singing, music, and dancing, while acclamations such as those with which kings are wont to be received gave sure presage of the destiny which awaited the newly born.

The manuscript is mutilated, and we do not know how the prediction was fulfilled.

If we may trust the romance, the three first princes of the Vth dynasty were brothers, and of priestly descent, but our experience of similar stories does not encourage us to take this one very seriously: did not such tales affirm that Kheops and Khephren were brothers also?

The Vth dynasty manifested itself in every respect as the sequel and complement of the IVth.

* It reckons nine Pharaohs after the three which tradition made sons of the god Râ himself and of Rudîtdidîfc.

They reigned for a century and a half; the majority of them have left monuments, and the last four, at least, Ûsirnirî Ânû, Menkaû-horû, Dadkerî Assi, and Unas, appear to have ruled gloriously.

They all built pyramids,** they repaired temples and founded cities.

*** * A list is appended of the known Pharaohs of the Vth dynasty, restored as far as can be, with the closest approximate dates of their reigns:-- [Illustration: 215. jpg TABLE OF PHARAOHS OF THE VTH DYNASTY] ** It is pretty generally admitted, but without convincing proofs, that the pyramids of Abûsîr served as tombs for the Pharaohs in the Vth dynasty, one for Sahûrî, another to Ûsirnirî Anû, although Wiedemann considers that the truncated pyramid of Dahshur was the tomb of this king.

I am inclined to think that one of the pyramids of Saqqâra was constructed by Assi; the pyramid of Unas was opened in 1881, and the results made known by Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et d’Archéologie_, vol. i.

p. 150, et seq.

, and _Recueil de Travaux_, vols.

iv.

and v. The names of the majority of the pyramids are known to us from the monuments: that of Ûsirkaf was called “Ûâbisîtu”; that of Sahûrî, “Khâbi”; that of Nofiririkerî, “Bi”; that of Anû, “Min-isûîtû”; that of Menkaûhorû, “Nûtirisûîtû”; that of Assi, “Nutir”; that of Unas, “Nofir-isûîtû.

” *** Pa Sahûrî, near Esneh, for instance, was built by Sahûrî.

The modern name of the village of Sahoura still preserves, on the same spot, without the inhabitants suspecting it, the name of the ancient Pharaoh.

[Illustration: 210. jpg STATUE IN ROSE-COLOURED GRANITE OF THE PHARAOH ANÛ, IN THE GÎZEH MUSEUM]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.

The Bedouin of the Sinaitic peninsula gave them much to do.

Sahûrî brought these nomads to reason, and perpetuated the memory of his victories by a stele, engraved on the face of one of the rocks in the Wady Magharah; Anû obtained some successes over them, and Assi repulsed them in the fourth year of his reign.

On the whole, they maintained Egypt in the position of prosperity and splendour to which their predecessors had raised it.

In one respect they even increased it.

Egypt was not so far isolated from the rest of the world as to prevent her inhabitants from knowing, either by personal contact or by hearsay, at least some of the peoples dwelling outside Africa, to the north and east.

[Illustration: 217. jpg TRIUMPHAL BAS-RELIEF OF PHARAOH SAHÛRÛ, ON THE ROCKS OF WADY MAGHARAH.

] Drawn by Boudier, from the water-colour published in Lepsius, _Denhn.

_, i. pl.

8, No. 2 They knew that beyond the “Very Green,” almost at the foot of the mountains behind which the sun travelled during the night, stretched fertile islands or countries and nations without number, some barbarous or semi-barbarous, others as civilized as they were themselves.

They cared but little by what names they were known, but called them all by a common epithet, the Peoples beyond the Seas, “Haûi-nîbû.

” If they travelled in person to collect the riches which were offered to them by these peoples in exchange for the products of the Nile, the Egyptians could not have been the unadventurous and home-loving people we have imagined.

They willingly left their own towns in pursuit of fortune or adventure, and the sea did not inspire them with fear or religious horror.

The ships which they launched upon it were built on the model of the Nile boats, and only differed from the latter in details which would now pass unnoticed.

The hull, which was built on a curved keel, was narrow, had a sharp stem and stern, was decked from end to end, low forward and much raised aft, and had a long deck cabin: the steering apparatus consisted of one or two large stout oars, each supported on a forked post and managed by a steersman.

It had one mast, sometimes composed of a single tree, sometimes formed of a group of smaller masts planted at a slight distance from each other, but united at the top by strong ligatures and strengthened at intervals by crosspieces which made it look like a ladder; its single sail was bent sometimes to one yard, sometimes to two; while its complement consisted of some fifty men, oarsmen, sailors, pilots, and passengers.

Such were the vessels for cruising or pleasure; the merchant ships resembled them, but they were of heavier build, of greater tonnage, and had a higher freeboard.

They had no hold; the merchandise had to remain piled up on deck, leaving only just enough room for the working of the vessel.

They nevertheless succeeded in making lengthy voyages, and in transporting troops into the enemy’s territory from the mouths of the Nile to the southern coast of Syria.

Inveterate prejudice alone could prevent us from admitting that the Egyptians of the Memphite period went to the ports of Asia and to the Haûi-nîbû by sea.

Some, at all events, of the wood required for building* and for joiner’s work of a civil or funereal character, such as pine, cypress or cedar, was brought from the forests of Lebanon or those of Amanus.

* Cedar-wood must have been continually imported into Egypt.

It is mentioned in the Pyramid texts; in the tomb of Ti, and in the other tombs of Saqqâra or Gîzeh, workmen are represented making furniture of it.

Chips of wood from the coffins of the VIth dynasty, detached in ancient times and found in several mastabas at Saqqâra, have been pronounced to be, some cedar of Lebanon, others a species of pine which still grows in Cilicia and in the north of Syria.

[Illustration: 219. jpg PASSENGER VESSEL UNDER SAIL] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch- Bey; the picture is taken from one of the walls of the tomb of Api, discovered at Saqqâra, and now preserved in the Gîzeh Museum (VIth dynasty).

The man standing at the bow is the fore-pilot, whose duty it is to take soundings of the channel, and to indicate the direction of the vessel to the pilot aft, who works the rudder-oars.

Beads of amber are still found near Abydos in the tombs of the oldest necropolis, and we may well ask how many hands they had passed through before reaching the banks of the Nile from the shores of the Baltic.

* The tin used to alloy copper for making bronze,** and perhaps bronze itself, entered doubtless by the same route as the amber.

* I have picked up in the tombs of the VIth dynasty at Kom- es-Sultan, and in the part of the necropolis of Abydos containing the tombs of the XIth and XIIth dynasties, a number of amber beads, most of which were very small.

Mariette, who had found some on the same site, and who had placed them in the Boulaq Museum, mistook them for corroded yellow or brown glass beads.

The electric properties which they still possess have established their identity.

** I may recall the fact that the analysis of some objects discovered at Mèdûm by Professor Petrie proved that they were made of bronze, and contained 9. l per cent, of tin; the Egyptians, therefore, used bronze from the IVth dynasty downwards, side by side with pure copper.

The tribes of unknown race who then peopled the coasts of the Ægean Sea, were amongst the latest to receive these metals, and they transmitted them either directly to the Egyptians or Asiatic intermediaries, who carried them to the Nile Valley.

Asia Minor had, moreover, its treasures of metal as well as those of wood--copper, lead, and iron, which certain tribes of miners and smiths, had worked from the earliest times.

Caravans plied between Egypt and the lands of Chaldæan civilization, crossing Syria and Mesopotamia, perhaps even by the shortest desert route, as far as Ur and Babylon.

The communications between nation and nation were frequent from this time forward, and very productive, but their existence and importance are matters of inference, as we have no direct evidence of them.

The relations with these nations continued to be pacific, and, with the exception of Sinai, Pharaoh had no desire to leave the Nile Valley and take long journeys to pillage or subjugate countries from whence came so much treasure.

The desert and the sea which protected Egypt on the north and east from Asiatic cupidity, protected Asia with equal security from the greed of Egypt.

On the other hand, towards the south, the Nile afforded an easy means of access to those who wished to penetrate into the heart of Africa.

The Egyptians had, at the outset, possessed only the northern extremity of the valley, from the sea to the narrow pass of Silsileh; they had then advanced as far as the first cataract, and Syene for some time marked the extreme limit of their empire.

At what period did they cross this second frontier and resume their march southwards, as if again to seek the cradle of their race?

They had approached nearer and nearer to the great bend described by the river near the present village of Korosko,* but the territory thus conquered had, under the Vth dynasty, not as yet either name or separate organization: it was a dependency of the fiefdom of Elephantine, and was under the immediate authority of its princes.

* This appears to follow from a passage in the inscription of Uni.

This minister was raising troops and exacting wood for building among the desert tribes whose territories adjoined at this part of the valley: the manner in which the requisitions were effected shows that it was not a question of a new exaction, but a familiar operation, and consequently that the peoples mentioned had been under regular treaty obligations to the Egyptians, at least for some time previously.

Those natives who dwelt on the banks of the river appear to have offered but a slight resistance to the invaders: the desert tribes proved more difficult to conquer.

The Nile divided them into two distinct bodies.

On the right side, the confederation of the Uaûaiu spread in the direction of the Bed Sea, from the district around Ombos to the neighbourhood of Korosko, in the valleys now occupied by the Ababdehs: it was bounded on the south by the Mâzaiû tribes, from whom our contemporary Mâazeh have probably descended.

The Amamiu were settled on the left bank opposite to the Mâzaiû, and the country of Iritît lay facing the territory of the Uaûaiu.

None of these barbarous peoples were subject to Egypt, but they all acknowledged its suzerainty,--a somewhat dubious one, indeed, analogous to that exercised over their descendants by the Khedives of to-day.

The desert does not furnish them with the means of subsistence: the scanty pasturages of their wadys support a few flocks of sheep and asses, and still fewer oxen, but the patches of cultivation which they attempt in the neighbourhood of springs, yield only a poor produce of vegetables or dourah.

They would literally die of starvation were they not able to have access to the banks of the Nile for provisions.

On the other hand, it is a great temptation to them to fall unawares on villages or isolated habitations on the outskirts of the fertile lands, and to carry off cattle, grain, and male and female slaves; they would almost always have time to reach the mountains again with their spoil and to protect themselves there from pursuit, before even the news of the attack could reach the nearest police station.

Under treaties concluded with the authorities of the country, they are permitted to descend into the plain in order to exchange peaceably for corn and dourah, the acacia-wood of their forests, the charcoal that they make, gums, game, skins of animals, and the gold and precious stones which they get from their mines: they agree in return to refrain from any act of plunder, and to constitute a desert police, provided that they receive a regular pay.

[Illustration: 223. jpg MAP OF NUBIA IN THE TIME OF THE MEMPHITE EMPIRE] The same arrangement existed in ancient times.

The tribes hired themselves out to Pharaoh.

They brought him beams of “sont” at the first demand, when he was in need of materials to build a fleet beyond the first cataract.

They provided him with bands of men ready armed, when a campaign against the Libyans or the Asiatic tribes forced him to seek recruits for his armies: the Mâzaiû entered the Egyptian service in such numbers, that their name served to designate the soldiery in general, just as in Cairo porters and night watchmen are all called Berberines.

Among these people respect for their oath of fealty yielded sometimes to their natural disposition, and they allowed themselves to be carried away to plunder the principalities which they had agreed to defend: the colonists in Nubia were often obliged to complain of their exactions.

When these exceeded all limits, and it became impossible to wink at their misdoings any longer, light-armed troops were sent against them, who quickly brought them to reason.

As at Sinai, these were easy victories.

They recovered in one expedition what the Ûaûaiû had stolen in ten, both in flocks and fellahîn, and the successful general perpetuated the memory of his exploits by inscribing, as he returned, the name of Pharaoh on some rock at Syene or Elephantine: we may surmise that it was after this fashion that Usirkaf, Nofiririkerî, and Unas carried on the wars in Nubia.

Their armies probably never went beyond the second cataract, if they even reached so far: further south the country was only known by the accounts of the natives or by the few merchants who had made their way into it.

Beyond the Mâzaiû, but still between the Nile and the Red Sea, lay the country of Pûanît, rich in ivory, ebony, gold, metals, gums, and sweet-smelling resins.

When some Egyptian, bolder than his fellows, ventured to travel thither, he could choose one of several routes for approaching it by land or sea.

The navigation of the Red Sea was, indeed, far more frequent than is usually believed, and the same kind of vessels in which the Egyptians coasted along the Mediterranean, conveyed them, by following the coast of Africa, as far as the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb.

They preferred, however, to reach it by land, and they returned with caravans of heavily laden asses and slaves.

[Illustration: 225. jpg HEAD OF AN INHABITANT OF PÛANÎT]