History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Vol. 2 — 23 - Vol. 02, Ch. 02: The Memphite Empire, pt. 11

Map by Thuillier, from _La Description de l’Egypte, Ant_.

, vol. i.

pl.

30, 1. I have added the ancient names in those cases where it has been possible to identify them with the modern localities.

It was surrounded with walls, and a fortress of sun-dried brick perched upon a neighbouring island to the south-west, gave it complete com-mand over the passages of the cataract.

An arm of the river ninety yards wide separated it from Sûanît, whose closely built habitations were ranged along the steep bank, and formed, as it were, a suburb.

Marshy pasturages occupied the modern site of Syene; beyond these were gardens, vines, furnishing wine celebrated throughout the whole of Egypt, and a forest of date palms running towards the north along the banks of the stream.

The princes of the nome of Nubia encamped here, so to speak, as frontier-posts of civilization, and maintained frequent but variable relations with the people of the desert.

It gave the former no trouble to throw, as occasion demanded it, bodies of troops on the right or left sides of the valley, in the direction of the Red Sea or in that of the Oasis; however little they might carry away in their raids--of oxen, slaves, wood, charcoal, gold dust, amethysts, cornelian or green felspar for the manufacture of ornaments--it was always so much to the good, and the treasury of the prince profited by it.

They never went very far in their expeditions: if they desired to strike a blow at a distance, to reach, for example, those regions of Pûanît of whose riches the barbarians were wont to boast, the aridity of the district around the second cataract would arrest the advance of their foot-soldiers, while the rapids of Wady Haifa would offer an almost impassable barrier to their ships.

In such distant operations they did not have recourse to arms, but disguised themselves as peaceful merchants.

An easy road led almost direct from their capital to Ras Banât, which they called the “Head of Nekhabît,” on the Red Sea; arrived at the spot where in later times stood one of the numerous Berenices, and having quickly put together a boat from the wood of the neighbouring forest, they made voyages along the coast, as far as the Sinaitic peninsula and the Hirû-Shâîtû on the north, as well as to the land of Pûânît itself on the south.

The small size of these improvised vessels rendered such expeditions dangerous, while it limited their gain; they preferred, therefore, for the most part the land journey.

[Illustration: 269. jpg SMALL WADY, FIVE HOURS BEYOND ED-DOUEÎG, ON THE ROAD TO THE RED SEA]

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

It was fatiguing and interminable: donkeys--the only beast of burden they were acquainted with, or, at least, employed--could make but short stages, and they spent months upon months in passing through countries which a caravan of camels would now traverse in a few weeks.

* * The _History of the Peasant_, in the Berlin Papyri Nos.

ii.

and iv.

, affords us a good example of the use made of pack-asses; the hero was on his way across the desert, from the “Wady Natrûn” to Henasieh, with a quantity of merchandise which he intended to sell, when an unscrupulous artisan, under cover of a plausible pretext, stole his train of pack- asses and their loads.

Hirkhûf brought back with him a caravan of three hundred asses from one of his journeys; cf.

p. 278 of the present work.

The roads upon which they ventured were those which, owing to the necessity for the frequent watering of the donkeys and the impossibility of carrying with them adequate supplies of water, were marked out at frequent intervals by wells and springs, and were therefore necessarily of a tortuous and devious character.

Their choice of objects for barter was determined by the smallness of their bulk and weight in comparison with their value.

The Egyptians on the one side were provided with stocks of beads, ornaments, coarse cutlery, strong perfumes, and rolls of white or coloured cloth, which, after the lapse of thirty-five centuries, are objects still coveted by the peoples of Africa.

The aborigines paid for these articles of small value, in gold, either in dust or in bars, in ostrich feathers, lions’ and leopards’ skins, elephants’ tusks, cowrie shells, billets of ebony, incense, and gum arabic.

Considerable value was attached to cynocephali and green monkeys, with which the kings or the nobles amused themselves, and which they were accustomed to fasten to the legs of their chairs on days of solemn reception; but the dwarf, the Danga, was the rare commodity which was always in demand, but hardly ever attainable.

* * Domichen, _Geographische Inschriften_, vol. i.

xxxi.

1. 1, where the dwarfs and pigmies who came to the court of the king, in the period of the Ptolemies, to serve in his household, are mentioned.

Various races of diminutive stature, which have since been driven down to the upper basin of the Congo, formerly extended further northward, and dwelt between Darfûr and the marshes of Bahr-el-Ghazâl. As to the Danga, cf.

what has been said on p. 226 of the present work.

[Illustration: 270. jpg THE ROCKS OF THE ISLAND OF SEHÊL, WITH SOME OF THE VOTIVE INSCRIPTIONS]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken by Dévèria in 1864. Partly by commerce, and partly by pillage, the lords of Elephantine became rapidly wealthy, and began to play an important part among the nobles of the Said: they were soon obliged to take serious precautions against the cupidity which their wealth excited among the tribes of Konusît. They entrenched themselves behind a wall of sun-dried brick, some seven and a half miles long, of which the ruins are still an object of wonder to the traveller.

It was flanked towards the north by the ramparts of Syene, and followed pretty regularly the lower course of the valley to its abutment at the port of Mahatta opposite Philas: guards distributed along it, kept an eye upon the mountain, and uttered a call to arms, when the enemy came within sight.

Behind this bulwark the population felt quite at ease, and could work without fear at the granite quarries on behalf of the Pharaoh, or pursue in security their callings of fishermen and sailors.

The inhabitants of the village of Satît and of the neighbouring islands claimed from earliest times the privilege of piloting the ships which went up and down the rapids, and of keeping clear the passages which were used for navigation.

They worked under the protection of their goddesses Anûkît and Satît: travellers of position were accustomed to sacrifice in the temple of the goddesses at Sehêl, and to cut on the rock votive inscriptions in their honour, in gratitude for the prosperous voyage accorded to them.

We meet their scrawls on every side, at the entrance and exit of the cataract, and on the small islands where they moored their boats at nightfall during the four or five days required for the passage; the bank of the stream between Elephantine and Philæ is, as it were, an immense visitors’ book, in which every generation of Ancient Egypt has in turn inscribed itself.

The markets and streets of the twin cities must have presented at that time the same motley blending of types and costumes which we might have found some years back in the bazaars of modern Syene.

Nubians, negroes of the Soudan, perhaps people from Southern Arabia, jostled there with Libyans and Egyptians of the Delta.

What the princes did to make the sojourn of strangers agreeable, what temples they consecrated to their god Khnûmû and his companions, in gratitude for the good things he had bestowed upon them, we have no means of knowing up to the present.

Elephantine and Syene have preserved for us nothing of their ancient edifices; but the tombs which they have left tell us their history.

They honeycomb in long lines the sides of the steep hill which looks down upon the whole extent of the left bank of the Nile opposite the narrow channel of the port of Aswan.

A rude flight of stone steps led from the bank to the level of the sepulchres.

The mummy having been carried slowly on the shoulders of the bearers to the platform, was deposited for a moment at the entrance cf the chapel.

The decoration of the latter was rather meagre, and was distinguished neither by the delicacy of its execution nor by the variety of the subjects.

More care was bestowed upon the exterior, and upon the walls on each side of the door, which could be seen from the river or from the streets of Elephantine.

An inscription borders the recess, and boasts to every visitor of the character of the occupant: the portrait of the deceased, and sometimes that of his son, stand to the right and left: the scenes devoted to the offerings come next, when an artist of sufficient skill could be found to engrave them.

[Illustration: 275. jpg THE MOUNTAIN OF ASWAN AND THE TOMBS OF THE PRINCES OF ELEPHANTINE]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger.

The entrance to the tombs are halfway up; the long trench, cutting the side of the mountain obliquely, shelters the still existing steps which led to the tombs of Pharaonic times.

On the sky-line may be noted the ruins of several mosques and Coptic monasteries.

The expeditions of the lords of Elephantine, crowned as they frequently were with success, soon attracted the attention of the Pharaohs: Metesouphis deigned to receive in person at the cataract the homage of the chiefs of Ûaûaît and Iritît and of the Màzaiû during the early days of the fifth year of his reign.

* * The words used in the inscription, “The king himself went and returned, ascending the mountain to see what there was on the mountain,” prove that Metesouphis inspected the quarries in person.

Another inscription, discovered in 1893, gives the year V. as the date of his journey to Elephantine, and adds that he had negotiations with the heads of the four great Nubian races.

The most celebrated caravan guide at this time was Hirkhûf, own cousin to Mikhû, Prince of Elephantine.

He had entered upon office under the auspices of his father Iri, “the sole friend.

” A king whose name he does not mention, but who was perhaps Unas, more probably Papi I. , despatched them both to the country of the Amamît. The voyage occupied seven months, and was extraordinarily successful: the sovereign, encouraged by this unexpected good fortune, resolved to send out a fresh expedition.

Hirkhûf had the sole command of it; he made his way through Iritît, explored the districts of Satir and Darros, and retraced his steps after an absence of eight months.

He brought back with him a quantity of valuable commodities, “the like of which no one had ever previously brought back.

” He was not inclined to regain his country by the ordinary route: he pushed boldly into the narrow wadys which furrow the territory of the people of Iritît, and emerged upon the region of Situ, in the neighbourhood of the cataract, by paths in which no official traveller who had visited the Amamît had up to this time dared to travel.

A third expedition which started out a few years later brought him into regions still less frequented.

It set out by the Oasis route, proceeded towards the Amamît, and found the country in an uproar.

The sheikhs had convoked their tribes, and were making preparations to attack the Timihû “towards the west corner of the heaven,” in that region where stand the pillars which support the iron firmament at the setting sun.

The Timihû were probably Berbers by race and language.

Their tribes, coming from beyond the Sahara, wandered across the frightful solitudes which bound the Nile Valley on the west.

The Egyptians had constantly to keep a sharp look out for them, and to take precautions against their incursions; having for a long time acted only on the defensive, they at length took the offensive, and decided, not without religious misgivings, to pursue them to their retreats.

As the inhabitants of Mendes and of Busiris had relegated the abode of their departed to the recesses of the impenetrable marshes of the Delta, so those of Siût and Thinis had at first believed that the souls of the deceased sought a home beyond the sands: the good jackal Anubis acted as their guide, through the gorge of the Cleft or through the gate of the Oven, to the green islands scattered over the desert, where the blessed dwelt in peace at a convenient distance from their native cities and their tombs.

They constituted, as we know, a singular folk, those _uiti_ whose members dwelt in coffins, and who had put on the swaddling clothes of the dead;

the Egyptians called the Oasis which they had colonised, the land of the shrouded, or of mummies, _ûît_, and the name continued to designate it long after the advance of geographical knowledge had removed this paradise further towards the west.

The Oases fell one after the other into the hands of frontier princes--that of Bahnesa coming under the dominion of the lord of Oxyrrhynchus, that of Dakhel under the lords of Thinis.

The Nubians of Amamît had relations, probably, with the Timihû, who owned the Oasis of Dush--a prolongation of that of Dakhel, on the parallel of Elephantine.

Hirkhûf accompanied the expedition to the Amamît, succeeded in establishing peace among the rival tribes, and persuaded them “to worship all the gods of Pharaoh:” he afterwards reconciled the Iritît, Amamît, and Ûaûaît, who lived in a state of perpetual hostility to each other, explored their valleys, and collected from them such quantities of incense, ebony, ivory, and skins that three hundred asses were required for their transport.

[Illustration: 278. jpg HIRKHÛF RECEIVING POSTHUMOUS HOMAGE AT THE DOOR OF HIS TOMB FROM HIS SON]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph, taken in 1892, by Alexander Gayet.

He was even fortunate enough to acquire a Danga from the land of ghosts, resembling the one brought from Pûanît by Biûrdidi in the reign of Assi eighty years before.

Metesouphis, in the mean time, had died, and his young brother and successor, Papi II.

, had already been a year upon the throne.

The new king, delighted to possess a dwarf who could perform “the dance of the god,” addressed a rescript to Hirkhuf to express his satisfaction; at the same time he sent him a special messenger, Uni, a distant relative to Papi I. ’s minister, who was to invite him to come and give an account of his expedition.

The boat in which the explorer embarked to go down to Memphis, also brought the Danga, and from that moment the latter became the most important personage of the party.

For him all the royal officials, lords, and sacerdotal colleges hastened to prepare provisions and means of conveyance; his health was of greater importance than that of his protector, and he was anxiously watched lest he should escape.

“When he is with thee in the boat, let there be cautious persons about him, lest he should fall into the water; when he rests during the night, let careful people sleep beside him, in case of his escaping quickly in the night-time.

For my Majesty desires to see this dwarf more than all the treasures which are being imported from the land of Pûanît. ” Hirkhûf, on his return to Elephantine, engraved the royal letter and the detailed account of his journeys to the lands of the south, on the façade of his tomb.