History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Vol. 2 — 34 - Vol. 02, Ch. 03: The First Theban Empire, pt. 10

Heracleopolis the Great, the town preferred by the earlier Theban Pharaohs as their residence in times of peace, must have been one of those which they proceeded to decorate _con amore_ with magnificent monuments.

[Illustration: 385. jpg A PART OF THE ANCIENT SACRED LAKE OF OSIRIS NEAR THE TEMPLE OF ABYDOS]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey, taken in 1884. Unfortunately it has suffered more than any of the rest, and nothing of it is now to be seen but a few wretched remains of buildings of the Roman period, and the ruins of a barbaric colonnade on the site of a Byzantine basilica almost contemporary with the Arab conquest.

Perhaps the enormous mounds which cover its site may still conceal the remains of its ancient temples.

We can merely estimate their magnificence by casual allusions to them in the inscriptions.

[Illustration: 368. jpg THE SITE OF THE ANCIENT HERACLEOPOLIS] Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Golénischeff We know, for instance, that Usirtasen III.

rebuilt the sanctuary of Harshâfîtû, and that he sent expeditions to the Wady Hammamât to quarry blocks of granite worthy of his god: but the work of this king and his successors has perished in the total ruin of the ancient town.

Something at least has remained of what they did in that traditional dependency of Heracleopolis, the Fayum: the temple which they rebuilt to the god Sobkû in Shodît retained its celebrity down to the time of the Cæsars, not so much, perhaps, on account of the beauty of its architecture as for the unique character of the religious rites which took place there daily.

The sacred lake contained a family of tame crocodiles, the image and incarnation of the god, whom the faithful fed with their offerings--cakes, fried fish, and drinks sweetened with honey.

Advantage was taken of the moment when one of these creatures, wallowing on the bank, basked contentedly in the sun: two priests opened his jaws, and a third threw in the cakes, the fried morsels, and finally the liquid.

The crocodile bore all this without even winking; he swallowed down his provender, plunged into the lake, and lazily reached the opposite bank, hoping to escape for a few moments from the oppressive liberality of his devotees.

[Illustration: 387. jpg SOBKÛ, THE GOD OF THE FAYÛM, UNDER THE FORM OF A SACRED CROCODILE]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch- Bey, taken in 1885. The original in black granite is now in the Berlin Museum.

It represents one of the sacred crocodiles mentioned by Strabo; we read on the base a Greek inscription in honour of Ptolemy Neos Dionysos, in which the name of the divine reptile “Petesûkhos, the great god,” is mentioned.

As soon, however, as another of these approached, he was again beset at his new post and stuffed in a similar manner.

These animals were in their own way great dandies: rings of gold or enamelled terra-cotta were hung from their ears, and bracelets were soldered on to their front paws.

The monuments of Shodît, if any still exist, are buried under the mounds of Medinet el-Fayûm, but in the neighbourhood we meet with more than one authentic relic of the XIIth dynasty.

It was Usirtasen I. who erected that curious thin granite obelisk, with a circular top, whose fragments lie forgotten on the ground near the village of Begig: a sort of basin has been hollowed out around it, which fills during the inundation, so that the monument lies in a pool of muddy water during the greater part of the year.

Owing to this treatment, most of the inscriptions on it have almost disappeared, though we can still make out a series of five scenes in which the king hands offerings to several divinities.

Near to Biahmû there was an old temple which had become ruinous: Amenemhâît III.

repaired it, and erected in front of it two of those colossal statues which the Egyptians were wont to place like sentinels at their gates, to ward off baleful influences and evil spirits.

[Illustration: 388. jpg THE REMAINS OF THE OBELISK OF BEGIG] Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Golûnischeff.

The colossi at Biahmû were of red sandstone, and were seated on high limestone pedestals, placed at the end of a rectangular court; the temple walls hid the lower part of the pedestals, so that the colossi appeared to tower above a great platform which sloped gently away from them on all sides.

Herodotus, who saw them from a distance at the time of the inundation, believed that they crowned the summits of two pyramids rising out of the middle of a lake.

Near Illahun, Queen Sovkûnofriûri herself has left a few traces of her short reign.

The Fayum, by its fertility and pleasant climate, justified the preference which the Pharaohs of the XIIth dynasty bestowed upon it.

On emerging from the gorges of Illahun, it opens out like a vast amphitheatre of cultivation, whose slopes descend towards the north till they reach the desolate waters of the Birket-Kerun.

[Illustration: 389. jpg THE RUINED PEDESTAL OF ONE OF THE COLOSSI OF BIAHMÛ]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after Major Brown.

On the right and left, the amphitheatre is isolated from the surrounding mountains by two deep ravines, filled with willows, tamarisks, mimosas, and thorny acacias.

Upon the high ground, lands devoted to the culture of corn, durra, and flax, alternate with groves of palms and pomegranates, vineyards and gardens of olives, the latter being almost unknown elsewhere in Egypt.

[Illustration: 390. jpg A VIEW IN THE FAYÛM IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE VILLAGE OF FIDEMÎN]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Golenischeff.

The slopes are covered with cultivated fields, irregularly terraced woods, and meadows enclosed by hedges, while lofty trees, clustered in some places and thinly scattered in others, rise in billowy masses of verdure one behind the other.

Shodît [Shâdû] stood on a peninsula stretching out into a kind of natural reservoir, and was connected with the mainland by merely a narrow dyke; the water of the inundation flowed into this reservoir and was stored here during the autumn.

Countless little rivulets escaped from it, not merely such canals and ditches as we meet with in the Nile Valley, but actual running brooks, coursing and babbling between the trees, spreading out here and there into pools of water, and in places forming little cascades like those of our own streams, but dwindling in volume as they proceeded, owing to constant drains made on them, until they were for the most part absorbed by the soil before finally reaching the lake.

[Illustration: 391. jpg THE COURT OF THE SMALL TEMPLE] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Major Brown.

They brought down in their course part of the fertilizing earth accumulated by the inundation, and were thus instrumental in raising the level of the soil.

The water of the Birkeh rose or fell according to the season of the year.

It formerly occupied a much larger area than it does at present, and half of the surrounding districts was covered by it.

Its northern shores, now deserted and uncultivated, then shared in the benefits of the inundation, and supplied the means of existence for a civilized population.

In many places we still find the remains of villages, and walls of uncemented stone; a small temple even has escaped the general ruin, and remains almost intact in the midst of the desolation, as if to point out the furthest limit of Egyptian territory.

[Illustration: 392. jpg THE SHORES OF THE BIRKET-KERUN NEAR THE EMBOUCHURE OF THE WADY NAZLEH]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Golénischeff.

It bears no inscriptions, but the beauty of the materials of which it is composed, and the perfection of the work, lead us to attribute its construction to some prince of the XIIth dynasty.

An ancient causeway runs from its entrance to what was probably at one time the original margin of the lake.

The continual sinking of the level of the Birkeh has left this temple isolated on the edge of the Libyan plateau, and all life has retired from the surrounding district, and has concentrated itself on the southern shores of the lake.

[Illustration: 393. jpg THE TWO PYRAMIDS OF THE XIITH DYNASTY AT LISHT] Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.

Here the banks are low and the bottom deepens almost imperceptibly.

In winter the retreating waters leave exposed long patches of the shore, upon which a thin crust of snow-white salt is deposited, concealing the depths of mud and quicksands beneath.

Immediately after the inundation, the lake regains in a few days the ground it had lost: it encroaches on the tamarisk bushes which fringe its banks, and the district is soon surrounded by a belt of marshy vegetation, affording cover for ducks, pelicans, wild geese, and a score of different kinds of birds which disport themselves there by the thousand.

The Pharaohs, when tired of residing in cities, here found varied and refreshing scenery, an equable climate, gardens always gay with flowers, and in the thickets of the Kerun they could pursue their favourite pastimes of interminable fishing and of hunting with the boomerang.

They desired to repose after death among the scenes in which they had lived.

Their tombs stretch from Heracleo-polis till they nearly meet the last pyramids of the Memphites: at Dahshur there are still two of them standing.

The northern one is an immense erection of brick, placed in close proximity to the truncated pyramid, but nearer than it to the edge of the plateau, so as to overlook the valley.

We might be tempted to believe that the Theban kings, in choosing a site immediately to the south of the spot where Papi II.

slept in his glory, were prompted by the desire to renew the traditions of the older dynasties prior to those of the Heracleopolitans, and thus proclaim to all beholders the antiquity of their lineage.

One of their residences was situated at no great distance, near Miniet Dahshur, the city of Titoui, the favourite residence of Amenemhâîfc I. It was here that those royal princesses, Nofirhonît, Sonît-Sonbît, Sîthâthor, and Monît, his sisters, wives, and daughters, whose tombs lie opposite the northern face of the pyramid, flourished side by side with Amenemhâît III.

[Illustration: 394. jpg PAINTING AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE FIFTH TOMB] There, as of old in their harem, they slept side by side, and, in spite of robbers, their mummies have preserved the ornaments with which they were adorned, on the eve of burial, by the pious act of their lords.

The art of the ancient jewellers, which we have hitherto known only from pictures on the walls of tombs or on the boards of coffins, is here exhibited in all its cunning.

The ornaments comprise a wealth of gold gorgets, necklaces of agate beads or of enamelled lotus-flowers, cornelian, amethyst, and onyx scarabs.

Pectorals of pierced gold-work, inlaid with flakes of vitreous paste or precious stones, bear the cartouches of Usirtasen III.

and of Amenemhâît II.

, and every one of these gems of art reveals a perfection of taste and a skilfulness of handling which are perfectly wonderful.

[Illustration: 395. jpg PECTORAL ORNAMENT OF USIRTASEN III] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch- Bey.

Their delicacy, and their freshness in spite of their antiquity, make it hard for us to realize that fifty centuries have elapsed since they were made.

We are tempted to imagine that the royal ladies to whom they belonged must still be waiting within earshot, ready to reply to our summons as soon as we deign to call them; we may even anticipate the joy they will evince when these sumptuous ornaments are restored to them, and we need to glance at the worm-eaten coffins which contain their stiff and disfigured mummies to recall our imagination to the stern reality of fact.

Two other pyramids, but in this case of stone, still exist further south, to the left of the village of Lisht: their casing, torn off by the fellahîn, has entirely disappeared, and from a distance they appear to be merely two mounds which break the desert horizon line, rather than two buildings raised by the hand of man.

[Illustration: 396. jpg THE PYRAMID OF ILLAHUN, AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE FAïÛM]