The Treasury of Ancient Egypt Part 11

They are hidden from before us."

There are several verses of this hymn which are almost identical with Psalm civ., and those who study it closely will be forced to one of two conclusions: either that Psalm civ. is derived from this hymn of the young Pharaoh, or that both are derived from some early Syrian hymn to the sun. Akhnaton may have only adapted this early psalm to local conditions; though, on the other hand, a man capable of bringing to pa.s.s so great a religious revolution in Egypt may well be credited with the authors.h.i.+p of this splendid song. There is no evidence to show that it was written before the King had reached manhood.

Queen Tiy probably did not now take any further part in a movement which had got so far out of her hands. She was now nearly sixty years old, and this, to one who had been a mother so early in life, was a considerable age. It seems that she sometimes paid visits to her son at El Amarna, but her interest lay in Thebes, where she had once held so brilliant a Court. When at last she died, therefore, it is not surprising to find that she was buried in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. The tomb which has been described above is most probably her original sepulchre, and here her body was placed in the golden shrine made for her by Akhnaton, surrounded by the usual funeral furniture. She thus lay no more than a stone's throw from her parents, whose tomb was discovered two years ago, and which was of very similar size and shape.

After her death, although preaching this gentle creed of love and simple truth, Akhnaton waged a bitter and stern war against the priesthoods of the old G.o.ds. It may be that the priesthoods of Amon had again attempted to overthrow the new doctrines, or had in some manner called down the particular wrath of the Pharaoh. He issued an order that the name of Amon was to be erased and obliterated wherever it was found, and his agents proceeded to hack it out on all the temple walls. The names also of other G.o.ds were erased; and it is noticeable in this tomb that the word _mut_, meaning "mother," was carefully spelt in hieroglyphs which would have no similarity to those used in the word _Mut_, the G.o.ddess-consort of Amon. The name of Amenhotep III., his own father, did not escape the King's wrath, and the first syllables were everywhere erased.

As the years went by Akhnaton seems to have given himself more and more completely to his new religion. He had now so trained one of his n.o.bles, named Merira, in the teachings of Aton that he was able to hand over to him the high priesthood of that G.o.d, and to turn his attention to the many other duties which he had imposed upon himself. In rewarding Merira, the King is related to have said, "Hang gold at his neck before and behind, and gold on his legs, because of his hearing the teaching of Pharaoh concerning every saying in these beautiful places." Another official whom Akhnaton greatly advanced says: "My lord advanced me because I have carried out his teaching, and I hear his word without ceasing." The King's doctrines were thus beginning to take hold; but one feels, nevertheless, that the n.o.bles followed their King rather for the sake of their material gains than for the spiritual comforts of the Aton-wors.h.i.+p. There is reason to suppose that at least one of these n.o.bles was degraded and banished from the city.

But while Akhnaton was preaching peace and goodwill amidst the flowers of the temple of Aton, his generals in Asia Minor were vainly struggling to hold together the great empire created by Thutmosis III. Akhnaton had caused a temple of Aton to be erected at one point in Syria at least, but in other respects he took little or no interest in the welfare of his foreign dominions. War was not tolerated in his doctrine: it was a sin to take away life which the good Father had given. One pictures the hardened soldiers of the empire striving desperately to hold the nations of Asia faithful to the Pharaoh whom they never saw. The small garrisons were scattered far and wide over Syria, and constantly they sent messengers to the Pharaoh asking at least for some sign that he held them in mind.

There is no more pathetic page of ancient history than that which tells of the fall of the Egyptian Empire. The Amorites, advancing along the sea-coast, took city after city from the Egyptians almost without a struggle. The chiefs of Tunip wrote an appeal for help to the King: "To the King of Egypt, my lord,--The inhabitants of Tunip, thy servant." The plight of the city is described and reinforcements are asked for, "And now," it continues, "Tunip thy city weeps, and her tears are flowing, and there is no help for us. For twenty years we have been sending to our lord the King, the King of Egypt, but there has not come a word to us, no, not one." The messengers of the beleaguered city must have found the King absorbed in his religion, and must have seen only priests of the sun where they had hoped to find the soldiers of former days. The Egyptian governor of Jerusalem, attacked by Aramaeans, writes to the Pharaoh, saying: "Let the King take care of his land, and ... let send troops.... For if no troops come in this year, the whole territory of my lord the King will perish." To this letter is added a note to the King's secretary, which reads, "Bring these words plainly before my lord the King: the whole land of my lord the King is going to ruin."

So city after city fell, and the empire, won at such cost, was gradually lost to the Egyptians. It is probable that Akhnaton had not realised how serious was the situation in Asia Minor. A few of the chieftains who were not actually in arms against him had written to him every now and then a.s.suring him that all was well in his dominions; and, strange to relate, the tribute of many of the cities had been regularly paid. The Asiatic princes, in fact, had completely fooled the Pharaoh, and had led him to believe that the nations were loyal while they themselves prepared for rebellion. Akhnaton, hating violence, had been only too ready to believe that the despatches from Tunip and elsewhere were unjustifiably pessimistic. He had hoped to bind together the many countries under his rule, by giving them a single religion. He had hoped that when Aton should be wors.h.i.+pped in all parts of his empire, and when his simple doctrines of love, truth, and peace should be preached from every temple throughout the length and breadth of his dominions, then war would cease and a unity of faith would hold the lands in harmony one with the other.

When, therefore, the tribute suddenly ceased, and the few refugees came staggering home to tell of the perfidy of the Asiatic princes and the fall of the empire, Akhnaton seems to have received his deathblow. He was now not more than twenty-eight years of age; and though his portraits show that his face was already lined with care, and that his body was thinner than it should have been, he seems to have had plenty of reserve strength. He was the father of several daughters, but his queen had borne him no son to succeed him; and thus he must have felt that his religion could not outlive him. With his empire lost, with Thebes his enemy, and with his treasury wellnigh empty, one feels that Akhnaton must have sunk to the very depths of despondency. His religious revolution had ruined Egypt, and had failed: did he, one wonders, find consolation in the suns.h.i.+ne and amidst the flowers?

His death followed speedily; and, resting in the splendid coffin in which we found him, he was laid in the tomb prepared for him in the hills behind his new capital. The throne fell to the husband of one of his daughters, Smenkhkara, who, after an ephemeral reign, gave place to another of the sons-in-law of Akhnaton, Tutankhaton. This king was speedily persuaded to change his name to Tutankhamon, to abandon the wors.h.i.+p of Aton, and to return to Thebes. Akhnaton's city fell into ruins, and soon the temples and palaces became the haunt of jackals and the home of owls. The n.o.bles returned with their new king to Thebes, and not one remained faithful to those "teachings" to which they had once pretended to be such earnest listeners.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PL. XX. The coffin of Akhnaton lying in the tomb of Queen Tiy.]

[_Photo by R. Paul._

The fact that the body in the new tomb was that of Akhnaton, and not of Queen Tiy, gives a new reading to the history of the burial. When Tutankhamon returned to Thebes, Akhnaton's memory was still, it appears, regarded with reverence, and it seems that there was no question of leaving his body in the neighbourhood of his deserted palace, where, until the discovery of this tomb, Egyptologists had expected to find it.

It was carried to Thebes, together with some of the funeral furniture, and was placed in the tomb of Queen Tiy, which had been reopened for the purpose. But after some years had pa.s.sed and the priesthood of Amon-Ra had again a.s.serted itself, Akhnaton began to be regarded as a heretic and as the cause of the loss of Egypt's Asiatic dominions. These sentiments were vigorously encouraged by the priesthood, and soon Akhnaton came to be spoken of as "that criminal," and his name was obliterated from his monuments. It was now felt that his body could no longer lie in state together with that of Queen Tiy in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. The sepulchre was therefore opened once more, and the name Akhnaton was everywhere erased from the inscriptions. The tomb, polluted by the presence of the heretic, was no longer fit for Tiy, and the body of the Queen was therefore carried elsewhere, perhaps to the tomb of her husband Amenhotep III. The shrine in which her mummy had lain was pulled to pieces and an attempt was made to carry it out of the tomb; but this arduous task was presently abandoned, and one portion of the shrine was left in the pa.s.sage, where we found it. The body of Akhnaton, his name erased, was now the sole occupant of the tomb. The entrance was blocked with stones, and sealed with the seal of Tutankhamon, a fragment of which was found; and it was in this condition that it was discovered in 1907.

The bones of this extraordinary Pharaoh are in the Cairo Museum; but, in deference to the sentiments of many worthy persons, they are not exhibited. The visitor to that museum, however, may now see the "canopic" jars, the alabaster vases, the gold vulture, the gold necklace, the sheets of gold in which the body was wrapped, the toilet utensils, and parts of the shrine, all of which we found in the burial-chamber.

CHAPTER IX.

THE TOMB OF h.o.r.eMHEB.

In the last chapter a discovery was recorded which, as experience has shown, is of considerable interest to the general reader. The romance and the tragedy of the life of Akhnaton form a really valuable addition to the store of good things which is our possession, and which the archaeologist so diligently labours to increase. Curiously enough, another discovery, that of the tomb of h.o.r.emheb, was made by the same explorer (Mr Davis) in 1908; and as it forms the natural sequel to the previous chapter, I may be permitted to record it here.

Akhnaton was succeeded by Smenkhkara, his son-in-law, who, after a brief reign, gave place to Tutankhamon, during whose short life the court returned to Thebes. A certain n.o.ble named Ay came next to the throne, but held it for only three years. The country was now in a chaotic condition, and was utterly upset and disorganised by the revolution of Akhnaton, and by the vacillating policy of the three weak kings who succeeded him, each reigning for so short a time. One cannot say to what depths of degradation Egypt might have sunk had it not been for the timely appearance of h.o.r.emheb, a wise and good ruler, who, though but a soldier of not particularly exalted birth, managed to raise himself to the vacant throne, and succeeded in so organising the country once more that his successors, Rameses I., Sety I., and Rameses II., were able to regain most of the lost dominions, and to place Egypt at the head of the nations of the world.

h.o.r.emheb, "The Hawk in Festival," was born at Alabastronpolis, a city of the 18th Province of Upper Egypt, during the reign of Amenhotep III., who has rightly been named "The Magnificent," and in whose reign Egypt was at once the most powerful, the most wealthy, and the most luxurious country in the world. There is reason to suppose that h.o.r.emheb's family were of n.o.ble birth, and it is thought by some that an inscription which calls King Thutmosis III. "the father of his fathers" is to be taken literally to mean that that old warrior was his great-or great-great-grandfather. The young n.o.ble was probably educated at the splendid court of Amenhotep III., where the wit and intellect of the world was congregated, and where, under the presidency of the beautiful Queen Tiy, life slipped by in a round of revels.

As an impressionable young man, h.o.r.emheb must have watched the gradual development of freethought in the palace, and the ever-increasing irritation and chafing against the bonds of religious convention which bound all Thebans to the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.d Amon. Judging by his future actions, h.o.r.emheb did not himself feel any real repulsion to Amon, though the religious rut into which the country had fallen was sufficiently objectionable to a man of his intellect to cause him to cast in his lot with the movement towards emanc.i.p.ation. In later life he would certainly have been against the movement, for his mature judgment led him always to be on the side of ordered habit and custom as being less dangerous to the national welfare than a social upheaval or change.

h.o.r.emheb seems now to have held the appointment of captain or commander in the army, and at the same time, as a "Royal Scribe," he cultivated the art of letters, and perhaps made himself acquainted with those legal matters which in later years he was destined to reform.

When Amenhotep III. died, the new king, Akhnaton, carried out the revolution which had been pending for many years, and absolutely banned the wors.h.i.+p of Amon, with all that it involved. He built himself a new capital at El Amarna, and there he inst.i.tuted the wors.h.i.+p of the sun, or rather of the heat or power of the sun, under the name of Aton. In so far as the revolution const.i.tuted a breaking away from tiresome convention, the young h.o.r.emheb seems to have been with the King. No one of intelligence could deny that the new religion and new philosophy which was preached at El Amarna was more worthy of consideration on general lines than was the narrow doctrine of the Amon priesthood; and all thinkers must have rejoiced at the freedom from bonds which had become intolerable. But the world was not ready, and indeed is still not ready, for the schemes which Akhnaton propounded; and the unpractical model-kingdom which was uncertainly developing under the hills of El Amarna must have already been seen to contain the elements of grave danger to the State.

Nevertheless the revolution offered many attractions. The frivolous members of the court, always ready for change and excitement, welcomed with enthusiasm the doctrine of the moral and simple life which the King and his advisers preached, just as in the decadent days before the French Revolution the court, bored with licentiousness, gaily welcomed the morality-painting of the young Greuze. And to the more serious-minded, such as h.o.r.emheb seems to have been, the movement must have appealed in its imperial aspect. The new G.o.d Aton was largely wors.h.i.+pped in Syria, and it seems evident that Akhnaton had hoped to bind together the heterogeneous nations of the empire by a bond of common wors.h.i.+p. The Asiatics were not disposed to wors.h.i.+p Amon, but Aton appealed to them as much as any G.o.d, and h.o.r.emheb must have seen great possibilities in a common religion.

It is thought that h.o.r.emheb may be identified amongst the n.o.bles who followed Akhnaton to El Amarna, and though this is not certain, there is little doubt that he was in high favour with the King at the time. To one whose tendency is neither towards frivolity nor towards fanaticism, there can be nothing more broadening than the influence of religious changes. More than one point of view is appreciated: a man learns that there are other ruts than that in which he runs, and so he seeks the smooth midway. Thus h.o.r.emheb, while acting loyally towards his King, and while appreciating the value of the new movement, did not exclude from his thoughts those teachings which he deemed good in the old order of things. He seems to have seen life broadly; and when the new religion of Akhnaton became narrowed and fanatical, as it did towards the close of the tragic chapter of that king's short life, h.o.r.emheb was one of the few men who kept an open mind.

Like many other n.o.bles of the period, he had constructed for himself a tomb at Sakkara, in the shadow of the pyramids of the old kings of Egypt; and fragments of this tomb, which of course was abandoned when he became Pharaoh, are now to be seen in various museums. In one of the scenes there sculptured h.o.r.emheb is shown in the presence of a king who is almost certainly Akhnaton; and yet in a speech to him inscribed above the reliefs, h.o.r.emheb makes reference to the G.o.d Amon whose very name was anathema to the King. The royal figure is drawn according to the canons of art prescribed by Akhnaton, and upon which, as a protest against the conventional art of the old order, he laid the greatest stress in his revolution; and thus, at all events, h.o.r.emheb was in sympathy with this aspect of the movement. But the inscriptions which refer to Amon, and yet are impregnated with the Aton style of expression, show that h.o.r.emheb was not to be held down to any one mode of thought. Akhnaton was, perhaps, already dead when these inscriptions were added, and thus h.o.r.emheb may have had no further reason to hide his views; or it may be that they const.i.tuted a protest against that narrowness which marred the last years of a pious king.

Those who read the history of the period in the last chapter will remember how Akhnaton came to persecute the wors.h.i.+ppers of Amon, and how he erased that G.o.d's name wherever it was written throughout the length and breadth of Egypt. Evidently with this action h.o.r.emheb did not agree; nor was this his only cause for complaint. As an officer, and now a highly placed general of the army, he must have seen with feelings of the utmost bitterness the neglected condition of the Syrian provinces.

Revolt after revolt occurred in these states; but Akhnaton, dreaming and praying in the suns.h.i.+ne of El Amarna, would send no expedition to punish the rebels. Good-fellows.h.i.+p with all men was the King's watchword, and a policy more or less democratic did not permit him to make war on his fellow-creatures. h.o.r.emheb could smell battle in the distance, but could not taste of it. The battalions which he had trained were kept useless in Egypt; and even when, during the last years of Akhnaton's reign, or under his successor Smenkhkara, he was made commander-in-chief of all the forces, there was no means of using his power to check the loss of the cities of Asia. h.o.r.emheb must have watched these cities fall one by one into the hands of those who preached the doctrine of the sword, and there can be little wonder that he turned in disgust from the doings at El Amarna.

During the times which followed, when Smenkhkara held the throne for a year or so, and afterwards, when Tutankhamon became Pharaoh, h.o.r.emheb seems to have been the leader of the reactionary movement. He did not concern himself so much with the religious aspect of the questions: there was as much to be said on behalf of Aton as there was on behalf of Amon. But it was he who knocked at the doors of the heart of Egypt, and urged the nation to awake to the danger in the East. An expedition against the rebels was organised, and one reads that h.o.r.emheb was the "companion of his Lord upon the battlefield on that day of the slaying of the Asiatics." Akhnaton had been opposed to warfare, and had dreamed that dream of universal peace which still is a far-off light to mankind.

h.o.r.emheb was a practical man in whom such a dream would have been but weakness; and, though one knows nothing more of these early campaigns, the fact that he attempted to chastise the enemies of the empire at this juncture stands to his credit for all time.

Under Tutankhamon the court returned to Thebes, though not yet exclusively to the wors.h.i.+p of Amon; and the political phase of the revolution came to an end. The country once more settled into the old order of life, and h.o.r.emheb, having experienced the full dangers of philosophic speculation, was glad enough to abandon thought for action.

He was now the most powerful man in the kingdom, and inscriptions call him "the greatest of the great, the mightiest of the mighty, presider over the Two Lands of Egypt, general of generals," and so on. The King "appointed him to be Chief of the Land, to administer the laws of the land as Hereditary Prince of all this land"; and "all that was done was done by his command." From chaos h.o.r.emheb was producing order, and all men turned to him in grat.i.tude as he reorganised the various government departments.

The offices which he held, such as Privy Councillor, King's Secretary, Great Lord of the People, and so on, are very numerous; and in all of these he dealt justly though sternly, so that "when he came the fear of him was great in the sight of the people, prosperity and health were craved for him, and he was greeted as 'Father of the Two Lands of Egypt.'" He was indeed the saviour and father of his country, for he had found her corrupt and disordered, and he was leading her back to greatness and dignity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PL. XXI. Head of a granite statue of the G.o.d Khonsu, probably dating from about the period of h.o.r.emheb.

--CAIRO MUSEUM.]

[_Photo by Beato._

At this time he was probably a man of about forty years of age. In appearance he seems to have been n.o.ble and good to look upon. "When he was born," says the inscription, "he was clothed with strength: the hue of a G.o.d was upon him"; and in later life, "the form of a G.o.d was in his colour," whatever that may mean. He was a man of considerable eloquence and great learning. "He astonished the people by that which came out of his mouth," we are told; and "when he was summoned before the King the palace began to fear." One may picture the weak Pharaoh and his corrupt court, as they watched with apprehension the movements of this stern soldier, of whom it was said that his every thought was "in the footsteps of the Ibis,"--the ibis being the G.o.d of wisdom.

On the death of Tutankhamon, the question of inviting h.o.r.emheb to fill the vacant throne must have been seriously considered; but there was another candidate, a certain Ay, who had been one of the most important n.o.bles in the group of Akhnaton's favourites at El Amarna, and who had been the loudest in the praises of Aton. Religious feeling was at the time running high, for the partizans of Amon and those of Aton seem to have been waging war on one another; and Ay appears to have been regarded as the man most likely to bridge the gulf between the two parties. A favourite of Akhnaton, and once a devout wors.h.i.+pper of Aton, he was not averse to the cults of other G.o.ds; and by conciliating both factions he managed to obtain the throne for himself. His power, however, did not last for long; and as the priests of Amon regained the confidence of the nation at the expense of those of Aton, so the power of Ay declined. His past connections with Akhnaton told against him, and after a year or so he disappeared, leaving the throne vacant once more.

There was now no question as to who should succeed. A princess named Mutnezem, the sister of Akhnaton's queen, and probably an old friend of h.o.r.emheb, was the sole heiress to the throne, the last surviving member of the greatest Egyptian dynasty. All men turned to h.o.r.emheb in the hope that he would marry this lady, and thus reign as Pharaoh over them, perhaps leaving a son by her to succeed him when he was gathered to his fathers. He was now some forty-five years of age, full of energy and vigour, and pa.s.sionately anxious to have a free hand in the carrying out of his schemes for the reorganisation of the government. It was therefore with joy that, in about the year 1350 B.C., he sailed up to Thebes in order to claim the crown.

He arrived at Luxor at a time when the annual festival of Amon was being celebrated, and all the city was _en fete_. The statue of the G.o.d had been taken from its shrine at Karnak, and had been towed up the river to Luxor in a gorgeous barge, attended by a fleet of gaily-decorated vessels. With songs and dancing it had been conveyed into the Luxor temple, where the priests had received it standing amidst piled-up ma.s.ses of flowers, fruit, and other offerings. It seems to have been at this moment that h.o.r.emheb appeared, while the clouds of incense streamed up to heaven, and the morning air was full of the sound of the harps and the lutes. Surrounded by a crowd of his admirers, he was conveyed into the presence of the divine figure, and was there and then hailed as Pharaoh.

From the temple he was carried amidst cheering throngs to the palace which stood near by; and there he was greeted by the Princess Mutnezem, who fell on her knees before him and embraced him. That very day, it would seem, he was married to her, and in the evening the royal heralds published the style and t.i.tles by which he would be known in the future: "Mighty Bull, Ready in Plans; Favourite of the Two G.o.ddesses, Great in Marvels; Golden Hawk, Satisfied with Truth; Creator of the Two Lands,"

and so forth. Then, crowned with the royal helmet, he was led once more before the statue of Amon, while the priests p.r.o.nounced the blessing of the G.o.ds upon him. Pa.s.sing down to the quay before the temple the figure of the G.o.d was placed once more upon the state-barge, and was floated down to Karnak; while h.o.r.emheb was led through the rejoicing crowds back to the palace to begin his reign as Pharaoh.

In religious matters h.o.r.emheb at once adopted a strong att.i.tude of friends.h.i.+p towards the Amon party which represented the old order of things. There is evidence to show that Aton was in no way persecuted; yet one by one his shrines were abandoned, and the neglected temples of Amon and the elder G.o.ds once more rang with the hymns of praise.

Inscriptions tell us that the King "restored the temples from the marshes of the Delta to Nubia. He fas.h.i.+oned a hundred images with all their bodies correct, and with all splendid costly stones. He established for them daily offerings every day. All the vessels of their temples were wrought of silver and gold. He equipped them with priests and with ritual-priests, and with the choicest of the army. He transferred to them lands and cattle, supplied with all equipment." By these gifts to the neglected G.o.ds, h.o.r.emheb was striving to bring Egypt back to its normal condition, and in no way was he prejudiced by any particular devotion to Amon.

A certain Patonemheb, who had been one of Akhnaton's favourites in the days of the revolution, was appointed High Priest of Ra--the older Egyptian form of Aton who was at this time identified with that G.o.d--at the temple of Heliopolis; and this can only be regarded as an act of friends.h.i.+p to the Aton-wors.h.i.+ppers. The echoing and deserted temples of Aton in Thebes, and El Amarna, however, were now pulled down, and the blocks were used for the enlarging of the temple of Amon,--a fact which indicates that their original dedication to Aton had not caused them to be accursed.

The process of restoration was so gradual that it could not have much disturbed the country. h.o.r.emheb's hand was firm but soothing in these matters, and the revolution seems to have been killed as much by kindness as by force. It was probably not till quite the end of his reign that he showed any tendency to revile the memory of Akhnaton; and the high feeling which at length brought the revolutionary king the name of "that criminal of El Amarna" did not rise till half a century later.

The difficulties experienced by h.o.r.emheb in steering his course between Amon and Aton, in quietly restoring the old equilibrium without in any way persecuting those who by religious convictions were Aton-wors.h.i.+ppers, must have been immense; and one cannot but feel that the King must have been a diplomatist of the highest standing. His unaffected simplicity won all hearts to him; his toleration and broadness of mind brought all thoughtful men to his train; and his strong will led them and guided them from chaos to order, from fantastic Utopia to the solid old Egypt of the past. h.o.r.emheb was the preacher of Sanity, the apostle of the Normal, and Order was his watchword.

The inscriptions tell us that it was his custom to give public audiences to his subjects, and there was not a man amongst those persons whom he interviewed whose name he did not know, nor one who did not leave his presence rejoicing. Up and down the Nile he sailed a hundred times, until he was able truly to say, "I have improved this entire land; I have learned its whole interior; I have travelled it entirely in its midst." We are told that "his Majesty took counsel with his heart how he might expel evil and suppress lying. The plans of his Majesty were an excellent refuge, repelling violence and delivering the Egyptians from the oppressions which were around them. Behold, his Majesty spent the whole time seeking the welfare of Egypt, and searching out instances of oppression in the land."

It is interesting, by the way, to note that in his eighth year the King restored the tomb of Thutmosis IV., which had been robbed during the revolution; and the inscription which the inspectors left behind them was found on the wall when Mr Theodore Davis discovered the tomb a few years ago. The plundering of the royal tombs is a typical instance of the lawlessness of the times. The corruption, too, which followed on the disorder was appalling; and wherever the King went he was confronted by deceit, embezzlement, bribery, extortion, and official tyranny. Every Government officer was attempting to obtain money from his subordinates by illegal means; and _baks.h.i.+sh_--that bogie of the Nile Valley--cast its shadow upon all men.

h.o.r.emheb stood this as long as he could; but at last, regarding justice as more necessary than tact, we are told that "his Majesty seized a writing-palette and scroll, and put into writing all that his Majesty the King had said to himself." It is not possible to record here more than a few of the good laws which he then made, but the following examples will serve to show how near to his heart were the interests of his people.