The Treasury of Ancient Egypt Part 3

[Ill.u.s.tration: PL. VI. A relief upon the side of the sarcophagus of one of the wives of King Mentuhotep III., discovered at Der el Bahri (Thebes). The royal lady is taking sweet-smelling ointment from an alabaster vase.

A handmaiden keeps the flies away with a bird's-wing fan.

--CAIRO MUSEUM.]

[_Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha._

Be the explanation what it may, the fact is indisputable that archaeology is patronised by those who know not its real meaning. A man has no more right to think of the people of old as dust and dead bones than he has to think of his contemporaries as lumps of meat. The true archaeologist does not take pleasure in skeletons as skeletons, for his whole effort is to cover them decently with flesh and skin once more, and to put some thoughts back into the empty skulls. He sets himself to hide again the things which he would not intentionally lay bare. Nor does he delight in ruined buildings: rather he deplores that they are ruined.

Coleridge wrote like the true archaeologist when he composed that most magical poem "Khubla Khan"--

"In Xanadu did Khubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea."

And those who would have the pleasure-domes of the gorgeous Past reconstructed for them must turn to the archaeologist; those who would see the damsel with the dulcimer in the gardens of Xanadu must ask of him the secret, and of none other. It is true that, before he can refas.h.i.+on the dome or the damsel, he will have to grub his way through old refuse heaps till he shall lay bare the ruins of the walls and expose the bones of the lady. But this is the "dirty work"; and the mistake which is made lies here: that this preliminary dirty work is confused with the final clean result. An artist will sometimes build up his picture of Venus from a skeleton bought from an old Jew round the corner; and the smooth white paper which he uses will have been made from putrid rags and bones. Amongst painters themselves these facts are not hidden, but by the public they are most carefully obscured. In the case of archaeology, however, the tedious details of construction are so placed in the foreground that the final picture is hardly noticed at all. As well might one go to Rheims to see men fly, and be shown nothing else but screws and nuts, steel rods and cog-wheels. Originally the fault, perhaps, lay with the archaeologist; now it lies both with him and with the public. The public has learnt to ask to be shown the works, and the archaeologist is often so proud of them that he forgets to mention the purpose of the machine.

A Roman statue of bronze, let us suppose, is discovered in the Thames valley. It is so corroded and eaten away that only an expert could recognise that it represents a reclining G.o.ddess. In this condition it is placed in the museum, and a photograph of it is published in 'The Graphic.' Those who come to look at it in its gla.s.s case think it is a bunch of grapes, or possibly a monkey: those who see its photograph say that it is more probably an irregular catapult-stone or a fish in convulsions.

The archaeologist alone holds its secret, and only he can see it as it was. He alone can know the mind of the artist who made it, or interpret the full meaning of the conception. It might have been expected, then, that the public would demand, and the archaeologist delightedly furnish, a model of the figure as near to the original as possible; or, failing that, a restoration in drawing, or even a worded description of its original beauty. But no: the public, if it wants anything, wants to see the shapeless object in all its corrosion; and the archaeologist forgets that it is blind to aught else but that corrosion. One of the main duties of the archaeologist is thus lost sight of: his duty as Interpreter and Remembrancer of the Past.

All the riches of olden times, all the majesty, all the power, are the inheritance of the present day; and the archaeologist is the recorder of this fortune. He must deal in dead bones only so far as the keeper of a financial fortune must deal in dry doc.u.ments. Behind those doc.u.ments glitters the gold, and behind those bones s.h.i.+nes the wonder of the things that were. And when an object once beautiful has by age become unsightly, one might suppose that he would wish to show it to none save his colleagues or the reasonably curious layman. When a man makes the statement that his grandmother, now in her ninety-ninth year, was once a beautiful woman, he does not go and find her to prove his words and bring her tottering into the room: he shows a picture of her as she was; or, if he cannot find one, he describes what good evidence tells him was her probable appearance. In allowing his controlled and sober imagination thus to perform its natural functions, though it would never do to tell his grandmother so, he becomes an archaeologist, a remembrancer of the Past.

In the case of archaeology, however, the public does not permit itself so to be convinced. In the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford excellent facsimile electrotypes of early Greek weapons are exhibited; and these have far more value in bringing the Past before us than the actual weapons of that period, corroded and broken, would have. But the visitor says, "These are shams," and pa.s.ses on.

It will be seen, then, that the business of archaeology is often misunderstood both by archaeologists and by the public; and that there is really no reason to believe, with Thomas Earle, that the real antiquarian loves a thing the better for that it is rotten and stinketh.

That the impression has gone about is his own fault, for he has exposed too much to view the mechanism of his work; but it is also the fault of the public for not asking of him a picture of things as they were.

Man is by nature a creature of the present. It is only by an effort that he can consider the future, it is often quite impossible for him to give any heed at all to the Past. The days of old are so blurred and remote that it seems right to him that any relic from them should, by the maltreatment of Time, be unrecognisable. The finding of an old sword, half-eaten by rust, will only please him in so far as it shows him once more by its sad condition the great gap between those days and these, and convinces him again of the sole importance of the present. The archaeologist, he will tell you, is a fool if he expects him to be interested in a wretched old bit of sc.r.a.p-iron. He is right. It would be as rash to suppose that he would find interest in an ancient sword in its rusted condition as it would be to expect the spectator at Rheims to find fascination in the nuts and screws. The true archaeologist would hide that corroded weapon in his workshop, where his fellow-workers alone could see it. For he recognises that it is only the sword which is as good as new that impresses the public; it is only the Present that counts. That is the real reason why he is an archaeologist. He has turned to the Past because he is in love with the Present. He, more than any man, wors.h.i.+ps at the altar of the G.o.ddess of To-day; and he is so desirous of extending her dominion that he has adventured, like a crusader, into the lands of the Past in order to subject them to her.

Adoring the Now, he would resent the publicity of anything which so obviously suggested the Then as a rust-eaten old blade. His whole business is to hide the gap between Yesterday and To-day; and, unless a man is initiate, he would have him either see the perfect sword as it was when it sought the foeman's bowels, or see nothing. The Present is too small for him; and it is therefore that he calls so insistently to the Past to come forth from the darkness to augment it. The ordinary man lives in the Present, and he will tell one that the archaeologist lives in the Past. This is not so. The layman, in the manner of the Little Englander, lives in a small and confined Present; but the archaeologist, like a true Imperialist, ranges through all time, and calls it not the Past but the Greater Present.

The archaeologist is not, or ought not to be, lacking in vivacity. One might say that he is so sensible to the charms of society that, finding his companions too few in number, he has drawn the olden times to him to search them for jovial men and agreeable women. It might be added that he has so laughed at jest and joke that, fearing lest the funds of humour run dry, he has gathered the laughter of all the years to his enrichment. Certainly he has so delighted in n.o.ble adventure and stirring action that he finds his newspaper insufficient to his needs, and fetches to his aid the tales of old heroes. In fact, the archaeologist is so enamoured of life that he would raise all the dead from their graves. He will not have it that the men of old are dust: he would bring them to him to share with him the sunlight which he finds so precious. He is so much an enemy of Death and Decay that he would rob them of their harvest; and, for every life the foe has claimed, he would raise up, if he could, a memory that would continue to live.

The meaning of the heading which has been given to this chapter is now becoming clear, and the direction of the argument is already apparent.

So far it has been my purpose to show that the archaeologist is not a rag-and-bone man, though the public generally thinks he is, and he often thinks he is himself. The attempt has been made to suggest that archaeology ought not to consist in sitting in a charnel-house amongst the dead, but rather in ignoring that place and taking the bones into the light of day, decently clad in flesh and finery. It has now to be shown in what manner this parading of the Past is needful to the gaiety of the Present.

Amongst cultured people whose social position makes it difficult for them to dance in circles on the gra.s.s in order to express or to stimulate their gaiety, and whose school of deportment will not permit them to sing a merry song of sixpence as they trip down the streets, there is some danger of the fire of merriment dying for want of fuel.

Vivacity in printed books, therefore, has been encouraged, so that the mind at least, if not the body, may skip about and clap its hands. A portly gentleman with a solemn face, reading his 'Punch' in the club, is, after all, giving play to precisely those same humours which in ancient days might have led him, like Georgy Porgy, to kiss the girls or to perform any other merry joke. It is necessary, therefore, ever to enlarge the stock of things humorous, vivacious, or rousing, if thoughts are to be kept young and eyes bright in this age of restraint. What would Yuletide be without the olden times to bolster it? What would the Christmas numbers do without the pictures of our great-grandparents'

coaches snow-bound, of huntsmen of the eighteenth century, of jesters at the courts of the barons? What should we do without the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' the 'Compleat Angler,' 'Pepys' Diary,' and all the rest of the ancient books? And, going back a few centuries, what an amount we should miss had we not 'aesop's Fables,' the 'Odyssey,' the tales of the Trojan War, and so on. It is from the archaeologist that one must expect the augmentation of this supply; and just in that degree in which the existing supply is really a necessary part of our equipment, so archaeology, which looks for more, is necessary to our gaiety.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PL. VII. Lady rouging herself: she holds a mirror and rouge-pot.

--FROM A PAPYRUS, TURIN.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Dancing girl turning a back somersault.--NEW KINGDOM.]

In order to keep his intellect undulled by the routine of his dreary work, Matthew Arnold was wont to write a few lines of poetry each day.

Poetry, like music and song, is an effective dispeller of care; and those who find Omar Khayyam or "In Memoriam" incapable of removing the of burden of their woes, will no doubt appreciate the "Owl and the p.u.s.s.y-cat," or the Bab Ballads. In some form or other verse and song are closely linked with happiness; and a ditty from any age has its interests and its charm.

"She gazes at the stars above: I would I were the skies, That I might gaze upon my love With such a thousand eyes!"

That is probably from the Greek of Plato, a writer who is not much read by the public at large, and whose works are the legitimate property of the antiquarian. It suffices to show that it is not only to the moderns that we have to look for dainty verse that is conducive to a light heart. The following lines are from the ancient Egyptian:--

"While in my room I lie all day In pain that will not pa.s.s away, The neighbours come and go.

Ah, if with them my darling came The doctors would be put to shame: _She_ understands my woe."

Such examples might be multiplied indefinitely; and the reader will admit that there is as much of a lilt about those which are here quoted as there is about the majority of the ditties which he has hummed to himself in his hour of contentment. Here is Philodemus' description of his mistress's charms:--

"My lady-love is small and brown; My lady's skin is soft as down; Her hair like pa.r.s.eley twists and turns; Her voice with magic pa.s.sion burns...."

And here is an ancient Egyptian's description of not very dissimilar phenomena:--

"A damsel sweet unto the sight, A maid of whom no like there is; Black are her tresses as the night, And blacker than the blackberries."

Does not the archaeologist perform a service to his contemporaries by searching out such rhymes and delving for more? They bring with them, moreover, so subtle a suggestion of bygone romance, they are backed by so fair a scene of Athenian luxury or Theban splendour, that they possess a charm not often felt in modern verse. If it is argued that there is no need to increase the present supply of such ditties, since they are really quite unessential to our gaiety, the answer may be given that no nation and no period has ever found them unessential; and a light heart has been expressed in this manner since man came down from the trees.

Let us turn now to another consideration. For a man to be light of heart he must have confidence in humanity. He cannot greet the morn with a smiling countenance if he believes that he and his fellows are slipping down the broad path which leads to destruction. The archaeologist never despairs of mankind; for he has seen nations rise and fall till he is almost giddy, but he knows that there has never been a general deterioration. He realises that though a great nation may suffer defeat and annihilation, it is possible for it to go down in such a thunder that the talk of it stimulates other nations for all time. He sees, if any man can, that all things work together for happiness. He has observed the cycle of events, the good years and the bad; and in an evil time he is comforted by the knowledge that the good will presently roll round again. Thus the lesson which he can teach is a very real necessity to that contentment of mind which lies at the root of all gaiety.

Again, a man cannot be permanently happy unless he has a just sense of proportion. He who is too big for his boots must needs limp; and he who has a swollen head is in perpetual discomfort. The history of the lives of men, the history of the nations, gives one a fairer sense of proportion than does almost any other study. In the great company of the men of old he cannot fail to a.s.sess his true value: if he has any conceit there is a greater than he to snub him; if he has a poor opinion of his powers there is many a fool with whom to contrast himself favourably. If he would risk his fortune on the spinning of a coin, being aware of the prevalence of his good-luck, archaeology will tell him that the best luck will change; or if, when in sore straits, he asks whether ever a man was so unlucky, archaeology will answer him that many millions of men have been more unfavoured than he. Archaeology provides a precedent for almost every event or occurrence where modern inventions are not involved; and, in this manner, one may reckon their value and determine their trend. Thus many of the small worries which cause so leaden a weight to lie upon the heart and mind are by the archaeologist ignored; and many of the larger calamities by him are met with serenity.

But not only does the archaeologist learn to estimate himself and his actions: he learns also to see the relations.h.i.+p in which his life stands to the course of Time. Without archaeology a man may be disturbed lest the world be about to come to an end: after a study of history he knows that it has only just begun; and that gaiety which is said to have obtained "when the world was young" is to him, therefore, a present condition. By studying the ages the archaeologist learns to reckon in units of a thousand years; and it is only then that that little unit of threescore-and-ten falls into its proper proportion. "A thousand ages in Thy sight are like an evening gone," says the hymn, but it is only the archaeologist who knows the meaning of the words; and it is only he who can explain that great discrepancy in the Christian faith between the statement "Behold, I come quickly" and the actual fact. A man who knows where he is in regard to his fellows, and realises where he stands in regard to Time, has learnt a lesson of archaeology which is as necessary to his peace of mind as his peace of mind is necessary to his gaiety.

It is not needful, however, to continue to point out the many ways in which archaeology may be shown to be necessary to happiness. The reader will have comprehended the trend of the argument, and, if he be in sympathy with it, he will not be unwilling to develop the theme for himself. Only one point, therefore, need here be taken up. It has been reserved to the end of this chapter, for, by its nature, it closes all arguments. I refer to Death.

Death, as we watch it around us, is the black menace of the heavens which darkens every man's day; Death, coming to our neighbour, puts a period to our merry-making; Death, seen close beside us, calls a halt in our march of pleasure. But let those who would wrest her victory from the grave turn to a study of the Past, where all is dead yet still lives, and they will find that the horror of life's cessation is materially lessened. To those who are familiar with the course of history, Death seems, to some extent, but the happy solution of the dilemma of life. So many men have welcomed its coming that one begins to feel that it cannot be so very terrible. Of the death of a certain Pharaoh an ancient Egyptian wrote: "He goes to heaven like the hawks, and his feathers are like those of the geese; he rushes at heaven like a crane, he kisses heaven like the falcon, he leaps to heaven like the locust"; and we who read these words can feel that to rush eagerly at heaven like the crane would be a mighty fine ending of the pother.

Archaeology, and especially Egyptology, in this respect is a bulwark to those who find the faith of their fathers wavering; for, after much study, the triumphant a.s.sertion which is so often found in Egyptian tombs--"Thou dost not come dead to thy sepulchre, thou comest living"--begins to take hold of the imagination. Death has been the parent of so much goodness, dying men have cut such a dash, that one looks at it with an awakening interest. Even if the sense of the misfortune of death is uppermost in an archaeologist's mind, he may find not a little comfort in having before him the example of so many good, men, who, in their hour, have faced that great calamity with squared shoulders.

"When Death comes," says a certain sage of ancient Egypt, "it seizes the babe that is on the breast of its mother as well as he that has become an old man. When thy messenger comes to carry thee away, be thou found by him _ready_." Why, here is our chance; here is the opportunity for that flourish which modesty, throughout our life, has forbidden to us!

John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, when the time came for him to lay his head upon the block, bade the executioner smite it off with three strokes as a courtesy to the Holy Trinity. King Charles the Second, as he lay upon his death-bed, apologised to those who stood around him for "being an unconscionable time adying." The story is familiar of Napoleon's aide-de-camp, who, when he had been asked whether he were wounded, replied, "Not wounded: killed," and thereupon expired. The Past is full of such incidents; and so inspiring are they that Death comes to be regarded as a most stirring adventure. The archaeologist, too, better than any other, knows the vastness of the dead men's majority; and if, like the ancients, he believes in the Elysian fields, where no death is and decay is unknown, he alone will realise the excellent nature of the company into which he will there be introduced.

There is, however, far more living going on in the world than dying; and there is more happiness (thanks be!) than sorrow. Thus the archaeologist has a great deal more of pleasure than of pain to give to us for our enrichment. The reader will here enter an objection. He will say: "This may be true of archaeology in general, but in the case of Egyptology, with which we are here mostly concerned, he surely has to deal with a sad and solemn people." The answer will be found in the next chapter. No nation in the world's history has been so gay, so light-hearted as the ancient Egyptians; and Egyptology furnishes, perhaps, the most convincing proof that archaeology is, or should be, a merry science, very necessary to the gaiety of the world. I defy a man suffering from his liver to understand the old Egyptians; I defy a man who does not appreciate the pleasure of life to make anything of them. Egyptian archaeology presents a pageant of such brilliancy that the archaeologist is often carried along by it as in a dream, down the valley and over the hills, till, Past blending with Present, and Present with Future, he finds himself led to a kind of Island of the Blest, where death is forgotten and only the joy of life, and life's good deeds, still remain; where pleasure-domes, and all the ancient "miracles of rare device,"

rise into the air from above the flowers; and where the damsel with the dulcimer beside the running stream sings to him of Mount Abora and of the old heroes of the elder days. If the Egyptologist or the archaeologist could revive within him one-hundredth part of the elusive romance, the delicate gaiety, the subtle humour, the intangible tenderness, the unspeakable goodness, of much that is to be found in his province, one would have to cry, like Coleridge--

"Beware, beware!

Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise."

PART II.

STUDIES IN THE TREASURY.

"And I could tell thee stories that would make thee laugh at all thy trouble, and take thee to a land of which thou hast never even dreamed. Where the trees have ever blossoms, and are noisy with the humming of intoxicated bees. Where by day the suns are never burning, and by night the moonstones ooze with nectar in the rays of the camphor-laden moon. Where the blue lakes are filled with rows of silver swans, and where, on steps of lapis lazuli, the peac.o.c.ks dance in agitation at the murmur of the thunder in the hills. Where the lightning flashes without harming, to light the way to women stealing in the darkness to meetings with their lovers, and the rainbow hangs for ever like an opal on the dark blue curtain of the cloud. Where, on the moonlit roofs of crystal palaces, pairs of lovers laugh at the reflection of each other's love-sick faces in goblets of red wine, breathing, as they drink, air heavy with the fragrance of the sandal, wafted on the breezes from the mountain of the south. Where they play and pelt each other with emeralds and rubies, fetched at the churning of the ocean from the bottom of the sea. Where rivers, whose sands are always golden, flow slowly past long lines of silent cranes that hunt for silver fishes in the rushes on the banks. Where men are true, and maidens love for ever, and the lotus never fades."

F.W. BAIN: _A Heifer of the Dawn_.

CHAPTER IV.