The History of Antiquity Volume I Part 12

Of each of these they have records extending over an incredible series of years, the courses and positions of the planets also they have accurately observed, and they can accurately predict the eclipses of the sun and the moon."[292] Astronomical pictures are not uncommon on the monuments belonging to the period after the expulsion of the Hyksos.

Fragments of a calendar of festivals from the time of Ramses II. are found on a gateway of the Ramesseum. The outer walls of the temple at Medinet Habu give a complete calendar of the festivals from the time of Ramses III. In the tomb of Sethos I. are pictures and names of the five divinities of the planets known to the Egyptians, Mercury, Venus (the star of the Bennu, p. 69), Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; the same picture is found on the roof of the astronomical hall in the Ramesseum at Thebes, and on two pictures in the tombs of Ramses V. and IX. The painting in the Ramesseum--though the circle of 369 cubits, which, according to Diodorus, was once on the roof of the Ramesseum (p. 175), is wanting, being removed by Cambyses--presents a complete map of the Egyptian sky. The pictures in the tombs of the two kings give the rising of the stars at intervals of a fortnight. In the tomb of Ramses IV. the thirty-six Decan stars are given together with their deities.[293] The importance placed by the Egyptian priests on the knowledge of the sky is shown not only by the monuments, but also by the four books of the astrologer, and the third and fourth books of the temple scribe; and that their astronomical science was by no means slight is sufficiently proved by their early establishment of a solar year of 360, and then of 365 days, and by the observation and establishment of the Sothis periods. This fact is confirmed by the lists of the rising of the stars already mentioned. Yet the astronomical knowledge of the priests of Egypt cannot be placed beside that of the Babylonians. Representations of the zodiac are not found on the monuments till the time of the Ptolemies,[294] and Ptolemy, himself an Egyptian, has preserved for us observations of the Chaldees, but none made by his own countrymen. The greater part of the attention which the priests of Egypt bestowed upon the heavens was given in the interests of astrology rather than astronomy. As the months in the year belonged to certain G.o.ds, the first to Thoth, the third (Athyr) to Hathor, the last to Horus, so the days of the month had their deities. The first day belonged to Thoth, the second to Horus, the third to Osiris, &c.; and lastly, every hour of the day was allotted to a special influence. From the importance thus given to the days and hours the astrologers could foretell the fortune of life; they could ascertain what issue awaited any enterprise--whether the day and hour were favourable or not for this or that occupation or undertaking. For this object they possessed tables worked out in extensive detail. For instance, anyone born on the 14th of Athyr, the day when Typhon was said to have slain Osiris, had to expect a violent death; anyone born on the 23rd of Phaophi was doomed to be killed by a crocodile; and anyone born on the 27th of the same month, by a serpent.

On the other hand, a child born on the 9th of Phaophi might look forward to a long life. In the tables of the hours we find for a given day--first hour, Orion is lord of the left elbow; second hour, the Twins have influence on the left ear; fifth hour, the Pleiads(?) are sovereign over both chambers of the heart; tenth hour, the feet of the Swine predominate over the left eye, &c.[295]

In the achievement won by Egyptian art the priests took a leading part.

The buildings of the temples and the tombs of the kings could only be erected after their designs; for in these essentially sacred things, sacred measures and numbers, were concerned, and, like architecture, sculpture and painting were primarily employed in the service of religion. As we might expect from the character of the people, the architecture of the Egyptians aimed at the firm and durable. The structures rise up simple in their lines, like the ridges of rock which are the boundaries of Egypt, broad and ma.s.sive. The pyramids, with great simplicity of form, were found to display a considerable skill in dealing with and uniting large ma.s.ses of stone. Following this path, the architecture of Egypt has always preserved a severity and simplicity of outline even when employing richer forms and ornaments. Among the Egyptians sculpture and painting never attained independence; it was their vocation to support architecture, and a.s.sist her in preserving in the stream of time the picture of the king, his sacrifices, and his achievements, and this or that incident of his reign. The sculpture of the Egyptians exhibits a vigorous attempt to grasp the forms in a naive, but prosaic and merely intellectual manner; it preserves them free from any fanciful use of symbols, and conceives the human form in fixed proportions and characteristic expression of movement, while it is still more happy in the form and character of the animals. Like architecture, sculpture prefers to work in the hardest and most lasting material. But, as in all other departments of life, so here; the type when once fixed, the canon of proportion when once discovered, the mode of treatment and the law of form is rigorously retained. With complete accuracy of execution in the most difficult material, sculpture constantly repeats the same figures, geometrical rather than natural in form. Yet in spite of this typical character, in sculpture and painting, as in architecture, a considerable development took place. The statues of the times of the pyramids, the Amenemha and Sesurtesen, exhibit, comparatively speaking, very correct forms, lively energy in the expression of action, and a strong treatment of the muscles; but the sculptures of the new kingdom are distinguished by greater variety of forms, a larger wealth of lines, and a delicacy of outline; the drawing of the figures is far more slender, and there is considerable grace in the treatment of ma.s.sive pillars and capitals. The Tuthmosis and Amenophis, the Sethos, and the earliest Ramses, imposed upon Egyptian art an almost oppressive number of tasks, and in performing them she touched her highest point. But the amount of work must of itself have introduced a more and more conventional treatment within the limits of the typical circle in which sculpture moved; and at last this treatment was content with mere precision of outlines. This is the character of the sculpture of the times of Ramses III. down to the days of Psammetichus, in which, by a truer imitation of nature, and greater grace in the form of the bodies, it once more attained to a beautiful after-growth.

The industry and skill with which the cultivation of the land and of the vine, and the breeding of cattle and sheep, was carried on in Egypt even before the invasion of the Hyksos, has been already seen on the monuments of the time of the Sesurtesen and Amenemha (p. 118). The fields were tilled with ploughs drawn by oxen, or with the hoe. It was not in every case necessary to make furrows. In December and January, when the water had run off, the seed was cast into the moist ground and trodden in, as we see from the monuments, by sheep and goats. Everywhere the overseer is in the field with the labourers and herdmen. By the end of March harvest was ready; wheat and maize were cut with the sickle, and then the grain was trodden out by oxen. Meanwhile the thrasher sang, according to the inscription on a rock tomb at El Kab (above Thebes), "Thrash for yourselves, oxen, thrash for yourselves; thrash bushels for your masters."[296] Diodorus remarks that it was marvellous with what care and skill the herds were tended by their keepers in Egypt, what knowledge of healing plants and of food was to be found in these keepers, how their occupation came to them from their forefathers, with a large stock of experience and manual skill; and how their knowledge increased to an incredible degree the propagation of the animals.[297]

On the monuments we find not only great herds of cattle, a.s.ses, sheep, and goats, but also whole droves of hens, ducks, and geese.

Poultry-sellers and depots of poultry are often found. These sculptures confirm the statements of Diodorus of the careful tending of the animals; they also show us the medicinal treatment of ailing animals.

Beside this wealth of cattle, there was an abundance of fish, provided by the Nile. These were caught partly with hooks, and partly with large nets. The upper cla.s.ses fished for pleasure. Yet most kinds of fish were forbidden food: the priests, as we have seen, were not allowed to taste fish at all.

The monuments also teach us that hunting was not neglected by the Egyptians. Hares, foxes, antelopes, gazelles, hyaenas, buffaloes, and lions were driven into inclosures surrounded by nets, or chased with the bow and arrow and dogs, or with the chariot and hounds. Gazelles and buffaloes were also taken with the la.s.so; traps were set for the hyaenas; the hippopotamus was attacked with a spear from a boat.[298]

Of the industry of the Egyptians in trade we have already had striking evidence in the monuments of the old kingdom. There we saw all kinds of manufactures in the various stages; we found on them the simple weaver's loom, which produced the robes of byssus, so highly valued in antiquity,--the lasting fabric which may still be examined in the clothing of mummies. The early development of technical skill meets us more especially in the pictures of the preparation of gla.s.s on the tombs at Beni Ha.s.san. Gla.s.s cups and vessels are frequently found in the tombs, and Strabo observes that the earth required for making gla.s.s is among the products of Egypt.[299] The working of the copper mines in the mountains of Sinai goes considerably further back than the date of the tombs at Beni Ha.s.san. They were open as early as the times of Snefru and Chufu.[300] Yet by far the greatest proportion of hands must have been employed upon the buildings of the kings and the tombs of the wealthy.

On the monuments we see the masons in all their various occupations; painters and statuaries also are represented there in the different moments of their work; and the tables of proportion which they followed are still preserved.

Even before the invasion of the Hyksos, as we saw from the tombs at Beni Ha.s.san, the life of the wealthy Egyptian was surrounded by considerable elegance (p. 118). The houses of the rich, built, according to the pictures on the monuments, in a light and graceful style, in contrast to the heavy structure of the temples, had several stories, and were provided with the galleries and terraces still usual in the East. Houses in the country had shady avenues of trees, planted in exact rows, and neat beds of flowers, graceful pavilions, and fountains of water. The common national dress was a linen s.h.i.+rt, and over it a woollen cloak; the labourer and the lowest cla.s.s had only an ap.r.o.n round the body; but the clothing of the higher cla.s.ses was choice and delicate. The women, who enjoyed considerable freedom in Egypt, wore various ornaments--necklaces, eardrops, and bracelets; rings of the most various shape adorned almost every finger. Their hair was carefully dressed; they bathed frequently, and made a considerable use of ointments. Life was sociable in ancient Egypt. In the tombs at Beni Ha.s.san we find men carried in a palanquin to a social meeting; and in the tombs at Thebes they are driving in chariots to a similar gathering. Gaily-dressed men and women meet and converse with each other in the hall; slaves, light-coloured and black, in part handsomely-dressed, hand them garlands and cups. The table is spread. Bread, figs, and grapes are set out in baskets, wine in gla.s.s bottles; vegetables and poultry are also there.

The solid food was eaten with the hand, liquids were taken with spoons.

At these banquets the Egyptians do not seem to have been very moderate.

Herodotus tells us that a small wooden image of a mummy was carried round at their entertainments, with the exhortation, "Look on this, drink and be merry. When dead, thou wilt be as this is!"[301] This admonition was not without its results. In the pictures on monuments we find not only men, but women, throwing up the surfeit of food and wine; others are carried away home by their servants. Indeed, excess and drunkenness are quoted among the forty-two chief sins of the Egyptians.

During the meal dancers were introduced, and bands of musicians, male and female, who played on harps, guitars, and flutes; among which was mingled the sound of the tambourine. A chorus also sang to the harp. The company also played and danced.[302] We have already seen that games of ball and mora were played under the old monarchy. Among the recreations of the new monarchy draughts are found. We often find on the monuments sketches of men and women who exhibit contortions of their bodies and feats of strength. Sham-fights at sea also occur, and wrestling matches are very common.

Proudly as the Egyptians, in the consciousness of their purity and culture, looked down on "the unclean and perverse" nations outside their land, and rarely as they travelled into other countries, Egypt was nevertheless the centre of a considerable trade. China and j.a.pan also for a long time shut themselves up from the outer world, yet their trade was considerable, though permitted only at certain fixed places. The Egyptians also caused the products which they needed to be brought, without themselves going to seek them. Egypt required wood for the building of houses and s.h.i.+ps, bra.s.s, ivory, slaves, and incense. Even before the year 1500 B.C., Arabian caravans carried the products of the south coast of Arabia to Syria and Egypt.[303] The wandering tribes of Libya, Syria, and Arabia required corn, weapons, utensils, and implements, which they could buy in Egypt. Then at a later period came the trade of the Phenicians with Egypt. They could bring wood from the forests of Lebanon--wine, oil, slaves, amber, and tin, and exchange them for the manufactures of Egypt; for retail goods, gla.s.s, drugs, which Egypt produced in great quant.i.ties, fish, Egyptian fabrics, linen, and material prepared from the papyrus. The Greeks called fabrics made from this plant, "byblian," from the city Byblus, a proof that they first became acquainted with these Egyptian wares through the Phenicians, and mainly through the s.h.i.+ps of Byblus, and received them from this quarter.

Horses, also, and chariots were brought as articles of trade from Egypt to Syria about the year 1000 B.C.; at that time a chariot cost in Egypt 600 shekels, and a horse 150.[304] So far as we can gather from the legends of the Greeks, the trading s.h.i.+ps could only enter the Canopic mouth of the Nile, and intercourse with foreign merchants could only take place on the little island of Pharos, opposite the city of Thonis.

Here the mariners of that day, the Phenicians, and with them, and after them, the Ionians, carried on their trade with the Egyptians. On land the only entrance was by Pelusium; and here as also at Pharos, an entrance-tax had apparently to be paid. From the Homeric poems we may conclude that there was then a trade with Egypt, and not only piratical descents upon the coasts; but when the Ionians, about the middle of the eighth century, began to enter into dangerous compet.i.tion with the Phenicians, the latter seem to have succeeded in getting the Greeks excluded from Egypt, and obtaining for themselves the monopoly of the sea--a privilege which, however, they did not maintain for more than a century.[305]

Such was ancient Egypt, the land of marvel, whose richly developed civilization lies on the threshold of historical life. Excellently furnished by nature, and placed in a peculiarly favoured land, the Copts have transferred to their own lives and civilization the grave and solemn character of their sky and their country. Their conservative feeling is directed towards fixed and unalterable order; the sons repeat the lives of their fathers, and the nation is divided into various cla.s.ses and corporations, which carry on the same occupations from generation to generation. The beneficent powers of nature, the mystery of life, the life returning out of death--these are the forces and laws which the Egyptians wors.h.i.+pped as their good G.o.ds, whose creation is the fruitful world, who manifest themselves in good creatures, whose unchangeable nature they seemed to recognise as embodied in the instinctive and unalterable life of certain animals. The life of the nation adapts itself also to priestly rules, which operate without alteration, like the laws of nature.

As the heart of this people was set upon the continuance of the race and occupation, on rule and law, so also was it their desire to prolong the existence of the individual. This impulse towards the preservation of self operated so strongly that the Egyptians busied themselves with the future quite as much as with the past. It was this trait in their character which caused the Egyptians to rescue their dead from corruption, and occupied the living with the construction of "eternal dwellings for the dead." This it was which made them a nation of scribes, builders, painters and sculptors. These efforts culminate in the buildings of the kings, who could command the whole powers of the land in preserving their names. The Egyptians were loath to end with death. It was the true vocation of every man worthily to build and "adorn his tomb;" and the essential object of life is--not to lose the everlasting life after death by unclean and unlawful conversation--to win a return to the divine origin of life.

With the simple confidence of childhood, with the patient endurance of a man, and with iron perseverance, the Egyptians attempted to redeem the existence of man from destruction and decay, and rescue his life from oblivion. The power of the Egyptians exhausted itself in this toil after continuance of life. But however eager a man might be to preserve his own individuality, he loses it in the presence of his ruler, who gathers up in his own person the whole political life of the nation, and exhausts it. Like a G.o.d, or an incarnate Destiny, the Pharaoh stands in absolute supremacy over the land; "His countenance beams over Egypt as the sun;" before him all distinctions fade away, and all bow down in equal obedience. But even though the perishable was preserved, and made as lasting as the rocks of the land--though in the ceremonial, the ritual, and the rules of life the same unalterable constancy prevailed as in the laws of nature, there was still room beside fixed prescription and the will of the divine ruler for the vigorous pursuit of an industry which was not far behind that of modern Europe, for an enjoyment of life in the Oriental manner, which was not only social, but even luxurious and sensual.

The efforts of the Egyptians to preserve themselves and their actions, and to cause their names to live in the mouths of the generations after them, have not been without a result. What the Greeks and Romans knew of their history were traditions attached to the great monuments. Before our researches the Egyptian nation has literally risen from the tomb; the pyramids tell us the history of the old monarchy, and the temples at Thebes the history of the new. Without these monuments the kings of Manetho would have remained an empty and unintelligible echo. These mountains of stone at the threshold of history, these chronicles of hieroglyphics, this nation of mummies proclaim, beyond contradiction, that nations do succeed in outliving themselves by their works, but also that their life reaches only so far as their development.

FOOTNOTES:

[252] Diod. 1, 90.

[253] Thus, _e.g._ in the Rosetta inscription the order is given that in every temple an image is to be set up to the "G.o.d Epiphanes, the avenger of Egypt," to whom the princ.i.p.al deity of the temple presents the arms of victory. Three times in every day the image of Epiphanes is to be wors.h.i.+pped, and on the great festivals the same honours are to be paid to him as to the rest of the G.o.ds. In addition, a special festival is solemnized every year to the G.o.d Epiphanes, and a special order of priests established for him. This resolution of the collected priests was ordered to be engraved on hard stone and set up in all the temples of the first, second, and third cla.s.s. The full t.i.tle of Epiphanes is: "Son of Ptah, Beloved of Ammon and Ra, the Child of the Sun, the Eternal."

[254] Diod. 1, 53; Plut. "De Isid." c. 6, 9; and below, p. 211 ff.

[255] Wilkinson, "Manners and Customs," Suppl. Pl. 76; Champollion, "Lettres," p. 344 ff.

[256] In the inscriptions of the graves and sarcophagi of the Berlin Museum; cf. Ebers, "aegypten," s. 300.

[257] What Synesius (Op. p. 94) tells us of the election of the kings is so astounding that it can hardly have been part of any plan of the priests; the whole history of Egypt contradicts an elective monarchy of such a kind. These supposed elections were said to have taken place on the Libyan mountains, near Thebes; the priests mentioned the names of the candidates for whom the votes were to be given. The votes of the prophets had the value of one hundred, those of the lower priests of twenty, of the servants of the temple of ten, and of the warrior cla.s.s of one.

[258] Kalasiris was the name given by the Egyptians to a linen coat, with fringe round the thighs (Herod. 2, 81). The name Hermotybian has been derived from [Greek: hemitybion], a kind of ap.r.o.n.

[259] Herod. 2, 37.

[260] Diod. 1, 73, 74.

[261] Herod. 2, 37, 168.

[262] Genesis xlvii. 22, 26.

[263] Herod. 2, 109 _supra_, p. 143.

[264] Genesis xlvii. 24, 26.

[265] Herod. 2. 168.

[266] Genesis xlvii. 26.

[267] Even the land which the Pharaohs allotted to the temples with a tax of a fifth belonged to them in a certain sense. We have tolerably ancient records on papyrus, on which are given the incomes of the temples, with the names of the tax-payers, and the things given in taxation. When the Ptolemies ruled over Egypt the land which paid to the temples belonged actually to the temples as property, but as property revocable at will, and the kings on their side taxed the temples just as the Islamite princes are accustomed to tax their mosques. In the Rosetta inscription, under date March 27, 196 B.C., the prophets, upper priests, chamberlains, pastophors, and scribes, explain that the king (Ptolemy Epiphanes) had given an order that the incomes of the temples and the land-taxes paid to them yearly, and the portions reserved for the G.o.ds in the vineyards and other property, should continue to be paid. At the same time we see from the sequel of this inscription, as well as from other sources, that these incomes were not sufficient to keep the temples in good order, and the king was compelled to make additions.

Yet, in any case, the Ptolemies by their state taxes withdrew from the temples a portion of their incomes. From every plot of corn-land ([Greek: aroura]) the temples were to pay to the king an _artabe_ of corn, and from every plot of vineyard an amphora of wine. Besides this, they had to pay a money-tax and a certain amount of byssus cloth.

[268] Clemens ("Strom." p. 757 ff. ed. Pott) expressly says that the prophet was the overseer of the temple; on the other hand, in the inscription of Rosetta, the high priests and prophets stand side by side.

[269] Herod. 2, 37, 143; Diod. 1, 73.

[270] Diod. 1, 80; Herod. 2, 37, 81; Diog. Laert. 8, 27; Porphyr. "De abst." 4, 7.

[271] Diod. 1, 74, 92.

[272] Lepsius, "Briefe." s. 309, 310; Brugsch, "Hist. d'Egypte," p. 259.

[273] Herod. 2, 47; Aelian, "De Nat. An." 10, 16. As Herodotus tells us that the swineherds married in their own order only, it follows that the other orders married with each other. The attempt has often been made to explain the so-called divisions of the Egyptians into castes by the immigration of foreign tribes. This conception places in mechanical layers what is really an organic development. In India such an a.s.sumption has a certain historical foundation. There, there was a servile cla.s.s (the Sudra) under three superior cla.s.ses; the first was composed of the original inhabitants, the others of the Aryan immigrants. This kind of division is wholly wanting in Egypt, and not less so any historical or physiological foundation for the immigrations.

Strabo knows three orders only in Egypt; the priests, the soldiers, and the population engaged in work or trades. Diodorus (1, 74) speaks of five orders; _i.e._ in addition to the first two, husbandmen, artizans, and shepherds. Plato ("Timaeus," p. 21) mentions priests, soldiers, artizans, shepherds, and hunters; Herodotus mentions priests, warriors, cowherds, swineherds, merchants, interpreters, and mariners. In Plato and Diodorus we miss the merchants, who certainly were not wanting in Egypt, and in Herodotus the husbandmen and artizans. Nothing therefore remains but the natural a.s.sumption that the labouring ma.s.ses were chiefly divided into shepherds, artizans, and husbandmen; and these were again broken into many divisions according to their different vocations, and each of our authorities has brought into prominence those distinctions which especially came under his notice. As Herodotus especially notices cowherds, we must suppose that those herdsmen are probably meant who derived a living from the buffalo herds, which they pastured in the swampy flats of the Delta, on the border of Egypt, and lived in huts of reeds.--Diod. 1, 43.

[274] The number of provinces in Egypt under the old kingdom appears to have been twenty-seven, according to the myth of the hewing of the body of Osiris into twenty-seven pieces, and the distribution of them to all the priests of the land for burial, which Diodorus has preserved. From this may be derived the number of twenty-seven courts in the labyrinth given by Strabo, p. 811, and twenty-five in Pliny, pp. 113, 114; as a fact the building had only twelve courts. Yet Strabo mentions thirty-six provinces (p. 787). Later coins give forty-six provinces, and Ptolemy forty-seven. Forty-four nomes, twenty-two for Upper Egypt and as many for Lower Egypt, can be established, together with their names.--Brugsch, "Hist. d'Egypte," p. 9.

[275] Diod. 1, 73, 75, 94; Herod. 2, 136; Plut. "De Isid." 10; Chabas, "Mel." 3, 10.

[276] Diod. 1, 77 ff.

[277] Herod. 2, 37, 38, 39, 65; Genesis xliii. 32.

[278] Herod. 2, 77, 85; Diod. 1, 84, 91.

[279] Lepsius, "Aelteste Texte," s. 10; Brugsch, "Grammaire demotique."

[280] Clem. Alex. "Strom." p. 758, ed. Pott; cf. Diod. 1, 49.

[281] Ebers, "Augsburger Allg. Zt." 1873. On a papyrus of a medicinal character of the period from the twentieth to the twenty-second dynasty, see Birch, "Zeitschrift fur aegyptische Sprache," 1871, s. 61.

[282] Herod. 2, 84, 3, 1.