Manual of Egyptian Archaeology and Guide to the Study of Antiquities in Egypt Part 5

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig.112.--Naos of wood in the Museum at Turin.]

The sanctuary and the surrounding chambers contained the objects used in the ceremonial of wors.h.i.+p. The bases of altars varied in shape, some being square and ma.s.sive, others polygonal or cylindrical. Some of these last are in form not unlike a small cannon, which is the name given to them by the Arabs. The most ancient are those of the Fifth Dynasty; the most beautiful is one dedicated by Seti I., now in the Gizeh Museum. The only perfect specimen of an altar known to me was discovered at Mens.h.i.+yeh in 1884 (fig.

111). It is of white limestone, hard and polished like marble. It stands upon a pedestal in the form of a long cone, having no other ornament than a torus about half an inch below the top. Upon this pedestal, in a hollow specially prepared for its reception, stands a large hemispherical basin.

The shrines are little chapels of wood or stone (fig. 112), in which the spirit of the deity was supposed at all times to dwell, and which, on ceremonial occasions, contained his image. The sacred barks were built after the model of the Bari, or boat, in which the sun performed his daily course. The shrine was placed amids.h.i.+p of the boat, and covered with a veil, or curtain, to conceal its contents from all spectators. The crew were also represented, each G.o.d being at his post of duty, the pilot at the helm, the look-out at the prow, the king upon his knees before the door of the shrine. We have not as yet discovered any of the statues employed in the ceremonial, but we know what they were like, what part they played, and of what materials they were made. They were animated, and in addition to their bodies of stone, metal, or wood, they had each a soul magically derived from the soul of the divinity which they represented. They spoke, moved, acted--not metaphorically, but actually. The later Ramessides ventured upon no enterprises without consulting them. They stated their difficulties, and the G.o.d replied to each question by a movement of the head. According to the Stela of Bakhtan,[24] a statue of Khons places its hands four times on the nape of the neck of another statue, so transmitting the power of expelling demons. It was after a conversation with the statue of Amen in the dusk of the sanctuary, that Queen Hatshepst despatched her squadron to the sh.o.r.es of the Land of Incense.[25] Theoretically, the divine soul of the image was understood to be the only miracle worker; practically, its speech and motion were the results of a pious fraud.

Interminable avenues of sphinxes, gigantic obelisks, ma.s.sive pylons, halls of a hundred columns, mysterious chambers of perpetual night--in a word, the whole Egyptian temple and its dependencies--were built by way of a hiding-place for a performing puppet, of which the wires were worked by a priest.

[21] That is, the spirits of the North, represented by On (Heliopolis), and of the South (Khon).--A.B.E.

[22] At Tanis there seems to have been a close succession of obelisks and statues along the main avenue leading to the Temple, without the usual corresponding pylons. These were ranged in pairs; _i.e._, a pair of obelisks, a pair of statues; a pair of obelisks, a pair of shrines; and then a third pair of obelisks. See _Tanis_, Part I., by W.M.F. Petrie, published by the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1884.--A.B.E.

[23] This fact is recorded in the hieroglyphic inscription upon the obelisks.--A.B.E.

[24] This celebrated tablet, preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, has been frequently translated, and is the subject of a valuable treatise by the late Vicomte de Rouge. It was considered authentic till Dr. Erman, in an admirable paper contributed to the _Zeitschrift,_ 1883, showed it to have been a forgery concocted by the priests of Khons during the period of the Persian rule in Egypt, or in early Ptolemaic times. (See Maspero's _Hist. Ancienne des Peuples de l'Orient_, chap, vi., pp. 287, 288. Fourth Edition.)--A.B.E.

[25] The Land of Incense, called also in the inscriptions "The Land of Pnt," was the country from which the Egyptians imported spices, precious woods, gums, etc. It is supposed to represent the southern coasts of the Red Sea, on either side the Bab el Mandeb. Queen Hatshepst's famous expedition is represented in a series of coloured bas-relief sculptures on the walls of her great temple at Deir el Bahari, reproduced in Dr. Dumichen's work, _The Fleet of an Egyptian Queen_, and in Mariette's _Deir el Bahari_. For a full account of this temple, its decoration, and the expedition of Hatshepst, see the _Deir el Bahari_ publications of the Egypt Exploration Fund.

CHAPTER III.

_TOMBS_.

The Egyptians regarded man as composed of various different ent.i.ties, each having its separate life and functions. First, there was the body; then the _Ka_ or double, which was a less solid duplicate of the corporeal form--a coloured but ethereal projection of the individual, reproducing him feature for feature. The double of a child was as a child; the double of a woman was as a woman; the double of a man was as a man. After the double (_Ka_) came the Soul (_Bi_ or _Ba_), which was popularly represented as a human- headed bird; after the Soul came the "_Kh_," or "the Luminous," a spark from the divine fire. None of these elements were in their own natures imperishable. Left to themselves, they would hasten to dissolution, and the man would thus die a second time; that is to say, he would be annihilated.

The piety of the survivors found means, however, to avert this catastrophe.

By the process of embalmment, they could for ages suspend the decomposition of the body; while by means of prayer and offerings, they saved the Double, the Soul, and the "Luminous" from the second death, and secured to them all that was necessary for the prolongation of their existence. The Double never left the place where the mummy reposed: but the Soul and the "_Kh_"

went forth to follow the G.o.ds. They, however, kept perpetually returning, like travellers who come home after an absence. The tomb was therefore a dwelling-house, the "Eternal House" of the dead, compared with which the houses of the living were but wayside inns; and these Eternal Houses were built after a plan which exactly corresponded to the Egyptian idea of the after-life. The Eternal House must always include the private rooms of the Soul, which were closed on the day of burial, and which no living being could enter without being guilty of sacrilege. It must also contain the reception rooms of the Double, where priests and friends brought their wishes or their offerings; the two being connected by a pa.s.sage of more or less length. The arrangement of these three parts[26] varied according to the period, the place, the nature of the ground, and the caprice of each person. The rooms accessible to the living were frequently built above ground, and formed a separate edifice. Sometimes they were excavated in the mountain side, as well as the tomb itself. Sometimes, again, the vault where the mummy lay hidden, and the pa.s.sages leading to that vault, were in one place, while the place of prayer and offering stood far off in the plain. But whatever variety there may be found as to detail and arrangement, the principle is always the same. The tomb is a dwelling, and it is constructed in such wise as may best promote the well-being, and ensure the preservation, of the dead.

[26] These three parts are (l) the chapel, (2) the pa.s.sage, or shaft, (3) the sepulchral vault. If the latter was below the level of the chapel, as in the time of the Ancient Empire, the communication was by a sloping or vertical shaft.--A.B.E.

I.--Mastabas.

The most ancient monumental tombs are found in the necropolis of Memphis, between Ab Roash and Dahshr, and in that of Medm;[27] they belong to the mastaba type (Note 12). The mastaba (fig. 113) is a quadrangular building, which from a distance might be taken for a truncated pyramid. Many mastabas are from 30 to 40-feet in height, 150 feet in length, and 80 feet in width; while others do not exceed 10 feet in height or 15 feet in length. The faces are symmetrically inclined and generally smooth, though sometimes the courses retreat like steps. The materials employed are stone or brick. The stone is limestone, cut in blocks about two and a half feet long, two feet high, and twenty inches thick. Three sorts of limestone were employed: for the best tombs, the fine white limestone of Trah, or the compact siliceous limestone of Sakkarah; for ordinary tombs, the marly limestone of the Libyan hills. This last, impregnated with salt and veined with crystalline gypsum, is a friable material, and unsuited for ornamentation. The bricks are of two kinds, both being merely sun-dried. The most ancient kind, which ceased to be used about the time of the Sixth Dynasty, is small (8.7 X 4.3 X 5.5 inches), yellowish, and made of nothing but sand, mixed with a little clay and grit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 113.--A Mastaba.]

The later kind is of mud mixed with straw, black, compact, carefully moulded, and of a fair size (15.0 X 7.1 X 5.5 inches). The style of the internal construction differs according to the material employed by the architect. In nine cases out of ten, the stone mastabas are but outwardly regular in construction. The core is of roughly quarried rubble, mixed with rubbish and limestone fragments hastily bedded in layers of mud, or piled up without any kind of mortar. The brick mastabas are nearly always of h.o.m.ogeneous construction. The facing bricks are carefully mortared, and the joints inside are filled up with sand. That the mastaba should be canonically oriented, the four faces set to the four cardinal points, and the longer axis laid from north and south, was indispensable; but, practically, the masons took no special care about finding the true north, and the orientation of these structures is seldom exact. At Gizeh, the mastabas are distributed according to a symmetrical plan, and ranged in regular streets. At Sakkarah, at Absir, and at Dahshr, they are scattered irregularly over the surface of the plateau, crowded in some places, and wide apart in others. The Mussulman cemetery at Sit perpetuates the like arrangement, and enables us to this day to realise the aspect of the Memphite necropolis towards the close of the ancient empire.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 114.--False door in mastaba, from Mariette's _Les Mastabahs_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 115.--Plan of forecourt of mastaba of Kaapir.]

A flat, unpaved platform, formed by the top course of the core (Note 13), covers the top of the ma.s.s of the mastaba. This platform is scattered over with terracotta vases, nearly buried in the loose rubbish. These lie thickly over the hollow interior, but are more spa.r.s.ely deposited elsewhere. The walls are bare. The doors face to the eastward side. They occasionally face towards the north or south side, but never towards the west. In theory, there should be two doors, one for the dead, the other for the living. In practice, the entrance for the dead was a mere niche, high and narrow, cut in the eastward face, near the north-east corner. At the back of this niche are marked vertical lines, framing in a closed s.p.a.ce.

Even this imitation of a door was sometimes omitted, and the soul was left to manage as best it might. The door of the living was made more or less important, according to the greater or less development of the chamber to which it led. The chamber and door are in some cases represented by only a shallow recess decorated with a stela and a table of offerings (fig. 114).

This is sometimes protected by a wall which projects from the facade, thus forming a kind of forecourt open to the north. The forecourt is square in the tomb of Kaapir (fig. 114), and irregular in that of Neferhotep at Sakkarah (fig. 116). When the plan includes one or more chambers, the door sometimes opens in the middle of a small architectural facade (fig. 117), or under a little portico supported by two square pillars without either base or abacus (fig. 118). The doorway is very simple, the two jambs being ornamented with bas-reliefs representing the deceased, and surmounted by a cylindrical drum engraved with his name and t.i.tles. In the tomb of Pohnika at Sakkarah the jambs are two pilasters, each crowned with two lotus flowers; but this example is, so far, unique.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 116.--Plan of forecourt, mastaba of Neferhotep.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 117.--Door in facade of mastaba.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 118.--Portico and door, from Mariette's _Les Mastabahs_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 119.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of Khabisokari, Fourth Dynasty.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 120.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of Ti, Fifth Dynasty.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 121.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of Shepsesptah, Fourth Dynasty.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 122.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of Affi, Sakkarah, Fourth Dynasty.]

The chapel was usually small, and lost in the ma.s.s of the building (fig.

119), but no precise rule determined its size. In the tomb of Ti there is first a portico (A), then a square ante-chamber with pillars (B), then a pa.s.sage (C) with a small room (D) on the right, leading to the last chamber (E) (fig. 120). There was room enough in this tomb for many persons, and, in point of fact, the wife of Ti reposed by the side of her husband. When the monument belonged to only one person, the structure was less complicated. A short and narrow pa.s.sage led to an oblong chamber upon which it opened at right angles, so that the place is in shape of a T (fig. 121).

The end wall is generally smooth; but sometimes it is recessed just opposite the entrance pa.s.sage, and then the plan forms a cross, of which the head is longer or shorter (fig. 122). This was the ordinary arrangement, but the architect was free to reject it, if he so pleased.

Here, a chapel consists of two parallel lobbies connected by a cross pa.s.sage (fig. 123). Elsewhere, the chamber opens from a corner of the pa.s.sage (fig. 124). Again, in the tomb of Ptahhotep, the site was hemmed in by older buildings, and was not large enough. The builders therefore joined the new mastaba to the older one in such wise as to give them one entrance in common, and thus the chapel of the one is enlarged by absorbing the whole of the s.p.a.ce occupied by the other (fig. 125).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 123.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of Thenti II., Fourth Dynasty, Sakkarah.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 124.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of the _Red Scribe_, Fourth Dynasty, Sakkarah.]

The chapel was the reception room of the Double. It was there that the relations, friends, and priests celebrated the funerary sacrifices on the days prescribed by law; that is to say, "at the feasts of the commencement of the seasons; at the feast of Thoth on the first day of the year; at the feast of aga; at the great feast of Sothis; on the day of the procession of the G.o.d Min; at the feast of shew-bread; at the feasts of the months and the half months, and the days of the week." Offerings were placed in the princ.i.p.al room, at the foot of the west wall, at the exact spot leading to the entrance of the "eternal home" of the dead. Unlike the _Kiblah_ of the mosques, or Mussulman oratories, this point is not always oriented towards the same quarter of the compa.s.s, though often found to the west. In the earliest times it was indicated by a real door, low and narrow, framed and decorated like the door of an ordinary house, but not pierced through. An inscription graven upon the lintel in large readable characters, commemorated the name and rank of the owner. His portrait, either sitting or standing, was carved upon the jambs; and a scene, sculptured or painted on the s.p.a.ce above the door, represented him seated before a small round table, stretching out his hand towards the repast placed upon it. A flat slab, or offering table, built into the floor between the two uprights of the doorway, received the votive meats and drinks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 125.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of Ptahhotep, Fifth Dynasty, Sakkarah.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 126.--Stela in tomb of Merrka (Fifth Dynasty, Absir): a false doorway containing the statue of the deceased.]

The general appearance of the recess is that of a somewhat narrow doorway.

As a rule it was empty, but occasionally it contained a portrait statue of the dead standing with one foot forward as though about to cross the gloomy threshold of his tomb, descend the few steps before him, advance into his reception room or chapel, and pa.s.s out into the sunlight (fig. 126). As a matter of fact, the stela symbolised the door leading to the private apartments of the dead, a door closed and sealed to the living. It was inscribed on door-posts and lintels, and its inscription was no mere epitaph for the information of future generations; all the details which it gave as to the name, rank, functions, and family of the deceased were intended to secure the continuity of his individuality and civil status in the life beyond death. A further and essential object of its inscriptions was to provide him with food and drink by means of prayers or magic formulae constraining one of the G.o.ds of the dead--Osiris or Anubis--to act as intermediary between him and his survivors and to set apart for his use some portion of the provisions offered for his sake in sacrifice to one or other of these deities. By this agency the _Kas_ or Doubles of these provisions were supposed to be sent on into the next world to gladden and satisfy the human _Ka_ indicated to the divine intermediary. Offerings of real provisions were not indispensable to this end; any chance visitor in times to come who should simply repeat the formula of the stela aloud would thereby secure the immediate enjoyment of all the good things enumerated to the unknown dead whom he evoked.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 127.--Wall scene of funerary offerings, from mastaba of Ptahhotep, Fifth Dynasty.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 128.--Wall-painting, funeral voyage; mastaba of Urkhu, Gizeh, Fourth Dynasty.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 129.--Wall-scene from mastaba of Ptahhotep, Fifth Dynasty.]

The living having taken their departure, the Double was supposed to come out of his house and feed. In principle, this ceremony was bound to be renewed year by year, till the end of time; but the Egyptians ere long discovered that this could not be. After two or three generations, the dead of former days were neglected for the benefit of those more recently departed. Even when a pious foundation was established, with a revenue payable for the expenses of the funerary repasts and of the priests whose duty it was to prepare them, the evil hour of oblivion was put off for only a little longer. Sooner or later, there came a time when the Double was reduced to seek his food among the town refuse, and amid the ign.o.ble and corrupt filth which lay rejected on the ground. Then, in order that the offerings consecrated on the day of burial might for ever preserve their virtues, the survivors conceived the idea of drawing and describing them on the walls of the chapel (fig. 127). The painted or sculptured reproduction of persons and things ensured the reality of those persons and things for the benefit of the one on whose account they were executed. Thus the Double saw himself depicted upon the walls in the act of eating and drinking, and he ate and drank. This notion once accepted, the theologians and artists carried it out to the fullest extent. Not content with offering mere pictured provisions, they added thereto the semblance of the domains which produced them, together with the counterfeit presentment of the herds, workmen, and slaves belonging to the same. Was a supply of meat required to last for eternity? It was enough, no doubt, to represent the several parts of an ox or a gazelle--the shoulder, the leg, the ribs, the breast, the heart, the liver, the head, properly prepared for the spit; but it was equally easy to retrace the whole history of the animal--its birth, its life in the pasture-lands, its slaughter, the cutting up of the carca.s.s, and the presentation of the joints. So also as regarded the cakes and bread-offerings, there was no reason why the whole process of tillage, harvesting, corn-thres.h.i.+ng, storage, and dough-kneading should not be rehea.r.s.ed. Clothing, ornaments, and furniture served in like manner as a pretext for the introduction of spinners, weavers, goldsmiths, and cabinet- makers. The master is of superhuman proportions, and towers above his people and his cattle. Some prophetic tableaux show him in his funeral bark, speeding before the wind with all sail set, having started on his way to the next world the very day that he takes possession of his new abode (fig. 128). Elsewhere, we see him as actively superintending his imaginary va.s.sals as formerly he superintended his va.s.sals of flesh and blood (fig.

129). Varied and irregular as they may appear, these scenes are not placed at random upon the walls. They all converge towards that semblance of a door which was supposed to communicate with the interior of the tomb. Those nearest to the door represent the sacrifice and the offering; the earlier stages of preparation and preliminary work being depicted in retrograde order as that door is left farther and farther behind. At the door itself, the figure of the master seems to await his visitors and bid them welcome.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 130. Plan of serdab in mastaba at Gizeh, Fourth Dynasty.]

The details are of infinite variety. The inscriptions run to a less or greater length according to the caprice of the scribe; the false door loses its architectural character, and is frequently replaced by a mere stela engraved with the name and rank of the master; yet, whether large or small, whether richly decorated or not decorated at all, the chapel is always the dining-room--or, rather, the larder--to which the dead man has access when he feels hungry.