Manual of Egyptian Archaeology and Guide to the Study of Antiquities in Egypt Part 6

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 131.--Plan of serdab and chapel in mastaba of Rahotep at Sakkarah, Fourth Dynasty.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 132.--Plan of serdab and chapel in mastaba of Thenti I.

at Sakkarah, Fourth Dynasty.]

On the other side of the wall was constructed a hiding-place in the form of either a high and narrow cell, or a pa.s.sage without outlet. To this hiding- place archaeologists have given the Arab name of "_serdab_." Most mastabas contain but one; others contain three or four (fig. 130). These _serdabs_ communicated neither with each other nor with the chapel; and are, as it were, buried in the masonry (fig. 131). If connected at all with the outer world, it is by means of an aperture in the wall about as high up as a man's head (fig. 132), and so small that the hand can with difficulty pa.s.s through it. To this orifice came the priests, with murmured prayers and perfumes of incense. Within lurked the Double, ready to profit by these memorial rites, or to accept them through the medium of his statues. As when he lived upon earth, the man needed a body in which to exist. His corpse, disfigured by the process of embalmment, bore but a distant resemblance to its former self. The mummy, again, was destructible, and might easily be burned, dismembered, scattered to the winds. Once it had disappeared, what was to become of the Double? The portrait statues walled up inside the _serdab_ became, when consecrated, the stone, or wooden, bodies of the defunct. The pious care of his relatives multiplied these bodies, and consequently multiplied the supports of the Double. A single body represented a single chance of existence for the Double; twenty bodies represented twenty such chances. For the same reason, statues also of his wife, his children, and his servants were placed with the statues of the deceased, the servants being modelled in the act of performing their domestic duties, such as grinding corn, kneading dough, and applying a coat of pitch to the inside surfaces of wine-jars. As for the figures which were merely painted on the walls of the chapel, they detached themselves, and a.s.sumed material bodies inside the _serdab_. Notwithstanding these precautions, all possible means were taken to guard the remains of the fleshly body from natural decay and the depredations of the spoiler. In the tomb of Ti, an inclined pa.s.sage, starting from the middle of the first hall, leads from the upper world to the sepulchral vault; but this is almost a solitary exception. Generally, the vault is reached by way of a vertical shaft constructed in the centre of the platform (fig. 133), or, more rarely, in a corner of the chapel. The depth of this shaft varies from 10 to 100 feet. It is carried down through the masonry: it pierces the rock; and at the bottom, a low pa.s.sage, in which it is not possible to walk upright, leads in a southward direction to the vault. There sleeps the mummy in a ma.s.sive sarcophagus of limestone, red granite, or basalt.

Sometimes, though rarely, the sarcophagus bears the name and t.i.tles of the deceased. Still more rarely, it is decorated with ornamental sculpture.

Some examples are known which reproduce the architectural decoration of an Egyptian house, with its doors and windows.[28] The furniture of the vault is of the simplest character,--some alabaster perfume vases; a few cups into which the priest had poured drops of the various libation liquids offered to the dead; some large red pottery jars for water; a head-rest of wood or alabaster; a scribe's votive palette. Having laid the mummy in the sarcophagus and cemented the lid, the workmen strewed the floor of the vault with the quarters of oxen and gazelles which had just been sacrificed. They next carefully walled up the entrance into the pa.s.sage, and filled the shaft to the top with a mixture of sand, earth, and stone chips. Being profusely watered, this ma.s.s solidified, and became an almost impenetrable body of concrete. The corpse, left to itself, received no visits now, save from the Soul, which from time to time quitted the celestial regions wherein it voyaged with the G.o.ds, and came down to re- unite itself with the body. The sepulchral vault was the abode of the Soul, as the funerary chapel was the abode of the Double.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 133.--Section showing shaft and vault of mastaba at Gizeh, Fourth Dynasty.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 134.--Section of mastaba, Sakkarah, Sixth Dynasty.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 135.--Wall painting of funerary offerings, from mastaba of Nenka, Sakkarah, Sixth Dynasty.]

Up to the time of the Sixth Dynasty, the walls of the vault are left bare.

Once only did Mariette find a vault containing half-effaced inscriptions from _The Book of the Dead_. In 1881, I however discovered some tombs at Sakkarah, in which the vault is decorated in preference to the chapel.

These tombs are built with large bricks, a niche and a stela sufficing for the reception of sacrificial offerings. In place of the shaft, they contain a small rectangular court, in the western corner of which was placed the sarcophagus. Over the sarcophagus was erected a limestone chamber just as long and as wide as the sarcophagus itself, and about three and a half feet high. This was roofed in with flat slabs. At the end, or in the wall to the right, was a niche, which answered the purpose of a _serdab_; and above the flat roof was next constructed an arch of about one foot and a half radius, the s.p.a.ce above the arch being filled in with horizontal courses of brickwork up to the level of the platform. The chamber occupies about two- thirds of the cavity, and looks like an oven with the mouth open. Sometimes the stone walls rest on the lid of the sarcophagus, the chamber having evidently been built after the interment had taken place (fig. 134).

Generally speaking, however, these walls rest on brick supports, so that the sarcophagus may be opened or closed when required. The decoration, which is sometimes painted, sometimes sculptured, is always the same. Each wall was a house stocked with the objects depicted or catalogued upon its surface, and each was, therefore, carefully provided with a fict.i.tious door, through which the Double had access to his goods. On the left wall he found a pile of provisions (fig. 135)[29] and a table of offerings; on the end wall a store of household utensils, as well as a supply of linen and perfumes, the name and quant.i.ty of each being duly registered. These paintings more briefly sum up the scenes depicted in the chapels of ordinary mastabas. Transferred from their original position to the walls of an underground cellar, they were the more surely guaranteed against such possible destruction as might befall them in chambers open to all comers; while upon their preservation depended the length of time during which the dead man would retain possession of the property which they represented.

[27] For an account of the necropolis of Medm, see W.M.F. Petrie's _Medum_.

[28] The sarcophagus of Menkara, unfortunately lost at sea when on its way to England, was of this type. See ill.u.s.tration No. 19, Chapter III., in Sir E. Wilson's _Egypt of the Past_.--A.B.E.

[29] This wall scene is from the tomb of Nenka, near Sakkarah. For a coloured facsimile on a large scale, see Professor Maspero's article ent.i.tled "Trois Annees de Fouilles," in _Memoires de la Mission Archeologique Francaise du Caire_, Pl. 2. 1884.--A.B.E.

2.--THE PYRAMIDS.

[For the following translation of this section of Professor Maspero's book I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. W.M. Flinders Petrie, whose work on _The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_, published with the a.s.sistance of a grant from the Royal Society in 1883, const.i.tutes our standard authority on the construction of these Pyramids.--A.B.E.]

The royal tombs have the form of pyramids with a square base, and are the equivalent in stone or brick of the tumulus of heaped earth which was piled over the body of the warrior chief in prehistoric times (Note 14). The same ideas prevailed as to the souls of kings as about those of private men; the plan of the pyramid consists, therefore, of three parts, like the mastaba, --the chapel, the pa.s.sage, and the sepulchral vault.

The chapel is always separate. At Sakkarah no trace of it has been found; it was probably, as later on at Thebes, in a quarter nearer to the town. At Medm, Gizeh, Absir, and Dahshr, these temples stood at the east or north fronts of the pyramids. They were true temples, with chambers, courts, and pa.s.sages. The fragments of bas-reliefs. .h.i.therto found show scenes of sacrifice, and prove that the decoration was the same as in the public halls of the mastabas. The pyramid, properly speaking, contained only the pa.s.sages and sepulchral vault. The oldest of which the texts show the existence, north of Abydos, is that of Snefer; the latest belong to the princes of the Twelfth Dynasty. The construction of these monuments was, therefore, a continuous work, lasting for thirteen or fourteen centuries, under government direction. Granite, alabaster, and basalt for the sarcophagus and some details were the only materials of which the use and the quant.i.ty was not regulated in advance, and which had to be brought from a distance. To obtain them, each king sent one of the great men of his court on a mission to the quarries of Upper Egypt; and the quickness with which the blocks were brought back was a strong claim upon the sovereign's favour. The other material was not so costly. If mainly brick, the bricks were moulded on the spot with earth taken from the foot of the hill. If of stone, the nearest parts of the plateau provided the common marly limestone in abundance (Note 15). The fine limestone of Trah was usually reserved for the chambers and the casing, and this might be had without even sending specially for it to the opposite side of the Nile; for at Memphis there were stores always full, upon which they continually drew for public buildings, and, therefore, also for the royal tombs. The blocks being taken from these stores, and borne by boats to close below the hill, were raised to their required places along gently sloping causeways. The internal arrangement of the pyramids, the lengths of the pa.s.sages and their heights, were very variable; the pyramid of Khf (Cheops) rose to 475 feet above the ground, the smallest was not 30 feet high. The difficulty of imagining now what motives determined the Pharaohs to choose such different proportions has led some to think that the ma.s.s built was in direct proportion to the time occupied in building; that is to say, to the length of each reign. Thus it was supposed that the king would begin by hastily erecting a pyramid large enough to contain the essential parts of a tomb; and then, year by year, would add fresh layers around the first core, until the time when his death for ever arrested the growth of the monument. But the facts do not justify this hypothesis. The smallest of the pyramids of Sakkarah is that of nas, who reigned thirty years; while the two imposing pyramids of Gizeh were raised by Khf and Khafra (Chephren), who governed Egypt, the one for twenty-four, and the other for twenty-three years.

Merenra, who died very young, had a pyramid as large as that of Pepi II., whose reign lasted more than ninety years (Note 16). The plan of each pyramid was laid down, once for all, by the architect, according to the instructions which he had received, and the resources placed at his disposal. He then followed it out to the end of the work, without increasing or reducing the scale (Note 17).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 136.--Section of the Great Pyramid.[30]]

The pyramids were supposed to have their four faces to the four cardinal points, like the mastabas; but, either from bad management or neglect, the greater part are not oriented exactly, and many vary distinctly from the true north (Note 18). Without speaking of the ruins of Ab Roash or Zowyet el Aryan, which have not been studied closely enough, they naturally form six groups, distributed from north to south on the border of the Libyan plateau, from Gizeh to the Faym, by Absir, Sakkarah, Dahshr, and Lisht.

The Gizeh group contains nine, including those of Khf, Khafra, and Menkara, which were anciently reckoned among the wonders of the world. The ground on which the pyramid of Khf stands was very irregular at the time of construction. A small rocky height which rose above the surface was roughly cut (fig. 136) and enclosed in the masonry, the rest being smoothed and covered with large slabs, some of which still remain (Note 19). The pyramid itself was 481 feet high and 755 feet wide, dimensions which the injuries of time have reduced to 454 feet and 750 feet respectively. It preserved, until the Arab conquest, a casing of stones of different colours (Note 20), so skilfully joined as to appear like one block from base to summit. The casing work was begun from the top, and the cap placed on first, the steps being covered one after the other, until they reached the bottom (Note 21). In the inside all was arranged so as to hide the exact place of the sarcophagus, and to baffle any spoilers whom chance or perseverance had led aright. The first point was to discover the entrance under the casing, which masked it. It was nearly in the middle of the north face (fig. 136), but at the level of the eighteenth course, at about forty- five feet from the ground. When the block which closed it was displaced, an inclined pa.s.sage, 41.2 inches wide and 47.6 inches high, was revealed, the lower part of which was cut in the rock. This descended for 317 feet, pa.s.sed through an unfinished chamber, and ended sixty feet farther in a blind pa.s.sage. This would be a first disappointment to the spoilers. If, however, they were not discouraged, but examined the pa.s.sage with care, they would find in the roof, sixty-two feet distant from the door, a block of granite (Note 22) among the surrounding limestone. It was so hard that the seekers, after having vainly tried to break or remove it, took the course of forcing a way through the softer stone around (Note 23). This obstacle past, they came into an ascending pa.s.sage which joins the first at an angle of 120 (Note 24), and is divided into two branches. One branch runs horizontally into the centre of the pyramid, and ends in a limestone chamber with pointed roof, which is called, without any good reason, "The Queen's Chamber." The other, continuing upward, changes its form and appearance. It becomes a gallery 148 feet long and 28 feet high, built of Mokattam stone, so polished and finely wrought that it is difficult to put a "needle or even a hair" into the joints (Note 25). The lower courses are vertical; the seven others "corbel" forwards, until at the roof they are only twenty-one inches apart. A fresh obstacle arose at the end of this gallery. The pa.s.sage which led to the chamber of the sarcophagus was closed by a slab of granite (Note 26); farther on was a small vestibule divided in equal s.p.a.ces by four portcullises of granite (Note 27), which would need to be broken. The royal sepulchre is a granite chamber with a flat roof, nineteen feet high, thirty-four feet long, and seventeen feet wide. Here are neither figures nor inscriptions; nothing but a granite sarcophagus, lidless and mutilated. Such were the precautions taken against invaders; and the result showed that they were effectual, for the pyramid guarded its deposit during more than four thousand years (Note 28). But the very weight of the materials was a more serious danger. To prevent the sepulchral chamber from being crushed by the three hundred feet of stone which stood over it, five low hollow s.p.a.ces, one over the other, were left above it.

The last is sheltered by a pointed roof, formed of two enormous slabs (Note 29) leaning one against the other. Thanks to this device, the central pressure was thrown almost entirely on the side faces, and the chamber was preserved. None of the stones which cover it have been crushed; none have yielded a fraction since the day when the workmen cemented them into their places (Note 30).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 137.--The Step Pyramid of Sakkarah.]

The pyramids of Khafra and Menkara were built on a different plan inside to that of Khf. Khafra's had two entrances, both to the north, one from the platform before the pyramid, the other fifty feet above the ground.

Menkara's still preserves the remains of its casing of red granite (Note 31). The entrance pa.s.sage descends at an angle of twenty-six degrees, and soon runs into the rock. The first chamber is decorated with panels sculptured in the stone, and was closed at the further end by three portcullises of granite. The second chamber appears to be unfinished, but this was a trap to deceive the spoilers. A pa.s.sage cut in the floor, and carefully hidden, gave access to a lower chamber. There lay the mummy in a sarcophagus of sculptured basalt. The sarcophagus was still perfect at the beginning of this century. Removed thence by Colonel Howard Vyse, it foundered on the Spanish coast with the s.h.i.+p which was bearing it to England.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 138.--Plan and Section of the Pyramid of nas.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 139.--Portcullis and pa.s.sage, pyramid of nas.]

The same variety of arrangement prevails in the groups of Absir, and in one part of the Sakkarah group. The great pyramid of Sakkarah is not oriented with exactness. The north face is turned 4 21' E. of the true north. It is not a perfect square, but is elongated from east to west, the sides being 395 and 351 feet. It is 196 feet high, and is formed of six great steps with inclined faces, each retreating about seven feet; the step nearest the ground is thirty-seven and a half feet high, and the top one is twenty-nine feet high (fig. 137). It is built entirely of limestone, quarried from the neighbouring hills. The blocks are small and badly cut, and the courses are concave, according to a plan applied both to quays and to fortresses. On examining the breaches in the masonry, it is seen that the outer face of each step is coated with two layers, each of which has its regular casing (Note 32). The ma.s.s is solid, the chambers being cut in the rock below the pyramid. It has four entrances, the main one being in the north; and the pa.s.sages form a perfect labyrinth, which it is perilous to enter. Porticoes with columns, galleries, and chambers, all end in a kind of pit, in the bottom of which a hiding place was contrived, doubtless intended to contain the most precious objects of the funeral furniture.

The pyramids which surround this extraordinary monument have been nearly all built on one plan, and only differ in their proportions. The door (fig.

138, A) opens close below the first course, about the middle of the north face, and the pa.s.sage (B) descends by a gentle slope between two walls of limestone. It is plugged up all along by large blocks (Note 33), which needed to be broken up before the first chamber could be entered (C).

Beyond this chamber, it is carried for some way through the limestone rock; then it pa.s.ses between walls, ceiling and floor of polished syenite; after which the limestone re-appears, and the pa.s.sage opens into the vestibule (E). The part built of granite is interrupted thrice, at intervals of two to two and a half feet, by three enormous portcullises of granite (D).

Above each of these a hollow is left, in which the portcullis stone could be held up by props, and thus leave a free pa.s.sage (fig. 139). The mummy once placed inside, the workmen, as they left, removed the supports, and the portcullises fell into place, cutting off all communication with the outside. The vestibule was flanked on the east by a flat-roofed _serdab_ (F) divided into three niches, and enc.u.mbered with chips of stone swept hastily in by the workmen when they cleared the chambers to receive the mummy. The pyramid of nas has all three niches preserved; but in the pyramids of Teti and of Merenra, the separating walls have been neatly cut away in ancient times, without leaving any trace but a line of attachment, and a whiter colour in the stone where it had been originally covered. The sarcophagus chamber (G) extends west of the vestibule; the sarcophagus was placed there along the west wall, feet to the south, head to the north. The roof over the two main chambers was pointed (fig. 140). It was formed of large beams of limestone, joined at the upper ends, and supported below upon a low bench (1) which surrounded the chamber outside (Note 34). The first beams were covered by two others, and these by two more; and the six together (J) thoroughly protected the vestibule of the vault.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 140.--Section of the Pyramid of nas.]

The pyramids of Gizeh belonged to the Pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty, and those of Absir to the Pharaohs of the Fifth. The five pyramids of Sakkarah, of which the plan is uniform, belonged to nas and to the first four kings of the Sixth Dynasty, Teti, Pepi I., Merenra, and Pepi II., and are contemporary with the mastabas with painted vaults which I have mentioned above (p. 129). It is, therefore, no matter of surprise to find them inscribed and decorated. The ceilings are covered with stars, to represent the night-sky. The rest of the decoration is very simple. In the pyramid of nas, which is the most ornamented, the decoration occupies only the end wall of the sepulchral chamber; the part against the sarcophagus was lined with alabaster, and engraved to represent great monumental doors, through which the deceased was supposed to enter his storerooms of provisions. The figures of men and of animals, the scenes of daily life, the details of the sacrifice, are not here represented, and, moreover, would not be in keeping; they belong to those places where the Double lived his public life, and where visitors actually performed the rites of offering; the pa.s.sages and the vault in which the soul alone was free to wander needed no ornamentation except that which related to the life of the soul. The texts are of two kinds. One kind--of which there are the fewest-- refer to the nourishment of the Double, and are literal transcriptions of the formulae by which the priests ensured the transmission of each object to the other world; this was a last resource for him, in case the real sacrifices should be discontinued, or the magic scenes upon the chapel walls be destroyed. The greater part of the inscriptions were of a different kind. They referred to the soul, and were intended to preserve it from the dangers which awaited it, in heaven and on earth. They revealed to it the sovereign incantations which protected it against the bites of serpents and venomous animals, the pa.s.swords which enabled it to enter into the company of the good G.o.ds, and the exorcisms which counteracted the influence of the evil G.o.ds. The destiny of the Double was to continue to lead the shadow of its terrestrial life, and fulfil it in the chapel; the destiny of the Soul was to follow the sun across the sky, and it, therefore, needed the instructions which it read on the walls of the vault.

It was by their virtue that the absorption of the dead into Osiris became complete, and that they enjoyed hereafter all the immunity of the divine state. Above, in the chapel, they were men, and acted as men; here they were G.o.ds, and acted as G.o.ds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 141.--Mastabat el Faran.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 142.--Pyramid of Medm.]

The enormous rectangular ma.s.s which the Arabs call _Mastabat el Faran_, "the seat of Pharaoh" (fig. 141), stands beside the pyramid of Pepi II.

Some have thought it to be an unfinished pyramid, some a tomb surmounted by an obelisk; in reality it is a pyramid which was left unfinished by its builder, King Ati of the Sixth Dynasty. Recent excavations have, on the other hand, shown that the brick pyramids of Dahshr probably belonged to the Twelfth Dynasty. The stone pyramids of that group, which may be older, furnish a curious variation from the usual type. One of these stone pyramids has the lower half inclined at 54 41', while the upper part changes sharply to 42 59'; it might be called a mastaba (Note 35) crowned by a gigantic attic. At Lisht, where the two pyramids now standing are of the same period (one of them was erected by sertesen I.), the structure is again changed. The sloping pa.s.sage ends in a vertical shaft, at the bottom of which open chambers now filled by the infiltration of the Nile. The pyramids of Illahn and Hawara, which contained the remains of sertesen II. and Amenemhat III., are of the same type as those at Lisht. Their rooms are now filled with water. The pyramid of Medm is empty, having been violated before the Ramesside age. It consists of three square towers (Note 36) with sides slightly sloping, placed in retreating stages one over the other (fig. 142). The entrance is on the north, at about 53 feet above the sand. After 60 feet, the pa.s.sage goes into the rock; at 174 feet it runs level; at 40 feet farther it stops, and turns perpendicularly towards the surface, opening in the floor of a vault twenty-one feet higher (fig. 143).

A set of beams and ropes still in place above the opening show that the spoilers drew the sarcophagus out of the chamber in ancient times. Its small chapel, built against the eastern slope of the pyramid, with courtyard containing a low flat altar between two standing stelae nearly 14 feet high, was found intact. The walls of the chapel were uninscribed, and bare; but the _graffiti_ found there prove that the place was much visited during the times of the Eighteenth Dynasty by scribes, who recorded their admiration of the beauty of the monument, and believed that King Snefer had raised it for himself and for his queen Meresankh.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 143.--Section of pa.s.sage and vault in pyramid of Medm.]

The custom of building pyramids did not end with the Twelfth Dynasty; there are later pyramids at Manfalt, at Hekalli to the south of Abydos, and at Mohammeriyeh to the south of Esneh. Until the Roman period, the semi- barbarous sovereigns of Ethiopia held it as a point of honour to give the pyramidal form to their tombs. The oldest, those of Nrri, where the Pharaohs of Napata sleep, recall by their style the pyramids of Sakkarah; the latest, those of Meroe, present fresh characteristics. They are higher than they are wide, are built of small blocks, and are sometimes decorated at the angles with rounded borderings. The east face has a false window, surmounted by a cornice, and is flanked by a chapel, which is preceded by a pylon. These pyramids are not all dumb. As in ordinary tombs, the walls contain scenes borrowed from the "Ritual of Burial," or showing the vicissitudes of the life beyond the grave.

[30] This section is reproduced, by permission of Mr. W.M.F. Petrie, from Plate VII. of his "_Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_." The vertical shaft sunk by Perring is shown going down from the floor of the subterranean unfinished chamber. The lettering along the base of the pyramid, though not bearing upon the work of Professor Maspero, has been preserved for the convenience of readers who may wish to consult Mr. Petrie's work for more minute details and measurements. This lettering refers to that part of Mr. Petrie's argument which disproves the "accretion theory" of previous writers (see "_Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_" chap, xviii., p. 165).--A.B.E.

3.--THE TOMBS OF THE THEBAN EMPIRE.

_Excavated Tombs_.

Two subsequent systems replaced the mastaba throughout Egypt. The first preserved the chapel constructed above ground, and combined the pyramid with the mastaba; the second excavated the whole tomb in the rock, including the chapel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 144.--Section of "vaulted" brick pyramid, Abydos.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 145.--Section of "vaulted" tomb, Abydos.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 146.--Plan of tomb, at Abydos.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 147.--Theban tomb, with pyramidion, from scene in a tomb at Sheikh Abd el Grneh.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 148.--Theban tomb with pyramidion, from wall-painting.]