Comp. Maps, pp. 2, 8.
b. By the Nile.
252 M. Arrangements, see Introduction, p. xiii.
As soon as a favourable wind springs up (which, however, has
sometimes to be waited for for hours), the dhahabîyeh is cast off and
poled out into the middle of the channel. The sailors accompany
the hoisting of the lateen sail with a lusty chorus, and if one of the brisk
‘Etesia’ blows, which Herodotus mentions as driving boats up the Nile, the
long pointed craft flies quickly along, passing in rapid succession the
Khedive's palace and the barracks of Ḳaṣr en-Nîl, Ḳaṣr el-‘Ain, the island
of Rôḍah with its palaces (on the E. bank), and the châteaux of Gezîreh and
Gîzeh (W. bank).
Old Cairo lies on the E. bank, and beyond it
rise the Moḳaṭṭam Mts., with the citadel and Sṭabl ‘Antar, a ruined Arab
fort on the S. end of one of their spurs; on the W. is the group of pyramids
at Gîzeh. To the left (E. bank) farther on, are the quarries and hamlets of
Ṭurah and Ma‘ṣarah (see
Baedeker's Lower Egypt, p. 403).
Opposite, on the W. bank, rise the pyramids of Abuṣîr, Saḳḳârah, and
Dahshûr. Near the bank, to the left, amidst a fine grove of palms, is a
Coptic convent, and adjacent is a gun-factory, begun by Isma‘îl Pasha, but
never finished.
The steamer remains for some hours at
Bedrashên (rail. stat., p. 1), where asses are kept
ready for a visit to
Memphis,
Saḳḳârah, etc. (comp.
Baedeker's Lower Egypt, R. 4). Opposite,
on the right bank of the Nile, lies Ḥelwân (ibid, p. 404), frequented as a
watering-place. — On the bank at
Kafr
el-‘Ayât (W. bank; rail. stat.), where the steamer lays to for the
night, are some ancient constructions which may have belonged to the
Canal of Menes. The unimportant pyramids
of
Lisht lie to the right, while the
singularly shaped pyramid of
Mêdûm (the
so-called ‘
False Pyramid’) becomes
more and more prominent.
Riḳḳah, on the W. bank, is the
starting-point of the excursion to the Pyramid and Maṣṭabas of Mêdûm
(asses with poor saddles may be procured at the village; 2 fr. and
bakshîsh).
The PYRAMID AND MAṢṬABAS OF MEDÛM, the oldest monuments in the
world, deserve a visit, which may be accomplished from Riḳḳah in about 6
hrs. (railway travellers may perform it in about the same time from the
el-Wasṭah station; comp. p. 1). Crossing the railway, we proceed on
donkey-back in about 1¼ hr. to the pyramid, which rises close to the
cultivated country on the soil of the desert, 1½ M. to the N. of the village
of Mêdûm. This appears to be the oldest
of the local names handed down to us, as it is met with on the maṣṭabas of
the early period of Snefru.
The
Pyramid of
Mêdûm is so different from all the other structures of
the kind that it is called by the Arabs ‘
El-Haram el-Kaddâb’, or ‘
the false pyramid’. From a large
heap of rubbish which covers its base, the smooth and steep upper part of
the structure rises in three different stages at an angle of 74°10′, and is
still preserved to a height of 122 ft. The first section is 69 ft., and the
second 20½ ft., while the third, now almost entirely destroyed, was once 32
ft. in height. The outer walls consist of admirably jointed and polished
blocks of Moḳaṭṭam stone. The holes in one of the surfaces were made by
Ḷepsius and Erbkam when they examined the pyramid, the construction of which
afforded them an admirable clue to the principle upon which the others were
built (Vol. I., p. 350). The Pyramid of Mêdûm was never completed; the heap
of debris at its base consists of the material which once filled the angles
of the different sections, so as to give the pyramid a smooth surface. The
pyramid was pillaged as early as in the time of the 20th Dynasty. It was
opened in 1881 by Maspero, who found a long corridor and a chamber without
sarcophagus. Perhaps in this pyramid
Snefru, the first king of the
THE NILE from Cairo to Feshn, including the Fayûm and the Pyramids.
4th Dyn., was buried, as in the neighbouring tombs persons related
to him are interred.
The Maṣṭabas of Mêdûm, which were opened by Mariette, lie
to the N. of the pyramid. These were the tombs of the relations of Snefru
(4th Dyn.), and in many respects resemble the mausolea of Saḳḳârah which
bear the same name. The façades of the most important of them are partly
uncovered. The street of tombs, which is now accessible, presents the
appearance of a hill-side covered with masonry, incrusted with stucco, and
provided with ante-chambers. The mouth of each tomb is towards the E.; the
leaning external walls are generally of Nile bricks, richly embellished with
the linear patterns which afterwards formed the favourite decorations of the
sides of the sarcophagi (which were imitations of the tomb-façades). The
vestibule is in most cases comparatively large, but the inner corridors are
narrow, slope downwards, and are covered with representations in a
remarkably simple and antiquated style. The archaic character of the scenes
and of the hieroglyphics proves the great antiquity of these monuments. The
influence of the hieratic canon is already traceable here, but it does not
appear to have hampered the efforts of the artists as much as it did at a
later age. The admirably preserved colours are also less conventional than
those seen in later monuments.
The first open tomb which we reach from the S., was that of
Prince (Erpa Ha)
Nefermât, who lived in
the reign of King
Teta. (There were 3 kings of this name, in the 1st, 3rd, and 6th
Dynasty). On the left wall of the corridor leading to the tomb-chamber, we
see the deceased in a sitting posture, and on the right wall he is
represented standing, with his wife behind him. Adjacent are men and women
presenting offerings, as in the maṣṭabas of Ti and Ptahhotep. The flesh-tint
of the men is red, and that of the women pale yellow, and this circumstance,
especially in a monument of this early period, is important as tending to
prove the Asiatic origin of the Egyptian nobles. The features of the persons
represented are of the Caucasian, and not of the Ethiopian type. Among the
villages belonging to Nefermât, which offered gifts, there appears on the
left the name of the district of
i.e.
‘Metun of the cattle’. Metun is the
oldest form of the name Mêdûm. From the neck of the ox, which represents the
victim, flows a black stream of blood. On the right side we find among
others a district named that ‘of the white sow’, which proves that pigs were
reared in Egypt as early as the time of Snefru. The pig in this group is
very true to nature
. In the name of the district
Hat en
Sek, or ‘place of the ploughing’, the most ancient form of the
plough is used as a determinative symbol. The advanced condition of
industrial pursuits, showing that the Egyptians already practised the art in
which, according to Pliny, they afterwards excelled, is proved by the
character of the dress worn by the women represented on the right side of
the first passage, consisting of black and white cotton stuff, with pleasing
patterns on the borders. He tells us that they were not in the habit of
painting the materials for their dress, but of dipping them in certain
fluids. They were coloured with boiling dyes, and came out impressed with a
pattern. Although the boilers contained one colour only, it is said to have
imparted several different tints to the stuffs dyed in them. — In order to
impart a durable colour to the larger figures represented here, an entirely
unique process was employed. The outlines were engraved on the stone, while
the surfaces enclosed by them were divided into deeply incised squares,
which were filled with stucco of different colours, the flesh-tint of the
men being red, that of the women yellow, and the colour of the robes being
white, etc.
A little farther to the N. is the tomb of Atet, the wife of Nefermât. On the architrave over
the doorway we see the husband of the deceased engaged in snaring birds,
while a servant presents the spoil to the mistress of the house, whose
complexion is of a brilliant yellow. On the outside wall, to the left, we
observe the cattle of the deceased browsing on reeds. On the right stands
Nefermât, who, as the inscription informs us, ‘caused this monument to be
erected to his gods in indestructible characters’. Among the domestic
animals are several cattle of very bright colours. We also notice a gazelle
held by the horns by a butcher, who is cutting off its head. Offerings of
wine were also made at this early period. In the passage leading to the
Serdâb is a group of labourers busily at work. The hunting-scenes are
curious, and, notwithstanding their simplicity, remarkably true to nature.
Among them is a greyhound seizing a gazelle by the leg, and another carrying
a long-eared hare.
A few paces to the N. E. is another maṣṭaba built of well-hewn
blocks of limestone. The hieroglyphics and low reliefs, resembling those in
the tomb of Ti at Saḳḳârah, are admirably executed. The deceased interred
here was named Khent, and his wife Mara. Traversing the vestibule and a
narrow passage, we reach a tomb-chapel with a sacrificial table; in the
passage, on the right, is a handsome male figure with a lasso, and on the
left are stone-masons, engaged in making sarcophagi. On the left, in the
innermost niche of this tomb, we perceive the deceased, and on the right,
his wife. We next come to a ruined maṣṭaba, and to another tomb, half
excavated, which was constructed for Rahotep, a son of Snefru, one of the highest civil and military
dignitaries of the kingdom, and his wife Nefert, a relation of the royal family. The statues of this
married couple, who died young, or at least are so represented, which are
now among the principal treasures of the museum of Gîzeh, were found here.
Farther to the W. are several other tombs, now covered up.
On the right bank, opposite Riḳḳah and about 1½ M. from the
river, lies the hamlet of
Aṭfiḥ, with some
mounds of earth and debris representing the ancient
Aphroditopolis, the territory of which, according to Strabo,
adjoined that of Acanthus (Dahshûr), while its capital lay on the Arabian
bank of the Nile. A town of Aphrodite must also be one of Hathor, the
Egyptian goddess of love, to whom the white cow, which Strabo says was
worshipped here, was sacred; it was the capital of
Matennu, the 22nd nome of
Upper Egypt. Its hieroglyphic name was
Tep aḥe, head of the cow.
In the Christian period (ca. 310 A.D.)
Aphroditopolis gained some celebrity from
St. Anthony, who fixed his hermitage in
the mountains to the E. of the town, beside a well and a group of palms. So
many pilgrims of every class, age, and sex sought out the holy man, that a
regular posting route, with relays of camels, was laid out across the
desert. St. Anthony, however, fled from his admirers and buried himself
deeper in the mountains. But while he thus shook off his earthly visitants,
he could not so easily escape those extraordinary tempters from spirit-land,
at which Callot has taught us to smile, though to St. Anthony himself, as
well as to St. Hilarion and other similarly persecuted anchorites, the
contest was one of bitter earnest. The Coptic convent of Mâr Antonios (p.
5), a few leagues higher up, on the E. side of the Nile, still sends
supplies to the convent of St. Anthony, situated in the heart of the
Arabian Desert (p. 6).
After passing a few small islands, we now reach (W. bank) el-Wastah (pp. 1 and 36; post-office and
Arab telegraph at the rail. stat., ¼ M. from the Nile), where passengers
bound for the Fayûm leave the dhahabîyeh and betake themselves to the train (see R. 2). El-Wastah
is pleasantly situated in a grove of palms and is surrounded with fields of
clover.
Visitors to the Fayûm may regain el-Wastah on the following day
at 10.15 a.m. or at 4.16 p.m., by leaving Medînet el-Fayûm at 9 a.m. or 2.53
p.m. An extra day allows a visit to the
Labyrinth and the Pyramid of Hawârah (p. 39). In this case the
dhahabîyeh should not be sent on
in advance, but should be ordered to await the traveller's return. — The
pyramid and tombs of
Mêdûm may also be
visited from el-Wastah (see p. 2).
A small canal, beginning near the village of Zâwiyeh (W. bank), runs out of the Nile into the Baḥr Yûsuf (p. 28).
Farther up, in the latitude of Aḥnâs el-Medîneh and Beniṣuêf,
there seems to have been another deep channel connecting the river with the
Baḥr Yûsuf. These four channels enclosed an inland which has been identified
with the
Heracleopolitan Nome,
unanimously described by Greek authorities as an island. Strabo, who visited
it on his way to the Fayûm, after leaving the nome of
Aphroditopolis, calls it ‘a large island’, and
relates that in the city of
Heracleopolis
the ichneumon was worshipped, the deadliest foe of the crocodile, held
sacred in the neighbouring nome of Arsinoë; for, he tells us, it crawls down
the throat of the sleeping monster and devours its entrails. The large
mounds of debris at
Aḥnâs el-Medîneh,
the
Umm el-Kîmâm (‘mother of
rubbish-heaps’) of the Arabs, have been identified with Heracleopolis; they
lie 11 M. to the W. (inland) of Beniṣuêf. The old name of the town was
Khinensu, from which
Aḥnâs is derived through the Coptic
Hnes. The ram-horned god
Horshaf, the prince of terrors, was also worshipped
here. A few columns still stand, here, and other monuments may be buried
under the debris. Systematic excavations are to be undertaken. At present
Aḥnâs need scarcely be visited except by those who approach the Fayûm from
Beniṣuêf.
On the W. bank the mountains recede a little from the Nile, but
on the E. bank their steep and lofty spurs frequently extend down to the
bank in rising picturesque forms. None of the Nile-villages before Beniṣuêf
need be mentioned. On the E. bank stands the Coptic convent of Mâr Antonios (see p. 4). About 2 M.
inland (right) from Zêtûn (W. bank) lies
the hamlet of Bûsh (rail. stat., p. 1),
which is inhabited by Copts and thus has some interest for those who wish to
study these direct descendants of the ancient Egyptians in a community of
some size.
Beniṣuêf, on the W. bank, the first place
in
Upper Egypt (rail. stat., p. 1;
stat., ¾ M. from the Nile), is a town of 10,000 inhab., pleasantly situated
between the railway and the river. It contains a post and telegraph office
and is the capital of a province of the same name, which contains 169
villages and about 220,000 inhabitants. To the left of the rail. station is
the Mudîrîyeh, or residence of the mudîr or governor. The houses or rather
huts of this provincial capital are, however, constructed merely of Nile
mud. The linen-manufacture for which this place was celebrated in the middle
ages has greatly declined, but there are several sugar-plantations and a
small bazaar. To the left of the railway is a fine grove of palms.
A road which was much frequented before the completion of the
railway, leads from Beniṣuêf into the Fayûm (p. 34), and travellers with a tent and plenty of time might
still hire camels, asses, or horses here and proceed to Medînet el-Fayûm viâ el-Lahûn (‘gate of the Fayûm’), where the Baḥr Yûsuf enters the
Fayûm, and Hawârah. By using the railway
for the return-journey and giving up Birket el-Ḳurûn, this excursion can be
made in 3–4 days.
Another road, traversing the
Wâdi
Bayâd, which opens near the village of
Bayâd, on the E. bank of the Nile, opposite Beniṣuêf,
leads through
the desert to the
Convents of SS.
Anthony and Paul, a few leagues from the
Red Sea. The brotherhood of St. Anthony's Convent
occupies the highest rank among the religious societies of the Monophysite
Confession; and the Patriarch, or head of the Coptic community, must be
selected from their number. A visit to the convents, however, does not
compensate for the fatigue and trouble it involves.
As far as Minyeh the space between the E. bank and the hills
remains narrow, the limestone rocks frequently abutting on the river in
unbroken walls or rounded bluffs. Few villages are seen on this bank, but
the fertile alluvial tract on the W. side, 10–12 M. in width, is thickly
populated and carefully cultivated, exhibiting in profusion all the cereals
that grow on the Nile, date-palms, and sugar-cane. The huge sugar
plantations present a busy scene in November, when the sweet juice is
collected from the canes and conveyed to the factories, which are a monopoly
of the Khedive and follow each other in rapid succession. These factories
are connected by the railway, and short branch-lines, used in harvest-time
only, run from them to the plantations lying farther to the W. Their lofty
chimneys impart a very modern-industrial appearance to the ancient land of
the Pharaohs. Large barges full of sugar-canes and others with fellaḥîn
going to work in the factories are met on the river. Most of the higher
officials in the factories are Europeans. The juice is expressed from the
cane and then refined by being boiled twice in closed vessels. In an average
year about 25,000 tons of sugar are produced in Egypt; in 1889 the value of
the sugar exported amounted to 509,000l..
The boat passes two large islands. On the W. bank lie Balankah and Bîbeh (rail. stat., p. 1), with large
sugar-factories. The channel now contracts, and numerous islets are passed.
Feshn (rail. stat., p. 1), on the W.
bank, is 1½ M. from the river. Near the village of el-Hibeh, on the E. bank, about 4 M. farther up, are
the ruins of the town of Kheb or Khebi, which belonged to the nome of
Aphrodite (p. 5). These include well-preserved riparian structures of the
time of the Pharaohs and some massive walls made of bricks, bearing two
different stamps. One of these bears the name of the local goddess, ‘Isis of
Kheb’, and the prænomen of Tutmes III. (18th Dyn.); the other, discovered by
H. Brugsch in 1853, reads ‘The high-priest of Ammon, Pishem the just,
governor of the towns of Urkhenu and Isem-kheb’.
On the E. bank rises the Gebel
Shêkh Embârak. The steamer stops at Maghâghah, a pleasant place on the W. bank, with acacias, palms,
and large sugar-works (post and telegraph office at the rail. stat., p. 1).
The Nile-channel is very wide here (several islands); farther on both banks
are flat. At Abu Girgeh (rail. stat., p.
1), with sugar-factories, the railway runs close to the river.
About 12 M. to the E. of Abu Girgeh, on the
Baḥr Yûsuf, in the nome of
Sep, lies the town of
Behnesah, on the site of the ancient
Oxyrrhynchus (Demotic; profane name
Pe-mzat, Coptic
Greek
, now represented only by a few
desolate heaps of debris. The fish
Oxyrrhynchus,
a species of Mormyrus (Arab. Mizdeh), was held in such high honour
here, that the inhabitants refused to eat any fish caught by a hook, lest
the hook might previously have injured an Oxyrrhynchus. In the neighbouring
town of
Cynopolis (see below) the dog
was held in equal honour, and Plutarch relates how a ‘very pretty quarrel’,
the settlement of which required the intervention of the Romans, arose
between the two towns, owing to the facts that the citizens of each had
killed and dined on the sacred animals of the other. Juvenal gives an
account of a similar strife between
Ombos and
Tentyra (p. 207).
On the introduction of Christianity Oxyrrhynchus became so “full of convents
that monkish songs were heard in every quarter”. Convent jostles convent all
round, forming as it were a second town of monks. In the 5th cent. the
diocese of Oxyrrhynchus is said to have contained 10,000 monks and 12,000
nuns. In the town itself were 12 churches. Under the Arabs it is known only
as Behnesah. In the Mameluke period it was still of some importance, but it
has since steadily declined. From Behnesah the desert-route leads to the
‘small oasis’ of
Baḥrîyeh, also known as
the
Oasis of Behnesah (comp. p. 343).
About 4 M. above Abu Girgeh, close to the E. bank of the Nile,
are the insignificant remains of
Shêkh
el-Fadhl, near which is
Hamathah. Father Sicard's discovery of a large number of dog-mummies
here proves that we are standing on the site of the necropolis of
Cynopolis
(
), the
‘city of the dogs’, which, as the above story indicates, must have adjoined
Oxyrrhynchus. Strabo's words are: ‘Next come the Cynopolitan nome and
Cynopolis, where Anubis is worshipped
and dogs are held sacred and fed with consecrated meat’. Several trough-like
hollows and clefts have been found here, some of which, in the rocks, are of
considerable size; but no inscriptions have been discovered.
Cynopolis itself, according to Ptolemy,
lay on an island in the Nile, but no traces of it are now visible. Opposite,
1¼ M. from the W. bank, lies the village of
el-Ḳês.
Ḳolosaneh (rail. stat., p. 1), on the W.
bank, has a large palm-grove. Opposite (E. bank) lies Surarîyeh. To the N. and S. quarries are worked in
the limestone rock. — Among the rocks here is a small temple (not very
easily found), bearing the names of Seti II. and of Merenptah Hotepher-ma,
supposed to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus (19th Dyn.). The kings are offering
sacrifices to the triad of Sebek, Hathor, and Horus, and representations of
Sebek (with the head of a crocodile), Hathor, and Ramses III. may be made
out on the external wall of the grotto, facing the spectator. The
inscriptions are very indistinct but are couched in the usual form of
thanksgiving to the gods for the blessing of a long reign.
On the W. bank lies
Samallût,
with a handsome railway-station (p. 1), sugar-factories, palms, and fields
of clover. A little farther to the S., on the E. bank, rise the steep rocky
sides of the
Gebel eṭ-ṭêr
(‘bird-mountain’), with an extensive flat top bearing the Coptic convent of
el-Buḳêr.
† Those who wish to visit the mountain should
disembark just before reaching it and ascend on the N.
† Now generally called Dêr el-Bukrah, from a windlass
(bukrah) used in drawing water. But the name is probably derived from
the old legend of the Bukîr bird.
side. The excursion, which has no great interest except for the
fine view of the Nile valley, takes 1½-2 hrs. Other convents of a similar
kind (see,
e.g., p. 51) can be reached
more easily. The convent, also named
Dêr
Sitteh Maryam el-‘Adhrah or convent of Lady Mary the Virgin,
consists of a group of miserable huts, occupied not only by the monks but by
laymen with their wives and children, and looks like a fortified village.
Most of the monks employ themselves in making shoes. The underground chapel
in which service is held is uninteresting. The institution is very old, and
curious tales are told of it by Makrizi, Kazwini, Suyuti, and other Arabic
writers.
‘This convent’, says Makrizi, ‘is ancient, overlooks the Nile,
and is reached by a staircase hewn in the hill; it lies opposite Samlut’.
Then, following el-Shâboshti, he narrates how it is visited by pilgrims from
all quarters and lies on the ‘hill of the caverns’. ‘At one point of the
hill’, he continues, ‘is a narrow fissure, and on the saint's day of the
convent all the bukîr-birds
† in the
neighbourhood come flying to this fissure, flocking together in a huge crowd
and making a tremendous din. One after the other in constant succession
thrusts its head into the cleft, and utters a scream, until one comes whose
head sticks fast and cannot be withdrawn. The victim then beats its wings
against the rocks until it dies, after which all the other birds depart and
leave the rock in solitude and silence. ‘This’, adds the writer, ‘is now a
thing of the past’. Similar legends are found in antiquity. The Pharaohs, on
ascending the throne, let birds loose to bear the tidings to the four
quarters of the globe. Herodotus and Ælian tell of feathered ambassadors
dispatched in this way from Egypt, and to this category apparently belongs
the myth of the birds of Memnon, which on certain days visited the grave of
the Son of the Dawn, who fell before Troy, cleansed it with their beaks, and
besprinkled it with water by dipping their feathers in the stream. Though
this legend may have originated in Asia, it was afterwards, like Memnon
himself (p. 154), transplanted to the Nile.
† This bird is
described by Suyuti as black and white, with a black neck, ringed near
the head, black wing-feathers, and the ability to swim.
The
Wâdi eṭ-Ṭêr (E. bank) leads
from the Gebel eṭ-Ṭêr to the S. E. About 1½ M. to the S. of its mouth is the
village of
Ṭehneh eṭ-Ṭahûnah (‘Ṭehneh of
the mill’). Before reaching it we pass the ancient
Hîtân el-‘agûs, or ‘walls of the old woman’, probably
erected as a barrier to the desert-hurricanes. At Ṭehneh, which is about ¾
M. from the Nile, are two groups of tombs, that to the N. belonging to the
latest period at which rock-tombs were constructed on the Nile, while that
to the S. belongs to the early epoch of the ancient kingdom. The necropolis
to which these tombs belonged is supposed to be that of the town of
Akoris, mentioned by Ptolemy alone and belonging to the
nome of
Cynopolis. Mounds mark the
site of the ancient town. Beyond rise the rocks, containing tombs of the
time of the Ptolemies and several short Greek inscriptions. One sepulchral
chapel, containing some singular representations of a late date, is
interesting. The colours on the ceiling have faded, but the paintings on the
walls are still distinguishable. In front, on the left wall, stands the
deceased, in Roman costume; opposite, on the right wall, he appears again,
offering a sacrifice, as a sign that though in the Roman service or at least
of Roman tastes he yet reveres the gods of his ancestors. The
representations of these deities occur on all four walls of the chamber and
are so numerous that they must include the local divinities, not only of
Akoris, but also of all the other
places in the nome, of which the deceased, whose name is not decipherable,
may have been nomarch. The only inscriptions extant are on the inner side of
the door. Higher up on the rock-walls are two horses in the Roman style,
held by men. Between the two were other sculptures, the subjects of which
are no longer recognisable. The first-mentioned
THE NILE from Feshn to Luxor
figures have been supposed to be Castor and Pollux, or two Roman
emperors, but they rather resemble horses brought as tribute, like the
groups in the pediment of the Stele of Piankhi. Farther to the S. is a
colossal image, carved out of the rock, of Ramses III. sacrificing to the
god Sebek. The inscriptions in the very ancient group of tombs to the S. are
in such bad preservation that their date can only be guessed at from their
general style.
Minyeh (Minyet-ibn-Khasîb; rail. stat., p. 1), on the W. bank, a
well-built and handsome town with 15,900 inhab., is the seat of the mudîr of
a district containing 281 villages and 315,000 inhabitants. There is a
telegraph-office at the railway-station, and adjacent is the post-office,
the director of which speaks Italian. At the hospital is a physician who has
studied in Europe. The town possesses two hotels and a large and curiously
painted Arab café, in which ghawâzi sing in the evening. Parts of the street
running along the river are planted with trees, and in the stream many
steamers and dhahabîyehs lie at
anchor. The bazaars and the Greek bakkals’ (small dealers) possess large
stocks of goods. In the Bazaar street is an Austrian watchmaker and
clothier, and among the houses on the river is an Italian tailor. The palace
of the mudîr is a plain and lightly-built structure. The large sugar-factory
is the oldest in Egypt, and a visit to it during the sugar-harvest is of
great interest; most of the officials are French and very obliging.
Market-day in Minyeh presents a very gay and characteristic picture of
Oriental life. There are no public buildings or monuments of any interest,
but the houses of the richer merchant, in spite of their plain exterior, are
often fitted up with great comfort. A glance into one of their courts will
show what a rich and varied life exists in the interior of houses which from
the outside look like miserable huts.
It is uncertain what place of the Pharaohs’ time Minyeh
represents; but the assertion of Leo Africanus that it was founded by the
Arabs may well be doubted. Among the facts which render it improbable are
the old masonry on the river (towards the S.), the ancient architectural
fragments immured in one of the mosques, a Coptic inscription, and the very
name of the town, which is derived, not from the Arabic, but from the
old-Egyptian dialect. Its Coptic name is
(
Moone) and this, as Brugsch has demonstrated, is derived from the
old-Egyptian
Mena-t. This name, however
(in full
Mena-t Khufu, ‘nurse of
Cheops’), belonged to a place which lay
nearly opposite to the present Minyeh, on a site still marked by a few
remains. At a later date Mena-t was probably transferred, under the name of
Minyeh, from the right bank of the Nile to the left, where, presumably, some
of the inhabitants had previously settled. To this day the inhabitants of
Minyeh maintain a close connection with the E. bank of the Nile, conveying
their dead for burial to
Zâwiyeh,
surnamed
el-Mêtin (
i.e. ‘of the dead’), 5 M. to the S.
EXCURSION TO BENIḤASAN, 15 M. (see p. 12). After making enquiries
as to the security of the route, the traveller hires an ass, ferries to the
right bank of the Nile, and ascends the river viâ Zâwiyet el-Métîn (p. 10) and Kôm el-Ahmar (p. 10). Instead of returning to Minyeh,
he should continue to follow the right bank of the Nile to the (10½ M.) Ruins of Antinoë, now Shékh ‘Abâdeh (p. 19) and cross the river thence to
Rôḍah (p. 18). This is a long but
interesting day's journey. Accommodation at Rôḍah may be obtained on
application at the railway-station (p. 1).
Opposite Minyeh, on the E. bank, lies Kôm el-Kafarah, where some ancient tombs, perhaps
belonging to the 12th or 13th Dynasty, have lately been discovered.
Zâwiyet el-Mêtîn and
Kôm el-Aḥmar (‘the red rubbish-mound’), situated on the
E. bank, 5–6 M. above Minyeh, may be visited together. We first reach the
village of
Zâwiyeh, near which are the
estate and beautiful garden of the venerable
Abu Sultan Pasha. Between the village and Kôm el-Aḥmar, about ½
M. from the latter, lies the fine cemetery of the citizens of Minyeh (p. 9),
with its numerous domed tombs and chapels. Thrice yearly, in the months of
Regeb, Shawwâl, and Dhilḥiggeh
†, at the time of
full moon, funereal festivals, lasting several days, are celebrated here.
Among the ceremonies observed are the offering of dates to the dead, which
recalls the funereal offerings of the ancient Egyptians, and the
presentation of palm-branches, recalling the Oriental symbolism of early
Christianity, still familiar in our churches. A few minutes’ walk towards
the S. brings us to the red mound of pottery and rubbish known as
Kôm el-Aḥmar, which runs parallel with
the Nile. Climbing over this we reach the burial-vaults of the primæval
monarchy, which are situated among the Arabian hills, with their gates
towards the river.
† These months cannot be reproduced by the names of our months, as
they pass through all the seasons of the solar year. Thus a festival
which is celebrated this year in summer will take place 15 years hence
in winter.
The tombs are unfortunately in bad preservation, and some of them
have been destroyed by violence, the stones being removed for use in
building. It is uncertain of what town this was the necropolis, but it
undoubtedly belonged to the 16th nome of
Upper Egypt, named
Maḥ or
Maḥet (gazelle), in which the
gazelle was held sacred. In this nome also lay the towns of Heben and
Nefrus, the chief deity of which was represented as a sparrow-hawk standing
on a gazelle, accompanied by Hathor, Horus, and Khnum. Some of the tombs are
still open to visitors. The lower ones are small and dilapidated, including
one that was richly adorned with statues. Similar figures, hewn in the
living rock, are still distinguishable on the façade and in the rear of the
chapel. Farther up is the tomb of
Nefersekhru, royal secretary and superintendent of the storehouses
of Upper and
Lower Egypt, which still
contains some good sculptures. This tomb, in the rear of which are three
niches, appears to have been constructed under the 18th Dynasty. Among its
contents are sacrificial lists and scenes like those in the vaults of ‘Abd
el-Ḳurnah: Osiris under a canopy; corpse crossing the Nile, accompanied by
female mourners; the deceased in the midst of his family. The tomb of
Khunes, a relative of the Pharaohs,
situated farther to the S. and lower down, is of earlier origin and in all
probability belongs to the ancient kingdom. The scenes of agriculture and
navigation in this tomb, reproduced by Lepsius, are now scarcely visible.
From the upper tombs we obtain a splendidly varied view of the Nile, its
fertile valley and the town of Minyeh, with the red mounds of debris in the
foreground, while to the N. stretches the sandy desert, from which the domed
tombs of Zâwiyet el-Mêtîn rise like a group of tents. On the mound of Kôm
el-Aḥmar lies a colossal figure, 70 ft. long, without an inscription.
Beniḥasan and
Speos Artemidos, 15 M.
from Minyeh and 162 M. from
Cairo, an
important steamboat-station.
The ‘three weeks’ steamer halts here 3–4 hrs., while the ‘four
weeks’ steamer remains overnight and leaves the entire forenoon for a visit
to
Speos Artemidos and Beniḥasan. The
excursion begins at
Speos Artemidos,
which lies to the S. (½ hr. on donkey-back), whence we proceed towards the
N. to (½ hr.) the foot of the tombs of Beniḥasan. We then walk to (10 min.)
the S. graves and descend to Nos. 2 (Khnum-hotep) and 1 (Ameni-Amenemha) of
the N. tombs, where the asses are in waiting to take us back to the steamer
(¾ hr.). Travellers ascending the river in a dhahab>îyeh should land at Beniḥasan, ride to
Speos Artemidos, and send the dhahabîyeh on to meet them near the village of
Beniḥasan el-Aḥmar. Those descending the
stream save a little time by landing at a point somewhat nearer the tombs of
Beniḥasan, almost opposite Beniḥasan el-Kadîm (p. 12).
Speos Artemidos
(‘grotto of Artemis’), known to the Arabs as
Sṭabl ‘Antar (‘stable of Antar’; comp. p. 33), is
reached from the steamboat-landing, where asses are in waiting, in ½ hr. The
route crosses fields and sand, finally ascending considerably. On the way
carefully rolled cat-mummies are offered for sale, which have retained the
unmistakeable odour of cats for thousands of years. The cat was sacred to
the goddess Pasht
, whom the Greeks identified with Artemis. The
Temple of this goddess, hewn in the rock, consists of
a vestibule and of an inner chamber connected with the vestibule by a
corridor. Above the door of the vestibule is a long inscription of the time
of the 18th Dynasty, which celebrates the goddess Pasht and also speaks,
under the name of Amu, of the Hyksos in Avaris who from ignorance of the god
Ra destroyed the ancient temples.
The temple itself was founded by Tutmes III. and renewed by Seti
I. Of the 8 pillars which supported the vestibule all have been destroyed
except two in the front row, which bear inscriptions and royal cartouches on
their W. and E. sides only. On the W. side of the recumbent pillar to the
right Champollion saw the name of
Tutmes III.
. All the other cartouches are those of Seti I., who is described
as the favourite of the goddess
Pasht,
the mistress of
Matennu or the dweller in the mountain
Ånt. On the rear-wall of the vestibule
are some interesting representations. To the left is Pasht in the guise of a
mighty sorceress, stretching out her left hand to king Seti I., behind whom,
sitting in an attitude of benediction, is the god Ammon-Ra. To the extreme
left is the small figure of the god Thoth, lord of
Hermopolis. Appropriate inscriptions are also
furnished. To the right, in three rows, are the deities of
Speos Artemidos (12 figures), beginning
with
Mentu and
Tum, in front of whom is
Thoth, who conveys to the local gods the command of
Ammon-Ra that Seti I. shall be raised to the throne of Horus. In
the doorway to the next chamber are a long inscription and a
representation of the king offering a cynocephalus. In the rear-wall is a
niche (naos) with the cartouche of Seti I.
To the W. of the
Speos
Artemidos is a
second grotto (perhaps merely a cat's tomb), on the outside of
which are the interesting cartouches of
Alexander II., son of Roxana, and six scenes representing the king
in the company of the gods.
The dragomans now hurry on to (½ hr.) Beniḥasan, where we ascend
to the S. tombs. These, however, have been almost entirely destroyed, and
the only one of any interest is No. 7, the tomb of Kheti, which contains hunting-scenes and fine
clustered columns. Passing on we soon reach (8 min.) the highly interesting
N. tombs of Ameni (No. 1) and Khnum-hotep (No. 2); comp. pp. 14–18.
The necropolis of Beniḥasan is
one of the most interesting in all Egypt, not only on account of the
remarkable architectural features of the 12th Dyn. seen here, but also for
the manifold representations of scenes from the domestic life of the
Egyptians at that early era.
The journey from the Nile to the tombs takes from ¾ hr. to 1¼ hr.
according to the height of the water and the landing-place selected. Asses,
with good saddles, 1–1½ fr. Candles, and if possible magnesium wire, should
be taken to light the tombs. The route leads towards the bare limestone
hills, at first through groves of palms and then across sand. The ancient
Beniḥasan
†,
Beniḥasan
el-Kadîm (‘the old’), now deserted, lies to the right; the modern
village is to the S. of the usual landing-place. On reaching the limestone
hills we see the remains of a dilapidated path, supported by masonry, and
ascend over debris to the horizontal hill-path, to the W. of which stretch
the tombs.
† The place
was deserted 30 or 40 years before the visit of the French Expedition,
because the inhabitants wished a wider space for cultivation near their
village, which they accordingly rebuilt farther to the S. The story that
the villagers were expelled by Ibrahim Pasha and exterminated for
robbery is a fabrication, although it is true that many of them were
executed for this crime.
Before the traveller enters the tombs to inspect the
representations within, he should examine the columns at the entrance. At
first sight everyone will set these columns down as unmistakeable examples
of the Doric order; but the indisputable testimony of the inscriptions
informs us that they date, not from the Ptolemaic period, but from the
invasion of the Hyksos, in the 12th Dyn., between B.C. 2000 and B.C. 3000.
Champollion named them
Proto-Doric or
Pre-Doric Columns.
Since him many authorities, with these columns as their starting-point, have
tried to establish the kinship of the early Greek order with the
architecture of Egypt and to prove that the former was derived from the
latter. These views, however, aroused keen opposition,
partly because they overshot the mark, and partly because they
ignorantly confounded forms peculiar to these rock-tombs with those
represented in the entirely independent field of architecture above ground.
The connoisseurs and students of Greek art, blinded by their love for the
object of their study, refused to allow that a single feature of Hellenic
architecture had arisen anywhere but on
Grecian soil, and stigmatised Egyptian architecture as ‘barbaric’
without taking the trouble to investigate its claims. Finally, however,
Lepsius, equally at home in both fields, stepped into the fray and his
second masterly essay may be taken as the last word on the subject. He shows
that the development culminating in the polygonal fluted columns of
Beniḥasan can be traced step by step in the cavern-structures of the
Egyptians of the ancient kingdom, and he also shows that, though the Doric
Column of the Greeks is known to us only in its fully developed form, some
inexplicable features in the Doric order are not only justified, but even
necessary
in its Egyptian counterpart
†. The columns of
Beniḥasan consist, like the Doric column, of a basis, an octagonal or
sixteen-sided shaft with 16 or 20 flutes, a capital, and an abacus. The
echinus or chymatium is, however, wanting. While the swelling or entasis on
some Doric columns, and also the annuli or rings at the top of the shaft,
have hitherto met with no sufficient explanation, the same features appear
as natural and necessary parts of the so-called ‘plant column’ of Egypt. The
architects of the Nile aimed consciously at a reproduction of the stem of a
plant, and as the capitals represented a bunch of buds it was natural that
the cords which fastened them should not be absent. Their number is five;
and the 3 or 5 annuli at the top of a Doric column, erroneously explained as
incisions made for the ropes used in hoisting it to its place, are simply an
inheritance from the Egyptian column. The idea of the annuli, as of the
entire Doric column, is of Egyptian origin, though the perfect Greek column,
with the beautiful transition-member formed by the echinus, is far from a
mere imitation. ‘The Greek column has become an entirely new form, animated
by a new principle proper to itself, which has thoroughly mastered the
heterogeneous elements from without and blended them in a new unity.’ In
farther emphasis of the importance of these columns in the history of art,
we may remind the reader that the earliest Doric columns known to us date
from about the time that the
Psamtikidae
(p. xxix) were not only allowing the Greeks to enter the valley of the Nile
but were inviting them to settle there, and that the columns of Beniḥasan
are 1500 years older than this. The columns of Beniḥasan are indeed nothing
more than the pillars in the Temple of the
Sphinx and the Maṣṭaba (
Baedeker's Lower Egypt, pp.
365, 379) provided with flutes and chamfered edges.
The two tombs of chief interest, the farthest to the N., are
easily recognised by the beautiful polygonal columns at their entrances. The
donkey-drivers make directly for them, paying no attention to the others.
The numbering begins at the N. end.
†
Some details on this matter will be found in the section devoted to Egyptian
art in the first volume of this Handbook (p. 160).
Tomb 1. The exterior of the pronaos or
vestibule is distinguished by two fine octagonal columns, bearing a flat
vault hewn out of the rock. Four sixteen-edged columns, with narrow fluting,
stand in the interior of the tomb-chamber and appear to bear the three
beautifully painted arches of the ceiling, which are hewn in the form of
shallow barrel vaulting. The side-columns touch the right and left walls of
the nearly square chamber, in the rear of which opens a recess containing
the statues (much dilapidated) of the deceased and his two wives. The usual
long shaft leading to the bottom of the tomb and the chamber for the corpse
at the end of it are also present. This is the tomb of
Amenemha or
Ameni,
the son of the Lady Hannu, who was one of the chief dignitaries of
the kingdom, bore the title of an
erpa
ha or prince, governed the nome of Maḥ in time of peace, and commanded
a division of the army in war. To the left and right of the entrance he is
depicted on a throne with lions’ feet, holding his commander's baton in his
hand. Inside the door are two well-preserved inscriptions, cut in the stone.
That to the right (S.) informs us that Amenemha departed this life in the
43rd year of Usertesen I., corresponding to the 25th year of the
governorship of Ameni. He undertook all his wars ‘sailing up-stream’: —
i.e. he campaigned only against the
dwellers of the S., the ‘miserable Kushites’, as they are called in the
inscription. In those days the arms of the Pharaohs had not yet been carried
towards the E. The
Sinai peninsula,
with its mines, is the only district in this direction which excited the
Egyptian lust of conquest. From his southern campaigns Amenemha brought home
much gold and other booty. The inscription to the left (N.) also mentions a
victorious campaign towards the S., but is of special interest for the light
it throws on the truly human feelings of this bye-gone time. Amenemha
describes his occupations in time of peace as follows (beginning at the
fourth line from below): ‘I cultivated the entire nome of Maḥ with many
work-people. I troubled no child and oppressed no widow, neither did I keep
a fisherman from his fishing or a herdsman from his herd. There was no head
of a village whose people I had taken away for compulsory labour, and there
was no one unhappy in my days or hungry in my times. When, however, a famine
arose, I tilled all the fields in the nome of Maḥ, from its S. to its N.
boundary, and gave nourishment and life to its inhabitants. So there was no
one in the nome who died of hunger. To the widow I allowed as much as to the
wife of a man, and in all that I did I never preferred the great man to the
small one. When the Nile rose again and everything flourished — fields,
trees, and all else — I cut off nothing from the fields’.
The paintings in the interior of the tomb-chamber proper are
unfortunately very much faded, and they have also been considerably injured,
especially in recent years. Some figures of warriors which still remain,
armed with club and axe or club and lance, have a foreign appearance, as
their skin is of a lighter colour than that of the Egyptians, and their hair
and beards are red.
Tomb No. 2 is that of
Khnumhotep, the son of Nehera. It owes its origin to
a member of a family of high rank, in which the office of governor of Maḥ
seems to have been hereditary for several generations. Amenemha I.,
Usertesen I., and Amenemha II., the first kings of the 12th Dyn., showered
titles and dignities with a free hand on this family, which in return clung
to the royal line with peculiar loyalty and affection. By a wonderful piece
of good fortune we are able to reproduce the entire family-tree of this
family, in
which the names of women fill a very important rôle. Amenemha II.
Ra-nub-kau
created Khnumhotep governor of the E. nomes, and as the heir of
his maternal grandfather made him priest of Horus and Pasht in the town of
Menât Khufu (Minyeh).
The portico or vestibule of this tomb deserves particular
attention, as it not only possesses proto-Doric columns resembling those of
Tomb 1, but also shows some architectural forms, which seem intended to
reproduce the beams and rafters of buildings above ground. The cornice
projects strongly above the architrave and is supported by fine laths hewn,
like all the rest of the structure, out of the living rock. The resemblance
of these laths to the mutules of the Doric order is not especially striking
in itself, but taken in conjunction with other points of similarity is,
perhaps, worthy of mention. — The interior of Khnumhotep's tomb is richly
adorned with paintings. Most of the representations were painted on a thin
layer of stucco, with which the limestone walls were coated. At the foot,
however, is a long inscription cut in the rock, in lines of a greenish
colour, 2½ ft. high. [In 1890 the royal names were cut out of the rock by
some vandal hand and offered for sale.] From this inscription we receive
information about the family of Khnumhotep, who owed the greater part of his
dignities to his maternal grandfather, about his relations with Amenemha
II., who, at the intercession of his mother, made him a royal governor, and
about the benefits he had conferred on his government and its people and the
honour he had done to the gods of his nome and the manes of his forefathers.
The paintings have unfortunately suffered so much in the last 30
or 40 years, that the subjects of some of them are now almost
indistinguishable. Most of them, however, were copied by Lepsius, Rosellini,
Wilkinson, and others, while they were still in fair preservation; and they
have furnished most important contributions to our knowledge of the private
life of the ancient Egyptians. In the uppermost row of paintings, above the
door, was represented the festival of the opening of the tomb of Khnumhotep.
‘The heaven opens’, says the inscription, ‘as the god (
i.e. the deceased transformed into Osiris) steps
forth’. To the right, lower down, we see the colonnades of Khnumhotep's
dwelling, with servants measuring and registering his treasures and (farther
on) bringing his corn into the barns. Two of the lower rows show the
operations of ploughing, harvesting, and threshing. Still lower down is a
Nile-boat, bearing the mummy of the deceased, as the inscription informs us,
to
Abydos (the grave of Osiris),
while the high-priest imparts his blessing. Below is a representation of the
vintage and of the gathering of fruit and vegetables. The cattle in the
water and the fishing scene (at the foot) vividly recall the similar scenes
in the Maṣṭaba of Ti. To the left of the door, high up, are seen the
processes of preparing clay for pottery and sawing wood; in the second
row
Khnumhotep appears in a litter, inspecting his potters and
carpenters. Some of the latter are felling palm-trees and others are
building a boat for the journey to
Abydos (see below). The most interesting of the scenes of artizan
life in the lower rows are the representations of women baking and weaving,
under the supervision of eunuchs. — The entire
Rear Wall is occupied by a tastefully arranged
representation of the water-sports in which the deceased took delight. A
forest of papyrus reeds grows by the water-side, thickly peopled by all
kinds of furred and feathered game. To the right and left Khnumhotep is
depicted in his boat, accompanied in one instance by his wife Khuti, who is
painted a lighter colour. Here he transfixes large river-fish, there he
holds the birds he has brought down by his darts. Above are birds caught in
a net. In the river swim characteristically drawn fish, and crocodiles and
hippopotami are also seen. A man who has fallen into the water is being
hauled out again. The dominant idea of the chase is farther carried out in
the representations of a hawk seizing a gaily-plumaged bird and an ibis
capturing a butterfly.
The
N. Wall (to the left on
entering) is the most important of all, as upon it is the celebrated picture
of a Semitic race bringing cosmetics (mestem) and other presents to
Khnumhotep. In the lowest row, to the right, are seen the secretaries of
Khnumhotep, receiving the report of the steward of the cattle, who is
followed by the herds and shepherds. Just above this is Khnumhotep himself,
represented on a scale three times as large as the other figures and
accompanied by three dogs and a man with sandals, bearing a staff. In the
4th row from below, on a level with the head and shoulders of this huge
figure, is represented a curious procession. Neferhotep, the secretary, and
another Egyptian lead towards the governor a number of foreign people in
gay-coloured garments, whose sharply cut features, hooked noses, and pointed
beards unmistakeably proclaim their Semitic nationality. This Asiatic visit
seems to have been one of the signal events in the life of the nomarch.
Neferhotep hands his master a document from which we learn that the
strangers knocked at the door of Egypt in the 9th year of king Usertesen II.
Prince Absha, the leader of the foreigners, leads a gazelle and bows to the
ground. The next Asiatic leads an antelope. Four armed men march in front of
the harem, which consists of four women and three children. Two of these
ride upon an ass, which also bears implements for weaving. The women wear
brightly coloured raiment of a curious cut. The clothes and loin-cloths of
the men are also brilliantly coloured. A heavily-laden ass is followed by a
lute-player and a warrior armed with club, bow, and quiver. The inscription,
beginning above the figure of the secretary Neferhotep, is as follows:
‘Arrival of those bringing the eye-salve mestem (koḥl or antimony). He (
i.e. Neferhotep) introduces 37 Amus’.
The Amus were a Semitic race of Asiatic origin in the N. E. of Egypt. We
have
here, as it were, the advance guard of the invasion of the Hyksos,
towards the end of the 12th Dynasty. The Hyksos, named ‘Amu’ in an
inscription in the neighbouring
Speos
Artemidos (p. 11), consisted of isolated tribes, who purchased
permission to enter Egypt by tribute, crossed its boundaries, and finally
penetrated to the interior. The chief Absha here bows before the Egyptian;
his successors carried things with a high hand and bent the Egyptians under
their yoke. — The flock of ostriches behind the last Amu belongs to the
series of pictures on the left side of the wall, representing Khnumhotep,
accompanied by his dogs, slaying wild beasts with bow and arrows. Below is a
flock of geese and a fowling-scene. In the second row from the foot are
bulls fighting and scenes of cattle-tending.
The S. Wall (to the right) is
occupied by processions of servants bringing gifts for the dead, a frequent
subject in these representations, and the offering of animals in sacrifice.
Before one altar is the figure of Khnumhotep, before another his wife Khuti,
daughter of Pent.
The traveller will find many of the above scenes now defaced
beyond recognition, but he should not let this deter him from walking a
little farther to the S. and entering some of the other tombs. That of
Kheti, one of the nearest (No. 7),
easily recognised by the three pairs of columns supporting the roof,
contains interesting, though half-obliterated representations of the
innumerable gymnastic and fencing exercises and games of the ancient
Egyptians. Girls are seen throwing the ball from one to another, and men
ponder carefully over a game of draughts. The
Hunting Scenes are of linguistic value, as the names of the
different animals are written above them. Among these was a stag, now
totally effaced. Mechanics are depicted at work here and elsewhere. —
Travellers who see the tombs of the new kingdom at
Thebes, after having visited the graves of
Beniḥasan, will be astonished at the vastness of the impression made upon
the life and sentiment of the Egyptians by the Hyksos period. At Beniḥasan
everything recalls the tombs in the Pyramids, and the subjects of
representation are drawn wholly from this earth; under the New Empire scenes
of the future life and representations of the gods are also given. We should
also notice that the horse, so common in later times, never appears under
the early empire. The forms of the columns, including the beautiful lotus
capitals (see
Baedeker's Lower Egypt, p. 164), are of the greatest
interest. The proto-Doric column is seen here in all stages of development.
The plain pillar, the octagonal pillar, the octagonal and sixteen-sided
columns, with and without flutes, all occur at Beniḥasan side by side and
may be looked upon as practical illustrations of the section upon the
Cavern Building of the Egyptians in the
introduction to
Lower Egypt
(p. 160).
At
Rôḍah (rail. stat., p. 1),
an important place on the W. bank,
with post and telegraph offices, several mosques, and a large
sugar factory, the railway approaches close to the river. The factory is
said to contain a stone with a hitherto unpublished Greek inscription.
About 1 M. inland (W.) from Rôḍah, between the Baḥr Yusuf and the
Nile, lie the ruins of the once famous
Ashmunén. The ancient Egyptian
name was
Khimunu
, while the Greeks called it
Hermopolis, the town of
Hermes-Thoth, the god of writing and
science, whose chief sanctuary was situated here. Hence the town was also
named
Pa Teḥuti, or town of Thoth.
Hermopolis Magna was the capital of the Hermopolitan nome
of
Upper Egypt. The name
Ashmunên is derived, according to
Quatremère (Mémoires Géographiques, I., pp. 490 et seq.), from the fact that
the town embraced two different communities, one on the site of the present
ruins, the other, with a harbour, on the Nile. Among the plates of the
French Expedition are two views of a fine
Portico of the Ptolemaic period, with two rows of six columns each
(Antiquités IV, Pl. 50, 51). The columns were 55 ft. high, and the portico
was 124½ ft. long and 29½ ft. wide. In Minutoli's ‘Journey to the Oasis of
Jupiter Ammon’ (Plate XIV) a view is given of one of the columns, with the
cartouche of Philippus Aridæus, one of the successors of Alexander the
Great, who was a native of
Ashmunên.
The remains of the temple were used in building a saltpetre factory. — At
Gebel Tunah, near
Hermopolis, is a tablet (much dilapidated) with an
inscription of the sun-worshipper
Khu-en-aten, who lived on the opposite bank of the river (comp.
Tell el-Amarnah, p. 22).
Nearly opposite Rôḍah, on the E. bank, 11 M. from Beniḥasan, lies
the village of Shêkh ‘Abâdeh, with the
ruins of Antinoë. Hadrian erected a new
town in honour of his favourite Antinous on the site of the Egyptian town of
Besa, where the handsome youth is
said to have drowned himself, to fulfil the oracle which predicted a heavy
loss to the emperor and so to prevent a more serious disaster. The village
lies on the bank amid palms of unusual size and beauty, and to the S. of it
is a brook, now dry except after rain, which must formerly have flowed
through the town. The remains of public buildings of the Egyptian period are
scanty. The French Expedition saw a
triumphal arch, a theatre, and two streets flanked with columns, the one
running N. and S. and leading to the theatre, the other at right angles
leading to the city-gate and the hippodrome. A lofty column bore an
inscription of Alexander Severus (A. D. 222). To-day, however, there are few
remains either of Greek or Roman times. Among the palms lies a fine
Corinthian capital. The marble belonging to the ‘very fine gate of the
Corinthian order’ that Pococke saw
here and figured in his book was burned to make lime for building the
sugar-factory at Rôḍah. The extensive ruins of the ancient town lie to the
E. of the village of Shêkh ‘Abâdeh. The streets and ground-plans of the
houses are still recognisable. The rooms were small and the walls were made
mainly of Nile bricks. There are, however, some underground apartments of
flat Roman bricks, reached by stone staircases. Near the scanty ruins of one
of the largest buildings lies a basin of white marble, which must have had a
circumference of at least 23 ft.
Those who are interested in Christian antiquities should follow
the E. bank from Shêkh ‘Abâdeh towards the S.
†
In about ¾ hr., after passing some ruins of a late epoch, we reach the
Dêr Abu Hennis (Convent of St. John),
called also simply
ed-Dêr. In the days
of the Mameluke persecutions the Christians are said to have lived here and
at Shêkh ‘Abâdeh in comparative security, as the Arabs believed that no
Mohammedan could exist here on account of the evil spirits. At present there
are more fellaḥîn here than Copts. There is little to be seen at ed-Dêr. The
crypt, in which divine service is held, is said to date from the time of the
Empress Helena. By ascending the hill at the back of the houses, we reach,
to the left of the ravine, some cave-like quarries, which were fitted up as
Christian chapels and were embellished at an early date with sculptures. The
main chamber contains paintings of saints and scenes from the New Testament,
but those in one of the side chapels (Raising of Lazarus, Wedding at Cana,
etc.) are better. To judge from their style these interesting pictures are
not earlier than the 6th cent. A. D. Among the Coptic monks who resided here
(from the 4th cent. onwards) were Victor and his brother Koluthus, Silvanus,
and Macarius; and the tombs of the last two are still shown. The adjoining
quarry was begun by Amenhotep III.
† The dhahabîyeh should be sent on to Bersheh, in order to allow time
for a visit to the picture of the transportation of an Egyptian statue
(see above). About 4–5 hrs. are necessary to see comfortably all the
points on this route.
About ¾ hr. beyond Dêr Abu Hennis we reach
Dêr en-Nakhleh, the ‘convent of the date-palms’. To
reach the ∗
Tomb with the representation of
the transportation of a Colossus, we cross the dry water-course
beyond the houses, ascend the hill on the left side, and near the top reach
a path on which, a little to the right, the grave is situated. Guides may be
procured for a few paras. Travellers descending the river should visit the
tomb from
Bersheh, above which towers
the rocky
Gebel Shêkh Sa‘îd (with a
shekh's tomb), in which the tomb in question is hollowed out. The whole
district belonged to the nome of Un or
Hermopolis. The representation in this tomb is highly
interesting as being the only one that gives us an idea of the processes
used by the Egyptians in moving their colossal statues.
The Arabs thought it impossible that mere human strength could
move such huge burdens, and hence a legend grew up among them that the
subjects of the Pharaohs were giants, who knew how to move masses of rock
with their magical staves. Even the men of the present day, at whose command
stand forces of which the ancient Egyptians never even dreamed, are
astounded at their achievements in this direction and feel inclined to solve
the problem by ascribing to them the use of technical aids, which we have no
evidence that they possessed. The principles of the pulley and the lever
seem to have been unknown to them; and obstacles, which seem to us to demand
imperatively the application of steam and machinery, were overcome by
enormous multiplication of sheer human power.
The colossal figure within this tomb represents Kaï, son of
Tothotep, a high-priest, a steward of the mysteries of the word of God, a
privy chamberlain (superintendent of the works in the inner palace), and the
head of a nome. His paternal grand-mother was a daughter of Usertesen I.,
the second king of the 12th Dynasty, and he was also connected with the
royal family on the mother-side. He was likewise related to the family of
Nehera and Khnumhotep (see p. 15).
The successful transportation of the statue figured in his tomb
was one of the chief events in the life of Kaï. The scene shows us an image,
13 ells in height, securely fastened to a sled. Small cushions are inserted
to prevent the polished stone from being injured by the ropes. To the sled
are attached four strong cables, each manned by 43 workmen (in all 172), the
‘young men’, as the inscriptions inform us, ‘of the W. and E. of the nome’.
On the lap of the figure stands a man clapping his hands, probably the
leader and time-giver of the song of the workmen, whose task was facilitated
by rhythmical movement. To this day in Egypt and elsewhere the same custom
is observed wherever the strength of many men is united in some common
exertion, as in the sailor's chant in raising the anchor or hoisting sail. A
man facing the time-keeper knocks two wooden stamps together, obviously to
transmit the proper time to those too far off to hear distinctly the
hand-clapping of the leader. On the prow of the sled, behind the rings to
which the ropes are fastened, stands a man pouring water on the ground to
prevent the heavily loaded sled from taking fire by friction. Water-carriers
stand ready to refill the empty pitcher. These are followed by other
labourers bearing notched beams, for laying under the sledge when necessary.
Three bailiffs or stewards, with sticks, are each attended by four men, who
seem from their simple costume to be foremen, stone-masons, or extra-hands.
At the top are depicted seven well-equipped companies of infantry, marching
in stiff military order towards the advancing colossus. The officers bear
tridents resembling those in the usual representations of Neptune, which may
either have been used as field-standards or for driving the cowardly into
action.
This highly instructive representation shows, among other points,
how unlimited was the authority of the nomarch over the people of his nome
and how freely, not to say extravagantly, he could apply human labour in
effecting his ends. One is tempted to pity the corvee labourers and to
forget how ends which seem petty or even obnoxious to one generation may
have seemed to their ancestors worthy of an unlimited expenditure of time,
blood, and wealth. In the time of the pyramid-building 12th Dynasty it was
accounted a noble and reputable thing to erect the hugest and most durable
monuments. The mass of the people, who seem to have regarded the might of
their oppressors in the same light as we regard the workings of destiny,
were proud to have had a share in the erection of any specially important
monument. Similar considerations are suggested by scenes in the tombs of the
pyramids, and the inscription accompanying the above-described picture gives
us chapter and verse for the accuracy of this view. It runs as follows:
‘Transport of the thirteen-ell statue made of stone from Hatnub. Behold, the
way by which it was to be transported was of extraordinary difficulty. Truly
difficult was also the toil of the people in drawing the mighty mass along
it, in dragging (the colossus) in hewn stone. I ordered the bands of young
men to march and prepare the way for it, with watchmen, carpenters, and so
forth. The most important were among them. The order was issued that men of
a strong arm should go forth to fetch it. My heart was full of content, and
my fellow-citizens all rejoiced. The scene was extremely beautiful to
witness; the old man leans on the youth, the strong withstood the
weak-hearted and timid. They thus became so strong that each one effected as
much as a thousand. And behold, this statue
of hewn stone went forth out of the mountain, more unutterably
grand to witness than all things else. Transport-ships equipped with all
magnificence, the choicest of my young men and soldiers. My children
followed me arrayed in festal ornaments, and the inhabitants of my nome,
singing songs of praise, celebrated my arrival in the fortress of this
town’.
The other representations in this tomb offer nothing unusual.
Much has been destroyed and defaced, principally by the monks, who tried to
sanctify the pagan work and drive the devil from it by marking it with the
sign of the cross.
Below this tomb is another of the 12th Dynasty, belonging
according to the inscriptions to the royal chamberlain Aha.
On the W. bank, 1 M. from the Nile, is Melawi el-‘Arish (rail. stat., p. 1), a small town with
10,000 inhab., where fowls, eggs, etc., may be procured cheaply (large
market on Sun.). In the vicinity are many large palms and also
sugar-plantations. Farther on, on the E. bank, at the foot of the hill of
the same name (p. 20), lies Shêkh-Sa‘îd,
with tombs of the old empire, including those of priests of Khufu, Userkaf,
and Pepi.
We next reach the ruins of et-Tell and the grottoes of Tell
el-Amarnah, two very interesting points on the E. bank, at which
the ‘four weeks’ steamer stops for a few hours on its return-journey. The
best plan is to disembark at et-Tell, visit the remains of the old town,
return to the dhahabîyeh, and sail to
Hagg el-Ḳandîl, where donkeys for
the visit to the grottoes are more easily obtained than at et-Tell. We pass
to the right of the village of et-Tell,
¼ M. from the river, and at the point where the cultivated land ends we turn
due S. (to the right). After passing the ruins of a large building (probably
a temple), now consisting of the foundations only and nearly
indistinguishable, we turn to the right from the path to visit the numerous
relics of public and private buildings of all kinds. There are larger and
finer ruined temples in other parts of Egypt, but nowhere else do we obtain
so excellent an idea of the actual dwelling-places of the citizens. It looks
as if the hand of deity had bodily removed this large town (more than 1 M.
long from N. to S.) from the surface of the earth, leaving nothing but the
foundations to tell the after-world that many thousands of human beings once
lived and worked, suffered and rejoiced on this waste spot. The lines of the
streets may be followed and ground-plans traced; but the demands of
cultivation are steadily effacing the remains.
Tell el-Amarnah. Whether we proceed by
land from et-Tell or disembark at Hagg el-Ḳandîl, we have to ride towards
the hills to the E., in which, even from a distance, we discover the gates
of the celebrated tombs of Tell el-Amarnah. In either case it is advisable
to have a guide. On the way we should not omit to visit the recently
discovered grave of the sun-worshipper Khu-en-aten (Amenhotep IV., see below). Of the two groups of tombs
that to the N. is the more interesting and the more easily accessible.
An interesting and not yet fully explained epoch of Egyptian
history is illustrated here by a large number of paintings and inscriptions.
In the Historical Introduction to our first vol. an account is given of both
Amenhotep III. and his son and successor Amenhotep IV. The first, a
mighty prince both in war and peace, was a pious worshipper of
Ammon, whose name, indeed, forms part of his own (Amen-hotep). Amenhotep
IV., on the other hand, turned his back on his father's religion and on the
increasingly spiritual conception of Ammon (the ‘Hidden One’) and the other
ancient gods, discarded his name ‘Peace of Ammon’, became exclusively a
sun-worshipper, and named himself
Khu-en-aten,
i.e. ‘Reflection of the Sun's Disc’. It
is an interesting but doubtful question whether Amenhophis IV., in his rôle
of reformer, intended to resuscitate, as ‘a patriotic restorer of the old
cult’, the simple sun-worship from which the religion of the Egyptians had
originally taken its rise; or whether he was moved by the Semitic
influences, which are so noticeable all over the country after the expulsion
of the Hyksos, to become an adorer of the orb of day and to introduce a
religious ceremonial that recalled the practices of the Asiatic courts
rather than the more dignified usages of the ‘Sublime Porte’ of Egypt.
Portraits of historical personages often cast a clearer light on their
character than piles of written documents, and the numerous representations
of Amenhotep IV. encountered in these tombs show that he was a sickly man, a
fanatic, and an enthusiast. [The portrait-statue of him in the Louvre
suggests similar conclusions.] He also, as the inscriptions inform us, stood
under the influence of his mother, who was not of royal birth and seems to
have encouraged her son's tendency to prefer the old popular religion to the
elaborately developed creed of the priests. His work was distinctly
reactionary and could not long survive him. Almost everywhere we see his
successors scratching out his name as a sign of their disapproval and
contempt. Where it still stands intact we may conclude that it was
overlooked. The fact that the portrait-like reliefs of men in these tombs,
as well as the horses and buildings, appear more true to nature than in any
other Egyptian monument may be due to the greater liberty of divergence from
the hieratic canon allowed in a reign which was so unfavourable to the
priestly dogmas. These reliefs excited the special admiration of the Greeks.
A Hellene who visited them inscribed his name as admiring the art of the
priestly stone-cutters (
). Besides the palaces and tombs of Tell el-Amarnah,
Khu-en aten also built a large
Benben or
temple at
Thebes, the blocks of which
were used for the pylon of King Horus. He also erected a temple in
Heliopolis, the remains of which are
still extant, and probably another in
Memphis. He is himself depicted on a pylon in Soleb (
Nubia).
Quite recently a new light has fallen on the history of Amenhotep
IV. and his predecessor through the discovery of several hundred tablets
with cuneïform inscriptions in the large Temple, or rather Palace, of Tell
el-Amarnah
†, which narrate the intercourse of
the Kings of Babylon with Amenhotep III. and Amenhotep IV. To the former
King Dushratta of Mitanni gave his daughter Tadukhepa in marriage; and her
dowry is stated on one of the tablets. Other tablets contain letters from
Palestine and Syrian vassals to the King of Egypt, and diplomatic notes from
King Burnaburiash to Amenhotep IV., concluding a treaty of peace and asking
for the hand of his daughter. Most of the tablets are now in the Asiatic
Museum at Berlin, but many are in the British Museum and a few at Gîzeh.
† Some
authorities believe that these tablets were found in the tomb of
Amenhotep IV. (see above).
N. Group. The tombs in each group are
marked with red numbers, running from N. to S. Most of the tombs are entered
from a small fore-court, and the doorways of many are adorned with concave
cornices. The door leads into an oblong apartment, communicating with a wide
sepulchral chapel, with a small burial-recess in the background. The
ornamentation of the ceiling is very varied. Columns with bud-capitals occur
frequently, some
of them unfinished, and the colouring of the reliefs is sometimes
in wonderful preservation. The mummy shafts, in spite of their great depth,
have all long since been despoiled of their contents. In the very first tomb
we find a representation of the king and his family offering a sacrifice to
the sun's disc. The disc is encircled with the Uræus-snake and furnished
with several arms, stretching downwards; the hands are symbolic of energy,
liberality, and the creative faculty. Dwarfs (then, as later, a favourite
royal plaything), fanbearers, and bowing courtiers stand below. In front is
the provost-martial with his baton. To the left of the first grave, on the
hill, is the
Tomb of Pentu (No. 2),
which is in a very ruinous condition. Farther on to the left is that of
Rameri (No. 3), with a finely worked
exterior. On the left wall of the second chamber of this tomb is a military
scene, which we do not hesitate to describe as the most realistic
representation found hitherto in any Egyptian grave. The lean figure of the
Pharaoh, above whom the sun spreads its arms, stands in his war-chariot and
drives the fiery steeds, the introduction of which Egypt owes to the Hyksos.
Sâis (out-runners) with long staves run in front of the chariot, towards the
crowd of people offering sacrifice and bending to the ground in adoration.
Standard-bearers and soldiers clear the way for the rapidly advancing
procession, just as the mounted kavasses still do for the carriage of the
Khedive. The king appears once more followed by his children, who also drive
their own chariots. The procession hastens towards the royal palace, which
covers the right part of the rear-wall of the chapel and also part of the
right wall, affording us a clearer idea of an Egyptian palace than any other
scene of the kind. It has long been established that neither the royal
princes nor even the Pharaohs themselves lived in the temples. On the
contrary they used to build themselves airy châteaux of light materials,
with doors opening on shady galleries and colonnades. Gardens with fountains
and water-basins surrounded the building, near which were also out-houses,
stables, and well-stocked storehouses, in quantity corresponding to the huge
number of the dependents of the royal family. The great entrance-door is
dignified with double rows of bud columns, and red standards wave from lofty
flag-staffs. Above one of the side-doors is a round window similar to those
which the French call œil-de-bœuf. The palace is adjoined by a sepulchral
chapel, supported by columns and containing figures of the king's ancestors,
honoured by rich sacrificial offerings; at the door is a choir, singing
pious songs of remembrance to the accompaniment of the harp, and taking its
time from the hand-clapping of the leader (a custom still preserved in
Egypt). — In the first chamber of Tomb 7 (right wall, p. 26) is a
representation of the Temple of the Solar Disc, with a large peristyle court
surrounded by a colonnade. Pillars resembling Caryatides decorate the walls,
and above all tower the lofty pylons with their hollow cornice.
Not only are the subjects of these representations of great
interest, but the character of the architectural drawing itself should be
noticed. It is something between a sketch-plan and a finished picture. The
ground-plan is clearly indicated, but at the same time an idea is given of
the appearance of the external elevation of the building. Clearness and
truthful reproduction of details are aimed at here as zealously as in the
figure-drawing. The ground-plan is first sketched in, and then the outlines
of the façades, and even the doors and trees are added so far as the space
allows.
The forms of the persons represented vary considerably from those
seen in tombs elsewhere. Almost all have the same thickset body and lean
neck that characterize the king. The figure of the latter is, of course, a
portrait; and it is possible that the courtly artists burdened the subjects
with the weaknesses of the prince so that his deformities might not appear
as anything unusual. Amenhotep IV. was certainly not a foreigner; but his
mother Tîi may have been one, and may have installed her fellow-countrymen
at the Egyptian court. Even the highest dignitaries have un-Egyptian
features. Among these is the royal favourite Merira, who is represented on
the right wall of Tomb 3, as literally overwhelmed with the golden
necklaces, rings, and orders, which the Pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty
delighted to shower on their loyal adherents; he stands in front of the
royal family, the members of which are attended by fan-bearers and courtiers
of all kinds. ‘Let him receive gold’, says the inscription, ‘on his neck, on
his back, and on his feet’. Secretaries make a note of the donations and
write out the royal patents, which are also mentioned elsewhere. The fourth
necklace is being hung round the neck of Merira, while the fifth and sixth
are handed to him by two officials; a third attendant holds three golden
rings. The Urma, to whom this favourite belonged, were, in addition to their
other dignities, the most learned physicians and high-priests of
Heliopolis (mentioned in the
inscription). The sickly prince naturally pays the highest honours to his
physician, one of the Urma priests. Another of these priests, named Khui, is
mentioned in the Ebers Papyrus as having prepared a famous eye-salve, and it
is possible that Amenhotep IV. may have been blind or, at least, threatened
with blindness. His outstretched neck suggests the attitude of a blind man,
and in the song of one of the priestesses by the door-post of the same tomb
occur the words: ‘The lord of goodness arises … No other one opens his
countenance, healing his eyes with his beams’.
Tomb 4 contained the remains of the
‘truth-loving’
Aahmes, the royal
secretary, adjutant of the fan-bearers, and first lord of the bedchamber.
Here we find one of the great dignitaries celebrating the glory of the sun.
He praises the beauty of the setting of the lord of the lords and princes of
the earth, at sight of whom the elect break forth into rejoicing, at whose
rising and setting the whole
earth and all lands sing songs of praise. The praise of the king
is interwoven with the hymn to the sun: ‘Thou givest me honour before the
king all my days. A worthy burial after a long life in this land of the
light-region of the sun's disc was accorded to me. I fulfill the span of my
life. I fulfill my life in the completeness of a servant of the good god,
who is free to ascend every throne he likes. I am a vassal of the king’.
Then follows a list of the titles of Aahmes.
Tomb 6 contains representations of
columns, the shafts of which are encircled at regular intervals by rings
resembling the tissue enveloping the joints of reeds. The capital consists
of several erect bell-flowers, with dependent buds held together by a ring.
The
Tomb of Huia (No. 7), the
keeper of the treasury, also contains much that is interesting. The
Temple of the Sun, on the right wall of
the first chamber, has already been mentioned. The king is shown seated upon
a lion-guarded throne, illuminated by the solar rays, and borne by several
courtiers. Before and behind are noble youths with large and small fans. The
same chamber contains another striking and well-preserved scene,
representing the studio of the sculptor
Auta, director of the portrait-sculptors (lit. ‘givers of life’) of
the king's mother Tîi. A well-executed statue of this powerful but unlovely
princess is being coloured by the master himself, while two younger
sculptors (s-ankh) give the finishing touches to the head and legs. The
sacrificial scenes are of the usual type. — The name of Khu-en-aten has been
almost everywhere obliterated from the cartouches. The solar disc with the
arms appears frequently as a kind of talisman, sometimes above the single
hieroglyphics. While demanding devoted loyalty from his subjects, the king
seems to have enjoyed the most affectionate and happy relations with his
wife and daughters, in whose names we recognise an echo of his own (Aten).
The wife is named ‘Beauty of the Solar Disc, the beauteous Dame Aît’; the
daughters are Merit Aten, the darling of the sun; Aten makt, the ward of the
sun; Ankh-s en pa Aten, she who lives through the sun; Aten nefra’ ta shera,
beauty of the sun; the little Aten bekt, servant of the sun, and so on. Tîi,
the mother of the king, is already known to us (see above).
The
S. Tombs, 1¼-1 ½ hr. from
the N. group, are not so well preserved. The graves formerly stood open, and
only those parts under cover have escaped serious injury. In 1883 Maspero
dug deeper into the already opened graves, and opened some for the first
time, such as that of Mahu (p. 27). The cartouches of Khu-en-aten are not
scratched out in the newly uncovered tombs. Of special interest are the
recently discovered vaulted passages with steps, leading downwards, which
are unlike any other Egyptian construction. It is evident that these were
the actual burial-places. Skulls of bodies which had not been embalmed have
been found
here. The northernmost tomb (No. 3 of Lepsius) shows us the king
and his family standing on a daïs, below which foreign captives are
depicted. The royal pair receives rich tribute. Those bringing the gifts are
Egyptians.
Aï, to whom the tomb belongs,
is adorned with necklaces on account of the abundance of his contributions.
Numerous servants carry the sacks and bottles to the open cellar-door, in
front of which, in a bending attitude, is a bailiff with a staff. It is
possible that the cellar belongs to Aï, and that the gifts are royal
bounties to him. — The next grave to the S., on a projecting hill, was
excavated in 1883. It was destined for
Mahu, a commander of the royal police, and scenes from his life
(Arrest of mountaineers, Escort of the king's equipage, etc.) are depicted
on the walls of the first chamber (esp. to the right of the entrance). In
the right side-wall is a door bearing a prayer in behalf of Mahu to Aten-Ra
(the radiating solar disc). — The next tomb, that of the royal official
Tutu, contains (to the right of the
entrance) the almost complete text of a hymn, sung by a priest in praise of
the sun: ‘The breath of the wind’, says the hymn, ‘enters their nostrils,
and Thy gift it is that they have being. All flowers bloom and grow in their
beds, and they flourish at Thy uprising. Festal joy arises at the sight of
Thy countenance. All quadrupeds hurry along on their feet, all the birds in
their nests flutter their wings in joy’. This tomb also possesses a
‘papyrus’ column, of unusually careful workmanship and elaborate
ornamentation. The basis of the capital is encircled, among the leaves, by a
Uræus-serpent; and at the upper end of the shaft, below the richly-adorned
band replacing the annuli, are singular decorations consisting of
sacrificial gifts, including many birds in groups of five. — To the S., at a
little distance, lies the tomb designated by Lepsius as No. 1. This also is
dedicated to a high dignitary named
Aï,
perhaps the same as in Tomb 3. On the entrance-wall to the right is
represented a festival, which some interpret as that of an order, while
others take it for the marriage of Aï, fan-bearer and commander of cavalry,
to the royal nurse. The king, denoted by the disc, his wife, and his
daughters stand on a daïs. The courtiers, from the charioteers to the
military officers and fan-bearers, receive with deep obeisances the
decorations which the Pharaoh, the queen, and the princesses throw down to
them. The foremost dignitary already wears six necklaces, and the lady
behind him is just adding a fifth to the four she already possesses. A troop
of dancers enlivens the proceedings by energetic leaps and contortions, and
secretaries make a note of the donations. To the S. are several other
graves, including those of
Apii and
Ramses, the latter a general and
chamberlain of Amenhotep III. To the N. N. W. of these tombs lay the huge
residence of the singular king Khu-en-aten, which was perhaps destroyed by
the same generation that obliterated his name from the cartouches.
Beyond Hagg el-Ḳandîl the Nile-voyager passes several small
villages, but neither they nor the scanty ruins of the Pharaonic epoch near
them deserve a visit.
In a ravine near
el-Hawâtah
(E. bank) stands a stele with a hieroglyphic inscription, discovered by the
late Mr. Harris, British consul at
Cairo and excellently versed in Egyptian antiquities. Farther on we
skirt an island and reach the point on the W. bank, between the villages of
el-Gezîreh (
i.e. ‘island’) and
el-Mandurah, where the
Baḥr
Yûsuf or
Joseph's Canal, an arm of
the Nile, diverges from the main stream to water the agricultural districts
of the Libyan bank, the Fayûm (p. 35) etc. The name of Joseph, was given to
it by the Arabs, who recognise in the son of Jacob the type of all
administrators. It probably owes its regulation if not its origin to
Amenemha III., of the 12th Dynasty. Extensive works are now in progress to
furnish the W. part of the Libyan bank with water from a point higher up the
Nile, near Assiûṭ.
About 5 M. below the divergence of the Baḥr Yûsuf, at some
distance from the Nile, lies
Dêrût
esh-Sherîf (rail. stat., p. 1). About 1 ¼ M. above (S. of) the fork, on
the E. bank, are some brick ruins, and 1¼ M. farther to the S. are the
mounds of
Dêr el-Ḳuṣêr, probably the
site of the ancient
Pescla. This is the
N. boundary of the dûm-palms, which, however, do not attain their full
development till farther up, between Assiûṭ and Ḳeneh, where we see many
fine specimens (p. 70). The Arabian Mts., rising in precipitous rocky walls,
approach the river. Swallows, ducks, and other birds inhabit the caves in
the porous rock on the banks, and fly in and out in screaming crowds. The
cliffs on the right bank of this part of the Nile are known as
Gebel Abu Fêdah. The stream below them is
considered the most dangerous part of the channel between
Cairo and Assuân. Violent winds blow round the
crags, and numerous sandbanks impede navigation.
The Arabs tell that a ship-master of Ḳeneh, having safely arrived
at Bûlâk, was asked by his friends how he had passed the Gebel Abu Fêda.
‘Quite easily’, was his rejoinder, ‘there's no danger there’. An old man who
overheard him remarked: ‘From your own words I see that you do not know this
mountain’. ‘I know it as well as my own eyes’, said the boatman. ‘When I
return to Ḳeneh I must pass it once more. If my vessel suffers any damage in
doing so, I will pay you 10,000 piastres, on condition that you pay me the
like sum if I pass safely. But I give you due warning that I know the Gebel
Abu Fêdah perfectly well’. The old man accepted the wager, and the
ship-master had his boat bound with iron, engaged the best sailors, and set
forth. As he approached the Gebel the boat was assailed at first by one
wind, and afterwards by four storm-winds, each blowing from a different
quarter. The ship, in spite of its iron fastenings, was cast upon the rocks
and went to pieces; and the vainglorious re‘îs, as he scrambled ashore with
nothing saved but his life, cried: ‘Gebel Abu Fêdah, I never knew you till
now’. Numerous similar stories are related of these cliffs. And no wonder,
for nothing can be more mysterious and spectral than their appearance at
twilight, when the dark swarms of birds fly towards the rocks and disappear
as suddenly as if engulfed by it.
The hill contains many rock-tombs, which have not yet been
carefully
investigated. Travellers who wish to do so will find the hill not
a very arduous climb. In descending they may strike the river at a point a
little farther to the S. and row thence to the dhahabîyeh.
On the W. bank, 3 M. from the river, lies el-Ḳusîyeh, now an insignificant fellaḥ town,
representing the ancient Kusae, in
which, according to Ælian, Venus Urania and her cow (i.e. Hathor nebt pet Hathor, the mistress of heaven)
were worshipped. No inscriptions have been found in Ḳusîyeh itself, but
elsewhere the name of Hathor occurs as the Lady of Kesi. From Kesi came the
Coptic Ⲋως-Ⲋⲏω (kōs-koō), and thence was
derived the Arabic Ḳusîyeh.
At el-Harîb, on the E. bank,
are the ruins of an ancient Egyptian town, at the mouth of a Wâdi ascending
to the Arabian mountains. The walls, provided in places with
window-openings, are high, but fragments of demotic inscriptions show them
to be of late date. Small caves in the rocks contain bones from mummies of
men and cats.
Monfalût, on the W. bank (rail. stat., see
p. 1), an important town with 13,200 inhab., is the seat of a Coptic bishop
and contains several fine villas and gardens and a bazaar. Its market is
much frequented on Sun., and it also prossesses a sugar-factory and a
distillery, where date-brandy (‘araḳi) is made, partly for local consumption
by the Copts and partly for export. The town lies close to the river, which
must here have greatly encroached on the W. bank since the close of last
century. The Arabs translate Monfalût as ‘Lot's place of banishment’.
To the S. W. of Monfalût lies Beni
‘Adin, where in 1798 a collision took place between the troops of
General Desaix and the Arabs. In the following year, just after the arrival
of a caravan from Darfûr, General Davoust destroyed it as a nest of rebels,
taking the women prisoners. Mohammed ‘Ali united his army here in 1820. The
journey to the oasis of Farâfrah (p.
348) is frequently begun here. The first station to the N. W. is the convent
of Maragh, containing 50 Coptic monks.
Esh-Sheḳilḳil, a small village on the E.
bank, lies on a narrow strip of fertile land between the Nile and the S. end
of the rocky Gebel Abu Fêdah. It is the starting-point for a visit to the
Crocodile Grotto of Ma‘abdeh. A guide,
who may be procured in the village of Sheḳilḳil, is necessary to show the
best way over the stony hill and to point out the entrance to the cavern,
which easily escapes the eyes of even practised searchers. Lantern and ropes
are also necessary, and a few strong sailors to handle the latter. Ladies
should not attempt this excursion. The distance is about 4½ M., and most of
the way is up a steep hill. We first proceed towards the N. W. to the (½
hr.) village of
el-Ma‘abdeh, and thence
to the N. E. towards the hill, the plateau of which we reach in ¾ hr. A walk
of ½ hr. towards the S. then brings us to the grotto. The entrance is in the
shape of a hole 12 ft. deep, into which we are lowered by ropes, a guide
previously descending to aid in landing. We then creep on all-fours for some
distance through the dust of ancient mummies, and after some time
ascend a branch to the left. The passage in a straight direction
chiefly contains human mummies, while that to the left is packed with
mummies of crocodiles. Some of these are of great size, and in other cases
bundles of 25 baby-crocodiles are put up together. Baskets of bast contain
crocodile-eggs, with the shells, containing the embryo, still unbroken.
After some time we reach a more spacious part of the grotto, where it is
possible to stand erect. It is not improbable that the cave had a second
entrance on the other side of the hill, but this has not yet been
discovered. Great care should be exercised in using the lights; two
Frenchmen who accidentally set fire to the mummy-bandages were suffocated by
the smoke and burned to ashes. It was here that Mr. Harris found the
celebrated papyrus MS. containing fragments of Homer's Iliad, which was held
in the hand of the mummy of a man wearing a coronal of gold. The enormous
number of
Crocodile Mummies found here
will astonish no one who knows the following passage in the trustworthy
‘Abdellaṭîf (12th cent.): ‘Among the animals peculiar to Egypt the crocodile
must not be forgotten, which occurs in great numbers in the Nile,
particularly in the S. part of Sa‘îd (
Upper
Egypt) and in the vicinity of the cataracts. There they swarm
like worms in the water of the river and around the cliffs that form the
cataracts’. In his time there were still crocodiles in the Delta. These
animals are now totally extinct on the lower Nile; none has been seen for
many years between
Cairo and Gebel
Abu Fêdah, and they are becoming very rare between the latter point and
Assuân, mainly, it is said, owing to the noise of the steamboats. Even
between the First and Second Cataracts they are now rare, though 20 years
ago they were very frequent.
The road to Assiûṭ, which we encountered on our visit to et-Tell
(see p. 22), leads across the Gebel Abu Fêdah and reaches the Nile at Beni Moḥammed, near the S. base of this
hill. In the hill beyond Beni Moḥammed are some tombs of the 6th Dyn., with
uninteresting and half-effaced representations of agricultural and other
scenes. In the valley lies the Coptic convent Dêr el-Gebrai, containing a Greek inscription (discovered by Mr.
Harris) in the shape of a dedication of the camp of the Lusitanian Cohort,
which served under Diocletian and Maximian, to Zeus, Hercules, and Nike
(Victoria). In the desert, between the convent and the hills, are some
scanty fragments of walls of brick, which seem to have belonged to the
fortified camp.
Between Monfalût and Assiûṭ (26 M. by water, 17 M. by land) the
Nile makes several great bends, which occasion a good deal of delay to
navigation. The generally favourable N.E. wind here sometimes blows
broadside on, and sometimes even against us. The greatest curves are at
Bâḳir el - Menḳabâd and
el - Amrâg. El-Menḳabâd, Coptic
Man Kapot (‘potters’ village’), situated on an
artificial arm of the Nile, has long been famous for its pottery. To
the S. of it lies
Benîb (or
Ebnûb)
el-Ḥammâm, inhabited by Copts. The mountains of the
E. bank now recede, and the foot-hills of the Libyan chain approach the
river, on the banks of which grow several fine groups of sycamores. The
minarets of Assiûṭ now come into sight, and numerous dredgers are seen at
work in the canals. We land at
el-Ḥamrah, the palm-enclosed harbour of Assiûṭ, with its steamers and
other boats.
Passengers by railway reach Assiûṭ in the evening after dark, as
the train is not due till 6.30 p.m. and is generally late. Those who do not
wish to spend a day here, in order to see the town and the neighbouring
tombs (p. 32), should at once transfer themselves and their luggage to the
steamer (dragoman of the steamboat agents at the station). The path to
el-Ḥamrah (see above), a walk of about 20 min. (donkeys for hire), leads
along the railway track, and, as it is not lighted, a man should precede the
party with a lantern. The train, however, often runs right down to the
harbour. On reaching the steamer the traveller should at once make sure that
all his baggage has been brought aboard.
Assiûṭ,
Asyûṭ, or
Siûṭ (
New
Hotel, kept by
G. Benois, near
the station, 12
s. per day, not very
good), 252 M. from Bûlâk., is one of the oldest and now one of the most
important towns on the Nile, containing 31,600 inhab., a railway station,
and steamboat, post, and telegraph offices. There are British, American,
French, German, and Austrian consular representatives. The public baths are
well fitted up. The Egyptian Mission of the American Presbyterians (100
stations, 26 churches, 97 schools) has one of its stations here, with
interesting schools for girls and boys. The sacred name of the place,
Pa anub (‘town of the wolf-headed
Anubis’) or
Pa ap ḥeru kemā (‘S. town of
the way-opener’,
i.e. Anubis) gave rise
to its Greek name of
Lycopolis
(see below). Its secular name, even in the ancient kingdom, was
Saut, Coptic
Siōut. No other town, except Mêdûm, has preserved its
ancient name with so little change. With the exception of a few fragments of
columns, nothing remains of the living quarters of the ancient town, but the
older part of the necropolis contains some very interesting relics of early
times.
Plotinus, the greatest of the
Neo-Platonic philosophers (205–270 A. D.), was born here in the beginning of
the 3rd cent., and his system was not uninfluenced by the priestly doctrines
of his native town. From the beginning of the 4th cent. onwards Christianity
was dominant in the town and neighbourhood. Pious believers took refuge in
the caves of the necropolis to live a life of penitence apart from the
world. One of these,
John of Lycopolis, at the end of the
4th cent., bore the reputation of a saint and even of a prophet. Theodosius
sent an embassy to him to enquire the outcome of the civil war. The
anchorite foretold a complete but bloody victory, and this prophecy was
fulfilled in the victory of Theodosius over Eugenius at Aquileia in 394 A.D.
The life of the saint of
Lycopolis
was written by his friends Rufinus and Palladius. The grotto that he
occupied cannot now be distinguished from the numerous others in the hills;
but the rocky chamber of another hermit of the name of John can be
identified in the vicinity of Beniḥasan, for he wrote on the wall the Coptic
phrase: ‘make prayers for me miserable. I am John’. Towards the end of his
life St. John of Assiûṭ lived in the Convent of the Seven Hills, at the top
of the ridge, which was named after him the Convent of St. John the Less.
Maḳrìzi relates that St. John, at the bidding of his
teacher, once planted and watered a piece of dry wood, and that a
fruit-tree sprang up, called the ‘Tree of Obedience’, yielding fruit for the
monks.
From very early times Assiûṭ was considered the northernmost
point of the Thebaïd.
The steamers and dhahabîyehs are met at el-Ḥamrah
by donkey boys with well-saddled donkeys and by sellers of pottery, which
can nowhere in Egypt be obtained better than here. The fine pottery of
Assiûṭ, especially its bottles and pipe-bowls, is justly celebrated and
forms an important article in its export trade, which also deals in linen,
embroidered leather goods, ostrich feathers and other products of the Sûdân,
natron, soda, and corn. It has, however, lost part of its commercial
importance since the great caravans from W. Africa have frequented other
routes and places. Large trains of camels still come from Dârfûr and
Kordofân, generally encamping at Beni ‘Adîn (p. 29), 19 M. to the N. W. of
Assiûṭ. The vicinity of Assiûṭ is one of the best-cultivated districts in
the valley of the Nile, the fertile strip between the Libyan and Arabian
Mts. here attaining a width of 12 M. The province of Assiûṭ, the mudîr of
which resides here, contains 234 villages with 583, 596 inhab. (incl. the
oases of Khârgeh and Dâkhel). Near the harbour are several large
palm-gardens, in which also grow pomegranate, fig, and other fruit-trees.
These gardens are let at enormous prices and produce rich harvests of fruit.
Those who have 2½-3 hrs. to spare should not omit to ride through
the town and to the tombs on the slopes of the Libyan limestone hills, not
only for the sake of the antiquities, but to see the busy Oriental life in
the bazaars and to enjoy the view from the graves. Candles and matches must
not be forgotten. To visit Assiûṭ from the dhahabîyeh and to ride through it takes about 1 hr. The town
lies about ¾ M. from the river and is reached from the harbour by an
embanked road shaded with beautiful trees. Outside the town lie the long
government buildings. The streets are full of busy life, especially on
Sundays, when the people of the neighbourhood flock into the market.
Oriental wares are cheaper in the bazaars of Assiûṭ than at
Cairo, but European goods are dearer.
The better houses are of burned brick, the meaner of sun-dried Nile bricks.
The façades on the street are generally unimposing, but a glance into one of
the courts of the bigger houses will show that the wealthy merchants of
Assiûṭ are not indifferent to comfort and display. The main street
intersecting the town from E. to W. is nearly 3 M. long.
Necropolis of Ancient Lycopolis. To reach this from the harbour
we require at least ¾ hr. Riding through part of the town, we diverge from
the main street at the point where it bends to the right and proceed to the
left, through the cultivated land and across a handsome bridge, to the foot
of the Libyan hills. The dark openings of the tombs and caves are
conspicuous at a distance in the abrupt sides of the mountain, below which
lies the new Arab
cemetery. On the way, especially in the forenoon, we often meet
funeral processions, resembling, with their wailing women and
water-distributors, those of
Cairo,
but producing a much more solemn effect through the absence of the bustle of
the crowded streets and the presence of the deserted city of the dead.
Nowhere, not even in
Cairo, are the
funeral songs so strange and weird as here, or sung by such deep and tuneful
voices.
At the foot of the hill we dismount and follow the good path
which leads to the most interesting tombs. A tomb below, near the Arab
cemetery, is unimportant. Mighty grandees of the ancient empire, who filled
the highest secular and ecclesiastical offices, hewed huge vaults in the
rocks here for the reception of their mummies. Other tombs, smaller and less
elaborately decorated, belong to simple burghers of a latter period; and
there are also holes in the rock for mummies of the jackal, which was sacred
to Anubis Apheru, the local deity of Assiûṭ. It is this animal that the
Greeks in this instance wrongly called Lykos or wolf (whence
Lycopolis), but a few genuine
wolf-bones have also been discovered here. Mummified dogs, kittens, and
birds of prey have been found, wrapped in linen bands and sometimes adorned
with gilding. Those who do not object to creep into some of the dusty and
ill-smelling holes will still easily find fragments of sacred animals. The
jackal, along with the Uræus-snake, flaunted proudly on the standard of this
nome, the chief town of which was the capital of the whole of
Upper Egypt in the time of the ancient
empire.
The path, which is well-made though somewhat steep, leads us
first to a large rock-hall, the ceiling of which is roughly hewn in the form
of a vault and still bears traces of blue stars painted on a yellow ground.
Sadly defaced inscriptions, in the style of the ancient empire, cover the
walls. The hieroglyphics on the door are half obliterated, but enough
remains to show that this was the grave of
Hap-Zefa, son of Dame At ât, a high-priest, and governor of S.
Egypt. The Arabs call it
Isṭabl ‘Antar,
or the stable of Antar, a hero of tradition (comp. their name for the
Speos Artemidos at Beniḥasan, p. 11).
The ∗View from this tomb is very fine. The fertile land and the Nile
enclosed by the limestone hills of Libya and the Arabian mountains in the
distance form a quiet but by no means monotonous setting for the beautiful
town of Assiûṭ with its eleven minarets and its environment of palm-gardens.
The view is still grander from the higher tombs. The second chamber of this
tomb is covered with important inscriptions. To the right on entering is one
of 64 lines, which cannot be read without the aid of a long ladder and a
good lantern. It contains ten articles from the code relating to the worship
of the dead, determining, amongst other things, the sacrificial gifts for
the statues of the deceased. These were translated first by Maspero and
afterwards by Erman, while the revised text has been published by
F. L. Griffith (1889). To the left is
another almost illegible inscription, engraved, like a palimpsest,
above an older text and referring to Ḥap-Zefa; on the same side are
cartouches of Usertesen I.
Higher up, to the right (N.), is a row of three tombs close to
each other, the northernmost of which has been destroyed. The second is the
Kahf el-‘Asâkir, or Soldiers’ Tomb,
so named from the rows of warriors on its S. wall. On the right side of this
tomb is a long and partly effaced inscription, referring not only to Kheti, father of Tef āb, the owner of
the tomb, but also to King Merikara (12th Dyn., acc. to Maspero, of the 10th
or Heracleopolitan Dyn.), in whose reign Kheti lived.
The adjoining tomb (to the left or S.; No. 3) contains a long
inscription referring to Tef āb, a
high-priest of Apheru (Anubis), lord of Assiût. A little farther to the S.
is the tomb (No. 2) of another Ḥap-Zefa,
son of Aï and headman of the district of Atef-khent.
The geological formation of this hill of tombs is very
interesting, especially on account of the numerous specimens of Callianasse nilotica and other fossils
found on its upper part. The limestone is so hard that it emits sparks, and
flints occur in considerable quantity.
Among the curiosities of Assiûṭ there must not be forgotten the
small piece of water standing between the river and the town, the ancient
legend of whose effect upon virgins is still half seriously related. Paul
Lucas is probably the first author who mentions it, and Michaelis devotes a
paragraph to it in his edition of Abulfeda‘s Description of Egypt (A. 189):
‘De quo stagno fingunt Siutenses, ejus potu signa virginitatis eripi, unde
excusatas habent novas nuptas virginitatem non prodentes, si stagni aquam
degustarunt. Felix certe inventum, nec despero tales in vicina aliarum
quoque et Europae urbium, quod felix faustumque virginibus sit, fontes’.
At Beni Mohammed el-Kufûr,
opposite Assiût, are several important tombs of the 6th Dynasty, belonging
to nomarchs and (probably) relatives of King Pepi.
