History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent Discovery Part 3

By this means the greater humanity of a later age sought a relief from the primitive disregard of the death of others.

Anthropologically interesting as are the results of the excavations at Umm el-Gra'ab, they are no less historically important. There is no need here to weary the reader with the details of scientific controversy; it will suffice to set before him as succinctly and clearly as possible the net results of the work which has been done.

Messrs. Amelineau and Petrie have found the secondary tombs and have identified the names of the following primeval kings of Egypt. We arrange them in their apparent historical order.

1. Aha Men (?).

2. Narmer (or Betjumer) Sma (?).

3. Tjer (or Khent). Besh.

4. Tja Ati.

5. Den Semti.

6. Atjab Merpeba.

7. Semerkha Nekht.

8. Qa Sen.

9. Khasekhem (Khasekhemui)

10. Hetepsekhemui.

11. Raneb.

12. Neneter.

13. Sekhemab Perabsen.

Two or three other names are ascribed by Prof. Petrie to the Hierakonpolite dynasty of Upper Egypt, which, as it occurs before the time of Mena and the Ist Dynasty, he calls "Dynasty 0." Dynasty 0, however, is no dynasty, and in any case we should prefer to call the "predynastic" dynasty "Dynasty I." The names of "Dynasty minus One,"

however, remain problematical, and for the present it would seem safer to suspend judgment as to the place of the supposed royal names "Ro" and "Ka"(Men-kaf), which Prof. Petrie supposes to have been those of two of the kings of Upper Egypt who reigned before Mena. The king "Sma"("Uniter") is possibly identical with Aha or Narmer, more probably the latter. It is not necessary to detail the process by which Egyptologists have sought to identify these thirteen kings with the successors of Mena in the lists of kings and the Ist and IId Dynasties of Manetho. The work has been very successful, though not perhaps quite so completely accomplished as Prof. Petrie himself inclines to believe.

The first identification was made by Prof. Sethe, of Gottingen, who pointed out that the names Semti and Merpeba on a vase-fragment found by M. Amelineau were in reality those of the kings Hesepti and Merbap of the lists, the Ousaphas and Miebis of Manetho. The perfectly certain identifications are these:--

5. Den Semti = Hesepti, _Ousaphas_, Ist Dynasty.

6. Atjab Merpeba = Merbap, _Miebis_, Ist Dynasty.

7. Semerkha Nekht= Shemsu or Semsem (?), _Semempres_, Ist Dynasty.

8. Qa Sen = Qebh, _Bienehhes_, Ist Dynasty.

9. Khasekhemui Besh = Betju-mer (?), _Boethos_, IId Dynasty.

10. Neneter = Bineneter, _Binothris_, IId Dynasty.

Six of the Abydos kings have thus been identified with names in the lists and in Manetho; that is to say, we now know the real names of six of the earliest Egyptian monarchs, whose appellations are given us under mutilated forms by the later list-makers. Prof. Petrie further identifies (4) Tja Ati with Ateth, (3) Tjer with Teta, and (1) Aha with Mena. Mena, Teta, Ateth, Ata, Hesepti, Merbap, Shemsu (?), and Qebh are the names of the 1st Dynasty as given in the lists. The equivalent of Ata Prof. Petrie finds in the name "Merneit," which is found at Umm el-Ga'ab. But there is no proof whatever that Merneit was a king; he was much more probably a prince or other great personage of the reign of Den, who was buried with the kings. Prof. Petrie accepts the identification of the personal name of Aha as "Men," and so makes him the only equivalent of Mena. But this reading of the name is still doubtful. Arguing that Aha must be Mena, and having all the rest of the kings of the Ist Dynasty identified with the names in the lists, Prof.

Petrie is compelled to exclude Narmer from the dynasty, and to relegate him to "Dynasty 0," before the time of Mena. It is quite possible, however, that Narmer was the successor, not the predecessor, of Mena.

He was certainly either the one or the other, as the style of art in his time was exactly the same as that in the time of Aha. The "Scorpion,"

too, whose name is found at Hierakonpolis, certainly dates to the same time as Narmer and Aha, for the style of his work is the same. And it may well be that he is not to be counted as a separate king, belonging to "Dynasty 0 "(or "Dynasty -I") at all, but as identical with Narmer, just as "Sma" may also be. We thus find that the two kings who left the most developed remains at Hierakonpolis are the two whose monuments at Abydos are the oldest of all on that site. That is to say, the kings whose monuments record the conquest of the North belong to the period of transition from the old Hierakonpolite dominion of Upper Egypt to the new kingdom of all Egypt. They, in fact, represent the "Mena" or Menes of tradition. It may be that Aha bore the personal name of _Men_, which would thus be the original of Mena, but this is uncertain. In any case both Aha and Narmer must be a.s.signed to the Ist Dynasty, with the result that we know of more kings belonging to the dynasty than appear in the lists.

Nor is this improbable. Manetho's list is evidently based upon old Egyptian lists derived from the authorities upon which the king-lists of Abydos and Sakkara were based. These old lists were made under the XIXth Dynasty, when an interest in the oldest kings seems to have been awakened, and the ruling monarchs erected temples at Abydos in their honour. This phenomenon can only have been due to a discovery of Umm el-Ga'ab and its treasures, the tombs of which were recognized as the burial-places (real or secondary) of the kings before the pyramid-builders. Seti I. and his son Ramses then wors.h.i.+pped the kings of Umm el-Ga'ab, with their names set before them in the order, number, and spelling in which the scribes considered they ought to be inscribed.

It is highly probable that the number known at that time was not quite correct. We know that the spelling of the names was very much garbled (to take one example only, the signs for _Sen_ were read as one sign _Qebh_), so that one or two kings may have been omitted or displaced.

This may be the case with Narmer, or, as his name ought possibly to be read, _Betjumer_. His monuments show by their style that he belongs to the very beginning of the Ist Dynasty. No name in the Ist Dynasty list corresponds to his. But one of the lists gives for the first king of the IId Dynasty (the successor of "Qebh" = Sen) a name which may also be read Betjumer, spelt syllabically this time, not ideographically. On this account Prof. Naville wishes to regard the Hierakonpolite monuments of Narmer as belonging to the IId Dynasty, but, as we have seen, they are among the most archaic known, and certainly must belong to the beginning of the Ist Dynasty. It is therefore probable that Khasekhemui Besh and Narmer (Betjumer?) were confused by this list-maker, and the name Betjumer was given to the first king of the IId Dynasty, who was probably in reality Khasekhemui. The resemblance of _Betju_ to _Besh_ may have contributed to this confusion.

So Narmer (or Betjumer) found his way out of his proper place at the beginning of the 1st Dynasty. Whether Aha was also called "Men" or not, it seems evident that he and Narmer were jointly the originals of the legendary Mena. Narmer, who possibly also bore the name of Sma, "the Uniter," conquered the North. Aha, "the Fighter," also ruled both South and North at the same period. Khasekhemui, too, conquered the North, but the style of his monuments shows such an advance upon that of the days of Aha and Narmer that it seems best to make him the successor of Sen (or "Qebh "), and, explaining the transference of the name Betjumer to the beginning of the IId Dynasty as due to a confusion with Khasekhemui's personal name Besh, to make Khasekhemui the founder of the IId Dynasty. The beginning of a new dynasty may well have been marked by a rea.s.sertion of the new royal power over Lower Egypt, which may have lapsed somewhat under the rule of the later kings of the Ist Dynasty.

Semti is certainly the "Hesepti" of the lists, and Tja Ati is probably "Ateth." "Ata" is thus unidentified. Prof. Petrie makes him = Merneit, but, as has already been said, there is no proof that the tomb of Merneit is that of a king. "Teta" may be Tjer or Khent, but of this there is no proof. It is most probable that the names "Teta," "Ateth,"

and "Ata" are all founded on Ati, the personal name of Tja. The king Tjer is then not represented in the lists, and "Mena" is a compound of the two oldest Abydos kings, Narmer (Betjumer) Sma (?) and Aha Men (?).

These are the bare historical results that have been attained with regard to the names, ident.i.ty, and order of the kings. The smaller memorials that have been found with them, especially the ivory plaques, have told us of events that took place during their reigns; but, with the exception of the constantly recurring references to the conquest of the North, there is little that can be considered of historical interest or importance. We will take one as an example. This is the tablet No.

32,650 of the British Museum, ill.u.s.trated by Prof. Petrie, _Royal Tombs_ i (Egypt Exploration Fund), pi. xi, 14, xv, 16. This is the record of a single year, the first in the reign of Semti, King of Upper and Lower Egypt. On it we see a picture of a king performing a religious dance before the G.o.d Osiris, who is seated in a shrine placed on a dais. This religious dance was performed by all the kings in later times. Below we find hieroglyphic (ideographic) records of a river expedition to fight the Northerners and of the capture of a fortified town called An. The capture of the town is indicated by a broken line of fortification, half-encircling the name, and the hoe with which the emblematic hawks on the slate reliefs already described are armed; this signifies the opening and breaking down of the wall.

On the other half of the tablet we find the viceroy of Lower Egypt, Hemaka, mentioned; also "the Hawk (i. e. the king) seizes the seat of the Libyans," and some unintelligible record of a jeweller of the palace and a king's carpenter. On a similar tablet (of Sen) we find the words "the king's carpenter made this record." All these little tablets are then the records of single years of a king's life, and others like them, preserved no doubt in royal archives, formed the base of regular annals, which were occasionally carved upon stone. We have an example of one of these in the "Stele of Palermo," a fragment of black granite, inscribed with the annals of the kings up to the time of the Vth Dynasty, when the monument itself was made. It is a matter for intense regret that the greater portion of this priceless historical monument has disappeared, leaving us but a piece out of the centre, with part of the records of only six kings before Snefru. Of these six the name of only one, Neneter, of the lid Dynasty, whose name is also found at Abydos, is mentioned. The only important historical event of Neneter's reign seems to have occurred in his thirteenth year, when the towns or palaces of _Ha_ ("North") and Shem-Ra ("The Sun proceeds") were founded. Nothing but the inst.i.tution and celebration of religious festivals is recorded in the sixteen yearly entries preserved to us out of a reign of thirty-five years. The annual height of the Nile is given, and the occasions of numbering the people are recorded (every second year): nothing else. Manetho tells us that in the reign of Binothris, who is Neneter, it was decreed that women could hold royal honours and privileges. This first concession of women's rights is not mentioned on the strictly official "Palermo Stele."

More regrettable than aught else is the absence from the "Palermo Stele"

of that part of the original monument which gave the annals of the earliest kings. At any rate, in the lines of annals which still exist above that which contains the chronicle of the reign of Neneter no entry can be definitely identified as belonging to the reigns of Aha or Narmer. In a line below there is a mention of the "birth of Khasekhemui," apparently a festival in honour of the birth of that king celebrated in the same way as the reputed birthday of a G.o.d. This shows the great honour in which Khasekhemui was held, and perhaps it was he who really finally settled the question of the unification of North and South and consolidated the work of the earlier kings.

As far as we can tell, then, Aha and Narmer were the first conquerors of the North, the unifiers of the kingdom, and the originals of the legendary Mena. In their time the kingdom's centre of gravity was still in the South, and Narmer (who is probably identical with "the Scorpion") dedicated the memorials of his deeds in the temple of Hierakonpolis. It may be that the legend of the founding of Memphis in the time of "Menes"

is nearly correct (as we shall see, historically, the foundation may have been due to Merpeba), but we have the authority of Manetho for the fact that the first two dynasties were "Thinite" (that is, Upper Egyptian), and that Memphis did not become the capital till the time of the Hid Dynasty. With this statement the evidence of the monuments fully agrees. The earliest royal tombs in the pyramid-field of Memphis date from the time of the Hid Dynasty, so that it is evident that the kings had then taken up their abode in the Northern capital. We find that soon after the time of Khasekhemui the king Perabsen was especially connected with Lower Egypt. His personal name is unknown to us (though he may be the "Uatjnes" of the lists), but we do know that he had two banner-names, Sekhem-ab and Perabsen. The first is his hawk or Horus-name, the second his Set-name; that is to say, while he bore the first name as King of Upper Egypt under the special patronage of Horus, the hawk-G.o.d of the Upper Country, he bore the second as King of Lower Egypt, under the patronage of Set, the deity of the Delta, whose fetish animal appears above this name instead of the hawk. This shows how definitely Perabsen wished to appear as legitimate King of Lower as well as Upper Egypt. In later times the Theban kings of the XIIth Dynasty, when they devoted themselves to winning the allegiance of the Northerners by living near Memphis rather than at Thebes, seem to have been imitating the successors of Khasekhemui.

Moreover, we now find various evidences of increasing connection with the North. A princess named Ne-maat-hap, who seems to have been the mother of Sa-nekht, the first king of the Hid Dynasty, bears the name of the sacred Apis of Memphis, her name signifying "Possessing the right of Apis." According to Manetho, the kings of the Hid Dynasty are the first Memphites, and this seems to be quite correct. With Ne-maat-hap the royal right seems to have been transferred to a Memphite house. But the Memphites still had a.s.sociations with Upper Egypt: two of them, Tjeser Khet-neter and Sa-nekht, were buried near Abydos, in the desert at Bet Khallaf, where their tombs were discovered and excavated by Mr. Garstang in 1900. The tomb of Tjeser is a great brick-built mastaba, forty feet high and measuring 300 feet by 150 feet. The actual tomb-chambers are excavated in the rock, twenty feet below the ground-level and sixty feet below the top of the mastaba. They had been violated in ancient times, but a number of clay jar-sealings, alabaster vases, and bowls belonging to the tomb furniture were found by the discoverer. Sa-nekht's tomb is similar. In it was found the preserved skeleton of its owner, who was a giant seven feet high.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 082.jpg THE TOMB OF KING TJESER AT BeT KHALLaF. About 3700 B.C.]

It is remarkable that Manetho chronicles among the kings of the early period a king named Sesokhris, who was five cubits high. This may have been Sa-nekht.

Tjeser had two tombs, one, the above-mentioned, near Abydos, the other at Sakkara, in the Memphite pyramid-field. This is the famous Step-Pyramid. Since Sa-nekht seems really to have been buried at Bet Khal-laf, probably Tjeser was, too, and the Step-Pyramid may have been his secondary or sham tomb, erected in the necropolis of Memphis as a compliment to Seker, the Northern G.o.d of the dead, just as Aha had his secondary tomb at Abydos in compliment to Khentamenti. Sne-feru, also, the last king of the Hid Dynasty, seems to have had two tombs. One of these was the great Pyramid of Medm, which was explored by Prof. Petrie in 1891, the other was at Dashr. Near by was the interesting necropolis already mentioned, in which was discovered evidence of the continuance of the cramped position of burial and of the absence of mummification among a certain section of the population even as late as the time of the IVth Dynasty. This has been taken to imply that the fusion of the primitive Neolithic and invading sub-Semitic races had not been effected at that time.

With the IVth Dynasty the connection of the royal house with the South seems to have finally ceased. The governmental centre of gravity was finally transferred to Memphis, and the kings were thenceforth for several centuries buried in the great pyramids which still stand in serried order along the western desert border of Egypt, from the Delta to the province of the Fayyum. With the latest discoveries in this Memphite pyramid-field we shall deal in the next chapter.

The transference of the royal power to Memphis under the Hid Dynasty naturally led to a great increase of Egyptian activity in the Northern lands. We read in Manetho of a great Libyan war in the reign of Neche-rophes, and both Sa-nekht and Tjeser seem to have finally established Egyptian authority in the Sinaitic peninsula, where their rock-inscriptions have been found.

In 1904 Prof. Petrie was despatched to Sinai by the Egypt Exploration Fund, in order finally to record the inscriptions of the early kings in the Wadi Maghara, which had been lately very much damaged by the operations of the turquoise-miners. It seems almost incredible that ignorance and vandalism should still be so rampant in the twentieth century that the most important historical monuments are not safe from desecration in order to obtain a few turquoises, but it is so. Prof.

Petrie's expedition did not start a day too soon, and at the suggestion of Sir William Garstin, the adviser to the Ministry of the Interior, the majority of the inscriptions have been removed to the Cairo Museum for safety and preservation. Among the new inscriptions discovered is one of Sa-nekht, which is now in the British Museum. Tjeser and Sa-nekht were not the first Egyptian kings to visit Sinai. Already, in the days of the 1st Dynasty, Semerkha had entered that land and inscribed his name upon the rocks. But the regular annexation, so to speak, of Sinai to Egypt took place under the Memphites of the Hid Dynasty.

With the Hid Dynasty we have reached the age of the pyramid-builders.

The most typical pyramids are those of the three great kings of the IVth Dynasty, Khufu, Khafra, and Menkaura, at Giza near Cairo. But, as we have seen, the last king of the Hid Dynasty, Snefru, also had one pyramid, if not two; and the most ancient of these buildings known to us, the Step-Pyramid of Sakkara, was erected by Tjeser at the beginning of that dynasty. The evolution of the royal tombs from the time of the 1st Dynasty to that of the IVth is very interesting to trace. At the period of transition from the predynastic to the dynastic age we have the great mastaba of Aha at Nakada, and the simplest chamber-tombs at Abydos. All these were of brick; no stone was used in their construction. Then we find the chamber-tomb of Den Semti at Abydos with a granite floor, the walls being still of brick. Above each of the Abydos tombs was probably a low mound, and in front a small chapel, from which a flight of steps descended into the simple chamber. On one of the little plaques already mentioned, which were found in these tombs, we have an archaic inscription, entirely written in ideographs, which seems to read, "The Big-Heads (i. e. the chiefs) come to the tomb." The ideograph for "tomb" seems to be a rude picture of the funerary chapel, but from it we can derive little information as to its construction.

Towards the end of the Ist Dynasty, and during the lid, the royal tombs became much more complicated, being surrounded with numerous chambers for the dead slaves, etc. Khasekhemui's tomb has thirty-three such chambers, and there is one large chamber of stone. We know of no other instance of the use of stone work for building at this period except in the royal tombs. No doubt the mason's art was still so difficult that it was reserved for royal use only.

Under the Hid Dynasty we find the last brick mastabas built for royalty, at Bet Khallaf, and the first pyramids, in the Memphite necropolis.

In the mastaba of Tjeser at Bet Khallaf stone was used for the great portcullises which were intended to bar the way to possible plunderers through the pa.s.sages of the tomb. The Step-Pyramid at Sakkara is, so to speak, a series of mastabas of stone, imposed one above the other; it never had the continuous casing of stone which is the mark of a true pyramid. The pyramid of Snefru at Medm is more developed. It also originated in a mastaba, enlarged, and with another mastaba-like erection on the top of it; but it was given a continuous sloping casing of fine limestone from bottom to top, and so is a true pyramid. A discussion of recent theories as to the building of the later pyramids of the IVth Dynasty will be found in the next chapter.

In the time of the Ist Dynasty the royal tomb was known by the name of "Protection-around-the-Hawk, i.e. the king"(_Sa-ha-heru_); but under the Hid and IVth Dynasties regular names, such as "the Firm," "the Glorious," "the Appearing," etc., were given to each pyramid.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 086.jpg FALSE DOOR OF THE TOMB OF TETA, about 3600 B.C.]