A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Volume I Part 26

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 191.--The tomb of Petamounoph. Drawn in perspective from the plans and elevations of Prisse.]

It must not be imagined that all the tombs were decorated; there are many which have received neither painted nor carved ornament, and in others the ornament has never been carried beyond the first sketch.

But even in those which are quite bare, the walls are, in nearly every instance, covered with a coat of white stucco.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 192.--The most simple form of Theban tomb; from Rhind.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 193.--Tomb as represented upon a bas-relief; from Rhind.]

As the funerary chapel was contained in the tomb itself, no effort could be made to mask or conceal the entrance, which accordingly was taken advantage of for the display of ornament. But no attempt was made to cut architectural facades in the cliffs like those at Beni-Ha.s.san; not more than one or two sepulchres have yet been discovered which have facades made up of those columns which have been called _protodoric_. The makers of these tombs were usually content with dressing the surface of the rock above and around the entrance.

The latter, with its sloping lintel above a cornice, stands in the centre of an almost perpendicular wall which acts as its frame or background. In the uninjured state of the sepulchre this wall was more or less concealed by a construction similar to those which we have described in speaking of the tombs in the plain. According to all appearances, one of these little buildings, a cube of masonry crowned by a pyramidion, was placed before the doorway of every tomb. It is difficult to say whether it was of sufficient size to contain a funerary chamber or not. It may have been no more than a solid erection of small size, meant only to mask the entrance and to indicate its situation to those concerned. The wealthy, indeed, may have been only too pleased to thus call public attention to the position of their gorgeously decorated sepulchres.

The little pyramids of crude brick which we find upon the irregular rocky slopes of the _Kournet-el-Mourrayi_, above the little window-shaped openings with which the rock is honeycombed, probably answered a similar purpose. Of these some are still standing, and others have left unmistakable traces upon, the slope. They seem to have existed in great numbers in this part of the necropolis, which seems to have been set apart, about the time of the eighteenth dynasty, for the priests.

Although they hardly varied from the two or three types consecrated by custom, these little buildings could easily have been made to present slight differences one from another. When they existed in their entirety, they must have given a very different aspect to the cemetery from that which it presents with its rocky slopes burnt by the sun into one harsh and monotonous tint, varied only by the black and gaping mouths of the countless tombs. The sides which they turned to the city and the river were adorned with those brilliant colours of which the Egyptian architects were so fond, and, s.p.a.ced irregularly but never very far apart, they were sprinkled over the ground from the edge of the plain to the topmost ridges of the hills. Nearly all of them ended in a pyramid, but the varying dimensions of their bases and their different levels above the plain, gave diversity to the prospect, while here and there the slender apex of an obelisk rose above the private tombs and signalized the sleeping-place of a king.

It has been very justly remarked, that the best idea of an Egyptian cemetery in its best time is to be gained by a visit to one of those Italian _Campo-Santos_, that of Naples, for example, where the tombs of many generations lie closely together under a blazing sun.[270]

There, too, many sepulchral facades rise one above another upon the abrupt slope of a hill into which the graves are sunk. A comparison with the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise, or with that at Constantinople, would not be just because no trees could flourish in the Theban rocks, at least in the higher part of the necropolis. In those districts which border closely upon the irrigation channels, the tombs seem to have had their gardens and fountains. Palms and sycamores appear to have been planted about them, and here and there, perhaps, the care of survivors succeeded in rearing flowers which would shed their perfumes for the consolation of the dead.[271]

[270] RHIND, _Thebes_, etc. p. 55.

[271] MASPERO, _Recueil de Travaux_, vol. ii. p. 105. The formula which is generally found upon the funerary steles of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties hints at this: "That I may walk daily upon the border of my fountain; that my soul may rest upon the branches of the funerary garden which has been made for me, that each day I may be out under my sycamore!" These desires may be taken literally, as is proved by two steles in the museums of Turin and Boulak, which bear representations of tombs upon their lower portions. The latter, which we reproduce, comes from the Theban necropolis.

Were there statues in the courtyards by which many of these tombs were surrounded? There is no doubt that such statues were placed in the rock-cut sepulchres; all the museums of Europe have specimens which come from the Theban tombs. The latter were opened and despoiled, however, at such an early period that very few of these figures have been found in place by those who have visited the ruins of Egypt for legitimate motives. We have, however, the evidence of explorers who have penetrated into tombs which were practically intact. They tell us that the statue of the deceased, accompanied often by that of his wife and children, was placed against the further wall of the innermost chamber.[272] In some tombs, a niche is cut in the wall for this purpose,[273] in others a dais is raised three or four steps above the floor of the chamber.[274] Here, too, is found the sarcophagus, in basalt when the defunct was able to afford such a luxury, and the canopic vases, which were sometimes of stone, especially alabaster, sometimes of terra cotta, and now and then of wood, and were used to hold the viscera of the deceased. These vases were four in number, protected respectively by the G.o.ddesses Isis, Nephtys, Neith, and Selk (Fig. 196).

[272] Most of these statues were of calcareous stone, but in the _Description de l'egypte_ (_Antiquites_, vol. iii. p. 34) two granite ones are mentioned.

[273] In the tomb of Amenemheb, for instance, discovered by Professor Ebers. See also _Description de l'egypte_, vol. iii.

p. 41.

[274] _Description de l'egypte_ (_Antiquites_, vol. iii. p.

34).

During the period of which we have just been treating, the taste for these huge rock-cut tombs was not confined to Thebes and its immediate vicinity; we find obvious traces of them in the city which then held the second place in Egypt, namely, in Memphis, where a son of the sovereign resided as viceroy. It was in the reign of Rameses II., that the fourth of his hundred and seventy children began what is now called the little Serapeum, in the neighbourhood of the Great Pyramids.[275] Until then each Apis bull had had a tomb apart, a tomb in which everything was of small dimensions. This royal prince was especially vowed to the worship of Ptah and Apis, for whom he inaugurated new rites. He began the excavation of a grand gallery, and lined it on each side with small chambers which were increased in number as each successive Apis died and required a sepulchre. This gallery and its chambers served for 700 years (see Figs. 197 and 198).

[275] It is no part of our plan to describe this discovery, which did so much honour both to the perspicacity and the energy of Mariette. We refer all those who are interested in the matter to the article contributed by M. E. Desjardins to the _Revue des Deux-Mondes_ of March 15, 1874, under the t.i.tle: _Les Decouvertes de l'egyptologie francaise, les Missions et les Travaux de M. Mariette_. Many precious details will also be found, some of them almost dictated by Mariette, in the _L'egypte a pet.i.tes Journees_ of M. ARTHUR RHONe (pp. 212-263).

This work includes two plans, a general plan and a detailed plan of the subterranean galleries, which were supplied by the ill.u.s.trious author of the excavations himself; views of the galleries are also given, and reproductions of various objects found in the course of the exploration. We may also mention the _Choix des Monuments du Serapeum_, a collection of ten engraved plates published by Mariette, and the great work, unfortunately incomplete, which he commenced under the t.i.tle: _Le Serapeum de Memphis_ (folio, Paris, Gide, 1858). In the second volume of _Fouilles et Decouvertes_ (Didier, 8vo., 1873, 2 vols.) BEULe has given a very good description of the bold but fortunate campaign which, begun in the month of October, 1850, brought fame to a young man who had, until then, both open enmity and secret intrigue to contend against.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 194.--Stele in the Boulak Museum, showing tombs with gardens about them. From Maspero.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 195.--The sarcophagus of a royal scribe, 19th dynasty. Louvre.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 196.--Canopic vase of alabaster. Louvre.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 197.--View of the grand gallery in the Apis Mausoleum; from Mariette.]

The funerary architecture of the Sait epoch seems to have had an originality of its own, but we are unable to form an opinion from any existing remains. Not a trace is extant of those tombs in which the princes of the twenty-sixth dynasty were, according to Herodotus, placed one after another. Here are the words of the Greek historian: ?? d? (the Egyptians) ?? (Apries) ?p?p???a?, ?a? ?pe?ta ??a?a? ??

t?s? pat???s? taf?s?--a? d? e?s? ?? t? ??? t?? ????a???, ????t?t?

t?? e????? ?s???t? ???ste??? ?e???--??a?a? d? Sa?ta? p??ta? t??? ??

???? t??t?? ?e??????? as???a? ?s? ?? t? ???. ?a? ??? t? t??

??s??? s?a ??ast??? ?? ?st? t?? e????? ? t? t?? ?p??e? ?a? t??

t??t?? p??pat????? ?st? ??t?? ?a? t??t? ?? t? a??? t?? ????, past??

?????? e????, ?a? ?s????? st????s? te f?????a? t? d??d?ea e??????s?, ?a? t? ???? dap???. ?s? d? ?? t? past?d? d???

????ata ?st??e? ?? d? t??s? ????as? ? ???? ?st?.[276]

[276] HERODOTUS, ii. 169. "The Egyptians strangled Apries, but, having done so, they buried him in the sepulchre of his fathers.

This tomb is in the temple of Athene (_Neith_), very near the sanctuary, on the left hand as one enters. The natives of Sais buried all the kings which belonged to their nome within this temple, and, in fact, it also contains the tomb of Amasis, as well as that of Apries and his family, but the former is not so close to the sanctuary as the former, but still it is within the buildings of the temple, in a large chamber constructed of stone, with columns in the shape of the trunks of palm-trees, and richly decorated besides, which incloses a kind of niche or shrine with folding doors, in which the mummy is placed." This is one of the most difficult pa.s.sages in Herodotus, and has given much trouble to translators and commentators. See Larcher's note (ii. 565), and the pa.s.sage in Stobaeus (serm. xli.

p. 251), which he cites in justification for the sense which is here given to the word ????ata. STRABO is content with but a line on this subject: "Sais," he says, "especially worships Athene (Neith). The tomb of Psammitichos is in the very temple of that G.o.ddess" (xvii. 18).

Preceding centuries afford no example of a tomb placed within a temple like this.[277]

[277] HERODOTUS affirms (ii. 129-132) that Mycerinus caused the body of his daughter to be inclosed in the flank of a wooden cow, richly gilt, and he says that "the cow in question was never placed in the earth." In his time it was exposed to the view of all comers in a magnificently decorated saloon of the royal palace of Sais. We may be allowed to suggest that Herodotus was mistaken in the name of the prince; Mycerinus is not likely to have so far abandoned all the funerary traditions of his time, or to have entombed the body of his daughter in a spot so distant from his own pyramid at Gizeh. There is one hypothesis, however, which may save us from the necessity of once again accusing the Greek historian of misunderstanding what was said to him; in their desire to weld together the present with the past, and to collect into their capital such national monuments as might appeal to the imaginations of their subjects, the Sait princes may have transported such a curiously shaped sarcophagus either from the pyramid of Mycerinus or from some small pyramid in its neighbourhood.

First of all the royal mummy was entombed in the bowels of an artificial mountain, secondly, under the Theban dynasties, in those of a real one; but at Sais, it rests above the soil, in the precincts of a temple, where curious visitors come and go at their will, and nothing but a pair of wooden doors protects it from disturbance. Such an arrangement seems inconsistent with all that we know of the pa.s.sionate desire of the Egyptians to give an eternal duration to their mummies. We have every reason to believe that this desire had shown no diminution at the time of the twenty-sixth dynasty, and we can hardly admit that Psemethek and his successors were less impelled by it than the meanest of their subjects.

The explanation of the apparent anomaly is to be found, we believe, in the peculiar nature of the soil of Lower Egypt. The Sait princes were determined to leave their mummies in the city which they had filled with magnificent buildings and had turned into the capital of all Egypt. Both _speos_ and mummy pit, however, were out of the question.

Sais was built in the Delta; upon an alluvial soil which was wetted through and through, as each autumn came round, by the water of the Nile. Neither hill nor rock existed for many miles in every direction.

It was, therefore, absolutely necessary that the tomb should be a constructed one upon the surface of this soil. It would seem that the pyramid would have been the best form of tomb to ensure the continued existence of the mummy, but, to say nothing of the difficulty of finding a satisfactory foundation for such a structure upon a soft and yielding soil, the pyramid had, for many ages, been completely out of fashion. Egyptian art was entirely occupied with richer and more varied forms, forms which admitted of the play of light and shade, and of all the splendour of carved and painted decoration. The pyramid being rejected, no type remained but that of a building which should inclose both mummy chamber and funerary chapel under one roof, or, at least, within one bounding wall. There was also, it is true, the Abydos type of sepulchre, with its mummy chamber hidden in the thickness of its base; but it was too heavy and too plain, it was too nearly related to the pyramid, and it did not lend itself readily to those brilliant compositions which distinguish the last renascence of Egyptian art. But the hypostyle hall, the fairest creation of the national genius, was thoroughly fitted to be the medium of such picturesque conceptions as were then required, and it was adopted as the nucleus of the tombs at Sais. A hall divided, perhaps, into three aisles by tall shafts covered with figures and inscriptions, afforded a meeting-place and a place of worship for the living. The mummy chamber was replaced by a niche, placed, doubtless, in the wall which faced the entrance, and the well, the one essential const.i.tuent of an early Egyptian tomb, was suppressed. Such arrangements as these afforded much less security to the mummy than those of Memphis or Thebes, and to compensate in some measure for their manifest disadvantages, the tomb was placed within the precincts of the most venerable temple in the city, and the security of the corpse was made to depend upon the awe inspired by the sanctuary of Neith. As the event proved, this was but a slight protection against the fury of a victorious enemy. Less than a year after the death of Amasis, Cambyses tore his body from its resting-place, and burnt it to ashes after outraging it in a childish fashion.[278]

[278] HERODOTUS, iii. 16. Upon this subject see an interesting article by M. EUGeNE REVILLOUT, ent.i.tled: _Le Roi Amasis et les mercenaires Grecs, selon les Donnes d'Herodote et les Renseignements de la Chronique Demotique de Paris_. (_Revue egyptologique_, first year; p. 50 _et seq._)

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 198.--Sepulchral chamber of an Apis bull; from Mariette.]

The tombs of these Sait kings, consisting of so many comparatively small buildings in one sacred inclosure, remind us of what are called, in the modern East, _turbehs_, those sepulchres of Mohammedan saints or priests which are found in the immediate neighbourhood of the mosques. Vast differences exist, of course, between the Saracenic and Byzantine styles and that of Ancient Egypt, but yet the principle is the same. At Sais, as in modern Cairo or Constantinople, iron or wooden gratings must have barred the entrance to the persons while they admitted the glances of visitors; rich stuffs were hung before the niche, as the finest shawls from India and Persia veil the coffins which lie beneath the domes of the modern burial-places. Perhaps, too, sycamores and palm-trees cast their shadows over the external walls.[279] The most hasty visitor to the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn can hardly fail to remember the suburb of Eyoub, where the _turbehs_ of the Ottoman princes stand half hidden among the cypresses and plane trees.

[279] There are two pa.s.sages in HERODOTUS (ii. 91, and 138) from which we may infer that the Egyptians were fond of planting trees about their temples.

The material condition which compelled the Sait princes to break with the customs of their ancestors, affected the tombs of private individuals also. Throughout the existence of the Egyptian monarchy the inhabitants of the Delta were obliged to set about the preservation of their dead in a different fashion to that followed by their neighbours in Upper Egypt; their mummies had to be kept out of reach of the inundation. Isolated monuments, like those of Abydos, would soon have filled all the available s.p.a.ce upon artificial mounds, such as those upon which the cities of the Delta were built. The problem to be solved was, however, a simple one. Since there could be no question of a lateral development, like that of the Theban tombs, or of a downward one, like that of the Memphite mummy pits, it was obvious that the development must be upwards. A beginning was made by constructing, at some distance from a town, a platform of crude brick, upon which, after its surface had been raised above the level of the highest floods, the mummies were placed in small chambers closely packed one against another. As soon as the whole platform was occupied, another layer of chambers was commenced above it.

Champollion discovered the remains of two such cemeteries in the immediate neighbourhood of Sais. The larger of the two was not less than 1,400 feet long, 500 feet wide, and 80 feet high; an enormous ma.s.s "which resembled," he said, "a huge rock torn by lightning or earthquake."[280] No doubt was possible as to the character of the ma.s.s; Champollion found among the debris both canopic vases and funerary statuettes. Within a few years of his death Mariette undertook some fresh excavations in the same neighbourhood; they led to no very important results, but they confirmed the justice of the views enunciated by Champollion. Most of the objects recovered were in a very bad state of preservation; the materials had been too soft, and in time the dampness, which had impregnated the base of the whole structure, had crept upwards through the porous brick, and turned the whole ma.s.s into a gigantic sponge.

[280] _Lettres ecrites d'egypte et de Nubie_, 2nd edition, 1868, p. 41.

These tombs resemble those of the kings in having no well; and as for the funerary chapel we do not as yet know whether it existed at all, how it was arranged, or what took its place. Perhaps each of the more carefully constructed tombs was divided into two parts, a chamber more or less decorated and a niche contrived in the masonry, like the rock-cut ovens of the Phnician catacombs. As soon as the mummy was introduced, the niche was walled up, while the chamber would remain open for the funerary celebrations. In order that the tombs situated at some height above the level of the soil, and in the middle of the block of buildings, should be reached, a complicated system of staircases and inclined planes was necessary. In the course of centuries the tombs of the first layer and especially those in the centre of the ma.s.s, were overwhelmed and buried from sight and access by the continual aggregation above and around them. The families to which they belonged, perhaps, became extinct, and no one was left to watch over their preservation. Had it not been for the infiltration of the Nile water, these lower strata of tombs would no doubt have furnished many interesting objects to explorers. In any case it would seem likely that, if deep trenches were driven through the heart of these vast agglomerations of unbaked brick, many valuable discoveries would be made.[281] Such a system left slight scope to individual caprice; s.p.a.ce must have been carefully parcelled out to each claimant, and the architect had much less elbow room than when he was cutting into the sides of a mountain or building upon the dry soil of the desert. In the royal tombs alone, if time had left any for our inspection, could we have found materials for judging of the funerary architecture of Sais, but, as the matter stands, we are obliged to be content with what we can gather from Theban and Memphite remains as to the prevailing taste of the epoch.

[281] Similar structures exist in lower Chaldaea, and have furnished many inscriptions of great interest and value to a.s.syriologists.

Upon the plateau of Gizeh, to the south of the Great Pyramid, Colonel Vyse discovered and cleared, in 1837, an important tomb to which he gave the name of Colonel Campbell, then British Consul-General in Egypt. The external part of the tomb had entirely disappeared, but we may conclude that it was in keeping with the subterranean portion. The maker of the tomb had taken the trouble to define its extent by a trench cut around it in the rock. The external measurements of this trench are 89 feet by 74. A pa.s.sage had been contrived from one of its faces to the well, which had been covered in all probability by an external structure. The well opens upon a point nearer to the north than the south, and its dimensions are quite exceptional. It is 54 feet 4 inches deep, and 31 feet by 26 feet 8 inches in horizontal section; it terminates in a chamber which is covered by a vault 11 feet 2 inches thick. It was not however in this chamber, but in small lateral grottos that several sarcophagi in granite, basalt, white quartz, &c., were found. The remains of two other wells were traced.

This tomb dates from the time of Psemethek I.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 199.--Section in perspective of "Campbell's tomb,"

from the plans and elevations of Perring.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 200.--Vertical section in perspective of the sarcophagus chamber of the above tomb; compiled from Perring.]

In the necropolis of Thebes there is a whole district, that of the hill _El a.s.sa.s.sif_, where most of the tombs belong to the twenty-sixth dynasty. Their external aspect is very different from that of the Theban sepulchres. The entrance to the subterranean galleries is preceded by a s.p.a.cious rectangular courtyard, excavated in the rock to a depth of 10 or 12 feet. This court was from 80 to 100 feet long and from 40 to 80 feet wide; it was surrounded by a stone or brick wall, and reached by a flight of steps. A pylon-shaped doorway gave access to the courtyard from the side next the rock, another door of similar shape opened upon the plain; "but some tombs are entirely closed (see Fig. 201) except towards the mountain, from which side they may be entered by one or two openings."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 201.--A Tomb on El-a.s.sa.s.sif (drawn in perspective from the plans and elevations of Prisse).]

The subterranean part of these tombs varies in size. In some of them a gallery of medium length leads to a single chamber. In others, and these form the majority, there is a suite of rooms connected by a continuous gallery. To this latter group belongs the largest of all the subterranean Theban tombs, that of Petamounoph (Fig. 191). We have already noticed the extraordinary dimensions of its galleries; there are also two wells which lead to lower sets of chambers. All the walls of this tomb are covered with sculptured reliefs. In the first chambers these are in very bad condition, but they improve as we advance, and in the farthest rooms are remarkable for their finish and good preservation. The exterior of this sepulchre is worthy of the interior. The open court, which acts as vestibule, is 100 feet long by 80 wide. An entrance, looking towards the plain, rises between two ma.s.sive walls of crude brick, and, to all appearance, was once crowned by an arcade; within it a flight of steps leads down into the court.

Another door, pierced through the limestone rock, leads to a second and smaller court which is surrounded by a portico. From this peristyle a sculptured portal leads to the first subterranean chamber, which is 53 feet by 23, and once had its roof supported by a double range of columns. The next chamber is 33 feet square. With a double vestibule and these two great saloons there was no lack of s.p.a.ce for gatherings of the friends and relations of the deceased.