Cleopatra's Needle Part 9

CONE (=hen=) _majesty_. We have called this cone, from its likeness to a fir-cone.

TWO CIRCLES (=aten=) _two seasons_. Each is a solar disk, the ordinary symbol of Ra, but here means season, because seasons depend on the sun.

SHOOT (=renpa=) _year_. This is a shoot of a palm tree; with one notch it equals year.

The following hieroglyphs are obscure, but the highest authorities say that they probably mean, "that he might repose by means of them;" that is, that Thothmes hoped that repose might be brought to his mind from the fact that he made due offerings to his G.o.ds at the two appointed seasons.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XII.

RAMESES II.

The lateral columns of hieroglyphics on the London Obelisk are the work of Rameses II., who lived about two centuries after Thothmes III., and ascended the throne about 1300 B.C. Rameses II. was the third king of the XIXth dynasty; and for personal exploits, the magnificence of his works, and the length of his reign, he was not surpa.s.sed by any of the kings of ancient Egypt, except by Thothmes III.

His grandfather, Rameses I., was the founder of the dynasty. His father, Seti I., is celebrated for his victories over the Rutennu, or Syrians, and over the Shasu, or Arabians, as well as for his public works, especially the great temple he built at Karnak. Rameses II. was, however, a greater warrior than his father. He first conquered Kush, or Ethiopia; then he led an expedition against the Khitae, or Hitt.i.tes, whom he completely routed at Kadesh, the ancient capital, a town on the River Orontes, north of Mount Lebanon. In this battle Rameses was placed in the greatest danger; but his personal bravery stood him in good stead, and he kept the Hitt.i.tes at bay till his soldiers rescued him. He thus commemorates on the monuments his deeds;

"I became like the G.o.d Mentu; I hurled the dart with my right hand; I fought with my left hand; I was like Baal in his time before their sight; I had come upon two thousand five hundred pairs of horses; I was in the midst of them; but they were dashed in pieces before my steeds. Not one of them raised his hand to fight; their courage was sunken in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s; their limbs gave way; they could not hurl the dart, nor had they strength to thrust the spear. I made them fall into the waters like crocodiles; they tumbled down on their faces one after another. I killed them at my pleasure, so that not one looked back behind him; nor did any turn round.

Each fell, and none raised himself up again."[6]

Rameses fought with and conquered the Amorites, Canaanites, and other tribes of Palestine and Syria. His public works are also very numerous; he dug wells, founded cities, and completed a great wall begun by his father Seti, reaching from Pelusium to Heliopolis, a gigantic structure, designed to keep back the hostile Asiatics, thus reminding one of the Great Wall of China. Pelusium was situated near the present Port Sad, and the wall must therefore have been about a hundred miles long. In its course it must have pa.s.sed near the site of Tel-el-Kebir. It is now certain that Rameses built the treasure cities spoken of in Exodus: "Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses" (Exod. i. 11). According to Dr.

Birch, Rameses II. was a monarch of whom it was written: "Now there arose up a new king over Egypt who knew not Joseph."

He enlarged On and Tanis, and built temples at Ipsambul, Karnak, Luxor, Abydos, Memphis, etc.

"The most remarkable of the temples erected by Rameses is the building at Thebes, once called the Memnonium, but now commonly known as the Rameseum; and the extraordinary rock temple of Ipsambul, or Abu-Simbel, the most magnificent specimen of its cla.s.s which the world contains.

"The facade is formed by four huge colossi, each seventy feet in height, representing Rameses himself seated on a throne, with the double crown of Egypt upon his head. In the centre, flanked on either side by two of these gigantic figures, is a doorway of the usual Egyptian type, opening into a small vestibule, which communicates by a short pa.s.sage with the main chamber. This is an oblong square, sixty feet long, by forty-five, divided into a nave and two aisles by two rows of square piers with Osirid statues, thirty feet high in front, and ornamented with painted sculptures over its whole surface. The main chamber leads into an inner shrine, or adytum, supported by four piers with Osirid figures, but otherwise as richly adorned as the outer apartment. Behind the adytum are small rooms for the priests who served in the temple. It is the facade of the work which const.i.tutes its main beauty."[7]

[Ill.u.s.tration: COLOSSAL HEAD OF RAMESES II.]

"The largest of the rock temples at Ipsambul," says Mr. Fergusson, "is _the finest of its cla.s.s known to exist anywhere_. Externally the facade is about one hundred feet in height, and adorned by four of the most magnificent colossi in Egypt, each seventy feet in height, and representing the king, Rameses II., who caused the excavation to be made.

It may be because they are more perfect than any other now found in that country, but certainly nothing can exceed their calm majesty and beauty, or be more entirely free from the vulgarity and exaggeration which is generally a characteristic of colossal works of this sort."[8]

A great king Rameses was, undoubtedly; but he showed no disposition to underrate his greatness. The hieroglyphics on Cleopatra's Needles are written in a vaunting and arrogant strain; and in all the monuments celebrating his deeds the same spirit is present. His character has been well summarized by Canon Rawlinson:--

"His affection for his son, and for his two princ.i.p.al wives, shows that the disposition of Rameses II. was in some respects amiable; although, upon the whole, his character is one which scarcely commends itself to our approval. Professing in his early years extreme devotion to the memory of his father, he lived to show himself his father's worst enemy, and to aim at obliterating his memory by erasing his name from the monuments on which it occurred, and in many cases subst.i.tuting his own. Amid a great show of regard for the deities of his country, and for the ordinances of the established worship, he contrived that the chief result of all that he did for religion should be the glorification of himself. Other kings had arrogated to themselves a certain qualified dignity, and after their deaths had sometimes been placed by some of their successors on a par with the real national G.o.ds; but it remained for Rameses to a.s.sociate himself during his lifetime with such leading deities as Ptah, Ammon, and Horus, and to claim equally with them the religious regards of his subjects. He was also, as already observed, the first to introduce into Egypt the degrading custom of polygamy and the corrupting influence of a harem. Even his bravery, which cannot be denied, loses half its merit by being made the constant subject of boasting; and his magnificence ceases to appear admirable when we think at what a cost it displayed itself. If, with most recent writers upon Egyptian history, we identify him with the 'king who knew not Joseph,' the builder of Pithom and Raamses, the first oppressor of the Israelites, we must add some darker shades to the picture, and look upon him as a cruel and ruthless despot, who did not shrink from inflicting on innocent persons the severest pain and suffering."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XIII.

THE HIEROGLYPHICS OF RAMESES II.

_First side.--Right hand._

"Horus, powerful bull, son of Tum, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ra-user-ma-sotep-en-Ra, lord of kingly and queenly royalty, guardian of Kham (Egypt), chastiser of foreign lands, son of the sun, Ra-meri-Amen, dragging the foreigners of southern nations to the Great Sea, the foreigners of northern nations to the four poles of heaven, lord of the two countries, Ra-user-ma-sotep-en-Ra, son of the sun, Ra-mes-su-men-Amen, giver of life like the sun."

Most of the above hieroglyphs have already been explained, but the following remarks will enable the reader to understand better this column of hieroglyphs.

Cartouche containing the divine name of Rameses:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: "King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ra-user-ma-sotep-en-Ra."]

OVAL (=aten=) _Ra_. The oval is the solar disk, the usual symbol of the supreme solar deity called Ra.

ANUBIS STAFF (=user=) _abounding in_. This symbol was equal to Latin _dives_, rich, abounding in. The _user_, or Anubis staff, was a rod with a jackal-head on the top. The jackal was the emblem of Anubis, son of Osiris, and brother of Thoth. The G.o.d Anubis was the friend and guardian of pure souls. He is therefore frequently depicted by the bed of the dying. After death Anubis was director of funeral rites, and presided over the embalmers of the dead. He was also the conductor of souls to the regions of Amenti, and in the hall of judgment presides over the scales of justice.

FEMALE FIGURE (=ma=) _Ma_ or _Thmei_, the G.o.ddess of truth. She is generally represented in a sitting posture, holding in her hand the _ankh_, the key of life, an emblem of immortality.

DISK (=aten=) _Ra_, the supreme solar deity.

DRILL OR AUGER (=sotep=) _approved_. _Sotep_ means to judge, to approve of. Here it simply means _approved_.

ZIGZAG (=en=) _of_.

The prenomen, or divine name of Rameses, means "The supreme solar G.o.d, abounding in truth, approved of Ra." Thus in his divine nature Rameses claims to be a descendant of Ra, and of the same nature with the G.o.d. This prenomen is repeated twice in each column of hieroglyphs, and as there are eight lateral columns cut by Rameses, it follows that this divine name occurs sixteen times on the obelisk.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Lord of kingly and queenly royalty, guardian of Egypt, chastiser of foreign lands."]

THE VULTURE (=mut=) was worn on the diadem of a queen, and was a badge of queenly royalty.

THE SACRED ASP, called _uraeus_, was worn on the forehead of a king. It was a symbol of kingly royalty and immortality, and being worn by the king (?as??e??), the sacred asp was also called _basilisk_. Rameses, in choosing the epithet "Lord of kingly and queenly royalty," wished perhaps to set forth that he embodied in himself the graces of a queen with the wisdom of a king.

CROCODILE'S TAIL (=Kham=) _Egypt_. _Kham_ literally means black, and Egypt in early times was called "the black country," from the black alluvial soil brought down by the Nile. The symbol thought to be a crocodile's tail represents Egypt, because the crocodile abounded in Egypt, and was a characteristic of that country. Even at the present time Egypt is sometimes spoken of as "the land of the crocodile."

TWO STRAIGHT LINES (=tata=) is the usual symbol for the two countries of Egypt. They appear above the second prenomen of this column of hieroglyphs. Each line represents a layer of earth, and is named _ta_.

Egypt was a flat country, and on this account the emblem of Egypt was a straight line.

A figure with an undulating surface, called _set_, is the usual emblem of a foreign country. The undulating surface probably indicates the hills and valleys of those foreign lands around Egypt, such as Nubia, Arabia Petra, Canaan, Phnicia, etc. These countries, in comparison with the flat land of Egypt, were countries of hills and valleys. This hieroglyph for foreign lands occurs in this column immediately above the first nomen.

Cartouche with nomen: "Ra-mes-es Meri Amen."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FIGURE WITH HAWK'S HEAD is Ra. On his head he wears the _aten_, or solar disk, and in his hand holds the _ankh_, or key of life.

TRIPLE TWIG (=mes=) is here the syllabic _mes_. This is the usual symbol for _birth_ or _born_; thus the monarch in his name _Rameses_ claims to be _born of Ra_.

CHAIR BACK (=s=). The final complement in _mes_.