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The Historians' History of the World 01 [Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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There are also many narratives, such as the celebrated tale of the two brothers, written under Meneptah. Above all, there are the numerous epistles, rhetorical studies, descriptions of the power of the king and his works, the praise of learning, hymns, moral exhortations, also unmeaning letters which evidently served as models for real letters and reports. Besides these collections, we have also many authentic letters, reports, acts, etc., which give us much information concerning the life and doings of the Egyptians in the thirteenth century B.C.
If we cast an eye on the religious life, we clearly recognise that we are here dealing with an epoch in which heretic endeavours are completely suppressed, and orthodoxy asserts its unconditional sway. The religious literature of the time became characterised fairly early. At every turn we meet with the formulas of the victorious esoteric doctrine. The numerous temples show the increase of the power of the priests. All natural relations were restrained and stifled by religion. War was carried on by order, and in the name of, Amen, so as to increase his subjects and to bring him in rich booty. The inscriptions relate very little concerning the actions of the kings, but a great deal concerning the conversations which they had with the deities, and how they “cast all lands at their feet.” The eldest son of Ramses II, Khamuas, became high priest of Ptah in Memphis, and carefully looked after the worship of the sacred Apis: he caused the celebrated tombs of Apis, the Serapeum of Memphis, to be built. By those who came after, he was looked on as a great philosopher and magician.
It is known to us that, as a long established custom, the officials as a rule held one or more priesthoods besides their state office; naturally, higher education and, above all, instruction in writing and learning, were entirely in the hands of the priests. We meet with the enervating effects of these conditions throughout the whole course of Egyptian history.
When the intellectual life becomes torpid, physical strength also disappears. Since everything that constitutes nationality is converted into outer forms, a nation loses even the vitality and power necessary to maintain an independent existence.c
DEATH OF RAMSES II
Thus, somewhat frigidly, Eduard Meyer has summed up the achievements of the great Ramses. The words of Brugsch make a good epilogue.
[ca. 1285 B.C.]
Ramses II enjoyed a long reign. The monuments expressly testify to a reign of sixty-seven years’ duration, of which, apparently, more than half should be reckoned to his rule conjointly with his father. The jubilee celebration of his thirtieth year as (sole?) Pharaoh gave occasion for great festivities throughout the country, of which the inscriptions in Silsilis, El-Kab, Biggeh, Sehel, and even on several scarabs, make frequent mention. The prince and high priest of Memphis, Khamuas, journeyed through the chief cities of the country in this connection, that he might have the great and joyful festival in honour of his father prepared in a worthy fashion by the different governors. The anniversary of the festival was calculated according to a fixed cycle, and apparently fell when the lunar and solar years coincided at short intervals of three or four years. It was observed as a solemn feast.
Great in the field, active in works of peace, Ramses appears to have also tasted heaven’s richest blessings in his family life. The outer surface of the front of the temple of Abydos reveals to us the portraits and the names, now only partially preserved, of 119 children (59 sons and 60 daughters), which besides the lawful consorts known to us, the favourite wife Isinefer, mother of Khamaus, the queens Nefert-ari, Meri-mut, and the daughter of the king of Kheta, implies a large number of inferior wives.
It is scarcely probable that the great Ramses departed this life leaving his earthly kingdom in a peaceful condition. Already in his old age a numerous progeny of sons and grandsons were disputing over their father’s inheritance. The seed of periods of storm and unrest was laid. According to historical tradition these bearings were confirmed in the most striking manner by subsequent events.
The body of Pharaoh was consigned to its death chamber in the rocky valley of Biban-el-Moluk. In spite of the large number of his children, Seti’s grateful son had left no offspring behind him who would have prepared a tomb for his father worthy of his deeds and of his name; a tomb which might if only in some degree have approached the dignity of Seti’s noble funeral vaults. The tomb of Ramses is an insignificant, rather tasteless erection, seldom visited by travellers to the Nile Valley, who probably scarcely suspect that the great Sesostris of Greek story has found his last resting-place in this modest place. This Pharaoh might have repeated of himself at his death, as formerly in his struggle against the Kheta he said, “I stood alone; none other was with me.”d
FOOTNOTES
[6] [The Hittites, now identified with the Kheta, are treated more fully in a special chapter in Vol. II.]
CHAPTER VI. THE FINDING OF THE ROYAL MUMMIES
Nothing in modern discovery has more vividly and suddenly brought the ancient world home to the world of to-day than the finding of the actual bodies, the very flesh and blood of the Pharaohs marvellously preserved to us by the embalmer’s venerable art. The discovery has bridged the chasm between the Ancient and the New as a midnight flash of lightning from the clouds to the earth.
As so often happens, what had foiled the eager search of the patient scholar, had not eluded the cupidity of the thief. The appearance of royal mummies and priceless manuscripts on the open market filled the explorers with both chagrin and zeal. M. Maspero tells of the various wiles by which influential politicians of the Orient concealed their rich treasure-sources, and of the almost endless difficulties overcome by the European explorers before the thieves could be first deprived of their influence with the authorities, and then of their discoveries. These latter the scholars wished to examine and study where found, and then distribute them among museums for the benefit of other scholars and for public enlightenment. The real discoverers, the Arabs, were after loot alone, and mingled ruthlessness, lies, misrepresentations, and all manner of duplicity with their thrift. It is not here fitting to tell the story of the fight between scholarship and commerce; but the account of the revelation of the treasure-chamber itself is as appropriate as it is thrilling.a
Mummy and Inner Case
On Wednesday, the 6th of July, 1879, Messrs. Emil Brugsch and Ahmad Effendi Kamal were conducted by Muhammed Ahmed Abd-er-Rassul to the entrance of the funeral vault itself.
The Egyptian engineer who long ago hollowed out the secret chamber had made his arrangements in the most ingenious fashion. Never was secret chamber better disguised. The chain of hills which at the spot divides the Biban-el-Moluk from the Theban plain, forms, between the Assassif and the Valley of the Queens, a series of natural amphitheatres, of which the best known was, up to the present, that on which stands the monument of Deir-el-Bahari. In the wall of rocks which separates Deir-el-Bahari from the succeeding amphitheatres, just behind the knoll of Sheikh Abd-el-Gurnah, about two hundred feet above the level of the cultivated lands, a pit was dug forty feet in depth by six in breadth. At the bottom of the pit, in the western side, was cut the entrance of a corridor four and a half feet wide by nearly three in height. After running a length of about twenty-five feet, it turns abruptly to the north, and extends to a distance of two hundred feet, not always keeping to the same dimensions; in certain parts it is about six and a half feet wide, in others little more than four. Near the centre five or six roughly hewn steps indicate a sensible change in the level, and on the right hand a sort of unfinished niche shows that there had been an idea of once more changing the direction of the gallery. The latter at last emerges into a kind of irregular, oblong chamber, about twenty-five feet in length.