The Historians' History of the World 01 [Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia]

Mummy in its Wrappings

The coffins and mummies, hastily scanned by the light of a candle, bore historic names—Amenhotep I, Tehutimes II, in the niche near the staircase, Aahmes I, and his son Se-Amen, Seqenen-Ra, Queens Aah-hotep, Aahmes, Nefert-ari, and others. In the chamber at the end, the confusion was at its height, but the predominance of the style proper to the XXth Dynasty was recognised at a glance. The report of Muhammed Ahmad Abd-er-Rassul, which had at first appeared exaggerated, was scarcely more than the attenuated expression of the truth: where I had expected to come on one or two obscure, petty kings, the Arabs had unearthed a whole hypogee of Pharaohs.

And what Pharaohs! perhaps the most illustrious in the history of Egypt—Tehutimes III and Seti I, Aahmes the liberator and Ramses II the conqueror!

Two hours sufficed for this first examination, and then the work of removal began. Three hundred Arabs were speedily collected by the efforts of the mudir’s people, and set about the work. The museum’s boat, hastily summoned, had not yet arrived; but reis Muhammed, one of the pilots on whom reliance could be placed, was on the spot. He descended to the bottom of the pit and undertook to extract its contents. Messrs. Brugsch and Ahmad Effendi Kamal received the objects as they were brought above ground, carried them to the foot of the hill, and ranged them side by side without relaxing their vigilance for a moment. Forty-eight hours of energetic labour sufficed to exhume everything; but the task was only half finished.

The convoy had to be conducted across the plain of Thebes and beyond the river as far as Luxor; several of the coffins, raised with great difficulty by twelve or sixteen men, took seven or eight hours to go from the mountain to the bank, and it will be easily imagined what this journey must have been like in the dust and heat of July.

At last, on the evening of the 11th, mummies and coffins were all at Luxor, duly enveloped in mats and canvases. Three days after, the museum’s steamer arrived; it only remained to load it, and it immediately started again for Bulaq with its freight of kings.

Then a singular thing happened, for from Luxor to Kuft, along either bank of the Nile, the fellah women followed the boat with dishevelled hair and uttering loud cries, and the men fired rifle-shots as they do at funerals.

HOW CAME THESE MONARCHS HERE?

And now a question arises. The greater number of the kings and princes of the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties, had each his tomb, which exists to-day or whose site we learn from ancient documents; Amenhotep I at Drah-abu’l-Neggah, Seti I and Ramses II at the Biban-el-Moluk, and others elsewhere. How is it that their corpses were hidden away between Deir-el-Bahari and Sheikh Abd-el-Gurnah, huddled together with the corpses of the high priests of Amen? The Egyptians themselves have taken pains to furnish us with the materials for the answer. Several of the mummies or coffins which we possess, bear, written in ink by the hand of contemporary scribes, the date, the circumstances, and sometimes the reason of the transfer. These are veritable official reports, whose testimony on the subject is unimpeachable.

The three mummies of the XIXth Dynasty had a common fate. The coffins of Seti I and Ramses II bear three inscriptions, which are identical, or nearly so, and which date from three different periods: what is left of the coffin of Ramses II bears the remains of a hieratic text[8] analogous to the second inscription of the text of Seti I.

The two most ancient of these inscriptions mention Her-Hor. The first is conceived in these terms: “The year VI, of the 2nd month of Shaït the VII, the day of the expedition made by Her-Hor the … of the first Prophet of Amen Ra, king of the gods, to restore the funeral pomp of King Men-maat-Ra L. H. S. [life, health, strength] Son of the Sun, Seti Meneptah, through the inspector,” a name which is not very legible, as is also the case with those of his companions. The inscription which had been placed on the coffin of Ramses II has been rubbed out, and then written over. As it now reads, it suffices to show that it, like the preceding, was of the year VI and of the 2nd month of the season of Shaït, the VII; that the expedition had been undertaken by order of Her-Hor, and that its object was to ascertain the condition of the body of Ramses II. This interpretation of the date does not fail, however, to involve some difficulties. The name of Her-Hor is not surrounded with the cartouche; and we may, if we choose, conclude from this fact that the mention of the year VI refers to the reign of the Ramesside whom Her-Hor succeeded on the throne. On the other hand, the comparison of this inscription with the following ones appears to me to prove that the date, year VI, should probably be placed to the count of the priest-king.

Indeed, no hesitation is possible in regard to the second inscription. It presents itself under two forms, of which one is found only on the coffin of Seti I, whilst the other is afforded us by the two coffins of Ramses I and Ramses II. The inscription of Seti I is conceived in these terms: “In the year XVI, of the 4th month of the season Pirt, the VII, under King Se-Amen, the day of the exhuming of the King Men-maat-Ra Seti Meri-en-Ptah L. H. S., from his tomb to bring him into the tomb of the lady An … of the great dwelling, by the prophet of Amen-Ra, king of the gods, the third prophet of Khonsumois Neferhotep, chief scribe of the monument of the temple of Amen-Ra, king of the gods, servant of the temple of Ramses II in the temple of Amen, Nesipkhashuti, son of Beken-Khonsu. The superior of the funeral hall had said in the presence (of the king) what was the condition (of the mummies) and that they had suffered no damage in being taken from the tomb where they were, and transported to the tomb of the lady An … of the great dwelling where King Amenhotep rests in peace.”

The inscription of Ramses II differs from the preceding only in the opening words: “In the year XVI, of the 4th month of Pirt, the VII, the day of the exhuming of King User-maat-Ra-sotep-en-Ra, the great god of the tomb of King Men-maat-Ra, Seti Miptah.” The rest is similar in every point to the text of Seti I.

The inscription of Ramses I is much mutilated; but what has been preserved permits us to restore a formula at the commencement, which is intermediary between the formula of Seti I and that of Ramses II. “(The year XVI, of the 4th month of Pirt, the VII, under) King Se-Amen, (day of) the exhuming of (the King Men-pehtet-Ra L. H. S.) from the (tomb of King Men-maat-Ra) Seti Miptah (to bring it into this tomb) of the lady An … of the (great) dwelling (where the King Amen) hotep (rests) in peace, etc.”

The three bodies, carried at different periods to Seti’s hypogee, were taken thence all three in one day. This identity in time explains why, in the second part of each inscription, the scribe has always made use of the plural number to express the condition of the mummy: he placed on each of the coffins the formula which applied to all three.