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ANCIENT EGYPT
^Ad TW« ^es-ST
1914.-191*1 Part I.
CONTENTS.
1. To Our Readers.
2. The Jewellery of Riqqeh.
R. Engelbach.
3. Egyptian Nome Ensigns.
Prof. P. E. Newberry.
4. Moon Cult in Sinai.
L. Eckenstein.
5. Three Steles at Graz.
Prof. F. W. Freiherr v. Bissing.
6. Egyptian Beliefs in a Future
Life. Prof. W. M. Flinders Petrie,
7. The Mysterious Zet.
8. For Reconsideration. g. Periodicals.
10. Reviews.
11. Notes and News.
12. Egyptian Research Students
Association.
13. The Portraits.
EDITOR PROF. FLINDERS PETRIE, F.R.S., F.B.A.
Yearly, yy. Post Free,
Quarterly Part, 2s.
MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON AND NEW YORK;
BRITISH SCHOOL OF ARCHAEOLOGY IN EGYPT, University College, London.
A
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^.
Ancient Egypt. Edited by Prof, Flinders Petrie ;
assisted by Prof. Ernest Gardner and Dr. Alan Gardiner. Net price of each number from booksellers is 2s. Subscriptions for the four quarterly parts, prepaid, post free, js., are received by
Hon. Sec. "Ancient Egypt" (H. Flinders Petrie), University College, Gower
Street, London, W.C. In the next numbers, papers will appear by M. B^n^dite, Dr. Capart, Dr. Alan
Gardiner, Dr. Spiegelberg, and others. Books for review, papers offered for insertion, or news, should be addressed : — Editor of " Ancient Egypt,"
University College, Gower Street, London, W.C.
4
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'tM'*
JEWELLERY OF THE XIITH AND XVIIIth DYNASTIES. RIQQEH.
ANCIENT EGYPT.
TO OUR READERS.
A Journal on Ancient Egypt has long been needed for the five thousand readers of Egyptian history, and several times in the last twenty years it has been proposed to supply this want. There has been hitherto no journal in England or abroad to keep readers acquainted with the advances and discoveries about the principal civilisation of the Ancient World. Egypt appears only occasionally in some periodicals on antiquities in general. The foreign publications on the subject are largely devoted to the single branch of philology, and are not adapted to reach a tenth of those who are interested in the ancient life of Egypt. It seems only fitting, therefore, that the largest society for the study of that country should perform the duty of presenting to the public a view of the advance of knowledge.
During recent years there has grown up an increased interest in the past of man and the course of his changes in life and conditions. Most educated people now feel that the causes and stages of the civilisation that the world now has, and the nature of man which has led him on, is at the very foundation of our view of life, — of our present actions, — of our future expectations. Man cannot be understood except through his own history. This interest in the nature of man is satisfied most widely in Egypt. The history of that land has more continuity than can be found elsewhere, and the age of its known past can scarcely be rivalled in any other country. Prehistoric civilisation is most com- pletely preserved there ; and our view of it has been more systematically reduced to order than in any other instance.
When we try to grasp the Prehistoric ages of Europe, it is solely to Egypt that we can turn for any definite scale of history, with which the various periods can be connected. The thousands of years before classical writings can only be gauged by the Egyptian dynasties.
We have, then, to deal with the vital human problem of the nature of man and his development ; how he has come to be where he is now. Every intelligent person who looks beyond the day's affairs must feel that the sight of Egypt, with its eight successive civilisations, is more full of meaning and of interest than any other panorama of humanity.
A
3 To Our Readers.
The scope of this Journal of Ancient Egypt is intended to include original articles, by English and foreign writers, on discoveries in the history, the antiquities, and the language ; also systematic presentations of the state of knowledge on various subjects of general interest. A special feature will be the summaries of all papers in the foreign periodicals, sufficient to show in detail the movement of research. Accounts of excavations will be given, and notices of antiquities that are brought to light. New books on Egypt will be reviewed and analysed, so as to show how far they would be useful to our readers. Objects of importance in various museums will be brought forward ; and a series of whole-page portraits will be given, two in each number. Lastly, notes and news will be provided, archaeological and personal, relating to Egyptian research.
A feature of this Journal will be to make the fullest use of modern facilities of illustration. Wesley said he did not see why the devil should have the best tunes, and we do not see why the world and the flesh should have the best pictures. As many good illustrations as possible will be provided in the text, and also three whole-page plates in each part. The coloured plate of jewellery may we hope be a precedent for each succeeding volume. A head from one of the plates will also be placed on the cover, as a distinctive mark of each part.
The large growth of public interest in Egypt is seen by the flourishing Student Associations, which have been started in recent years in many cities, mostly connected with the British School of Archaeology in Egypt. This journal will be the regular organ of the various branches of the Egyptian Research Students' Association ; and it is hoped that it will also be a common centre for similar bodies in other places.
In no sense is Ancient Egypt a substitute for the regular series of annual volumes on the Excavations of the British School in Egypt. Those volumes are essential for presenting the flow of work and discovery by the School. Here the results from various other lines of excavation and study will be given as a whole.
The appearance of this journal has been delayed somewhat, owing to waiting for attempted co-operation with other English enterprise in Egypt. The needs of separate bodies, however, proved to be so different that the issue of separate publications could not be avoided. At the same time we hope to keep our readers informed of all that is done on the subject, from various sources, English and foreign.
( 3 )
^ THE JEWELLERY OF RIQQEH.
(^Frontispiece^
While working in the Xllth dynasty cemetery of Riqqeh, about four miles north of Meydum, I found the tomb in which was the jewellery shown in the frontispiece. Having excavated the shaft, which was a large one, twenty-two feet deep, we came to the usual bricked-up entrance to the chamber. A small hole had been made in the upper courses of the bricking by an ancient plunderer. The roof had collapsed inside the chamber, and on removing the bricks I saw that about twelve tons of the marl had fallen in. The workmen cleared this away, and when they had arrived within a couple of feet of the floor of the chamber, I stayed in the tomb till it was completely cleared.
The original size of the chamber was lOO inches long and 52 inches wide. The coffin, which had been crushed flat, had been laid in the centre of the chamber. Over what had been the foot of the coffin, and across it, could be traced the remains of a skeleton. Over this again were the arm-bones of another body, the remainder of which lay in a heap about two feet from the chest of the first body. It seemed as if it had been suddenly crushed while in a standing or crouching position.
It appears as if the plunderers had removed only a few bricks, so that a man could crawl inside. One of them entered, opened the coflin, and lifted the body out, laying it across the coffin, so that he could easily unwind the bandages. A collar of beads was first found, and passed out to the shaft, where it was left. Then he reached the jewel, fig. i at the top of the plate, and lifted it. Before he could take away any more, the roof fell in and crushed both him and the mummy. The robbers, seeing the fate of their accomplice, abandoned the tomb, and filled in the shaft to hide their doings. By a singularly lucky chance this tomb had escaped the attention of later plunderers ; perhaps because they saw that it had already been attacked.
The objects upon the body were as follows : —
Fig. I. Part of a jewel forming the name o{ Kha-kheper-ra, Senusert II, the beetle being winged and supported by lotus-flowers. The forepart and one foreleg of the scarab has been broken away, but doubtless it held the disc of the sun, completing the king's name.
On carefully removing a little more of the dust from the chest, I found the gold shell, fig. 4. The cartouche of gold wire, which is soldered on to the shell, is oi Kha-kau-ra, Senusert III, and has a uraeus on each side of the cartouche.
Below this, again, was the pectoral, fig. 2. This was made by perforating a gold plate, and soldering on strips of gold in the form of the design. Each of the cloisons thus formed was filled in with carnelian, lazuli, or turquoise, cut precisely to the form, and fixed with cement. The back of the plate, shown below, was chased with details of the figures. It is of similar work to the well-known jewellery from Dahshur, now in the Cairo Museum, though not quite so elaborate, and it is probably the work of the same hands. It has been suggested that the middle sign is the sekhem ; and the jewel was perhaps presented by the king as a
A 2
4 The Jewellery of Riqqeh.
badge of the rank of a noble who carried the sekliein-t.ce^tK. On either side are two birds standing on ««<^-signs. These birds may possibly be hawks, as Hor nub, or Horus on Nubti Set, is a well-known combination ; but the birds in this design are not by any means of the familiar conventional type of falcon. At the top of the pectoral is a pair of //Jrt/-eyes, with the sun between them ; and the design is bounded on either side by papyri. The piece was sharply bent across by the fall of the roof, but it has now been flattened by the skill of Mr. Young at Oxford.
The small gold figure of the god Min, fig. 3, was found behind the neck, having perhaps fallen down when the bandages decayed. With it were a considerable number of cylindrical and long double-bored beads, which were grouped in the bead-collars so usual in the Xllth dynasty. Lower down on the chest were some spherical gilt beads (fig. 5), and some very minute gold beads. A few of the collar beads, and one of the semi-circular pottery ends of the collar, were thrown away in the shaft. I had the whole contents of the chamber and shaft sifted with a fine sieve, and I did all the sifting of the organic matter in the chamber personally. Nothing further was found except one piece of carnelian inlay of the eyebrow and a piece of the eye, which had been knocked out of the pectoral when it was bent by the falling roof.
The whole of this group is in the University Museum, Manchester.
The lower part of the frontispiece shows a group of jewellery from a tomb of the XVIIIth dynasty. The gold necklace, fig. 6, weighs 477 grains. The centre-piece is a plaque of which both sides are here shown. It is inscribed Sesh Bera, "the Scribe Bera," and on the other side Ra-ineti-kheper Amen-tut, the prenomen of Tahutmes III, 1503-1449 B.C. Fig. 7 is a kohl-pot of steatite covered with dark green glaze ; the form is that of a seated ape holding the pot, the lid of which is here placed above it. Figs. 8, 9, are four gold rings used for fastening the hair, weighing from 105 to 1 19 grains each. In this tomb were also a large bronze mirror and a rough alabaster bowl. The whole of this group is now in the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh.
At the base is part of a string of carnelian beads, characteristic of the XVIIIth-XIXth dynasty, found broken up in another tomb.
A fuller account, with a larger plate in colours, will appear in the first of the annual volumes Riqqeh and Memphis VI.
Reginald Engelbach.
( s )
NOTES ON SOME EGYPTIAN NOME ENSIGNS AND THEIR HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE.
It is generally recognized that the nomes of Egypt are the survivals of pre-Menite States, and there is abundant evidence to prove that many of these States retained in dynastic times, as nomes, much of their ancient character and liberties. A study of the nome ensigns ought, therefore, to yield us some information concerning the various States of Egypt before the founding of the Monarchy by Menes. The object of this paper is to draw attention to certain compound nome ensigns, and to suggest their historical signification. The religious significance of the nome signs has been already dealt with in my paper on Some Prehistoric Egyptian Cults, in the Liverpool A finals of Archaeology, Vol. VI, p. 1 1 1.
The titulary of the early kings is important in this connection. All the kings of the 1st dynasty bear Horus names, i.e., the Falcon (Horus) of Hierakonpolis in Upper Egypt surmounts the palace facade in which their names are written. They were primarily chieftains of the Falcon Nome, or State, of Upper Egypt. (See my paper on The Horus-Title of the Kings of Egypt, in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, Vol. XXVI (1904), pp. 295-299.)
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In the Ilnd dynasty we find with Per-ab-sen that in place of the Falcon upon the palace fagade there is a Set-z.n\mdX, which certainly indicates that the chieftains
of the ^ nome had gained the supremacy in Egypt, that they had overthrown
the Falcon chieftains and seized the throne. With Khasekhemui the palace name of the king is surmounted by the 5^/-animal on one side, and the Falcon on the other, which suggests an alliance between the royal families of the -^ and the
nomes. After Khasekhemui, the ^^/-animal is never again found above the
A 3
6 Egyptian Nome Ensigns.
palace name of a king, but the Falcon invariably appears upon it. Another nome ensign appears over the palace name of Menes' queen, Hotep (see Fig. i): this is the ensign of the Saite Nome of Lower Egypt, and suggests that Hotep was the hereditary chieftainess of Sais, the pre-Menite capital of the kings of Lower Egypt.* By his marriage with this royal lady, Menes united the thrones of Upper and Lower Egypt.
On the Slate Palette of Narmer (Menes) there is a scene representing the king smiting the chieftain of the Harpoon kingdom (in the north-western corner of the Delta), and on the verso of the same palette there is a scene showing Narmer inspecting the beheaded bodies of his foes. Above this scene is a large boat over which is a Harpoon with a Falcon standing upon it (Fig. 2). This Harpoon upon a boat is the ensign of the Harpoon Nome (Fig. 3) and the Falcon standing upon it indicates, according to the usual Egyptian convention, the conquest of the Harpoon kingdom by the chieftain of the Falcon clan.
Now among the nome ensigns of Egypt there are several which represent the Falcon .standing on, or by, the distinguishing sign of a nome. For example, the ensign of the Western or Libyan Nome is W-. This is a compound ensign and
records the conquest of the ft clan by the Falcon chieftains. When this conquest took place we do not know, but it was probably some time just before the establishment of the Monarchy, when the Falcon army were pushing their way up to the Mediterranean. Another nome ensign surmounted by a Falcon is that of
the Oryx nome "^^ . This ensign with the Falcon upon the back of the Oryx
only occurs in late inscriptions. The Oryx was one of the Setian animals and it was perhaps during the wars of the " Followers of Horus " {i.e., the Falcon people) with the Set clan, towards the end of the Hnd dynasty, that this conquest took place. To the east of the Oryx Nome there was a small district with Org m. for its ensign {Beni Hasan, I, PI. XXV, 1. 35). Here, perhaps, was a small colony of the J^- clan (see next page) from the Delta, which had been vanquished by the Falcon people.
To the south of Middle Egypt there were two large nomes having for their
0 C^
ensigns ^\^ and ^^=^ respectively. Here in prehistoric times was probably a
great 5^ " Cerastes "-worshipping clan, which was vanquished by an expedition from the i Herakleopolitan and i^^Xoite people, the former taking possession
of the land on the western bank, the latter, the land on the eastern bank. In historic times there are several indications of the close relationship between the
Hetakleopolitans and the people of the ^ nome.^
' The names of certain of these pre-Menite kings are found in the top register of the Palermo Stone. The determinative used in writing their names is the king wearing the Neith crown %, .
' That the chieftains of Siut were the powerful adherents of the Herakleopolitan kings is well known, but there is a significant passage in the inscription of Kheti II (Griffith, Siut and Der Rifeh, PI. XV, 1. 2) dealing with the canal of his district, in which he says that he "brought a
Egyptian Nome Ensigns. 7
Turning now to the Delta nomas we find a remarkable group of compound ensigns, in which, behind the distinguishing sign of the nome, there is a figure of a Bull. In the Old Kingdom there were four of these ensigns, and later a fifth appears. These are : —
(0^^- (2) ^^, var. ^^. (3)^'^. (4)1^. (S) O
^
( 1 ) A late variant of the first is 1^5 > ^"^ the name of the capital of the nome
for which the ensign stood was j s=3 J q Tb-ntr, the Greek Sebennytos, the Arabic Samanild. Tb-ntr means the " Divine Calf," and this was the sacred animal of the ^"VWJ nome.
(2) The second ensign has been understood to mean the nome of the " Wild Bull," the Bull of the f^-^^ or desert (Griffith in Ptah-hetep II, p. 27). On the
analogy of p?^ ^^ we ought, I believe, to take the (^^ or r^^^^ as being the cult
object of the people of the nome. The sacred name of its capital was '--^r-
(var. *-«- ), and as we know that there was an important ^Q. (van ^^ ) cult^
the [^£1 (or fw/i) in this ensign clearly stands for the ^^ (or ^^) cult.
(3) The third ensign is usually spoken of as that of the " Black Bull " (Griffith in Ptah-hetep II, p. 27). The name of its capital, however, is sometimes
written s^- which on the analogy of (l) and (2) suggests that there was a cult of
the C2 • What was this .gj cult ? The reading of the sign gives us
or (I ^3:^ ^v ^ which is a well-known name for the shield. In the Pyramid Texts ' we actually find ^in = fl, i.e., it is a word-sign for the slender parrying shield which is figured in early inscriptions in the compound nome-ensign^^. This compound nome ensign consists of two originally separate cults (i) the H-shield Q.km) and (2) the crossed arrows f^ («')• For *" Egyptian shield cult we have the
authority of Aristides, who mentions that there was a district in Egypt sacred to Athena (Neith) where shields were dedicated, but he unfortunately does not give us the name of the place. Now Neith had a temple in ^'^, and as we have seen
£3 = W , it seems probable that '^-or- is the district to which Aristides alludes ; U q'O
gift for this city (/>., Siut), in which there were no families of the Northland, nor people of Middle Egypt." Breasted, commenting on this passage {Ancient Records, I, 407, note b) says:— "The remarkable statement perhaps means that no forced labor was employed on the canal, from any part of Egypt composing the Herakleopolitan kingdom, viz., the Northland (Delta) and Middle
Egypt."" It means, I think, that the colonists from the ^^ nome (in the Delta), or from the V
nome (in Middle Egypt), who resided in the nome were exempted from all forced labour on the canals.
• On this cult see my paper in the Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology, Vol. I, pp. 24 et seqq.
' Ed. Sethe, 252, 431. Compare also jj "^s* (227) for i^ ^ ^=« .
A 4
8 Eg)'ptian Nome Ensigns.
that it was, in fact, the scat of an early shield cult. Thus, I take it, in the nome ensign ^^ ^^ the ^1:3 is a word-sign for the cult-object of the nome.
(4) Regarding the geographical position of the ^^ J^ (F'g- 4) nome we have
no evidence ; but that it was in the Delta, and somewhere in the neighbourhood of the other " Bull " nomes, is probable. The cult-object here is clearly a sickle.
(5) The fifth ensign, which first appears in the New Kingdom, has a Q-sign in
front of the Bull, and the name of this noma's capital was 8 1 j ^ Hsb-t, which is
one of the readings of the Q-sign. This would lead one to suppose that there had been, at some time, a cult of the Q. Whatever this Q represents does not concern us here, but the interesting fact is that the sign serves to differentiate the nome ensign O ^ from the other ensigns of this " Bull " group.
Now in the " Bull " ensigns that we have been studying it is to be observed that the Bull stands behind, and is moreover figured on a much larger scale than the distinguishing cult-sign. The Bull was, we know, a very important cult-animal of the Central Delta, and indeed the Central Delta district is sometimes represented by the Bull upon a perch without any distinguishing sign before it. This last fact, and the occurence of the Bull upon the five ensigns mentioned above, suggests that a Bull-worshipping clan had become supreme in the Central Delta in pre- Menite times. On several of the archaic Slate Palettes the king is actually figured in the likeness of a Bull, and from the IVth dynasty onwards he is often called the ^ "the Strong Bull." In these Delta "Bull" names we have, I believe, evidence of a pre-Menite " Bull " kingdom.
Before concluding these brief notes on the nome ensigns I may bring forward one more fact that is of interest concerning them. A certain number of the ensigns are surmounted by the ostrich feather ; this feather appears not to be a sign of conquest but an indication of race. It was the characteristic symbol of Libyan tribes, and whenever it appears above an ensign it indicates a colony of Libyan people ; in other words, the ensign that it surmounts was originally a Libyan cult.
Percy E. Newberry.
Note. — In connection with the preceding paper it may be observed that of the Bull nomes discussed here VI, X, XI, XII, the evidence of the historical development is that X, Athribis, Ka kern, is the original centre. It was the only one of these which had the festival of the Corn-Osiris {Historical Studies, VIII). Nomes VI, Xois, Ka-khas, and XII, Sebcnnytus, Ka-theb, appear next, just before the order of the nomes was finally arranged in river lines. Lastly came XI, Pharbaithos, Ka-heseb, a region where Set was still the deity in historic times.
These four nomes occupy the middle Delta, and with them must be grouped by its position IX, Busiris, which had one of the greater relics of Osiris, and so preceded VI, XI, and XII, in its growth. That Osiris could be looked on as a bull is shown by Osiris of Sheten Pharbaithos being called "the bull" (De Roug£, Geog. Basse Eg., 70).
As to the ostrich feather, though a Libyan sign, it also seems to be a divine sign in early times, appearing in the 1st dynasty on the backs of animals that were worshipped. Perhaps it owes this meaning to its being the shed-shed, the vehicle of the soul mounting to heaven.
F. P,
( 9 )
MOON-CULT^ IN SINAI ON THE EGYPTIAN MONUMENTS.
The monuments found in Sinai contain information which points to the existence of moon-worship in the Peninsula at a remote period in history. These records consist of rocl< tablets which were engraved by the Pharaohs from the 1st to the XlXth dynasty, over the mines which they worked at Wady Maghara, and of remains of various kinds discovered in the temple ruins of the neighbouring Sarbut el-Khadem or Serablt. The Egyptians went to Sinai primarily for the purpose of securing copper and turquoise, which are found in a ferruginous layer that appears in the mountainous district of the western part of the Peninsula.
The mines at Serabit lie in the vicinity of two adjacent caves facing an extensive site of burning, which has the peculiarities of the high-places of which we hear so much in the Bible. These caves formed a sanctuary which, judging from what is known of ancient sanctuaries in Arabia generally, was at once a shrine and a store-house, presumably in the possession of a priesthood or clan, who, in return for offerings brought to the shrine, gave either turquoise itself, or the permission to mine it in the surrounding district. The sanctuary, like other sanctuaries in Arabia, was under the patronage of a female divinity, the representative of nature- worship, and one of the numerous forms of Ishthar. In the Xllth dynasty, when the Egyptians gained a permanent foothold at Serabit, they identified this divinity as their own goddess Hat-hor. The figure of Hat-hor appears again and again on the wall-decorations of the temple buildings ; her head surmounts the columns of a chamber in front of the cave, and in the inscriptions she is called, at first, " mistress of the turquoise country "; and later, simply " mistress of turquoise."
There are many Hathors in Egypt, but the form that is shown in Sinai is Hathor with a headdress of cow's horns which enclose the orb of the full moon. The form is familiar in Egypt also, and the association of Hathor with the moon-cult at home was apparently the reason why she was chosen as the Egyptian representative of the female divinity of Serabit in Sinai.
Hathor appears on the monuments of Serabit from the Xllth dynasty onwards. In one instance we find her represented also at Wady Maghara. The Egyptian monuments at Wady Maghara consist of tablets that were carved on the living rock above the
mines, in order to commemorate the hold which the Pharaohs here gained over the country. The tablet on which Hathor is seen is of Amen-em-hat III (XII, 6) and is throughout of a peaceful character. The king is represented facing the ibis-headed figure of Thoth, who holds out to him a staff on which are the aiikh and the dad, signs of life and stability, and Hathor stands behind Thoth.
This introduction of Thoth likewise bears on the moon-cult of the Peninsula, for the Egyptian god Thoth was originally a lunar divinity. His chief shrine
5. Amenemhat III, Thoth and Hat-hor. Maghareb. {Researches in Sinai, Fig. 55.)
lO
Moon- Cult in Sinai.
during historical times was at Hermopolis in Lower Egypt, where he was repre- sented as ibis-headed. But he was also represented under the form of a baboon, or a baboon was associated with him.
The tablet of Amen-em-hat III seems to indicate that Thoth, in this capacity of a lunar divinity and as the representative of the moon-worshippers of the Peninsula generally, was well disposed towards the Pharaoh of Egypt ; Hathor, mistress of the turquoise, was in attendance on Thoth as the representative of the neighbouring district of Serabit.
This interpretation of the scene is confirmed by earlier monuments. A rock- tablet of Ra-en-user (V, 6) at Wady Maghara, which is much broken, shows the figure of Thoth, who probably faced the king. On the other part of the tablet the king is seen smiting the enemy, who crouches before him, and a large libation vase, supported on three ankhs, emblems of life, is accompanied by words to the effect that "the lord of foreign lands gave coolness." Here Thoth, the lunar divinity, also appears in friendly relation with the king; the king smites the enemy, and by doing so gains the approval of the lord of foreign lands.
6. " Khnumu-KHUFU, the Great God smiting the Anu" before Thoth. Wady Maghareh. (Palestine Exploration Fund.)
Again the tablet at Wady Maghara, of King Khufu (IV, 2) the great pyramid- builder (now unfortunately destroyed), represented the king smiting the enemy, and doing so actually before the ibis-headed figure of Thoth (Fig. 6). The king here again is acting in agreement with the lunar divinity, whom he is honouring by smiting his foes.
Other finds point in the same direction, confirming the belief that the Egyptians looked upon the inhabitants of Sinai as moon-worshippers.
Moon- Cult in Sinai.
II
Thus, the figure of a baboon, the animal or incarnation of Thoth, was discovered at Serabit during the excavations of 1905-1906. The figure is of sandstone, worked in a rude style, and was found in the holy cave itself This figure is now in Oxford. Another figure of a baboon, life-size, and worked in limestone with an. inscription around its base, came out of one of the store- chambers that adjoined the cave. If I mistake not, it was of the Middle Kingdom. These baboons, emblems of the lunar divinity in Egypt, were presumably considered for this reason suitable offerings to the sacred shrine of a people who were themselves moon-worshippers.
The rude figure of the baboon that was found at Serabit is similar in character and workmanship to figures of baboons that were found at the primitive shrines of Abydos and Hierakonpolis in Upper Egypt. The baboon was here, perhaps, originally the holy animal, the cult of which was overlaid in predynastic times by the cult of the god Osiris. Many figures of baboons^ over sixty in one instance, were found in the earliest levels of the temple at Abydos, that were excavated in the winter of 1903-1904. Their position showed that they had been discarded at an early period of history. The likeness in character of the baboon found in Sinai to the baboons found in the early levels at Abydos and Hierakonpolis suggested that the emblem of the baboon was carried to Sinai at an early period in history.
7. Sandstone Baboon. Serabit. (A'. Sin., 127.)
8. Glazed Baboon. Hierakonpolis. (Univ. Coll. L.)
9. Glared Baboon. Abydos. (Univ. Coll. L.]
The Egyptians from the earliest times approached the shrine at Serabit in the character of quasi-worshippers, and judging from the remains and offerings that were found in the caves themselves, and in the adjoining row of store- chambers, their relations with the centre were throughout of a friendly character. For here already King Sneferu (III, 9) deposited as a gift the figure of a hawk, his favourite emblem, found likewise in his funeral temple in Egypt, the inscription and workmanship of which show it to be a contemporary monument.
Sneferu (111,9) who thus figured as a quasi-worshipper at Serabit, appears as a smiter of the enemy at Wady Maghara. On his rock-tablet he is seen as a smiter, wearing a headdress that consists of a double plume that rises from a pair of horns. The double plume is well known, but such horns are foreign to Egypt. Again these horns point in the direction of moon-worship, for they recall
12 Moon- Cult in Sinai.
the lunar horns that are worn by the moon-god and his devotees on ancient Babylonian seal-cyh'nders.
On the scene of smiting, as we see it represented at Wady Maghara, the Pharaoh wields his mace over the enemy whom he holds by his top-knot, together with a spear and a curved object which he seems to have taken from him. The curved object is probably a boomerang, or throw-stick ; the man is of Semitic type, not unlike the better Bedawy of to-day. The earliest tablets at Wady Maghara contain little wording beyond the titles of the king. But Sneferu
i'l
It.
■/-^\
yii
]
/
J
10. " Sneferu, the Great God, ravaging the Lands," before his ia Neb-maot. (Researches in Sinai, Fig. 50.)
(111,6) who wears the lunar horns is called "great god smiting countries," or barbarians ; King Khufu (IV, 9) who slays the enemy before Thoth is called a "smiter of the Anu," Sahura (V, 2), and later kings of the Vth and Vlth dynasties are described as smiting the Mentu. The Anu are mentioned on the Palermo Stone in connection with a king whose name is broken away, but who is pro.bably Den-Setui, fifth king of the 1st dynasty, as he is known to have made expeditions into Sinai. The Mentu was the ordinary word that was applied by the Egyptians to the Asiatics. As the Pharaohs were acting in concert with moon-worshippers in Sinai in attacking the Anu and the Mentu, we are left to infer that these were not moon -worshippers themselves.
The Egyptians went to Sinai in order to secure turquoise and copper. Turquoise has been found in Egypt in Neolithic graves ; for copper there would
Moon-Cult in Sinai. 13
be an increasing demand on all sides from the close of the Neolithic age. The Egyptians were always on friendly terms with Serabit, the centre of the turquoise district. It was at Maghara, between the 1st and the Vth dynasty, that they came into conflict with the invading Semites who disputed with them the possession of the mines.
The association of Sinai with moon-worship is in keeping with what is known from Semitic sources.
The Moon-god in early Babylonia was known under various names and epithets. As Ea, or Ya, he was looked upon as the oldest Semitic god of Babylonia, to which his coming brought the artificial culture of the date-palm, probably by way of the Persian Gulf Ea, like Thoth, is esteemed the source of wisdom and culture, and Eabani, his devotee, was represented wearing lunar horns similar to those that are worn by Sneferu. A later name of the Moon-god among the Semites was Sin. As Sin, the name forms part of the name of Naram-Sin, king of Agade, whose date is about 3750 B.C., and whose actions, as we learn from his Annals, were considered in the light of lunar influence. The Moon-god, as Sin, had a sanctuary at Ur of the Chaldees, the starting place of Terah and Abraham, and a sanctuary at Haran, in Northern Syria, the place to which they migrated ; and the name Sinai itself is connected by scholars with Sin. The name appears in three forms in the Bible in the list of the stations of Exodus, which stand in Chapter 33 of the Book of Numbers, which is apportioned by the higher critics to the Elohist, the earlier source of the Hexateuch. There is named the wilderness of Sin, the desert of Sinai, and the wilderness of Zin — places that lie in different parts of the Peninsula — which point to a general association of the country with moon-worship.
The list of the stations of Exodus has the appearance of a contemporary record. It establishes the association of moon-worship with the Peninsula about 1300 B.C. The Egyptian monuments, as we have seen, carry this association several thousand years further back in history.
LiNA ECKENSTEIN.
( 14 )
THREE STELAE AT GRAZ.
As far as I was able to ascertain the Egyptian monuments at Graz have never been studied. Years ago Prof. Strzygowski sent me photographs of the three stelae which I am publishing here. The most remarkable one is Fig. ii, showing King Sebekenisaf presenting wine or some other liquid, to the god Ptah-Sokaris, of whom the king is beloved. Unfortunately, we cannot make out which of the Sebekemsaf kings of the Xlllth dynasty is the king here mentioned. The style of the monument (H. 042 m., B. 0"22 m.) shows the somewhat rude art of the late Middle Kingdom. Limestone, from Thebes.
II. Sebekemsaf offering to Puh-Seker who gives him life.
12. Mertitha making a dflnk -offering to floraikhuti, Great God, Lord of Heaven.
Fig. 12 is a small limestone stela which is of the rough work usually found in the late New Empire. The dead, the son of Nesqa'min, Merti-r-za' is praying before Horus. For the names compare LlEBLEIN, Dtctionnaire, 2414 and 241 1, 2346. The style of the relief, bad as it is, hardly allows us to put the monument
later than 700 B.C.; in this case the writing ^^^^ ^ ^^ ^ for "^°^ <=> ^^ , is interesting as one of the oldest examples of the use of the Ptolemaic system of writing in private names. No traces of colour. H. 0205 m., B. 0-125 m.
Three Stelae at Graz.
IS
Perhaps the finest piece of the three, from an artistic point of view, is the portion of a limestone stela, Fig. 1 3, H. 0*33 m., B. 0'28 m. In the upper register one named MiNEPTAH-NFU-'EA' (Merneptah-nefu-oa) prays to Osiris Chenthamenthes Onnofris (Khentamenti Un-nefer). Below, a priest with a leopard's skin round his shoulders burns incense to Osiris. The elegant, though not very delicate work, points to the XlXth or XXth dynasty. The reading of the names is not certain, and I have no hand copy of this monument.
Fr. W. von Bissing.
13. Merneptah-nefu-oa adoring Osiris Khentamenti Un-neler.
( i6 )
EGYPTIAN BELIEFS IN A FUTURE LIFE. {The Drew Lecture, November, 191 3.)
The remote view which we gain in the literature and customs of Egypt is the longest vista into the growth of mind and ideas that is open to us. In no other land are there such full written materials, such abundant details of funeral ritual, and so complete an historical record to fix the relation of all the developments that are found. Egypt is, therefore, the most favourable ground for studying the growth of beliefs regarding the nature and the future of the soul.
The beliefs about the soul are closely bound up with the theology. The functions of the gods of different races which entered the land, naturally determined the relations of the soul to the gods in the future. Hence it is necessary to notice the main changes in religious beliefs, and to refer to the principal gods of each cycle ; but our subject will be simplified by avoiding the theology where it is not essential to the views regarding the soul.
In order to realise the historical setting of the growth of belief, we must first briefly state the periods of thought which we have to regard in this question, beginning with what is best known. In the (i) Christian Age there survived many reflections of the older faiths, especially on points not decided by Apostolic teaching. The (2) Alexandrian age was greatly pervaded by Syrian, Persian, and Indian thought, as seen in Philo, the Book of Wisdom, and the Hermetic books. The rise of this was doubtless influenced by the sense of personality and ethical right, in the sixth to the eighth centuries B.C., seen in Ezekiel, Hesiod, and Piankhy the Ethiopian. In (3) the Age of the conquest of Syria by the Thothmides and Ramessides, 1200-1600 B.C. (which we might call the E.xodus Age), no doubt Oriental influences were at work, mainly seen in the bursts of solar monotheism which soon disappeared. The so-called Book of the Dead was the popular guide to the future world in this age. (4) The previous great civilisation of the Xth to XVIth dynasties shows a growth of personal enquiry, some agnosticism, and the development of the belief in the Osirian Judgment of the Dead. This period is put at about 2000 to 4000 B.C., by the uniform and consistent statements of the Egyptians. Before this was (5) the Pyramid Period, 4000 to 5000 B.C., from which we have the long Pyramid Texts, the earliest compilation known, mostly from much more ancient sources. Of the earlier stages we can broadly distinguish three ; these are (6) the Heliopolitan eastern sun-worshippers, 5000-7000 B.C. ; (7) the western Osiris-worshippers, of 7000-8000 B.C. ; and the (8) primitive animal-worshippers, perhaps Palaeolithic, before 8000 B.C.
It may seem surprising to refer to any religion in Palaeolithic times. Yet the precision of the funeral ritual extends back to the earliest Neolithic graves that we know in Egypt, and offerings accompany burials in Europe back to the age of the Cave men. The sun-worship, which is dominant in the Pyramid Texts, cannot be due to the Vth dynasty in which Heliopolis was prominent, but must belong to the much earlier rule there of the Delta kings. This is shown by the general tone of the civilisation which underlies the religious texts. To take one instance: the dead king is often stated to depend on reed floats to cross the waters of death, while boats and ships had been familiarly used throughout the
Egyptian Beliefs in a Future Life. 17
second Prehistoric Age, 5000 to 7000 B.C. Had the magic texts originated later than that, boats would have been pre-supposed in all cases, and the more primitive floats would not have appeared. Thus the sun-worship ideas (6) must be put as early as we have stated, and before those lie certainly two earlier strata of belief. We have now stated the general position historically.
The actual sources of information are (a) the wide-spread funerary customs, as recorded from many excavations ; (b) the Pyramid Texts, edited by Dr. Sethe, translated into French by Sir Gaston Maspero, and discussed in English by Prof Breasted, in his Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, (referred to as Br.) ; (c) the Coffin Texts published by Lacau, but not yet translated ; (d) the Book of the Dead, best translated by Renouf
The earliest stratum of ideas that we can distinguish before the rise of the cult of Osiris, or the sun-worship, is doubtless an accumulation of several earlier stages : the history of those is beyond recall. Whether we shall ever be able to distinguish these primitive strata by any contemporary facts is very doubtful ; but possibly the finding of some cemetery earlier than any yet known, or of some group of neighbouring tribes, may show the dividing lines of the periods.
The animal-worship, and the most primitive deities reputed to be the parents of the gods, are the earliest ideas which we can distinguish. Animism appears in the spirit of the tree which guards the cemetcrj', and is the Tree-goddess shown in later pictures as giving food and drink to the dead. Certainly the dead were .suppo.sed to have a continued existence, as food offerings are found in the very earliest graves. A remarkable idea, described later, is that dead persons head downward were malignant, and were enemies of the good dead who stood upright. This very crude idea was probably derived from the symbolism expressed in a prehistoric painting, where a defeated enemy is portrayed head downward. It seems that this must have originated in the earliest days of savagery, and be part of the most primitive thought about the future life.
The earliest deities that we can trace are the feminine heaven. Nut, and the masculine earth, Gcb. It may seem strange that the Nile and the Sun, the present essentials of Egyptian life, were not the first objects of worship. But the order of selection agrees with the conditions of the country at that remote age. It is probable that rainfall continued, and hunting, not agriculture, was the task of man, until the beginning of the prehistoric Osirian civilisation. The hymn to Nut preserved in the Pyramid Texts is regarded as the oldest fragment of the ritual {Br. 95, 148). It traces the birth of the sky from Shu and Tefnut, space and fluid (aether and chaos), mere abstractions which were never worshipped. The purpose of the hymn is to beseech Nut to give benefits to the deceased («), who is thus supposed to have gone to the sky. " Geb (the Earth-god) is come to thee, O Nut, and thou art become strong. Thou didst rule in the body of thy mother Tefnut (chaos) when thou wast not yet born ; give («) life and strength that he may not die.
"Take rule in thy heart and come forth from the body of thy mother (chaos) in thy name of Nut (sky). Strong one, daughter who is ruler of her mother, and who ari.ses as queen of the Delta ; protect this («) who is in thy body that he die not.
" O Great One who is produced in heaven and there rules, thou hast come, thou hast filled all places with thy excellence, the whole land is under thee, and thou hast taken it, thou hast embraced the earth for thee, and all things are in thy arms ; grant this («) to be like an indestructible star within thee.
ii
1 8 Egyptian Beliefs in a Future Life.
" Thou art not separated from Geb in thy name of Heaven, and thou protectest the whole land in all places.
" O Thou who stretchest thyself above the earth, above thy father Shu (space, or aether, which separated heaven from earth), and who rulest over him, because he loves thee and puts himself and all things under thee ; seeing that thou hast taken each god unto thee with his boat in order that they wander not from thee like stars, let not («) wander from thee in thy name of Guardian."
Here the heaven. Nut, is appealed to (i) by her vitality, to give life to the dead ; (2) by her ruling powers, to protect the dead ; (3) by her control of all things, to give a place to the dead like an indestructible star, that is, one of the circumpolar stars that never set ; (4) by her guidance of the gods who sail in their boats across the sky, to guard the dead likewise from wandering away.
From this we gain the first view of the position of the dead. They were immortal ; they went to the sky, not to the Earth-god, Geb ; they were not to suffer extinction and re-birth, but to be always above the earth like the northern stars. All this belongs to an earlier stage than the Osiris-worship : to a stage from which Osiris raised man by teaching agriculture and giving laws, according to the Egyptian tradition. It is the stage of a savage life of hunters, before the rise of the prehistoric civilisation, — the stage when a dead enemy, turned head down- ward, became a malicious spirit. Yet the essential ideas of spirit, of immortality, of a life in the sky, are all dominant.
This future life needed to be sustained, and various provisions for its benefit were placed in the grave. We have not yet found any graves dating back before the Osirian Age, but there can be no doubt that the custom of placing food and weapons in the grave belongs to at least as early a stage as the conception of the dead going to the Sky-goddess.
To this prc-Osirian Age must also be assigned the cannibalistic idea of eating the gods to acquire their qualities. Such an idea cannot have arisen when only a few mighty anthropomorphic deities were recognised ; it belongs to the half- animistic age, when a multitude of spirits peopled the future life, and might be caught like cattle. The dead " is one who eats men and lives on gods " ; various of his ministers lasso the gods, and stab them, take out their entrails, cut them up, and cook them. The dead " is he who eats their charms, and devours their souls ; their great ones are for his morning portion, their middle ones are for his evening portion, their little ones are for his night portion, their old men and their old women are for his oven. It is the Great-Ones- North-of-the-Sky who set for him the fire to the kettles containing them, with the legs of their oldest ones as fuel"(5r. 128). It would be impossible to put in the Osirian Period the orgies from which this feast is described ; they obviously belong to the ages before Osiris is said to have civilised the Egyptians.
Connected with this is also the ritual of dismemberment of the dead. The allusions to this are frequent, even in the comparatively late compilation of the Book of the Dead. There is no reason to doubt their literal detail when we find many instances of this unfleshing of the dead continuing through the Prehistoric Age, and even into the Pyramid Period. The reason asserted for this custom was the purifying of the dead from all his evil. The reconstruction of the body is often mentioned, and the returning of the head to it.
We have now noticed the main ideas which appear to belong to the earliest age that we can trace ; they doubtless are really of varying strata and sources, beyond
Egyptian Beliefs in a Future Life,
19
our present analysis, but at least we may say that they precede the Osiris- and the Solar-worship, and are probably earlier than the prehistoric civilisation.
14. Nut, the starry goddess of heaven, overarching Geb, the earth, covered with reeds. She is supported by Shu (space) ; over her back rises and sets the boat of Ra. (Lanz., D.M., CLV.)
When we view the Osiris cycle of gods, belonging to the first prehistoric civilisation, the earliest of them appears to be Set, in later times driven out, cursed, and extirpated, yet strangely coming up again in the name of one of the greatest kings, Sety. The oldest myth about him is that he is in charge of the ladder by which the dead ascend to the sky {Br. 153). This idea of the ladder must belong to the age before the antagonism of the tribes of Set- and of Osiris-worshippers, which caused Set to be proscribed ; and also before the rivalry of the Set and Horus tribes. To the dawn of the Osirian Period must belong, then, the belief in some aid
of steps or ladders to get up to Nut, the heaven, where the dead were to dwell. This idea long survived, as in the XXII nd Chapter of the Book of the Dead we read of Osiris " who is at the head of the staircase," and in Chapter CXLIX the dead says: "I raise my ladder up to the sky to see the gods," with a vignette of a flight of stairs. Amulets of stairs are found as late as the Greek Period.
The Osiris-worshippers always re- garded the west as sacred and blessed, and probably, therefore, it was the home- land whence the Osiris tribes came into Egypt. The dead are laid facing the west, according to the custom of looking to the home-land familiar among other races.
We reach at this point the beginning of the continuous civilisation of Egypt which can be traced every generation onward in unbroken order. The constant
B 2
15, The stairway up to heaven guarded by Sekhmet. Papyrus of Asar-auf-ankh. (Lefs., Todl., LXXII.)
io
Egyptian Beliefs in a Future Life.
position of the dead in the graves, head to south, on left side, facing west, and the constant position in which the principal kinds of offering jars are placed, all show that a definite ritual of burial existed, and fixed views regarding the future.
l6. Contracted burial of the age ol Mena with offcrimj jais. (Grave 1870, Tarkhan.)
• The great feature of the Osiris mythology was his resuscitation after death. In the Pyramid Texts we read : " Though thou departest, thou comest again ; though thou sleepest, thou wakest again ; though thou diest, thou livest again." Isis and Nebhat are " thy two great and mighty sisters, who have put together thy flesh, who have fastened together thy limbs, who have made thy two eyes to shine again in thy head" {Br. 32). Hence, as the king and the dead were identified with Osiris, they shared in the same revival. The same process of reconstitution was needful for all the dead as for Osiris, probably descending from the custom of unfleshing and
Egyptian Beliefs in a Future Life. 21
cleansing the bones. As Breasted sums up : " We may summarise it all in the statement that after the resuscitation of the body there was a mental restoration, or a reconstitution of the faculties, one by one, attained especially by the process of making the deceased a ' soul,' in which capacity he again existed as a person, possessing all the p<iWers that would enable him to subsist and survive in the life hereafter."
17. HoRUs and Isis resuscitaling ihe mummy of Osiris Unneker. Abydos.
The development of the Osirian Kingdom of the Dead, and all its consequences, begins to appear in the Osirian revival after the Pyramid Texts, and so does not come into our view of the dead in the prehistoric time.
The next change was an invasion from the East which brought in many new elements of the second Prehistoric Age. The material culture changed considerably, the influences are proto-Semitic or Eastern, rather than Western as before. The sun worship of the god Ra became dominant, and probably centred at Heliopolis. Osiris had to give way ; " Ra-Atum (Ra of the East) does not give thee to Osiris. Osiris numbers not thy heart, he gains not power over thy heart. Ra-Atum gives thee not to Horus. He numbers not thy heart, he gains not power over thy heart. Osiris ! thou hast not gained power over him ; thy son (Horus) has not gained power over him." Osiris was even arraigned and judged by Ra in the Great Hall of Justice at Heliopolis.
The East was the sacred region of these people from the East. The dead had to go eastwards to join the Sun-god, and they were warned from going westward. On the eastern border of the land lay the Lily-lake over which the dead must pass. Sometimes he is said to be ferried in a boat, and the boatman has to be bribed or cheated into taking him over ; sometimes he has to paddle over on two floats of reeds, or even to swim, an idea older than the shipbuilding time of the second Prehistoric Age.
Amulets became common in this time, showing that magic was a prominent idea ; and the dead possessed of amulets could thus compel the powers in the future to help him, and be preserved from evil. The idea of the necessity of purification before being fitted for the heavenly life comes forward in this period, but how far it was added to in the Pyramid Period it is difficult to say. The bathing in the sacred
B 3
22 Egyptian Beliefs in a Future Life.
lake was probably an early idea, and this bath in Lethe was considered to purify the dead so as to fit him for entry into the heavenly kingdom of Ra.
The conquest of Egypt by the dynastic race doubtless introduced some fresh ideas as to the future life. In the theology it brought in the abstract gods : the Creator, Ptah, and the personification of Truth, Maat ; the universal Father Min, and the Great Mother, Hat-hor. But in the burials there was only a gradual change in the direction — from facing west to facing east. The reason that no more striking changes are seen may be that there had been a gradual infiltration of the fresh race — as shown by bone measurements — and therefore there was no great difference when the political power passed over to the later comers. The new gods were not associated with any views of the future, and therefore it may be that the belief in immortality was not held strongly by the dynastic people, and the older beliefs were not much changed.
On reaching the Pyramid Age, there is the great mass of the texts engraved on the walls of the Pyramids, under the Vth and Vlth dynasties. The kings of this age were descended from the high-priesthood of the Sun-god Ra, and their devotion to him is specially shown in their worship and monuments. It is therefore to be expected that for the future life they should look mainly to Ra ; and this must not lead us to suppose that all Egypt thought and acted like the Son of Ra who ruled it. There is nothing to show that the people in general shared the royal worship. On the contrary, the deity most usually found on private monuments is the deity of the dynastic race, the Great Mother, Hathor ; while that most popular goddess does not appear in the royal ritual, except rarely, as a secondary manifestation of the great Sun-god. We must not therefore accept the Pyramid Texts as the Egyptian beliefs of that age ; they were a mixture of all the preceding strata of beliefs, as accepted by the royal family of Ra-worshippers.
Though the devotion of the kings was chiefly offered to Ra, yet Osiris was steadily becoming more and more regarded. The name of Osiris was being inserted, sometimes along with gods of the Ra cycle, sometimes substituted for them, some- times in a charm or prayer which was brought entire from the Osiris-worship. The old popular faith was gaining ground from the Ra-worshippers, and the dominance of Osiris drew nearer.
This brings us to the view of the " double " or ka, the relation of which to human nature has been most difficult to define. There is little doubt that there existed several different beliefs on this subject, revealed to us by incompatible statements of various periods. It may be well to look at a modern African belief of a similar kind, which having been stated in detail, may perhaps be somewhat of a guide. In Nigeria " every ordinary individual, male or female, is attended by a guardian spirit, who is looked on as a protector, is invariably of the same household, and with whom, when alive, personal friendship has existed. Every freeman is attended by a guardian spirit, usually the spirit of his own immediate father." (Leonard, The Lower Niger, p. 190.)
In the Pyramid Texts we read that, on dying, a man "went to his ka''\ the dead collectively are called those " who have gone to their ka% " ; and the dead " goes to his ka, to the sky." Hereafter the dead associate with the ka, and might have dominion over other kas. The ka is superior to the living person. It was appealed to for protection, "call upon thy ka, like Osiris, that hs may protect thee from all anger of the dead." In the future world a person is under the dominion of his own ka. The ka helps by interceding with Ra for the dead, and introduces the dead to Ra. The ka brings food to the dead and eats with him. The dead person " lives
Egyptian Beliefs in a Future Life.
23
I
18. Thefigureof the KAof King Rameses III. On his head isthe^a-name "the strong bull, the great one of kings." In his left hand is the emblem of the royal ka, a bust on a tall sUff, with "io of the king'' upon it. In his right hand is a feather fan, with which he is fanning the king upon his throne. Here the ka is dissociated from the person, and is assisting him. Limestone temple scene, Koptos. (Univ. Coll., London.)
B 4
24
Egyptian Beliefs in a Future Life.
with his ka, who expels the evil that is before him and removes the evil that is behind him." The priest was the servant of the ka, who would pass on the offerings made " for the ka " to the dead, whom he supplied and protected. Such are the examples of the early belief about the ka given by Breasted, who concludes that the ka " was a kind of superior genius intended to guide the fortunes of the individual " (p. 52). Now this puzzling localisation by which the ka was the companion of the living, and yet the dead went to their kas, is explained by the Nigerian belief There, the gpardian spirit attends on the living, and yet is the spirit of one who is already among the dead. If the Egyptian ka was, like this, an ancestral mani- festation, it vyould thus guide the living, yet in the future life the dead would go to the ka. It, seems, then, best to regard the ka as an ancestral emanation which was associated with each man from birth, and by its superiority would guide and help him through this life and the next.
It is not known how early the ka was thought of as a Double of the material nature ; in the XVIIIth dynasty the ka is represented as born like an infant, and growing with the man. This may have been the original notion : the portion of ancestral spirit developing with the individual in whom it dwelt.
On the tombstones of the 1st dynasty there is often placed the adkhu-h\rd, the "brilliant one," or glorified soul, with the arms (the emblem of the ka) embracing it from above. This would accord with references to the ka in the Pyramid Texts.
In the Vth dynasty there are other references to the ka in the Proverbs of Ptah-hotep. Various acts are hateful to the ka, such as staring at a man, losing opportunities of rightful enjoyment, or repeating expressions of passion. The son who resembles his father is said to be begotten by the ka. It is the ka that impels to generosity and kindness. Rather later, a king is said to be " loved by his ka." These state- ments may well be compatible with the guardianship by the ancestral emanation, or spirit of the family.
The tomb sculptures of the Pyramid Age show how completely the dead was supposed to enjoy all the possessions of this life in the future world. Every farm was to bring its produce ; all the servants and animals of the household are shown ; the games, the dances, the hunting and the fishing were all to be enjoyed in the future, and were portrayed on the walls of the tomb chapel for the spirit to take part in them.
The sense of divine favour in the future is stated : " I desired that it might be well with me in the Great God's presence." A definite judging of evil in the future was expected, as if any one damaged a tomb "judgment shall be had with them for it by the Great God, the Lord of Judgment, in the place where judgment is had." The righteous dead had the power of intercession with the Great God to favou/ others in the judgment : " I will intercede for their sakes in the Nether World."
In order to reach the boat in which the Sun-god sailed over the heavenly ocean, the dead was provided with a boat, so as to sail up to the Sun-boat and be taken in to the company of the gods. A model boat, or the sculptured or painted figure of one, was an essential part of the funeral furniture of the Ra-worshipper.
19.
Thtaaikit bird, emblem of the spirit of the deceased, em- braced by the arras of the heavenly ka. (Steles from Royal Tombs.)
Egyptian Beliefs in a Future Life.
25
In one instance, there was a boat rigged for going up the stream, and another for going down the stream.
\
20. Boat for the dead to follow the Sun-god. The deceased is seated in a shrine ; before him is a table with a vase and a servant offering. (Tomb of Hori, phot. Insinger.)
After this age of great faith and great works, a wave of pessimism and agnosticism spread in the dechne of that civilisation. They sang of the future Hfe :
" None cotneth from thence That he may say how they fare, That he may tell of their fortunes. That he may content our heart, Until we also depart. To the place whither they have gone.
Lo ! no man taketh his goods with him.
Yea, none returneth again that is gone thither." — {Br. 183.)
At the same time the disorder and misery of life was such that even death was welcomed :
" Death is before me to-day.
Like the recovery of a sick man.
Like going forth into a garden after sickness.
Death is before me to-day,
Like the odour of lotus-flowers.
Like sitting on the shore of intoxication.
Death is before me to-day,
As a man longs to see his house
When he has spent years in captivity." — {Br. 195.)
These and many other lamentations over the corruption of the world, show the dissatisfaction which led men to reflect on the need of a future judgment to recompense the evils which they saw. It was amid such distresses that the belief in the Judgment Seat of Osiris grew into definite form. In that Judgment, Anubis,
26
Egyptian Beliefs in a Future Life.
the guardian of the dead, brought the deceased into the Judgment Hall. There his heart was weighed in the balance against Truth; and, if judged correct, he was then led by Horus into the presence of Osiris; if faulty, there stood A mam, the devouring crocodile-hippopotamus to consume him. It should be observed here that Osiris does not judge the dead ; the judgment is entirely abstract, mechanical, independent of judicial choice. The fact of a man being righteous or unrighteous is not a subject of consideration, but is a definite fact not admitting of doubt. When once ascertained by agents of Osiris, then the dead is either admitted to the kingdom of Osiris or annihilated. There is no parallel here to the Christian view of the Last Judgment.
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21. Occupations in the kingdom of Osiris. (Navillb, Papyrus de Kamara.)
Top. — Pulling up flax for making clothing.
Queen Ka-MA-ra on her throne sailing in a ship at will. The ploughman tilling the ground.
Base, — The reaper cutting corn, with a sack to carry the ears slung from his head.
Egyptian Bplicfx !n n Fntiirr Life.
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28
Egyptian Beliefs in a Future Life.
The nature of the future life in the Kingdom of Osiris is continually depicted in the Book of the Dead. Earlier than that is a song about those who are yonder in heaven with Ra :
" He who is yonder Shall seize the wicked as a living god, Inflicdng punishment of evil on the doer of it. He who is yonder Shall stand in the celestial barque
Causing the liest offerings there to be given to the temples. He who is yonder
Shall be a wise man who has not been repelled Praying to Ra when he speaks." — {Br. 197.)
In comparison with this the Osirian heaven was very homely. The tlcad was promised that he should eat at his desire, remember what he had forgotten, have sandals for his feet, and repel the burglar and the early thief. He should have a house and pool and orchard, and all his household and children, brothers, father, mother, wives, concubines, slaves, and all his establishment, . . . "everything belonging to a man." To this end, 400 figures of serfs to cultivate the land were supplied in the tomb, with elaborate instructions inscribed on each as to their duties.
In all this there is no confession of wrong-doing, no plea for mercy. The Egyptian boasts that he had done nothing wrong, he asserts his faultlessness from every sin he can recount, in order to prove that he is worthy. This purgation by assertion is a thoroughly Egyptian trait in modern times. He thus addresses the assembled gods : — " Behold, I come to you without sin, without evil, without wrong, I live on righteousness, I feed on the righteousness of my heart, I have done that which men say, and that wherewith the gods are content."
So much for the official and priestly view of the future. But there lingered older beliefs in the popular heart. The food and drink was still placed in the grave, as it is even to this day. At the earlier part of the Osirian revival the dread of the dead coming out of the graves and haunting the villages, led to model houses being placed by the side of the graves for the soul to find shelter in. These pottery models of the dwellinghouse show the common buildings of the peasantry, with their lower and upper floors, their fenced roofs, air-shafts, furniture, food, and the domestic drudge who ground the corn. The soul, therefore, was thought of as wandering about from the grave, and needing shelter and a home.
23. The soul entering the boat of the sun, in which the nine gods are seated. (Leps., Todl., LV.)
The comforting doctrine of accompanying the gods in the Boat of Ra, or living a social life of happiness in the Kingdom of Osiris, was overlaid by a crowd of invented horrors. Even the god Ra had to pass through a series of hours of darkness, regarded as dismal caverns, where evil spirits tried to waylay and overcome
Egyptian Beliefs in a Future Life.
29
the dead. Long spells and directions were therefore needed to enable such dangers to be repelled. The later religious guide-books to the Underworld consist mainly of details of such future perils, and the means of resisting them. Even the walls of the tomb, from the XVIIIth to the XXVIth dynasty, 1500-500 B.C., were sculptured with scenes, and directions for the terrible future, to the exclusion of all the old subjects of domestic life. It was no longer the enjoyment of a repetition of the
24. The singer of Amen, DiRPU, being led by the Ijeneficent Bastet past the horrors of the infernal animals, and a bitch-headed spirit armed with knives and serpents. (Phot. Brugsch.)
present life that was presented, but the terrors of perils- by demons. The so-called " Book of the Dead " is a conglomeration of all the charms which were deemed to be most needful. No two copies of it are alike ; the scribe merely put together a more or less full series of those formulae which attracted him. Most of it is undoubtedly very early, containing allusions to prehistoric practices, but it is so overlaid by successive editings, variants, targums, and corruptions, that we cannot hope for a critical edition disentangling the various periods represented.
Such was the outlook on the future life, a complex of many incompatible beliefs, among which each person chose and combined what suited him, with a strong influence of fashion and priestly bias for one view or another at different times. Yet below all these beliefs lay the whole-hearted confidence in personal immortality which seems to have been so firmly held in almost all ages of Egyptian history.
All that we have noticed continued gradually to fossilise and become less personally real, until a new wave of influence spread over the world. The fresh movement was that of individualism, personal responsibility, anfl personal religion.
30 Egyptian Beliefs in a Future Life.
No longer was religion principally concerned with a public worship, it became a more personal devotion. With this went an ethical growth and a new value attached to the individual life. The earliest sign of this movement is in Hesiod, about 850 B.C., who was contemptuously called the poet of helots, from his honouring agriculture, which was held to be degrading to freemen. The preaching of simplicity in life, with pure and practical ethics, was the dawn of a new age. A century later, about 727 B.C., Piankhy the Ethiopian reconquered Egypt. He protested to his enemies : " If a moment passes without submitting to me, behold ye are reckoned as conquered, and that is painful to the king. Behold ye, there are two ways before you, choose ye as ye will ; open to me, and ye live ; clo.se, and ye die. His Majesty loveth that Memphis be safe and sound, and that even the children weep not." When he entered a city after a siege he went personally to see about the horses, and when he found that they had been neglected and starved he swore, " By my life, so may Ra love me, I loathe the men who have starved my horses more than any abomination that the rebel has done altogether."
Isaiah shows the same growth of ethical feeling, and disregard of mere collective formalism. " Bring no more vain oblations, incense is an abomination unto me
... it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting Wash you, make you clean,
put away the evil of your doings "(i, 13-16). Rather later, Ezekiel, in 594 B.C., proclaims entirely individual responsibility ; he repudiates the sins of the fathers falling on the children ; " the soul that sinneth, it shall die. But if a man be just .... he shall surely live" (xviii, 4-9). A century later Buddha preached his great system of individual responsibility and wide love for man resulting in ethical conduct. Even as far as China the same individualism rose up, shown in 340 B.C., when common field cultivation was abandoned, and private ownership began.
In Egypt, this new spirit in the world was largely influenced by the flow of Jewish, Persian, and Indian ideas, from the sixth century B.C. onward. The main documents that we have for this age are the Hermetic writings, which are dated by the political allusions in them, and were composed from 5CXD to 200 B.C. The earliest of these works, The Virgin of the Kosnios, probably about 510 B.C., describes the formation of souls from the Breath of God and Conscious Fire, blended with unconscious matter. These souls rebelled, and God then embodied them as men. The imprisoned souls lament, and are answered by God that if they are sinless they shall dwell in the fields of heaven ; that if blameable then they shall be on earth ; if they improve they shall regain Heaven ; but if they sin worse they shall become animals. This metempsychosis is probably shown in some Egyptian judgment scenes, where a pig is being driven away as the vehicle of a condemned soul. The more righteous souls shall be kings, philosophers, founders of states, law-givers, etc. ; the lower souls shall be eagles, lions, dragons, and dolphins. The gods are stated to dwell in the Aether with the sun and stars ; in the air are souls and the moon ; on earth are men and living things.
A slightly later work. The Discourse of Isis to Horus, states that the souls of men and animals are all alike; metempsychosis between men and animals is assumed ; the soul is individual, the work of God's hands and mind, its congress with the body is a concord wrought by God's necessity ; at death it returns to its proper region, between the moon and the earth.
Rather later, in The Definitions of Askkpios, the soul's rational part — Logos — is above the rule of daimons ; and if a ray of God shines through the sun into it, the daimons do not act upon it. Here, then, the Logos is something added to the .soul and a further change may take place in the Logos.
I
Egyptian Beliefs in a Future Life. 3 1
By about 340 B.C. we find in The Perfect Discourse a more complex psychology. Animals have bodies and souls, and are filled with spirit. In man sense and reason are added, as a fifth part. In part man is deathless, in part subject to death. [When the soul leaves the body then the judgment and the weighing of merit pass ^into its highest daimon's power ; apparently thus the judgment was transferred to the ka. If the soul is pious it is allowed to rest; if soiled with evil, it is driven out into the depths, to vortices of Air, Fire, and Water, between heaven and earth.
In the discourse called The Font, probably about 300 B.C., the nature of man is stated as excelling by reason of the Logos. Logos indeed among all men God has distributed. They who do not understand possess Logos only, and not mind. Thus Logos was animal reason, and Mind was a spiritual gift, which was acquired by spiritual immersion in the Font of Mind.
Rather later — but .yet long before the Christian era — is The Secret Discourse, in which re-birth is stated to confer immortality ; the natural body must be dissolved : the spiritual birth can never die. Here we cannot avoid seeing the Indian influence in the simile of conversion as re-birth. In the latest of this series, The Shepherd of Men, it is said that senseless men pass into darkness, their minds naturally return to primitive chaos. In the good, the Shepherd Mind is present, giving Gnosis and Religion, and enabling them to turn away from the world before death, and therefore never to die like others in parting from the world. The end of those who have gained Gnosis is to be one with God.
The Egyptian, therefore, had, by the mixture of Eastern philosophy, gained a stand-point approaching that of Christian times ; indeed, it was the religious terms and conceptions of the Alexandrian School which formed the soil in which Christianity was planted.
We may sum up the pre-Christian idea of man as being an animal soul, in which Divine reason was implanted as a human distinction. That soul might yet go astray, and a special divine influence, symbolised by a ray of light, or immersion in the Font of Mind, or re-birth, was needed to save it from the evil influence of daimons. The evil suff^ered distress in the future, ^S- The ha, or soul, holding xht onkh,
.,,,,. ... reluming to the mummy to impart
probably leadmg up to annihilation ; the good life to it. (Leps., 7W/., XXXIII.)
were given a life of blessed rest. This is not far
in advance of the Egyptian position some three or four thousand years earlier. It is the old Egyptian framework filled in with detail from Indian and other sources. Whether we look to the earlier or to the later time we see how far more modern were the Egyptian beliefs, than were the contemporary Hebrew ideas about a future life. We are the heirs of Egypt rather than of Hebraism in our Christian ideas.
Prof. W. M. Flinders Petrie.
Notes for Advanced Students.
The stages of prehistoric civilisation can be linked with the stages of religious beliefs, which thus become sorted and dated.
The texts naming reed floats must precede the common use of boats.
The Pyramid Texts are the formulae of the royal Ra-worshippers, and did not necessarily represent the general beliefs.
The ka is explained by African beliefs as an ancestral emanation.
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THE MYSTERIOUS Z£T.
In the version of Manetho's chronology that has beea transmitted through Africanus, there is, at the close of the XXIIIrd dynasty, an entry that has raised a crop of conjectures. In place of any recognisable name of a king there is Zrjr ert) \a', — Zet, 31 years.
This Zet is entirely unknown on the monuments, there is not a chip of stone or a flake of papyrus, a scarab or an amulet, to show his existence. He has been thought to be the Sethon, priest of Ptah named by Herodotos (II, 141), who places him after Shabaka, and therefore too late ; — or possibly connected with the blind king Anysis ; — or a contemporary of Bakneranf, a vague enough conjecture ; — or to be the Saite Tnephachthos or Tafnekht ; — or to be a corruption of the word " Saite " ; — or to be King Kashta, the Ethiopian. I confess to venturing the suggestion that this was a date from some earlier starting point, giving a summation of years. With some writers, of course, Manetho is the whipping-boy, who must always be flogged whenever anything is not understood.
We must alwa}'s remember that we need to consider Manetho as a Greek manuscript, with the usual character and methods of any other papyrus of the Ptolemaic time. On reaching the period of disruption, when a dozen petty princes were dividing the land, it was hard to say who was to be mentioned as continuing the XXIIIrd dynasty. For thirty-one years no single ruler seemed to be pre- dominant, further search was needed to settle who should be entered as the king of Egypt. So the honest " beloved of Thoth " put down ZrjrelTai " A question (remain.s) about thirty-one years," or " Query " ; or perhaps some other derivative of Zr/T6<a, " I search after." A natural MS. abbreviation of this note of enquiry, like our "Qu.," was Ztjt. Hence the mysterious entry. It proves that we must include this thirty-one years in the history, although no one king can be assigned ; and in the summary of the Recueil in this number will be seen how it falls into its necessary place in the dynastic history.
W. M. F. P.
26. Ship with cabins and steersman. (Hierakonpolh, LXXVI, LXXVIl.) 37. Ship with three steering oars. (A'ai^oa'a, LXVII, 14.) 28. Ship with sail. (Capart, /V/V«. ^r/., fig. 83.)
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FOR RECONSIDERATION.
Onkh-em-mdot.
We purpose under this heading to take up in each number some of the various matters which need clearing up, by reference to facts which are little known, or disregarded.
Glass-Blowing.
In the days before the history of Egyptian manufactures was known, it was a very natural supposition on the part of Gardner Wilkinson that certain scenes represented men blowing glass bulbs on the end of rods (^Manners atid Customs, ed. 1878, Fig. 380). The upper one of the figures which he gives was evidently copied from the tomb of Baqta, No. 15, at Beni Hasan {Beni Hasan, II, VII), where it is by the side of the jewellers weighing with a balance. Unfortunately, this description of glass-blowing continues to be frequently brought up in evidence for the use of glass. Now, though thousands of pieces of glass vessels are known, especially about 1500-1400 B.C., yet there is not a single piece of blown glass dateable before Roman times. All of the earlier glass working was in a stiff pasty condition, and not fluid enough to be blown. The glass vases were made by building up on a core, which was afterwards scraped out. It is incredible that glass was blown when all the mass of specimens which we have, show that a different process at a lower temperature was universally used. The real meaning of these scenes is that the men are blowing up the small charcoal fires used by the jewellers; and, as the reed blowpipes would soon be burnt at the end, a lump of mud was put on as a nozzle to the pipe. Where two men are shown {Manners and Customs, Fig. 380) blowing into what seems like a vase upside down, it is certain that they could not be blowing a glass vase of that form ; if blown it would be spherical, and such a form could only be made by rolling the blown bubble. What they are really doing is blowing up a small charcoal furnace inside a pot, probably to melt a crucible full of metal in it.
Paintings of Prehistoric Towns.
The frequent figures of structures upon the later prehistoric pottery were recognised at first as being clearly intended for ships, with a large number of oars, two cabins, and an ensign.
Another interpretation has arisen, supposing these figures to be intended for fortified towns. Even on any ordinary specimen, the absence of any base line below the oars which could be taken for the outline of a town mound, would be difficult to reconcile with the land interpretation.
When, however, we look at the critical examples, it will be seen that it is impossible to interpret them as views of towns : —
(i) The two ends are always different; for a town the two sides should be alike, in a boat the stem and stern differ.
(2) In the Hierakonpolis paintings there are no oars, except the big steering oar which is held by the steersman at the stern. A paddle such as this cannot possibly be figured as projecting from a town (see Fig. 26). On other examples there are three steering oars (Fig. 27).
(3) At the stem dangles the tying-up rope (Figs. 26, 27), still used universally in Egypt now. This cannot belong to a town.
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34
For Reconsideration.
(4) The form of one of the Hierakonpolis boats is exactly that of another painting (Fig. 28) on a pot, where a big square-sail marks it inevitably as a boat.
(5) A fresh specimen is here published, which I bought in Egypt lately (Fig. 29). On this is a structure from which four men are poling ; with the shoulder against the pole end, and the weight of the body resting upon it, exactly as Nile boatmen pole a boat along at present To suppose them fighting from a town in that attitude would be absurd ; the action is precisely that of boatmen. This is a unique example of a great state boat with a row of passenger cabins on it ; these are raised to a higher level, so as to be clear of the men working the boat. This specimen is now at University College, London.
29. Prehistoric vase painted wiih a scene or a large bnil wuikcti along by sailors poling. Above them is a row of cabins with figures of women in them. (University College, London.)
In the ordinary figures of boats, it may be explained that they have two cabins, sometimes with small cabins or animal pens attached. On these cabins are bent withies standing up, to hold in poles, oars, and other lumber, put out of the way on the tops of the cabins. Sometimes, as in Fig. 26, a shelter was put on the top ol a cabin, with a branch of a tree over it to shade it from the heat. In the bows there is a seat for the look-out man, with a branch put over it to shade him from the glare. Whether these branches were young trees in pots, or cut branches, is not certain. If cut branches— as they seem to be— that would accord with the much greater frequency of timber in Egypt formerly, as shown by the common use of great quantities of wood in the Royal Tombs and elsewhere.
W. M. F. P.
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' PERIODICALS.
— ♦ —
Recueil de Tr avail x relatifs a la Philologie et a i' A rcheologie egyptiennes et assyriennes, Vol. XXXV, 191 3.
paper collecting and discussing all the geographical material about the noma between Assiut and Ekhmim. The ceaseless destruction of the ancient sites for sebakh brought to light a large quantity of Greek and Coptic papyri about a dozen years ago, at a modern town known as Kum Ashqouh (or Ischgaou) ; Mr. Quibell inspected the place for the Government, and obtained also carved woodwork and other early Coptic remains. These discoveries fairly settled the main question of the locality of Aphroditopolis, as that city is usually named, in the documents found on the site.
The old nome standard is the serpent, with an ostrich plume upon its back
^~^rl , the distinctive mark of a sacred animal (see Royal Tombs, I, xxix, xx.x ;
[ 1 1 rr \
Tarkhan, I, ii). This standard is vocalized, both in the Pyramid Texts and the XlXth dynasty, as Udzet, showing it to be the serpent-emblem of the great goddess of Buto. Variants in late times show two serpents, perhaps due to a confusion with the two gods named for the eastern side of the nome : see below. The only period of historical importance for this place was when it formed the northern frontier of the Theban Kingdom of the Xlth dynasty, under Uah-onkh Antef From the Vlth dynasty to Roman times forty-eight instances of the name are cited for this sacred name of the city.
The profane name Thebti, or the two sandals, is derived by tradition from the sandals made by Horus from the skin of Set, after his defeat near this place. Of this name ten instances are cited. 1 he old identification of it with Idfu, started by D'Anville, was generally accepted until the papyri showed the site to be at Ashqouh.
The nome was divided into two parts, western and eastern. The latter was
known as Neterui J J , because of the triumph of Horus over Set in this district,
near Qau el-Kebyr. On the west bank was a place referring again to this traditional history, Ha-sehetept, " the place of causing peace " ; and the high-priest was called Sehetep neterui, " pacifier of the two gods." It seems probable that this place is the Greek Hisopis, which by the itinerary must have been near El-Maraghat. On the eastern side the main place was Antaeopolis, known as " the high-place," Duqa, Qay, or Taqayt. A dozen minor places are also named in the nome.
The divinities were Hathor, the Aphrodite of the Greek city name, Horus with Set, Maa-hes son of Bastet, Hor-se-ast, Mut, Osiris and Amen,
The western side of the nome was of no importance in Roman times, though Antaeopolis retained some attention on the eastern bank. The papyri are mostly of the Coptic and early Arabic period. The capital was the Coptic Jekow, Arabic
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36 Recueil de Travaux.
Ashqouh. Antaeopolis became Tkdou, now Qau-kharab, or el-Kebyr. Apollono- polis is in the Coptic lists Sbeht.the modern Kum Asfeht. A very full series of all the mediaeval sources for the place-names is given, but does not materially add to the main conclusions.
Das Kolophon des liturgischen Papyrus.— "^. Spiegelberg. This papyrus is of much palaeographic importance by reason of its exact date, March, 311 B.C. It begins with a long list of prophets, in office at Thebes and Diospolis Parva, which fills more than half of it ; the remainder is not of importance.
Eine Sclienkungsurkunde aus der zeit Scheschonks //I.—W. SPIEGELBERG. Two donation steles of Sheshenq III are here published, one in the Musde Guimet in tjpe, and one in Berlin, both in type and photograph. They are dated in the 1 8th and 28th years respectively. The Guimet stele names a prince and general Tekilat, who is not otherwise known, and his mother Zed-bast-aus-onkh, a concubine. The main interest of each stele is in their naming a " royal son of Rameses," without any names. There are eight of these descendants known now, and their position is enigmatical. Why the XXIInd dynasty kings should have tolerated and put forward men who might claim to be political rivals is still unexplained. It is possible that the clan of royal descent formed a fixed aristocracy of the period, sufficiently united and powerful to command respect, but so numerous that their jealousies rendered them powerless politically. The two hundred children which may be ascribed to Rameses II would, in a stationary number of population, have permeated the ancestry of loo.ocx) or 2CXD,ooo by the time of the XXIInd dynasty ; so, thus, the whole aristocracy of Egypt were probably entitled "royal sons of Rameses."
No/e siir des pierres antiques du Caire. — G. DakesSY. The useful work of registering fixed monuments is here continued. The pillage of stone from the temples of Memphis, Heliopolis, and other places, for the building of Cairo, has scattered pieces of all ages through the public and private structures of Arab date. Here are described : —
1. Block of granite with part of a list of temple statues, naming material and height. Saite.
2. Block of granite, part of a great table of offerings of Rameses II.
3. Block of granite of Aahmes-sa-neit.
4. Piece of six-lobed lotus column of sandstone, of Amenhetep III, surcharged by Merneptah and Setnekht.
5. (Photograph.) Marble shrine of Isis of Greek period. The goddess is on a throne of winged lions, a priest offering before her, another standing behind holding a ram-headed wand. The priest and altar have a likeness to the subject on Persian gems, and the architectural style might well be late Ptolemaic. M. Daressy would however place it in the second or third century of our era.
Monuments Egyptiens du Mus^e Calvet it Avignon. — A. MORET. This Catalogue is continued from the previous year. The monuments are as follows : —
XXII. Stele with seated figure of Mentu holding falchion and shield ; dedicated by Ptahmes and his family: XlXth dynasty.
XXIII. Stele dedicated to the goose of Amen.
k
Recueil de Travaux. 37
XXIV. Stele dedicated to Osiris, by a woman Petes.
XXV. Stele to Osiris by an hereditary prince and vizier.
XXVI. Stele to Osiris by Peduast.
XXVII. Stele to Hor-em-aai<huti, by Hor-khred-meh.
XXVIII. Stel^to Hor-em-aakhuti, by Zed-khonsu-au-onkh.
XXIX. Stele to Osiris by a singer of Amen.
XXX. Stele of Horus on the crocodiles, with long inscription, in which occur weird names such as are found in the late magical documents — Shardshek, Berker, Arourouari.
XXXI. Fragment of basalt statue, probably Xllth dynasty.
XXXII. A clay tablet, 6 x 3"3 inches, with four columns of finely drawn hieroglyphs, the columns reading retrograde, like the great inscription of Rekhmara. The inscription is the CLiB Chapter of the Book of the Dead, for the Vizier User, son of the Vizier Odytu. The parallel texts are given, comparing this with five other versions, which are all later. User lived early in the reign of Thothmes III, and was not only son of Odytu, but uncle of the Vizier Rekhmara. His complete name was Amenuser. References are given to other publications.
XXXIII. Base of a statue of Amenhetep III, naming his j^a?-feast.
XXXIV. Piece of seated figure of Nekht, the chief overseer of the prophets.
XXXV. Statue of Huy.
XXXVI. Statue of Hora, son of Bakamenra.
XXXVII. Statue, name lost. XXXIX. Statue of Shem (?), of Koptos. XL. Piece of granite obelisk of Rameses 11. XLI. Piece of statue of Seker.
XLII. Votive pyramid of a scribe of the temple of Anher, Nesmin son of Mertheru, about XXIIIrd dynasty ; with a long inscription giving five generations. XLIII. Table of offerings of Hor-se-ast, prophet of Anher. XLIV, XLV. Small tables of offerings uninscribed.
Notes de Grammaire. — P. Lacau. A continuation of comments on grammatical points drawn from the writer's wide experience and reading, but seldom touching matters of general interest. On the origin of number signs it may be noted that all unit signs were originally written as horizontal strokes, not vertical ; this has led to some false readings when the custom was forgotten. The names of the various signs for each place of figures from 10 to 10,000,000 are all shown to be indicated by phonetic signs homophonous with the name of the number. In the higher values the connection is plain ; for the cord the name set is assimilated with shet, 100; and for the cattle tether the name mezt is taken from inez, 10.
There are also some interesting notes (p. 223) on the nature and use of various signs, especially with reference to Dr. Erman's list. The so-called bier in the late writing of the name of Osiris, is really a chair, merely a variant form of the throne as. The whole of these eight pages should be carefully noted in any study of the forms and variant values of signs, being full of references and examples.
Zwei demotische Urkunden aus GebeUti. — W. Spiegelberg. These two con- tracts are now at Strassburg. One has a Greek tax-receipt, and is dated in the 33rd year of Ptolemy Lathyrus. A great part of it is occupied with an immense protocol of the Ptolemaic priesthoods ; the business is the sale of a small plot of land in the south of Pathyris, of about 3,500 square feet, but no price is
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38 Recueil de Travaux.
named. The second papyrus is dated in 103-2 B.C. under Ptolemy XI, Alexander, and Berenice III; it is a contract of sale of a mare, but, again, no price is named.
Der histempel von Behbct {2te Teil).—C C. Edgar and GiJNTHER Roedkr. The immense tumbled pile of blocks of red granite which marks the site of the great Iseum, is the result of mining out all the limestone for burning. No attempt has been made to copy and publish all the sculptures, but the above authors have made a hand list of the blocks and copied the longer inscriptions. The list is continued in the present paper. It is necessarily a work more of piety than profit The only satisfactory thing would be to draw all the blocks, with note of position and probable connections, and then refit the scenes. This might result in a general view of the whole system of the sculptures.
La Fabrication du vin dans les tombeaux. — Pierre Montet. In the Old Kingdom only dark grapes are represented, and the wine must have been red. At Bersheh in the Xllth dynasty white grapes are seen, and the juice is light, such as would make white wine. Most of the paper is occupied with the examples of extraction of the juice from the crushed grapes by wringing the mass in a twisted cloth. The force was applied by twisting the cloth with two poles, each held by two men ; to prevent it drawing together into a knot, a fifth man forced the poles apart with his hands and feet. The fixed frame to hold the cloth, and twist it from one end only, first appears in the Xllth dynasty, and was but gradually taken into use for wine making. The writer does not notice a large drawing of a fixed frame in the temple of Sety at Abydos (Caulfeild, Temple of the Kings, XX, 4).
Inscriptions liistoriques Mendesiennes. — G. Daressy. The Roman buildings of Egypt are incessantly being destroyed for the sake of re-using the bricks ; indeed, the Department of Antiquities sells the right of destroj'ing Roman buildings, without any examination or knowledge of what they may be. In the course of this destruction of antiquities, a stray block of re-used sandstone was found at Mendes, bearing two inscriptions of the XXIIIrd dynasty. These relate to important persons hitherto unknown, as indeed the history of this region has scarcely been touched. First, there is a general Hor-nekht ; his son was the governor Nesi-ba-neb-daddu, who married the priestess of the Ram of Mendes Khau-sen-ast, and had a son, the governor Hor-nekht. M. Daressy would see in one of these Hor-nekhts the personage named in the beginning of the Story of the Breast-plate; but the period seems to be different. The Story of the Breast- plate is dated by the names of three rulers being the same as those of Esarhaddon's vassals, which ties it to shortly before 670 B.C. The present inscription names both the first and second Hor-nekht as "great chief of the Ma(shauasha)," a title which was usual in the XXIInd dynasty and lasted down to the time of Piankhy, 725 B.C. This title suggests that the Hor-nekht here is of an earlier generation than the time of Esarhaddon. A very curious phrase is that the god Ba-neb-daddu " appoints to his Tanites {K/tent-abtiu) that they should acknowledge Hor-nekht as master of the temple." This shews that Tanis was at this time subject to Mendes.
The .second inscription is dated in the i ith year of a king whose cartouches have never been filled in. This strange omission cannot be accounted for by political uncertainty, or the number of the year would not have been inserted, nor would it have shown so long a reign. Wq c^^^ only suppose that the precise form
}
Recueil de Travaux. 39
of the royal titles was not known to the scribe. This is a record of the joyous entry of Hor-nekht into Mendes. They seem to have had a right of popular acceptance of a ruler, as it is said that they " approved his father when he took possession," and they rejoiced when the great heir of his house was in his rightful place. Evidently tjiere had been a civil war, as Hor-nekht is said to have beaten his competitor.
Notes sur les XX 11', XX HI' el XXIV' dynasties. — G. Daressy. This paper shows how little we know for certain about the period. There are more than thirty documents quoted, and from these is put together a tentative table of two continuous and independent lines of kings of the Delta and kings of the Thebaid. Stress is laid on contiguous or overlapping reigns having the titles " Divine prince of Thebes " and " Divine prince of Heliopolis," as implying separate rule. As, however, such titles do not imply only a local rule in the XVIIIth-XXth dynasty, they need not do so here. The two essential matters are (t) the genealogy of Uasarkon I, father of High-Priest Sheshenq, father of High-Priest Horsaast, the latter occurring in the 6th year of Sheshenq IH, se-bast ; (2) that the 1st year of Pedubast was in the 7th year of Sheshenq HI. These facts must bring Pedubast back to about a century after the beginning of the XXHnd dynasty, and thus force the XXIHrd dynasty to overlap the end of the family of the XXHnd dynasty.
Before accepting the entire change of there being two rival lines throughout, it is well to see how far the new facts compel alterations in the simple list already recognised. Taking that in the Student's History of Egypt, there are no fresh facts incompatible with the outlines of the XXHnd dynasty there stated. The change required is in the rise of the XXHIrd dynasty. The High-Priest Horsaast, grandson of Uasarkon I, assumed the royal title in the Thebaid (Koptos), and is probably the father of Pedubast, who began his reign in the 7th year of Sheshenq HI. Perhaps the independence of Horsaast started with Sheshenq HI, as his father Takelat 1 1, j^-aj/, certainly ruled the Thebaid. Thus the XXHnd dynasty ruled alone for at least 115 years, or rather more. This points to the 120 years' total of Africanus being the true length of the dynasty. Then the last three kings Sheshenq HI, Pimay, and Sheshenq IV were overlapped by the XXHIrd dynasty, and were accordingly not counted in the chronology of Manetho.
In the XXHIrd dynasty there must be added a Takelath, for at least fifteen years, between Pedubast and Uasarkon HI. The main question now is the filling of the time. Sheshenq I began his reign about 952, or perhaps later, if his Judaean campaign was long before the sculpture of it at Karnak. Possibly it might be ten years earlier, and if so the reign began 942. Shabaka began his reign 715, so the XXIInd-XXIVth dynasty should cover 237 or, at least, about 227 years. If there be 120 years in the XXHnd, and six years in the XXIVth, the XXHIrd dynasty must have been 11 1 years, or rather less. We have on record : Horsaast 6 years, Pedubast 40 years, Takelat 15 or more years, Uasarkon HI 8 years, Psammus 10 years, and the entry of Zet 31 years, making up 1 10 years. Thus it is essential to retain the period of Zet to fill up the total period. As to the meaning of this entry some account will be seen in another article of this Journal. The probable results, following the older view and Africanus, stand as follows, stating the length of reign up to the beginning of a co-regency : —
C 4
40
Recueil de Travaux.
XXIiND DYNASTY.
|
Sheshenq I |
.. B.C. 952-930^ |
|||
|
Uasarkon I |
930-900 |
|||
|
Takelat I |
900-877 |
► 1 20 years Africanus. |
||
|
Uasarkon II se-bast |
877-854 |
|||
|
Sheshenq II |
854-854 |
|||
|
Takelat II se-ast |
854-832 J |
XXII Ird dynasty |
||
|
Sheshenq III |
832-781 |
Horsaast |
832-826 |
|
|
Pedubast |
826-786 |
|||
|
Pamay ... |
781-781 |
Takelat III heq uast . . . |
786-770 |
|
|
Uasarkon III |
770-762 |
|||
|
Sheshenq IV |
781-744 |
Psammus |
762-752 |
|
|
Zet |
752-721 |
XXIVth dynasty.
Bakennauf 721-715
XXVth dynasty. Shabaka 715-
Thus the XXI Ind dynasty was truly reckoned at 120 years by Africanus, and the XXIIIrd dynasty was 89 years as in Africanus, plus 6 years of Horsaast and 16 years of Takelat III, omitted by Africanus.
On the other hand, abandoning the stated reckoning, the loose fragments are adjusted by M. Daressy as follows, going back from Shabaka at 715 B.C.: —
Delta.
Thebaid.
Sheshenq I Uasarkon I Uasarkon II Sheshenq II Anput
Sheshenq III Pimay Sheshenq V Tafnekht... Bakenranf
941-920
920-880 880-857
857-837 837-832 832-780 780-768 768-729 -721 721-715
Takelat I Horsaast... Pedubast... Sheshenq IV Takelat II Uasarkon III Uasarkon IVl Takelat III J Piankhy ...
905-880 -851 851-826 826-821 821-791 791-760
760- 746-
Zzvet Kaufertrdge aus der Zeit des Konigs Harmachis. — W. SPIEGELBERG. These two demotic documents are of historic interest as they are dated in the 4th year of King Har-em-aakhuti, an Ethiopian king of Thebes. The same notary who drew up these documents, Pedyamenapt son of Pedy-amen-nesut-taui, is also known to have drawn up documents in the 12th and 15th years of Ptolemy IV, Philopator, 210-207 B.C. We therefore know that this Ethiopian king probably held Thebes within about twenty-five years of that time, say somewhere between about 235 and 185 B.C. Coins of Ptolemy III and IV were found with these documents, quite confirming the general period. Dr. Spiegelberg believes that this king preceded Onkh-em-aakhuti, who is also known in Theban documents.
Let us now turn to what is known of the general history. We find that, at Philae, Ergamenes the Ethiopian built between the works of Ptolemy IV and V, showing that the Ethiopian occupation there lay somewhere between 220 and
Recueil de Travaux. 41
182 B.C. At Dakkeh Ergamenes built the inner part, and Ptolemy IV the outer part of the temple ; probably, therefore, he did this within the reign of Philopator, 222-204 B.C. And not only Ergamenes, but also his successors, must have been within these limits, for Ptolemy IV to have re-gained Dakkeh again after them. As we cannot puj these three Ethiopian kings between 207 (the dating by Pedyamenapt under Philopator) and 204 the end of the reign, it seems they must have ruled between 220 and 210 B.C. Probably the whole force of Egypt was needed in Syria to resist Antiochus in 219 B.C. and onward, and it was then that Ergamenes occupied Upper Egypt, and was succeeded by Hor-em-aakhuti and Onkh-em-aakhuti before 210 B.C., at which year the scribe dates again by Philopator. The Edfu inscription does not disprove this, as it was written at the close of Philopator's reign, and naturally ignored the rule of the usurpers who had passed away.
Returning to these papyri, which were found in the Earl of Carnarvon's excavations at Thebes, one is for the sale of a small plot (430 square feet) of town land, and the other for the sale of two acres of agricultural land. According to the cautious habit of that age no price is named, only a statement is made that the buyer is fully satisfied with the silver received. This omission of what is usually considered an essential part of a sale contract may have been due to evading a part of the percentage of government tax on sales, or avoiding an opening for future litigation about the full receipt of the amount. Each contract is signed by the usual sixteen witnesses. The details of the boundaries are so full that — as in the case of the Aswan Aramaic papyri — a plan of the region can be drawn from the description.
Recherches sur la famille dont fait partie Montouenthat. — GEORGES Legrain. (Continuation.) 2"" partie, Les Enfants de Khaemhor. Branch Nsipta/i. The separate documents are numbered.
27. Part of a table of offerings of Amenardys, daughter of King Kashta, and
her mother Shepenapt, daughter of King Uasarkon. Names Mentuemhat born of Nesptah and Ast-khebt.
28. Table of offerings of Mentuemhat born of Nesptah.
29. Base for a statue, of the same.
30. Another base, of the same.
31. Fragment of a statue of Mentuemhat.
32-3-4. Half discs with inscriptions of Mentuemhat ; naming also Harmerti, son of Mert-ne-horu, son of Hon
36. Fragment of black granite statue of Hor, son of Mentuemhat, son of
Nesmin ; not the preceding man.
37. Headless statue of Mentuemhat, found in the temple of Mut,
38. Statue of Mentuemhat, of black granite, at Berlin.
39. Bust of Mentuemhat ; temple of Mut.
40. Table of offerings of Mentuemhatsenb, XXVIth dynasty.
41. Bricks of Mentuemhat, probably from his tomb.
42. Ushabtis of Mentuemhat.
43. Genii of the tomb of Mentuemhat.
44. Tomb of Mentuemhat, published in Mem. Miss. Franqaise du Caire, V, 613.
List of titles quoted here.
45. Fragment of scene apparently from the tomb of a Prince Mentuemhat.
( 42 )
REVIEWS.
Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt. — By James Henry Breasted, Ph.D. 8vo. 7s. 6d. xix + 379 PP- (Hodder and Stoughton, 1912.)
This is the most important book that has appeared for many years past upon the religion of Egypt. It gives the first translations and summary of the Pyramid Texts, from the parallel versions issued by Dr. Sethe. Till now there has only been the original edition of Sir Gaston Maspero, with his first French translation, which was of the greatest value twenty years ago. By now, a fresh handling of the subject is wanted ; Dr. Sethe has finished his parallel edition of all the versions in different pyramids ; Prof Breasted here summarises the whole view of these oldest religious documents, and we only now wait for the complete translation promised by Dr. Sethe, which all scholars will hope may not long be delayed.
Dr. Breasted begins with an outline of the influence of Nature on the religion, the dominance of the Sun-god, Ra, and the power of the Nile under the form of Osiris. Osiris has been many things to many people, — god of the dead, god of vegetation, the Nile-god, the deified law-giver. A new Plutarch might write as puzzled and confused account of him as did the ancient speculator, and find as many possibilities of explanations. This book gives plenty of passages enforcing the connection with the Nile ; but, not to be one-sided, these are followed by references to Osiris as the Sea, as the fertile soil, and as vegetation. An outline of the Osiris, Isis, and Horus myth follows, the usual late version of which is supported by passages from the Pyramids.
Having dealt with the mythologic basis, the next chapter treats of the life after death, the primitive tomb dwelling and the later theologic developments. The view of the ka as being in heaven and protecting the dead in the future is strongly supported. Yet the figures which show the ka as born and growing with the person need to be reconciled with this ; and, indeed, it is difficult to separate the ka from the personality. The Nigerian belief in the ancestral spirit, in-dwelling and acting as the guardian in life and in death, seems to reconcile all the statements, as has been pointed out in a previous article.
The description of the Pyramid Texts follows. These oldest religious documents are shown to be extremely composite, built up of beliefs of three or four civilisations; the nature of their contents are classified as: (i) Ritual of the funeral and subsequent offerings. (2) Magical charms. (3) Very ancient ritual of worship. (4) Ancient religious hymns, (s) Fragments of old myths. (6) Prayers and petitions on behalf of the dead king. Their historical classification has been dealt with in the Drew Lecture, published in this part, and will therefore not claim our notice further. The next chapter shows how the earlier Osiris beliefs were overcoming the Ra religion, and being incorporated with it.
Leaving the Pyramid Age, Prof Breasted then launches into the reaction from faith in magic powers, and sketches the disillusion of men on seeing the futility of the pyramids and tombs; this is reflected to us in the songs, the dialogues, and the laments of an age without hope.
Reviews. 43
The growth of a belief in future recompense is then traced, as forced on men's minds by the imperfection and injustice of this life. The Osiris-worship of the primitive people became much amplified ; the inequalities of conditions here were believed to be rectified by the examination which condemned the evil and allowed the ggod to go to Osiris. The most original and powerful part of the book is a restoration of the scenes of the funeral feasts, from the details given in the endowment lists. Here Prof Breasted has done what every scholar ought to do with his knowledge, applied it to restore the past to our imaginations. Such a sketch from one who knows all the sources, however uncertain some detail may be, is far better than leaving readers entirely in the dark as to the sense and value of a list of details.
The astonishing and brilliant episode of the Aten-worship — the greatest idealism in the world before Christianity — is described, none too fully. Lastly, the rise of individual religion is sketched, but without coming down to the Alexandrian development under Oriental influence, which is the most important to us.
We must heartily congratulate the author on this volume. It shows throughout the first qualification for writing on the religion — a sympathy with the different beliefs on religion and ethics — a requirement which has hitherto been almost the prerogative of Dr. Wiedemann, and which has been lamentably absent from some other works on the subject. Scholastic precision may translate business documents, but something much larger is needful when we come to human faiths and feelings. Dr. Breasted has that needful something, and it would be fortunate if he would apply it to a translation of the whole Pyramid Texts, and an historical analysis of their various origins.
Papyrus Fun&aires de la XXI' dynastie. Le Papyrus hia-oglyphique de Kamara, et Le Papyrus hitfratique de Nesikhonsou, au Muse'e du Caire. — Ed. Naville. 4to, 38 pp., 30 plates. (Leroux, Paris, 1912.)
This beautiful publication is the finest yet issued on the Book of the Dead. The plates exceed in clearness even those of the papyrus of louiya, issued by Prof. Naville five years ago. We are indebted to this volume for two illustrations here (Figs. 21, 22), which will show how successfully the rendering of the papyri has been made. The papyrus of Queen Kamara (often called Ra-ma-ka) of the XXIst dynasty has long been known from some photographs of parts of it. It is here given on ten plates, which comprise Chapters i, 6, "jj, 79, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 99, 100, 105, no, 123, 125, 138, 144, 146, 148, 149, 150, 151, in a very irregular order, beginning with Chapters 151 and 6. One very short new chapter appears, compiled out of sentences from well-known passages. Prof Naville adheres to the old view that Mut-em-hat was the infant child of Queen Ka-ma-ra, and is much surprised at her having the full titles of royal wife. But there is nothing to show that Mutemhat was not the personal name of the great heiress-queen who took the royal cartouche Ka-ma-ra ; exactly as Hatshepsut took the same cartouche long before. The name Mutemhat occurs twice in the papyrus, in just the same manner as the name of Kamara, without any suggestion of being a different person. On the sarco- phagus the two cartouches are set out together side by side with their preliminary titles. We do not really know the name of the infant who was buried with Queen Kamara Mutemhat.
The papyrus of Nesikhonsu I, wife of Pinezem II, is not such fine work as the preceding. It occupies thirty plates, with Some fairly good scenes and figures.
44 Reviews.
It contains the Chapters i, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10 or 48, 17, 31, 38, 41, 55, 63, 65, 7J, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 95, 97, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 109, no. III, 112, 113. 125, 136, 153. It is much to be hoped that Prof. Naville will publish further texts in the admirable manner of these plates.
Christian Antiquities in the Nile Valley. — SOMER.S Clarke, F.S.A. 4to, 234 pp., 56 plates, 42 figures. (Clarendon Press, Oxford.)
In no land is Christian architecture so neglected as in Egypt ; fortunately it has now found a competent recorder in the former architect to our St. Paul's Cathedral. Mr. Somers Clarke has for years past hunted over 1,400 miles for the little neglected shrines from Soba down to Antinoe, pathetic relics that have survived twelve centuries of continued persecutions.
In this volume are full plans, many sections, and some elevations, beside maps ; but it is difficult to grasp the full amount of work collected here, as there is no table of contents, and the churches are not numbered. A very full index partly compensates for this difficulty. The main interest to most readers will lie in the two grandest buildings, the White and Red Monasteries near Sohag : of these a considerable account is given, pending the great official publication which is some day to come. Not only is the long line of churches great and small described here, but the use and system of them is considered, and an account of the present method of building illustrates the actual construction. It is, indeed, fortunate that the churches have found a recorder, before they further disappear. A zealous photographer could not do better than take this volume for guide book, and put on permanent record the architectural appearance of all the buildings. •
The Fate of Empires. — A. J. HUBBARD, M.D. 8vo., 220 pp. (Longmans.) Though this book only refers secondarily to Egypt, yet its principle of " an inquiry into the stability of civilisation " is so wide-spread that it needs notice here, as enabling us to see the meaning of Egyptian civilisation. The author's main view is the distinction of two opposing forces in all civilisations. One force is the Family Instinct, which looks to the exaltation of the Race, past and future, under religious sanctions. The other force is the Social Instinct, which looks to Society as an end, and makes the immediate interests of the present dominant under selfish Reason. Each of these forces is needful for the general welfare.
Their effects are shown by their excesses. If the Family overpower Society the result may be seen in Egypt, and now in China, with its immense overcrowding, lack of national solidarity, and all ends and means justified by the family benefit. This form of life is, however, permanent, and capable of bearing almost any shocks and troubles without collapse. If Society overpower the Family the result is seen in the Roman Empire, where the height of felicity was to exhaust all capital and possible means of pleasure for the present individual, totally regardless of the Race. Socialism is the form of this order of things, and the result is extinction. The author concludes that no civilisation founded on purely selfish Reason can be perrnanent ; and that the family instinct, and its religious sanctions, are necessarily essential to any lasting system of racial existence.
( 45 )
^ NOTES AND NEWS.
The British School of Archaeology in Egypt has for several years been steadily
clearing the country from Cairo southward. Various existing rights of excavation
have stood in the way, and have been respected by leaving such sites in their present
state of neglect. But the series of clearances made at Gizeh, Memphis, Mazghuneh,
Shurafeh, Tarkhan, Riqqeh, Gerzeh, and Meydum have opened up and published
every site of this region which is not kept waiting for other excavators. In the
coming season this work will continue further southwards. One camp will begin
on the Gebel Abusir at Harageh, where an immense cemetery of the Xllth dynasty
lies still untouched in modern times. This part of the work is in the hands of
Mr. Engelbach, who did so well on the cemetery of Riqqeh last year : he is at
present helped by Mr. Guy Brunton, Mr. Battiscombe Gunn, and Mr. Willey,
Another very promising subject is the small pyramid adjoining that of
Senusert II at Lahun. Twenty-five years ago. Prof Petrie found the core of this
pyramid, and cleared over the whole region of it without reaching an entrance. He
is now going to return, with clues which have come to light since that time. As
this pyramid is probably that of the queen of Senusert, it may prove of much
interest. This work will be joined by Mr. and Mrs. Brunton, Rev. C. T. Campion
who worked at Tarkhan last season. Dr. Amsden, and Mr. F". J. Frost. Mrs. Flinders
Petrie will again undertake the drawing of the antiquities during the season, as in
each year.
Dr. Reisner will carry on his great clearances at the Pyramids of Gizeh, on which he has been engaged for so many years.
Mr. Quibeil is continuing the e.xcavations at Saqqareh for the Egyptian Government. He expects to clear a cemetery of the Roman Age this winter, if an important change should not officially supervene.
Mr. Mace will be at work on the pyramid of Amenemhat I at Lisht, in continuance of the work of the Metropolitan Museum of New York.
Dr. Borchardt will excavate between El-Badari and Hawara in the Fayum.
The Italian work will be at Kum Ghirzeh near El-Rodah in the Fayum.
Further south, Mr. J. de M. Johnson is going to excavate at Antinoe, for the Graeco-Roman Branch of the Egypt Exploration Fund. It is hoped that such an important Greek city may yield papyri, although it has been much searched.
Mr. Blackman will continue the work of the Archaeological Survey at Meir.
The German work will be renewed which was so successful last season at Tell Amarna, where a sculptor's workshop was found.
46 Notes and News.
Daninos Pasha will take up the search at Eshmuneyn, in furtherance of the discoveries made there in recent years.
Antaeopolis (Qau el-Kebyr) and five miles southward to Nawawrah will be the ground of Prof SteindorfTs excavations.
Further south still, the Egypt Exploration Fund, in resuming the work on the Osireion at Abydos, has sent Mr. Wainwright (who has earned his spurs in the British School) to carry on the excavations, which will be directed by Prof Naville, assisted by Prof VVhittemore. It is hoped this season to push on the clearing of this great subterranean structure up to its contact with the Temple of Sety. The subsidence in the axis of that temple (published in 1902) naturally leads to the idea that some subterranean structure underlies it. The copies of the Sinai inscriptions, which were made in 1905, are now being finally arranged for publication by Mr. Eric Peet and Dr. Alan Gardiner.
At Thebes there will be the usual concentration of workers. Mr. N. de G. Davies is continuing the great task of preserving the paintings in facsimile copies. Mr. Howard Carter continues the work of the Earl of Carnarvon at El-Birfibeh, Mr. VVinlock for New York is working out the palace of Amenhotep III at Mayata. Mr. Lythgoe continues the work at El-Asasif Mr. H. Barton is working for Mr. Theodore Davis on the south of Medinet Habu temple, Dr. Moller for Berlin will probably work at Der el-Medineh, Mr. Robert Mond has organized the very necessary work of clearing, repairing, and photographing the painted tombs of Thebes, which are so priceless for their pictures of Egyptian life. Mr. Mackay (who so long worked with the British School) is now carrying out this work in a systematic manner, one of the most needful tasks, which ought to have been performed long ago by the Government.
At Aulad Yahia in Nubia Mr. West will begin excavating.
Rumours are afloat that a royal tomb was robbed last summer ; and that the obelisk of Senusert I, which has stood in its place for 5,000 years at Heliopolis, is to be desecrated to ornamenting a garden in Cairo ! It may be a question whether the fallen colossi of Memphis are best in their place, or in city squares ; but to carry off the oldest obelisk in Egypt, which has stood in its own place unmoved through most of history, for a trivial piece of decoration which will be out of date in a few generations, would be a degradation of antiquity.
( 47 )
THE EGYPTIAN RESEARCH STUDENTS' ASSOCIATION.
This Association was founded eight years ago for the large number of persons who wish to keep in touch with research in Egypt. It is expressly connected with the British School 8f Archaeology, to which it contributes, and by which it is supplied with travelling series of small antiquities sent on loan to the various branches. Reports on the current work are also supplied to the meetings. Anyone wishing to open a local centre should apply to the founder, Mrs. Sefton-Jones, 1 8, Bedford Square, London. The papers for the present season are here given, with the addresses to which application should be made for membership (35. or 4.5'. yearly).
London. (Hon. Sec, Mrs. Sefton-Jones, 18, Bedford Square, W.C.) — First Meeting, Oct. 15, at the above address ; 8 p.m., tea and coffee, 8.30 p.m., lecture : Prof. Flinders Petrie, on " Unwritten History." Nov. 27, Dr. Alan Gardiner, on " Egyptian Ethics " (to be published in our April number). Dec. 5, Reading of Drew Lecture on " The Egyptians' Belief in a Future Life." Dec. II, Prof. P. E. Newberry, on "The North-western Delta, its People and their Cults." Jan. 23, Dr. Haddon, on " Study of Savages." Feb. 26, Miss Murray, on " Ancestor Cults." May Meeting, at University College, Prof. Flinders Petrie's lantern-lecture on New Discoveries.
BoURNE.vioUTH. (Miss E. Allis-Smith, Martello Towers, Branksome Park.) — Dec. 8, 3.30p.m., at Kelton Manor Road (Mrs. Fane), Mrs. Sefton-Jones, on " Prof Flinders Petrie's recent Work," showing some of the objects found. Jan. 14, 3.30 p.m., at Shalimar, Wilderton Road, Branksome Park (Mrs. Claude Lyon), lantern-lecture by Claude Lyon, on " The Temple of Abu Simbel." Meetings, Feb. and Mar., Ilird and IVth dynasties.
Edinburgh. (Mrs. Melville, 16, Carlton Street.)— Oct. 28, 3 p.m., in Heriot Watt College, lantern-lecture, Mrs. Flinders Petrie, on " Recent Excavations of a 1st dynasty Site," followed by a demonstration in the Royal Scottish Museum. Other meetings not named.
Farnham. (Miss G. D. Buckle, Brackenhurst, Farnham.)— Oct. 31, Miss G. Buckle, on "Temple Ritual." Dec. 4, Mrs. Milne, on "Funerary Rites." Jan., Brigadier-General Mitford, C.B., D.S.O., on " Berber."
Gl.\sgow. (Miss Bruce Murray, 17, University Gardens.) — Oct. 29, 8.30 p.m., in University, lantern-lecture by Mrs. Flinders Petrie, on " Recent Excavations of a 1st dynasty Site." Nov. 25, 4 p.m., in Park Parish Church Hall, Rev. A. C. Baird, B.D., on " Relations of Egypt to neighbour- ing States, XlXth dynasty onwards." Jan. 14, 3 p.m.. Prof. Stevenson, D.Litt., on "A Storyteller of Fifth Century B.C." Feb. 17, 4 p.m., Dr. J. D. Falconer, on "Traces of Early Egyptian Culture in Western Sudan." Mar., Evening meeting.
H.^STINGS. (Mrs. Russell Morris, Quarry Hill Lodge, St. Leonards.)— Oct., Paper on "The Hittites." Nov., Rev. J. D. Gray, on "Neolithic Age." Dec. I, Mrs. Purdon, on "Ancient Egyptian Magic." Jan., Dr. Yanton, on " The Egyptian Lotus." Feb., Lecture by J. S. Parkin. Mar., Paper on the Cretans.
Reic.ate. (.Mrs. Paul, Hilton Lodge.)— Oct. 17, "Readings from the Book of the Dead." Nov. 13, " Mythology and Religion of primitive people and Ideal of God." Dec. 4, "The Abode of the Blessed, and Doctrine of Eternal Life." Jan., Feb., and Mar., Lectures by Miss L. Eckenstein, on " .Mummies," " Amulets," " Dress, Religious and Secular."
Ross-ON-WVE. (Mrs. Marshall, Gayton Hall.)— Oct. 30, Miss Harvey, on "Ancient Civilisation of Crete." Nov. 26, First Paper of the Historical course, 1st, llnd, and Ilird dynasties. Dec. 31, Historical course continued.
TiNTAGEL. (Mrs. Harris, St. Piran's.)— Oct. 6, " Prehistoric Egypt and the First Three Dynasties." Nov. 3, on " Recent Discoveries." Dec. l, " On Flints, Jewellery, etc." Mar. or April, Prehistoric.
In addition to the E.R.S.A., there is a Local Society for Manchester, entitled the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society, which has always worked in collaboration with us.
Manchester. (Miss W. .M. Crompton, The University.)— Oct. 6, 4.30 p.m.. Prof. Flinders Petrie, on " Early Cylinders and Scarabs." Oct. 27, 8 p.m.. Prof. Elliot Smith, on " The Foreign Influence of Egypt during the Old Kingdom." Nov. 14, Dr. Louis Gray, on "Zoroastrianism and other Material in Ada Sanclortim." Dec. 8, 5 p.m., Rev. J. A. Meeson, on " Wisdom Literature." Dec. 15, 8 p.m.. Dr. Alan Gardiner, on "Egyptian Hieroglyphic Writing." Lectures for 1914, by Mr. W. Burton, on "Egyptian Glazed Ware"; by H. R. Hall, on "Greek Monasteries"; Prof. A. Dickie, on " The Origin and Development of Building amongst the Jews" ; Prof. Lehmann- Haupt, on "Tigranokerta Rediscovered"; and A. M. Blackman, on "The Painted Tombs at Meir."
Hilda Flinders Petrie.
( 48 )
THE PORTRAITS.
1. This head is certainly a portrait of Amenemhat III. It is of the same peculiar physiognomy and expression as the large, seated figure in the Cairo Museum, which was found on the site of the Labyrinth at Hawara. That figure, in fine condition, and bearing the full names of the king, served to fix for us his portraiture. Here we see the same curiously flat cheeks, the slight nose, and the thin compressed mouth, which are so characteristic of this king, and so different from any other head that we know. In the flat face and narrow lips perhaps, of all kings, Henry VII is the nearest parallel. There is none of the full vitality and obvious strength which are so plainly seen in Senusert I, or Senusert III. It is difficult to imagine such a man, with an almost pathological look of ill-health, raising the Labyrinth, the greatest temple of Egypt, which lasted as a world- wonder for three thousand years ; or designing that immense burial chamber hollowed out of a single block of flinty rock, 26 feet long and 12 feet wide, which encompassed him in the pyramid of Hawara after a reign of forty-four years. This head is carved in a mottled diorite of fine grain. It was purchased by Miss Amelia Edwards, and bequeathed by her to University College, where it now is.
2. This bust of the XVIIIth dynasty is one of the most charming pieces of sculpture of the great period of Thebes. It has originally been part of a group
of two figures seated side by side, as husband and wife were usually represented at that time. One day I had the pleasure of show- ing it to my friend, the late Sir Francis Galton ; he gazed for some time, and then with a sigh, said : " Ah ! to think she should ever have died ! " For the sweet and gracious dignity of this face there is scarcely an equal after the Pyramid Age.
Some traces of inscription remain on the back, beginning with a Nesut dy Itetep to Haraakhuti, and apparently naming Hor-nez-atef, son of the messenger {khds) whose name is lost. No such name is found in Lieblein, Legrain, or Weigall's guide to the Theban tombs.
This bust is carved in the very hard limestone which was usual in the reign of Amenhotep III. I owe the cast, and the photograph on this page, to the kindness of Sir Whitworth Wallis ; he was informed by a friend, who was moving house, that he could have " two old stones that are in the stable." This was one of them, and it is now an ornament of the Art Gallery at Birmingham. W. M. F. P.
30. Lady of XVIIIth dynasty. Limestone. Birmingham.
4
1. KING AMENEMHAT III. UNIVERSITY COLLEGE.
I
"V
2. LADY OF XVIIITH DYNASTY. BIRMINGHAM.
ANCIENT EGYPT.
M:
THE BRITISH SCHOOL AT LAHUN.
The work of the British School of Archaeology in Egypt, under the direct supervision of Prof Petrie, round the Pyramid of Senusert II at II Lahun (Fayum) began on 6th January. The principal object in view is the complete clearance of the pyramid enclosure, in order to plan the various constructions, and to discover, if possible, an entrance into the burial chambers of the royal family. On the analogy of other Xllth dynasty pyramids, the entry to these tombs should exist somewhere beneath the space enclosed by the temenos wall. Originally a rocky
slope existed here, with its highest part to the north. The whole site has been levelled by cutting down into the solid rock, and by building up with chips to .some extent on the south. All round the rocky knoll which formed the core of the pyramid, there are now high mounds of chips ; while on the north the whole cutting has been filled up again with sand and debris. Fortunately plenty of labour is available, and at present some 220 men and boys are at work. Of these, 23 are
50 The Brilish School at Lahitti. .
Prof. Petrie's old hands from Quft, who know well the meaning of every variation in the ground in which they are digging, while the remainder are villagers from two or three miles away, who tramp to the work, with their hoes, and their boys, and their baskets ; they toil from soon after sunrise to ten minutes before sunset, with an hour's rest at noon, and then trudge home again. They are mostly poor folk, and are glad of the chance of earning a good wage. They are quite unskilled, but soon improve under the eyes of the trained Quftis, who are each one in charge of three " locals."
The first photograph gives a good idea of the method, extent, and difficulty of the work. The view is looking east, along the rock cutting which bounds the enclosure on the north. The men hoe up the ground, fill the baskets, and lift them on to the shoulders of the boys, who empty them some distance away. When the pit gets very deep, a chain has to be formed, with a succession of lifts. The rock which in the north-west corner is levelled down to some 20 feet has been faced with a thick brick wall covered with white plaster.
About I S feet south of this wall, stands a row of eight masses of solid rock, one of which can be seen on the right in the photograph. They are about 30 feet by 45 feet, and the highest about 15 feet, apparently in the form of mastabas ; no doubt they cover the burial chambers of the royal family. The whole corridor between the vertical face on the north and the mastabas is now clear from east to west down to its rock pavement, and to walk along from end to end in its cool and shady depth is a striking experience. Robbers in the past have been active here. They have pulled down or made large holes in the brick-work, and have even tunnelled right through one of the rock masses, in their apparently fruitless search.
A small pyramid, 90 feet square, no doubt of the Queen, stands at the north-east corner of the enclosure. The whole of the surrounding pavement is now cleared, but beyond a few coloured chips of sculpture from the chapel, and foundation deposits of minor interest, nothing has been found. The fine white limestone which once covered the rough core of the pyramid, and which paved the enclosure, has almost completely disappeared. The second photograph shows the work on the north-
The British School at Lahun.
5'
east corner here, looking south, with the eastern side of the large pyramid enclosure in the distance. This is better seen in the third photograph. The whole of the foundations of the enclosure walls have been laid bare, and this clearance is further continued up to the original foundation of the pyramid. Very curiously, the rock
floor has been cut so as to slope gently inward for 40 feet, after which it rises up again towards the pyramid. It was then covered over and levelled up with clean sand, and a layer of flint pebbles on the top. This trench full of sand seems to have been intended to receive and absorb any rain that ran off" the pyramid, so as to prevent the water soaking into the foundations. The temple area was buried 15 to 18 feet deep in chips, but it has been completely cleared, and the rock surface everywhere examined minutely for any traces of hidden entrances. The third photograph will give a good idea how this was done, every crack in the rock being examined, and brushed clean.
Outside the temenos wall was found a line of deep circular pits filled with mud. These have been traced right round the east, south, and part of the west sides. Some of them contained roots and branches, and their purpose is obvious. A row of trees surrounding a pyramid is quite unknown elsewhere, and we can easily imagine what a pleasing effect they must have produced, — the shining, white pyramid, the green line of trees, and then the yellow desert.
Mr. Engelbach's work four miles away at Harageh has been very successful, in a cemetery which is mainly of the Xllth dynasty.
Guy Brunton. D 2
52
A Byzantine Table of Fractions.
r
o
u5
a
<
Z H- Z
bl U
^^y^'^
!^:^<_^^^
^^
■L-lXkttt
Hl\
S3
A Byzantine Table of Fractions.
53
o
<
uii/iz Z Z Z ^ Z h- h H h h h
q Q
^v:.<i'0<l-^S'^"5^^^^<l
ri (I II *t rv X CO © o\— 2
-o5 -'^rJ^ lO
z z z z z z
h e I- H I- H
D 3
( 54 )
A BYZANTINE TABLE OF FRACTIONS.
This outer leaf of a set of writing tablets, has two lists of fractions written in ink upon the recessed surface of the wood. These lists show the method of compiling multiples of iVth and ^V^h. which will be best followed in the transcription and translation facing the facsimile. The system was to add together a series of fractions, each with one as numerator, so as to make up more complex fractions. Thus here the 1 5th part of 7 is stated to be ^ + -fV + irV- ^^ can verify this in our way by saying that -30+^+ ^V = -3^ or ■^^. This is the regular system of ancient Egypt, and it is interesting to see how it was continued on into Christian times, while it is still familiar to the modern Copt.
The reading of the columns begins with "15" and " 16," showing that this is part of a series of tablets giving the composition of various fractions up to -njths, which is the last. The heading continues: "The 15th part of one is -j^th, the 15th part.of 2 is I'jj + ■j'j," and so on to the foot of the tablet, after which two more entries are put up at the top of the middle part. The further column is parted from the first by the c/ii rho monogram. It reads: " 16. The i6th part (O E unexplained) of one . . . ." doubtless ^th is lost; "of 2 = |th; of 3 = Jth + y'^^th," etc.
A list of the signs used for the fractions is added to the transcription here for convenience.
Outside of Table of Fractions, "Phoibamn Daueit."
On the back of this tablet, which was the outer one of the group, is very roughly cut " Phoibamn Daueit," probably the name and paternity of the schoolboy who used it. The size is I0"6 inches long and $ inches wide, with three holes through it to tie" the leaves together ; there are two smaller holes running out in the edge, for securing a string round the tablets in order to seal them. It was bought in Egypt, 191 3, and is now in University College, London.
Herbert Thompson.
\
( 55 )
NOTES ON THE ETHICS OF THE EGYPTIANS.
I N our study of the civilisation of the ancient Egyptians, it is interesting to consider an aspect whicli is too often neglected. We are apt to concentrate our attention on the material side, to study their great monuments and the concrete details of their life as depicted in the tombs, and one forgets to ask what were these people like, as men ? What were their ideals, their estimates of right and wrong ? If we are liable to overlook this, in our study of archaeology or of philology, it is not the fault of the Egyptians themselves. In all their in.scriptions, wherever there are monuments or writings to study, we find that they are lavish in the expression of their ethical ideas, though it is often only to make a boast of their own virtues or their own position. There is a large proportion of inscriptions which deal with what we vaguely call titles. Some of these refer to the rank and offices of the deceased, but they are interlarded with many expressions regarding the moral qualities which they claimed to possess. Almost every stele has — " I gave bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, and clothes to the naked."
The first thing that we notice about these expressions is the extremely concrete way in which they express themselves. It is curious that so ethically-minded a people should have had no word for " ought." Although they were always boasting of their virtues, they did not possess this word, and when they required to convey the notion of duty, they put it more literally: " I did what men love, and what the gods approve." Approbation from without seems to have been a chief incentive to virtue. , The stock of words conveying abstract ideas was extremely limited, and the
words were very simple. The word for "right" is nia'ct {tuilof) —^~ — ° meaning
right direction, and derived from a verb " to be straight," " to lead straight on." Thus mdet signifies conformity to an ethical norm, though it is often equally well translated as Truth or Justice. The word for iniquity is 'iesfet; there are not many words for crime. " Duty " is generally conveyed by the phrase 'ere-t, " that which appertains to a man," meaning the obligation which rests upon him. There is no word for " will." Conscience is sometimes represented by 'iel> (ab) " heart," expressing not only the mere instrument of cognition, but also the faculty which recognises and suggests the right course of action. On an XVIIIth dynasty stele we read : — " Thus saith he. This is my character to which I have borne witness, " and there is no exaggeration therein ... It is my heart ('ted) that caused me to " do it through its guidance unto me. It was an excellent prompter unto me ; " I did not infringe its commands ; I feared to transgress its guidance. Therefore " I prosf>ered exceedingly, and was fortunate on account of that which it caused me " to do ; I succeeded by reason of its guidance. Of a sooth, true is that which is " said by men : ' It (the heart) is the voice of God that is in everybody ; happy is " he whom it has led to a good course of action !' " Beyond a few similar passages there is not much which refers to any ethical concept, and it seems as though the ethical thought of the Egyptians never attained any very high level.
The Elgyptians were not philosophers, and they were unable to account in any philosophical manner for their rules of conduct. They seem to have possessed no
D 4
56 Notes on the Ethics of the Egyptians.
words for " motive," " responsibility," or " scruple." They apparently never wrestled over the difficulties of opposing lines of conduct ; their minds were not torn by moral struggles. It was recognised that some things were intrinsically good, and others bad, but we never find anything but the crudest lines of division ; it is never implied that such and such conduct may be good in one person or instance, and bad in another. In ancient Egypt, the philosophic level was not reached ; it was only so in the regions of the Mediterranean area, from the time when Greek influences began to prevail.
It has been already noticed in how very concrete a manner the Egyptians expressed various moral predicates. Whenever they could do so, they visualised an action, and reduced the expression of it to its simplest terms. For instance, to express what we mean by " reserved " or " discreet," they formed a simple compound, flap ro, " hidden of mouth," and to express " kindly " or " indulgent," they said wah 'ieb, "enduring of heart." Almost all their descriptive phrases were formed in this kind of way ; the words consist, for the most part, of adjectives or participles, which describe a condition that can be visualised, and they figure a limb or part of the body in which the quality to be named exhibits itself 'Ieb is used to denote conditions of mind and temperament, ro for anything manifested by the mouth, hor {her) for things of the face, as in spad /tor, "sharp of face," meaning " intelligent," " clever," 'a, arm, for action, as in 'aw 'a, "extended of hand," meaning generous or liberal ; and the use of these excessively concrete images to denote abstract qualities makes it extremely difficult to translate Egyptian te.xts with any certainty of accuracy.
The ancient Egyptians appear to have had a strong belief in fate, and they imagined that fate, shay, governed all the events of life. They did not, however, hold the belief that men's actions were determined beforehand. Men were hampered by predestined occurrences but were free in their own individual actions, and free from the tyranny of Kismet which paralyses the Egyptians of to-day. The Egyptian moralists never reached the loftiest planes of ethics. It does not appear that they realised that virtue is its own reward, but all their teaching was on a lower plane. In the maxims of Ptah-hetep, belonging to the Old Kingdom period, we read : — " Excellent is right, and endureth and prevaileth," but prudential considera- tions follow — " Never has wickedness brought its venture safe to port ; wrong-doing stealeth away riches." It seems as though virtue was not inculcated for its own sake, but recommended for practice merely with a view to the reward that it might bring.
Perhaps the highest standpoint, in this regard, to which the Egyptians attained, was in the desire to raise up a good name, but with this there was naively blended the intense desire for approval, and the over-anxiety to stand well with others. He required to be in favour with the Pharaoh, and to describe himself as " beloved of his master," or as one " with whose excellence the lord of the two lands was content," but it is interesting to note that the popular verdict was also held in high account. Pharaoh was considered to be the patron and therecompenserof virtue — " the Lord of Right," and an official relates — " I did right for the Lord of Right for I knew he is pleased at it"; yet in spite of the absolute form of the government under the Pharaohs, the approval of fellow-men, and public opinion in general was held in esteem.
Virtue was considered to reap its reward on earth. A man ends a long catalogue of his own good qualities with an address to mankind : " I speak to you, " O mortals ; listen and do the good deeds that I have done, and to you shall be
Notes on the Ethics of the Egyptians. 57
" done the like." To a king, it is said : " Do the right that thou mayest live long in the land." Sometimes this idea is expressed more theologically : " God returns evil to him who does it, and right to him who brings it." The fear of God is also found to be an incentive to good conduct.
The Egyptians were of course aware that it is not always the worthy who reap rewards, they noted the fact that the unworthy sometimes prosper through no merit of their own, but they regarded this as accidental. The predominance of wrong became the theme of a class of pessimistic writings, which deal with the evil conditions prevailing in certain periods. A papyrus preserved at Leyden describes the deadlock of social conditions — how " slaves have usurped the place of the rich, murder and rapine prevail, and the righteous dwell alone and in misery." One author draws the conclusion that life is not worth living, another cites as the cause, the impiety of mankind and the callousness of their ruler. The crowning passage in this literature consists in admonitions to the Pharaoh to perform various religious duties incumbent upon kings, in the hope of their leading to happier conditions in the state of the country.
With regard to the life after death, there was a gradual growth of belief that virtue would reap its reward in that life to come. In the early time (Old Kingdom), more primitive beliefs in certain rites and formulae held ground ; in the literature of the Pyramid times, it is the magical element which is to the fore ; indeed the whole trend of the Pyramid Texts is towards the profession of certain actions and the reading of certain formulae, and even the fact of their being written on the tomb had efficacy in the gaining of happiness hereafter. It must be admitted, however, that certain passages in the Pyramid Texts imply that righteousness would have its influence in determining the future life of man, and that the magic formulae were not the sole passport.
It is difficult to see how the change to the later and more ethical view takes its rise, and the gradual transition comes about, but it is to be found in the professions of virtues which are engraved on the funeral stele.s. The deceased begs an oflering at his tomb, because of his good actions : " I have been virtuous, I have given bread to the hungry," etc., and this commemoration of virtues was one of the contributory causes which led up to the doctrine that virtue in this life would bring happiness in the life hereafter.
Then again, on these same steles of the Old Kingdom, it is often found that the deceased uses the name of one of the gods to threaten the evil-doer who dares to violate the tomb. The mention of judgment " in the place where judgment is given," suggests to us the conception of a deity who is the champion of the virtuous dead. Breasted shows that Re, the Sun-god, held this position at a very early period, and then that solar beliefs were early overlaid by the Osirian beliefs, and in the later times this cult was pre-eminent and Osiris regarded as the rewarder of virtue and punisher of guilt.
One of the most famous chapters of the Book of the Dead (Chapter CXXV) contains the Negative Confession. The illustration which usually accompanies this is a vignette (see p. 27) representing Osiris seated on a dais, with the scales before him. The ibis-headed Thoth stands near, to record, and the heart of the deceased is weighed in the balance against the feather of truth (Maot). The forty- two assessors, seated above, are separately invoked in the repudiation of sins. In the two versions that have come down to us, we find denials that various forms of wrong have been committed, and we find the mention of demons as among those who punish such sins. After a preliminary invocation, the elder confession
S8 Notes on the Ethics of the Egyptians.
begins : — " I have done no wickedness to men. I have not brought misery upon " my fellows. I have not wrought injuries in the place of right. I have not done " mischief. I have not made the beginning of every day laborious in the sight of " him who worked for me ... . I have not impoverished the poor .... I have " not caused hunger. I have not caused weeping. I have not .slain. I have not " commanded to slay. I have not made everyone suffer. I have not decreased the " meals in the temples. I have not diminished the loaves of the gods .... " I have not added to, or taken from, the corn-measure. I have not diminished " the palm (unit of measurement). I have not falsified the cubit of the fields. " I have not added to the weights of the scales. I have not tampered with the " plummet of the balance. I have not taken away the milk from the mouth of the " child .... I have not snared the birds (bones of the gods) \sic.; quite obscure] " . . . . I have not dammed running water .... I have not neglected the feast- " days, in respect of their sacrificial joints .... I have not hindered the god in " his goings forth " (processions). " I am pure ! I am pure ! I am pure ! I am pure!" The later confession, added to it, has much the same tone, each denial being joined to the name of a demon : — " O fire-embracer, I have not robbed," etc.
Now, with regard to the Negative Confession, its importance has been much exaggerated. It is not a canonical list of vices or acts of wickedness ; the many variants of the MSS. are enough to prove that no great stress was laid on precise cataloguing of the denials, but that they were rather chosen at random, and the list, if fairly complete, was carelessly compiled. The deceased was finally supposed to be innocent of all crime, and therefore worthy of acquittal in the presence of Osiris. Magic, in the long run, encroached upon the higher and more ethical view of things, for no doubt the chapter was employed as magical, and its words had a magical potency, when written out and deposited with the deceased. They were used as a means of conveying to him the assurance of happiness in the life hereafter.
It would take long to discuss in detail the whole catalogue of moral qualities, but, in conclusion, a short summary of the Egyptian character, from the sources at our disposal, may not be out of place.
The ancient Egyptians were a gay and light-hearted people, luxurious in their lives, and prone to self-indulgence. They were kind, however, charitable, and courteous in their behaviour, and there are no evidences of barbarous savagery and cruelties, such as were practised by the Babylonians and Assyrians. Honesty and incorruptibility were not among the strong points of the Egyptians, but in this respect they were at least able to perceive the ideal standard, if they did not attain to it. Intellectually they were gifted, though not deep, and they were averse to dull brooding ; but their love of all that is artistic and pleasurable in life, is perhaps the characteristic which has played the largest part in helping to endear them to their modern votaries.
[These notes were made on an address given by Dr. Alan H. Gardiner on 27 November, at the London centre, E.R.S.A. — HlLDA FLINDERS Petrie.]
( 59 )
THE LATE PROFESSOR TSUBOI AND EGYPTOLOGY IN JAPAN.
It was some thirty or forty years ago that archaeology began to be studied in Japan as a science. It is quite natural that Egyptology, which has no direct relation to the civilisation of Japan, has not been so much valued there as in Europe, and that its study has been restricted within a narrow circle of people. No doubt the study of the ancient history of Egypt has done a good deal for the popularisation of Egyptian antiquities among the Japanese. The late Prof. S. Tsuboi of the Tokyo Imperial University was the first to study Egyptology proper.
Prof Tsuboi specialised in anthropology, while at the same time he had a deep interest in archaeology. After studying in England, France, and other continental countries, he lectured on anthropology as well as on archaeology in the Imperial University of Tokyo. Egyptology, however, seems to have been one of his favourite subjects. He frequently gave lectures on Egyptology in the High Normal School and at various public meetings.
Thus, through him, many strange antiquities, gathered from all parts of the Nile Valley, became gradually known to the learned circle of the Japanese, and the terms, for instance, inastaba, canopic-jar or iisfiabti have become quite familiar among them. When he first came to Europe, he had hardly enough time to devote himself to the study of Egyptian antiquities ; but two years before his death, when travelling in Europe, he went to Cairo and studied the museum very carefully, and brought back to Japan some perfect models of funeral boats and other relics of the ancient Egyptians.
Learned society in Japan expected from him a satisfactory result of his study on Egyptology, but in 191 3, while attending the International Congress of Royal Academies in Moscow, he suddenly died without having had time to publish the result of his studies. His untimely death was a great shock and a severe loss to Japan.
The Kyoto Imperial University, though much younger than the Tokyo University, has been closely connected with Egyptology from the time of its foundation. It has a special building for archaeological collections, joined the 'Egypt E.xploration Fund, and has now joined the British School of Archaeology in Egypt. Since its foundation, the University has been collecting numerous antiquities from Egypt, and now we can see there stone implements and pottery of the Pre-dynastic age and various objects of the Dynastic periods. Of all these collections, those found at Deir el-Bahri occupy the greater part. This collection may be said to be the largest one in Japan, though certainly small as compared with many of those in Europe. In this University, lectures on Egyptology have been given by K. Hamada, one of the late Prof. Tsuboi's pupils.
Besides the collections in the Kyoto University, there is also a good collection of Egyptian antiquities in the Tokyo University, gathered by the late Prof. Tsuboi. This collection contains stone implements of the Pre-dynastic age, fragments of sculpture, mummies and funeral boats. In the College of Medicine there is a perfect mummy, and in the College of Literature some collection of antiquities.
6o Tlu Late Professor Tsuboi and Egyptology in Japan.
Mr. Murakawa, Professor of the Ancient History of Europe, is also a student of Egyptology and often refers to it in his lectures.
Outside these two Imperial Universities, there is a good number of Egyptian antiquities in the Tokyo Imperial Household Museum, where mummies, ushabtiu, and other objects presented by the Cairo Museum, attract the eyes of visitors as do those in the British Museum. The fragments of the Greek vases found at Naukratis may be seen in this Museum and Kyoto University as well.
Now-a-days the general interest in Egyptian antiquities is increasing among private persons in Japan. This is not at all surprising when we think of the same tendency even in China. The late Tang-Fun, once the governor of the province Chi-li, was a great collector of old Chinese things and also of some ancient Egyptian things.
On the whole, in Japan, there is hardly any specialist in Egyptology as yet, and the study of this subject is still in its infancy. But there are certainly more students of Egyptology than of Assyriology.
The study of Egyptology, besides its own importance, has still more interesting relation with the study of the ancient graves and funeral customs in China. It is a most striking phenomenon to notice the similarities and coincidences between Egyptian funeral customs and those of China in the Han and Tang dynasties. The advanced methods of study in Egyptology will promote the studies of archaeology in Japan and other countries in the Far East.
K. Hamada and T. Chiba.
( 6i )
THE EARLIEST INSCRIPTIONS.
The earliest known' hieroglyphs and phrases are those on the primitive cylinders of stone, which are rarely found, and only in a few localities. Strange to say they have not yet been studied in any way, and are scarcely recognised as forming a distinct class of material on the early language and civilisation. Perhaps the main cause of this neglect is the rarity of them, coupled with the fact that from the purely linguistic point of view they are scarcely intelligible. It is not till a large number can be compared, and classes of them separated into definite types, that enough examples can be contrasted to see what is accidental and what is systematic in their arrangement.
In beginning the catalogue of the cylinders and scarabs at University College, I needed some classification of these early cylinders. Before a conclusive publication, it seems best to give a statement of the principal results reached, in order that some criticisms of them may be forthcoming before a final treatment. The copies here are only hand-drawn, sufficient for general study ; but in the complete catalogue each cylinder will be published in photograph from a flat cast.
The greater part of the known examples are at University College ; a large group was bought some quarter of a century ago by Rev. Greville Chester, probably from the looting of a single cemetery ; from him they were acquired by Miss Edwards, and bequeathed with her collection to University College in 1892. I have bought a large number, all the examples that I could in Egypt. Thus there are now of —
University College, London ... ... ... 69
MacGregor Collection ... ... ... ... 26
Naga ed-Der, Reisner ... ... ... ... 17
All others 19
131
Of these the Rev. Wm. MacGregor most kindly lent me his examples, and I have made flat casts of them all, from which these drawings are taken. Those published by Dr. Reisner are in hand copies, with three photographs of each cylinder in the round. I have used the hand copies as skeletons, and drawn the signs in facsimile from the photographs. Hence there are only 19 which are not drawn directly for the present study, and some of those are facsimiles of my own, others are from Prof Newberry's Scarabs. Our material therefore is nearly all safe enough to draw some conclusions. To save returning to this subject again, it may be added that the drawings used here from each source are as follows : — University College, Nos. 3, 4, 13-16, 18-20, 23, 25, 26, 28, 32-34, 36-38, 42, 44-50; MacGregor Collection, I, 5, 6-9, 21, 22, 27, 40, 43, 54, 57-60, 69, 72 ; Naga ed-Der, 2, 12, 17, 29, 30, 31, 39, 61-64, 66; Various, 10, ii, 24, 35, 41, 53, 65, 71. Altogether 72 are here studied (three of them repeated), the remainder being partly figure subjects, partly with signs which cannot be identified.
After the photographs were all collected, I tried to gain what help I could by submitting them to one of the greatest authorities on the early language. Such as were similar to the Royal Tombs sealings, were commented on, but the greater
62 The Earliest Inscriptiotts.
part were passed over as pre-historic, and therefore insoluble. It was evident that from the standpoint of the language alone very little could be done. Some fresh handling of the whole subject was needed, to make a start and break ground. It required treating as an entirely unknown language to begin with, and resolving by comparison of formulae and .study of the structure, before looking to the language for clues. After that the earliest forms of the language may be compared with the sentences thus separated, and some idea be gained of the general meaning. I am obliged to Miss Murray and Dr. Walker for some suggestions. Any attempt at present must be merely a beginning, in order to open up a more scientific study of the subject.
These cylinders are mostly older than the sealings found in the Royal Tombs of the 1st dynasty; and the 207 sealings which I drew from there are of very little help here, because those were sealings of royal domains, while these are mostly funerary or religious.
The only basis we have for the language of the cylinders is the far later body of the Pyramid Texts. According to the Egyptians' own chronology, the cylinders are about thirteen centuries before the Pyramid Texts, which are in turn only seven centuries before the Xllth dynasty. Even on the arbitrarily shortened chronology, the cylinders are as far removed from the Pyramid Te.xts as the latter are from the Middle Kingdom. Beside this long interval, we must remember that the changes in the writing and language would naturally be much greater while the growth and formation of a system was in progress, than they would be after a large body of texts had been standardised, and a great bureaucracy had arisen. It is therefore to be expected that the whole grammar, usages of writing, and words should differ far more from the Pyramid Texts, than those do from the system of the Xllth dynasty. As we find many orthographic usages are strange to us in the Pyramid Texts, so we must expect to find a much larger proportion of unexpected features in the cylinders. The use of a root in different parts of speech may have been very different in the earliest stages of writing, from what we find usual in the formalised language. The regular canons which are looked on by us as normal to the writing and language may have been widely divergent in the primitive and tentative stages, when each man used signs in his own fashion, and no system was yet generally developed. None of the later canons can be used as implicit guides ; we need to verify them each by some clear instances of the primitive age, before we can use them decisively to settle a reading. Also we must remember how often a word lingers long in popular use before being consecrated to literature. The phrase " too-too " in modern English, has only just reached the most evanescent writing ; yet Cromwell used it in a letter and a Parliamentary speech two hundred and fifty years before (speech, Jan. 22, 1655 I letter of July 27, 1657). So in Egyptian there might be words and constructions used in the earliest stages, which did not become part of the literary system ; but which, preserved in popular use, were at last brought into literature in later times. Hence the absence of a word in early literature is no proof that it might not be used before the literature formed its canons.
, All of these considerations need to be pointed out, as the usual laws cannot be applied to such early attempts at writing. We cannot apply the rules of the game before they existed. Much greater uncertainty must of course accompany a greater latitude : and until there is enough material to define the system of the time, we cannot hope to treat the cylinder inscriptions except by a series of guesses, which often leave alternative solutions equally possible. The immense importance, however, of getting some view of the oldest stages of the writing and language.
The Earliest Inscriptions. 63
makes it imperative to try to solve this material, and not to leave it neglected as at present.
In order to examine the material clearly, it is here divided into eight classes : —
I. Seated figures. - 2. Adk/iu birds.
™ 3. Religious formulae.
4. Theth formulae.
5. Tet formulae.
6. Phrases.
7. Titles.
8. Early dynastic.
Seated Figures, i-ii.
These seated figures have in all examples (except No. 2) a table of ofterings before each, and usually one or two loaves on the table. The figure (except in 2) has one hand lifted over the offerings to accept them. It always has very long hair, often hanging down below the seat. The seat is fully shown in some examples, such as No. 6. The type of couch used in dynasties o and i is well outlined ; it has the poles with expanded ends, the cross bars, and the short legs. For scattered examples of such figures, entered in other classes, see Nos. 12, 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 61, 63, 64. Thus a third of all intelligible cylinders have this figure and table of offerings. It seems impossible to dissociate this from the universal type of early stele, with the deceased seated, extending a hand over his table of offerings ; for an early example see the stele of Heknen {Meduni, xvi). It appears then that these must be the earlier equivalent of the sepulchral stele, that which was to ensure future felicity to the deceased. It does not seem likely that such a design would be used as a seal by the living person, and no clay impressions of such seals are known.
No. I has a different type of figure, with the second arm shown, no hair, and a table with upright loaves (?). The inscription seems to read Ah ne Neit, " Rejoice in Neit," which may be a personal name, or less probably a pious wish for the dead. Neit is written with the crossed arrows, but very roughly drawn. (See Royal Tombs, I, V.)
No. 2 is a gold foil cylinder, the only such known (Naga ed-Der). It is very simple, reading Neit men s, men s Neit " Neit establishes her, establish her O Neit." The donkey's head is probably a word sign for the personal name.
No. 3 begins with the sign of Neit, see the stele of Merneit {Rojal Tombs, I, i) followed by sen-sent. This word often recurs, sometimes sen alone, sometimes duplicated as sen-sen. The root meaning is sen " brother." Yet as it is not likely that the dead would be called a brother of a god, we must look to a derived meaning. Sen-sen is used for " to be united " or " associated " ; and, still further derived, sen sometimes is used for equality or conformity. We may perhaps best take sen as assimilated or conformed to a god, and sensen as united to the god in a stronger sen.se.
No. 4 introduces the pool sign ba, familiar in the 1st dynasty in the name of King Merpaba (Royal Tombs, I, vi, x.xvi). As we shall see later, this occurs as the name of a deity (23). Here it is joined with hd " to be behind," to protect, or " back " a person. It may read " Behind is Ba, behind her." Ba may be the Ram-god Ba, who is " over the gods," or Ba lord of Daddu (Osiris), as a ram.
No. 5. The latter conclusion is the more likely, as the ram Ba represents
V
64 Tlu Earliest Inscriptions.
Osiris lord of Daddu on this cylinder, reading "conformed to Onz Ba," Onz being the name of Osiris at Heb (Bchbet) in the Delta. This place is only i6 miles from Daddu (Tmei el-Amdid).
No. 6. Here a fresh form of devotion is given, by kitet " to follow." It appears to read " Follower of Neit, follower of Hathor (?), Zeded." The animal seems to be different to the Ba, with wide-spread horns, and the twig renp between them ; it may be a form of the Hathor cow, or rather a cow worship not yet identified with Hathor. The name Zeded, a cake, has the determinative of a turn-over cake following it ; such a name is parallel to tti, bread loaf, which is a common name, alone or with additions.
No. 7 is like 4, an appeal to the protection of the god. " Neit is behind " ; it may be a personal name. The golden-headed vulture ci, appears here to be the phonetic complement of M.
No. 8 is a symmetrical arrangement of the title /ten, priest, twice repeated, with the names of the goddesses Neit and Uazet. That the serpent alone, in this form, was used for the goddess Uazet is shown by the reading of the serpent of the tenth nome of Upper Egypt, discussed in the report of the Recueil in our previous number.
No. 9. The plant sign here is read uaz by Dr. Sethe. The reading seems to be Se uas s Uazet, " Uazet causes her to flourish." After that there is no evident reading : possibly we might read set the body or being, flourishes because of Neit.
No. 10 reads " United to Uazet," but here sent is thrice repeated. Probably there are instances of senseless repetition to fill up a space on cylinders, and this may be such ; or even a repetition may be intentional to re-enforce the sense, in a manner which was disused as writing became formalised.
No. II does not yield any evident reading. Both 10 and 11 are notable for introducing a bird behind the seated figure; this bird can hardly be dissociated from the next group.
It will be seen how funereal cylinders of this class never contain any titles, but solely declarations of unity or conformity with the gods, or else prayers for protection. This agrees well with the purport suggested by the resemblance to the stele, of benefit and safety in the future life. Only one office is named, and that is a priesthood, which ensured divine protection.
AAkhu Birds.
The next class of cylinders has a bird in each inscription. From always having two legs, this figure must be intended for a bird, although the head may seem more like a quadruped with horns. In three instances we find this bird on the same cylinder as a seated figure, Nos. 10, 11, 12. In two it succeeds the figure, in one it precedes it. It appears to be thus in the same relation to the rest of the inscription as the seated figure. It is parallel to the position in which the ailkhu bird is seen, along with personal names, on the steles of the 1st dynasty. On those steles there are nineteen instances where the bird has the ka arms over it in protection, all belonging to the latter half of the 1st dynasty {Royal Tombs, I, xxxi, xxxxii; II, x.xvii). The only earlier example has the bird alone {Royal Tombs, I, xxvi, 70). This indicates that the bird alone is the earlier form, before being combined with the ka arms. On the steles there is no instance of the bird turning the head back, which is always the case on the cylinders. Thus it seems that the cylinders belong to a time when the usages that we see in the 1st dynasty were not yet settled. On the later steles the bird always precedes the
The Earliest Inscriptions. 65
NAME ANALYSIS INSCRIPTION
&/:£
UNITED WITH ME IT "ft- ''/.
^"(■'/kF^^^
/wv^n 5
'>
n /s/xA^^o
'Vj*'*
IT
fKltST OF 0A2ET, PRIEST «F NEIT
I K
- O. ' >
•1 umi
fir ^^
'^^.
<■/? 'V/^ 'J ^>
i(T<ffla^r
^
®i
^rY^4'7l<'
-» rlO
Cylinders with Seated Figures. The earlier equivalent of the steles with seated figures usual in the historical period.
name, on the earlier it succeeds it. By the analogy of the seated figure it is probable that the bird was regarded as succeeding the name on the cylinders.
From the position, and the resemblances to the use of the aHMu bird on the early steles, it seems then reasonable to accept these figures are representing the dead by the aiiMu as a glorified one, instead of by a seated figure. At the same
E
The Earliest Imcriptioni.
67
No, 22 IS a clear reading -."Hinia caiuie* to be born her >('d/' It m followed by the ia embracing the adkku, this ibrm oi the ^<r occurring in the 1st dynasty (/("tT^dr/ r^^w^/, I, seal S6, II, wab 157).
.12
U
UWf T« MMMWT
«♦> ' '•*
*'*;♦".
'"■',':''.
'W
PCoj m> uf.
'4 '"♦*
TWRM
PU u u
CirwnmM wnm im Aitum turn.
13
14
10
17
/^t\ A'V* j«4< ^V*A
19
20
/^ipiu/i^py
21
23
tintim c4 Hm
r hi rUv% inUrrA^ al«o over mrM of tlioie alrcadjr noticed, hut the Mw prcvi'/^i ' ' ■■■'■ ■'■ ■/-'■'• *—-'*tr,A Mparatdy abore in order to fhiim the natmv ofth^f / the Mated lifBre and dw «f>fc^.
68 The Earliest Inscriptions.
No. 23 has a clear reading : *' Priestess of Ba lord ot Her-mer-shet, priest of Ba, priest of Ba, priest of Neit." This place Hermershet is known in the time of Khafra (Brugsch, Geog., 185), but spelt then with the hawk instead of the head, and the hoe mer for the chisel ; the equivalence of these signs in early times is already known.
No. 24 has many repetitions on a large cylinder at Athens. It is another of the favourite plays upon words: se-aun, se-tin sen Neit, "Cause union, cause existence, conformed to Neit."
No. 25 shews an interesting distinction between n as part of a word, and n alone as the preposition ; the formal and the simplified shape are put in contrast, while the two are contrasted in the reverse manner in No. 29. It appears to read "Excellent god, cause existence for Nefer-ni-ankhti," a name perhaps meaning " The excellence of him who is alive " ; it is apparently a proper name, divided by a bar from the rest of the inscription.
No. 26 differs from the others, being engraved on a bone cylinder with a cross pattern. It reads : " Thou art tended (or shepherded) and preserved for ever." The fuller grammatical form, the finished style of the signs, and the different character of the cylinder, point to a later date. Perhaps it belongs to the Ilnd dynasty.
No. 27 shews a difficulty in the second and third signs ; it seems strange to write d before shed if that is the value intended. Yet, as inversions are often found, it may be possible to render this " God save, God nourish thee." A second sense of shed seems suggested by the repetition with different spelling.
No. 28 presents no difficulty, and reads : " Adorer of Hathor, Mera." Though the name is partly broken it can hardly be read otherwise, and Mera, or Mery, is a common name in early times.
No. 29 appears to use khent in the sense of " establish." Nen would probably refer to the form or resemblance ; but the sense of repose or inaction might be intended. The whole would read " Establish the form (or repose) of her ka!'
No. 30 is similar in type. Zedu is an unusual way of writing " words " or " speech " ; but who can say what spellings may have been current so early as this ? " Establish her speech of her ka " seems a reasonable rendering.
No. 31 seems to be somewhat confused with repetitions. "Anpu conform her" is a possible reading; Kat sen-sen s seems to follow, possibly "the ka be united to her " ; finally, there may be a proper name Senka, followed by a stroke.
The Theth Formulae.
The frequent recurrence of ^ |l in connection with the names of gods is one
of the main points which requires to be cleared up in this period. With this goes
another class of cylinders which have connected with the gods' names. On
looking at the two classes 32-44 and 45-54, it is obvious that the theth class are all more archaic than the tet class. There is no distinction as to the gods named in each class, as there was between the gods of the seated figure and the a&khu. From the style of the theth group being only found in one instance (46) of the tet group, it seems clear that tet succeeded theth in point of time. As they are used in precisely the same way, and we know of th in Pyramid Texts becoming / later, probably theth and tet are all one word, in earlier and later forms. Tet is the form,
Tiie Earliest Inscriptions.
69
.u
T!wIwl!V2-=-w!
'»» o,. ■°<> o- r>
+1 ' I r
REPEATED
m
ADOR.E^ OF HATHOR
/\A/I
26
7li'4
s^r^F
27
28
#5S
Cylinders with Religious Formulae.
then, which we should look for in the known language. From the connections of the word it may probably be a term of prayer, of devotion, or of a priesthood. A suggestion has been made that TAetk is used with male deities, Thethet with female. This, however, is not the case, as these forms are used in the same proportions with male and female deities.
At first the sense of " nourished," from o 1^ o , or f^ , might seem likely ;
but the early form of that is stated to be *^ ° ' , though this is not quite con- clusive, as *^. is so little used at this time that it only occurs twice on seventy cylinders (7, 26). Another possible root is ci ^ o " image " or " likeness," with
the derived senses "to be like" or equal. Also o(1q "a part" might be considered.
When we see the frequency of sen and sensen, meaning conformity or union with
E 3
70 The Earliest Inicriptions.
the gods, it is evident that such an expression as " like unto " a god would be nearly parallel, and not at all improbable. For the present, therefore, we may- render theth, and its historical form of tet, as " like unto," without prejudice to some other rendering if a closer parallel can be found.
No. 32. Here the signs are separated by the first ka, and precede the second ka. " Like unto the ka " is not an improbable phrase when we recognise the ka as the ancestral guardian spirit.
No. 33 reads: "Like unto Neit " with the personal name Ner; compare nera, " a man."
No. 34 reads : " Like unto Sekhmet," with the name Peka.
No. 35 is " Like to Neit, like to Shu." The figure of Shu is one of the earliest of any god, occurring often on the Ilnd dynasty sealings, see in Royal Tombs, II, seal 178, with seal 2CX) proving the u bird to be intended, and the feather on the head in seal 199.
No. 36 reads : " Like unto the great Ba, like unto Neit." The form of throne with this figure is not known elsewhere.
Nq. 37 states the person to be like to Neit and Uazet ; at the end of the formula is M which is in the place of a personal name. This suggests that the owl was at that time a syllabic, perhaps ma " come ! " — a birth name.
No. 38. Here we see " Like to Neit, like to Hen " ; the latter should be the name of a god in this position.
No. 39 names Neit and At; the latter is probably at "father," and being " like unto the father " would refer to assimilation to the ancestral ka. The personal name Nerher, should be compared to the name Ner in No. 33, as there it might be ner " man," so here Nerher might mean the " over man," or " man of Horus."
No. 40. Here the dead is stated to be " Like unto Mafdet, like unto At." For Mafdet see Royal Tombs, II, 50, pi. vii.
No. 41. This may be a matter of repetition, without varied meaning ; but a continuous sense may be intended, somewhat thus : — " Causing love like unto Neit, she loves like Neit." The first figure must be that of the goddess seated, without the table of food offerings. After that comes the name Dy-Neit, " the gift of Neit," and the seated figure of the person with the usual table.
No. 42 reads : " Like unto the gods, causing pleasing by invocation" {s-klter-tias), and the same phrase repeated.
No. 43 reads : " Like unto Ba the generator (?), like unto Sekhmet."
No. 44 names a very unusual worship of Hait, " The Shiners," the sun and moon together. " Like under the Shiners, she is united to the Shiners."
The Tet Formulae.
This we have seen to be probably the later— or historical — form of the earlier theth, and perhaps best rendered by " like unto."
No. 45 names a series of deities — Hathor, Set, Neit, Horus, and Un " the Being," short for Un-nefer Osiris. To all these the person is stated to be assimilated, — like unto them.
No. 46 reads : " Like unto Shu, like unto Neit."
No. 47 reads: "Like unto Neit," with the personal name Neit-mest-onkh, " Neit bears alive."
We now reach a series of seven cylinders (48-54) with the same formulae, tet en tnerut nekhebt, which may perhaps be rendered " Like unto Nekhebt for love," or " Like to Nekhebt, loving," or " Assimilated by desire of Nekhebt."
I
The Earliest Inscriptions.
71
A.'^N
u
A
Ta
-IKE UNTO IN
LIKE UNTO NEIT
M
no
LIKE TO SKU
L1H.E UMTO SEKHMEl
^f ,.>«'^/a
ulKE UMTO HEN LIKE ONTO NEIT '
LIKE UNTO HCR FATHER. ANB NEIT U1K.E Ta HER FATHER '^ P r. ' '^ ^ >
(.f,.^^^ SHE LOVES LIKE 4 <o;^</^. TLT I /I/ /WA^^ /\
L1K.E To SEKHMET '''Vf^ S^ "^f
;? ur//U/
/\/\y^
U o
32
33
34
35
/-
36
38
Cf^H(^=f
39
^S?^
j'ipfir/'^
«k 40
ftiTftirsT' f
43
^fP«f
Cylinders with the Thftii Formulae Staling the likeness or similarity to the Gods.
E 4
72
The Earliest Inscriptions.
Nos. 48, 49, 50 are all of priests of Hathor.
No. 5 1 has the personal name Aa or Y.
No. 52 may read : " Belonging to Horus, Nefer pert Ra neb (name, ' Good outgoing every day')." Perhaps the division should be different, and the reading " Excellence of coming forth every day, for the assimilated, by love of Nekhebt, Nesa-hor" (name). The phrase pert ra neb is equivalent to the per em heru, coming forth to-day in the future world.
^idit
^vf
+
c— 1
Y^^ CD --
^'^c^^-y^u.^'^'r '^y "^y ^'>o
11=-
r-' <^
V,J^
^0» or HATHoa
SAME coMrusEj
SA^AE CONFOStD
SAME CO IMPOSED
SAME
i>J'''^' »
PIS n J
^18
oo/nr
47
f4
Si- Li
50
51
52
53
54
Cylinders with the Tut Formulae. Later form of the Theth formulae.
No. 53 is a more complex example. It may read : " Made to flourish because of the king, like unto the excellence of the shiners {nefer Hait), similarly, like
unto Nekhebt loving (or by love), Persen (name)." In early writing y <cr> is used for l\
The Earliest Inscriptions.
73
No. 54. This most complex cylinder may be separated into three groups, each beginning hen sa ten, or se nefer ten. The first group ends with tet en merut nekhebt, as above ; the last group ends with a personal name, inert kitet nefer Neferti, devoted to the Lord. Until the more simple inscriptions are cleared up, we cannot hope to deal with the whole of this.
♦
4'1
^ \ I
TRULY EXCELLENT
IN COMMAND RY
HIS WIFE
Pi i i
4= ^ m
0
¥-^
^^>
Cylinders with Phrases Complimentary to the deceased person.
f^nnuR
55
U^/?U>\!7
56
Phrases.
No. 55 begins with a title hedn found on sealings from the Royal Tombs (^R.T., II, 307-8-13) ; next is the personal name Ry which we have had before in No. 12; then the phrase ne/er uz ;«^<7/, " truly excellent in command" (Sethe) ; lastly, the name again, Ry.
No. 56 is very simple : " His wife, Temka," the name meaning " the perfection of the kar
No. 57 reads: "Sweetness conformed to her sweetness" (that of Uazet), with the name Nes-uazet, " belonging to Uazet."
No. 58 is a duplicated reading. Hen is only known as " pleasing," in literature of the XlXth dynasty, but it may have been in popular use much earlier. If so, this may read : " Let pleasing speech be, Aoh-sen " (name).
No. 59 reads, apparently : Benert (with determinative of a date) nef en Duat " Sweetness of wind of Duat," a wish for the future life. The Duat is curiously written with the hand as the initial, and then five spots reading dua.
No. 60 reads, apparently : " He whom the king loves increases excellently, Horncsa " (name, repeated). The mouth sign is unusual in having the lips closed.
74 The Earliest Inscriptions.
Titles.
An interesting group was found by Dr. Reisner at Naga ed-Ddr, evidently connected together with the public business, Nos. 6i to 64. They all mention the senti, plans, of the temple of Neit. As the plan sign is a looped cord, it is most likely that it was derived originally from land measures and surveys, rather than from house plans on a small scale, which would be laid out by a stick measure. No great buildings were erected at this period, as they were in later times when a cord was used at the founding of temples. The plans, therefore, at this early date, were probably of the priestly estates, the landed endowment ; for this, our word survey is the better rendering. Another word connected is as, which appears in per as, the office or house of the as. This, in such a connection suggests as " to measure," or " make a plan," also connected with the derived senses of the Coptic asou " reckonings," or the earlier " recompense."
No. 61 might then perhaps read : " Temple of the ka of Neit, over the survej-s and plans."
No. 62. " Over the temple of the ka of Neit, over the surveys of the temple of the ka."
No. 63. " Over the office of surveys of Neit's temple of the ka, over her temple."
No. 64. " Over (? /ler) surveys of the valley (cemetery ?) Her-s-ka (name), the office of plans, Ka-her-s " (name).
In 65 and 66 appears the iinnut of Neit, perhaps the hour priests of the
goddess. As here seems as if it must be the phonetic form of r ; we cannot say
what the orthography should be at such a date. If so, the sense may be —
No. 65. " Place of the hour priest of Neit."
No. 66. " Place of watching of the hour priest of Neit."
No. 67. Here the usual land signs are placed upright, and not sideways as in later writing (see Royal Tombs, 1 1, seal 197). The title is repeated, " Lands of Horus (the king) in the Nome of Oxyrhynkhos." The leaping gazelle must be a part of the nome-sign, as it is placed between the uSs and the land-sign determinative.
No. 68 is another official seal, that of the haritn, reading : " The woman's house, the house of beauty." The determinative is not the quadrant building, as in later signs, but an elaborated plan with returns at the entrance.
No. 69 is the seal of the irrigation office : " Cutting the dykes, opening the banks " or dams, the modern gisr, see Griffith, Kahun Papyri, p. 100.
No. 70 appears rather confused in the structure of the sentence. The first sign qa, which in later use is a height or elevation, seems here as if used for an active verb, " to lift," and, as applied to a door, to open : compare the Hebrew simile " Be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors." Or it may be that the arm and hand reads as d, so forming qed, " to turn round," or turn the door on its hinge. Some such sense is required, by the sign of the door which follows. It seems to read : " Oponing of the door of the ka statue (ga) of the god Horus," or of the statue of the divine ka of Horus. The falcon here may be the emblem of the king, and not of the god Horus. This is a large wooden cylinder.
Early Dynastic Cylinders.
We cannot here enter on the wide subject of the sealings of the early dynasties; those being nearly all seals of royal officials and domains, are very different to the
The Earliest Inscriptions.
75
X
u
^0
)
u
H ®^ St
^^-V^s^-v^^
OF K\ OF N E IT
G I2tuS
¥.
t
°P ,
-.;^
.;^c^
""^"..W^o^,
Oa'"V/
■'Os
"9
n|n nn^
a
Of
a.
3^
-A-
D 0
^1
64
65
nfnPo/
^68
0 liruif °
Cylinders with Titles. Earlier in style than the dynastic cylinders with titles.
classes we have hitherto noticed. Five actual cylinders belonging to the 1st or Ilnd dynasty are here published ; they approach the general class of the sealings from Abydos.
No. 71 is the seal of an " Interpreter of (an office) at Senshe." In the name of the office or department we can only read vt&. The place Senshe is not known. We may note that the kh sign never has more than two vertical lines (Nos. 6, 19, 42), sometimes it only has horizontals (Nos. 42, 74), sometimes dots (69). The nome sign has four verticals {6'j^\ here a hieroglyph which appears to be a place-sign has three verticals.
^6 The Earliest Inscriptions.
No. 72 reads with a play upon the name of the man. "The sealer of the excellent cultivation of crops, Nefertu." For sezta, "sealer," see Royal Tombs, II, 53. Renp, crops, is here written without the/, but the growing-plant sign identifies the word. The root is renen, young, growing things, and hence plants, flowers, vegetables, or crops in general. The year is called renpet, as meaning a season ; in fact the reckoning was literally by crops, which were necessarily annual with a sterile period between, owing to the inundation. Apparently the loop th is used for the feminine t at the end of renp. (The rendering of this group in Mahasna, p. 20, does not seem applicable here.)
No. 73 is the seal of a man Onkh-nekht, who is described as a " true ruler "; perhaps the kherp bearers were a definite peerage, and this was an assertion of a man genuinely belonging to the order. Such a system is suggested by the kherp (or sekhem) pectoral described on pp. 3-4. He is described also as " belonging to (a goddess)"; the name is defaced, the form of the stick of wood, kket, is different from the later sign.
No 74. This cylinder (at Berlin) reads readily, as " Royal overseer, Sen-mut, loved by his mistress," probably he was a steward of the queen. It is curious to see this name, which is so well known in the XVIIIth dynasty, occurring thus early; but with the frequent prayers for sen and sen-sen of the various gods, it is evidently an early type of name. The title may perhaps be " Overseer of the South."
No. 75 is a large cylinder of white limestone. The reading is simple enough in the first two columns " Seal of the stores of the estate, the granary of barley and spelt." The next two columns are differently understood. Some would see in them only a jumble of noxious animals put there to exert a magic power on anyone who should break the sealing. But it would be difficult then to see why four out of ten should be quite harmless, two geese and two owls. On the other view, the whole of it may have a regular sense. The granary just named was of a district called " the lake of the hippopotamus and lion," a name likely enough in early times, and probably belonging to the Delta. Osiris was worshipped as a lion at Tell Moqdam ; Leontopolis was near ; the lion was the sacred animal of the Sethroite Nome (DUMICHEN, Geog. Ins., I, Ixxvi) ; and in the Tanite Nome was " the town of the lion." As to the hippopotamus, it abounded in the Delta till Roman times. The name of the lake is therefore likely enough. In the next column are the names Emseh or Mesah " the crocodile," a name familiar later at Siut, in the tomb with the boards of soldiers. The owl m is phonetic complement before the crocodile ; there is apparently a bent stick odm before the owl, suggesting an earlier reading of octmseh for the crocodile. Next, reversing the cylinder, it reads down " son of Sat-em-Selq." For a parallel to this name see Sat-em-Thennu, — the goddess of Erment. Following the scorpion is a sign q, which would be out of place in later orthography, as a complement. Here we can only say that it appears to have been so used at this time.
An interesting question is whether the seated figures with very long hair represent men as well as women. There is no instance which fixes the masculine form in these, or the adkhu cylinders, but several feminine constructions, as in 9, 10, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 41, 44. It seems probable, therefore, that these long-haired figures are always intended for women. Other feminine cylinders are 29, 30, 31, 56, 57. The masculine examples are 26, 27, 65, 66, 75. There are thus fifteen feminine to five masculine cylinders ; and the masculine ones may well be all of a later period than the majority. It seems, then, that cylinders were at first usually for women, and only later became used in official work by men.
The Earliest Inscriptions.
77
We have now endeavoured to show what the construction and general sense of these earliest inscriptions are, by means of comparison and statistical grouping.
O
'^1 171 3
^4 ^^'t,
0 ©
ONKH-NEKH"
^1 l^'^f J
i^sitr
72
^1
ISI9I
Af/fi^p^
73
74
r:; . I
2X
75
Early Dynastic Cylinders With titles known in the Dynastic period.
Doubtless many of the words will be better understood in future ; and, indeed, first attempts on a subject always need much revision. The broad lines of the matter seem, however, to be fairly clear, now that a large number of examples have been studied as a connected whole.
VV. M. Flinders Petrie.
78 )
FOR RECONSIDERATION.
Onkh-em-mdot.
Mummy Wheat.
One of the most frequent questions asked about Egypt is concerning " mummy wheat," reputed to be the produce of wheat, which is stated to have been found with a mummy. From the results of i<eeping modern wheat we should not expect that any ancient wheat, or other seeds, could germinate. Even three or four years will kill a large number of wheat grains, and ten or twelve years leaves hardly any alive. Hence it is unthinkable that centuries or thousands of years should not destroy the vitality.
When I was at Hawara in the Fayum, twenty-five years ago, I found a great store of corn. It was only late Roman in date ; a period from which a large quantity of complex organic matter usually remains, enough to putrefy when wetted. It was not therefore nearly so likely to be sterilised as wheat from earlier ages. There was a large amount, many bushels, so that the oxygen would not act so much on the middle of such a mass as on a small quantity. I took the fullest and finest grains, and planted them next day, so that there should be no time for subsequent changes by exposure. I planted the seeds in rows, in every degree ot moisture, from soft mud to merely damp earth, in a sheltered place by a canal. Every possible chance was thus in their favour. There was not a trace of sprouting; and in two or three weeks merely spots of brown decay stained the earth. At the same time I planted some dozens of grape stones, which being hard and woody might be supposed to resist oxidation. The result was equally negative.
It may be asked how the belief in the germination of ancient seeds has arisen ; how it can be possible for many reported cases to have been all mistaken. Without knowing every stage of the history of a case it is difficult to see where an error may have crept in. At least we may mention the sources of error in a few cases, which are already traceable. Some unopened mummy coffins were presented to a great personage by Ismail Pasha. On being opened in England some wheat was found inside ; it was planted ; it grew, and bore seed ; so a fresh stock of mummy wheat arose. I heard from a resident in Egypt that he remembered seeing those coffins lying in the stables, with the corn heap run over them. Doubtless some crack, or warp under the lid, allowed grain to slip in, and thus recent grain would be found in a coffin which was yet unopened.
Another source of mistakes springs from the habit of dealers at Thebes making up little pots of corn to sell to tourists. A common little brown pot — quite worthless — has corn put in it, and a lid plastered over it ; to be more attractive, the lid is sometimes a scrap of painted cartonnage. Then, shaking the pot, the dealer tells the tourist to listen to the rattle of mummy wheat. It is soon bought, and taken home to plant. A fresh belief in " real mummy wheat " is the result, as the owner is certain that he took it out of a sealed pot himself
For Reconsideration. 79
In yet another way errors arise. The late Sir Joseph Hooker told me that when the seeds were recovered from the ancient rubbish of the Laurion mine in Greece, and were exhibited in London, he saw visitors taking up some of the ancient raspberry seeds, and some of the modern seeds which were shown for comparison. After full e.xamination, the hand was just shaken out over the tray again, and the moderii seed went among the ancient. When the trials of growth took place, the extraordinary vitality of the seeds in this tray, labelled ancient, astonished the cultivators.
Besides these risks, before the seeds reach the hands that plant them, there is obviously another opening for error. When the master returns with some corn from Egypt, gives an interesting account of the possibilities to his gardener, and hands over the seeds to be planted with the greatest care and every advantage in the greenhouse, it would require a stern moralist to deny him the satisfaction which he fondly anticipates. The appeal may be made to the fact that the growth differs from that of ordinary plants ; but unless there are control experiments to prove that it differs from that of any modern seed under the same changed conditions, this evidence is not valid. As a rule these appeals are based on a larger and richer growth of the supposed ancient strain. As in every case it is found that cultivation and selection have greatly improved species in the last two or three thousand years, an unusually fine product is really evidence that the strain must be modern, and the special excellence is due to the kindly circumstances of the advantages given to it by the experimenter.
W. M. F. P.
8o )
PERIODICALS.
Zeitschrift fur Aegyptische Sprache, 50 Band. 191 2
(Published, 191 3).
Sethe, K. — Ein iibersetiener Konig des alien Reichs. The king in question is
with the
f \ —*— \ j , who has usually been taken to be the same as ( (]
second — -»— omitted by a mistake of the scribe. But in the tomb of Ptahhetep at Saqqara are two place names, ( (j — «— (j 7 r nr © and ( \
^ r "TT © . " Two similarly named estates of one owner in one and the
same place would be unparalleled." The chief evidence for the existence of this
king is in the personal-name [ (j — «— \\ ■¥■ > which occurs on a slab belonging to
and contemporary with the temple of Ne-user-ra, as the name of one of the court- officials of that king. This shows that the man who bore the name must have been born in or before the reign of Ne-user-ra, and therefore could not have taken his name from Assa, who was the second in succession after Ne-user-ra. As to the date of this new king, there are only two places in which he can occur, (i) at the end of the IVth dynasty, amongst the kings whose names are imperfectly known, or (2) as one of the immediate predecessors of Ne-user-ra, between him and Nefer- ar-ka-ra Ka-ka-a, who reigned so short a time that hardly any traces of him remain.
The position is fairly well fixed by the personal name ( \ — »— \\ of a
priest of the Vlth dynasty ; for it is hardly possible that a man should take the name of a half-forgotten king unless he were born in that king's reign. Therefore a man who died in the Vlth dynasty might well have been born in the reign of an immediate predecessor of Ne-user-ra. In the tomb of the Vizier Uash-ptah, in the
reign of Neferarkara, a high official is named (1 — »— (1 ; he is the father or near
relative of the vizier, whose son has the same name. It is possible that one of these two may have usurped the throne.
tjber dem Gebrauch der Konigsnavieti in Namensusammenselzungen im alien Reich. This is an appendix to the foregoing paper. It shows that the Egyptians had in the Old Kingdom a definite rule for the use of the king's cartouche-names in place- and personal-names. The throne-name was used for places, the personal- name' for persons. There are two exceptions to this rule as regards place-names, the throne- and personal-names of Pepy I and Assa being used indifferently ; but only one exception as regards personal-names, Pepy I's throne- and personal-names being again used indifferently. By applying this rule it becomes clear that six kings of the Vth and Vlth dynasties had only one name each for both cartouches. These six kings are : Userkaf, Sahura, Nefer-ef-ra, Unas, Teta, and Aty.
Zeitschrift filr Aeg}'ptische Sprache. 8 1
BURCHARDT, MAX. — Zur Rassengekorigkeit der Hyksos. In the only two places where the Egyptians have thought it worth while to give an exact designation
to the Hyksos, they are called | ^v ^ "^ , damn, and "^ | 1 1 1 '"^ fN^vi ,
mnt'iu styt, that is they considered them among the peoples whom we call Semitic. E. Meyer pronourvses against the view that the Hyksos came from Asia Minor, and joined themselves with the Hittites who overthrew the Babylonian empire, he also acknowledges that the names which appear non-Semitic have not yet been found in Asia Minor. But of the non-Egyptian names which remain to us from the period of the foreign occupation, seven out of nine can be proved to be Western Semitic. From this proportion of Semitic names it is very evident that the core of the Flyksos was Semitic. Therefore Asia Minor cannot be looked upon as the original home of the Hyksos, but rather Syria, particularly Arabia. We have here a migration of Semitic peoples which bears the same relation to the Asia Minor- North-Syrian movement as the migration of the Germanic peoples bore to the Huns.
Naville, Edouard. — La XI' dynastie (with i illustration). This is a review of the reasons for retaining the order of the kings of the Xlth dynasty which Dr. Naville has already put forward. M. Gauthier has accepted this order in his " Livre des Rois," but Dr. von Bissing proposes a new arrangement. According to the evidence of the temple at Deir el-Bahri, there are two kings, each having the same personal name, but whose throne-names, though pronounced the same, are
The latter name
differently written. These are G -^=^ \ and (
o^A
^
occurs only in the shrines of the princesses, which could not have been built till the
temple was already in existence. That the reading hpt for | is correct is shown by
the two eyes and the lotus blossom which are represented in the carefully detailed examples of this sign ; measurements of the oar in the cartouche show that the length of the handle and the width of the blade are, with one exception, constant, while the oar which reads kheru is irregular in size ; nor can the sign read khein as the oar which is so vocalised is always represented diagonally and with a rope
attached. The Horus titles of the two kings differ: "^ 1 /j ( ^ ^ 1 and
Vv IT ^^^ f o ^^ I . As to the Table of Kings at Karnak, the reason for the
omissions are still to seek. Did Thothmes wish to honour all kings who had done something for Thebes, who were buried there, or who had erected some building however small ? It would seem that the list mentions only kings who were really kings, or who were considered as such. It is noteworthy that the kings of this period always mention the name of their mothers, rarely that of the father, indicating perhaps that they obtained the succession through the mother.
Mentuhetep I is called ^Os, , " the ancestor." It is suggested that this name
was given at a later date, to distinguish this king from his successors of the same name. Before recapitulating his order of the kings. Dr. Naville gives his reasons for believing that this dynasty came from Coptos, and that the kings gave a great impetus to the cult of the Theban gods, Mentu and Amon. The order of the kings
then is : Antef I, who was □ ~^^, and who is probably the same as the A '^ IJ of the stele of Drah abu'l Negga ; Antef II, who is also called A ^ , who is
82 Zeitscluift fiir Aegyptisclie Sprache.
represented on his stela with his dogs ; Antef III is the son of Antef II, and is also called Antef-aa ; Mentu-hetep I, whose Horus-name means the ancestor;
Mentuhetep II, T^ [o^^'}], who built the temple at Deir cl-Bahri ;
Mentuhetep III, (©■^^'^j; Mentuhetep IV, whose inscriptions are found at
HammamSt ; Mentuhetep V, who made an expedition to Punt. Besides these, there are other Antefs and Mentuheteps, who either were not kings or belong to a
succeeding dynasty. The king ( o ^ LJ J ( ^§ R ] , discovered by Mr. Weigall,
though perhaps belonging to this dynasty, has as yet been found only in Nubia ; as it is uncertain whether Nubia was under the rule of the Xlth dynasty kings, it seems probable tliat this newly discovered king belongs to the Xlllth dynasty.
Plaumann, Gerhard. — Die demotischen und die griechischen Eponymen- datierungen. Owing to the misunderstandings and mistakes, which are more common in the demotic than in the Greek records, it is obvious that, when the demotic and the Greek do not agree, reliance is to be placed on the Greek. This is particularly the case in the difficult question of Eupator in the order of the Ptolemies as given in the title of the priest of Alexander. The reason being that the demotic was here merely a translation of the Greek. This is shown by the fact that, where in Greek there was a genitive, it has been translated by a genitive into demotic, though the Egyptian would have grammatically required a nominative. Again, in the list of priestesses and in formulae of dates, a glance at the Greek original shows the mistakes of the demotic translator.
Spiegelberg, Wilhelm. — Die demotische Inschrift auf der Statue von Rhodes. (2 illustrations.) The statue is of a standing man, who from the remains of the headdress, is certainly a king. Equally certainly it is a statue of the Ptolemaic period made in Egypt. The head, feet and one arm are lost. On the pilaster at the back is a demotic inscription : " Before Osiris-Apis, the great god, and Isis, the great goddess. Dionysios, the man of lasos." As it is quite unknown that a private person should dedicate a statue of his sovereign in the temple, one is driven to the conclusion that this Dionysios, who represents himself as a Pharaoh, was one of those Egyptian rulers of whom we hear in the Ptolemaic annals. From the fact that the name is given without titles, he would appear to have been a prominent man. Diodorus (XXXI, 15a) mentions a Aiovvaio<; 6 KoKov/Mevot UeToaopaTTK, who raised an insurrection in the Delta, and possessed so much power that he might well consider himself the ruler of Egypt. From the inscription the statue represents a Karian of lassos ; and it is possible that he was a Karian leader