Читать книгу The Pharaohs and Their People - E. Berkley - Страница 6

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The Pyramid Builders—Continued.

The warlike expeditions described by Una, the Governor of the South, form the exception rather than the rule in this early history. Fearing no rivals at home, and almost entirely free from enemies abroad, these powerful monarchs devoted their thoughts and care to the building of temples and of those gigantic funeral piles that have immortalised their names.

It is certain that the pyramids could not have been erected without a very considerable amount of scientific knowledge, whilst as records of engineering skill they are simply marvellous. Immense blocks were brought from a distance of 500 miles up the river, were polished like glass, and fitted into their places with such exactness that the joints could hardly be detected. ‘Nothing can be more wonderful,’ says Fergusson, ‘than the extraordinary amount of knowledge and perfect precision of execution displayed in the construction of the interior chambers and galleries; nothing more perfect mechanically has ever been executed since.’

A curious calculation has been made that the stone used in the construction of Khufu’s pyramid would make a wall of six feet high and half a yard broad, that would reach across the Atlantic from Liverpool to Newfoundland.

In the tombs which cluster round the royal pyramids have been discovered records and relics of deeper and more human interest than the pyramids themselves. At Meidoom were buried the great men of Senefru’s time. Their tombs were formed of immense blocks of stone, and have been long hidden from sight by the accumulation of soil above them. The entrance passages are covered with figures and inscriptions. The figures are wrought in a kind of mosaic work. Little square holes were made, and filled with hard cement of various colours. The brightness of the tints is wonderful, as if they had been laid on yesterday; and in some places there can be discerned upon the sand, marks of the footprints left there by the bearers of the coffin.

Netting Birds.

Here we seem brought face to face with a very remote past. All is so strangely distant and unlike, but at the same time all is strangely near and like ourselves and our own life to-day. Here, e.g., is the entrance-passage to the tomb of Nefer-mat, a high officer of state and ‘friend of the king,’ who married Atet, a royal princess. On one side of the passage we see Nefer-mat, with his wife clinging to his arm; on the other he is represented with his little son at his feet. In front of us the husband and wife are again delineated; her long hair falls loosely over her shoulders, and she places her hand upon her heart in token of devoted affection.

Atet appears to have survived her husband, and her own tomb is close at hand. Amongst the scenes depicted there is one in which Nefer-mat is employed in netting fowl; the wife is seated near, watching the sport, and servants are bringing her the game. The hieroglyphic inscription says: ‘Princess Atet receives with pleasure the game caught by the chief noble, Nefer-mat.’

In another of these tombs were discovered the wonderful statues of Ra-hotep and his beautiful wife Nefert, which are now in the museum at Boulak. Ra-hotep was a prince, very likely a son of Senefru, who died young; he was a captain in the army, and chief priest of Ra, at On. These, the most ancient known statues in the world, are ‘marvels of life-like reality.’ The Egyptians always excelled in portrait sculpture; the figures may be stiff and ill-drawn, but the faces are beyond doubt truthful and characteristic likenesses. Men of learning were held in honour at the court of these early Pharaohs, as well as architects and sculptors. But the literature of those days may be said to have perished. Portions of it, enshrined in the sacred writings, have survived, and there is, besides, one venerable manuscript of the time of the fifth dynasty, which has come down to us. It is called the Maxims of Ptah-hotep and is the oldest manuscript known. The writer was a prince by birth, and a governor; he lived to be more than a hundred years old, and after a long and varied experience of life, when the infirmities of old age had come upon him, he recorded, for the use and benefit of all, the teaching of that serene and simple wisdom which is never new and never old—such as the following:—

‘A good son is the gift of God.’

‘If thou art a wise man, bring up thy son in the love of God.’

‘If any one bears himself proudly, he will be humbled by God, who gave his strength.’

‘If thou hast become great after having been lowly, and art the first in thy town; if thou art known for thy wealth, and art become a great lord—let not thy heart grow proud because of thy riches, for it is God who was the author of them for thee. Despise not another who may be as thou once wast; be towards him as towards thine equal.’

‘With the courage that knowledge gives, discuss with the ignorant as with the learned. Good words shine more than the emerald, which the hand of the slave finds on the pebbles.’

‘He who obeys not does really nothing; he sees knowledge in ignorance, virtue in vices; he commits daily and boldly all sort of crimes, and lives as if he was dead. What others know to be death, is his daily life.’

‘God lives through all that is good and pure.’

And he concludes:—

‘Thus shalt thou obtain health of body and the favour of the king, and pass the years of thy life without falsehood. I am become one of the ancients of the earth. I have passed 110 years of life—fulfilling my duty to the king, and I have continued to stand in his favour.’

The venerable Ptah-hotep was buried in one of the tombs that are grouped around the ancient pyramid of Sakkara. Near his burial-place is the vast tomb of Thi, on which is recorded, in sculptured story, the course of his daily life. Of his own birth and parentage nothing is said, but he so distinguished himself that the king gave him his daughter in marriage. Thi was royal scribe, president of royal writings, and conductor of the king’s works. His tomb must indeed have been the work of a lifetime. We see him there, amidst the scenes of rural life, watching over the ingathering of the harvest, or fowling in the marshes; one while he is listening to the strains of music, another time he is steering his little vessel on the broad waters of the Nile. Servant girls are carrying on their heads and in their hands, in baskets or in jars, the produce of his estates—wine, bread, geese, pigeons, fruit, and flowers. Above is depicted a humorous scene, such as Egyptian artists delighted in. A number of donkeys pass in file, their saddle-cloths are ornamented with fringes, and they are laden with panniers of grain. Men walk by the side to steady the heavy loads. One load, however, has shifted from its place, and two men are trying to put it back; the animal is restive, and one man has hold of him by the tail while another has grasped his nose. The donkey coming immediately behind has seized the opportunity of the halt to give the man in front of him a poke with his nose. Each driver is armed with a stout stick, and one of them is just raising his against the unruly animal. It is evident that donkeys were considered troublesome and obstinate some four or five thousand years ago, that their humours amused the Egyptian artists, and that donkey drivers then, as now, were ready to use their sticks.

In another drawing Thi is seen in a boat made of reeds, superintending a hippopotamus hunt. One of his men has succeeded in getting a rope round the neck of one savage-looking beast, and is preparing to despatch him with a long club. The river is full of fish, and one of the hippopotami has just seized a little crocodile between his enormous jaws. In another picture a crocodile hunt is represented, whilst in one drawing we see an angler who is evidently out for a day’s sport in one of the small reed boats. He is in the act of drawing a fish out of the water, and by his side he has loaves of bread, a cup, and a bottle.

Nowhere is depicted a scene of battle or warlike display, everything speaks of rural and domestic life.

But we do not see the great men of Pharaoh’s court only in the scenes and amusements of life. Funeral rites are also represented. The body is seen embalmed and carried to its last resting-place; funeral gifts are offered in rich abundance. No obligation was more sacred than that of bringing funeral oblations and offering prayer for the departed parent or friend. Inscriptions over the tombs called even on the passer-by to stay a while and offer up the customary invocation. The form of this invocation varied from age to age, but the main burden of its petitions was that Osiris would ‘grant the funeral oblations of all good things; that the departed one might not be repulsed at the entrance of the unseen world, but might be glorified amongst the blessed ones in presence of the Good Being, that he (or she) might breathe the delicious breezes of the north wind, and drink from the depth of the river.’

It was customary to build a chamber at the entrance to the tomb, in which the family and friends of the departed assembled from time to time to offer oblations and prayers, and to realise the actual presence of those who were gone. The walls of these rooms were covered with pictured and sculptured scenes taken from the varied scenes of daily life. They were adorned ‘as for a home of pleasure and joy’—no thought of gloom is even suggested.

The names given to the pyramids by their royal builders are very striking in this respect. Amongst them we find the ‘Abode of Life,’ the ‘Refreshing Place,’ the ‘Good Rising,’ the ‘Most Holy,’ ‘Most Lovely,’ or ‘Most Abiding Place,’ the ‘Rising of the Soul.’

The earliest of the pyramids were unsculptured and unadorned within, so there was attached to each of them a small sanctuary or memorial chapel; the office of ‘priest of the royal pyramid’ being held in high estimation and conferred on the most illustrious men of the day.

During their lifetime the Pharaohs were regarded by their people as representatives of the gods, or even as emanations from the Divine Being. After their death their memory was preserved and sacred rites were performed by the priests attached to their respective pyramids. Down to the latest days of the Empire, and even in the reign of the Ptolemies (three or four thousand years after they had been laid to rest ‘each within his own house’), priests were still officiating in memory of Khufu, Khafra, or Senefru—the far-famed pyramid builders.

For whilst the names of some amongst the later Pharaohs are emblazoned on the page of history as conquerors of high renown, who founded an Egyptian empire and gathered in rich and varied tribute from many subject races—those ancient monarchs are known and will ever be remembered as the kings ‘who built the pyramids.’