Manual of Egyptian Archaeology and Guide to the Study of Antiquities in Egypt by Gaston Maspero (popular books of all time txt) 📖

second poignard is of a make not uncommon to this day in Persia and India (fig. 305). The blade is of yellowish bronze fixed into a disk-shaped hilt of silver. When wielded, this lenticular[79] disk fits to the hollow of the hand, the blade coming between the first and second fingers. Of what use, it may be asked, were all these weapons to a woman--and a dead woman? To this we may reply that the other world was peopled with foes--Typhonian genii, serpents, gigantic scorpions, tortoises, monsters of every description--against which it was incessantly needful to do battle. Fig 306.--Funerary battle-axe of Queen Aahhotep, bearing cartouche of King Ahmes I. Fig 306.--Funerary battle-axe of Queen Aahhotep, bearing cartouche of King Ahmes I.
The poignards placed inside the coffin for the self-defence of the soul were useful only for fighting at close quarters; certain weapons of a projectile kind were therefore added, such as bows and arrows, boomerangs made in hard wood, and a battle-axe. The handle of this axe is fashioned of cedar-wood covered with sheet gold (fig. 306). The legend of Ahmes is inlaid thereon in characters of lapis lazuli, carnelian, turquoise, and green felspar. The blade is fixed in a cleft of the wood, and held in place by a plait-work of gold wire. It is of black bronze, formerly gilt. On one side, it is ornamented with lotus flowers upon a gold ground; on the other, Ahmes is represented in the act of slaying a barbarian, whom he grasps by the hair of the head. Beneath this group, Mentû, the Egyptian war-god, is symbolised by a griffin with the head of an eagle. In addition to all these objects, there were two small boats, one in gold and one in silver, emblematic of the bark in which the mummy must cross the river to her last home, and of that other bark in which she would ultimately navigate the waters of the West, in company with the immortal gods. When found, the silver boat rested upon a wooden truck with four bronze wheels; but as it was in a very dilapidated state, it has been dismounted and replaced by the golden boat (fig. 307). The hull is long and slight, the prow and stem are elevated, and terminate in gracefully-curved papyrus blossoms. Two little platforms surrounded by balustrades on a panelled ground are at the prow and on the poop, like quarter-decks. The pilot stands upon the one, and the steersman before the other, with a large oar in his hand.
Fig 307.--Funerary bark of Queen Aahhotep. Fig 307.--Funerary bark of Queen Aahhotep.
This oar takes the place of the modern helm. Twelve boatmen in solid silver are rowing under the orders of these two officers; Kames himself being seated in the centre, hatchet and sceptre in hand. Such were some of the objects buried with one single mummy; and I have even now enumerated only the most remarkable among them. The technical processes throughout are irreproachable, and the correct taste of the craftsman is in no wise inferior to his dexterity of hand. Having arrived at the perfection displayed in the parure of Aahhotep, the goldsmith's art did not long maintain so high a level. The fashions changed, and jewellery became heavier in design. The ring of Rameses II., with his horses standing upon the bezel (fig. 308), and the bracelet of Prince Psar, with his griffins and lotus flowers in cloisonné enamel (fig. 309), both in the Louvre, are less happily conceived than the bracelets of Ahmes. Fig 308.--Ring of Rameses II. Fig 308.--Ring of Rameses II.
The craftsmen who made these ornaments were doubtless as skilful as the craftsmen of the time of Queen Aahhotep, but they had less taste and less invention. Rameses II. was condemned either to forego the pleasure of wearing his ring, or to see his little horses damaged and broken off by the least accident. Already noticeable in the time of the Nineteenth Dynasty, this decadence becomes more marked as we approach the Christian era.
Fig 309.--Bracelet of Prince Psar. Fig 309.--Bracelet of Prince Psar.
The earrings of Rameses IX. in the Gizeh Museum are an ungraceful assemblage of filigree disks, short chains, and pendent uraei, such as no human ear could have carried without being torn, or pulled out of shape. They were attached to each side of the wig upon the head of the mummy. The bracelets of the High Priest Pinotem III., found upon his mummy, are mere round rings of gold incrusted with pieces of coloured glass and carnelian, like those still made by the Soudanese blacks. The Greek invasion began by modifying the style of Egyptian gold-work, and ended by gradually substituting Greek types for native types. The jewels of an Ethiopian queen, purchased from Ferlini by the Berlin Museum, contained not only some ornaments which might readily have been attributed to Pharaonic times, but others of a mixed style in which Hellenic influences are distinctly traceable. The treasure discovered at Zagazig in 1878, at Keneh in 1881, and at Damanhûr in 1882, consisted of objects having nothing whatever in common with Egyptian traditions. They comprise hairpins supporting statuettes of Venus, zone-buckles, agraffes for fastening the peplum, rings and bracelets set with cameos, and caskets ornamented at the four corners with little Ionic columns. The old patterns, however, were still in request in remote provincial places, and village goldsmiths adhered "indifferent well" to the antique traditions of their craft. Their city brethren had meanwhile no skill to do aught but make clumsy copies of Greek and Roman originals.

In this rapid sketch of the industrial arts there are many lacunae. When referring to examples, I have perforce limited myself to such as are contained in the best-known collections. How many more might not be discovered if one had leisure to visit provincial museums, and trace what the hazard of sales may have dispersed through private collections! The variety of small monuments due to the industry of ancient Egypt is infinite, and a methodical study of those monuments has yet to be made. It is a task which promises many surprises to whomsoever shall undertake it.

NOTES TO FIRST ENGLISH EDITION.

For the following notes, to which reference numbers will be found in the text, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. W.M. Flinders Petrie, author of "The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh" (Field & Tuer), "Tanis" (Egypt Exploration Fund), "Naukratis" (Egypt Exploration Fund), etc., etc.

A.B.E.

(1) More striking than these are the towns of Tell Atrib, Kom Baglieh, Kom Abû Billû, and Tell Nebesheh, the houses of which may be traced without any special excavations.

(2) There is much skill needed in mixing the mud and sand in such proportions as to dry properly; when rightly adjusted there is no cracking in drying, and the grains of sand prevent the mud from being washed away in the rains.

(3) In the Delta, at least, the sizes of bricks from the Twenty-first Dynasty down to Arab times decrease very regularly; under the Twenty-first Dynasty they are about 18 x 9 x 5 inches; early in the Twenty-sixth, 16-1/2 x 8-1/4 x 5; later 15 x 7- 1/2; in early Ptolemaic times, 14 x 7; in Roman times, 12 x 6, in Byzantine times, 10 x 5; and Arab bricks are 8 x 4, and continue so very generally to our times. The thickness is always least certain, as it depends on the amount placed in the mould, but the length and breadth may in most cases be accepted as a very useful chronological scale.

(4) They are found of Ramesside age at Nebesheh and Defenneh; even there they are rare, and these are the only cases I have yet seen in Egypt earlier than about the third century A.D.

(5) This system was sometimes used to raise a fort above the plain, as at Defenneh; or the chambers formed store-rooms, as at the fort at Naukratis.

(6) In the fine early work at Gizeh they sawed the paving blocks of basalt, and then ground only just the edges flat, while all the inside of the joint was picked rough to hold the mortar.

(7) A usual plan in early times was to dress the joint faces of the block in the quarry, leaving its outer face with a rough excess of a few inches; the excess still remains on the granite casing of the pyramid of Menkara, and the result of dressing it away may be seen in the corners of the granite temple at Gizeh.

(8) Otherwise called the Granite Temple of Gizeh, or Temple of Khafra, as its connection with the Sphinx is much disputed, while it is in direct communication with the temple of the pyramid of Khafra, by a causeway in line with the entrance passage.

(9) The casing of the open air court on the top of it was of fine limestone; only a few blocks of this remain. For full plan and measurements see Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh.

(10) One of the air slits, or ventilators, remains complete, opening to the upper court, from the top of the niche chamber.

(11) Below these lines, there is often a scene of offering at the bottom of the Obelisk.

(12) Mastaba is the Arabic name for a bench or platform, and was applied by the natives to such tombs on account of the resemblance in shape.

(13) In the few cases where the top remains perfect at Gizeh, the side ends in a parabolic curve which turns over into the top surface without any cornice or moulding; the tops of walls in the courts of mastabas are similar.

(14) Another view is that they are derived from the cumulative mastabas, such as the so-called step pyramid of Sakkarah.

(15) In the later pyramids; but the Gizeh pyramids are entirely built of Tûrah limestone.

(16) Still more conclusive is the fact that in the greatest of the pyramids the passages are such that it would have been impossible to build it by successive coats of enlargement.

(17) In only one case (that of Menkara) has a pyramid been clearly enlarged, and that was done at one step and not by many stages.

(18) The earliest-- at Gizeh--are very accurate.

(19) These slabs of pavement do not extend beneath the pyramid, but only around it.

(20) Only fragments of the finest limestone casing have been found; the variety of colour was probably due to weathering.

(21) This would be impossible with the exquisitely fine joints of the masonry; a temporary staging of stone built up over part of the finished face would easily allow of raising the stones.

(22) There is no evidence that the facing block which covered the granite plugs was of granite; it was more probably of limestone.

(23) The entrance to the upper passages was never forced from the entrance passage, but was accidentally found by the Arabs, after they had forced a long tunnel in the masonry, being in ignorance of the real entrance, which was probably concealed by a hinging block of stone.

(24) Or rather it rose at an angle of 23-1/2°, like the descent of the entrance passage,