CHAPTER III.
The Pyramid Age.
Menes was the king who succeeded in accomplishing the unification of Egypt. We are told by Manetho that he was at first chief or governor of the eighth nome of Upper Egypt, whose capital city was Thinis, and being ambitious, subdued the surrounding nomes, until at last all Egypt was brought under his control. No doubt earlier chieftains had begun the work of conquest and left the completion to Menes, whose personality and executive strength were sufficient to efface the reigns of his predecessors.
Having brought the Delta under his control and crowned himself with the white crown of Upper and the red crown of Lower Egypt, Menes realized that a capital for such a straggling kingdom as his would best be centrally located. He therefore fixed upon a site just south of the apex of the delta and built the city of Memphis. Quite possibly there was a settlement here before this time.
It happened that the Nile flowed close to the western hills in this locality. The king knew well that his capital would be safer and the more easily protected were the river between it and possible Asiatic invaders on the east. So he undertook what has ever since been regarded as a bold feat of engineering; he built a high embankment across the Nile and compelled the stream to seek a new course farther east. Filling in the old channel, he built a wall around the new city, caused a temple to be at once erected to Ptah, the ancient deity of the locality, and shortly a town grew up around it. Thus we see the beginnings of the Old Empire, so called by Manetho and subsequent historians. For convenience scholars sometimes group Dynasties I. and II. and Dynasties III. to VI. together. The first period (3400-2980 B.C.) is called the Thinite age because the rulers of these two dynasties came from Thinis. The name Old Kingdom is then limited to Dynasties III. to VI. (2980-2475 B.C.)
It would be useless for us to attempt to become familiar with all these early kings—some fifty in number—with reigns varying from one to many years. Should we succeed in collecting the meager facts known of each we would have little to repay us for our trouble. It is more to the purpose that we know something about the period as a whole—its general characteristics and attainments.
During this period hieroglyphic writing became widely used, having been but rarely known before the age of Menes. A line of forts was built along the Isthmus of Suez to stay invaders from Asia. Tribes on the south were brought into subjection and pledged service to Egypt in time of war. Stone quarries and mines were developed and granite ranges sought and found. In the sixth dynasty one man-of-war sufficed to accompany the transports sent to bring granite for the kings' tombs from the southland—a fact recorded with pride by the pharaohs, since it gave proof of their far reaching might.
From earliest times the Egyptian kings were builders, particularly of tombs, which during the Old Empire took the form of pyramids. Of far greater importance than the earthly abode was thought to be the tomb—the dwelling place for eternal years, consequently tombs and temples received the attention of Egypt's kings in early as well as later times.
In 1897 the tomb of Menes was discovered. It was a brick-lined pit containing an inner chamber of wood. Around the mummy of the pharaoh had been placed the bodies of different members of his household. Similar to this were royal tombs until the Third dynasty, when stone was first used. To the kings of the Fourth dynasty belong the famous pyramids, unsurpassed by any subsequently built, and still today the wonder of the world.
The Egyptians always located their cemeteries toward the west. Into the west the sun sank at night, and by the same way the soul started upon its long journey to the realm of Osiris, god of the future world. The irregularity of the Nile usually made it possible for the city of the living to grow up on its eastern bank, while across the stream, on the west shore, lay the City of the Dead. To the west of Memphis lay its cemetery or Necropolis, and while this remained the capital of Egypt, the pyramid-shaped tomb remained in favor. Sometimes the pyramid tombs were small; sometimes they were large. More than sixty have been found, and large numbers have doubtless disappeared for all time. Three, however, were made so prodigious in size as to cast into obscurity all the rest, and these have come to be called the "three Pyramids of Gizeh," quite as though they were sole examples of their kind. Khufu was builder of the largest; this is generally called "the Great Pyramid." His son Khafre built the one next in size, known as the "Second Pyramid," while the third, much smaller than these, was built by Menkure. Were we indifferent to the political development of Egypt, we would still wish to learn about these mammoth structures which are scaled each season by wondering tourists, and have excited the admiration and awe of travelers since the time of Herodotus.
It is difficult to realize the vast size of these piles, and we can do so only by comparing them to things with which we are familiar. The base of the largest pyramid covers thirteen acres of ground, solid masonry; it was originally 482 feet high. Since it is almost one solid mass of stone, it is not difficult to credit the statement of Herodotus that it took 100,000 men twenty years to build it, an additional ten years being necessary to quarry the stone and bring it to the chosen site.
"The tradition recorded by Herodotus as to the labor employed, is so entirely reasonable for the execution of such work, that we cannot hesitate to accept it. It is said that a hundred thousand men were levied for three months at a time (i. e. during the three months of the inundation, when ordinary labor is at a standstill); and on this scale the pyramid-building lasted twenty years."
How complete must have been the organization of a government which could promote such an extensive project as this! How entirely were the resources of the empire at the disposal of the king when free citizens could be impressed to satisfy the vanity of the proud pharaoh! To have supported 100,000 non-producing men must of itself have taxed the treasury. The rulers who built these majestic tombs wished to make their names immortal, as well as to preserve their bodies from harm and decay. This first they certainly accomplished, but in light of modern investigation, when each stone lifted into place has been estimated to have cost at least one human life, these proud pharaohs elicit less admiration and commendation than they doubtless thought to win.
Three kinds of stone were used in the construction of these pyramids. The inner part, or core, was formed of material plentiful near the building site. This was a spongy limestone that was not durable if exposed to the elements, but adequate when covered with other stone. The successive layers, put on in the form of steps, were of stone brought from across the river, having been quarried in the mountains on the east. It has been conjectured that a causeway was laid from the mountains to the side of the pyramid, and that blocks of stone were dragged by men this distance. Finally, the beautiful granite used for outer casing was found near the southern border of Egypt, floated down the stream when the water was high, and having been polished like a mirror, was fitted over the rougher stone. 2,300,000 blocks, averaging two and one-half tons each, were used for the construction of the largest pyramid.
"If we had so much stone, what could one do with it?" is asked in The Boy Travelers in Egypt. And it is answered: "You could build a wall four feet high and two feet thick—a good wall for a farm or a garden—all the way from New York to Salt Lake City, and were New York in danger of an attack and desired to surround the whole of Manhattan Island—21 miles—with a wall forty feet high and twenty feet thick, here would be material to do it." Rawlinson tries to bring its size home to us by comparing it to structures with which we are familiar. He says: "In height it exceeds the capitol at Washington by nearly 200 feet, and its cubic contents would provide a city of 22,000 houses solidly built of stone having walls a foot thick, twenty feet frontage and thirty feet deep, thirty feet high, allowing one-third for dividing walls."
For several hundred years the Mohammedans have occupied Egypt and they have taken away quantities of stone from the lesser pyramids, from temples and other ancient structures of Memphis, to be used in their mosques and buildings in Cairo, near-by. The outer casing of the Great Pyramid, beautiful granite as hard as iron, was removed to build the large mosque of this comparatively modern city. The removal of this casing has left the under layers bare, and these, step-like in appearance, are annually scaled by tourists. With the help of Arab guides, one may ascend to the very top of the huge pile, gaining thence a splendid view of the surrounding country.
Even the pyramids left cased in granite are no longer smooth. The weathering of ages has roughened their sides and dulled their polish. They are of a tawny orange color and gleam by certain lights like gigantic piles of gold.
Within the pyramids were chambers for the remains of kings and their families and chambers for friends to gather for worship—for after his death, an Egyptian king was worshipped as a god. Even a spacious gallery was provided near the top of the Great Pyramid, in order that air might circulate freely and thus keep the tomb dry.
The ambitious, short-sighted Fourth dynasty kings exhausted the resources of their realm. During the Fifth and Sixth dynasties the pyramids became smaller. Even the long-suffering land of the Nile could no longer muster vast forces to provide huge abiding places for the pharaohs. Marvelous temples would still be erected, and wonderful feats of architecture accomplished, but the passion for tremendous tombs had in a measure spent itself.
"The essential feeling of all the earliest work is a rivalry with nature. In other times buildings have been placed either before a background of hills, so as to provide a natural setting to them, or crowning some natural height. But the Egyptian consented to no such tame co-operation with natural features. He selected a range of desert hills over a hundred feet high, and then subdued it entirely, making of it a mere pedestal for pyramids, which were more than thrice as high as the native hill on which they stood. There was no shrinking from a comparison with the work of nature; but, on the contrary, an artificial hill was formed which shrunk its natural basis by comparison, until it seemed a mere platform for the work of man.
"This same grandeur of idea is seen in the vast masses used in construction. Man did not then regard his work as a piling together of stones, but as the erection of masses that rivalled those of nature. If a cell or chamber was required, each side was formed of one single stone.... If a building was set up, it was an artificial hill in which chambers were carved out after it was piled together....
"The sculptor's work, and the painter's, show the same sentiment. They did not make a work of art to please the taste as such; but they rivalled nature as closely as possible. The form, the expression, the colouring, the glittering transparent eye, the grave smile, all are copied as if to make an artificial man. The painter mixed his half-tints and his delicate shades, and dappled over the animals, or figured the feathers of birds, in a manner never attempted in the later ages. The embalmer built up the semblance of the man in resins and cloth over his shrunken corpse, to make him as nearly as possible what he was when alive.
"In each direction man then set himself to supplement, to imitate, to rival or to exceed, the works of nature. Art, as the gratification of an artificial taste and standard, was scarcely in existence; but the simplicity, the vastness, the perfection, and the beauty of the earliest works place them on a different level to all the workers of art and man's device in later ages. They are unique in their splendid power, which no self-conscious civilization has ever rivalled, nor can hope to rival; and in their enduring greatness they may last till all the feebler works of man have perished."[1]
[1] Petrie; History of Egypt, Vol. I, p. 66.
