My Winter on the Nile / Eighteenth Edition

by Charles Dudley Warner

The visitor's first astonishment here is to find such vast and rich tombs, underground temples in fact, in a region so unutterably desolate, remote from men, to be reached only by a painful pilgrimage. He is bewildered by the variety and beauty of the decorations, the grace and freedom of art, the minute finish of birds and flowers, the immortal loveliness of faces here and there; and he cannot understand that all this was not made for exhibition, that it was never intended to be seen, that it was not seen except by the workmen and the funeral attendants, and that it was then sealed away from human eyes forever. Think of the years of labor expended, the treasure lavished in all this gorgeous creation, which was not for men to see! Has human nature changed? Expensive monuments and mausoleums are built now as they have been in all the Christian era; but they are never concealed from the public view. I cannot account for these extraordinary excavations, not even for one at the Assaseef, which extends over an acre and a quarter of ground, upon an ostentation of wealth, for they were all closed from inspection, and the very entrances masked. The builders must have believed in the mysteries of the under-world, or they would not have expended so much in enduring representations of them; they must have believed also that the soul had need of such a royal abode. Did they have the thought that money lavished in this pious labor would benefit the soul, as much as now-a-days legacies bequeathed to missions and charities?

On our second visit to these tombs we noticed many details that had escaped us before. I found sculptured a cross of equal arms, three or four inches long, among other sacred symbols. We were struck by the peculiar whiteness of the light, the sort of chalkiness of the sunshine as we saw it falling across the entrance of a tomb from which we were coming, and by the lightness of the shadows. We illuminated some of the interiors, lighting up the vast sculptured and painted halls and corniced chambers, to get the tout ensemble of colors and figures. The colors came out with startling vividness on the stuccoed, white walls, and it needed no imagination, amidst these awful and bizarre images and fantastic scenes, to feel that we were in a real underworld. And all this was created for darkness!

But these chambers could neither have been cut nor decorated without light, and bright light. The effect of the rich ceiling and sides could not have been obtained without strong light. I believe that these rooms, as well as the dark and decorated chambers in the temples, must have been brilliantly illuminated on occasion; the one at the imposing funeral ceremonies, the other at the temple services. What light was used? The sculptures give us no information. But the light must have been not only a very brilliant but a pure flame, for these colors were fresh and unsullied when the tombs were opened. However these chambers were lighted, some illuminating substance was used that produced no smoke, nor formed any gas that could soil the whiteness of the painted lotus.

In one of these brilliant apartments, which is finished with a carved and painted cornice, and would serve for a drawing-room with the addition of some furniture, we almost had a feeling of comfort and domesticity—as long as the illumination lasted. When that flashed but, and we were left in that thick darkness of the grave which one can feel gathering itself in folds about him, and which the twinkling candles in our hands punctured but did not scatter, and we groped our way, able to see only a step ahead and to examine only a yard square of wall at a time, there was something terrible in this subterranean seclusion. And yet, this tomb was intended as the place of abode of the deceased owner during the long ages before soul and body, united, should be received into bliss; here were buried with him no doubt some portions of his property, at least jewels and personal ornaments of value; here were pictured his possessions and his occupations while on earth; here were his gods, visibly cut in stone; here were spread out, in various symbols and condensed writing, the precepts of profound wisdom and the liturgies of the book of the dead. If at any time he could have awakened (as no doubt he supposed he should), and got rid of his heavy granite sarcophagus (if his body ever lay in it) and removed the myrrh and pitch from his person, he would have found himself in a most spacious and gay mansion, of which the only needs were food, light, and air.

While remembering, however, the grotesque conception the Egyptians had of the next world, it seems to me that the decorators of these tombs often let their imaginations run riot, and that not every fantastic device has a deep signification. Take the elongated figures on the ceiling, stretching fifty feet across, the legs bent down one side and the head the other; or such a picture as this:—a sacred boat having a crocodile on the deck, on the back of the crocodile a human head, out of the head a long stick protruding which bears on its end the crown of lower Egypt; or this conceit:—a small boat ascending a cataract, bearing a huge beetle (scarabæus) having a ram's head, and sitting on each side of it a bird with a human head. I think much of this work is pure fancy.

In these tombs the snake plays a great part, the snake purely, coiled or extended, carried in processions his length borne on the shoulders of scores of priests, crawling along the walls in hideous convolutions; and, again, the snake with two, three, and four heads, with two and six feet; the snake with wings; the snake coiled about the statues of the gods, about the images of the mummies, and in short everywhere. The snake is the most conspicuous figure.

The monkey is also numerous, and always pleasing; I think he is the comic element of hell, though perhaps gravely meant. He squats about the lower-world of the heathen, and gives it an almost cheerful and debonnair aspect. It is certainly refreshing to meet his self-possessed, grave, and yet friendly face amid all the serpents, crocodiles, hybrids, and chimerical monsters of the Egyptian under-world.

Conspicuous in ceremonies represented in the tombs and in the temples is the sacred boat or ark, reminding one always, in its form and use and the sacredness attached to it, of the Jewish Ark of the Covenant. The arks contain the sacred emblems, and sometimes the beetle of the sun, overshadowed by the wings of the goddess of Thmei or Truth, which suggest the cherubim of the Jews. Mr. Wilkinson notices the fact, also, that Thmei, the name of the goddess who was worshipped under the double character of Truth and Justice, is the origin of the Hebrew Thummim—a word implying “truth”; this Thummim (a symbol perfectly comprehensible now that we know its origin) which was worn only by the high priest of the Jews, was, like the Egyptian figure, which the archjudge put on when he sat at the trial of a case, studded with precious stones of various colors.

Before we left the valley we entered the tomb of Menephtah (or Merenphtah), and I broke off a bit of crumbling limestone from the inner cave as a memento of the Pharaoh of the Exodus. I used to suppose that this Pharaoh was drowned in the Red Sea; but he could not have been if he was buried here; and here certainly is his tomb. It is the opinion of scholars that Menephtah long survived the Exodus. There is nothing to conflict with this in the Biblical description of the disaster to the Egyptians. It says that all Pharaoh's host was drowned, but it does not say that the king was drowned; if he had been, so important a fact, it is likely, would have been emphasized. Joseph came into Egypt during the reign of one of the usurping Shepherd Kings, Apepi probably. Their seat of empire was at Tanis, where their tombs have been discovered. The Israelites were settled in that part of the Delta. After some generations the Shepherds were expelled, and the ancient Egyptian race of kings was reinstated in the dominion of all Egypt. This is probably the meaning of the passage, “now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.” The narrative of the Exodus seems to require that the Pharaoh should be at Memphis. The kings of the nineteenth dynasty, to which Menephtah belonged, had the seat of their empire at Thebes; he alone of that dynasty established his court at Memphis. But it was natural that he should build his tomb at Thebes.

We went again and again to the temples on the west side and to the tombs there. I never wearied of the fresh morning ride across the green plain, saluting the battered Colossi as we passed under them, and galloping (don't, please, remember that we were mounted on donkeys) out upon the desert. Not all the crowd of loping Arabs with glittering eyes and lying tongues, who attended us, offering their dead merchandise, could put me out of humor. Besides, there were always slender, pretty, and cheerful little girls running beside us with their water-koollehs. And may I never forget the baby Charon on the vile ferry-boat that sets us over one of the narrow streams. He is the cunningest specimen of a boy in Africa. His small brothers pole the boat, but he is steersman, and stands aft pushing about the tiller, which is level with his head. He is a mere baby as to stature, and is in fact only four years old, but he is a perfect beauty, even to the ivory teeth which his engaging smile discloses. And such self-possession and self-respect. He is a man of business, and minds his helm, “the dear little scrap,” say the ladies. When we give him some evidently unexpected coppers, his eyes and whole face beam with pleasure, and in the sweetest voice he says, Ket'ther khdyrak, keteer (“Thank you very much indeed”).