Caressing a Gazelle.
[CHAPTER VI.]
Successors of Amenemhat I.—Two Provinces added to Egypt.
The stone for the sarcophagus of King Amenemhat i. was hewn in the valley of Hammamat, and he was laid to rest in his pyramid called Kha-nefer, the ‘Beautiful Rising,’ leaving behind him an honoured name and an inheritance of peaceful days. Usertesen i., his son and successor, reigned in profound tranquillity, and turned his attention to the temples of the gods, which were neglected and falling into decay. They were, he said, the only monuments that could truly confer immortality on a king. First of all, he called together an assembly of the chief men of the land in that ancient home of Egyptian wisdom and learning, the City of the Sun, to consult about a temple that should be raised, ‘worthy of the name of Ra.’ Usertesen himself laid the foundation-stone, and gave the directions for the carrying out of the work. The ruins of both temple and city are now buried deep beneath the soil, but of the two stately obelisks of rose-coloured granite, which stood at the gateway of the temple, one is still standing in solitary grandeur amid the quiet fields; the hieroglyphs upon its surface still record that ‘the Ruler of the North and South, Lord of the Two Countries, Son of the Sun, Usertesen—beloved of the Gods of On, living for ever, the good god,’ executed this work.
At the ancient sanctuary of Abydos a temple was erected to Osiris, and Memphis was not overlooked. But whilst duly careful for those time-honoured sanctuaries, Usertesen did not neglect the new southern capital, and he carried on the construction of the great temple of Amen, which his father Amenemhat had begun.
The frontiers were vigilantly guarded, and now that quiet times had come back the mines in the Sinaitic peninsula were re-opened and worked. A thousand years had passed since they were first explored at the command of Senefru, and his name had become venerable in its antiquity throughout that region, where he was worshipped as a guardian deity, together with the goddess Hathor, protectress of the district.