The oracle-temple of Khons was consulted on every important occasion, and its fame seems to have spread far beyond the limits of Egypt itself. A curious episode belonging to the reign of Rameses xii. has been preserved, in a story written on the walls of this temple. It relates that the king had married a princess of the land of Bakhten, and that on a certain festival day there came a messenger from that country bringing presents for the king, accompanied by a request from the King of Bakhten. His daughter, the younger sister of the Queen of Egypt, had become possessed by a strange malady, and his majesty implored that a learned man acquainted with such things might be sent from Egypt to see her. Rameses xii. accordingly sent a learned man thither, who found the princess ‘in the state of one possessed with spirits,’ but the spirit was hostile, nor could the learned man prevail over him. A second message came from the troubled father, entreating that an Egyptian god might be sent to Bakhten. Pharaoh was standing before the shrine of the oracle-giving Khons, who was especially noted for power over such maladies. On inquiring whether the god would be willing to undertake the journey, the king received a favourable answer. Accordingly the shrine of Khons was borne upon the shoulders of twelve priests the whole way from Egypt to Bakhten, a journey of one year and five months, attended by chariots and horsemen on the right hand and on the left. The king and the princes came forth to meet and to welcome the ark, and prostrated themselves on the ground before it, and the god proceeded to the palace where the princess was, and speedily effected a cure. The expelled spirit thereupon made a humble submission to the god as his slave, and expressed his readiness to return whence he came—only, he asked that, first of all, a great sacrifice might be made in his honour. His request was granted, and, says the story, ‘the spirit went in peace wherever he chose by order of Khons, the giver of oracles. The prince of the land of Bakhten was very much delighted, and so was every one in the land. He said: “I will not let this god go back to Egypt; he shall stay in my country.” Three years, four months, five weeks, and one day did the god remain in Bakhten. Then it happened that the king saw in a dream the god come out of his shrine in the likeness of a hawk of gold; he spread forth his wings and flew on high towards the land of Khemi. When the king awoke he was troubled in his mind, and he called the prophet of Khons and said to him: “This god is hostile to us, let us send him back to Egypt.” And he gave him many presents, besides troops and very many horsemen. They reached Egypt in peace, and the presents were offered to the god. So Khons re-entered his house in peace in the thirty-third year of the king’s reign.’
The custom now so prevalent of consulting the oracle, and of acting according to its dictates, is one amongst other significant signs of the increasing power and influence of the priesthood and of the part they were gradually assuming in the government of the country. Under Rameses ix. the positions of king and priest seem already reversed. In former days the kings recorded the story of the magnificent buildings they erected in honour of the gods, and the munificent gifts with which they endowed the temples, received by the priesthood with loyal gratitude. But in the reign of Rameses ix. it is a chief priest of Amen-Ra who carves upon the temple wall a full account of all he has done in rebuilding and adorning the sacred edifice—the ‘holy house of the chief priests of Amen.’ He, however, inscribes upon the work the full name of Pharaoh, and thus dedicates it to the king, who duly acknowledges his obligation, and orders rich rewards and honours to be bestowed upon the chief priest in token of the royal gratitude.
The shadowy forms of the Ramessid kings grow more and more indistinct; of the three last, whose names are preserved as the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth Rameses, it is quite uncertain whether they were ever crowned in Thebes. The power of the chief priests during the reign of so many feeble monarchs had, on the other hand, steadily increased, until the government of the country was virtually in their hands. Their ambition grew with what it fed on, and by repeated intermarriages with princesses of the royal house, they might seem to acquire a certain legitimate claim to the throne, of which they at last took possession—Her-hor, ‘chief priest and first prophet of Amen,’ being proclaimed King of Upper and Lower Egypt probably about 1100 b.c.
Mummy and Mummy-case of the Priest Nebseni.
The priests of Egypt formed, as we know, no distinct and isolated caste. They were governors of cities, commanders on the battle-field, physicians, architects, scribes; and thus were often seen in secular employments, although they alone could enter within the sacred recesses of the temple and officiate in its services. The kings themselves were so far regarded as priests, that they were admitted to perform sacred rites, and thus the regal and sacerdotal offices had long been in some sense blended before Her-hor assumed the crown as the first sovereign of the twenty-first dynasty—the dynasty of the priest-kings.
The sovereigns of this dynasty showed an especial solicitude in preserving from injury and outrage the mortal remains of their predecessors. They continued the custom, which had prevailed since the spoliation of tombs came to light under Rameses ix., of a periodical inspection, carried out officially, the results of which were recorded on the spot by a scribe. Her-hor chose for his own family burial-place a lonely spot not far from the terraced temple of Queen Hatasu. A mass of broken rock almost hid the entrance, whence, by the descent of a perpendicular shaft, 25 feet deep, by 7 feet wide, a subterranean gallery of 200 feet in length was reached. Beyond was the vault, which measured about 25 feet by 14. There were either six or seven sovereigns of the twenty-first dynasty; and the last but one of them foreseeing, it is not unlikely, that a time of trouble and danger was at hand, gathered into the gloomy unadorned recesses of the gallery and vault of his family tomb the coffins of many illustrious predecessors. He then appears to have finally closed the tomb and suffered himself to be buried elsewhere. It was here that the remains of so many Egyptian sovereigns, both of the twenty-first and of earlier dynasties, were found in the great discovery of 1881. The little we know concerning even the names and succession of the priestly dynasty has been chiefly derived from this their family burial-place. We find that four of them married wives who were princesses in their own right. One of these queens, wife of Pinotem II., fourth king of the dynasty, is buried with her new-born babe by her side. The papyrus, containing portions of the ritual, which according to custom was laid in the sarcophagus, is in perfect preservation; it is beautifully written, and is full of richly-coloured illustrations, of which the tints are as fresh as if laid on yesterday. The last sovereign buried in this tomb was the wife of the king who finally closed it. With her were found the usual funereal papyrus, vases, and small statues; and besides these there was the rich and beautifully adorned canopy under which her body had been conveyed across the river to the city of the dead, and in a hamper by her side was the funeral repast of meat and fruits, which, being dedicated to her, show her to have been the last occupant of the family vault. With the mummy of the deceased queen was interred a mummied gazelle, that had probably been a pet with her in her lifetime. Both vault and gallery were now full, and the king closed it; his own tomb and that of his successor, the last monarch of the dynasty, are unknown.