Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Khedivé

by F. Barham Zincke

Hitherto we have been on the eastern bank: we now pass to the western. Here we find an historical museum, unequalled by anything of the kind to be seen elsewhere, in variety of interest, and in completeness. Nothing in the world, except the Pyramid region, approaches to it. There the old primæval monarchy lies entombed; here, in the western quarter of the capital of the younger monarchy, and which has now appropriated to itself the name of Thebes, we have the catacombs of the kings, the tombs of the queens, the tombs of the priests, of the official class, and of private persons; the wonderful temple-palace of Medinet Haboo; the Memnonium, or rather Rameseum, again, temple and palace; the old but well-preserved Temple-palace of Cornéh, together with the remains of several temples; the vocal Memnon, and its twin Colossus. These form a gallery of historical objects, and of records of the arts, of the manners and customs, and of the daily life of one of the grandest epochs of Egypt. How can a few indications and touches convey to those who have not seen them, any true or useful conception of the objects themselves, or of the thoughts they give rise to in the mind of the traveller who stands before them, and allows them to interpret to him the mind of those old times? They are contemporary records in which he sees written, with accompanying illustrations, chapter after chapter of old world history, anterior to the days of Rome, Greece, and Israel.

The tomb of the great Sethos, Joseph’s Pharaoh, of his greater son, Rameses II., and of Menophres, in whose reign the Exodus took place, are all here. The tomb of Sethos reaches back 470 feet into the limestone Mountain, with a descent of 180 feet. Coloured sculptures cover 320 feet of the excavation. The exact point to which the sculptures had been carried on the day of his death, is indicated by the unfinished condition of the work in the last chamber. The walls had been prepared for the chisel of the sculptor, but the death of the king interrupted the work. The draughtsman had sketched upon them, in red colour, the designs that were to be executed. His sketch had been revised by a superintendent of such works, who had corrected the red outlines with black ink, wherever they appeared to him out of proportion, or in any way defective. The freedom and decision with which the outlines were drawn exceed probably the power of any modern artist’s or designer’s hand. These sketches are quite as fresh as they were the day they were made. You see them just as they were outlined, and corrected for the sculptor, more than 3,000 years ago. It would be worth while going to Egypt to see them, if they were the only sight in Egypt.

In this, and several others among the royal tombs, we find symbolical representations of the human race. The Egyptians, the people of the North, of the East, and of the South, are indicated by typical figures. This is meant to convey the idea that Pharaoh was virtually the universal monarch. If he had not felt this, Karnak would never have been built, nor, I will add, for the sake of the contrast, as well as the concatenation, would a humble East Anglian Vicar have spent last winter on the Nile.

The sculptures in these tombs may be divided under three heads. First, there are those which describe events in the life of the occupant of the tomb. Then there are scenes from common daily Egyptian life, in which he took such interest as to desire to have representations of them in his tomb. Lastly, there are scenes which illustrate what was supposed would occur in the future life of the deceased.

In the tomb which bears the name of Rameses III., there are several chambers right and left of the main gallery, in each of which is represented, on the walls, some department of the royal establishment. The king’s kitchen, the king’s boats, his armoury, his musical instruments, the operations carried on upon his farms, the birds, and the fruits of Egypt, and the sacred emblems; the three last symbolizing fowling, gardening, and religion. It is possible that the king may have buried here those of his household who presided over these departments; each in the chamber designated for him by the representations, on the walls, of what belonged to his office. If it were not so, of what use were the chambers? they could hardly have been excavated merely to place such pictures upon them.

As this Rameses III. was one of the warlike Pharaohs, and had, like his great namesake, led successfully large armies into Asia, we cannot suppose that he had these scenes of home-life sculptured and painted in his tomb, either because he had nothing else to put there, or because the subjects they referred to were more congenial to his tastes than the pomp and circumstance of glorious war. He must, therefore, as far as we can see, either have been acting under the motive just mentioned, which, however, I cannot regard as a perfectly satisfactory suggestion; or he must have been influenced by some thought of what he would require in the intermediate state while lying in the tomb. Was there an idea that the mummy would, for a time, take delight in contemplating those scenes and objects, the fruition of which had contributed to its happiness during the earthly life?

What we see in the tombs of the priests and officials almost leads us to the conclusion that these representations had not, necessarily, a direct and special reference to what had once been the occupations of the inmates of the tomb, but were placed on the walls merely as pictures, precisely as we hang upon the walls of our houses such pictures as please us. There was nothing in the aspects of the country which could have led the old Egyptians to wish to depict scenery. There were no charming bits of Nature, no world of changeful cloud-scapes, no suggestive winter, spring, or summer scenes. Nor, again, was the turn of their minds dramatic, or such as might have led them to desire to reproduce in pictures those human scenes which would recall the workings of passion or the poetry of life; and, indeed, their style of art would hardly have enabled them to deal with such subjects. They thus appear to have been confined to hard literal matter of fact representations of the arts of ordinary life, of Egyptian objects, of funeral processions, and of what, according to their ideas, would take place in the next world. With these they decorated their walls. It was Hobson’s choice. They had nothing else for the purpose. They may have had a special inducement to represent the common arts of life, such as cabinet-making, glass-blowing, weaving, pottery, etc., because they took a very intelligible pride in contemplating their superiority to the rest of the world in these matters, which, at that time, when an acquaintance with them was regarded as a distinction, were thought much more of than was the case afterwards, when all the world had attained to proficiency in them.

That these kinds of representations were sometimes looked upon merely as ornamental, or as such as any deceased Egyptian might contemplate, while in the mummy state, with satisfaction, may be inferred from the fact, that it eventually became a common practice for an Egyptian to purchase, or to take possession of a tomb that had been sculptured and painted for others, and even used by them, with the intention of having it prepared for himself: though, probably, this would not have been done in the early period of Egyptianism, when it was proud and pure. He merely erased the name of the original occupant, and substituted for it his own. He did not feel that there was anything to render the pictures that had been designed by, and for, another, inappropriate to himself. We know, too, that the pictures were often those of trades it was impossible the deceased could have practised; still they were pictures of Egyptian life it would be pleasing to contemplate. We had rather contemplate an historical picture, a tableau de genre, or a landscape, but as they had no idea of such things, and as civilization was then young, and the simplest trade was regarded with pleasure for its utility, and as a proof of what is called progress, everybody was at that time of day pleased with its representation. Though we have entirely lost this feeling, I believe uneducated people would still, at the present day prefer, because it would be more intelligible to them, a picture representing the work of some trade to a landscape, or historical piece. Of course the delight an Egyptian felt in such representations did not in the least arise from his being uneducated, but from a difference in his way of thinking and feeling; and in a difference in what art could then achieve. In short, these representations were meant either for the living, or for the dead. In either case, to give pleasure, either to the beholder, or to the supposed beholder, must have been their object.

The valley, which contains the tombs of which I have been speaking, was devoted to the sepulture of the kings of the nineteenth and twentieth dynasties. The greater part of them were found open, and had, in the times of the Ptolemies, been already rifled. Their desecration, and the injuries they received, ought probably to be attributed to the Persians. I have already said something about the extent and the sculptures of the catacomb of Sethos. The chamber, containing the sarcophagus of this great Pharaoh, had been so carefully concealed, that it fortunately escaped discovery down to our own time. Belzoni, in his investigation of this tomb, finding that a spot which a happy inspiration led him to strike, returned a hollow sound, had the trunk of a palm-tree brought into the gallery, and using it as a ram, battered down the disguised wall. This, at once revealed the chamber which, for more than four thousand years, had escaped Persian, Greek, Roman, and Arab intrusion. In the midst of this chamber stood the royal sarcophagus. This sarcophagus, one of the most splendid monuments of Egypt in its best days, was of the finest alabaster, covered with the most beautiful and instructive sculptures. Who can adequately imagine the emotions of Belzoni at that moment? It had been reserved for him to be the first to behold, to be the discoverer, of what had escaped the keen search of so many races of spoilers and destroyers, the finest monument of the greatest period of Egyptian history. That monument is now in Sir John Soane’s Museum, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

In the valley to the west of this are some of the tombs of the preceding, the eighteenth, dynasty, that which drove the Hyksos out of Egypt. They have, however, been so dilapidated that not much is to be learnt from them.