* In the inscription of the year XXII., Âhmosis expressly
states that he opened new chambers in the quarries of Tûrah
for the works in connection with the Theban Amon, as well as
for those of the temple of the Memphite Phtah.
An opportunity then occurred to revive a practice long fallen into disuse under the foreign kings, and to set once more in motion an essential part of the machinery of Egyptian administration. The quarries of Turah, as is well known, enjoyed the privilege of furnishing the finest materials to the royal architects; nowhere else could be found limestone of such whiteness, so easy to cut, or so calculated to lend itself to the carving of delicate inscriptions and bas-reliefs. The commoner veins had never ceased to be worked by private enterprise, gangs of quarrymen being always employed, as at the present day, in cutting small stone for building purposes, or in ruthlessly chipping it to pieces to burn for lime in the kilns of the neighbouring villages; but the finest veins were always kept for State purposes. Contemporary chroniclers might have formed a very just estimate of national prosperity by the degree of activity shown in working these royal preserves; when the amount of stone extracted was lessened, prosperity was on the wane, and might be pronounced to be at its lowest ebb when the noise of the quarryman’s hammer finally ceased to be heard.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Vyse-Perring.
Every dynasty whose resources were such as to justify their resumption of the work proudly recorded the fact on stelae which lined the approaches to the masons’ yards. Ahmosis reopened the Tûrah quarry-chambers, and procured for himself “good stone and white” for the temples of Anion at Thebes and of Phtah at Memphis. No monument has as yet been discovered to throw any light on the fate of Memphis subsequent to the time of the Amenemhâîts. It must have suffered quite as much as any city of the Delta from the Shepherd invasion, and from the wars which preceded their expulsion, since it was situated on the highway of an invading army, and would offer an attraction for pillagers. By a curious turn of fortune it was the “Fankhûi,” or Asiatic prisoners, who were set to quarry the stone for the restoration of the monuments which their own forefathers had reduced to ruins.* The bas-reliefs sculptured on the stelæ of Ahmosis show them in full activity under the corvée; we see here the stone block detached from the quarry being squared by the chisel, or transported on a sledge drawn by oxen.
* The Fankhûi are, properly speaking, all white prisoners,
without distinction of race. Their name is derived from the
root fôkhu, fankhu = to bind, press, carry off, steal,
destroy; if it is sometimes used in the sense of
Phoenicians, it is only in the Ptolemaic epoch. Here the
term “Fankhûi” refers to the Shepherds and Asiatics made
prisoners in the campaign of the year V. against Sharuhana.
Ahmosis had several children by his various wives; six at least owned Nofrîtari for their mother and possessed near claims to the crown, but she may have borne him others whose existence is unrecorded. The eldest appears to have been a son, Sipiri; he received all the honours due to an hereditary prince, but died without having reigned, and his second brother, Amenhotpû—called by the Greeks Amenôthes*—took his place.
* The form Amenôphis, which is usually employed, is,
properly speaking, the equivalent of the name
Amenemaupitu, or Amenaupîti, which belongs to a king of
the XXIst Tanite dynasty; the true Greek transcription of
the Ptolemaic epoch, corresponding to the pronunciation
Amehotpe, or Amenhopte, is Amenôthes. Under the XVIIIth
dynasty the cuneiform transcription of the tablets of Tel-el
Amarna, Amankhatbi, seems to indicate the pronunciation
Amanhautpi, Amanhatpi, side by side with the pronunciation
Aman-hautpu, Amenhotpu.
Ahmosis was laid to rest in the chapel which he had prepared for himself in the cemetery of Drah-abu’l-Neggah, among the modest pyramids of the XIth, XIIIth, and XVIIth dynasties.* He was venerated as a god, and his cult was continued for six or eight centuries later, until the increasing insecurity of the Theban necropolis at last necessitated the removal of the kings from their funeral chambers.** The coffin of Ahmosis was found to be still intact, though it was a poorly made one, shaped to the contours of the body, and smeared over with yellow; it represents the king with the false beard depending from his chin, and his breast covered with a pectoral ornament, the features, hair, and accessories being picked out in blue. His name has been hastily inscribed in ink on the front of the winding-sheet, and when the lid was removed, garlands of faded pink flowers were still found about the neck, laid there as a last offering by the priests who placed the Pharaoh and his compeers in their secret burying-place.