* The precise site is at present unknown: we see, however,
that it was in this place, when wo observe that Ahmosis was
worshipped by the Servants of the Necropolis, amongst the
kings and princes of his family who were buried at Drah-
abu’l-Neggah.
** His priests and the minor employés of his cult are
mentioned on a stele in the museum at Turin, and on a brick
in the Berlin Museum. He is worshipped as a god, along with
Osiris, Horus, and Isis, on a stele in the Lyons Museum,
brought from Abydos: he had, probably, during one of his
journeys across Egypt, made a donation to the temple of that
city, on condition that he should be worshipped there for
ever; for a stele at Marseilles shows him offering homage to
Osiris in the bark of the god itself, and another stele in
the Louvre informs us that Pharaoh Thûtmosis IV. several
times sent one of his messengers to Abydos for the purpose
of presenting land to Osiris and to his own ancestor
Ahmosis.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.
Amenôthes I. had not attained his majority when his father “thus winged his way to heaven,” leaving him as heir to the throne.* Nofrîtari assumed the authority; after having shared the royal honours for nearly twenty-five years with her husband, she resolutely refused to resign them.** She was thus the first of those queens by divine right who, scorning the inaction of the harem, took on themselves the right to fulfil the active duties of a sovereign, and claimed the recognition of the equality or superiority of their titles to those of their husbands or sons.
* The last date known is that of the year XXII. at Tûrah;
Manetho’s lists give, in one place, twenty-five years and
four months after the expulsion; in another, twenty-six
years in round numbers, as the total duration of his reign,
which has every appearance of probability.
** There is no direct evidence to prove that Amenôthes I.
was a minor when he came to the throne; still the
presumptions in favour of this hypothesis, afforded by the
monuments, are so strong that many historians of ancient
Egypt have accepted it. Queen Nofrîtari is represented as
reigning, side by side with her reigning son, on some few
Theban tombs which can be attributed to their epoch.
Drawn by Bouclier, from the
photograph by M. de Mertens
taken in the Berlin Museum.
The aged Ahhotpu, who, like Nofrîtari, was of pure royal descent, and who might well have urged her superior rank, had been content to retire in favour of her children; she lived to the tenth year of her grandson’s reign, respected by all her family, but abstaining from all interference in political affairs. When at length she passed away, full of days and honour, she was embalmed with special care, and her body was placed in a gilded mummy-case, the head of which presented a faithful copy of her features. Beside her were piled the jewels she had received in her lifetime from her husband and son. The majority of them a fan with a handle plated with gold, a mirror of gilt bronze with ebony handle, bracelets and ankle-rings, some of solid and some of hollow gold, edged with fine chains of plaited gold wire, others formed of beads of gold, lapis-lazuli, cornelian, and green felspar, many of them engraved with the cartouche of Ahmosis. Belonging also to Ahmosis we have a beautiful quiver, in which figures of the king and the gods stand out in high relief on a gold plaque, delicately chased with a graving tool; the background is formed of small pieces of lapis and blue glass, cunningly cut to fit each other. One bracelet in particular, found on the queen’s wrist, consisted of three parallel bands of solid gold set with turquoises, and having, a vulture with extended wings on the front. The queen’s hair was held in place by a gold circlet, scarcely as large as a bracelet; a cartouche was affixed to the circlet, bearing the name of Ahmosis in blue paste, and flanked by small sphinxes, one on each side, as supporters. A thick flexible chain of gold was passed several times round her neck, and attached to it as a pendant was a beautiful scarab, partly of gold and partly of blue porcelain striped with gold. The breast ornament was completed by a necklace of several rows of twisted cords, from which depended antelopes pursued by tigers, sitting jackals, hawks, vultures, and the winged urasus, all attached to the winding-sheet by means of a small ring soldered on the back of each animal. The fastening of this necklace was formed of the heads of two gold hawks, the details of the heads being worked out in blue enamel. Both weapons and amulets were found among the jewels, including three gold flies suspended by a thin chain, nine gold and silver axes, a lion’s head in gold of most minute workmanship, a sceptre of black wood plated with gold, daggers to defend the deceased from the dangers of the unseen world, boomerangs of hard wood, and the battle-axe of Ahmosis. Besides these, there were two boats, one of gold and one of silver, originally intended for the Pharaoh Kamosû—models of the skiff in which his mummy crossed the Nile to reach its last resting-place, and to sail in the wake of the gods on the western sea.