Considerable endowments were given for maintaining worship at her tomb, and were administered by a special class of priests. Her mummy reposed among those of the princes of her family, in the hiding-place at Deîr-el-Baharî: it was enclosed in an enormous wooden sarcophagus covered with linen and stucco, the lower part being shaped to the body, while the upper part representing the head and arms could be lifted off in one piece. The shoulders are covered with a network in relief, the meshes of which are painted blue on a yellow background. The Queen’s hands are crossed over her breast, and clasp the crux ansata, the symbol of life. The whole mummy-case measures a little over nine feet from the sole of the feet to the top of the head, which is furthermore surmounted by a cap, and two long ostrich-feathers. The appearance is not so much that of a coffin as of one of those enormous caryatides which we sometimes find adorning the front of a temple.
We may perhaps attribute to the influence of Nofrîtari the lack of zest evinced by Amenôthes for expeditions into Syria. Even the most energetic kings had always shrunk from penetrating much beyond the isthmus. Those who ventured so far as to work the mines of Sinai had nevertheless felt a secret fear of invading Asia proper—a dread which they never succeeded in overcoming. When the raids of the Bedouin obliged the Egyptian sovereign to cross the frontier into their territory, he would retire as soon as possible, without attempting any permanent conquest. After the expulsion of the Hyksôs, Ahmosis seemed inclined to pursue a less timorous course. He made an advance on Sharûhana and pillaged it, and the booty he brought back ought to have encouraged him to attempt more important expeditions; but he never returned to this region, and it would seem that when his first enthusiasm had subsided, he was paralysed by the same fear which had fallen on his ancestors. Nofrîtari may have counselled her son not to break through the traditions which his father had so strictly followed, for Amenôthes I. confined his campaigns to Africa, and the traditional battle-fields there. He embarked for the land of Kûsh on the vessel of Ahmosi-si-Abîna “for the purpose of enlarging the frontiers of Egypt.” It was, we may believe, a thoroughly conventional campaign, conducted according to the strictest precedents of the XIIth dynasty. The Pharaoh, as might be expected, came into personal contact with the enemy, and slew their chief with his own hand; the barbarian warriors sold their lives dearly, but were unable to protect their country from pillage, the victors carrying off whatever they could seize—men, women, and cattle. The pursuit of the enemy had led the army some distance into the desert, as far as a halting-place called the “Upper cistern”—Khnûmît hirît; instead of retracing his steps to the Nile squadron, and returning slowly by boat, Amenôthes resolved to take a short cut homewards. Ahmosi conducted him back overland in two days, and was rewarded for his speed by the gift of a quantity of gold, and two female slaves. An incursion into Libya followed quickly on the Ethiopian campaign.
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph supplied by Flinders
Pétrie.
The tribe of the Kihaka, settled between Lake Mareotis and the Oasis of Amon, had probably attacked in an audacious manner the western provinces of the Delta; a raid was organized against them, and the issue was commemorated by a small wooden stele, on which we see the victor represented as brandishing his sword over a barbarian lying prostrate at his feet. The exploits of Amenôthes appear to have ended with this raid, for we possess no monument recording any further victory gained by him. This, however, has not prevented his contemporaries from celebrating him as a conquering and ‘victorious king. He is portrayed standing erect in his chariot ready to charge, or as carrying off two barbarians whom he holds half suffocated in his sinewy arms, or as gleefully smiting the princes of foreign lands. He acquitted himself of the duties of the chase as became a true Pharaoh, for we find him depicted in the act of seizing a lion by the tail and raising him suddenly in mid-air previous to despatching him. These are, indeed, but conventional pictures of war, to which we must not attach an undue importance. Egypt had need of repose in order to recover from the losses it had sustained during the years of struggle with the invaders. If Amenôthes courted peace from preference and not from political motives, his own generation profited as much by his indolence as the preceding one had gained by the energy of Ahrnosis. The towns in his reign resumed their ordinary life, agriculture flourished, and commerce again followed its accustomed routes. Egypt increased its resources, and was thus able to prepare for future conquest. The taste for building had not as yet sufficiently developed to become a drain upon the public treasury. We have, however, records showing that Amenôthes excavated a cavern in the mountain of Ibrîm in Nubia, dedicated to Satît, one of the goddesses of the cataract.
It is also stated that he worked regularly the quarries of Silsileh, but we do not know for what buildings the sandstone thus extracted was destined.* Karnak was also adorned with chapels, and with at least one colossus,** while several chambers built of the white limestone of Tûrah were added to Ombos. Thebes had thus every reason to cherish the memory of this pacific king.
* A bas-relief on the western bank of the river represents
him deified: Panaîti, the name of a superintendent of the
quarries who lived in his reign, has been preserved in
several graffiti, while another graffito gives us only the
protocol of the sovereign, and indicates that the quarries
were worked in his reign.
** The chambers of white limestone are marked I, K, on
Mariette’s plan; it is possible that they may have been
merely decorated under Thûtmosis III., whose cartouches
alternate with those of Amenôthes I. The colossus is now in
front of the third Pylon, and Wiedemann concluded from this
fact that Amenôthes had begun extensive works for enlarging
the temple of Amon; Mariette believed, with greater
probability, that the colossus formerly stood at the
entrance to the XIIth dynasty temple, but was removed to its
present position by Thûtmosis III.