Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
from a photograph by
Emil Brugsch-Bey.
A wall-painting remains of a gold epergne, which represents men and monkeys engaged in gathering the fruit of a group of dôm-palms. Two individuals lead each a tame giraffe by the halter, others kneeling on the rim raise their hands to implore mercy from an unseen enemy, while negro prisoners, grovelling on their stomachs, painfully attempt to raise their head and shoulders from the ground. This, doubtless, represents a scene from the everyday life of the people of the Upper Nile, and gives a faithful picture of what took place among many of its tribes during a rapid inroad of some viceroy of Kush or a raid by his lieutenants.
The resources which Thûtmosis I. was able to draw regularly from these southern regions, in addition to the wealth collected during his Syrian campaign, enabled him to give a great impulse to building work. The tutelary deity of his capital—Amon-Râ—who had ensured him the victory in all his battles, had a prior claim on the bulk of the spoil; he received it as a matter of course, and his temple at Thebes was thereby considerably enlarged; we are not, however, able to estimate exactly what proportion fell to other cities, such as Kummeh, Elephantine,* Abydos,** and Memphis, where a few scattered blocks of stone still bear the name of the king. Troubles broke out in Lower Egypt, but they were speedily subdued by Thûtmosis, and he was able to end his days in the enjoyment of a profound peace, undisturbed by any care save that of ensuring a regular succession to his throne, and of restraining the ambitions of those who looked to become possessed of his heritage.***
* Wiedemann found his name there
cut in a block of brown
freestone.
** A stele at Abydos speaks of the
building operations carried on by
Thûtmosis I. in that town.
*** The expressions from which we
gather that his reign was disturbed
by outbreaks of internal rebellion
seem to refer to a period subsequent
to the Syrian expedition, and prior
to his alliance with the Princess
Hâtshopsîtû.
His position was, indeed, a curious one; although de facto absolute in power, his children by Queen Ahmasi took precedence of him, for by her mother’s descent she had a better right to the crown than her husband, and legally the king should have retired in favour of hie sons as soon as they were old enough to reign. The eldest of them, Uazmosû, died early.* The second, Amenmosu, lived at least to attain adolescence; he was allowed to share the crown with his father from the fourth year of the latter’s reign, and he also held a military command in the Delta,** but before long he also died, and Thûtmosis I. was left with only one son—a Thûtmosis like himself—to succeed him. The mother of this prince was a certain Mûtnofrit,*** half-sister to the king on his father’s side, who enjoyed such a high rank in the royal family that her husband allowed her to be portrayed in royal dress; her pedigree on the mother’s side, however, was not so distinguished, and precluded her son from being recognised as heir-apparent, hence the occupation of the “seat of Horus” reverted once more to a woman, Hâtshopsîtû, the eldest daughter of Âhmasi.
* Uazmosû is represented on the tomb of Pahiri at El-Kab,
where Mr. Griffith imagines he can trace two distinct
Uazmosû; for the present, I am of opinion that there was but
one, the son of Thûtmosis I. His funerary chapel was
discovered at Thebes; it is in a very bad state of
preservation.
** Amenmosû is represented at El-Kab, by the side of his
brother Uazmosû. Also on a fragment where we find him, in
the fourth year of his father’s reign, honoured with a
cartouche at Memphis, and consequently associated with his
father in the royal power.
*** Mûtnofrit was supposed by Mariette to have been a
daughter of Thûtmosis II; the statue reproduced on p. 345
has shown us that she was wife of Thûtmosis I. and mother of
Thûtmosis II.
Hâtshopsîtû herself was not, however, of purely divine descent. Her maternal ancestor, Sonisonbû, had not been a scion of the royal house, and this flaw in her pedigree threatened to mar, in her case, the sanctity of the solar blood. According to Egyptian belief, this defect of birth could only be remedied by a miracle,* and the ancestral god, becoming incarnate in the earthly father at the moment of conception, had to condescend to infuse fresh virtue into his race in this manner.
* A similar instance of divine substitution is known to us in the case of two other sovereigns, viz. Amenôthes III., whose father, Titmosis IV., was born under conditions analogous to those attending the birth of Thûtmosis I.; and Ptolemy Caesarion, whose father, Julius Cæsar, was not of Egyptian blood.
