The great culminating period of the old kingdom of Egypt is that belonging to the 4th and 5th dynasties. Nine-tenths of the monuments of the pyramid-builders which have come down to our time belong to the five centuries during which these two dynasties ruled over Egypt (B.C. 3500-3000).
The 6th dynasty was of a southern and more purely African origin. On the tablets of Apap[[45]] (Apophis), its most famous monarch, we find the worship of Khem and other deities of the Theban period wholly unknown to the pyramid kings. The next four dynasties are of fainéant kings, of whom we know little, not “Carent quia vate sacro,” but because they were not builders, and their memory is lost. The 11th and 12th usher in a new state of affairs. The old Memphite pyramid-building kingdom had passed, with its peaceful contentment, and had given place to a warlike idolatrous race of Theban kings, far more purely African, the prototypes of the great monarchy of the 18th and 19th dynasties, and having no affinity with anything we know of as existing in Asia in those times.
Their empire lasted apparently for more than 300 years in Upper Egypt; but for the latter portion of that period they do not seem to have reigned over the whole country, having been superseded in Lower Egypt by the invasion of the hated Hyksos, or Shepherd kings, about the year 2300 B.C., and by whom they also were finally totally overthrown.
When we turn from the contemplation of the pyramids, and the monuments contemporary with them, to examine those of the 12th dynasty, we become at once aware of the change which has taken place. Instead of the pyramids, all of which are situated on the western side of the Nile, we have obelisks, which, without a single exception, are found on its eastern side towards the rising sun, apparently in contradistinction to the valley of the dead, which was towards the side on which he set. The earliest and one of the finest of these obelisks is that still standing at Heliopolis, inscribed with the name of Osirtasen, one of the first and greatest kings of this dynasty. It is 67 ft. 4 in. in height, without the pyramidion which crowns it, and is a splendid block of granite, weighing 217 tons. It must have required immense skill to quarry it, to transport it from Syene, and finally, after finishing it, to erect it where it now stands and has stood for 4500 years.
We find the sculptures of the same king at Wady Halfah, near the second cataract, in Nubia; and at Sarabout el Kadem, in the Sinaitic Peninsula. He also commenced the great temple of Karnac at Thebes, which in the hands of his successors became the most splendid in Egypt, and perhaps it is not too much to say the greatest architectural monument in the whole world.
As might be expected, from our knowledge of the fact that the Hyksos invasion took place so soon after his reign, none of his structural buildings now remain entire in which we might read the story of his conquests, and learn to which gods of the Pantheon he especially devoted himself. We must therefore fall back on Manetho for an account of his “conquering all Asia in the space of nine years, and Europe as far as Thrace.”[[46]] While there is nothing to contradict this statement, there is much that renders it extremely probable.
The Labyrinth.
It is to this dynasty also that we owe the erection of the Labyrinth, one of the most remarkable, as well as one of the most mysterious monuments of Egypt. All Manetho tells us of this is, that Lampares, or Mœris, “built it as a sepulchre for himself;” and the information we derive from the Greeks on this subject is so contradictory and so full of the wonderful, that it is extremely difficult to make out either the plan or the purpose of the building. As long ago as 1843, the whole site was excavated and thoroughly explored by the officers of the Prussian expedition under Lepsius; but, like most of the information obtained by that ill-conditioned party, such data as have been given are of the most unsatisfactory and fragmentary form. The position which Lepsius claimed for the Labyrinth has been found by Mr. Petrie[[47]] to be incorrect; the remains supposed to be those of the walls and chambers are of much later date, being only the houses and tombs of the population which destroyed the great structure. The village thus created was established on the outer portion of the site when the destruction of the buildings was first commenced. Mr. Petrie calculates that the Labyrinth was symmetrical with the pyramid, and had the same axis: that it occupied a site of about 1000 feet wide by 800 ft. deep; thus covering an area sufficiently large to accommodate all the Theban temples on the east bank, and in addition one of the largest on the west bank. The essential difference between the Labyrinth and all other temples was that it consisted of a series of eighteen large peristylar courts with sanctuaries and other chambers. Of these, according to Herodotus, there were six, side by side, facing north; six others, opposite, facing south, and a wall surrounding the whole. Herodotus, however, was allowed to see portions only of the Labyrinth, probably those nearest to the entrance. Beyond this, on the north side, Mr. Petrie suggests the existence of a third series of peristylar courts (described by Strabo), with sanctuaries and other chambers, and south of these, halls of columns, and smaller halls, through which Strabo entered. In the hall of twenty-seven columns, mentioned by Strabo, Mr. Petrie places the columns in one row to form a vestibule to the entrances to the courts similar to the temple of Abydos. The whole disposition of the plan, the style of the courts and their peristyles must be conjectural, as no remains of blocks of stone or columns in sufficient preservation have been found on which to base a restoration. On some architrave blocks were found inscriptions of Amenemhat III. and Sebekneferu. The last remains were taken away within our own time by the engineers of the new railway, and apparently with the consent of the officials of the Boulak Museum, who reported that they had been quarried from the native rock.
Pyramids.
The Hawara Pyramid, on the north of the Labyrinth, and erected by the same King Amenemhat III., has been examined by Mr. Petrie and described by him.[[48]] As the rock on which it was built was little more than hardened sand, a pit was excavated, into which a monolithic chamber of granite, brought from Upper Egypt, and weighing 100 tons, was lowered. The sarcophagus and two other coffins having been placed in it, the chamber was covered over with three granite beams, 4 feet thick, one of which was raised in a hollow chamber, and supported there till after the King’s death and the deposit of his body in the sarcophagus. Round the granite monolith were built walls which carried two courses of stone blocks, the lower horizontal, the upper courses sloping one against the other, as in the Great Pyramid. The rest of the pyramid was constructed in brick, and to prevent the brickwork settling down and splitting on the pointed roof-stones, an arch of five courses of brick, measuring 3 feet deep, was thrown across, resting on bricks laid in mud between the arch and the stonework. The brickwork above the arch was laid in sand, and the whole pyramid covered with a casing of limestone. The size of the pyramid Mr. Petrie calculates to have been about 334 ft. wide and 191 ft. high.