And now, alas!
Far-travelled Nicias hath wooed and won
Arsinoe,
With gifts of furry creatures white and dun
From over sea.”
Till the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty there was little change in female attire. A fine linen garment, through which the limbs could be plainly seen, extended from below the breast to the ankle, sometimes supported by straps over the shoulders, and sometimes so narrow as to require not even these. Colored robes were used less frequently. To the man was left in those days, as to the male bird, the gayer plumage. The woman contented herself with the use of oils and cosmetics, blackening her brows and eyes, leaving her hair flowing, bound by a fillet, or with braided locks, or a wig, and encircling arms and limbs with innumerable chains and bracelets. The queen wore a royal head-dress, with the asp, emblem of the sun-god Ra, over her forehead, and the vulture, dedicated to Maut, mother of Isis, above. The golden disk is said to be an emblem of the eternal sunshine, the entwining asp of the winding Nile, and the outspread wings of Upper and Lower Egypt, extending along the river.
Mrs. Stevenson mentions innumerable texts which refer to the god as hidden in the disk, whilst a winged goddess makes light with her feathers, with which light and heat are always associated. The mother goddess of Thebes, Mut, in the shape of a vulture, spreads her wings and says, “I cover thy couch and give life to die back of thy neck.” And the mother of the sun-god at the moment of birth brings her own life “to the back of his neck in flame.” The disk amulet was put under a mummy to preserve the vital heat The winged disk, emblem of heaven, was, in primeval times, conceived as a bird, which, under its embodiment as the hawk, had come to dwell in the sun. “In the Eighteenth Dynasty this symbol over monuments was supposed to guard and protect, and played in Egypt the role that the winged bull of the Assyrians played on the banks of the Euphrates.”
A poetic fancy has thus painted the queen:
“Her form I know; in airless chambers