Predecessors of Cleopatra

by Leigh North

The outline of the physiognomy of General Ra-hotep and Ra-Emka are not unlike in type. The Princess Nefert has buff flesh tints, her husband’s are somewhat darker, and both have the crystal eyes which impart such a lifelike appearance. A dignified and portly pair, who gaze steadily out above the head of the sight-seer in the Gizeh museum. This collection, first gathered at Boulak and later removed to Gizeh, is the youngest but the richest in portrait statues of private individuals. Most are in what is called the hieratic attitude, with the left arm close to the body, the left hand holding a roll of papyrus, the right leg advanced, the right hand raised, as if grasping a staff, or perhaps, as at the Resurrection, holding the Book of the Dead. With Menes the first distinct record of dynasties begins, so far as yet discovered, and mooted points remain for the student as to which reigned simultaneously and which in succession. The first two dynasties were Thinites, from Tini, Greek This, near Abydos, in Upper Egypt, seat of the worship of Osiris, where their tombs and various remains, as above referred to, have been found. One of the most ancient is a fragment of jewelry bearing the name of Mena, who is said to have founded Memphis, to have turned aside the course of the river to build his city, to have reigned sixty-two years, and, finally, to have been killed by a hippopotamus or crocodile. Zer, or Teta, understood medicine and wrote astronomical books; of others it is said that one wrote the sacred books, another introduced animal worship, and another was a giant. Of this first dynasty there seem to have been some seven or eight kings.

As early as the Second Dynasty, under Binothris, a law was passed admitting women to sovereignty, and thereafter, from time to time, as guardian, regent, or independent ruler, a woman held sway. As goddesses above, so the woman below had her share of authority. The queen by incantations protected the king when in his priestly robe he offered sacrifices, played the sistrum (a sort of religious instrument) to drive away evil spirits, offered libations, poured perfumes and cast flowers. She walked behind the king in processions, gave audiences with him and governed for him, as the goddess Isis for Osiris, in his absence. The worship of the bull Apis, destined to so wide a popularity, was also introduced in this dynasty.

No extended or separate account of the queens, with one or two exceptions, can be found in the writers on Egypt, but here and there we come across the mention of certain names and brief stories or conflicting statements in regard to them. Several are spoken of by Maspero in his account of these earliest times. But to Mertytefs or Mertitifsi chiefly clings any sort of history which can vitalize her for us. We read of Mirisonku, daughter of Kheops and sister and wife of Khephren, of Mirtitifsi, of Khuit, of Miriri-ankh-nas, and of Meri-s-ankh, of the Sixth Dynasty, worshipper of the gods. Another writer gives Meri-s-ankh as the queen of Sneferu or Khafra, and Hentsen as Kufu’s daughter, says that Hatshepset made scarabs of Menkaura, and mentions a statue of Ra-en-usa, of the Fifth Dynasty. A stele in Gizeh, found at Abydos and of the Fifth Dynasty, represents the royal spouse Pepi-ankhnes and the “chef” Aou seated on each side of a table of offerings. The city of This gave its name to the yet earliest known kings, but Memphis, “The Haven of the Good,” was the great metropolis in the time of Mertitefs.

Queen Mertitefs is said to have been first the wife of King Seneferu, “the Betterer,” whose mother is given by one authority as Queen Hapunimait. Mertytefs was, some say, of the Third, some of the Fourth Dynasty. In a limestone group in the Leyden Museum (among the oldest portrait statues in the world) sit the queen, the mysterious Ka, which may be briefly described as the embodied spirit, and her secretary, a priest named Kenun. Without a secretary or scribe no royal personage’s list of attendants was complete. It was hardly the private correspondence which occupied their time, as in later days, though the habit of letter writing then existed, but so many items had to be noted down. The queen and her Ka sit side by side, with black hair and buff flesh tints just alike.

Seneferu, founder of the Fourth Dynasty, is the first king of whom we have contemporary monuments, and the Fourth is sometimes called the “pyramid dynasty.” During this reign the kingdom was prosperous, the arts flourished, and foreign conquests were made. The king left a good name, and was worshipped till the Ptolemaic period.

Diodorus stated that in the marriage contracts the wife was to control her husband. Be that as it may, she was doubtless, as in modern times, the ruler of the household. Mertytefs was young, some say fourteen, and probably beautiful, when she married Seneferu, whom she survived, and, possessing the usual charm of widows, she again married the Cheops of Herodotus, the Khufu of Manetho, of whom a small ivory has been recently found by Professor Petrie at Abydos, the builder of the Great Pyramid. Marriette assigns the date 4234 B. C., and Brugsch 3733 B. C. to this period, while Petrie gives from the time of the First Dynasty to the Sixth 4777 B. C. to 3503 B. C. Some writers interpolate a certain Ratatef, sometimes said to be the son, sometimes the brother of Khufu.

The building of a pyramid as his sepulchre was one of the chief occupations, might almost say the amusements or pleasures, of a king, as the building of a house in modern times affords constant study and entertainment to the constructor, and day after day he goes to watch its progress. The thought of death had no terror for the Egyptians—to the king it was simply a new world, peopled with gods and goddesses, among whom he would take an honored place. His pyramid was the book, the autobiography, often an illustrated one, that he published, filled with accounts of his deeds and prowess and certain to give him name and fame with posterity. The word pyramid is said to mean “king’s grave,” and thus reveals its purpose.

So, slowly, under the eyes of Queen Mertytefs rose these gigantic and marvellous structures. What matter, if the object were accomplished, that hundreds of lives were sacrificed in the ceaseless and laborious toil under a tropic sun. Herodotus says it took one hundred thousand, Pliny three hundred thousand, men twenty years in the building. We can imagine the queen from time to time going in state to view the progress of the work and helping it on with her suggestions. Some traditions tell that Khufu was specially tyrannical and cruel, and even stopped praying to the gods to press on his great enterprise. The rock testimony styles him brave and a conqueror.

“Egypt is the monumental land of the earth, as the Egyptians are the monumental people,” says Bunsen. The history of Egypt goes, as it were, against the stream; the earliest monuments are between Cairo and Siout, in Lower Egypt, the latest temples in Nubia, Upper Egypt.