Predecessors of Cleopatra

by Leigh North

The ambition for larger territory and foreign wars seemed to stifle, as it usually does, the artistic spirit, and few such marvels of sculpture and portrait statues are attributed to the Sixth Dynasty as have made the preceding the wonder of all following ages.

A woman’s name illumines this period, and with the beautiful Queen Nitocris the dynasty comes to an end. Nitocris is not a usual name in Egyptian history, but we find it occasionally mentioned there and elsewhere. In later times it was borne by a daughter of Psammetic I, whose sarcophagus is preserved. Some of the early writers on Egypt, coming to conclusions hastily from insufficient data and previous to the more modern discoveries, made a sort of composite photograph of a queen by combining the brief history of several with some of the more individual characteristics of the great Hatasu, and called it Nitocris, but time has shown them to have been mistaken. Two traditions exist—those derived from Manetho and those of the compilers from the remains at Abydoh and Sakkarah and the author of the Turin papyrus.

Another celebrated queen of ancient history was called Nitocris, and about her, too, the clouds of mist and fable enwreathe themselves. This was Queen Nitocris of Babylon, who lived five hundred generations after the warlike Semiramis. She turned the course of the Euphrates to make navigation winding and difficult, that thus the city might be preserved from the attacks of enemies. She ordered that she should be buried in a chamber above one of the gates, through which for a long time after none were willing to pass. She also promised treasure to the king who, in great necessity and in straits only, should open her sepulchre, but when at last Darius sought to avail himself of this he merely found an abusive sentence for disturbing her.

The Egyptian Nitocris, according to Herodotus, who derived his tradition from Manetho, lived 3066 years B. C., while to her dynasty he assigned 206 years, but the Turin papyrus and other records disprove this last. These dates, if bearing any relation to fact (for upon this point authorities differ so widely), seem almost like the astonishing figures with which the astronomer leads us from world to world in his celestial researches, and our imagination finds difficulty in grasping such periods, nor is it strange that they are so seriously questioned by many students.

Queen Nitocris’ name appears among a list of three hundred and thirty monarchs, and the duration of her reign is said to have been twelve years. A sort of Cinderella legend attaches to her. An eagle carried off the sandal of the beautiful maiden and dropped it before the prince, who was sitting in an open air court in his office as judge. At once he was fired with a desire to find the owner of that bewitching slipper, who when found became the royal consort.

In the earliest times, as before mentioned, even the noblest in the land wore no foot-covering within doors, and though sandals were more common later, under the New Empire they were frequently carried by an attendant slave and always put off in the presence of superiors. They were made of leather or papyrus, with straps passing over the instep, and between the toes, and occasionally a third strap to support the heel. Sometimes, especially for solemn occasions, they were made with a peak turning up in front, like Italian shoes of the fourteenth century, and as time went on were turned up at the side (having at first only consisted of a flat sole) and assumed more the shape of moccasins or regular slippers and shoes.

With her extensive wig, skimp linen robe, and bare feet or turned up sandals, the lady of long ago seems to us a curious figure. The Egyptians, to use modern slang, were extremely fond of “sitting upon people,” tables and chairs were upheld by the forms of carven captives and even the royal lady’s dainty foot sometimes pressed the painted image of a slave, as the soles were occasionally lined with cloth and so decorated. Specimen of the papyrus sandals may be seen in many museums, among them Berlin, the Salt collection at Alnwick Castle, the New York Historical Society and other places.

With Cleopatra, Mary Stuart and such world-wide charmers ranks perhaps this celebrated beauty of the earliest times. Of her ancestry we know nothing. Fair hair, rosy cheeks and light complexion seem scarcely to suggest the Egyptian type; yet there is mention made of an occasional instance of fair hair, and the complexions were often a clear, light yellow, growing darker as one went southward. So as a blonde, high-spirited, bewitching, beautiful and vengeful, Nitocris stands before us. Nit-a-ker, “the perfect Nit,” as she is styled in the much injured “Book of the Kings” in the Turin papyrus, where some say two of this name are mentioned. A great contrast we feel her to be, in appearance at least, to Queen Mertytefs; yet both were able women who left their mark on their generation. Like others her name is variously rendered as Nitocris—the best known appellation—Nitokris, the former from the Greek Nitaquert, (Egyptian) Neit-go-ri, or Neit-a-cri.

Her chief claim to remembrance lies in the building of a third pyramid, or more accurately the re-building of one, that of Mankaura or Mencheres. Says Rawlinson, “If Nitocris is really to be regarded as the finisher of the edifice, she must be considered a great queen, one of the few who have left their mark upon the world by the construction of a really great monument.”

She placed a most beautiful casement, or revetement, of Syenitic granite upon the unfinished pyramid of Men-kau-ra, begun a thousand years before, and so important was her part that the whole erection has been sometimes credited to her. She perhaps left the body of Men-kau-ra in a lower chamber, and ordered her own, in a blue basalt sarcophagus, to be placed above. The fine basalt sarcophagus found in this pyramid is said to be hers.