Predecessors of Cleopatra

by Leigh North

The museum of the London Universary possesses the blue lettered portal of the tomb of Amenemhat, son of Hor-ho-tep and his mother Erdus. Near Silsileh is a tablet on which we see a queen behind Neb-kher-ra and we read of “The royal mother his beloved Aah,” of the Eleventh or Twelfth Dynasty. A certain queen, Mentu-hotep, is known by her coffin and toilette box and there is a copy of an inscription, now destroyed, which reads “Great royal wife Mentu-hotep, begotten of the vizier the keeper of the palace, Semb-hena-f, born of the heiress Sebek-hotep.” So that this royal lady was not of foreign lineage, but probably of princely blood by the mother’s side. A certain Prince Heru-nefer is mentioned as the son of King Menhotep and the “great royal wife,” Shertsat; while at Kha-taneh we find record of Queen Sent, heiress, royal wife and royal mother. Almost empty names which give to their bearers but little individuality.

Amenemhat I associated with him as co-regent his son Ousertesen, or Usertesen I, as in after years his descendant Thothmes I did his daughter Hatasu, and Usestesen succeeded his father. For this son, apparently much beloved, Amenemhat wrote a series of “Instructions” which have been preserved and form an interesting page in the history of the time. We are reminded of Lord Chesterfield’s Letters to his son, though the former deal with different subjects than manners and deportment, and Usertesen was an abler man and better repaid his father’s interest than did the youthful Chesterfield. This treatise contained the usual self-glorifying records. “I conquered the Ethiopians. I led the Lybians. I made the Asiatics run before me like greyhounds.”

From the pictures in the grottoes of Benee or Beni Hasan, by the Arabs called “Stahl Haman, Pigion Stable,” which are sixty feet square and forty high, impressive ruins, we view the plain of Siout and gain much of our knowledge of these times. They were rock tombs in the face of the mountain above the level of the Nile, containing memorials of a series of ministers of State to the early monarchs of this race, perhaps favored and appreciated as U’na of the Sixth Dynasty. The power of the nobles seems to have been greater, the kings less autocratic than at an earlier period.

Palms, sycamores, fragrant acasias, mimosas and acanthus grow around Siout and the air is fragrant with the rich odor of flowers. Bayard Taylor thus describes the view of the plain of Siout viewed from these grotto tombs. “Seen through the entrance it has a magical effect. From the grey twilight of the hall in which you stand, the green of the fields, the purple of the distant mountains and the blue of the sky dazzle your eyes as if tinged with the broken rays of a prism.”

Of Amenemhat’s wife and Usertesen’s mother there seems no trace. Usertisen I had a brilliant reign, to which the obelisk remaining at Heliopolis, the fragments of statues at Tanis and the inscriptions in the Sienaitic peninsula bear witness—some of these last are in the Naples museum. It is a curious detail that at the obelisk of Heliopolis it is said that the inscriptions on three sides, deeply cut, are almost obliterated by the cells of bees, which have made nests in the hieroglyphics.

A great father was succeeded by a lesser son in Amenemhat II, of whose wife there is little or no record. His son, Usertesen II, was the builder of the pyramid of Illahun, where comparatively recent discoveries, those of M. de Morgan in 1892-3-4 have brought to light various remains of this period and the belongings of the sisters, wives and daughters of the Amenemhats and Usertesens. Tombs, robbed and despoiled in the time of the Hyksos and the Eighteenth Dynasty, yet yielded to the more careful research of later explorations hidden treasures, workmen’s tools of various sorts, and the ornaments, etc., of these long ago queens and princesses. This is often of the finest quality and equals if not excels, in the skill of the craftsman, that earlier discovered elsewhere, belonging to the Eighteenth Dynasty.

Usertesen II had a wife named Nofrit or Nefert. The Gizeh museum has a statue of her, in granite, in the general character of the sculpture of the Tanite school. It goes almost without saying that it is mutilated, the eyes formerly inlaid, have fallen out, the bronze eyelids are lost, the arms have disappeared, but enough remains to show a young and beautiful woman, the fine outlines of whose youthful form are seen through the usual narrow linen robe. The head is adorned, or disfigured, with the heavy wig worn by the goddess Hathor, the Egyptian Venus, of which two enormous tresses surround the cheeks and curl outward on the breasts. The queen also wears on her bosom a pectoral or ornament bearing the name of her husband. Her titles are “Hereditary princess,” perhaps the daughter of the former king, “the great favorite, the highly praised, the beloved consort of the king, the ruler of all women, the king’s daughter of his body, Nefert.” The title ruler or princess is peculiar and suggests some prerogative of the government of the female half of the population. Maspero believes that a statue of this same queen may be found in the collection now in Marseilles.

Usertesen II and Queen Nefert seem to have been blessed with a number of children and various daughters’ names are given, Atmu-neferu, Sat-hathor and Sent-s-senb. In the subterranean chamber at Dashur or Dahshour, in the pyramid of Illahur, the tomb of Usertesen II, before referred to, was found a chest for Canopic jars and vases for perfumes, dishes of fowl, wheat grains, a table for writing, a white swan carved in wood, canes and jewelry, crowns, diadems and a gold vulture. The aperture in the ceiling above beings closed by a stone had escaped the notice of the earlier depredators whose purpose was in no way the cause of science. Contrary to the usage of the Old Empire, but in conformity with that of the Twelfth Dynasty, these sepulchral chambers do not contain the carved names of the sovereign proprietors, but these are learned from texts on the wooden coffins and on vases. We have the tombs of the Princess Iza and Knumit, the tomb of Prince Khuma-Nub and the tombs of the Princess Sit-hat and Ita-Qurt, “issues of royal blood” of the family of Amenhotep II. Of the Amenemhats we have a list of the sisters, wives and daughters, Queen Sonit, of whom there is a statuette in black granite, Nofirhonit, Soubit, Sithathor and Monit, names only of whose private history nothing remains to us.

The Princesses Knumit and Iza left much jewelry; the former, probably the daughter of Amenemhat II, was evidently the more important person, with the richer treasures. Among the rest a large necklace with beads of silver, gold, carnelian, emerald, lapis-lazuli and hieroglyphic signs in gold, crusted with precious stones. These were in sheathing of painted and gilded paste, through which some of the network and jewels had escaped. There was also a crown of lotus flowers, of jewelry, which was so arranged that the wearer could place in it various plumes or feathers, to be changed at pleasure.