Predecessors of Cleopatra

by Leigh North

Henut-tani was the queen of Usertesen III, the conqueror of Nubia, and she was called queen consort, but not royal mother. Queen Merseker and Queen Haankn’s are also mentioned as queens of the Usertesens. And the queens and princesses were frequently priestesses to Nit or Hathor.

The temple of Kounah built by Amenhotep III is said to have contained 700 statues of the lion-headed goddess Seckmet, but they were rather the work of the artisan than the artist and far below the level of the sculpture of this period. There is a bust of Amenemhat III at St. Petersburgh. His reign was distinguished by the construction of Lake Moeris, an artificial reservoir of which traces yet remain, and of the great Labyrinth whose purpose has not been made clear, but the ruins of which were discovered by Dr. Lepsius, in the Prussian Expedition to Egypt. Lake Moeris, with its network of canals, made all the land of the flat basin of the Fayum a fertile garden and the fisheries of the lake were of great value and formed part of the revenues of the queen.

It was a period of wealth and luxury. All the furniture, rosewood from India, ebony from the far south, cedar from the slopes of Lebanon, and pine from Syria was exquisitely carved. The walls were frescoed and painted, decorated with vases for flowers and perfumes and with an altar for unburnt offerings, and the rooms were in suites of chambers, sitting rooms, and bath. The roof was flat, generally shaded with awning, and hosts and guests could sit or lie upon it and enjoy the air and the view.

“The opulent Egyptian,” says Monumental Records, “of the time of Amenemhat II had his country seat, like our modern prince. Its high-walled garden was watered by a canal leading from the Nile. Along the sides of this canal were walks shaded by the yellow blossomed acacia, the sycamore and the Theban palm. In the centre of the garden was a vineyard, the branches trained over trellis work and so forming a rustic boudoir, with broad green leaves and clusters of red grapes on the walls. At one end of the garden stood a summer house or kiosk; in front of this was a pond covered with broad leaves and blue flowers of the lotus, through which water fowl sported. This pond was stocked with fish and the host invited his guest to join him in spearing or angling. Adjoining this were the stables and coach houses, with a park near by, in which gazelles were bred for coursing—for the gentry of old Egypt were lovers of the chase. In hunting wild ducks they made use of decoys and trained cats to retrieve. They speared hippopotami in the Nile and hunted lions in the desert with dogs. They were pigeon-fanciers and were proud of rare varieties.” In short one is “amazed to see in studying their social enjoyments their resemblance to our own.”

The goddess Bast in the time of the ancient Empire was represented with the head of a lioness and only in the Twelfth with that of a cat. The cat and Dongalese dog were first represented on the walls of Beni-Hasan in the time of the raids of the kings into Kush or Ethiopia, the Usertesens and Amenemhats. There are cat cemeteries belonging to this time where the skulls are larger than those of our common cats and also where the animals had been cremated, while in Upper Egypt, in the Fayum, they were found mummified and bandaged.

This dynasty closes, as did the Sixth, with a queen. Little as we know of her she was a ruling monarch and gives her name to this chapter, as she appears to have been the only one of this race who actually swayed the sceptre in her own right. She was the daughter of Amenemhat III and probably sister and wife of Amenemhat IV, whom she succeeded. As her name takes precedence of his on the monuments they probably did not have the same mother and hers may have been of higher lineage than his. Queen Sebek-nefru-ra, or Sorknofrituri, is known chiefly from the traces of her short reign found near Illahun, fragments of pillars bearing her name beside the pre-nomen of her father. These or some portion of them are to be seen in the British Museum. According to the Turin papyrus she reigned three years, eight months and eighteen days, but no tradition has come down to us of her appearance or personality and no romance or tragic story of her life or fate.

Amenemhat III had also another daughter, Phat-neferu, who probably died before her sister and was buried beside her father. Memorials of her are an alabaster altar, a block of black granite, with names and titles and a broken dish, inscribed “King’s daughter, Ptah-neferu.” A sphinx of grey granite is thought to be Queen Sebek-nefrura, because different from the others, which is of course not very conclusive proof and at Hawara her name occurs as often as that of her father on columns and blocks, and there is a cylinder of white schist, glazed blue, of unusual size and bearing all her titles, also a scarab. But it is but little after all that we know of her.

A romance has been discovered of this dynasty in the earlier period, in a story of which a beginning is found on a piece of broken limestone, the end of the tale having been for some time previously preserved on a papyrus in the Berlin Museum. Probably it was a favorite piece of literature, like the adventures of Robinson Crusoe to the English speaking world, and might have been found in various forms. A certain Senebat, an Egyptian, having overheard a state secret and fearing that if this were discovered his life might pay the forfeit, fled to Syria. Wandering in the desert and almost dying of thirst he was found by some of the wild tribes, saved and adopted by them and in time rose to the rank of chief. But homesickness at last overtook him and he sent an appeal to the Egyptian king for permission to return. He was then invited to court, where he wrote a curious account of his adventures and the manners and customs of the Bedouins. He was much honored, being received by the queen and family while the royal daughters performed a dance and sang a chorus of praise to the king. The monarch even distinguished him by taking an interest in the tomb which he prepared and at the end of a sort of triumphal song, Senebat, says, “I was in favor with the king to the day of his death.”

The Twelfth Dynasty is also interesting to us as being contemporaneous with the birth of the Jewish nation, the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

A stele bears the names of the daughters or aunts of the deceased king Sebek-hotep II adoring Min, and their names are Anhetabu and Anget-dudu, born of Queen Nen-na. The parents of Sebek-hotep II are spoken of as “the divine father Men-tuhotep III” and royal mother, Anhet-abu, after whom evidently one of the daughters or grand-daughters was called. The name Sebek-hotep was a favorite. The father of Nefer-hotep and Sebek-hotep III was Ha’ankh’s, his mother Kema, his wife Sebsen and he had four royal children. A statement of facts probably, but with little accompanying detail. Sebek-hotep IV had for his queen Nub-em-hat and his daughter was Sebek-emhat, and there is a certain Pernub, probably of this family, descended from Queen Ha’ankh’s.