Predecessors of Cleopatra

by Leigh North

A fine illustration of female clothing and adornment is given in the standing statue of the Dame or Lady “Takarshit.” She wears a short wig, in rows of curls, and an embroidered band across her head, a very scant, narrow, and short robe, which almost makes us wonder how she had free play for her limbs (this, too, is embroidered in rows with religious subjects), and she has bracelets and chains on her wrists and arms. The face is older than the figure, as the Egyptians in sculpture would occasionally unite the beauty of youthful form with that of the more mature head and countenance.

The list of Queen Aah-hotep’s treasures, habited, as we can picture her to be, in the garb just described, is a long one. On the gilded coffin lid she is represented with face uncovered and body enveloped in wings of Isis. This goddess was a special object of worship at this time, as later in the Ptolemaic period also. Among the most interesting of the trinkets is a little golden boat set on a wheeled wooden carriage and manned with small figures, the central one of which is her son, King Kames, or, as it was originally thought, her husband. He is going to Abydos, and holds in his hand an axe and a sceptre. There is also another little silver boat with its crew of rowers. A diadem as small as a bracelet for the wrist was found attached to the head of the queen, and terminated in tiny sphinxes, with the name of Aahmes engraved in letters of gold upon a groundwork of lapis-lazuli. A funeral collar, prescribed by the ritual, has designs of animals in chased gold, the figures outlined by fine gold wires, like Chinese cloissonne, between paste and colored stones. The coloring of all this enamel is particularly rich. There are three massive gold bees, possibly intended as the decoration for some order; also silver bees. A necklace with hanging ornaments in the shape of red and blue almonds. A box in the form of a royal cartouch as a large seal guarded by two sphinxes. A magnificent chain with the head of a goose at either end, the name of King Aahmes on the neck and the scarabeus or sacred beetle hanging from it.

Necklaces of gold and silver, rings and bracelets, the former with little figures of the gods, or amulets of various sorts hanging from them, were much worn; and it is said that after the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, owing to Phoenician influences, the bracelets usually terminated in lions’ heads. These amulets were supposed to preserve the wearer from harm, both in a present and a future world, and the gods themselves, strange to say, sought such protection. The “evil eye,” still thought to exist in our comparatively modern life, as witness the Salem witchcraft craze, was especially dreaded, and there were various designs to ward off its ill effects. Among these were outstretched fingers; “Ut-a’” eyes, sometimes with wings and hands, holding a disk, in different substances; the right symbolized the king, as the sun, the left, the queen, as the moon, and, either sculptured or worn, guarded the owner from this particular form of harm.

The heart amulet and the scarab or scarabeus was very common. Many curious notions prevailed about this insect. It was believed to be of only one sex, and women ate it to induce fecundity. The fact that the male and female closely resemble each other and share in the care of their offspring probably was the foundation of this idea. A remarkable example of a scarab was taken from the mummy of Tahut’mes III. It was of steatite, glazed, of a greenish purple hue, in a hold frame bound across. There was a figure of Tahut’mes kneeling, with crown on head, and the whip, signifying authority, in his hand, while with the other he made an offering to the god. A dog was represented in front and a hawk behind him, and a gold loop was attached to hang the scarab to the chain on the neck. All Egyptians loved jewelry, the men as well as the women wearing necklaces, collars, etc., of gold, silver, beads and precious stones. Great use was made of carnelian, lapis lazuli, jasper, etc., and ladies would occupy themselves, as do the blind of our own time, in stringing glass beads and bugles into network, which in these latter days is used to trim the clothing of the living, while with the Egyptian it was chiefly for the adornment of the dead.

A chapter from the Book of the Dead was found on a scarab of the time of Mycerinas. These scarabs seem to have been of three classes; the first merely for ornament, the second for historic record, and the third for funeral purposes. They sometimes bore the names of kings earlier than those with whose mummies they have been found. A signet ring was of special importance and a necessary article among the belongings of either king or queen, as also of many others of less elevated rank. It was the same thing as the signing of a personal name at the present time—they sealed instead of signing, and when an Eastern monarch wished to send special orders he would sometimes intrust his signet ring to the bearer in token of authority. This ring was of gold or less valuable material, according to the rank of the owner. Many examples of a pretty class of ring made of faience, in blue, green, purple, etc., and manufactured at Tel-el-Amarna, the city built by Amen-hotep IV, formerly called Khu-n-aten, in the latter part of the Eighteenth Dynasty have been found, and are among the collections in various museums.

Some of these collections have sets of ornaments belonging to ancient kings and queens. Berlin has that of an Ethiopean Candace. The Louvre that of a Prince Pzar, with griffins and lotus. Also a ring of Rameses II, with little horses standing on the bezel. At Gizeh are heavy earrings of Rameses IX, with filagree chains and uræus, and bracelets of Pinotem in gold encrusted with stones, like those made to-day in the Soudan. The later discoveries of this sort, belonging to the latter period of the Egyptian Empire, show Greek influences. But the most extensive, tasteful and finely wrought of these objects was the parure of Queen Aah-hotep. Chains to the women were as essential as rings to the men; a woman was indeed poor if her jewel box held only one.

As the North American Indian slays the favorite horse and lays beside his dead chief bows and arrows for use in the “happy hunting grounds,” so the Egyptian placed in the tomb of his revered and beloved things that he used in daily life. At one time it was even the custom in the case of a king to kill some of his slaves, whose souls might accompany and attend upon him, but this cruel practice was not kept up. For service in another existence, food, furniture and personal belongings surrounded the dead in his grave, as they had done the living in his household; and, in the case of a woman especially, all her feminine appliances for the toilette and many of her ornaments and jewels were included. Some were what had belonged to her in the past, some were newly prepared for the future state. Even faded flowers hundreds of years old have been discovered, and fruit has been found with mummies of the Eleventh Dynasty.

One museum possesses a sarcophagus of a priest of Maut and a prophet of Queen Aah-hotep. To her the priests of Amen rendered divine honors. On the inside of the coffin are invocations to the divine Amenophis II (a descendant of the queen’s), and also to both Queens Aah-hotep and Nefertari Ahmes. The coffin of the former was not so gigantic as that of the latter, and somehow one pictures her as rather smaller and more feminine looking than the daughter who succeeded her in the royal honors, with the thick eyelashes blackened with kohl, the straight brows, the almond-shaped eyes and the other features characteristic of the Egyptian face. Into the future life in which the Egyptian believed so ardently she stepped, after a long pilgrimage in this world, accompanied by all the little devices which had made her comfort and pleasure here, to be honored and revered as she had been accustomed to be in the lower world.

Among the valued amulets was the buckle, or “Tie,” made of jasper, carnelian, porphery, red glass, faience and sycamore wood, more rarely of gold. The red material stood for the blood of Isis, and this amulet was put on the neck of a mummy for its protection. Such were usually without inscription, but two found together would occasionally be inscribed with a chapter from the Book of the Dead. The “Tet,” made of gold, sometimes had plumes, when it signified Osiris and meant firmness. This also was for protection. Serpents’ heads guarded from their bites in another world. The vulture amulet was of gold, but was not common. It referred to “Mother Isis,” and bore such inscriptions from the Book of the Dead as “His Mother, the mighty lady, makes his protection and brings him to Horus.” This was sometimes suspended from the usual gold collar worn by the dead. The “anck,” or life sign, was something like a small cross with an oval ring on top instead of the upper arm, and was very frequent. The amulet “Nefer” was for good luck. “Maut,” always worn by the god Ptah, was a frequent emblem of Hathor. Frogs, disks, plumes, etc., were of this list. Some of these, and more, probably surrounded Queen Aah-hotep.

In a pectoral on her breast King Ahmes was represented, while the two divinities Amen and Ra poured the water of purification on his head; they stand in a little green temple. Bracelets for the ankle or upper arm were simple rings of gold, massive, solid or hollow, edged with threads of gold to represent filagree. Others worn at the wrist, like ours, were formed of beads of gold, lapis lazuli, carnelian and green feldspar, mounted on threads of gold and disposed in squares in which half was a different color. The fastenings were two gold plates united by an aiglet of gold, the cartouch of Ahmes engraved lightly at the point. Some of the bracelets were more complicated but not so fine in workmanship—three parallel bands garnished with turquoise. There was also a vulture, the queen’s special ornament, with outstretched wings; also the heads of sparrow-hawks. Some of the ornaments were attached to the cloth in which the mummy was wrapped by rings. But for what we may call the trousseau of a bride of the tomb, jewelry was not sufficient. Arms, with which she was to protect herself, or be protected, from the evil spirits of another world, were also provided and placed with her. There was a unique specimen of a baton, bent at the extremity and adorned with a spiral of gold. Such forms as this are found to-day among the inhabitants of Nubia and the Soudan, but probably have not the same meaning. An axe was ornamented with gold and precious stones, inlaid, and with a picture of the warlike Aahmes slaying an enemy. Handles of knives in ebony were carved with the lotus. There were poinards with female heads, and sheaths with raised ornaments of damascened gold and inscriptions. On the blade on one side was “The beneficent god Ra-neb-pebti, life giver, as the sun, ever.” On the other, “The son of the sun and of his side Aahmes-nakht—life giver and always.” One hatchet had a handle of horn and a silver blade. A poinard had a yellow bronze blade and silvered handle, and there was also a clasp of bronze with holes left for ostrich feathers.