Predecessors of Cleopatra

by Leigh North

Nefertari Aahmes.

Later researches have proved her to be his half-sister, the daughter of his mother, but not of his father. She was evidently the first daughter of Queen Aah-hotep’s marriage with Sequenenra, and with a more direct title to the succession than her husband, so that there were state reasons as well as private ones for the marriage. From Sequenenra, therefore, he being of the Berber type, she took her coloring and the right of succession, and she may perhaps be said to have been three-quarters black. The name signifies “good or beautiful companion,” and she was regarded with great veneration on earth and shared with her mother, and mother-in-law, divine honors after death.

Thebes, which had risen to political consequence in the time of the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties, was now the royal city, the safest home of the royal family, and was said to have stood to Ethiopia, as well as to Egypt, as Rome did to mediaeval Christendom. It was in Upper Egypt, the sacred city, and devoted to the worship of the god Amen, or Amon, whom the Greeks regarded as their Jove. From here went out the great war chariots and the bands of soldiers to battle, and often, especially at this period, to conquest.

“The chief peculiarity of the Egyptians,” says a writer who is an authority, “is the remarkable closeness of their eyelashes on both lids, forming a dense double fringe, which gives so animated an expression to their almond-shaped eyes.” The very ancient and still existing custom of blackening the edges of the eyelids with antimony (kohl), which is said to serve a sanitary purpose, contributes to enhance this natural expression. The eyebrows are straight and smooth, never bushy. The mouth is wide and thick-lipped, and very different from that of the Beduin or inhabitant of the oases. The high cheek bones, the receding forehead, the lowness of the bridge of the nose (this last in some pictures of the statues of Queen Nefertari-Aahmes being noticeable), which is always distinctly separated from the forehead, and the flatness of the nose itself are the chief characteristics of the Egyptian skull; but as the jaw projects less than those of most of the other African colored races, it has been assumed that the skull is Asiatic and not African in shape. A headless statue at Karnak and statuettes at various places exist. They suggest a queenly bearing, and from these and the general description we must form our mental picture of this dark-skinned lady. A light complexion was much admired, but Queen Nefertari-Aahmes was of different type, and perhaps set the fashion of her own style of beauty; at one place she was painted yellow, and one authority claimed that she was only black in a mythological sense, but it now seems to be agreed that to a Berber father she owed her tint.

The two names, Nefruari and Nefertari, appear to be interchangeable, and probably bear the same relation to each other as Mary and Maria. We can see plainly the difference ’twixt our Jacks and Johns, our Marys and Marias, but the alteration of a single letter in a foreign tongue leaves us somewhat bewildered, and the Nofruaris and the Nefertaris, the Nefrits and the Nofrits, etc., are often very puzzling, and, unless great care is taken, may lead to serious complications and mistakes.

Our knowledge of this period comes largely from two sources, the tomb of a naval officer in the service of Aahmes and the discoveries of comparatively late years, which have brought to light many of the very bodies of the kings, queens and princesses of this and subsequent lines. Even in death the truth of the proverb seems to hold, that “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” and not in what was intended to be their last resting places, but in collections and museums, are gathered many royalties whose eyes looked out on the light of an ancient world.

Aahmes, son of Abuna, directly or indirectly the king’s namesake, was an officer of the ship called “The Calf,” and later served on one named “Ruling in Memphis,” which perhaps celebrated the reconquering of the ancient capital. Of his early life there are some amusing records: “I was too young to have a wife, and slept in the semt cloth and shennu garment.” This was about 1586 B. C., and his age perhaps twenty. Nor, following the example of his sovereigns, does he hesitate to blow his own trumpet “As soon as I had a house,” says the martial hero, “I was taken to a ship called the ‘North’ on account of my valor.” Apparently, he could face the enemy early in life, but not a fair lady. Diospolis, or Thebes, “hundred-gated Thebes,” was now the chief city, and Officer Aahmes saw active service, but survived and was rewarded by his monarch. The chronicle reads: “I brought very many prisoners. I do not reckon them,” and, further, that he was “presented with gold seven times in the face of the whole land.” The story of his exploits on his tomb throws much light upon the history of the time.

In the summer of 1881, in a pit, near Thebes, was found a concourse of mummies, the bodies of many kings and queens, among them Queen Nefertari-Aahmes. The existence of royal tombs had long been suspected from the various articles which had found their way into the market, and the authorities were at length able to secure the Arab who was the chief purloiner. He and his accomplices long obstinately resisted all inducements, even that of imprisonment, to reveal their secret, but finally yielded, and the bodies of various sovereigns of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties (the Twentieth was missing) were found.

The experienced archeologist can tell from the appearance of a mummy case to what period it belongs. The oldest mummy in the world, until recently, about which there was no doubt, is that of Saken-em-saf, son of Pepi I, of the Sixth Dynasty. The mummies of the Eleventh Dynasty are poorly made, brittle and yellowish; those of the Twelfth Dynasty are black, and from these to the Seventeenth are also inferior. But those of the Eighteenth are so finely embalmed that the limbs are pliable and bend without breaking. At Thebes they were generally painted yellow. Alexander the Great is said to have been buried in honey, as was the case with others. Bitumen was used towards the time of the Ptolemies, and grew hard with age. Later still, pieces of wood were inserted, with the face painted upon them.