Nefertari-Aahmes was a devout worshipper of the gods, like her mother before her, and made valuable gifts to the temples, so these funeral rites were doubtless observed with great care and ceremony, especially as she had many children, some of whom survived her, to pay the last tributes of love and respect. The list is given as Meryt-amen, the eldest daughter, who died young; Sat-amen, a second daughter, who died as an infant; Sa’pair, the eldest son, of whom some statuettes and memorials remain, though he also appears to have died young and did not succeed his father; Aah-hotep, doubtless named after the beloved grandmother, and who also became queen later; Amenhotep I, who succeeded his father, and Sat-Kames, a daughter. Besides Nefertari-Aahmes, the king seems to have had another royal wife, called Queen Anhapi, who bore him a daughter, Hent’ta’mehu, and a secondary wife, whose name is preserved as Kasmut, and who bore him Tair and other children. Queen on earth and goddess in heaven though she might be, Queen Aahmes-Nefertari had the common human experience of sorrow; she lost a number of children, and though holding the first place, and doubtless having her own establishment, shared her husband’s attention and affection with various rivals. Yet human ambition could reach no greater height; she was recorded as “the royal daughter, sister and great royal wife, royal mother, great ruler, mistress of both lands.” The ancestress and foundress of her race, she had a priesthood of her own, a large sacred shrine, and was worshipped like the great gods at Abydos, Karnak and Thebes. She is believed to have outlived her husband, and to have reigned temporarily for her son, who was associated with her and worshipped with her at Thebes. “She sits enthroned with her husband,” says one writer, “at the head of all the Pharonic pairs and before all the royal children of their race, as the specially venerated ancestress of the Eighteenth Dynasty.” Her title of wife of the god Amen expressly designated the chief priestess of the tutelary god of Thebes.
The wife and children of Aahmes often adopted or combined his name with their own and encircled it with their cartouch. The king was called “the golden Horus, the binding together of the two lands.” His coffin and body were found at Deir-el-Bahri. The coffin was of the new style, plain in outline, less massive and shaped to the figure behind, painted yellow, picked out with blue, instead of gilt. The body was fairly preserved, the head long and small, with thick and wavy hair, not shaved, as later. The muscles were strong and vigorous, and he might have been something over fifty at the time of his death. Not a long life, but that of a warrior was perhaps necessarily a hard one. The mummy case of the queen was one of the largest and most magnificent ever discovered, and at the time it was found contained also the mummy of Thothmes or Tehutimes III, which, left unexamined and not properly cared for, decomposed, and had to be buried. A headless statue of Queen Aahmes-Nefertari, smaller statuettes, scarabs and a bas-relief or a statue in which she appears with her son Amenophis I exist. So king and queen passed from earth to the delights of heaven, and, as Curtis expresses it, exchanged “the silver for the golden goblet.”
Amenhotep, Amenophis or Amenothes, son of Aahmes and Nefertari-Aahmes, succeeded his father, and married his sister Aah-hotep II, or some say Nefutari, of whom, beyond her name, we know little or nothing. The king was about twenty, she probably younger, at the time. Like his father before him, he was a warrior, and is pictured holding captives by the hair, probably Lydians. His children are given as Uaz’mes, Aahmes, Tehutimes I, Neb’ta and Mutnefert, whose statue is at Karnak. The first two are on the tomb of a certain Peperi, where the king holds Prince Uaz’mes on his knee.
The mummy of the king is among those that have been discovered. It was clothed in an orange robe, held in place by bands of linen. There was a mask of wood and painted pasteboard identical with the outside. He was enveloped from head to foot with long garlands, among which a wasp had crawled, attracted by the flowers, and thus preserved for centuries. According to the traditions, he also was a devout worshipper of the gods, and accorded divine honors. So for all these had come the day when they drew towards “the land that loveth silence.”
CHAPTER EIGHTH.
HATSHEPSUT.
With Hatshepsut, or Hatsu, some 1600 B. C., we come to the most celebrated of all the Egyptian queens, not perhaps excluding the world-renowned Cleopatra, and her reign bears also a noteworthy feature, an especial ornament to a woman’s brow—it was a reign of peace. Her father and brothers, especially the younger, were warriors, but she was not. To the male of all species the fighting instinct more particularly and rightfully belongs. No wars of defence, none of aggression and conquest, disturbed the peaceful course of her rule. The arts flourished, and friendly expeditions sought distant shores to gain fresh knowledge of the outer world, to extend the hand of fellowship, and to exchange in the ordinary channels of commerce the products and manufactures of one land for those of the other.
Hatasu.