Predecessors of Cleopatra

by Leigh North

In some of the pictures the figures wear pectoral ornaments and a rich necklace, with alternate vermilion and black drops, and a golden yellow belt, studded with red and black stones. The throne is on a blue platform, painted in stripes, red, blue and white. The platform is decorated with gold colored stars and tan crosses, picked out with red. Amon-Ra, the god whom they worship, is here represented with a blue-black complexion, a corselet of gold chain, armor, and a head-dress of towering plumes. On the altar is a blue lotus with a red stalk, and a vessel with a spout like a coffee pot. There are as many varieties of this god in Egypt as of the Madonna in Italy and Spain.

An earthquake in the time of Rameses II may have accounted for the partial overthrow of the statues on the outside of the temple. The cast of a stele in the Louvre states that Rameses II made artesian wells in the desert.

In one of the pictures of the queen she advances with two sistra, the sacred instrument introduced in the Fourth Dynasty, time of Mertytefs. This consists of a frame, somewhat oval in shape, with bars across, strung with rings, which slipped up and down. We can fancy the music produced to be rather Chinese in character and not such as would appeal to Western ears as charming. The priestess of the god was the “divine wife,” or the “divine handmaid,” a position of great honor, even for the queen. The handle of the sistrum in the oldest times was always cow-eared and ornamented with the head of Hathor, the Egyptian Venus.

One of the goddesses to whom the queen is paying honor is Ta-ur-t, who has the face of a woman on the body of a hippopotamus. She wears a wig, and a robe of state with five capes, described as a cross between that of a Lord Chancellor and a coachman. Behind the goddess stand the gods Thoth and Nut.

Thebes was no doubt the chief residence of Queen Nofritari, Tunis that of the Khitan Princess; the king’s enormous domestic establishments probably being in different places. There is a story, who can tell whether it be founded on fact? that the king and queen, by the treacherous dealing of one of the king’s relatives, were shut up in a certain city which was then set on fire, the intriguer doubtless intending to usurp the throne, and that at the queen’s suggestion some of the king’s sons formed their bodies into a bridge by which he might escape, some of them suffering death in consequence.

The great Thebes is said to have been as large as London. On the Eastern bank, the Arabian side of the Nile, stand Karnak and Luxor. On the western or Lybian bank, Goornah, the Rameseum and Medinet Haboo. The Rameseum, a palace and temple combined, faces about half way between Karnak and Luxor. Medinet Haboo is further to the south than any building on the east side of the river. Behind the western group is the great Theban Metropolis, along the Lybian range, further back in radiating valleys, are the Tombs of the Kings. Between Karnak and Luxor is a little less than two miles, from Medinet Haboo to Goornah something under four.

The prostrate statue of Rameses II, near Memphis, so long covered with Nile mud, repeats the lineaments of the Abou Simbel statue. This colossus kept vigil at the gate of the temple and is serene and dignified, even in its overthrow; it is of Syenite and probably stood in front of the temple of Ptah, mentioned both by Herodotus and Diodorus. Says a poetic writer, “I fancy the repose of that court in a Theban sunset, the windless stillness of the air, and cloudlessness of the sky. The king enters, thoughtfully pacing by the calm browed statue, that seems the sentinel of heaven. In the presence of the majestic columns, humanly carved, their hands sedately folded upon their breasts—his weary soul is bathed with peace, as a weary body with living water.” This statue is one of the most pleasing of the many likenesses of Rameses II, and a cast of it has been taken. Mariette said “the head modelled with a grandeur of style which one never tires of admiring, is an authentic portrait of the celebrated conqueror of the Nineteenth Dynasty.”

The pre-nomen of Rameses II was “Ra-usr-mat-setep-en-Ra,” “Sun strong in Truth, approved of the Sun, son of the Sun, Beloved of Amon.” The foot is eleven feet by four feet ten inches, and on the peristyle is inscribed, “I am Osymandies, King of Kings. If any would know how great I am and where I lie, let him excel me in any of my works.”

The passion for building, characteristic of many Egyptian kings, was specially strong in the father and son, Seti I and Rameses II, and the latter completed many structures begun by the former. To Seti I are credited the grand temple of Osiris at Abydos, the temple and palace of Karnak at Thebes, and his tomb, which is said to excel those of the other Theban kings in its sculpture, colored decorations and alabaster sarcophagi. But his Hypostyle Hall at Karnak exceeds them all.

To Rameses II are credited many architectural works along the Nile, from the Delta to the capital of Ethiopia. The list comprises the splendid rock temples at Abou Simbel, in Nubia, just described, the Rammesium or Memnonium, called by Diodorus “the tomb of Osymandius,” on the walls of which are sculptured the story of Rameses’ reign, large portions of the temple palaces of Karnak and Luxor, before which last stands the column whose mate is now in the Place de la Concorde in Paris, a small temple at Abydos, and various works in the Fayum, at Memphis and at Tunis, of which last he was especially fond. In nothing apparently did he take more delight than in erecting gigantic statues of himself.