To accomplish these great architectural designs required an immense army of workmen and no monarch was more ruthless in his expenditure of human life. Some have believed that to this period belongs in large part the slavery of the Hebrews, whose cries reached the very ears of Heaven and it is said that he deported whole tribes to accomplish his purposes. History repeats itself; as in the earlier reigns, during the structure of the pyramids, and Queen Nofritari Minimut, like Queen Mertytefs, must have witnessed much suffering and viewed it perhaps with a like indifference. Proud of her husband’s deeds and accomplishments, what mattered the cost of such monuments. Of little more value than an insect’s life was that of the innumerable slaves that bowed, trembled and toiled at the great monarch’s command. We can believe that the sound of the taskmaster’s whip woke no echo of pity in that haughty breast. Devotion to the gods, exultation in her husband, more or less passionate devotion to her children, these left no room for the consideration of the life and sorrows of a slave.
“By the Nile the sacred river
I can see the captive hordes
Bend beneath the lash and quiver
At the long papyrus cords;
While in granite wrapt and solemn
Rising over roof and column
Amen-Hotep dreams or Rameses,
Lord of Lords.”
So the curtain drops over the queen in the zenith of her powers, and we hear the tinkle of her sistrum, faintly, faintly down the centuries. Priestess, queen, wife, mother, statue, shadow—thus she stands smiling stonily, yet sweetly, on succeeding ages. Rich in this world’s goods, beloved of Heaven. Yet did she, too, exclaim with Solomon, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!” Who can tell?