Cleopatra's needle

by Sir Erasmus Wilson

The chronology of ancient Egypt is a subject not without its difficulties, open to a variety of opinion, and involved in perplexing uncertainty. Nevertheless, the mind naturally yearns for information as to the time of an occurrence, and the opportunity of comparing it with coincident events. Ptolemy Philadelphus made a first step towards a better state of knowledge, when in the year 250 b.c. he commissioned Manetho, an Egyptian priest, experienced in the learning of Heliopolis, to draw up a list of the kings of Egypt from the earliest times. Manetho performed his task ably; but, alas! the book was injured, and in troublous times a part of it was lost: nevertheless, that which remains is still a valuable record; and had the book been preserved entire, it would have settled many problems at present difficult of solution. Manetho groups the kings of Egypt into thirty-four reigning families or dynasties, each containing a number of kings, and by calculating backwards, from the known to the unknown, he arrives at the year 5504 b.c. as the date of Menes, the first king of the first dynasty; that is to say, nearly seven thousand years from the present time. It is only fair to say, however, that several English authorities, including Sir Gardner Wilkinson, have declared against his dates, and have assumed the year 2700 b.c. to be more correct; Josephus says 2320; Bunsen, 3623; and Brugsch, 4455: in fact, a difference exists, on this point, between the German Egyptologists alone, of upwards of two thousand years. Under such circumstances it is encouraging to meet with an authority like Mariette Bey, Conservator of the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities at Boulak, one who has the best opportunities of investigation, and has devoted himself thoroughly to his work, express his confidence in the fidelity of Manetho’s list, and, at least provisionally, adopt his dynasties and his dates. Modern discoveries, according to Mariette, have tended to corroborate Manetho’s calculations; such, for example, as the tablets of Abydos, of which one is preserved in the British Museum, and more especially the tablet recently found by himself at Sakkarah, in the tomb of an Egyptian priest. Next we have the hieroglyphic evidence of the monuments, beginning with those of Usertesen; and later on, such further elucidation by the engraving on the monuments as serves to bring opposing opinion to an exact agreement. Thus, the date of the reign of Psammeticus I., of the twenty-sixth dynasty, as stated by Wilkinson, is 664 b.c.; while that of Bunsen and Mariette is 665 b.c.; even to a year.

All praise to the good old Egyptian priest, who wrote in Greek the chronology of his country’s rulers; thanks to the industry and labour of Egyptologists, which have resulted in the corroboration of his researches; and thanks also to the Pharaohs who, in the midst of a splendid career of magnificence and victories, have found time for the meditations of the cloister, and have left behind them a consecrated attestation of the succession of their ancestors. In a small and secluded chapel adjoining the sanctuary of the great temple of Karnak, called the Hall of Ancestors, a record was found of Thothmes III. making oblations to sixty-one of his predecessors. This record is preserved in the national library of Paris; and whilst it verifies Manetho’s list, is especially correct as to the succession of the eighteenth dynasty, 1703 to 1464 b.c. The papyrus of Turin, so called from being preserved in that city, contains a list of the kings from the earliest period of Egyptian government, although the papyrus itself is broken into fragments. In the tablet of Abydos, preserved in the British Museum, Rameses II. does homage to fifty ancestors; but the names of twenty are lost. This tablet is a valuable record of the twelfth dynasty, 3064 to 2851 b.c., sustained by the family of Amenemha and Usertesen, and especially of the nineteenth dynasty, 1402 to 1288 b.c., the Ramessean period. A second tablet, similar to the above, and found in a companion temple, the one dedicated to Rameses II., the other to his father Seti, agrees in every respect with the British tablet. And last, though far from being the least, is the tablet of Sakkarah, found by Mariette in the tomb of an Egyptian priest, by name Tounar-i, of the time of Rameses II. The belief already existed in those days, that a well-behaved commoner, when he entered the land of spirits, might be permitted, as a reward of good conduct, to associate with kings; and so Tounar-i would seem to have prepared beforehand a list of his probable visiting acquaintance in the future world. Here he has assembled the cartouches of fifty-eight kings, closely corresponding with Manetho’s list, and naturally with a respectful regard to precedency; so that his prospective visiting list admits of being turned to useful account by his successors. Saqqarah, or as it is commonly written, Sakkarah, is supposed to be the ancient Thinis, the capital of the Pharaohs of the first and second dynasties: the tablet is preserved in the museum at Boulak. On it we should doubtless find delineated the oval of Menes, with those of Cheops, Chephren, and Mycerinus, of the giant Apappus, and the rosy-cheeked but vengeful Nitocris.[22]

The pyramid and the obelisk have something analogous in their form—the four sides and the pointed summit—indeed, the apex of an obelisk, in nearly every case, is a diminutive pyramid, or pyramidion. Both had mystical attributes assigned to them in relation to the worship of the Sun, the “organiser of the world.” The pyramid, with its four sides looking north, south, east, and west, was selected as the tomb of the mummified body which was destined to rise from the dead, and be restored to life at the appointed time. When the pyramid was too costly, a pair of small obelisks stood sentry at the entrance of the tomb, and were in common use during the early dynasties. A considerable number of these relics have been found, and preserved in the Egyptian museum at Boulak. The obelisk of Syenite granite, however, belongs to a later period; it may have come into use before the twelfth dynasty, before the reign of Usertesen; but the Heliopolis obelisk is generally admitted to be the pioneer of the colossal obelisks of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, of the reigns of the Thothmeses and of the Ramseses. These latter were not funereal, but, on the contrary, were triumphal, and took the place of triumphal arches of modern times. On the facets of the pyramidion, and at the top of the shaft immediately below it, were usually engraved figures denoting supplication and gifts, by the Pharaoh who dedicates the monument, to the gods whom he intends to propitiate; it might be wine, or it might be milk; and occasionally, as at Heliopolis and at Karnak, the pyramidion was capped with metal, sometimes gold, from the countries which had been conquered in battle; sometimes burnished copper or bronze, which might represent the spoils of war, or by the reflection of its rays, an artificial sun; while certain of the obelisks are said to have been more extensively ornamented with metal.

We have ample evidence of the great care which has been bestowed on the preparation and finish of these Syenite obelisks: for example, the deep carving of the central column of hieroglyphs, and the shallow cutting of the side columns; the polish of the hollows of the hieroglyph to their extremest depth; and more strikingly still, in the gentle swell of the face of the shaft, intending to correct an error of reflection of light. This latter feature is especially noticeable in connection with the Luxor obelisks; and it has been observed, that but for this slight convexity, the surfaces of the column would have had the appearance of being concave.

The carvings of the obelisks usually began at the pyramidion occupying its lower half, and the inscriptions were engraven in narrow columns, each occupying one-third of the breadth of the shaft, the central column being the chief. Where the pyramidion was capped with metal, the engraving was absent on that part, as in the case of Usertesen’s obelisk. In this obelisk we have also an example of a single column of inscriptions. In other instances, as in several of the Thothmes obelisks, and notably the British obelisk, the side spaces which were originally left blank, have been filled up by a successor of the founder, as in the case of Rameses II. The columns are to be read perpendicularly from top to bottom, and the base is sometimes decorated with symbols of thanksgiving. The inscriptions themselves were, for the most part, all of a similar character:—The Pharaoh approaches the deity with gifts, and on bended knee supplicates his blessing; this the deity vouchsafes; then, with floating banner, the standard of the king, the potentate recites his origin, his titles, and his deeds of usefulness and glory, rarely failing to include among them the raising of the obelisk; lastly, he finishes by a declaration of his power as a descendant of the sun, of giving life like his progenitor for everlasting.

Mr. W. R. Cooper, the Honorary Secretary of the Society of Biblical Archæology, has favoured us with the following translation of the hieroglyphs engraven on the British obelisk, extracted from Burton’s “Excerpta Hieroglyphica.” The illustration is, necessarily, limited to the three sides then exposed to view, and begins with the central column of each, containing the legend of Thothmes III.

First Side.—“The kingly Horus, strong bull, crowned in Thebes, the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ra-men-kheper; he made (this) in his monuments to his father, Horemakhou; he erected two very great obelisks, capped with gold, (when he celebrated) the panegyry of his father, who loves him. He did (it), the son of the sun, Thothmes, the best of existences, beloved of Horemakhou.”

Second Side.—“The kingly Horus, strong bull, ruling in truth, the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ra-men-kheper. For him the lord of gods has multiplied the panegyrics (intervals of thirty years) in Habennou (the Temple of the Sun, in Heliopolis), knowing that he is his son, the elder, the divine flesh, issuing (from himself). The son of the sun, Thothmes, lord of Heliopolis, beloved of Horemakhou.”

Third Side.—“The kingly Horus, strong bull, beloved of Ra (the sun), the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ra-men-kheper. His father Tum has established him, making for him a grandeur of name in expanded royalty ... in Heliopolis, (and) giving him the throne of Seb (and) the office of khepra; the son of the sun, Thothmes, the best of existences, beloved of the Bennou (sacred bird) of Heliopolis.”

In the lateral columns, Rameses speaks as follows:—