History of Egypt, Chald?a, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12)

Project Gutenberg, Gaston Camille Charles Maspero, A.H. Sayce, M. L. Mcclure

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• Publié par: fyam
• Nombre de lectures: 27
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt, Chald a, Syria, � Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12), by G. Maspero This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: History Of Egypt, Chald a, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of � 12) Author: G. Maspero Editor: A.H. Sayce Translator: M.L. McClure Release Date: December 16, 2005 [EBook #17326] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF EGYPT, CHALD A ***� Produced by David Widger [Illustration: Spines] [Illustration: Cover] HISTORY OF EGYPT CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA By G. MASPERO, Honorable Doctor of Civil Laws, and Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford; Member of the Institute and Professor at the College of France Edited by A. H. SAYCE, Professor of Assyriology, Oxford Translated by M. L. McCLURE, Member of the Committee of the Egypt Exploration Fund CONTAINING OVER TWELVE HUNDRED COLORED PLATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS Volume VI. LONDON THE GROLIER SOCIETY PUBLISHERS [Illustration: Frontispiece][Illustration: Titlepage] [Illustration: 001.jpg Page Image] _THE CLOSE OF THE THEBAN EMPIRE--(continued)_ _RAMSES III.: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS--POPULATION--THE PREDOMINANCE OF AMON AND HIS HIGH PRIESTS._ _The Theban necropolis: mummies--The funeral of a rich Theban: the procession of the offerings and the funerary furniture, the crossing of the Nile, the tomb, the farewell to the dead, the sacrifice, the coffins, the repast of the dead, the song of the Harper--The common ditch--The living inhabitants of the necropolis: draughtsmen, sculptors, painters--The bas-reliefs of the temples and the tombs, wooden statuettes, the smelting of metals, bronze--The religions of the necropolis: the immorality and want of discipline among the people: workmen s strikes._ _Amon and the beliefs concerning him: his kingdom over the living and the dead, the soul's destiny according to the teaching of Amon--Khons � and his temple; the temple of Amon at Karnak, its revenue, its priesthood--The growing influence of the high priests of Amon under the sons of Ramses III.: Hamsesnakl ti, Amen thes; the violation of the � � royal burying-places--Hrihor and the last of the Ramses, Smend s and the � accession to power of the XXIst dynasty: the division of Egypt into two States--The priest-kings of Amon masters of Thebes under the suzerainty of the Tanite Pharaohs--The close of the Theban empire._ [Illustration: 003.jpg Page Image] CHAPTER I--THE CLOSE OF THE THEBAN EMPIRE--(continued) _Ramses III.: Manners and Customs--Population--The predominance of Amon and his high priests._ Opposite the Thebes of the living, Khaf tn b s, the Thebes of the dead, � � � had gone on increasing in a remarkably rapid manner. It continued to extend in the south-western direction from the heroic period of the XVIIIth dynasty onwards, and all the eminence and valleys were gradually appropriated one after the other for burying-places. At the time of which I am speaking, this region formed an actual town, or rather a chain of villages, each of which was grouped round some building constructed by one or other of the Pharaohs as a funerary chapel. Towards the north, opposite Karnak, they clustered at Drah-abu'l-Neggah around pyramids of the first Theban monarchs, at Qurneh around the mausol of Ramses I. and Seti I., and at Sheikh � Abd el-Qurneh they lay near the Amenopheum and the Pamonkaniq m t, � � or Ramesseum built by Ramses II. Towards the south they diminished in number, tombs and monuments becoming fewer and appearing at wider intervals; the Migdol of Ramses III. formed an isolated suburb, that of Azam t, at Medinet-Habu; the chapel of Isis, constructed by Amen� thes, � son of Hap , formed a rallying-point for the huts of the hamlet of� Karka;* and in the far distance, in a wild gorge at the extreme limit of human habitations, the queens of the Ramesside line slept their last sleep. * The village of Karka or Kaka was identified by Brugsch with the hamlet of De r el-Medineh: the founder of the � temple was none other than Amen thes, who was minister under � Amen thes III.� [Illustration: 004.jpg THE THEBAN CEMETERIES] Each of these temples had around it its enclosing wall of dried brick, and the collection of buildings within this boundary formed the Kh r , � � or retreat of some one of the Theban Pharaohs, which, in the official language of the time, was designated the "august Kh r of millions of � � years." [Illustration: 005.jpg THE NECROPOLIS OF SHE KH AND EL-QURNEH] � Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato. A sort of fortified structure, which was built into one of the corners, served as a place of deposit for the treasure and archives, and could be used as a prison if occasion required.* * This was the hliatm , the dungeon, frequently mentioned in � the documents bearing upon the necropolis. The remaining buildings consisted of storehouses, stables, and houses for the priests and other officials. In some cases the storehouses were constructed on a regular plan which the architect had fitted in with that of the temple. Their ruins at the back and sides of the Ramesseum form a double row of vaults, extending from the foot of the hills to the border of the cultivated lands. Stone recesses on the roof furnished shelter for the watchmen.* The outermost of the village huts stood among the nearest tombs. The population which had been gathered together there was of a peculiar character, and we can gather but a feeble idea of its nature from the surroundings of the cemeteries in our own great cities. Death required, in fact, far more attendants among the ancient Egyptians than with us. The first service was that of mummification, which necessitated numbers of workers for its accomplishment. Some of the workshops of the embalmers have been discovered from time to time at Sheikh Abd el-Qurneh and De r el-Bahar , but we are still in ignorance � � as to their arrangements, and as to the exact nature of the materials which they employed. A considerable superficial space was required, for the manipulations of the embalmers occupied usually from sixty to eighty days, and if we suppose that the average deaths at Thebes amounted to fifteen or twenty in the twenty-four hours, they would have to provide at the same time for the various degrees of saturation of some twelve to fifteen hundred bodies at the least.** * The discovery of quantities of ostraca in the ruins of these chambers shows that they served partly for cellars. ** I have formed my estimate of fifteen to twenty deaths per day from the mortality of Cairo during the French occupation. This is given by R. Desgenettes, in the _Description de l'Egypte_, but only approximately, as many deaths, especially of females, must have been concealed from the authorities; I have, however, made an average from the totals, and applied the rate of mortality thus obtained to ancient Thebes. The same result follows from calculations based on more recent figures, obtained before the great hygienic changes introduced into Cairo by