Book: The Treasury of Ancient Egypt

A >> Arthur E. P. B. Weigall >> The Treasury of Ancient Egypt




When the mummy of Akhnaton was discovered and was proved to be that of a
man of twenty-eight years of age, many persons doubted the
identification on the grounds that the king was known to have been
married at the time when he came to the throne, seventeen years before
his death,[1] and it was freely stated that a marriage at the age of ten
or eleven was impossible and out of the question. Thus it actually
remained for the writer to point out that the fact of the king's death
occurring seventeen years after his marriage practically fixed his age
at his decease at not much above twenty-eight years, so unlikely was it
that his marriage would have been delayed beyond his eleventh year.
Those who doubted the identification on such grounds were showing all
too clearly that the manners and customs of the Egyptians of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, so many of which have come down
intact from olden times, were unknown to them.

[Footnote 1: Weigall: Life of Akhnaton, p. 56.]

Here we come to the root of the trouble. The Egyptologist who has not
resided for some time in Egypt is inclined to allow his ideas regarding
the ancient customs of the land to be influenced by his
unconsciously-acquired knowledge of the habits of the west. Men do not
marry before the age of eighteen or twenty in Europe: therefore they did
not do so in Egypt. There are streams of water upon the mountains in
Europe: therefore water may be hoisted upon the hillsides in Egypt. But
is he blind that he sees not the great gulf fixed between the ways of
the east and those of his accustomed west? It is of no value to science
to record the life of Thutmosis III. with Napoleon as our model for it,
nor to describe the daily life of the Pharaoh with the person of an
English king before our mind's eye. Our European experience will not
give us material for the imagination to work upon in dealing with Egypt.
The setting for our Pharaonic pictures must be derived from Egypt alone;
and no Egyptologist's work that is more than a simple compilation is of
value unless the sunlight and the sandy glare of Egypt have burnt into
his eyes, and have been reflected on to the pages under his pen.

The archaeologist must possess the historic imagination, but it must be
confined to its proper channels. It is impossible to exert this
imagination without, as a consequence, a figure rising up before the
mind partially furnished with the details of a personality and fully
endowed with the broad character of an individual. The first lesson,
thus, which we must learn is that of allowing no incongruity to appear
in our figures. A king whose name has survived to us upon some monument
becomes at once such a reality that the legends concerning him are apt
to be accepted as so much fact. Like John Donne once* says--

"Thou art so true, that thoughts of thee suffice
To make dreams truth, and fables histories."

*Transcriber's note: Original text read "one".

But only he who has resided in Egypt can judge how far the fables are to
be regarded as having a nucleus of truth. In ancient history there can
seldom be sufficient data at the Egyptologist's disposal with which to
build up a complete figure; and his puppets must come upon the stage
sadly deficient, as it were, in arms, legs, and apparel suitable to
them, unless he knows from an experience of modern Egyptians how to
restore them and to clothe them in good taste. The substance upon which
the imagination works must be no less than a collective knowledge of the
people of the nation in question. Rameses must be constructed from an
acquaintance with many a Pasha of modern Egypt, and his Chief Butler
must reflect the known characteristics of a hundred Beys and Effendis.
Without such "padding" the figures will remain but names, and with names
Egyptology is already overstocked.

It is remarkable to notice how little is known regarding the great
personalities in history. Taking three characters at random: we know
extremely little that is authentic regarding King Arthur; our knowledge
of the actual history of Robin Hood is extremely meagre; and the precise
historian would have to dismiss Cleopatra in a few paragraphs. But let
the archaeologist know so well the manners and customs of the period with
which he is dealing that he will not, like the author of the stories of
the Holy Grail, dress Arthur in the armour of the thirteenth century,
nor fill the mind of Cleopatra with the thoughts of the Elizabethan
poet; let him be so well trained in scientific cautiousness that he will
not give unquestioned credence to the legends of the past; let him have
sufficient knowledge of the nation to which his hero or heroine belonged
to be able to fill up the lacunae with a kind of collective appreciation
and estimate of the national characteristics,--and I do not doubt that
his interpretations will hold good till the end of all history.

The student to whom Egypt is not a living reality is handicapped in his
labours more unfairly than is realised by him. Avoid Egypt, and though
your brains be of vast capacity, though your eyes be never raised from
your books, you will yet remain in many ways an ignoramus, liable to be
corrected by the merest tourist in the Nile valley. But come with me to
a Theban garden that I know, where, on some still evening, the dark
palms are reflected in the placid Nile, and the acacias are mellowed by
the last light of the sunset; where, in leafy bowers, the grapes cluster
overhead, and the fig-tree is burdened with fruit. Beyond the broad
sheet of the river rise those unchangeable hills which encompass the
Valley of the Tombs of the Kings; and at their foot, dimly seen in the
evening haze, sit the twin colossi, as they have sat since the days of
Amenhotep the Magnificent. The stars begin to be seen through the leaves
now that the daylight dies, and presently the Milky Way becomes
apparent, stretching across the vault of the night, as when it was
believed to be the Nile of the Heavens.

The owls hoot to one another through the garden; and at the edge of the
alabaster tank wherein the dusk is mirrored, a frog croaks unseen amidst
the lilies. Even so croaked he on this very ground in those days when,
typifying eternity, he seemed to utter the endless refrain, "I am the
resurrection, I am the resurrection," into the ears of men and maidens
beneath these self-same stars.

And now a boat floats past, on its way to Karnak, silhouetted against
the last-left light of the sky. There is music and song on board. The
sound of the pipes is carried over the water and pulses to the ears,
inflaming the imagination with the sorcery of its cadences and stirring
the blood by its bold rhythm. The gentle breeze brings the scent of many
flowers to the nostrils, and with these come drifting thoughts and
undefined fancies, so that presently the busy considerations of the day
are lulled and forgotten. The twilight seems to cloak the extent of the
years, and in the gathering darkness the procession of the centuries is
hidden. Yesterday and to-day are mingled together, and there is nothing
to distinguish to the eye the one age from the other. An immortal,
brought suddenly to the garden at this hour, could not say from direct
observation whether he had descended from the clouds into the twentieth
century before or the twentieth century after Christ; and the sound of
the festal pipes in the passing boat would but serve to confuse him the
more.

In such a garden as this the student will learn more Egyptology than he
could assimilate in many an hour's study at home; for here his five
senses play the student and Egypt herself is his teacher. While he may
read in his books how this Pharaoh or that feasted o' nights in his
palace beside the river, here, not in fallible imagination but in actual
fact, he may see Nilus and the Libyan desert to which the royal eyes
were turned, may smell the very perfume of the palace garden, and may
hearken to the self-same sounds that lulled a king to sleep in
Hundred-gated Thebes.

Not in the west, but only by the waters of the Nile will he learn how
best to be an historian of ancient Egypt, and in what manner to make his
studies of interest, as well as of technical value, to his readers, for
he will here discover the great secret of his profession. Suddenly the
veil will be lifted from his understanding, and he will become aware
that Past and Present are so indissoluble as to be incapable of separate
interpretation or single study. He will learn that there is no such
thing as a distinct Past or a defined Present. "Yesterday this day's
madness did prepare," and the affairs of bygone times must be
interpreted in the light of recent events. The Past is alive to-day, and
all the deeds of man in all the ages are living at this hour in
offspring. There is no real death. The earthly grave will not hide, nor
the mountain tomb imprison, the actions of the men of old Egypt, so
consequent and fruitful are all human affairs. This is the knowledge
which will make his work of lasting value; and nowhere save in Egypt can
he acquire it. This, indeed, is the secret of the Sphinx; and only at
the lips of the Sphinx itself can he learn it.




PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.