Book: The Treasury of Ancient Egypt

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




The archaeologist is not, or ought not to be, lacking in vivacity. One
might say that he is so sensible to the charms of society that, finding
his companions too few in number, he has drawn the olden times to him to
search them for jovial men and agreeable women. It might be added that
he has so laughed at jest and joke that, fearing lest the funds of
humour run dry, he has gathered the laughter of all the years to his
enrichment. Certainly he has so delighted in noble adventure and
stirring action that he finds his newspaper insufficient to his needs,
and fetches to his aid the tales of old heroes. In fact, the
archaeologist is so enamoured of life that he would raise all the dead
from their graves. He will not have it that the men of old are dust: he
would bring them to him to share with him the sunlight which he finds so
precious. He is so much an enemy of Death and Decay that he would rob
them of their harvest; and, for every life the foe has claimed, he would
raise up, if he could, a memory that would continue to live.

The meaning of the heading which has been given to this chapter is now
becoming clear, and the direction of the argument is already apparent.
So far it has been my purpose to show that the archaeologist is not a
rag-and-bone man, though the public generally thinks he is, and he often
thinks he is himself. The attempt has been made to suggest that
archaeology ought not to consist in sitting in a charnel-house amongst
the dead, but rather in ignoring that place and taking the bones into
the light of day, decently clad in flesh and finery. It has now to be
shown in what manner this parading of the Past is needful to the gaiety
of the Present.

Amongst cultured people whose social position makes it difficult for
them to dance in circles on the grass in order to express or to
stimulate their gaiety, and whose school of deportment will not permit
them to sing a merry song of sixpence as they trip down the streets,
there is some danger of the fire of merriment dying for want of fuel.
Vivacity in printed books, therefore, has been encouraged, so that the
mind at least, if not the body, may skip about and clap its hands. A
portly gentleman with a solemn face, reading his 'Punch' in the club,
is, after all, giving play to precisely those same humours which in
ancient days might have led him, like Georgy Porgy, to kiss the girls or
to perform any other merry joke. It is necessary, therefore, ever to
enlarge the stock of things humorous, vivacious, or rousing, if thoughts
are to be kept young and eyes bright in this age of restraint. What
would Yuletide be without the olden times to bolster it? What would the
Christmas numbers do without the pictures of our great-grandparents'
coaches snow-bound, of huntsmen of the eighteenth century, of jesters at
the courts of the barons? What should we do without the 'Vicar of
Wakefield,' the 'Compleat Angler,' 'Pepys' Diary,' and all the rest of
the ancient books? And, going back a few centuries, what an amount we
should miss had we not 'AEsop's Fables,' the 'Odyssey,' the tales of the
Trojan War, and so on. It is from the archaeologist that one must expect
the augmentation of this supply; and just in that degree in which the
existing supply is really a necessary part of our equipment, so
archaeology, which looks for more, is necessary to our gaiety.


[Illustration: PL. VII. Lady rouging herself: she holds a mirror and
rouge-pot.
--FROM A PAPYRUS, TURIN.]

[Illustration: Dancing girl turning a back somersault.--NEW KINGDOM.]


In order to keep his intellect undulled by the routine of his dreary
work, Matthew Arnold was wont to write a few lines of poetry each day.
Poetry, like music and song, is an effective dispeller of care; and
those who find Omar Khayyam or "In Memoriam" incapable of removing the
of burden of their woes, will no doubt appreciate the "Owl and the
Pussy-cat," or the Bab Ballads. In some form or other verse and song are
closely linked with happiness; and a ditty from any age has its
interests and its charm.

"She gazes at the stars above:
I would I were the skies,
That I might gaze upon my love
With such a thousand eyes!"

That is probably from the Greek of Plato, a writer who is not much
read by the public at large, and whose works are the legitimate property
of the antiquarian. It suffices to show that it is not only to the
moderns that we have to look for dainty verse that is conducive to a
light heart. The following lines are from the ancient Egyptian:--

"While in my room I lie all day
In pain that will not pass away,
The neighbours come and go.
Ah, if with them my darling came
The doctors would be put to shame:
_She_ understands my woe."

Such examples might be multiplied indefinitely; and the reader will
admit that there is as much of a lilt about those which are here quoted
as there is about the majority of the ditties which he has hummed to
himself in his hour of contentment. Here is Philodemus' description of
his mistress's charms:--

"My lady-love is small and brown;
My lady's skin is soft as down;
Her hair like parseley twists and turns;
Her voice with magic passion burns...."

And here is an ancient Egyptian's description of not very dissimilar
phenomena:--

"A damsel sweet unto the sight,
A maid of whom no like there is;
Black are her tresses as the night,
And blacker than the blackberries."

Does not the archaeologist perform a service to his contemporaries by
searching out such rhymes and delving for more? They bring with them,
moreover, so subtle a suggestion of bygone romance, they are backed by
so fair a scene of Athenian luxury or Theban splendour, that they
possess a charm not often felt in modern verse. If it is argued that
there is no need to increase the present supply of such ditties, since
they are really quite unessential to our gaiety, the answer may be given
that no nation and no period has ever found them unessential; and a
light heart has been expressed in this manner since man came down from
the trees.

Let us turn now to another consideration. For a man to be light of heart
he must have confidence in humanity. He cannot greet the morn with a
smiling countenance if he believes that he and his fellows are slipping
down the broad path which leads to destruction. The archaeologist never
despairs of mankind; for he has seen nations rise and fall till he is
almost giddy, but he knows that there has never been a general
deterioration. He realises that though a great nation may suffer defeat
and annihilation, it is possible for it to go down in such a thunder
that the talk of it stimulates other nations for all time. He sees, if
any man can, that all things work together for happiness. He has
observed the cycle of events, the good years and the bad; and in an evil
time he is comforted by the knowledge that the good will presently roll
round again. Thus the lesson which he can teach is a very real
necessity to that contentment of mind which lies at the root of all
gaiety.

Again, a man cannot be permanently happy unless he has a just sense of
proportion. He who is too big for his boots must needs limp; and he who
has a swollen head is in perpetual discomfort. The history of the lives
of men, the history of the nations, gives one a fairer sense of
proportion than does almost any other study. In the great company of the
men of old he cannot fail to assess his true value: if he has any
conceit there is a greater than he to snub him; if he has a poor opinion
of his powers there is many a fool with whom to contrast himself
favourably. If he would risk his fortune on the spinning of a coin,
being aware of the prevalence of his good-luck, archaeology will tell him
that the best luck will change; or if, when in sore straits, he asks
whether ever a man was so unlucky, archaeology will answer him that many
millions of men have been more unfavoured than he. Archaeology provides a
precedent for almost every event or occurrence where modern inventions
are not involved; and, in this manner, one may reckon their value and
determine their trend. Thus many of the small worries which cause so
leaden a weight to lie upon the heart and mind are by the archaeologist
ignored; and many of the larger calamities by him are met with serenity.

But not only does the archaeologist learn to estimate himself and his
actions: he learns also to see the relationship in which his life stands
to the course of Time. Without archaeology a man may be disturbed lest
the world be about to come to an end: after a study of history he knows
that it has only just begun; and that gaiety which is said to have
obtained "when the world was young" is to him, therefore, a present
condition. By studying the ages the archaeologist learns to reckon in
units of a thousand years; and it is only then that that little unit of
threescore-and-ten falls into its proper proportion. "A thousand ages in
Thy sight are like an evening gone," says the hymn, but it is only the
archaeologist who knows the meaning of the words; and it is only he who
can explain that great discrepancy in the Christian faith between the
statement "Behold, I come quickly" and the actual fact. A man who knows
where he is in regard to his fellows, and realises where he stands in
regard to Time, has learnt a lesson of archaeology which is as necessary
to his peace of mind as his peace of mind is necessary to his gaiety.

It is not needful, however, to continue to point out the many ways in
which archaeology may be shown to be necessary to happiness. The reader
will have comprehended the trend of the argument, and, if he be in
sympathy with it, he will not be unwilling to develop the theme for
himself. Only one point, therefore, need here be taken up. It has been
reserved to the end of this chapter, for, by its nature, it closes all
arguments. I refer to Death.

Death, as we watch it around us, is the black menace of the heavens
which darkens every man's day; Death, coming to our neighbour, puts a
period to our merry-making; Death, seen close beside us, calls a halt in
our march of pleasure. But let those who would wrest her victory from
the grave turn to a study of the Past, where all is dead yet still
lives, and they will find that the horror of life's cessation is
materially lessened. To those who are familiar with the course of
history, Death seems, to some extent, but the happy solution of the
dilemma of life. So many men have welcomed its coming that one begins to
feel that it cannot be so very terrible. Of the death of a certain
Pharaoh an ancient Egyptian wrote: "He goes to heaven like the hawks,
and his feathers are like those of the geese; he rushes at heaven like a
crane, he kisses heaven like the falcon, he leaps to heaven like the
locust"; and we who read these words can feel that to rush eagerly at
heaven like the crane would be a mighty fine ending of the pother.
Archaeology, and especially Egyptology, in this respect is a bulwark to
those who find the faith of their fathers wavering; for, after much
study, the triumphant assertion which is so often found in Egyptian
tombs--"Thou dost not come dead to thy sepulchre, thou comest
living"--begins to take hold of the imagination. Death has been the
parent of so much goodness, dying men have cut such a dash, that one
looks at it with an awakening interest. Even if the sense of the
misfortune of death is uppermost in an archaeologist's mind, he may find
not a little comfort in having before him the example of so many good,
men, who, in their hour, have faced that great calamity with squared
shoulders.

"When Death comes," says a certain sage of ancient Egypt, "it seizes the
babe that is on the breast of its mother as well as he that has become
an old man. When thy messenger comes to carry thee away, be thou found
by him _ready_." Why, here is our chance; here is the opportunity for
that flourish which modesty, throughout our life, has forbidden to us!
John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, when the time came for him to lay his
head upon the block, bade the executioner smite it off with three
strokes as a courtesy to the Holy Trinity. King Charles the Second, as
he lay upon his death-bed, apologised to those who stood around him for
"being an unconscionable time adying." The story is familiar of
Napoleon's aide-de-camp, who, when he had been asked whether he were
wounded, replied, "Not wounded: killed," and thereupon expired. The Past
is full of such incidents; and so inspiring are they that Death comes to
be regarded as a most stirring adventure. The archaeologist, too, better
than any other, knows the vastness of the dead men's majority; and if,
like the ancients, he believes in the Elysian fields, where no death is
and decay is unknown, he alone will realise the excellent nature of the
company into which he will there be introduced.

There is, however, far more living going on in the world than dying; and
there is more happiness (thanks be!) than sorrow. Thus the archaeologist
has a great deal more of pleasure than of pain to give to us for our
enrichment. The reader will here enter an objection. He will say: "This
may be true of archaeology in general, but in the case of Egyptology,
with which we are here mostly concerned, he surely has to deal with a
sad and solemn people." The answer will be found in the next chapter. No
nation in the world's history has been so gay, so light-hearted as the
ancient Egyptians; and Egyptology furnishes, perhaps, the most
convincing proof that archaeology is, or should be, a merry science, very
necessary to the gaiety of the world. I defy a man suffering from his
liver to understand the old Egyptians; I defy a man who does not
appreciate the pleasure of life to make anything of them. Egyptian
archaeology presents a pageant of such brilliancy that the archaeologist
is often carried along by it as in a dream, down the valley and over the
hills, till, Past blending with Present, and Present with Future, he
finds himself led to a kind of Island of the Blest, where death is
forgotten and only the joy of life, and life's good deeds, still remain;
where pleasure-domes, and all the ancient "miracles of rare device,"
rise into the air from above the flowers; and where the damsel with the
dulcimer beside the running stream sings to him of Mount Abora and of
the old heroes of the elder days. If the Egyptologist or the
archaeologist could revive within him one-hundredth part of the elusive
romance, the delicate gaiety, the subtle humour, the intangible
tenderness, the unspeakable goodness, of much that is to be found in his
province, one would have to cry, like Coleridge--

"Beware, beware!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise."




PART II.

STUDIES IN THE TREASURY.


"And I could tell thee stories that would make thee laugh
at all thy trouble, and take thee to a land of which thou
hast never even dreamed. Where the trees have ever
blossoms, and are noisy with the humming of intoxicated
bees. Where by day the suns are never burning, and by
night the moonstones ooze with nectar in the rays of the
camphor-laden moon. Where the blue lakes are filled with
rows of silver swans, and where, on steps of lapis
lazuli, the peacocks dance in agitation at the murmur of
the thunder in the hills. Where the lightning flashes
without harming, to light the way to women stealing in
the darkness to meetings with their lovers, and the
rainbow hangs for ever like an opal on the dark blue
curtain of the cloud. Where, on the moonlit roofs of
crystal palaces, pairs of lovers laugh at the reflection
of each other's love-sick faces in goblets of red wine,
breathing, as they drink, air heavy with the fragrance of
the sandal, wafted on the breezes from the mountain of
the south. Where they play and pelt each other with
emeralds and rubies, fetched at the churning of the ocean
from the bottom of the sea. Where rivers, whose sands are
always golden, flow slowly past long lines of silent
cranes that hunt for silver fishes in the rushes on the
banks. Where men are true, and maidens love for ever, and
the lotus never fades."
F.W. BAIN: _A Heifer of the Dawn_.




CHAPTER IV.

THE TEMPERAMENT OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS.


A certain school geography book, now out of date, condenses its remarks
upon the character of our Gallic cousins into the following pregnant
sentence: "The French are a gay and frivolous nation, fond of dancing
and red wine." The description would so nearly apply to the ancient
inhabitants of Egypt, that its adoption here as a text to this chapter
cannot be said to be extravagant. The unbiassed inquirer into the
affairs of ancient Egypt must discover ultimately, and perhaps to his
regret, that the dwellers on the Nile were a "gay and frivolous people,"
festive, light-hearted, and mirthful, "fond of dancing and red wine,"
and pledged to all that is brilliant in life. There are very many
people, naturally, who hold to those views which their forefathers held
before them, and picture the Egyptians as a sombre, gloomy people;
replete with thoughts of Death and of the more melancholy aspect of
religion; burdened with the menacing presence of a multitude of horrible
gods and demons, whose priests demanded the erection of vast temples for
their appeasement; having little joy of this life, and much uneasy
conjecture about the next; making entertainment in solemn gatherings and
ponderous feasts; and holding merriment in holy contempt. Of the five
startling classes into which the dictionary divides the human
temperament, namely, the bilious or choleric, the phlegmatic, the
sanguine, the melancholic, and the nervous, it is probable that the
first, the second, and the fourth would be those assigned to the ancient
Egyptians by these people. This view is so entirely false that one will
be forgiven if, in the attempt to dissolve it, the gaiety of the race is
thrust before the reader with too little extenuation. The sanguine, and
perhaps the nervous, are the classes of temperament under which the
Egyptians must be docketed. It cannot be denied that they were an
industrious and even a strenuous people, that they indulged in the most
serious thoughts, and attempted to study the most complex problems of
life, and that the ceremonial side of their religion occupied a large
part of their time. But there is abundant evidence to show that, like
their descendents of the present day, they were one of the least gloomy
people of the world, and that they took their duties in the most buoyant
manner, allowing as much sunshine to radiate through their minds as
shone from the cloudless Egyptian skies upon their dazzling country.

It is curiously interesting to notice how general is the present belief
in the solemnity of this ancient race's attitude towards existence,
and how little their real character is appreciated. Already the reader
will be protesting, perhaps, that the application of the geographer's
summary of French characteristics to the ancient Egyptians lessens in no
wise its ridiculousness, but rather increases it. Let the protest,
however, be held back for a while. Even if the Egyptians were not always
frivolous, they were always uncommonly gay, and any slight exaggeration
will be pardoned in view of the fact that old prejudices have to be
violently overturned, and the stigma of melancholy and ponderous
sobriety torn from the national name. It would be a matter of little
surprise to some good persons if the products of excavation in the Nile
Valley consisted largely of antique black kid gloves.


[Illustration: PL. VIII. Two Egyptian boys decked with flowers and a
third holding a musical instrument. They are
standing against the outside wall of the
Dendereh Temple.]

[_Photo by E. Bird._


Like many other nations the ancient Egyptians rendered mortuary service
to their ancestors, and solid tomb-chapels had to be constructed in
honour of the more important dead. Both for the purpose of preserving
the mummy intact, and also in order to keep the ceremonies going for as
long a period of time as possible, these chapels were constructed in a
most substantial manner, and many of them have withstood successfully
the siege of the years. The dwelling-houses, on the other hand, were
seldom delivered from father to son; but, as in modern Egypt, each
grandee built a palace for himself, designed to last for a lifetime
only, and hardly one of these mansions still exists even as a ruin.

Moreover the tombs were constructed in the dry desert or in the solid
hillside, whereas the dwelling-houses were situated on the damp earth,
where they had little chance of remaining undemolished. And so it is
that the main part of our knowledge of the Egyptians is derived from a
study of their tombs and mortuary temples. How false would be our
estimate of the character of a modern nation were we to glean our
information solely from its churchyard inscriptions! We should know
absolutely nothing of the frivolous side of the life of those whose bare
bones lie beneath the gloomy declaration of their Christian virtues. It
will be realised how sincere was the light-heartedness of the Egyptians
when it is remembered that almost everything in the following record of
their gaieties is derived from a study of the tombs, and of objects
found therein.

Light-heartedness is the key-note of the ancient philosophy of the
country, and in this assertion the reader will, in most cases, find
cause for surprise. The Greek travellers in Egypt, who returned to their
native land impressed with the wonderful mysticism of the Egyptians,
committed their amazement to paper, and so led off that feeling of awed
reverence which is felt for the philosophy of Pharaoh's subjects. But in
their case there was the presence of the priests and wise men eloquently
to baffle them into the state of respect, and there were a thousand
unwritten arguments, comments, articles of faith, and controverted
points of doctrine heard from the mouths of the believers, to surprise
them into a reverential attitude. But we of the present day have left to
us only the more outward and visible remains of the Egyptians. There are
only the fundamental doctrines to work on, the more penetrating notes of
the harmony to listen to. Thus the outline of the philosophy is able to
be studied without any complication, and we have no whirligig of
priestly talk to confuse it. Examined in this way, working only from
cold stones and dry papyri, we are confronted with the old "Eat, drink,
and be merry," which is at once the happiest and most dangerous
philosophy conceived by man. It is to be noticed that this way of
looking at life is to be found in Egypt from the earliest times down to
the period of the Greek occupation of the country, and, in fact, until
the present day. That is to say, it was a philosophy inborn in the
Egyptian,--a part of his nature.

Imhotep, the famous philosopher of Dynasty III., about B.C. 3000, said
to his disciples: "Behold the dwellings of the dead. Their walls fall
down, their place is no more; they are as though they had never
existed"; and he drew from this the lesson that man is soon done with
and forgotten, and that therefore his life should be as happy as
possible. To Imhotep must be attributed the earliest known exhortation
to man to resign himself to his candle-end of a life, and to the
inevitable snuffing-out to come, and to be merry while yet he may. There
is a poem, dating from about B.C. 2000, from which the following is
taken:--

"Walk after thy heart's desire so long as thou livest.
Put myrrh on thy head, clothe thyself in fine linen,
anoint thyself with the true marvels of God.... Let not
thy heart concern itself, until there cometh to thee that
great day of lamentation. Yet he who is at rest can hear
not thy complaint, and he who lies in the tomb can
understand not thy weeping. Therefore, with smiling face,
let thy days be happy, and rest not therein. For no man
carrieth his goods away with him; "O, no man returneth
again who is gone thither."

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