Volume I Part 23 (1/2)
As these toround they have suffered more than any others fro these lines of text were only recovered by Mariette by dint of patient excavation And although these ill constructed edifices, so far as their , they will soon follow the many thousands which once stood in serried ranks round the sepulchre of Osiris The only remains of this necropolis which are likely to be preserved are the numberless steles which Mariette rescued from its _debris_ They form about four-fifths of the total number of those ure two of the to the Middle, the other to the New Es 164 and 165)
[236] All these steles are figured in the last work published by MARIETTE, the _Catalogue general des Monuments d'Abydos, decouverts pendant les Fouilles de cette Ville_, 1 vol 4to
Paris, 1880
[Illustration: FIG 165--Stele of Pinahsi, priest of Ma: Abydos New Eious yptians preferred, during the period we are now considering, to cut their tombs horizontally out of some rocky eminence Such a to examples of these constructions are offered by the tombs of the twelfth dynasty at Beni-Hassan and at Siout, both situated between Memphis and Abydos
Charottos of Beni-Hassan Ever since his time they have received, for various reasons, ists We have already referred to their inscriptions, which are as interesting to the historian of ideas as to the student of political and social organizations We have alluded above to the varied scenes which cover the walls of their chambers, the most important of which have been reproduced by Champollion, Lepsius, and Prisse d'Avennes; we have finally to speak of those famous protodoric coluht they saw the original model of the oldest and most beautiful of the Grecian orders We are at present concerned, however, with the arrangement of the toht variations, for the sest and most elaborately decorated
These facades are cut into the cliff-like sides of the hills of the Arab Chain, about half-way up their total height They are, therefore, high above the surface of the river When the cutting was made, two or three columns were left to forainst the whiteness of the rock This portico leads to a cha is often cut into the form of a vault A deep square niche is cut, soles It once contained the statue of the deceased Most of the tombs have but one chamber, but a few have two or three In a corner either of the only cha of a square well is found; this leads to the mummy-chamber, which is excavated at a lower level
[Illustration: FIG 166--Facade of a tomb at Beni-Hassan]
The chamber upon which the portico opens is the funerary chapel, the place of reunion for the friends and relations of the dead As Mariette very truly remarks, from the first step which the traveller makes in the tomb of Numhotep at Beni-Hassan, he perceives that, in spite of all differences of situation, the traditions of the Ancient Eoverned the decorators of the tomb of Ti at Sakkarah still inspired the painters who covered the walls of the to his own possessions; he fishes and hunts, his cattle defile before him, his people build boats, cut down trees, cultivate the vine and gather the grapes, till the earth, or give theaure of the dead is carried hither and thither in a palanquin We have already found pictures like these in the ain But at Beni-Hassan this painted decoration becomes more personal to the occupant of the toraphical details, which are never found elsewhere”[237]
[237] MARIETTE, _Voyage dans la Haute-egypte_, vol i p 51
[Illustration: FIG 167--Facade of a to tombs]
[Illustration: FIG 168--Interior of a tomb at Beni-Hassan Drawn in perspective from the elevation of Lepsius (i pl 60)]
[Illustration: FIG 169--Plan of the above tomb]
The necropolis of Siout, in the Libyan chain, offers the saeneral characteristics The tomb of Hapi-Tefa, a feudal prince of the twelfth dynasty, and consequently a contemporary of those princes of the nome of Meh who are buried at Beni-Hassan, is the e cha one with another, and with the external air by a wide portico The mummy-pit is reached from the innermost of these chambers
Neither statues, mumrottos When their accessible situation and their conspicuous appearance is remembered, this should not cause surprise
Many centuries ago the acacia doors, which are mentioned in one of the texts at Beni-Hassan, disappeared, and, in spite of the accumulation of sand, the mouths of the wells could be found so easily, and could so readily be cleared, that all objects of value and interest must have been abstracted from the mummy-chambers in very remote times, perhaps before the fall of the antique civilization The inscriptions and the painted walls alone remained practically intact down to the commencement of the present century The dryness of the cli them from the wall contributed to their preservation, which was nowherein Egypt becaun Thesouvenirs of all places of interest, has destroyed the whole of one wall The s the brilliant tones and blunting the delicate contours
Happily, the reat works to which we have already had such frequent occasion to refer
[Illustration: FIG 170--Chess players, Beni-Hassan (Champollion, pl 369)]
The rich necropolis of Thebes has not preserved any ood condition as those of Abydos, Beni-Hassan, or Siout M Maspero has discovered, however, in the district known as the _Drah-Aboul-Neggah_, some remains of the royal tombs of the eleventh dynasty Several of these toements those of the feudal princes of Meh and Siout Thus the sepulchre of the King _Ra-Anoub-Khoper-Entef_ is what the Greeks called a _hemi-speos_, that is, it was partly built and partly hollowed out of the living rock Before the facade thus built against the mountain, two obelisks were reared The to to the family of Entef were built upon the open plain They were structures in masonry, and seem at one time to have been crowned by pyramids Some idea of their shape may be obtained from our illustrations of the tombs at Abydos[238]
[238] MASPERO, _Rapport sur une Mission en Italie_ (in the _Recueil de Travaux_, vol ii p 166) The Abbott Papyrus gives a list of these little pyramids
To complete our observations upon the tombs of the first Theban Empire, it will be sufficient to recall e have already said about the pyramids in the Fayoum, which were the work of the thirteenth dynasty It is difficult to form an accurate idea of the appearance of those reat severity, and in their present state it is impossible to verify the assertions of Herodotus as to the peculiarities of their casing and crowning ornaments But it is quite certain that the Middle Einal inventions in the matter of sepulchral architecture It appears to have discontinued soements, but in those which it preserved its efforts were confined to putting old eleether in a new fashi+on and with new proportions It made frequent use of one mode of sepulture which had previously been quite exceptional No s had not ceased to confide their lory to pyraer of such colossal dimensions as under the Ancient Empire, while their character was complicated, to some extent, by the colossi hich they are said to have been surured decoration of their walls Finally, they were often employed, not as self-containedpoints in a ular platforhtly inclined from the perpendicular
It would seeeyptians So, too, had that of the _speos_ or rock-cut to which at all reserottos in the mountain sides of Beni-Hassan and Siout
Neither in the neighbourhood of the pyramids nor in any other district where the tombs of the early epoch are found, has any sepulchre been discovered which shows the e internal developnified lines of the artificial chambers in the Arab and Libyan chains
--4 _The Tomb under the New Empire_
The subterranean tombs for which the first Theban Empire had shown so marked a preference, beca centuries We do not knohat the funeral custo those centuries when the Hyksos, or shepherd kings, were reat Theban dynasties, the eighteenth, the nineteenth, and the twentieth, by whoyptian arms and culture was spread so widely, hardly made use of any sepulchre but the chamber hollowed laboriously in the rocky sides of that part of the Libyan chain which lies to the west of Thebes Every traveller visits the royal toloos The valley is about three th and has a mean width of about eleven hundred yards; its sides are riddled with galleries penetratingsometimes from the slopes, sometimes froht of 400 feet The word speos seeive an inadequate idea of the depth of these excavations and of their narrow proportions, they called theists have often e of the Theban to to wealthy subjects, priests, warriors, and high officers of state In extent and richness of ornament some of the latter are in no way inferior to the tons
Our studies must first, however, be directed to the royal toinal types, the one before In theives a clearer indication of all the changes which the progress of ideas had brought about in the Egyptian conception of a future life In theyptian taste for aed The architects of Seti and Rameses had resources at command far beyond those of which their early rivals could dispose They were, therefore, enabled to indulge their eive to certain parts of the tomb a splendour which had been previously unknown And such parts were never those upon which the pyramid builders had lavishedcould beof the earlier architects, whose services and high social position are indicated for us by more than one stele frouish the royal from the private tomb, and no means to such an end could be more obvious than to ht and extent to be added to _ad infinitu the stability of the monument Their one idea, therefore, was to push the apex of the pyrarew as the flanks swelled, so that it beca and better fitted to safeguard the precious deposit hidden within it In such a system the important point was this envelope of the mummy-chamber, an envelope composed of thousands of the most carefully dressed and fixed blocks of stone, which, in their turn, were covered with a cuirass of still harder and more durable ht be ainst, the funerary chapel was separated from the mountain of hewn stone which inclosed thethe latter to be decorated with all the taste and richness which we find in the tomb of Ti, it would still be comparatively small and unimportant beside the colossal ed The disproportion is easily explained When the pyramids were built, the workman, the actual hof stone and other materials; but, on the other hand, the art of architecture was yet in its infancy It had no suspicion of those rich and varied effects which the later Egyptians were to obtain by the majesty of their orders and the variety of their capitals It was not till much later that it learnt to raise the pylon before the sacred inclosures, to throw solereet the visitor to the telory of colour