Volume I Part 26 (2/2)
??s??? s?a ??ast??? ?? ?st? t?? e????? ? t? t?? ?p??e? ?a? t??
t??t?? p??pat????? ?st? ??t?? ?a? t??t? ?? t? a??? t?? ????, past??
?????? e????, ?a? ?s????? st????s? te f?????a? t? d??d?ea e??????s?, ?a? t? ???? dap??? ?s? d? ?? t? past?d? d???
????ata ?st??e? ?? d? t??s? ????as? ? ???? ?st?[276]
[276] HERODOTUS, ii 169 ”The Egyptians strangled Apries, but, having done so, they buried him in the sepulchre of his fathers
This tomb is in the temple of Athene (_Neith_), very near the sanctuary, on the left hand as one enters The natives of Sais buried all the kings which belonged to their nome within this temple, and, in fact, it also contains the tomb of Amasis, as well as that of Apries and his family, but the former is not so close to the sanctuary as the fors of the tee chamber constructed of stone, with columns in the shape of the trunks of palm-trees, and richly decorated besides, which incloses a kind of niche or shrine with folding doors, in which the es in Herodotus, and has given much trouble to translators and coe in Stobaeus (serm xli
p 251), which he cites in justification for the sense which is here given to the word ????ata STRABO is content with but a line on this subject: ”Sais,” he says, ”especially worshi+ps Athene (Neith) The tomb of Psammitichos is in the very te centuries afford no example of a tomb placed within a temple like this[277]
[277] HERODOTUS affirhter to be inclosed in the flank of a wooden cow, richly gilt, and he says that ”the cow in question was never placed in the earth” In his tinificently decorated saloon of the royal palace of Sais We est that Herodotus was mistaken in the name of the prince; Mycerinus is not likely to have so far abandoned all the funerary traditions of his tihter in a spot so distant from his own pyramid at Gizeh There is one hypothesis, however, whichthe Greek historian ofas said to hiether the present with the past, and to collect into their capital such national inations of their subjects, the Sait princes us either from the pyrahbourhood
First of all the royal mummy was entombed in the bowels of an artificial mountain, secondly, under the Theban dynasties, in those of a real one; but at Sais, it rests above the soil, in the precincts of a teo at their will, and nothing but a pair of wooden doors protects it froement seems inconsistent with all that we know of the passionate desire of the Egyptians to give an eternal duration to their mummies We have every reason to believe that this desire had shown no diminution at the time of the twenty-sixth dynasty, and we can hardly admit that Psemethek and his successors were less impelled by it than the meanest of their subjects
The explanation of the apparent anomaly is to be found, we believe, in the peculiar nature of the soil of Lower Egypt The Sait princes were determined to leave their nificent buildings and had turned into the capital of all Egypt Both _speos_ and mummy pit, however, were out of the question
Sais was built in the Delta; upon an alluvial soil which etted through and through, as each autumn came round, by the water of the Nile Neither hill nor rock existed for many miles in every direction
It was, therefore, absolutely necessary that the tomb should be a constructed one upon the surface of this soil It would seem that the pyramid would have been the best form of tomb to ensure the continued existence of thea satisfactory foundation for such a structure upon a soft and yielding soil, the pyrayptian art was entirely occupied with richer and ht and shade, and of all the splendour of carved and painted decoration The pyra which should inclose both mummy chamber and funerary chapel under one roof, or, at least, within one bounding wall There was also, it is true, the Abydos type of sepulchre, with its mummy chamber hidden in the thickness of its base; but it was too heavy and too plain, it was too nearly related to the pyramid, and it did not lend itself readily to those brilliant coyptian art But the hypostyle hall, the fairest creation of the national genius, was thoroughly fitted to be the medium of such picturesque conceptions as were then required, and it was adopted as the nucleus of the tombs at Sais A hall divided, perhaps, into three aisles by tall shafts covered with figures and inscriptions, afforded aThe mummy chamber was replaced by a niche, placed, doubtless, in the hich faced the entrance, and the well, the one essential constituent of an early Egyptian toements as these afforded much less security to the mummy than those of Memphis or Thebes, and to coes, the tomb was placed within the precincts of the most venerable temple in the city, and the security of the corpse was made to depend upon the awe inspired by the sanctuary of Neith As the event proved, this was but a slight protection against the fury of a victorious enemy Less than a year after the death of A-place, and burnt it to ashes after outraging it in a childish fashi+on[278]
[278] HERODOTUS, iii 16 Upon this subject see an interesting article by M EUGeNE REVILLOUT, entitled: _Le Roi Amasis et les neique_, first year; p 50 _et seq_)
[Illustration: FIG 198--Sepulchral chamber of an Apis bull; fro of so s in one sacred inclosure, remind us of what are called, in the modern East, _turbehs_, those sepulchres of Mohahbourhood of the mosques Vast differences exist, of course, between the Saracenic and Byzantine styles and that of Ancient Egypt, but yet the principle is the same At Sais, as in s must have barred the entrance to the persons while they ad before the niche, as the finest shawls from India and Persia veil the coffins which lie beneath the domes of the modern burial-places Perhaps, too, sycamores and palm-trees cast their shadows over the external walls[279] The most hasty visitor to the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn can hardly fail to remember the suburb of Eyoub, where the _turbehs_ of the Otto the cypresses and plane trees
[279] There are two passages in HERODOTUS (ii 91, and 138) fro trees about their temples
The material condition which compelled the Sait princes to break with the customs of their ancestors, affected the tohout the existence of the Egyptian ed to set about the preservation of their dead in a different fashi+on to that followed by their neighbours in Upper Egypt; their mummies had to be kept out of reach of the inundation Isolated monuments, like those of Abydos, would soon have filled all the available space upon artificial mounds, such as those upon which the cities of the Delta were built The problem to be solved was, however, a simple one Since there could be no question of a lateral development, like that of the Theban tombs, or of a doard one, like that of the Memphite mummy pits, it was obvious that the develop, at some distance from a town, a platform of crude brick, upon which, after its surface had been raised above the level of the highest floods, the ainst another As soon as the whole platform was occupied, another layer of chambers was commenced above it
Champollion discovered the rehbourhood of Sais The larger of the tas not less than 1,400 feet long, 500 feet wide, and 80 feet high; an enore rock torn by lightning or earthquake”[280] No doubt was possible as to the character of thethe debris both canopic vases and funerary statuettes Within a few years of his death Mariette undertook sohbourhood; they led to no very important results, but they confirmed the justice of the views enunciated by Champollion Most of the objects recovered were in a very bad state of preservation; the materials had been too soft, and in tinated the base of the whole structure, had crept upwards through the porous brick, and turned the whole e
[280] _Lettres ecrites d'egypte et de Nubie_, 2nd edition, 1868, p 41
These to no well; and as for the funerary chapel we do not as yet knohether it existed at all, hoas arranged, or what took its place Perhaps each of the more carefully constructed tombs was divided into two parts, a chamber more or less decorated and a niche contrived in the masonry, like the rock-cut ovens of the Phnician catacombs As soon as the mummy was introduced, the niche alled up, while the chamber would remain open for the funerary celebrations In order that the toht above the level of the soil, and in the s, should be reached, a complicated system of staircases and inclined planes was necessary In the course of centuries the tombs of the first layer and especially those in the centre of the ht and access by the continual aggregation above and around theed, perhaps, became extinct, and no one was left to watch over their preservation Had it not been for the infiltration of the Nile water, these lower strata of to objects to explorers In any case it would seeh the heart of these vast agglomerations of unbaked brick, many valuable discoveries would be ht scope to individual caprice; space must have been carefully parcelled out to each claimant, and the architect hadinto the sides of aupon the dry soil of the desert In the royal tombs alone, if time had left any for our inspection, could we have foundof the funerary architecture of Sais, but, as the ather fro taste of the epoch
[281] Similar structures exist in lower Chaldaea, and have furnished ists
Upon the plateau of Gizeh, to the south of the Great Pyramid, Colonel Vyse discovered and cleared, in 1837, an iave the naypt The external part of the tomb had entirely disappeared, but wewith the subterranean portion The maker of the tomb had taken the trouble to define its extent by a trench cut around it in the rock The external e had been contrived from one of its faces to the well, which had been covered in all probability by an external structure The well opens upon a point nearer to the north than the south, and its dimensions are quite exceptional It is 54 feet 4 inches deep, and 31 feet by 26 feet 8 inches in horizontal section; it terminates in a chamber which is covered by a vault 11 feet 2 inches thick It was not however in this chai in granite, basalt, white quartz, &c, were found The remains of two other wells were traced
This tomb dates from the time of Psemethek I
[Illustration: FIG 199--Section in perspective of ”Ca]
[Illustration: FIG 200--Vertical section in perspective of the sarcophagus cha]
In the necropolis of Thebes there is a whole district, that of the hill _El assassif_, whereto the twenty-sixth dynasty Their external aspect is very different from that of the Theban sepulchres The entrance to the subterranean galleries is preceded by a spacious rectangular courtyard, excavated in the rock to a depth of 10 or 12 feet This court was fro and from 40 to 80 feet wide; it was surrounded by a stone or brick wall, and reached by a flight of steps A pylon-shaped doorway gave access to the courtyard from the side next the rock, another door of similar shape opened upon the plain; ”but so 201) except towards the mountain, fros”
[Illustration: FIG 201--A Tomb on El-assassif (drawn in perspective from the plans and elevations of Prisse)]
The subterranean part of these toth leads to a single chamber In others, and these form the majority, there is a suite of rooroup belongs the largest of all the subterranean Theban to 191) We have already noticed the extraordinary dialleries; there are also tells which lead to lower sets of chambers All the walls of this tomb are covered with sculptured reliefs In the first chambers these are in very bad condition, but they improve as we advance, and in the farthest rooood preservation The exterior of this sepulchre is worthy of the interior The open court, which acts as vestibule, is 100 feet long by 80 wide An entrance, looking towards the plain, rises between two massive walls of crude brick, and, to all appearance, was once crowned by an arcade; within it a flight of steps leads down into the court
Another door, pierced through the limestone rock, leads to a second and smaller court which is surrounded by a portico From this peristyle a sculptured portal leads to the first subterranean chamber, which is 53 feet by 23, and once had its roof supported by a double range of columns The next chamber is 33 feet square With a double vestibule and these two great saloons there was no lack of space for gatherings of the friends and relations of the deceased