Part 32 (1/2)

The permanent image of the disk and serpent, a form of the Ra sign, in the doorway of the sculptured house, would thus convey the idea of the eternal presence of Amen-Ra, the pole-star G.o.d. The accentuation of the cross lines on the neck of the ara indicates, moreover, the intentional allusion to four-fold and two-fold force, the latter being expressed by the eyes of the serpent. The door=ptah, which is open, expresses the name Ptah=the Opener, well known as that of the ”father of the G.o.ds” and a form of Amen-Ra.

The positions a.s.signed to Osiris and Isis, at either side of the ”hidden G.o.d,” sufficiently shows that they were intended to represent separate incorporations of the male and female principles which were united in Amen-Ra, the ”divine Twain.” The a.s.sociation of both deities with the throne, the eternal seat of repose, identifies both alike with Polaris. A monument in the Berlin Museum (no. 261) which was found in the temple of Isis at Ben-naga, in Nubia, and was a votive offering made by the Ethiopian king Netek-Amen and his consort Amen-Tari, contains the following formula, translated by Lepsius, which a.s.sociates Isis with eternal enthronement. ”Thou remainest, thou remainest, on thy great throne, O Isis, queen of Au-ker, like the sun (Ra) that lives in the horizon ... and thou lettest thy son Netek-Amen flourish on his throne....”

The fact I am about to demonstrate, that the king and queen of Egypt were the respective, ”the living images” of Osiris and Isis, proves that, as in ancient Peru and China, the sovereigns, who were at the same time high priest and priestess, were considered as the sacred embodiments of the dual principles of nature. As elsewhere also, a chain of a.s.sociations became attached to each of the dualities; but in Egypt, as may be clearly discerned, during the lapse of centuries great transformations of thought took place and alternately the male and female elements seem to have been a.s.sociated with the cults of heaven and earth, light and darkness, sun or moon, morning or evening stars, the southeast and the northwest.

In the sacred writings the sun is usually termed ”the right eye” and the moon ”the left eye” of Ra (_cf._ hra=the (divine) face). Brugsch points out that, in certain inscriptions at Denderah translated by Mariette, ”the Sothis star of Hathor-Isis is designated as 'the right eye of Ra' while the sun is termed the left eye.”

Brugsch states, moreover, that, according to s.e.xtus Empiricus, ”the Egyptians compared the king to the 'right eye' or the sun; while the queen was compared to the 'left eye' or the moon.” The two eyes, often with the designation of ”right” or ”left,” const.i.tute a favorite decoration on funeral stelae. In some instances the image of the solar disk, with one wing and one serpent only, is figured as a subst.i.tute for the right eye (_op. cit._ II, 436, see fig. 62, 6). The established fact that the eyes of Ra were the equivalents of the uraei usually accompanying the circle of Ra, the so-called ”solar disk,” is further explained by the following data.

It is well known that the two uraei on the royal diadem denote sovereignty over Upper and Lower Egypt. In the bas-relief published by Brugsch, the circle or Ra-sign is represented with two uraei, which respectively wear the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt (fig. 70, 7). The crowned uraei recur in the emblems of Upper and Lower Egypt published by Mr. Goodyear, the first accompanied by the lotus flower and the second by what Egyptologists usually identify as the papyrus, but which appears to be the ripened pod of the lotus (fig. 70, 9 and 10). While the two uraei thus emblematized the two divisions of the land of Egypt they are found as distinctly a.s.sociated with Osiris and Isis, and their living images the king and queen, or the high priest and high priestess of Amen-Ra. The Berlin Museum contains several representations of Isis under the form of a serpent with a woman's head (see official catalogue, nos. 7740, 870 and 2529). Osiris is also represented as a serpent with the head of a bearded man.

A small shrine in the form of a temple, and decorated with royal serpents, is preserved at the Berlin Museum (catalogue no. 8164) and contains the effigies of two uraei, one of which, to the left of the spectator, exhibits the head of Isis, the second, to the right, the features of Osiris.

Between them stands the vase or bowl which was a constant feature of Isis cult.

In connection with this monument it is interesting to examine an inscription published by Brugsch (I, p. 108) in which occur two serpents who are pouring liquid into a bowl placed between them and the divided halves of the sky-sign (fig. 70, 8). The text connects this with the New Year festival when the Nile began to rise ”from its two sources” and the ”union of heaven and earth” took place, which will be discussed later. The following temporary list briefly presents a summary of the preceding data which is rendered more complete by the addition of the signs and emblems of the festivals, when the ”conjunction of sun and moon took place,”

figured by the picture of two persons united by their respective right and left hands (fig. 70, 5) or by the tet column placed between two horns (fig. 70, 4). As may be seen by numerous examples in Brugsch (vol. II), the great Sed festival is figured by the image of the small sanctuary which existed on the flat roof of the great temple at Denderah, and resembled an open pavilion with four columns which is usually represented as containing two seats placed back to back (fig. 70, 2, 3). A small picture in Mr. Wallis Budge's Nile exhibits the king and queen occupying such a double throne, respectively, wearing the insignia and crowns of Osiris and Isis and holding their sceptres, as in the representations of the ceremony of laying the foundation of a temple, in their right and left hands (fig. 70, 6). The resume of the preceding material produces the following list:

Right eye of Ra: Left eye of Ra.

Sun: Moon.

King: Queen.

Osiris: Isis.

High priest: High priestess.

Right hand sceptre: Left hand sceptre.

North: South.

Red crown: White crown.

The following data, gleaned from the valuable works of Prof. A. H. Sayce and the serial History of Egypt, written by Prof. Flinders Petrie, J. P.

Mahaffy and J. G. Milne, furnish strong indications that, in the remotest past, the two divisions of the land of Egypt were respectively governed by a male and female sovereign; a proof that, before the time of Menes, the ancient empire had become disintegrated, and undergone a long period of intense strife and warfare. We learn from Professor Sayce of the probability that ”the city of Nek-hen was once the capital of the south and that the vulture, the symbol of the south, was also the emblem of Nekheb, the G.o.ddess of the great fortress, the ruins of which lie opposite to Nekhen on the eastern bank of the Nile” (Sayce, _op. cit._ pp. 152, 191).

While the capital and the emblem of southern or Upper Egypt are thus directly a.s.sociated with a ”G.o.ddess,” further data show us that the ancient queens of Egypt were termed ”G.o.d-women or G.o.ddesses.” When the New Empire was founded (1600-1100 B.C.) with its capital at Thebes, King Ahmes a.s.sumed the sovereignty of the whole of Egypt, but seems to have shared supreme authority with his consort Ah-mes-nefretere=divine- or G.o.d-woman, also termed ”the high priestess of Amen.” From the honors accorded to her and to her son Amen-hetep or Amenophis I, it must indeed be inferred that she possessed some inherited sovereign right to one of the ancient divisions of the empire.

During the period of the 26th dynasty, of Sas, we find Upper Egypt governed by a ”G.o.d-woman,” Shep-en-upet, who remained in power, even after the land had been conquered by Psammetichus I. The latter obtained, however, that his daughter Nitocris was adopted as the successor to the ”divine-woman” ruler of Thebes, and she in turn adopted the daughter of Psammetichus II (B.C. 594-589), whose name was Anches-nefer-eb-re. A tablet from the temple of Karnak, preserved at the Berlin Museum (catalogue no. 2112) represents this female sovereign of Thebes accompanied by her prime minister, and standing in the presence of the G.o.ds Amen and Chon.

Another remarkable monument at the Berlin Museum (no. 7972) figures the ”G.o.d-woman” Shep-en-upet, under the form of a sphinx holding a vase, and records that she had inherited the sovereignty of Thebes from her aunt, the consort of an Ethiopian king. An extremely interesting proof that the beard, _per se_, const.i.tuted an emblem of sovereignty, is furnished by a beautiful portrait statue of the ”divine woman,” Hat-shepset (Berlin Museum, no. 2299). She is figured as a sphinx and wears a beard suspended from her head-dress.(116) The serpent decorates her diadem. On other monuments this remarkable queen, who built the temple of Der-el-Bahari, is figured with the crown of Upper Egypt (_cf._ no. 2279, Berlin Museum). By good fortune the personal gold ornaments of a ”divine woman,” an Ethiopian princess, were discovered by Ferlini in the pyramid of Begerauie, enclosed in a plain bronze vase. These precious objects are now exhibited in the Berlin Museum, where I have examined them and noted with interest that the central ornament of two finely worked, broad gold bracelets, is a female figure with the royal diadem and four outstretched arms, to which wings are attached. This furnishes us with an instance of a queen being represented with four wings, in exactly the same manner as the a.s.syrian king Sargon, on the seal from the time of Sennacherib (fig. 65, 6), namely, as a ”ruler of the four quarters,” which indicates that she held the position of a ”central ruler.” As might be expected in the case of a queen who personified Isis, frequently represented under the form of a ”woman-serpent,” the uraeus is a favorite motif on other gold ornaments belonging to the Ethiopian queen.

Certain pa.s.sages in Prof. Flinders Petrie's History of Egypt afford a curious insight into the prerogatives of Egyptian queens as far back as about B.C. 2684. The consort of Usertesen II, the fourth king of the twelfth dynasty was named Nefert,of whom a grey granite statue is preserved at the Ghizeh Museum and represents her as seated on a throne.

On this are the t.i.tles ”The hereditary princess, the great favorite, the greatly praised, the beloved consort of the king, _the ruler of all women_, the king's daughter of his body, Nefert.” Prof. Flinders Petrie adds: ”The t.i.tle ruler or princess of all women is peculiar, and suggests that the queen had some prerogatives of government as regards the female half of the population.” The t.i.tle in question reappears four centuries later in connection with Nubkhas, the queen of Sebek=Emsaup, of the 13th dynasty and her stele in the Louvre ent.i.tles her the ”great heiress, the greatly favored, _the ruler of all women_, the great royal wife, united to the crown Nub-kha-s” (_op. cit._, vol. I, pp. 175 and 225).

Between B.C. 1423-1414 queen Mutemua-arat appears as ”the G.o.ddess queen”

and ”great royal wife” (Flinders Petrie _op. cit._, II, p. 174). The consort of Amenhotep III (B.C. 1414-1379) the celebrated Tyi, the daughter of Yuaa and Thuaa, is ent.i.tled ”princess of both lands,” and ”chief heiress, princess of all lands.” Her successor Nefert.i.ti is called ”princess of south and north, lady of both lands,” which t.i.tles, as Prof.

Flinders Petrie comments, ”like the t.i.tles of Tyi, imply a hereditary right to rule Egypt.” They undoubtedly place her on a footing of equality with the king, which is, however, comprehensible when it is explained that she was the ruler of all women, while he was the ruler of all men. The position of the Egyptian queen would thus prove to have been a.n.a.logous to that of the ancient Mexican Quilaztli (see pp. 61-67).

The a.n.a.logy is all the more striking when it is realized that the t.i.tles of the Mexican chieftainess were: ”the Woman warrior, the Woman of the Underworld or Below, the Woman serpent or female twin and the Eagle woman,” while the emblem of the Egyptian G.o.ddess-queen of the south was the vulture and she was the personification of Isis, represented under the form of a serpent, the twin of the male serpent, Osiris.

[Ill.u.s.tration.]

Figure 71.

Much food for thought is furnished by a Syrian relief sculpture from Amrit (published by Spamer, see fig. 71, 2), which exhibits a vulture or eagle with outstretched wings, in juxtaposition to a winged disk which appears to combine features of the a.s.syrian winged disk (the bird's tail and two appendages, see fig. 71,1) with the two uraei of the Egyptian form (fig.