Between the Fourteenth Dynasty, of which we last spoke, and the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Dynasties, to which this chapter brings us, occurs the third chasm in the monuments, and as they are the chief dependence in learning the history of Egypt, the information in regard to this intervening period is very meagre. Egypt was ruled with special favor shown to the central portion, and weaker monarchs had succeeded the great Amenemhats and Usertesens. Foreigners, the so-called Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings, overran and took possession of the country and conquered it, almost without battles, proceeding later to destroy the temples and kill the inhabitants.

Among these kings’ names are that of Salatis, or Shaloti, and a certain Apepi, of the Turanian type, a bust of whom is in the British Museum, and another at Gizeh, while it is to one of these rulers that Joseph is by some believed to have been the favored minister, but, as has been said before, no queen appears amongst them.

After the lapse of five hundred years Egypt awoke from its partial lethargy and, throwing off the yoke of these invaders, asserted its independence under a line of native rulers. Battles were[75] fought and won, and the Theban princes again held sway. King Ta’a ruled, perhaps tributary to the Hyksos, revolted and partially liberated himself from thral, but it remained to his descendant Aahmes to completely accomplish this object. It seemed somewhat characteristic of the Egyptian monarchs that they did not know how to hold their conquered territory. Again and again they won battles and subjected foreign peoples only to lose what they had gained, to be once more fought for by their warlike successors.

The divisions into dynasties is said not to have been made by the Egyptians themselves, but to have been used by historians for the greater convenience of indicating the families who, together or in succession, held the sceptre.

No woman’s strength had been able to struggle up through the previous oblivion, but she now once more takes her place beside the king and shares with him honors, both divine and human. “Divine spouse,” a term not used before, is applied to the queens of this era, who were regarded as the mothers of the race and worshipped for generations after.

It was sometimes inscribed on the monuments in Egypt that “the sons of Misr” were all born equal, but this had about the same relation to facts that the vaunted “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” sometimes bore. In the Twelfth Dynasty, below the crown and royal family came, first, the class of priests; second, the soldiers; third, the husbandmen, gardeners, huntsmen and boatmen; fourth, tradesmen, shopkeepers, artificers in stone and metal, boat builders, stone masons[76] and public weighers; fifth, shepherds, poulterers, fishermen, fowlers, laborers and the people at large—distinctly a succession of classes. Laborers wore only an apron and short trousers of coarse woven grass cloth.

The times were changing; this we learn from the numerous remains of this period, on the sculptured and painted monuments and the papyri, of which many have been discovered. The temples were growing in importance and the kings were buried more in grottoes than, as formerly, in monuments. The military man succeeded the farmer, and the priests gained in power. The wall paintings give pictures of festivals, with music and dancing, and less of the agricultural life previously so much dwelt upon.

It is interesting to know that the horse, in so many countries the useful and often beloved companion of man, seems to have been first introduced into Egypt in the Eighteenth Dynasty. After that he often figures in battles, and draws the state chariot in which both kings and queens take their pleasure. On the wall of a tomb at Thebes, that of a certain Hui of the Eighteenth Dynasty, is the picture of a queen drawn by two piebald bulls, like the modern Abyssinian breed. This, presumably, is just before the period when horses were in general use. To this time is also attributed the introduction of the pomegranate, the beautiful Eastern fruit of which poets have often sung; and earrings were then said to be added to the previous list of adornments, as the result of foreign example—they first took the[77] shape of broad disks, and later, under the Twentieth Dynasty, became large rings.

In the Seventeenth Dynasty we have mention of a Queen Ansera. Of her private history we know nothing, but after her death she extended her hospitality to a number of her royal connections, for the great discovery in the summer of 1881 brought to light the mummies of many kings and queens gathered together in her tomb. Among these were the celebrated King Rameses II, by some thought to be the oppressor of the Israelites; Queen Aahmes-Nefertari, first of the Eighteenth Dynasty; Queen Merit-Amen, Queen Hout-timoo-hoo and Queen Sitka, also belonging to this dynasty, besides others of later date.

A certain confusion for a long time existed between the two queens, Aah-hotep and Aahmes-Nefertari, but the late history of Professors Petrie and Mahaffy has rendered the details of this period somewhat clearer. Different authorities have varied the name and spelling of Queen Aah-hotep. Thus we have in addition to the spelling above given, Aahotep, Aah-hetep or Ahhot-pou. It has the pretty meaning, “gift of the moon,” and she seems to have been a Theban princess, and first to have married an Egyptian, perhaps not of royal rank, and then Seqenenra, whose mummy has been found, showing that he had been wounded in battle. He was of the Berber type—tall, slender and vigorous, with small, long head and fine black hair. The reasons for this chronology are said not to be very strong. Aahmes was perhaps son of the first, Nefertari, daughter of the second, so the lawful heir, and Aahmes[78] thus married his half-sister. If Kames, at first thought to be the husband and later the son of Queen Aah-hotep, was the elder brother, he had a short reign, followed by Aahmes and Nefertari.

Queen Aah-hotep had several children and was a wonderful woman, according to some accounts, with the longevity of a Mertytefs. A Theban stele of Kames shows that in the tenth year of Amen-hotep I, that Aah-hotep, the royal mother, was still active, revered and honored, taking a share in the government and perhaps regent in the absence of the king, at eighty-eight years of age, and she seems still to have been alive during the reign of Tahutmes or Thothmes I. Hence she had seen the whole of the revolution which again set the native princes upon the throne, during the reigns of son, grandson and great grandson. Petrie says of her, she was “one of the great queens of Egyptian history, important as the historic link of the dynasties and revered along with her still more celebrated and honored daughter, Nefertari.” Peculiarly close, and perhaps personally tender, relations seem to have existed between these two, who were both mother and daughter and mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. And children and grandchildren appear to have paid highest respect to Queen Aah-hotep.

The esteem of the son for his mother in the time of the Old Empire seems to have been great, as the Frenchman of to-day is said to be especially devoted to his. The family groups representing the living or dead, and sometimes both, frequently give the king, his wife and his mother, while the father rarely appears; though this is[79] probably more apt to be the case when the royal dignity has descended on the maternal rather than the paternal side.

Queen Aah-hotep was evidently much beloved by her martial son and grandsons, for the latter lavished upon her dead body all sorts of jewelry and ornaments to be buried with her. This large collection has been found and preserved, and, until the discovery of the parure of some of the princesses of the Twelfth Dynasty, was the finest specimen of the skill of the Egyptian craftsman that had come down to modern times. The body was found in the ancient necropolis of No, buried only a few feet below the surface. This, of course, was not the original place of sepulture, where the latest authorities believe it was placed, not by the Arab plunderers of the other royal tombs, but by pious hands, to preserve it from destruction, in the unsettled state of the country. Brugsch thus describes it: “The cover of the coffin had the shape of a mummy and was gilt above and below. The royal asp decked the brow. The white of the eye is represented by quartz and the pupils by black glass. A rich imitation necklace covers the breast and shoulders; the ur?us serpent and the vulture—the holy symbols of the Upper and Lower land of Kemi—lie below the necklace. A closed pair of wings seem to protect the rest of the body. At the soles of the feet stand the statues of the mourning goddesses, Isis and Nepththys. The inscription in the middle row gives us the queen Aah-hotep, as servant of the moon.”

The mummy of Queen Aah-hotep was discovered[80] by rummaging Arabs in 1860, but was captured and confiscated by the authorities, who opened the coffin and took away what it contained. The rumor of this theft had spread, and Mariette, the great Egyptologist, who was in charge of the museum at Boulak, put his hand on the coffin and the jewels, but was not able to save them all. He believed that the queen was not originally buried where the Arabs discovered her, but thinks that towards the close of the Twentieth Dynasty she had been carried off by bands of robbers, spoken of in the Abbott papyrus, and hidden by them to despoil at leisure. Their design, however, was frustrated, as they were probably caught and executed, and their secret perished with them, until rediscovered hundreds of years later. As may be seen, the theories of the authorities on these subjects differ somewhat, as is so frequently the case. But to the latest researches and opinions perhaps should be attached the greatest weight, since they have the advantage of their predecessors’ views and the benefit of the most modern discoveries.

A fine illustration of female clothing and adornment is given in the standing statue of the Dame or Lady “Takarshit.” She wears a short wig, in rows of curls, and an embroidered band across her head, a very scant, narrow, and short robe, which almost makes us wonder how she had free play for her limbs (this, too, is embroidered in rows with religious subjects), and she has bracelets and chains on her wrists and arms. The face is older than the figure, as the Egyptians in sculpture would occasionally unite[81] the beauty of youthful form with that of the more mature head and countenance.

The list of Queen Aah-hotep’s treasures, habited, as we can picture her to be, in the garb just described, is a long one. On the gilded coffin lid she is represented with face uncovered and body enveloped in wings of Isis. This goddess was a special object of worship at this time, as later in the Ptolemaic period also. Among the most interesting of the trinkets is a little golden boat set on a wheeled wooden carriage and manned with small figures, the central one of which is her son, King Kames, or, as it was originally thought, her husband. He is going to Abydos, and holds in his hand an axe and a sceptre. There is also another little silver boat with its crew of rowers. A diadem as small as a bracelet for the wrist was found attached to the head of the queen, and terminated in tiny sphinxes, with the name of Aahmes engraved in letters of gold upon a groundwork of lapis-lazuli. A funeral collar, prescribed by the ritual, has designs of animals in chased gold, the figures outlined by fine gold wires, like Chinese cloissonne, between paste and colored stones. The coloring of all this enamel is particularly rich. There are three massive gold bees, possibly intended as the decoration for some order; also silver bees. A necklace with hanging ornaments in the shape of red and blue almonds. A box in the form of a royal cartouch as a large seal guarded by two sphinxes. A magnificent chain with the head of a goose at either end, the name of King Aahmes on the[82] neck and the scarabeus or sacred beetle hanging from it.

Necklaces of gold and silver, rings and bracelets, the former with little figures of the gods, or amulets of various sorts hanging from them, were much worn; and it is said that after the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, owing to Phoenician influences, the bracelets usually terminated in lions’ heads. These amulets were supposed to preserve the wearer from harm, both in a present and a future world, and the gods themselves, strange to say, sought such protection. The “evil eye,” still thought to exist in our comparatively modern life, as witness the Salem witchcraft craze, was especially dreaded, and there were various designs to ward off its ill effects. Among these were outstretched fingers; “Ut-a’” eyes, sometimes with wings and hands, holding a disk, in different substances; the right symbolized the king, as the sun, the left, the queen, as the moon, and, either sculptured or worn, guarded the owner from this particular form of harm.

The heart amulet and the scarab or scarabeus was very common. Many curious notions prevailed about this insect. It was believed to be of only one sex, and women ate it to induce fecundity. The fact that the male and female closely resemble each other and share in the care of their offspring probably was the foundation of this idea. A remarkable example of a scarab was taken from the mummy of Tahut’mes III. It was of steatite, glazed, of a greenish purple hue, in a hold frame bound across. There was a figure of Tahut’mes kneeling, with crown on[83] head, and the whip, signifying authority, in his hand, while with the other he made an offering to the god. A dog was represented in front and a hawk behind him, and a gold loop was attached to hang the scarab to the chain on the neck. All Egyptians loved jewelry, the men as well as the women wearing necklaces, collars, etc., of gold, silver, beads and precious stones. Great use was made of carnelian, lapis lazuli, jasper, etc., and ladies would occupy themselves, as do the blind of our own time, in stringing glass beads and bugles into network, which in these latter days is used to trim the clothing of the living, while with the Egyptian it was chiefly for the adornment of the dead.

A chapter from the Book of the Dead was found on a scarab of the time of Mycerinas. These scarabs seem to have been of three classes; the first merely for ornament, the second for historic record, and the third for funeral purposes. They sometimes bore the names of kings earlier than those with whose mummies they have been found. A signet ring was of special importance and a necessary article among the belongings of either king or queen, as also of many others of less elevated rank. It was the same thing as the signing of a personal name at the present time—they sealed instead of signing, and when an Eastern monarch wished to send special orders he would sometimes intrust his signet ring to the bearer in token of authority. This ring was of gold or less valuable material, according to the rank of the owner. Many examples of a pretty class of ring made of faience, in blue, green,[84] purple, etc., and manufactured at Tel-el-Amarna, the city built by Amen-hotep IV, formerly called Khu-n-aten, in the latter part of the Eighteenth Dynasty have been found, and are among the collections in various museums.

Some of these collections have sets of ornaments belonging to ancient kings and queens. Berlin has that of an Ethiopean Candace. The Louvre that of a Prince Pzar, with griffins and lotus. Also a ring of Rameses II, with little horses standing on the bezel. At Gizeh are heavy earrings of Rameses IX, with filagree chains and ur?us, and bracelets of Pinotem in gold encrusted with stones, like those made to-day in the Soudan. The later discoveries of this sort, belonging to the latter period of the Egyptian Empire, show Greek influences. But the most extensive, tasteful and finely wrought of these objects was the parure of Queen Aah-hotep. Chains to the women were as essential as rings to the men; a woman was indeed poor if her jewel box held only one.

As the North American Indian slays the favorite horse and lays beside his dead chief bows and arrows for use in the “happy hunting grounds,” so the Egyptian placed in the tomb of his revered and beloved things that he used in daily life. At one time it was even the custom in the case of a king to kill some of his slaves, whose souls might accompany and attend upon him, but this cruel practice was not kept up. For service in another existence, food, furniture and personal belongings surrounded the dead in his grave, as they had done the living in his household;[85] and, in the case of a woman especially, all her feminine appliances for the toilette and many of her ornaments and jewels were included. Some were what had belonged to her in the past, some were newly prepared for the future state. Even faded flowers hundreds of years old have been discovered, and fruit has been found with mummies of the Eleventh Dynasty.

One museum possesses a sarcophagus of a priest of Maut and a prophet of Queen Aah-hotep. To her the priests of Amen rendered divine honors. On the inside of the coffin are invocations to the divine Amenophis II (a descendant of the queen’s), and also to both Queens Aah-hotep and Nefertari Ahmes. The coffin of the former was not so gigantic as that of the latter, and somehow one pictures her as rather smaller and more feminine looking than the daughter who succeeded her in the royal honors, with the thick eyelashes blackened with kohl, the straight brows, the almond-shaped eyes and the other features characteristic of the Egyptian face. Into the future life in which the Egyptian believed so ardently she stepped, after a long pilgrimage in this world, accompanied by all the little devices which had made her comfort and pleasure here, to be honored and revered as she had been accustomed to be in the lower world.

Among the valued amulets was the buckle, or “Tie,” made of jasper, carnelian, porphery, red glass, faience and sycamore wood, more rarely of gold. The red material stood for the blood of Isis, and this amulet was put on the neck of a mummy for its protection. Such were[86] usually without inscription, but two found together would occasionally be inscribed with a chapter from the Book of the Dead. The “Tet,” made of gold, sometimes had plumes, when it signified Osiris and meant firmness. This also was for protection. Serpents’ heads guarded from their bites in another world. The vulture amulet was of gold, but was not common. It referred to “Mother Isis,” and bore such inscriptions from the Book of the Dead as “His Mother, the mighty lady, makes his protection and brings him to Horus.” This was sometimes suspended from the usual gold collar worn by the dead. The “anck,” or life sign, was something like a small cross with an oval ring on top instead of the upper arm, and was very frequent. The amulet “Nefer” was for good luck. “Maut,” always worn by the god Ptah, was a frequent emblem of Hathor. Frogs, disks, plumes, etc., were of this list. Some of these, and more, probably surrounded Queen Aah-hotep.

In a pectoral on her breast King Ahmes was represented, while the two divinities Amen and Ra poured the water of purification on his head; they stand in a little green temple. Bracelets for the ankle or upper arm were simple rings of gold, massive, solid or hollow, edged with threads of gold to represent filagree. Others worn at the wrist, like ours, were formed of beads of gold, lapis lazuli, carnelian and green feldspar, mounted on threads of gold and disposed in squares in which half was a different color. The fastenings were two gold plates united by an aiglet of gold, the cartouch of Ahmes engraved lightly at the[87] point. Some of the bracelets were more complicated but not so fine in workmanship—three parallel bands garnished with turquoise. There was also a vulture, the queen’s special ornament, with outstretched wings; also the heads of sparrow-hawks. Some of the ornaments were attached to the cloth in which the mummy was wrapped by rings. But for what we may call the trousseau of a bride of the tomb, jewelry was not sufficient. Arms, with which she was to protect herself, or be protected, from the evil spirits of another world, were also provided and placed with her. There was a unique specimen of a baton, bent at the extremity and adorned with a spiral of gold. Such forms as this are found to-day among the inhabitants of Nubia and the Soudan, but probably have not the same meaning. An axe was ornamented with gold and precious stones, inlaid, and with a picture of the warlike Aahmes slaying an enemy. Handles of knives in ebony were carved with the lotus. There were poinards with female heads, and sheaths with raised ornaments of damascened gold and inscriptions. On the blade on one side was “The beneficent god Ra-neb-pebti, life giver, as the sun, ever.” On the other, “The son of the sun and of his side Aahmes-nakht—life giver and always.” One hatchet had a handle of horn and a silver blade. A poinard had a yellow bronze blade and silvered handle, and there was also a clasp of bronze with holes left for ostrich feathers.

To these were added a large variety of toilette articles, vases and jars of various sorts for spices,[88] unguents, etc. Alabaster jars in tombs are as ancient as the Fourth Dynasty, and examples are also known inscribed with the name of Unas, Pepi I, Men-tu-em-saf, Amasis I, Tahutimes II, Amenophis II, Rameses II, and Queen Amen-eritis.

The god Bes, said to be introduced from Punt, presided over the toilette. He had a squat, hideous figure, and a face which was doubtless chiefly appreciated from its contrast to that of his fair votaries. He bore a double character, one side being military or martial in aspect, the other a sort of Bacchus or god of Pleasure, and it was in this last, probably, that he was regarded as a suitable guardian for the preparations for feasts and revels. Toilette articles, of which a number were found with the body of the queen, were mirrors, tweezers, hairpins of wood, bone, ivory and metal, and occasionally combs of wood and ivory, though these last are believed by some authorities not to have been introduced till later. There were also kohl pots and little tubes and jars of various forms. Tiny hands of ivory on a stick for scratching the back were sometimes found.

The mirrors, from three to twelve inches in diameter, had handles ornamented with flowers, particularly the well-beloved lotus, and heads of the goddess Hathor and the god Bes. Vases and jars found in the tombs were of various shapes, for wine, oils, spices, unguents, scents, etc., but transparent glass ones are not found earlier than the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. The kohl pots were to hold stibium and antimony of copper to stain the eyelids and eyebrows and give[89] the eyes a wide-open appearance; also for such purposes were little hollow tubes of wood, glass, ivory and alabaster, a column with a palm leaf and figures of Bes. Sometimes the tubes were double, with movable covers on a pivot and accompanied by a stick of bronze wood to apply the unguent. The wicked Jezabel in the Bible is said to have “set her eyes in stibium,” which was, however, a common Eastern practice.

Fine examples of such articles, with the pre-nomen of Amenophis III and his wife Tyi, and of Tut-arch-Amen and his wife Anknes-Amen, have been found. Hematite pillows or head rests, generally uninscribed, and papyrus sceptres mounted in mother-of-emerald and faience, may perhaps be added to this list and not exhaust it. Thus was the queen, surrounded by all the paraphernalia of life, laid in her last resting place. The Egyptian, as has been before said, spent much of his time in preparing and providing for a future existence, and it is through his death, as it were, and on tombs and monuments that we attain to any realistic knowledge of his living days.

The queen is believed to have had a number of children besides Aahmes and Nefertari, whose personality stands out pre-eminent among them. Of these are Birpu, who appears on a statuette, Amenmes and Uazrmes. Of Nebt’ta, one of the daughters, a scarab is known. And Mut’nefert, subsequently queen, may also have been of this family.

Queen Mertytefs’ name calls up this active, capable ruling spirit of the household and the[90] court. Queen Nitocris comes before us as the beauty of her time—the Mary Stuart of an early age, lovely, captivating and admired, but not blameless in her life story. Queen Sebek-nefru-ra is associated with father and husband in works of public usefulness and benefit. But Queen Aah-hotep seems to bear with her an atmosphere of femininity and tenderness. A devout worshipper of the gods, we can picture her as a frequent attendant upon the services and offerings in the temples. At home, a woman perchance with some foibles and weaknesses and a truly feminine love for ornamentation, and yet a mother who won an undying affection. Lamentations and mourning doubtless followed her to the tomb, and upon her inanimate form was lavished a wealth of adornment which bespoke the clinging tenderness of the royal son whose name is found so often inscribed upon her ornaments.