“How lived, how loved, how died she?” are questions that rise in the mind in thinking of these royal ladies of the past. Of their individual lives but few records remain, and it is from inscriptions and paintings on the tombs, especially of those of less prominence than the kings, we may gather something of the daily life of the queens.
“No nation of the earth has shown so much zeal and ingenuity, so much method and regularity in recording the details of private life as the Egyptians,” says Brugsch. The kings’ tombs chiefly celebrated their victories, the king riding forth in his chariot, or with his captives by the hair, in the act of slaying them, or the king—sometimes accompanied by the queen—making offerings to the gods, these are the favorite subjects for the artist’s pencil, but for the details of female life we must look elsewhere.
From the tomb of Ti, of the Fifth Dynasty sometimes called the Pepys of that period, and from the sepulchres at Beni Hassen, much has been learned of the domestic life. Ti was a favorite subject of the king’s, an official of high rank, and his wife a lady of noble birth, of kin[300] to the royal house. So we have pictures of all the household arrangements, the feeding and preparing of animals for food, the tenants, male and female, bringing of the fruits of the earth to their master, and he himself, after the Egyptian manner, painted of larger size than his inferiors, going forth to fish and to hunt. Sometimes, but rarely, the women also accompanied their husbands on these expeditions.
A statue of Ti bears the same likeness as the figure in the tomb. It is that of a fine young man, with regular features, and the statue of his wife Nofre-hoteps, grand-daughter of a Pharaoh, was also found.
As has been said before, the women in Egypt had no such separate and secluded life as those in the Eastern countries, they appear to have mingled freely with their male relatives, and the queens acted as regents during the absence of their husbands, or the minority of their sons, or sometimes ruled in their own right, from the earliest times.
There were the apartments of the women or the king’s harem, but not in such an exclusive sense as in many other Eastern countries, nor was the chief official in charge invariably an eunuch.
The seat of government changed from time to time under the different dynasties, so that some of the queens lived chiefly in Memphis, some in Thebes, some in Tanis, and, among the later rulers, in Sais and Napata.
The palaces were not many stories in height, and had, sometimes, pylons and columns in front,[301] the rooms were built round a succession of open courtyards, which were shaded by palm, orange, olive, fig and other trees, and they also had large and beautiful gardens with fountains, especially in the royal country villas. On the flat roofs the people passed many hours, and disported themselves under awnings, and slept there on rugs and mats. In the country the houses and grounds were usually surrounded by high walls. Large mansions stood detached and had doors opening on various sides, and before the columns or colossi, at the entrance, hung ribbons or banners, especially on festival occasions. Sometimes a portico had a double row of columns, with statues between, these were also colored, and, when not of stone, were stained to represent it. The walls and ceilings of the palaces were brilliantly painted. They were also at times inlaid or adorned with lapis-lazuli, which was a favorite stone, amber and malachite. In the royal establishments there were porticoes and vestibules, constructed with great splendor, numerous columns, walls glittering with jewels, and curtains of gold tissue.
Floors were of stone or composition, roofs with rafters of date palm, and transverse beams of larger palm. Stone arches have been found both of the time of Rameses III and Psamettichus. Rare woods were imported, and also demanded as tribute from foreign nations, conquered by the Egyptians, as well as gold, silver, precious stones and slaves.
After passing through the servants’ offices one came to the store-rooms, the great dining hall,[302] the sleeping rooms, and the kitchens, and at the further end of a piece of ground two buildings, turned back to back, and separated by small gardens, were the women’s apartments, which often had shutters closed with valves to keep out the heat.
The lady is spoken of as “Mistress of the House,” or “Lady of the House,” and seemed to have full rule over it—there is even a story that her husband himself was bound to obey her indoors, but this is hardly likely.
They had low stools for tables, flat baskets for dinner plates, and pretty Syrian maidens were favorite slaves. Couches, chairs, stools and tables were of wood, bronze and silver, the feet were often of lions’ claws, and the top of the tables were upheld by figures of captives and slaves. The furniture was carved with serpents, lotus flowers and other designs, and the back of a couch or chair was sometimes a hawk with outspread wings, and the ends of the couch terminated in the head of a lion or other beast. Sometimes the couches were used for beds and made ornamental in the day time. The Egyptians had alabaster or wooden head rests, like the Japanese, though the manner of hair dressing did not seem to require it to the same extent. The ladies’ dressing tables were covered with boxes for ointment, bottles for cosmetics, perfumes, and oils, and they used small metal mirrors, often with the figure of the god Bes as a handle.
The costumes, adapted to the climate, were light, especially in the earlier times, and the chief part was of fine linen. Later there seems to[303] have been more elaboration and heavier and richer materials used. Wigs protected the head of both male and female from the sun, as did the turbans and veils of other countries. The vulture, with outspread wings, emblem of the goddess Mut, formed part of the queen’s head-dress, as did the royal asp, raised in act to strike.
Thoth was the god of learning, called “the baboon with shining hair and amiable face,” the “letter writer for the gods.” Children and youth were expected to study and exhorted, even as far back as the time of King Pepys, “Give thy heart to learning and love her like a mother.” And there is also a touch of kinship with more modern times in the statement that the boy scholar be not allowed to oversleep and that children left school “shouting for joy.” Severity was sometimes used, as we read, “The youth has a back, he attends when it is beaten.” And again, “The ears of the young are placed in the back, and he hears when he is flogged.” Copy books of 1700 B. C. have been found, and we possess the school exercises of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties. Such examples in mental arithmetic as “There were seven men, each had seven cats, each cat had eaten seven mice, each mouse had eaten seven grains of barley. How much barley had been lost in this way?” etc., etc.
But neither were the pleasures and amusements of the little ones overlooked, and there have been preserved little wooden soldiers, in the dress of ancient times, dolls, balls and many other things that still delight the child of to-day; such as tops, boats, etc.
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An olive branch was hung at the door on the birth of a boy and a strip of woolen cloth at that of a girl. If a new born babe cried “Ny!” it would live, but if it cried “Nibe!” it would die. Mothers nursed their children for three years, and upon daughters more than upon sons was laid the obligation of looking after their parents in old age. The royal children had also, when they were old enough, quarters of their own, where they were under the charge of a tutor who was called a nurse. Those of the higher orders, dressed like grown people, as in the present day the children of Holland are often the amusing reproductions, in miniature, of their parents. The children of the lower orders dispensed in great part, or entirely, with any sort of covering.
Women were mistresses in their own house, came and went freely and so much so that we have an amusing story that among the lower classes the husbands sometimes hid their wives’ shoes to keep them at home, and this before the days of female clubs! But in spite of her privileges child bearing and work soon aged this class of women.
Among the moral precepts of the Egyptians in a papyrus now in the Louvre is one that says, “Ill treat not thy wife, whose strength is less than thine. Be thou her protector,” showing that it was no slavish relation that was expected to exist between man and wife. And again in another place we have a father who exhorts his son to have regard for his mother. “It is God Himself who gave her to thee, and now that thou art grown up and hast a wife and house in thy[305] turn, remember always thine helpless infancy and the care thy mother lavished upon thee, so that she may never have occasion to reproach thee, nor to raise her hands to heaven against thee, for God would fulfill her curse.”
At the door of a house where there was a bride, flowers were hung, and a vessel of water was placed where there was a death. Fragments of impassioned love songs have come down to us, and though we know little of their marriage customs, compared to their funerals, the freedom of intercourse between the sexes and the greater opportunity for personal acquaintance than was usually afforded in Eastern countries, leads to the supposition that real love matches were n............