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Ramses IV

Heqamaatre

Dynasty 20

1151-1145 BC

As Ramses III‘s long reign of 31 years came to an end, so did the greatness of the Egyptian pharaohs. The exact relationships of the subsequent kings bearing the name Ramses is at times obscure; certainly Ramses IV, V, VI and VIII appear to have been sons of Ramses III (although, as noted, many of his sons had died young), while Ramses VII seems to have been a son of Ramses VI.

Relief of Ramesses IV at the Temple of Khonsu in Karnak

Ramses IV
Ramses IV succeeded to the throne in about 1151 BC. The identity of his mother – probably either Queen Isis or Queen Titi – is still uncertain, but we do know that he made Tentopet his chief wife (she lies buried in Tomb 74 in the Valley of the Queens). The new king’s first task was to bury his father in the Valley of the Kings. Within four days of the ceremony – as ostraka from the workmen‘s village of Deir el– Medina record – the customary gifts had arrived there and the workmen could look forward to a new commission to cut Ramses IV‘s tomb.

Several inscribed stele in the Wadi Hammamat record the activities of large expeditions sent by Ramses IV to obtain good stone for statues. One group, of 8368 men, included 2000 soldiers, indicative of the amount of policing of the workforce required rather than any defence against attack. Expeditions to the turquoise mines at Serabit el–Khadim in Sinai were also recorded and as far south in Nubia as the fort at Buhen, almost to the Second Cataract. Despite all his endeavours and good works for the gods, and his prayer to Osiris – recorded on a stele of Year 4 at Abydos – that ‘thou shalt give me the great age with a long reign [as my predecessor]’, Ramses IV reigned for only six years.

Limestone ostracon depicting Ramesses IV smiting his enemies

The tomb of Ramses IV lies just outside the earlier main group in the Eastern Valley of the Kings. It has brightly coloured and detailed wall paintings. The large sarcophagus box and its lid, largely intact, still stand in the burial hall. As indicated by its low number, KV 2, the tomb has been open since antiquity; Coptic graffiti cover the walls near the entrance. Like its companion Ramesside tombs it is unfinished, but an interesting papyrus preserved in Turin gives its plan. A puzzling feature was the series of four narrow box-like lines the architect had drawn around the sarcophagus in the burial chamber, the ‘house of gold’. Their meaning became abundantly clear when Tutankhamun‘s burial chamber was opened in 1923 and the four great gold-covered wooden shrines enclosing his sarcophagus were revealed. The mummy of Ramses IV was found in the royal cache in Amenhotep II‘s tomb (KV 35) in 1898.

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No comments Tomb of Sirenput II This tomb, belonging to the grandson of Sirenput I, who was a prince in the reigns of Amenemhet II and Senusert II, is one of the most well-preserved of the Middle Kingdom. It is entered through a courtyard leading to a narrow passage, an excavated hall with six elegant square undecorated columns, and a corridor with three recesses on each side, each containing a statue of the deceased sculpted from the living rock.

Tomb of Sirenput II

The small hall at the end of the corridor has four pillars and a recess at the rear. The condition of the reliefs in the recess is excellent, both the delicately worked hieroglyphics and the delightful family scenes. To the rear, the deceased is seated at a table. His son stands before him bearing flowers. On the right-hand wall is a representation of his mother seated at a table with the deceased to her right. On the left-hand wall is a similar scene with his wife and son.

Granite Quarries (Eastern Bank)

Situated in the eastern desert, directly to the south of Aswan, are the ancient quarries of granite in hues of red, yellow, brown and dark grey. Sculptors and builders for thousands of years drew their supplies from here.

Tomb of Sirenput II

The earliest pharaoh to exploit the quarry was Den of the ist Dynasty, who used blocks for the floor of his cenotaph at Abydos. The 2nd Dynasty pharaoh Khasekhemui used it for his fine temple at Nekhen (Hierakonopolis). Then, in the Old Kingdom the quarry was fully exploited, especially by the 4th Dynasty pharaohs who raised their monuments at Giza: nine great slabs of fifty-four tons each were extracted from the quarries for the ceiling of the so-called King’s Chamber of the Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops). Red granite was choscn for the Valley, or Granite, Temple of Khafre (Cheph- ren). Black granite w’as quarried and despatched for the lower reaches of the outer casing of the Pyramid of Menkaure (Myce- rinus). Thenceforth, right through to Graeco-Roman times, the quarry was in use. Many blocks were abandoned in various stages of completion, which enables us to see the process by which the stone was extracted. Holes were bored along a prescribed straight line. It was once thought that wooden wedges were driven into these, watered and left to expand until it split the stone. Recent excavations, however, have changed our understanding of the quarrying industry. Balls of dolerite, the hardest of stone, weighing up to five-and-a- half kilogrammes, have been found in their hundreds in the area of the quarry, and it is now believed that these were attached to rammers and simultaneously struck with great force by the quarry workers. They were also used to pound and dress the surface of the stone. The system must have been reasonably sure because blocks were very often decorated on three sides.before being detached from the natural rock. The huge Unfinished Obelisk, lying in the northern quarry, is still attached to the bedrock. The reason for its abandonment is that flaws were found in the stone. An attempt was then made to extract smaller obelisks from it, but these projects, too, were abandoned. There is no indication for whom it was intended. The only marks on the surface are those of the workmen. Had it ever been completed, it would have weighed some 1,162 tons and have soared to a height of forty-two metres.

In the southern quarry, rough-hewn blocks show that statues and sarcophagi were roughly shaped before transportation in order to cut down the weight. In the case of the former, the sculptor would begin to hew out the feet at a point several inches above the base of the rock, leaving the lower segment as firm support fc/r the figure. In this quarry there are two rough-shaped sarcophagi that date to the Graeco-Roman period, a rock bearing an inscription of Amenhotep III, and an unfinished colossus of a king (or Osiris) grasping a crook and flail.

No comments Military Activity in Nubia
The Egyptians focused their military aspirations on Nubia (or Kush as they called it) during much of the 12th Dynasty, and sought to reinforce the border with a series of forts. Some of these were founded by Senusret I and II, but the majority was built by Senusret III. Papyrus dispatches from this period report the slightest movements within the area, and one lists 13 fortresses between Elephantine (Aswan) – the official southern boundary of Egypt – and Semna far to the south at the end of the Second Cataract. Seven of these fortresses were located within the 40-mile (64- km) stretch of the Second Cataract itself, and all were built in strategic positions with thick mud-brick walls.

Military Activity in Nubia

Due to the imminent destruction of many of these sites during the flooding of Nubia in the 1960s when Lake Nasser was created, international rescue excavations revealed much information about them. They were evidently big enough to be self-sufficient and to house all the necessary personnel – their like unparalleled until the great fortifications of medieval Europe. Sadly, the huge rounded bastion towers, complete with arrow slits covering angles of fire across a wide ditch, of the great fort at Buhen were excavated only to be lost once more under some 200 ft (61 m) of water of the lake formed by the Great High Dam at Aswan.

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No comments Creatures Come down to Drink, 1817
Captains Charles Irby and James Mangles Wednesday, July 23. It was curious to observe in the morning, on the smooth sur­face of the sand, drifted by the night breeze, the tracks of the snakes, lizards, ani­mals, etc, etc which had come down to the water’s side during the night to drink; and we could plainly discern the traces of their return to their solitary haunts in the desert. Sometimes their track indicated the presence of reptiles of considerable size; and with these proofs of their nocturnal movements, we easily accounted for the dread our guides expressed of walking near the water’s side the night we returned from the second cataract.
Climbing the Colossi, 1848 
Harriet Martineau I was impatient to get to the Colossi of the large temple, which looked magnificent from our deck. So, after breakfast, I set forth alone, to see what height I could attain in the examination of the statues. The southernmost is the only complete one. The next to it is terribly shattered: and the other two have lost the top of the helmet. They are much sanded up, though, thanks to Mr. Hay, much less than they were. The sand slopes up from the half-cleared entrance to the chin of the northernmost colossus: and this slope of sand it was my purpose to climb. It was so steep, loose, and hot to the feet, that it was no easy matter to make my way up. The beetles, which tread lightly and seem to like having warm feet, got on very well; and they covered the sand with a net work of tracks: but heavier climbers, shod in leather, are worsted in the race with them. But one cannot reach the chin of a colossus every day: and it was worth an effort. And when I had reached the chin, I made a little discovery about it which may be worth recording, and which surprised me a good deal at the time. I found that a part of the lower jaw, reaching half way up the lower lip, was composed of the mud and straw of which crude bricks are made. There had been evidently a fault in the stone, which was supplied by this material. It was most beautifully moulded. The beauty of the curves of these great faces is surprising in the stone: the fidelity of the rounding of the muscles, and the grace of the flowing lines of the cheek and jaw: but it was yet more wonderful in such a material as mud and straw. I cannot doubt that this chin and lip were moulded when the material was in a soft state: a difficult task in the case of a statue seventy feet high, standing up against the face of a rock. I called the gentlemen up, to bear witness to the fact: and it set us looking for more instances. Mr. E. soon found one. Part of the dress of the Second Osiride on the right hand, entering the temple, is composed of this same material, as smoothly curved and nicely wrought as the chin overhead. On examining closely, we found that this layer of mud and straw covered some chiselling within. The artist had been carving the folds of the dress, when he came upon a fault in the stone which stopped his work till he supplied a surface of material which he could mould. The small figures which stand beside the colossi and between their ankles, and which look like dolls, are not, as is sometimes said, of human size. The hat of a man of five feet ten inches does not reach their chins by two inches. The small figures are, to my eye, the one blemish of this temple. They do not make the great Ramses look greater, but only look dollish themselves.

On the legs of the shattered colossus are the Greek letters, scrawled as by a Greek clown, composing the inscription of the soldiers sent by Psammitichus in pursuit of the Egyptian deserters whom I mentioned as going up the country from Elephantine, when weary of the neglect in which they were left there. We are much obliged to ‘Damearchon, the son of Ambichus, and Pelephus, the son of Udamus,’ for leaving, in any kind of scrawl, a record of an event so curious. One of the strangest sensations to the traveller in Egypt, is finding such traces as these of persons who were in their day modem travellers seeing the antiquities of the country, but who take their place now among the ancients, and have become subjects of Egyptian history. These rude soldiers, carving their names and errand on the legs of an ancient statue as they went by, passed the spot a century and a half before Cambyses entered the country. One wonders what they thought of Thebes, which they had just seen in all its glory.

No comments Water and Minarets, 1868
Reverend A.C. Smith

Then the strange architecture, the really handsome fountains, which abound at the comers of the bazaars for the continual refreshment of this water–loving people; the mosques, many of which have no slight pretensions to beauty, above all the minarets, the most graceful and elegant of buildings, and which catch the eye at the distant ends of the streets; the light and airy lattice–work of the windows, which admits the air, but keeps out prying eyes from the rigidly secluded interior; these and many a charming bit of detail, on which one continually stumbles in the more retired part of this extensive city, made our daily rides through the streets of Cairo fascinating and amusing during the whole of our stay.

Ancient Egyptian Nile

At intervals, and more especially at the quieter hours of evening and night, came the musical chant of the Muezzins from the galleries of the tall minarets, calling the faithful to prayer; and as the solemn sound of these aerial invitations to devotion float over the city, it seems like the melodious voice of angels calling out of heaven: “God is great. God is merciful. There is no Deity but God: Mahommed is the Apostle of God. Come to prayer, come to prayer. Prayer is better than sleep. There is no Deity but God.”

But what continually came uppermost in the minds of us all, and I suppose of most of my fellow countrymen in Cairo, was the strong feeling we had that we were living in the midst of the scenes so familiar to us in childhood from that favourite book, The Arabian Nights Entertainments, but never realised till now.

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No comments The Great Temple at Abu Simbel, 1817
Captains Charles Irby and James Mangles

Abu Simbel

We now entered the temple, and thus ended all our labours, doubts and anxiety. This morning we built a wall to barricade the door; it was made of stones and mud, with a foundation of date trees driven in to prevent the sand from giving way. A toad crept out of the temple while we were thus employed, and hid himself in the rubbish at the entrance. We now bought down to the boat some statues of calcarious stone which we found in the temple. At three we went to work again; two of the Ebsambul peasants came, and appeared astonished that we succeeded. They said the country people had no idea we should have accomplished our undertaking. They appeared to think the temple would make a good hiding place for their cattle, etc, whenever the Bedouins came to rob them.

Each party of travelers employed the local people to remove the sand from the temple site. As soon as they left, the sand began to drift down again, and later the local people were once again employed to clear it . . .

No comments What to Wear, 1819
John Fuller The stock of clothes which I had brought with me from Europe being nearly exhausted, I assumed today the Oriental dress, which I continued to wear all the time I remained in the Levant. I do not, however, in general recommend its adoption, except in those places where the prejudices of the people render it necessary: for although the superior dignity and grace which it gives to the figure may flatter the personal vanity of the wearer, its cumbrousness will constantly check his activity, and multiply the temptations to indolence which in a hot country are always sufficiently abundant. There is one circumstance, however, which may recommend it to some travellers: the change of appearance effected by the resumption of the Frank [foreign] costume is so complete, that it will enable them, on their return to Europe, safely to avoid noticing those persons with whom in the East they may have been connected by the ties of familiarity or obligation, but whom it may not be agreeable to recognise in more polite countries. Travelers moved up river from Alexandria to observe the rest of Egypt though often returning once more to embark from Alexandria for home.. On Our Way, 1840 Sarah Haight When about to set out from our hotel in Alexandria, we had our first initiative in the mode of transporting travelling effects in the East. We sent to engage a platoon of porters to carry our immense materiel to the canal; but instead of the troop of noisy Arabs who seized upon it when we first landed at the custom-house quay, and brought up each heavy load one mile for ten paras, two huge camels came stalking into the courtyard. Now I had seen at Smyrna the compact bales of merchandise nicely balanced one on each side of the camel, but it puzzled my ingenuity to conceive how they could dispose, on the round backs of these two animals, such a medley of discordant articles as our travelling equipage is composed of. Round, square or triangular, short or long, straight or crooked, slippery or rough, was the separate quality of each individual article. On a May-morning in Gotham, no little skill is displayed by our ingenious cartmen in stacking up the indefinite sundries of a moving household; but I am much deceived if, set to load a camel with such incongruous traps, they would not be completely ‘non-plussed’. First, then, the docile animal was made to kneel down. The manner in which this movement is effected is singular, and very painful to behold at first. The beast, at a signal given . . . first utters a groan in anticipation at its expected burden; then stooping, it puts one fore knee upon the ground, then the other; after which, gathering its hind legs under the body, it comes down to the ground with an awkward and apparently painful jerk. Then commences the operation of loading up. There is a sort of wooden pack-saddle, with projecting sticks on the top whereby to attach ropes. Then a large rope-net (made of the coarse fibres of the palm-tree wood) is spread over this saddle, and several feet on the ground on each side of the animal. Then on the net commences a foundation- of boxes, trunks, and other heavy articles, on which is raised a superstructure of hampers, kegs, barrels, batterie de cuisine, arms, saddles, and other gear too tedious to mention. The sides of the net are then gathered up and made fast to the pack-saddle horns. The beast is then assisted to rise, not by a kindly shoulder, but by the brawny arm of an Arab wielding the bamboo, who repays with interest the many rough blows which he himself has received from other quarters. When the animal is on his feet again, then comes the surplus cargo of light articles, in the shape of beds thrown across the top of the load, jugs and jars hung round the sides, the whole flanked by innumerable baskets, pails, lanterns, etc, etc.

Thus loaded, two camels carried all our effects. But it is only for short distances that such heavy loads can be carried by the camel. For a regular, long caravan journey, it would have required a dozen of these ships of the desert to transport conveniently and safely the same articles, with fuel and water for a few days.

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Diplomatic relations outside Egypt

At Tell el–Daba (Avaris) in the north-eastern Delta, there is evidence from the recent excavations of terrible destruction wrought upon the palaces there. Incredible Minoan-style wall-painting fragments (which might even predate the Minoan frescoes at Knossos on Crete) have been found scattered in a garden area at the site, testifying not only to the intensity of the onslaught but, more importantly, to connections with the Minoan artistic world. Another Cretan connection is a circular alabaster jar lid found in the palace of Knossos, inscribed with the cartouche of the third Hyksos king, Khyan.

His name has also been found in a graffito inscription scratched on the shoulder of a red granite Middle Kingdom couchant sphinx which was, curiously, found in Baghdad. Khyan is better known from inscribed material than his brother kings, most of whom are only known from scarabs (which are the characteristic artifacts of the dynasty).

Large semitic ruins at Tell el-Maskhuta (Succoth)

Records for the period of the Hyksos are sparse, probably due to two main factors. First, their influence was largely confined to the Delta and the northern areas of Egypt, where they had their centre of authority.

New Innovations in Warfare

The military expertise of the Hyksos undoubtedly contributed greatly to their ability to overcome so rapidly any Egyptian resistance. Not only did they introduce the horse and chariot to warfare, giving them a huge tactical advantage, but they were also skilled archers. The Egyptians were quick to recognize the importance of these new methods of warfare, and both the bow and the chariot were utilized a great deal in the conquests of the New Kingdom pharaohs.

Secondly, to have foreign rulers was regarded as a terrible thing in ancient Egypt and once the essential equilibrium had been restored – there was a definite movement of damnatio memoriae, and Hyksos monuments would have been obliterated or destroyed.

The ephemeral 16th Dynasty (minor kings who almost certainly operated in the shadow of and by the authority of the Hyksos rulers at Avaris) produces only two names – Anather and Yakobaam – which do not occur in cartouches and are largely only known from scarabs found in northern Egypt and southern Palestine.

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No comments The ancient Egyptians were rather closer to the disconcerting discovery of death than we are today. Their belief in a life after death was even firmer and also more concrete. In due course they developed a complicated ritual to assure eternal life for each man and woman, but in early times the individual seems to have put his own trust for survival after death in the continued existence of the divine king. The pharaoh’s tomb, its grandeur and splendour, as well as the ritual and sacrifices attending it, therefore became the concern of everyone. The arrival of the dynastic race in Egypt was heralded by the construction of large and impressive tombs for their kings.

Ancient Egyptian Pyramid

The eternal life which awaited the Egyptian after his death was very much the same existence as he had known before. He would work in the fields or, if he were rich, he would supervise this work, count his cattle and poultry, sit with beautiful girls at banquets, being entertained by still more beautiful girls. They would offer drink, play music and dance along on the walls of the tomb which also show us his garden and the ponds where he could hunt ducks or spear fish. The pictures on the walls of their tombs tell us more about the life of the Egyptian people then what we know about the Greeks, the Romans or even about the Middle Ages. Unlike the battle scenes or the solemn processions on the temple walls, the pictures in the tombs were, of course, not meant to be seen. They were shut in with the dead owner as a magical device to provide him with all the comforts which he had known in his lifetime. They were to supplement the offerings which priests, paid for their services, had to place before the dummy door of his sepulchre. The furniture, the ointments and the gaming boards which were put into his grave all served the same purpose; to make sure that in the eternal life he had all that he had enjoyed in this one. In other words, the Egyptians believed that they could take it with them. Around the early tombs of the kings the archaeologists found the graves of retainers and women who had gone with the king when he died. The skeletons showed that they were young women and there can be little doubt that they had been put to death at the pharaoh’s funeral. Like the women in the death pits of Mesopotamia, these harem ladies showed no signs of violence and it may be assumed that they went to their deaths voluntarily, as the retainers and household officials may have done.

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No comments The Middle Kingdom The Middle Kingdom started about 2060 B.C. with the end of the Xlth dynasty. The Pharaoh Montu-Hotep I re-established control over Lower Egypt with the aid of the Egyptian “middle class”. During the reigns of his successors, Montu-Hotep II and Montu-Hotep III, commerce was intesified, a trade route to the Red Sea was opened and an expansionist policy aimed at Nubia was put into operation.

The Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt

The Xllth dynasty had its beginnings about the year 2000 B.C. and it proved to be one of the most renowned and also one of the greatest in the whole of Egyptian history. Its first pharaoh was Amon-Emhat I who established the cult of Amon who consequently became the principal deity. This pharaoh was an able administrator and under his rule Egypt enjoyed another period of great prosperity. He extended Egypt’s frontier into the heart of Nubia going as far as Korosko and he also fought the Libyans. He was succeeded by his son Sesostris I who seized the gold mines of Wadi Allaki. To ensure the continuity of the dynasty he associated his eldest son with the throne and all his successors followed his example. We have very few documents relating to the reigns of his successors Amon-Emhat II and Sesotris II but we do know established with Phenicia. The region around Feyyrum was reclaimed and Amon-Emhat III built a grandiose residence there which was so complex that the Greeks referred to it as the « Labyrinth ». His successor, Sesotris III, was one of Egypt’s most important sovereigns. Following four military campaigns he colonised Nubia, he went as far as Palestine and he built a large number of forts along the frontier with the Sudan. During this period there was also a considerable flowering of cultural activity demonstrated by such famous works as the « Book of Two Lives » and the « Teachings of Amon-Emhat ».

The Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt

With the Xllth dynasty the Middle Kingdom came to an end. It was succeeded by the so-called Second Interim Period which even today remains obscure and full of uncertainties. It was dominated by the invasion of a Semitic people coming from east of the Delta. The priest Manetonius of Sebennite who wrote a history of Egypt in Greek entitled « Memorable Facts about Egypt » called them Hyksos, a deformation of the Egyptian word « Hekakhasut » meaning « head of foreign countries ».

The Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt

They invaded the fertile plains of the Delta, fortified the city of Avaris and made it their capital. The victory of the Hiksos over the Egyptians must have been quite easy because not only did they find a weak government but they were also militarily superior to the Egyptians. They were responsible for the introduction of iron weapons, horses and war chariots all of which were previously unknown to the Egyptians, the Hyksos princes united around them other dynasties of Upper Egypt and defeated the invading army. This reconquest was brought to a successful conclusion around 1622 B.C. by Ahmose, also the founder of the XVIIIth dynasty, who chased the enemy as far as southern Palestine and reunited Egypt under his rule.

The colossus of Akhen Aton (Cairo, Egyptian Museum).