No comments Ramses III and the Sea Peoples
The written and graphically illustrated account of Ramesses‘ fight against the Sea Peoples is recorded on the walls of his great and remarkably well-preserved mortuary temple at Medinet Habu. The written account occurs on the outer wall of the Second Pylon, north side; it is the longest hieroglyphic inscription known. The graphic representations are carved on the outer north wall of the temple. Having halted for a while in Syria, the Sea Peoples resumed their march overland to attack Egypt. This was not simply an act of war, it was with intent to force their way into Egypt and settle – they were a nation on the move, complete with women and children and family possessions piled high on ox-carts. At sea, their fleet of no mean proportions kept station with the march. Ramses realized that rapid movement was called for; despatches were sent to the eastern frontier posts to stand firm at all costs until the main Egyptian army could be brought up. The clash came at the border and the slaughter of the invaders was great, as the reliefs depict. Pharaoh was everywhere in his chariot and, according to the canon of Egyptian art, represented at far greater size than any of the other participants.

Although the land invasion had been scattered, there was still the threat from the sea. The Sea Peoples’ fleet made for the mouth of one of the eastern arms of the Nile, to be met there by the Egyptian fleet. What transpired is rather interesting because the Egyptians had never prided themselves on being great sailors. They hated the sea, wdj wi, the ‘Great Green’, as they called the Mediterranean, but here they were fighting what was virtually a landlocked battle. Ramses had ranks of archers lining the shore who poured volley after volley into the enemy ships as soon as they were within range. Egyptian ‘marine’ archers are shown calmly standing on the decks firing in unison, the enemy ships being hauled alongside with grappling hooks. The enemy dead fall before the onslaught in contorted postures and Ramses returns victorious, by the grace of Amun, the god of Thebes. This was really the beginning of the build up of the fabulous wealth of the priesthood of Amun that was to have such disastrous consequences in the next dynasty.

Temple of Ramses III at Medinet Habu

Although no follow-up campaign to pursue the Sea Peoples back into the Levant is recorded in the Great Harris Papyrus, or on the walls of Medinet Habu, such a move would have been reasonable. It is interesting to note that the great entrance gateway to the temple is actually modelled on a Syrian fortified tower, a migdol, such as are clearly seen on the reliefs of Seti I and Ramses II at Karnak. Ramses III‘s building was merely an ornament, an ancient Egyptian ‘folly’ in a way, but he did have a use for it because on the walls of some of the upper rooms are scenes of him dallying with the ladies of his harem.

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No comments The Great Tomb Robberies It was in the reign of Ramses IX that the first of a series of scandals broke, when it was revealed that the tombs in the Valley of the Kings were being plundered. The robberies mainly took place in Year 16 of the reign, although there had been an earlier incident before Year 9, followed by an attack on KV 9 where Ramses VI had only recently been buried. The affair in Year 16 largely came to light because of intense rivalry between the mayor of Thebes, Paser, and the mayor of western Thebes, Paweraa, who was responsible for the cemeteries.

Ramses IX

Reports of the robberies were made to the vizier, Khaemwaset, who ordered a commission to investigate the allegations. Of the ten tombs that were checked, only that of Amenhotep I was said to have been intact. Of the remainder, some had been partly robbed whilst others had been completely despoiled. The verbatim accounts of the trials of several of the culprits have survived in over a dozen papyri, known as the ‘Tomb Robbing Papyri’, which are now scattered in various museums. One confession by a stonemason, Amun-pnufer, recorded on the 22nd day of the third month of winter in Year 16 of Ramses IX (c. 1110 BC), related in detail how the tomb of the 17th Dynasty king Sobekemsaf and his queen Nubkhas had been totally pillaged, even to the extent of setting fire to their coffins. The stonemason actually details the extent of the spoils from the two bodies, amounting to ‘160 deben of gold’, which is about 32 lb (14.5 kg). Compare this with the items from Tutankhamun’s tomb, where the gold mask alone weighs 22% lb (10.23 kg) and the inner gold coffin nearly 243 lb (110.4 kg).

No comments Upper Egypt in January, 1836 William Ramsay

Upper Egypt

Edfou, Jan. 9: The fields were looking very beautiful; the system of irrigation is carried on at an immense extent here; it is everything; at every short distance, one sees the water raised from the Nile, by men who hand it up in buckets one to another, into little tanks, till it reaches the top, when it runs down the channels formed for it. There is one great channel which branches off into smaller ones, and these into smaller, till at last it enters the small fields or plots, generally about ten feet square, where it spreads and remains, each little plot being enclosed by raised banks, on which the channels run; when one plot is watered, the entrance for the water is closed with a lump of earth, and the water passes onto the next; when the whole of one division has received its share, the connection with the grand passage is stopped, and so on. The squares are all very carefully kept, and, in fact, in this irrigation consists the whole system of husbandry. A plough, I suppose, is never used; all the land requires is a rough breaking up with a hoe for wheat for clover not even that. Indian corn is now ripe, and the harvest is going on. It is sown before the rise of the Nile, and is ripe soon after its fall; and it is thus calculated that it must have been the corn which was not smitten in the Plagues of Egypt by the hail, as it was sprouting above ground when the other corn, which is sown on the waters retiring, was ripe and fit for the harvest. The same system seems to be persuaded now as in the early and palmy days of this country. The drawings on the walls of some of the tombs display all the processes of husbandry and other daily occupations and allusions to the Bible might have been made as to what happens at the present day, so much the same has everything remained. It is called “the country that thou waterest with thy foot” and it is so now the people use their naked feet for stopping the water channels, when required. A very beautiful plant, which we saw a good deal of today in the fields, is the castor-oil tree I never saw such a diversity of appearances on one plant at the same time: two totally different flowers on the same stalk, one red, the other white, berries, buds and fruit, something like horse-chestnuts, but more delicate the young leaves also were of a deep purple, the old ones bright green.

Edfou, 2 Feb. Since we were here last, the appearance of the country is very much altered. The forests of Indian com are cut down, and the stubble is a poor substitute, especially when the sun is so hot as today; the wheat has grown to eight inches or a foot, in three weeks; the cotton plants have withered, and the irrigation has altered its character.

No comments Tomb of Prince Pra-her-Umenef Pra-her-Umenef was another of the sons of Ramses III who died rather young and who like his brothers is buried in this valley. The decoration is more or less the same as in the other tombs and shows the dead prince being presented by his father to various divinities. The dominant colours however are yellow ochre and pink in this case.

Tomb of Prince Pra-her-Umenef

Tomb of Prince Pra-her-Umenef

No comments A new artistic style
It is evident from the art of the Amarna period that the court officially emulated the king’s unusual physical characteristics. Thus individuals such as the young princesses are endowed with elongated skulls and excessive adiposity, while Bek – the Chief Sculptor and Master of Works – portrays himself in the likeness of his king with pendulous breasts and protruding stomach. On a stele now in Berlin Bek states that he was taught by His Majesty and that the court sculptors were instructed to represent what they saw. The result is a realism that breaks away from the rigid formality of earlier official depictions, although naturalism is very evident in earlier, unofficial art.

Statue of Akhenaten in the early Amarna style.

The power behind the throne?
Although the famous bust of Nefertiti in Berlin (p. 123) shows her with an elongated neck, the queen is not subject to quite the same extremes as others in Amarna art, by virtue of being elegantly female. Indeed, there are several curious aspects of Nefertiti‘s representations. In the early years of Akhenaten‘s reign, for instance, Nefertiti was an unusually prominent figure in official art, dominating the scenes carved on blocks of the temple to the Aten at Karnak. One such block shows her in the age-old warlike posture of pharaoh grasping captives by the hair and smiting them with a mace – hardly the epitome of the peaceful queen and mother of six daughters. Nefertiti evidently played a far more prominent part in her husband’s rule than was the norm.

Tragedy seems to have struck the royal family in about Year 12 with the death in childbirth of Nefertiti‘s second daughter, Mekytaten; it is probably she who is shown in a relief in the royal tomb with her grief- stricken parents beside her supine body, and a nurse standing nearby holding a baby. The father of the infant was possibly Akhenaten, since he is also known to have married two other daughters, Merytaten (not to be confused with Mekytaten) and Akhesenpaaten (later to become Tutankhamun‘s wife).

Nefertiti appears to have died soon after Year 12, although some suggest that she was disgraced because her name was replaced in several instances by that of her daughter Merytaten, who succeeded her as ‘Great Royal Wife’. The latter bore a daughter called Merytaten–tasherit (Merytaten the Younger), also possibly fathered by Akhenaten. Merytaten was to become the wife of Smenkhkare, Akhenaten‘s brief successor. Nefertiti was buried in the royal tomb at Amarna, judging by the evidence of a fragment of an alabaster ushabti figure bearing her cartouche found there in the early 1930s.

The king’s resting place

Akhenaten died c. 1334, probably in his 16th regnal year. Evidence found by Professor Geoffrey Martin during re-excavation of the royal tomb at Amarna showed that blocking had been put in place in the burial chamber, suggesting that Akhenaten was buried there initially. Others do not believe that the tomb was used, however, in view of the heavily smashed fragments of his sarcophagus and Canopic jars recovered from it, and also the shattered examples of his ushabtis – found not only in the area of the tomb but also by Petrie in the city.

Relief representing Amenhotep IV before he changed his name to Akhenaten, Neues Museum, Belin

What is almost certain is that his body did not remain at Amarna. A burnt mummy seen outside the royal tomb in the 1880s, and associated with jewellery from the tomb (including a small gold finger ring with Nefertiti’s cartouche, p. 124), was probably Coptic, as was other jewellery nearby. Akhenaten’s adherents would not have left his body to be despoiled by his enemies once his death and the return to orthodoxy unleashed a backlash of destruction. They would have taken it to a place of safety – and where better to hide it than in the old royal burial ground at Thebes where enemies would never dream of seeking it?

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No comments The Sailors Enjoy Esna, 1842
W.H. Bartlett

Esna, which we reached next day, detained us for some hours. The Reis and sailors went into town to obtain provisions, and we had great difficulty in getting them together. There were, in fact, potent attractions on shore, Esna being the head quarters of the banished dancing-girls, who flaunt about the bazaars with loose, immodest dresses, and dusky cheeks thickly covered with paint. The portico of the Temple of Esna struck us as the most magnificent specimen of the Ptolemaic style in Egypt. The earth has almost covered the exterior, although Mehemet Ali has cleared out the inside, into which you, accordingly, have to descend. The columns are unusually tall and slender, and the exquisite variety and graceful designs of the capitals, all formed upon the type of different plants and flowers of the country, is no where surpassed, if equalled.

Temple of Esna

Esna is a town of some little consequence, but, like Nile towns in general, presents nothing to interest the traveller beyond this splendid portico, and as soon as we could drive on board our reluctant sailors, we spread our sails and hastened up the Nile River.

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No comments Approach to Aswan: The Country Changes, 1817
Dr. Robert Richardson

… We came in sight of the mountain range that bounds the extremity of Egypt towards the south. On the west of the river, the mountain range that had accompanied us all the way from Cairo, destitute of vegetation throughout the whole extent, began to assume a bolder aspect, rising into a round bluff point, overlooking the plain, the town, the ruins of Assuan, the island of Elephantina, the rugged cataract, and the branching Nile. It is called Djibl Howa, or mountain of the wind. Its summit is crowned with the tomb of Sheikh Bass, an honoured Maraboot; halfway down its side are the extensive ruins of the convent of St George, with numerous vaults and excavations, soliciting the attention of the enquiring traveller.

  On the east bank of the river the mountain is low, the valley more extended, cultivated and covered with the picturesque palm tree. The aspect gradually ascends in a rocky inclination, and, winding towards the west, terminates at the river, in a precipitous granite cliff, on which stand the ruined walls and houses of the ancient Syene.

Passing the eye along the river as we advance, it was impossible not to be impressed with the singular majesty of its appearance, parted at the bottom of the cataract by the granite base of the green and beautiful island of Elephantina, it poured along its sides as if from an invisible source, and, having joined its divided waters at the low northern end of the island, held on its noble and rapid course to the ocean

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No comments Arrangements for Traveling up the Nile Travelers in Egypt in the past had to make careful preparations for their journey up the Nile. The Arab traveler Ebn Haukal made the journey sound a great adventure and a delight; John Fuller found the journey easy, but travelers needed advice and help from others Harriet Martineau provided special advice for ladies. Early travelers needed a firman, or letter of introduction, from an important person in order to travel along the river. All was not always harmony, for, as two travelers told, the wind might not always blow, or it could blow too hard.

Nile River Map

Up Nile, c. 960
Ebn Haukal There is not any person who knows the foundations or source of the river Nile; on this account, because it issues from a cavern in the territories of Zingbar, from a certain spot, which man may very nearly approach, yet never can arrive at: after this, it runs through the inhabited and desert parts of the Nubians to Misr (Egypt); and there where it first becomes a river, it is equal to the Deljeh and Frat (Tigris and Euphrates). And the water of the river Nile is the most pure and delicious of all waters on the face of the earth.

Just an Excursion, 1819

John Fuller The narrative of a voyage on the Nile cannot be very entertaining, the incidents being little more than a repetition of rowing and towing, far and contrary winds, now and then running on a sandbank, and occasionally a mutiny of the boatmen. The police of the country was at this time good, and such perfect tranquillity prevailed that there were no ‘hair-breadth ‘capes’, no attacks from thieves or banditti to be recorded, as in the times of the older travellers. The voyage from Cairo to the Cataract might be performed with as much security, and almost with as much ease, as an excursion on the Thames; and in my progress up and down the Nile, I fell in with not less than five or six parties of Englishmen, and several other Europeans.

The Firman, 1737 

Richard Pococke To Emir Mahomet Kamali What I order: The person that brings this letter is an Englishman, going into Upper Egypt, to see whatever is curious there; so when he delivers this letter take care to protect him from all harm; and 1 command you again to take care of him. I desire you not to fail of it, for the love you bear us.

Osman Bey Merlue

In 1847, the first Murray’s Guide to Egypt had two long pages of things useful for a journey, suggesting where they should be acquired. Many of them were standard items that anyone might consider for such a journey, but many were unexpected, and tell much about the journey itself. Harriet Martineau considered there were further requirements for lady travelers and writes of the particular care she regarded necessary for healthy and comfortable living in the east.

No comments Death and Burial
In Year 67 (1212 BC) Ramses II, perhaps 92 years of age, was called to the west to join the gods. His tomb had long been prepared in the Valley of the Kings (KV 7), and was as large, if not larger in area, than that of his father Seti I, although not so well decorated. Now it is much damaged and virtually inaccessible. The splendour of the contents of the tomb must have been incredible, if only by comparison with that of the tomb of the short-lived Tutankhamun. Few items, however, survive that can be associated with the burial: a wooden statuette of the king (British Museum), four pseudo–canopic jars (Louvre), the upper half of a hollow-cast, flattened bronze ushabti (Berlin), and two large wooden ushabtis (Brooklyn and British Museum).

Ramses II Mummy

The mummy of Ramses was found in the great cache of royal mummies at Deir el–Bahari in 1881 (DB 320). A docket written in hieratic on the coffin in which it lay recorded that the body was moved in Year 15 (c. 1054 BC) of Smendes from its previous resting place to the tomb of his father, Seti I, whence it was taken to its last secret hiding place. In 1976 the mummy was flown to Paris where a great Ramses II exhibition was staged. Deterioration had been noticed on the body and the journey was also for Ramses to receive the best conservation treatment available. The mummy was examined by xeroradiography which revealed that Ramesses‘ distinctly aquiline nose had retained its shape because the ancient embalmers had packed it full of peppercorns (other noses on mummies tend to be flattened by the bandaging around them). As befitted visiting royalty, although he had been dead for nearly 3200 years, Ramses was greeted at the Paris airport by a full Presidential Guard of Honour.

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No comments Night in the Western Desert, 1923
Ahmad Hassanein

Egyptian Western Desert

Then, the day’s work is at an end. Camp is pitched. No tents are erected, for the men are too exhausted, too careless to mind what happens to their bodies. And night falls. It may be a starlit night, or there may be a moon. Gradually, a serenity gets hold of you. Gradually, after a day of silence, conversation starts. Feeble jokes are cracked. One of the men, probably the youngest of the caravan, ventures a joke with more cheerfulness than the rest and his voice is pitched to a higher key. Unconsciously the Beduins attune their voices to that higher, louder pitch and the volume of sound increases. The desert is working her charm. The gentle night breeze revives the spirits of the caravan. In a few minutes the empty jantasses are used as drums and there is song and dance. At the first sound of music men may have been tending the camels, repairing the luggage, or the camels’ saddles, but that first note brings all the caravan round the embers of the dying fire. Every one looks at his comrades to make sure that all are alive and happy, and every one tries to be a little more cheerful than his neighbour, to give him more confidence. . . . Song and dance take out of the men of the caravan the little vitality that is left after the ravages of the day. Their spirit is exhausted and they fall asleep. They sleep beneath the beautiful dome of the stars. Few people in civilization know the pleasure of just sitting down and looking at the stars. No wonder Arabs were masters of the science of astronomy! So when the day’s work is done the solitary Beduin has nothing left but to sit down and watch the movements of the stars and absorb the uplifting sense of comfort that they give to the spirit. These stars become like friends that one meets every day. And when they go, it is not abruptly as when men say farewell at a parting, but it is like watching a friend fade gradually from view, with the hope of seeing him again the following night.

“To prayers, O ye believers prayers are better than sleep!” The cry comes from the first man of the caravan to awaken. A few stars are still scattered in the sky.