Leigh North

With the exception of Cleopatra, one or two Ptolemy queens, Hatasu, and possibly Nitocris, the history of Egypt which has come down to us deals principally with the kings, and not with the queens. The latter are mentioned incidentally, or not at all, though holding a very different place from the female sovereigns of other Eastern nations, and the student explorer who endeavors to vitalize these fragmentary and scattered outlines has not an easy task.

In no case is the above more true than in that of the wife or wives of Rameses II, the Sesostris of the Greeks who waged tedious wars against the Hittites, with whom he made peace in the twenty-first year of his reign, and of whom Herodotus speaks. It is the king whose striking and heroic figure in childhood, youth and manhood, occupies the foreground of the canvas, dwarfing into comparative insignificance all who stand near him, and leaving the details as regards female relationships but as accessories and background.

Nofritari Minimut.

Says an ardent Egyptologist, “One of the handsomest of men, we come in time to recognize his face, with its haughty beauty, just as we do that of Henry VIII or Louis XIV.” Curtis speaks thus on the general subject: “Oriental masculine beauty is so mild and feminine that the men are like statues of men seen in the most mellowing and azure atmosphere. The forms of the face have a surprising grace and perfection. They are not statues and gods so seen, but the budding beauty of the Antinous when he, too, had been in the soft climate, the ripening rounding lip, the arched brow, the heavy, drooping lid, the crushed, closed eye, like a bud bursting with voluptuous beauty, the low broad brow; these I remember at Asyoot and remember forever.”

Much of this, perhaps, constituted the charm of the youthful Rameses face, but to it must be added something of the strength and intellect which were often lacking.

From his mother, Queen Tuaa, Rameses II, of the nineteenth dynasty, received the heritage of royal ancestry; his father, Seti I, belonged to a new family, who, in view of descent, had no claim to the throne. So say most authorities, though some dispute it. As a child, his father made him co-ruler with himself. An inscription of Rameses II reads, “I was a boy in his lap,” referring to his father, “and he spoke thus, ‘I will have him crowned as king, for I desire to behold his grandeur while I am still alive.’” Officers then came forward to place the crown on his head, and Seti said: “Place the royal circlet on his brow.” After this ceremony, however, he was still left in the house of the women and royal concubines, but was put in command of a band of Amazons, “maidens who wore a harness of leather.” So that soldier and conqueror though he so early became, his associations from childhood up were constantly with women, and for the sex in general his subsequent conduct may lead us to infer he had a special weakness.

Another inscription reads, “when thou wast a boy with the youth locks of hair, no monument saw the light without thy command, no business was conducted without thy knowledge.” He laid foundation stones even in childhood. Little wonder that no prouder monarch ever held sway and that we associate the idea of unwonted magnificence with him and his queens.

“Rameses the Great, if he was as much like his portraits as they are like each other, must have been one of the handsomest men, not only of his own day, but of all history,” says the enthusiastic Miss Edwards. There is a bas-relief of him during his first campaign as a beautiful youth with “a delicate, Dantesque face.” Some years later we see him at Abydos in the temple of Seti I with a boyish beard. The likeness with which we become most familiar, in the prime of life, is thus described: “The face is oval, the eyes are long, prominent and heavy-lidded, the nose slightly aquiline and characteristically depressed at the tip. The nostrils are open and sensitive, the under lip projects, the chin is short and square.”

It seems likely that it was true of Rameses II as is said of the sailor, that he had a “sweetheart in every port.” No woman could boast that she alone reigned in his heart. Two, if not three, wives were made his legal consorts, and he had numerous concubines. The king’s name was branded on female slaves that they could not escape undiscovered.

Little or nothing is known of the queen’s previous history; she may be said to have had no childhood or youth as regards our story. As the wife of Rameses II and the mother of his children she first becomes known to us. Queen Nofritari seems to have been his earliest consort, probably his sister or the daughter of some Egyptian noble. One writer, Pollard, gives authority for considering her the princess who rescued Moses, the daughter of the king, whom he subsequently married; but as the king doubtless married in his youth, and she is the first queen of whom we find record, this seems unlikely. Says the same writer, speaking of the temple of Luxor, “Rameses the Great, some two hundred and thirty years afterwards, added another large court, which was surrounded by a double row of columns; between these are gigantic statues of this monarch, more or less perfect. One on the left of the court is very beautiful, in most perfect condition, and represents him as a young man. The expression of the countenance is very pleasing. By his side, her head reaching to his knee, stands the diminutive but beautiful form of his beloved Nefert-ari.”

The queen’s name, as usual, is variously spelled

Nofritari-Minimut, Nefertari, Nofertuit-Meri-en Mut, and Nofruari, and means, as did that of Queen Nefertari-Aahmes, “good or beautiful companion.” She shared her honors with a Khi-tan princess, whose brief story is told in a later chapter, and with another lady, Isis-Nefer.

Rameses II even lies under the suspicion of having married two of his own daughters, Honuttani and Bint-Antha, the latter whom Baedaker speaks of as queen under the title of Bint-Anat, and of a small statue of her standing by the knee of a larger one of Rameses II, of whom he was known to be especially fond. It is this princess who is made the heroine of Ebers’ story of “Uarda,” but she is here provided with a more suitable lover, while Rameses himself is depicted as a more noble character than is perhaps quite warranted by the historical records. So true, however, are Professor Ebers’ stories to the ascertained facts in each case, that, as a rule, they may, serve as admirable historical studies, quite aside from any merit they may possess as artistic works of fiction.

Jewish tradition mentions a certain Princess Moeris (which some writers have believed to be one of Rameses II’s youngest children, the Princess Meri) as the one who rescued Moses in infancy, as above referred to.

Pictures and inscriptions give the number of Rameses II’s children as sixty sons and fifty-nine daughters, and one enumeration even reaches to one hundred and seventy-one children. Some of Rameses’ daughters were Meri Amun, Beken-Mut, Noferari, Nebtani and Isiemkheb, of whom Meri-Amun and Neb-tani, in addition to Houttani, and Bint-Antha are marked as queens in the family list, probably the wives of their brothers or near relatives.

On the walls of the temple at Deir Champollion found an imperfect list of these sons and daughters. As a curiosity one may cite the different dates assigned by historians as the beginning of the reign of Rameses II: Brugsch, B. C. 1407; Mariette, 1405; Lepsius, 1388; Bunson, 1352, and Poole, 1283.

Since his son was of the blood royal, it was the policy of Seti I to unite him with himself, as has been shown, in the government of the kingdom, thus pacifying all adherents to the old regime, and Queen Tuaa, from whom Rameses II derived his “blue blood,” appears in the family group. The attachment between this father and son is an attractive feature of their joint reigns, and reminds one of the similar bond between Thothmes I and his daughter Hatasu. In peace and war Seti and Rameses were ever side by side. Together they governed, together they took their pleasure and rode forth, each in his royal chariot, to fight and to conquer.

At Abydos, Karnak and other places are pictures of the prince; in one of them, adorned with the priestly panther skin, he is pouring libations on the altar in front of him, while his father holds a censor; according to these same representations and many inscriptions in the various temples adorned with his statues, the youthful Rameses performed prodigies of valor in the field. In the little temple of Betel-Wali are shown, on the right wall, the victories of Rameses II over the Libyans and Syrians, and on the left, over the Ethiopians. He was a “Black Prince” for whom the hand of fate did not lay out a brief career. The delight of his father’s heart, he lived to assume the full government and to pay royal honors in that beloved parent.

Like his ancestor Amenophis III, Rameses II seems to have had a passion for lions, not so much for the sport of hunting them as to train them for pets or instruments of warfare. Doubtless there was something that specially ministered to the pride of the haughty monarch in these favorites, known as the lion has ever been as “the king of beasts,” the “monarch of the forest,” etc.

Whether the queen shared his partiality we are not told, but since they were his playthings and his companions, she must have accepted them in a measure, if with a trembling heart. His favorite lion lay at the door of the king’s tent and went forth with him to the battlefield, probably at times even set loose to slay and destroy the enemy. The wall paintings show the king’s lions in various places.

There is something both attractive and repellant in this figure of the proud, handsome, vainglorious monarch, in the full vigor of his manhood, accompanied by this dangerous ally and slave. The tale of the lion and the mouse, Esop’s well known fable, is said to be of Egyptian origin, and within the last forty or fifty years many romantic stories and many love tales of the Egyptians have come to light.

A more modern character, Sir Henry Rawlinson, who wrote much on Egypt and also a great authority on Persian inscriptions, shared with this ancient king his taste for barbarous pets. He brought up a young lion who followed him around like a dog and lay at his feet when he wrote and studied. He also made such a pet of a leopard that it knew him after long separation, and displayed pleasure at his presence, when he visited the Zoological Garden in England, to which he had given it. The story goes that he put his hand into the cage when the keeper, who did not know him, exclaimed: “Take your hand out of the cage! The animal is very savage and will bite you!”

“I don’t think he will bite me,” said Sir Henry, “will you Fahad?” and the beast answered with a purr and would hardly let the hand be withdrawn.

Queen Nefritare-Minimut was the first, the chief, and the best beloved, there seems little question, of the wives of Rameses II, since it is her picture that appears with that of the king in various places and she is termed “Beloved Companion.” Maspero gives a picture of her in her chariot, following the king and says, “Still a young woman with delicate, regular features already faded and wrinkled under her powder. Like her husband she wears a long robe, its folds, through the rapid motion, floating behind her.” There is a large escort and every one stands in a chariot driven by a groom. This queen was the mother of a number of children, who, in the temple of Abou Simbel, elsewhere called Ibsamboul, are grouped with her. We may accord her some charm of beauty since the monarch of that time selected his wife, not from a list of foreign princesses of suitable rank, but from among the children of his own nobles, or relatives, with whose attractions he could become more readily acquainted. More than one writer speaks of the queen’s figure being full of grace and her features refined and attractive in her pictures.

There are two temples at Abou Simbel, translated “Father of the Corn” or “Father of the Sickle,” excavated in the solid rock. The larger has statues chiefly of the king, though there are smaller ones of his mother, wife and some of his children. The smaller, of the queen also of equal size with her husband, and smaller ones of some of their sons and daughters. These are the most familiar effigies of Rameses II and Nofritare-Minimut together, the male figure being full of spirit, the female of grace. “Rameses, the Strong in Truth, the beloved of Amen,” says the outer legend, “made this divine abode for his wife, Nefertari, whom he loves.” Within the words are “his royal wife, who loves him, Nefertari, the beloved of Maut, constructed for him this abode in the mountain of Pure Waters.”

Curtis says, “In these faces of Rameses, seven feet long, is a godlike grandeur and beauty which the Greeks never reached—the mind cannot escape the feeling that they were conceived by colossal minds. Such only cherish the idea of repose so profound—their beauty is steeped in a placid passion that seems passionless. In those earlier days Art was not content with the grace of Nature, but coped with its proportions. Vain attempt, but glorious!”

Miss Edwards was present and took part in the discovery of some portions of this edifice and describes the occurrences and her sensations with her usual picturesqueness and enthusiasm.

On the inner north wall there is a picture, presumably of Queen Nofritari, with a blue head-dress and disk, in her right hand the ankh or life sign and in her left a jackal-headed sceptre. Vases of a blue color stand on a table of offerings near.

It is at this temple that we know Rameses best, fifteen or twenty years later than the pictures of him before described. Here, to quote from the same author, he has “outlived the rage of early youth and become implacable. God-like serenity, superhuman pride, immutable will breathe from the stone. He has learned to believe his power irresistible and himself divine.”

The queen wears the plumes and disk of Hathor and has her daughters with her. She has much sweetness and grace if not positive beauty.

The colossi are difficult to see but the southernmost may be best viewed in profile on a sand slope level with the beard. Even the great cast in the British Museum cannot be well seen. The temple at Abou Simbel has one hall and many large chambers. The colossi are placed two to the right and two to left of the door; they are sixty feet high without the platform and measure across the chest twenty-five feet four inches. The figures are sealed, but if standing would be eighty-three feet high. Little dimples giving sweetness to the corners of the mouth and, tiny depressions in the lobe of the ear, are as large as saucers. The most southward statue is best preserved. The next statue is shattered to the waist, the head lying in the sand, at its feet. The third is nearly perfect. The fourth has lost beard, uraeus and arms, and has a hole in front. The heads are worked out, the bodies generalized. The figures are naked to the waist, and clothed below in the usual striped tunic. They wear the double crown, rich collars, no sandals or bracelets, and there are holes in the stone which may have held bronze or gold belts. The cartouches of the king are on his breast, and arm, having been probably tatooed upon his person. The statues are executed in a light vein of rock and were, it is likely, not painted, like those of Siva’s temple in Elephantine, in India. Above the door is a twenty-foot statue of Ra and on either side a portrait of the king in bas relief.

The smaller temple has six statues, three on each side of the door, over thirty feet high, the King and Queen Nofritari. The king is crowned with the pashent, and uraeus and wears a fantastic helmet, adorned with plumes and horns. He has some of his sons, she her daughters with her, ten feet in height, reaching to the knees of their parents. The names of the royal consorts appear on every pillar and on every wall, with the statement that affection unites them. The queen is seen on the facade as the mother of six children and adorned with the attributes of a goddess. The king is attended by captives of different nations. The temple seems to have been left unfinished. The larger temple is within twenty-five yards of the brink of the river, the smaller within as many feet. They are of different shades of yellow.

In some of the pictures the figures wear pectoral ornaments and a rich necklace, with alternate vermilion and black drops, and a golden yellow belt, studded with red and black stones. The throne is on a blue platform, painted in stripes, red, blue and white. The platform is decorated with gold colored stars and tan crosses, picked out with red. Amon-Ra, the god whom they worship, is here represented with a blue-black complexion, a corselet of gold chain, armor, and a head-dress of towering plumes. On the altar is a blue lotus with a red stalk, and a vessel with a spout like a coffee pot. There are as many varieties of this god in Egypt as of the Madonna in Italy and Spain.

An earthquake in the time of Rameses II may have accounted for the partial overthrow of the statues on the outside of the temple. The cast of a stele in the Louvre states that Rameses II made artesian wells in the desert.

In one of the pictures of the queen she advances with two sistra, the sacred instrument introduced in the Fourth Dynasty, time of Mertytefs. This consists of a frame, somewhat oval in shape, with bars across, strung with rings, which slipped up and down. We can fancy the music produced to be rather Chinese in character and not such as would appeal to Western ears as charming. The priestess of the god was the “divine wife,” or the “divine handmaid,” a position of great honor, even for the queen. The handle of the sistrum in the oldest times was always cow-eared and ornamented with the head of Hathor, the Egyptian Venus.

One of the goddesses to whom the queen is paying honor is Ta-ur-t, who has the face of a woman on the body of a hippopotamus. She wears a wig, and a robe of state with five capes, described as a cross between that of a Lord Chancellor and a coachman. Behind the goddess stand the gods Thoth and Nut.

Thebes was no doubt the chief residence of Queen Nofritari, Tunis that of the Khitan Princess; the king’s enormous domestic establishments probably being in different places. There is a story, who can tell whether it be founded on fact? that the king and queen, by the treacherous dealing of one of the king’s relatives, were shut up in a certain city which was then set on fire, the intriguer doubtless intending to usurp the throne, and that at the queen’s suggestion some of the king’s sons formed their bodies into a bridge by which he might escape, some of them suffering death in consequence.

The great Thebes is said to have been as large as London. On the Eastern bank, the Arabian side of the Nile, stand Karnak and Luxor. On the western or Lybian bank, Goornah, the Rameseum and Medinet Haboo. The Rameseum, a palace and temple combined, faces about half way between Karnak and Luxor. Medinet Haboo is further to the south than any building on the east side of the river. Behind the western group is the great Theban Metropolis, along the Lybian range, further back in radiating valleys, are the Tombs of the Kings. Between Karnak and Luxor is a little less than two miles, from Medinet Haboo to Goornah something under four.

The prostrate statue of Rameses II, near Memphis, so long covered with Nile mud, repeats the lineaments of the Abou Simbel statue. This colossus kept vigil at the gate of the temple and is serene and dignified, even in its overthrow; it is of Syenite and probably stood in front of the temple of Ptah, mentioned both by Herodotus and Diodorus. Says a poetic writer, “I fancy the repose of that court in a Theban sunset, the windless stillness of the air, and cloudlessness of the sky. The king enters, thoughtfully pacing by the calm browed statue, that seems the sentinel of heaven. In the presence of the majestic columns, humanly carved, their hands sedately folded upon their breasts—his weary soul is bathed with peace, as a weary body with living water.” This statue is one of the most pleasing of the many likenesses of Rameses II, and a cast of it has been taken. Mariette said “the head modelled with a grandeur of style which one never tires of admiring, is an authentic portrait of the celebrated conqueror of the Nineteenth Dynasty.”

The pre-nomen of Rameses II was “Ra-usr-mat-setep-en-Ra,” “Sun strong in Truth, approved of the Sun, son of the Sun, Beloved of Amon.” The foot is eleven feet by four feet ten inches, and on the peristyle is inscribed, “I am Osymandies, King of Kings. If any would know how great I am and where I lie, let him excel me in any of my works.”

The passion for building, characteristic of many Egyptian kings, was specially strong in the father and son, Seti I and Rameses II, and the latter completed many structures begun by the former. To Seti I are credited the grand temple of Osiris at Abydos, the temple and palace of Karnak at Thebes, and his tomb, which is said to excel those of the other Theban kings in its sculpture, colored decorations and alabaster sarcophagi. But his Hypostyle Hall at Karnak exceeds them all.

To Rameses II are credited many architectural works along the Nile, from the Delta to the capital of Ethiopia. The list comprises the splendid rock temples at Abou Simbel, in Nubia, just described, the Rammesium or Memnonium, called by Diodorus “the tomb of Osymandius,” on the walls of which are sculptured the story of Rameses’ reign, large portions of the temple palaces of Karnak and Luxor, before which last stands the column whose mate is now in the Place de la Concorde in Paris, a small temple at Abydos, and various works in the Fayum, at Memphis and at Tunis, of which last he was especially fond. In nothing apparently did he take more delight than in erecting gigantic statues of himself.

To accomplish these great architectural designs required an immense army of workmen and no monarch was more ruthless in his expenditure of human life. Some have believed that to this period belongs in large part the slavery of the Hebrews, whose cries reached the very ears of Heaven and it is said that he deported whole tribes to accomplish his purposes. History repeats itself; as in the earlier reigns, during the structure of the pyramids, and Queen Nofritari Minimut, like Queen Mertytefs, must have witnessed much suffering and viewed it perhaps with a like indifference. Proud of her husband’s deeds and accomplishments, what mattered the cost of such monuments. Of little more value than an insect’s life was that of the innumerable slaves that bowed, trembled and toiled at the great monarch’s command. We can believe that the sound of the taskmaster’s whip woke no echo of pity in that haughty breast. Devotion to the gods, exultation in her husband, more or less passionate devotion to her children, these left no room for the consideration of the life and sorrows of a slave.

So the curtain drops over the queen in the zenith of her powers, and we hear the tinkle of her sistrum, faintly, faintly down the centuries. Priestess, queen, wife, mother, statue, shadow—thus she stands smiling stonily, yet sweetly, on succeeding ages. Rich in this world’s goods, beloved of Heaven. Yet did she, too, exclaim with Solomon, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!” Who can tell?