Aahmes, also called Amosis, son of Queen Aah-hotep and an Egyptian father (whose history is as yet unknown), was one of the greatest warriors and most noted kings of Egypt, and regarded as the savior of his country, since he freed it from the long thrall of an alien race. Ambition was evidently a ruling passion with him, but he appears to have been devoted and even tender to those he loved. His wife, the Princess Nefertari-Aahmes, or Aahmes-Nefertari, was long supposed to be the daughter of an Ethiopian king, and therefore not of kin to him, since her pictures on the monuments show a black skin, though Caucasian features.

Later researches have proved her to be his half-sister, the daughter of his mother, but not of his father. She was evidently the first daughter of Queen Aah-hotep’s marriage with Sequenenra, and with a more direct title to the succession than her husband, so that there were state reasons as well as private ones for the marriage. From Sequenenra, therefore, he being of the Berber type, she took her coloring and the right of succession, and she may perhaps be said to have been three-quarters black. The name signifies “good or beautiful companion,” and she was regarded with great veneration on earth and shared with her mother, and mother-in-law, divine honors after death.

Thebes, which had risen to political consequence in the time of the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties, was now the royal city, the safest home of the royal family, and was said to have stood to Ethiopia, as well as to Egypt, as Rome did to mediaeval Christendom. It was in Upper Egypt, the sacred city, and devoted to the worship of the god Amen, or Amon, whom the Greeks regarded as their Jove. From here went out the great war chariots and the bands of soldiers to battle, and often, especially at this period, to conquest.

“The chief peculiarity of the Egyptians,” says a writer who is an authority, “is the remarkable closeness of their eyelashes on both lids, forming a dense double fringe, which gives so animated an expression to their almond-shaped eyes.” The very ancient and still existing custom of blackening the edges of the eyelids with antimony (kohl), which is said to serve a sanitary purpose, contributes to enhance this natural expression. The eyebrows are straight and smooth, never bushy. The mouth is wide and thick-lipped, and very different from that of the Beduin or inhabitant of the oases. The high cheek bones, the receding forehead, the lowness of the bridge of the nose (this last in some pictures of the statues of Queen Nefertari-Aahmes being noticeable), which is always distinctly separated from the forehead, and the flatness of the nose itself are the chief characteristics of the Egyptian skull; but as the jaw projects less than those of most of the other African colored races, it has been assumed that the skull is Asiatic and not African in shape. A headless statue at Karnak and statuettes at various places exist. They suggest a queenly bearing, and from these and the general description we must form our mental picture of this dark-skinned lady. A light complexion was much admired, but Queen Nefertari-Aahmes was of different type, and perhaps set the fashion of her own style of beauty; at one place she was painted yellow, and one authority claimed that she was only black in a mythological sense, but it now seems to be agreed that to a Berber father she owed her tint.

The two names, Nefruari and Nefertari, appear to be interchangeable, and probably bear the same relation to each other as Mary and Maria. We can see plainly the difference ’twixt our Jacks and Johns, our Marys and Marias, but the alteration of a single letter in a foreign tongue leaves us somewhat bewildered, and the Nofruaris and the Nefertaris, the Nefrits and the Nofrits, etc., are often very puzzling, and, unless great care is taken, may lead to serious complications and mistakes.

Our knowledge of this period comes largely from two sources, the tomb of a naval officer in the service of Aahmes and the discoveries of comparatively late years, which have brought to light many of the very bodies of the kings, queens and princesses of this and subsequent lines. Even in death the truth of the proverb seems to hold, that “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” and not in what was intended to be their last resting places, but in collections and museums, are gathered many royalties whose eyes looked out on the light of an ancient world.

Aahmes, son of Abuna, directly or indirectly the king’s namesake, was an officer of the ship called “The Calf,” and later served on one named “Ruling in Memphis,” which perhaps celebrated the reconquering of the ancient capital. Of his early life there are some amusing records: “I was too young to have a wife, and slept in the semt cloth and shennu garment.” This was about 1586 B. C., and his age perhaps twenty. Nor, following the example of his sovereigns, does he hesitate to blow his own trumpet “As soon as I had a house,” says the martial hero, “I was taken to a ship called the ‘North’ on account of my valor.” Apparently, he could face the enemy early in life, but not a fair lady. Diospolis, or Thebes, “hundred-gated Thebes,” was now the chief city, and Officer Aahmes saw active service, but survived and was rewarded by his monarch. The chronicle reads: “I brought very many prisoners. I do not reckon them,” and, further, that he was “presented with gold seven times in the face of the whole land.” The story of his exploits on his tomb throws much light upon the history of the time.

In the summer of 1881, in a pit, near Thebes, was found a concourse of mummies, the bodies of many kings and queens, among them Queen Nefertari-Aahmes. The existence of royal tombs had long been suspected from the various articles which had found their way into the market, and the authorities were at length able to secure the Arab who was the chief purloiner. He and his accomplices long obstinately resisted all inducements, even that of imprisonment, to reveal their secret, but finally yielded, and the bodies of various sovereigns of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties (the Twentieth was missing) were found.

The experienced archeologist can tell from the appearance of a mummy case to what period it belongs. The oldest mummy in the world, until recently, about which there was no doubt, is that of Saken-em-saf, son of Pepi I, of the Sixth Dynasty. The mummies of the Eleventh Dynasty are poorly made, brittle and yellowish; those of the Twelfth Dynasty are black, and from these to the Seventeenth are also inferior. But those of the Eighteenth are so finely embalmed that the limbs are pliable and bend without breaking. At Thebes they were generally painted yellow. Alexander the Great is said to have been buried in honey, as was the case with others. Bitumen was used towards the time of the Ptolemies, and grew hard with age. Later still, pieces of wood were inserted, with the face painted upon them.

The “Book of the Dead,” so often spoken of, and whose reputed author was the god Thoth, was a sort of Bible to the Egyptians, and contained minute directions in regard to burial rites. It was written in chapters, and was an accretion, taking shape gradually, some parts being much older than others. It was seldom or never collected in one roll. It is said that a fairly complete copy was ninety feet long and about fifteen inches wide. It was written on papyrus; chapters of it were buried with the dead, and extracts were inscribed on scarabs and other objects and used in the same way. The book is a storehouse of information as regards Egyptian theology and practice, and translations of it exist in several languages besides English. Figures like small mummies and called Ushabti, or Ushebti, “little servants,” to accompany and attend upon the departed, were buried with them. This was probably a survival of the original custom of killing some of his slaves at the tomb of the master. In the Thirteenth Dynasty these images were made of granite or wood; in the Eighteenth of faience, or made in moulds, and from the Twenty-fourth to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty they were not much used, and later were carelessly made. They were often inscribed with the Sixth chapter from the Book of the Dead.

The coffins of the Eighteenth Dynasty were larger than the previous ones, and were shaped in the form of a mummy, with inscriptions running from the breast to the feet. Of such colossal size was that of Queen Nefertari-Aahmes that it took sixteen men to move it, and it was over seven metres in height. After the Eighteenth Dynasty the cases were again smaller. The queen’s was made of innumerable layers of linen, saturated and hardened together by some kind of glue, was painted blue and yellow with a mesh-like effect, and the features, necklace, bracelets, etc., picked out in blue. The face, evidently a portrait, was large and round, with a sweet expression, and she wore an extensive wig, with the plumes of Amen and Maut. In each hand she held the royal “ankh,” or life sign, and the helmet and plumes, also the investiture of Osiris, were befitting the wife of a warrior and one who was regarded as a goddess.

There was also the coffin of the Lady Rai, nurse of Queen Nefertari, in green garnished with bands of yellow. Within were inscriptions to the goddess Maut, in honor of Ra, and other inscriptions with the name of Ra, but the body had disappeared. There has been found also the little blue coffin of the Princess Sitamon, daughter of Aahmes and Nefertari.

The theories and ideas of the Egyptians seem utterly strange to us. So strong was their belief in a future existence that their whole life in this world was a preparation for it, and the greatest care was taken that every portion of the body should be preserved—that no limb or member should be lacking in another world.

The Egyptian was, according to his own idea, archeological authorities tell us, a composite being, composed of several different entities, of which each had its functions and its own life. There was, first, the body, then the double, or “Ka,” images of which are found so constantly in the tombs and reproduced in paintings and statues, as we remember that of Queen Mertytefs and her Ka, before described. This double bore, in miniature, the form and lineaments of the departed, and was a sort of second example of the body in a less dense material than the corporal body. A colored projection but an aerial one of the individual. It represented the departed, feature for feature, male or female, adult or child.

After the double came the soul, “Ba” or “Bai,” which the popular imagination represented under the figure of a bird; and after the soul the luminous particle of light, “Khau,” detached from the divine fire. None of these were imperishable, and the man left to himself would die a second time and fall into nothing. By embalmment the body was preserved from destruction, and by prayers and offerings the other portions of this strange and composite whole. The double remained always with the mummy, the others went and came. The places of sepulchre for the sovereigns were the numerous pyramids, usually having sides to the points of the compass and a door to the north; these were frequently enlarged and altered by succeeding monarchs, as that of Mycerenas was so extended and beautified by Queen Nitocris that it often bore her name, instead of its first builder.

The stele were originally false doors by which the living world was supposed to communicate with the dead. Food for the departed was often placed before the door, and later represented upon it, which by incantations became real. At last the stele were used only as a place for inscriptions. This applies merely to funerary stele. Sometimes there was a statue or bas-relief in the stele.

To the pyramids were added grottoes, rock, tombs and caves, not alone for royalty, and the mastabas built of brick, like a truncated pyramid, and so named by the Arabs because they resembled the long, low seat used in Oriental houses. Naturally, the more important the person buried was deemed the more indestructible were the materials of his tomb, and the more care was taken to preserve them. Not many tombs were found before the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties until the later discovery of the burial places of the kings of the First Dynasty. It is the mastabas and smaller tombs at Gizeh and elsewhere that teach us about the earliest period in Egyptian history, those at Thebes later, and Beni-Hasen the Middle Empire. The monuments and temples were the canvas upon which the self-glorifying kings painted their own history, and it is the absence of these, as has been before shown, which leaves the period in comparative darkness. It is the tomb of Ty in the Fourth Dynasty and those of Beni-Hassen in the Twelfth which are so invaluable in giving the pictures of the daily life during their respective eras.

We read of a stele or tablet (which in the Eighteenth Dynasty were usually rounded at the top) on which at the left is seated the figure of King Amosis or Aahmes and “the divine spouse of Amen, the royal spouse, Aahmes-Nefertari,” also at the left are seated King Amenophis I and his spouse, Aahmes-Nefertari. “Is it the same queen?” questioned Mariette, yet the spelling and the faces are different. There is also a stele bearing the name of King Aahmes and his mother, Queen Aah-hotep. Another statue is spoken of, whose pure profile recalls the handsome portraits of Seti I. It represents the god Amen standing. On the base we read in red ink, with the legend of Amenophis I, “the royal spouse whom he loves, Aahmes-Nefertari.”

The mourning color of the Egyptians, as now of the Burmese, was yellow, and it is curious to observe how varied in this respect are the customs of different lands. With us, and all over Europe, since the days of Rome black is the usual, as it seems the most natural, trapping of woe; but it is stated that until 1498 white was worn in Spain for the members of the family, as it or yellow now is in China. In Turkey the mourning color is a bright violet, while formerly purple and violet were assumed for the kings and cardinals of France. In Bokara and other parts of Asia deep blue is used, and in Syria and Armenia, sky blue. In Persia it is pale brown, the color of winter leaves; in the Soudan, grayish brown, the color of the earth; and among the South Sea Islanders a black and white striped goods serves for this purpose.

By different nations, too, various days in the week are observed for public worship. The Christians keep Sunday, the Greeks Monday, the Persians Tuesday, the Assyrians Wednesday, the Egyptians Thursday, the Turks Friday, and the Jews Saturday.

At the time of a death, in token of grief the mourning women would leave the house where the body was lying, put dust and mud on their heads and faces, and with bare bosoms run through the streets, striking themselves and uttering lamentations. Some of the pictures show even little children thus testifying sorrow, and there is something both pathetic and ludicrous in the scene. At the death and funeral of a member of the royal family great ceremony was observed. The people wept, the temples were closed, and no festival was kept for seventy-two days. The mourners fasted and went round with mud on their heads and their garments knotted together, like girdles, below the breast. They marched in procession, singing funeral dirges. The statement is somewhere made that women of quality were not embalmed immediately, but in so warm a climate the process could not have been long delayed.

From the use of bitumen, “mumia,” the word “mummy” is derived. There were several methods of preservation, varying in expense with the dignity of the deceased and the financial ability of the survivors. The work of preparation for the tomb was, especially in the case of the wealthy and high-born, costly and protracted, and all details were prescribed. The person who, in the service of the embalmer, commenced the task by making a long cut in the side, was, as a matter of form, it is generally believed, driven away with sticks and stones, but some authorities deny this. The organs were then removed through this opening, embalmed and placed in jars, each under the protection of its special god, the four children of Horus. Mesta, with the head of a man, was for the stomach, and, under the protection of Isis, thus justifying a modern theory that a man can be influenced largely through his appetite and is most amiable after dining. The jar Hapi, with the head of an ape, held the smaller intestines, under the protection of Nepthys. The jar Tuan-antef, with the head of a jackal, was for the heart, guarded by Neith. Qubhsennuf was hawk-headed and held the liver. Examples of all these may perhaps be seen in the New York Metropolitan Museum among the Egyptian antiquities and other places. On a box for funerary jars is a figure of Isis, and the inscription, “Says Isis, the divine mother, queen of heaven, first of the gods: ‘I am come that I may be for thy protection, Osiris Chonsu.’”

The body was laid in liquid natron for seventy days, and was then stuffed with spices and natron and sewed up again. Various trees have been supposed to furnish the frankincense used by ancient peoples, the Indian Olibanum among them. The Egyptians used it in their religious rites, burning it on the altars of Osiris, Isis and Pasht, while it was exacted as tribute from some of the conquered nations. It was also used by the Jews in their sanctuary. All parts of the tree emit an agreeable odor, something like lemon, the sap hardens into the gum used in commerce, being extracted by incisions in the bark, as is the case with maple sugar. It is an evergreen, the leaves are prettily notched, the flowers small, pink and star-like, and the fruit also very small and three-sided. It grows in Persia and Arabia.

After the body was thus prepared, the skull, from which the brains had been drawn through the nose, was filled with plaster and the nostrils plugged with small rolls of linen, and obsidian eyes placed in the sockets. The Book of the Dead provided a formula for all this. The eye of Horus was placed upon the breast, which signifies the transformation by which life is preserved and constantly renewed, and was consecrated to the god Ptah. A scarab was laid on the neck, the nails were stained with henna, rings were placed on the hands and chains and necklets on the throat. The bandages were narrow strips of linen inscribed with texts.

When the head was bandaged, an attendant recited this petition: “O most august goddess, O lady of the West, O mistress of the East, come and enter into the two ears of the deceased! O doubly powerful, eternal, young and very mighty lady of the West and mistress of the East, may breathing take place in the head of the deceased in the nether world. Grant that he may see with his eyes, that he may hear with his two ears, that he may breathe through his nose, that he may utter sounds with his mouth and articulate with his tongue in the nether world. Receive his voice in the hall of truth and justice and his triumph in the hall of Seb, in the presence of the great lord of the West. O Osiris (this addressed to the deceased), the thick oil which comes from thee furnishes thy mouth with life and thine eye looketh into the lower heaven, as Ra looketh upon the upper heaven. It giveth thee thy two ears to hear that which thou wishest, just as Shu in Hebit heard merely that which he wished to hear. It giveth thee thy nose to smell a beautiful perfume, like Seb. It giveth thee thy mouth well furnished by its passage (into the throat) like the mouth of Thoth when he weigheth Maat. It giveth thee Maat (Law) in Hebit, O worshipper in Hetbenben, the cries of thy mouth are in Siut. Osiris of Siut comes to thee, thy mouth is the mouth of Ap-not in the mountains of the West.”

The god Osiris, so often referred to, was the great (unseen One), the immortal divine spirit, and was always associated in the Egyptian’s mind with the thought of immortality. He was usually colored blue, the tint of the sky perhaps suggested perpetuity and immortality. The Egyptians from the earliest times seem to have worshipped one divine spirit under a thousand manifestations.

The coffins and covering were of wood, with human head and face; painted with figures of gods, names and titles of the deceased, and cartouch of the king. Inside was frequently a purple ground, painted with yellow figures of apes, lions, etc., adoring Ra. The face on the coffin was often a likeness, and the coffin was painted inside and out with figures of protecting gods. Another coffin, more coarsely made and with less of detail in its paintings, was placed over the first to preserve it. A lady’s coffin sometimes contained spoons with female heads and various toilette articles, mirrors, pins and cases for henna, stibium and other cosmetics, while miniature figures, the little “ushebti,” like troops of slaves, mounted guard. Sometimes these were hollow and contained chapters from the Book of the Dead. An ordinance required that the nearest city should embalm persons who were drowned or seized by crocodiles.

The funeral procession included players on lyres, flutes, harps and servants carrying inverted bouquets, a red calf for sacrifice and white geese. A sort of court was held before the body was deposited in the tomb, in which those who had accusations against the deceased were allowed to present them. If these were sustained, the mummy was sent back to the house; but if not, the priest cried “Approved! Let the good be entombed, and may their souls dwell in Amenti, with Osiris. Judgment is passed in her favor! Let her be buried!” The dead sometimes carried a papyrus on which his good deeds were written. The mummy was placed recumbent or upright in the tomb, and the soul was received by Horus and conducted to Amenti, where a sort of Cerberus kept the gate of Truth. The goddess of Justice, with scales of gold, weighed the virtues of the deceased, which the god Thoth wrote down on a tablet, like the scribes of their daily life, and, after reading, Osiris presented him with the ostrich feather, the emblem of Truth, while Isis led him to the abode of the gods, where he dwelt in perpetual honor and happiness.

Very poetical are some of the tomb inscriptions relating to the future state. “The Shining One cometh who dwelleth in Netat, the Master who dwelleth in Tini (Thinis), and Isis speaks upon thee. Nephthys holdeth converse with thee, and the Shining Ones come up to thee, bowing down even to the ground in adoration at thy feet, by reason of the power of the writing which thou hast, O Pepi, in the region of Sa (Sabu?). Thou goest forth to thy Mother Nut (i.e., the sky), and strengthen thy arm, and she maketh a way for thee through the road to the sky” (perhaps referring to the Milky Way) “to the place where Ra (the sun-deity) abideth. Thou hast then opened the two gates of heaven, thou hast opened the two doors of Quobhu (i.e., the celestial deep), thou hast there found Ra and he watcheth over thee, he hath taken thee by thy hand, he hath guided thee into temples of heaven, and he hath placed thee upon the throne of Osiris.” We are reminded of some parts of the book of Job or some of the picturesque speeches of our own North American Indian.

Nefertari-Aahmes was a devout worshipper of the gods, like her mother before her, and made valuable gifts to the temples, so these funeral rites were doubtless observed with great care and ceremony, especially as she had many children, some of whom survived her, to pay the last tributes of love and respect. The list is given as Meryt-amen, the eldest daughter, who died young; Sat-amen, a second daughter, who died as an infant; Sa’pair, the eldest son, of whom some statuettes and memorials remain, though he also appears to have died young and did not succeed his father; Aah-hotep, doubtless named after the beloved grandmother, and who also became queen later; Amenhotep I, who succeeded his father, and Sat-Kames, a daughter. Besides Nefertari-Aahmes, the king seems to have had another royal wife, called Queen Anhapi, who bore him a daughter, Hent’ta’mehu, and a secondary wife, whose name is preserved as Kasmut, and who bore him Tair and other children. Queen on earth and goddess in heaven though she might be, Queen Aahmes-Nefertari had the common human experience of sorrow; she lost a number of children, and though holding the first place, and doubtless having her own establishment, shared her husband’s attention and affection with various rivals. Yet human ambition could reach no greater height; she was recorded as “the royal daughter, sister and great royal wife, royal mother, great ruler, mistress of both lands.” The ancestress and foundress of her race, she had a priesthood of her own, a large sacred shrine, and was worshipped like the great gods at Abydos, Karnak and Thebes. She is believed to have outlived her husband, and to have reigned temporarily for her son, who was associated with her and worshipped with her at Thebes. “She sits enthroned with her husband,” says one writer, “at the head of all the Pharonic pairs and before all the royal children of their race, as the specially venerated ancestress of the Eighteenth Dynasty.” Her title of wife of the god Amen expressly designated the chief priestess of the tutelary god of Thebes.

The wife and children of Aahmes often adopted or combined his name with their own and encircled it with their cartouch. The king was called “the golden Horus, the binding together of the two lands.” His coffin and body were found at Deir-el-Bahri. The coffin was of the new style, plain in outline, less massive and shaped to the figure behind, painted yellow, picked out with blue, instead of gilt. The body was fairly preserved, the head long and small, with thick and wavy hair, not shaved, as later. The muscles were strong and vigorous, and he might have been something over fifty at the time of his death. Not a long life, but that of a warrior was perhaps necessarily a hard one. The mummy case of the queen was one of the largest and most magnificent ever discovered, and at the time it was found contained also the mummy of Thothmes or Tehutimes III, which, left unexamined and not properly cared for, decomposed, and had to be buried. A headless statue of Queen Aahmes-Nefertari, smaller statuettes, scarabs and a bas-relief or a statue in which she appears with her son Amenophis I exist. So king and queen passed from earth to the delights of heaven, and, as Curtis expresses it, exchanged “the silver for the golden goblet.”

Amenhotep, Amenophis or Amenothes, son of Aahmes and Nefertari-Aahmes, succeeded his father, and married his sister Aah-hotep II, or some say Nefutari, of whom, beyond her name, we know little or nothing. The king was about twenty, she probably younger, at the time. Like his father before him, he was a warrior, and is pictured holding captives by the hair, probably Lydians. His children are given as Uaz’mes, Aahmes, Tehutimes I, Neb’ta and Mutnefert, whose statue is at Karnak. The first two are on the tomb of a certain Peperi, where the king holds Prince Uaz’mes on his knee.

The mummy of the king is among those that have been discovered. It was clothed in an orange robe, held in place by bands of linen. There was a mask of wood and painted pasteboard identical with the outside. He was enveloped from head to foot with long garlands, among which a wasp had crawled, attracted by the flowers, and thus preserved for centuries. According to the traditions, he also was a devout worshipper of the gods, and accorded divine honors. So for all these had come the day when they drew towards “the land that loveth silence.”