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THE CLOSE OF THE THEBAN EMPIRE—­(continued)

RAMSES III.:  MANNERS AND CUSTOMS—­POPULATION—­THE PREDOMINANCE OF AMON AND HIS HIGH PRIESTS.

The Theban necropolis:  mummies—­The funeral of a rich Theban:  the procession of the offerings and the funerary furniture, the crossing of the Nile, the tomb, the farewell to the dead, the sacrifice, the coffins, the repast of the dead, the song of the Harper—­The common ditch—­The living inhabitants of the necropolis:  draughtsmen, sculptors, painters—­The bas-reliefs of the temples and the tombs, wooden statuettes, the smelting of metals, bronze—­The religions of the necropolis:  the immorality and want of discipline among the people:  workmen s strikes.

Amon and the beliefs concerning him:  his kingdom over the living and the dead, the soul’s destiny according to the teaching of Amon—­Khonsu and his temple; the temple of Amon at Karnak, its revenue, its priesthood—­The growing influence of the high priests of Amon under the sons of Ramses III.:  Hamsesnakluti, Amenothes; the violation of the royal burying-places—­Hrihor and the last of the Ramses, Smendes and the accession to power of the XXIst dynasty:  the division of Egypt into two States—­The priest-kings of Amon masters of Thebes under the suzerainty of the Tanite Pharaohs—­The close of the Theban empire.

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CHAPTER I—­THE CLOSE OF THE THEBAN EMPIRE—­(continued)

Ramses III.:  Manners and Customs—­Population—­The predominance of Amon and his high priests.

Opposite the Thebes of the living, Khafitnibus, the Thebes of the dead, had gone on increasing in a remarkably rapid manner.  It continued to extend in the south-western direction from the heroic period of the XVIIIth dynasty onwards, and all the eminence and valleys were gradually appropriated one after the other for burying-places.  At the time of which I am speaking, this region formed an actual town, or rather a chain of villages, each of which was grouped round some building constructed by one or other of the Pharaohs as a funerary chapel.  Towards the north, opposite Karnak, they clustered at Drah-abu’l-Neggah around pyramids of the first Theban monarchs, at Qurneh around the mausolae of Ramses I. and Seti I., and at Sheikh Abd el-Qurneh they lay near the Amenopheum and the Pamonkaniqimit, or Ramesseum built by Ramses ii.  Towards the south they diminished in number, tombs and monuments becoming fewer and appearing at wider intervals; the Migdol of Ramses iii. formed an isolated suburb, that of Azamit, at Medinet-Habu; the chapel of Isis, constructed by Amenothes, son of Hapu, formed a rallying-point for the huts of the hamlet of Karka;* and in the far distance, in a wild gorge at the extreme limit of human habitations, the queens of the Ramesside line slept their last sleep.