Egypt Through The Stereoscope

A Journey Through The Land Of The Pharaohs

by James Henry Breasted | 1908 | 103,705 words

Examines how stereographs were used as a means of virtual travel. Focuses on James Henry Breasted's "Egypt through the Stereoscope" (1905, 1908). Provides context for resources in the Travelers in the Middle East Archive (TIMEA). Part 3 of a 4 part course called "History through the Stereoscope."...

Position 41 - Cliff Tombs Of The Lords Of Assiut—the King-makers Of 4,000 Years Ago

We are now 235 miles from Cairo, and 68 miles from Benihasan, where we last stopped. Before us rise the cliffs of the Nile cañon here at Assiut. We shall presently climb those cliffs and look down upon the city now behind us, the largest city of present-day Upper Egypt . We are looking westward; behind yonder desolate bluffs lies the Sahara, the sands of which have drifted down the face of the rocks and closed many a tomb door. On our right is Cairo, on our left is Thebes, while behind us are the river and the eastern cañon-wall, which we are yet to see from yonder summit.

Boldly defined against the distant cliff is the tomb of a modern sheik in the foreground, and its outlines conceal some of the cliff-tombs of his ancient ancestors. But it is those distant tombs that chiefly interest us now. There they rise in five tiers, the second and the fourth from the base being almost entirely covered by sand. The family of nobles who made these cliff-sepulchers, first emerge upon history in that dark and obscure period, when the pyramid builders of the Old Kingdom had passed away, and the country was a prey of the barons of just such cities as Assiut, each one seeking to gain the throne against his fellows.

When another noble family at Heracleopolis, just south of the Fayûm, known to us as the 9th and 10th Dynasties, assumed the coveted honor, the lords of Assiut supported their claims. They tell with great pride on the walls of those tombs yonder how they gathered their forces and fought the nomes and districts of the south in defense of their king. They defeated the southerners both in fleets on the Nile, the earliest naval battles of which we know, and on both shores of the river in succession; and although they do not mention their enemies by name, they show clearly that it is Thebes which they are fighting.

Thus about 2200 B. C., or possibly a little later, Thebes appears for the first time upon our historical horizon. Let us remember, then, that these Assiut tombs mark for us the rise of Thebes. When the earlier chapels up there in the face of the cliff were hewn, Thebes was but an obscure little town of the upper river, but from now on we shall constantly hear of her and her splendid Pharaohs.

When the support of these Assiut barons was no longer sufficient, the 11th Dynasty of Theban nobles triumphed, and paved the way for the accession of the 12th Dynasty, who were also of Theban origin, but as we have noted, lived down the river 175 miles from here, near the mouth of the Fayûm, where we found the pyramid of Hawara and the labyrinth (page 163). Of course, the 12th Dynasty Pharaohs replaced these Assiut barons, who had fought for the house of Heracleopolis, by a family friendly to their own dynasty.

One of the largest tombs which you see up there belongs to a powerful lord of this new family under the 12th Dynasty, named Hepzefi. His tomb is of especial interest, because he recorded upon the walls of the chapel, certain contracts which he had made with the priesthoods of the two temples in the town behind us, by virtue of which they were to furnish his tomb and his statue in the temple, with certain supplies, bread, meat, wicks for illuminations at feasts, and the like, in perpetuity after his death. He diverted to them certain revenues due him as lord of the district, in payment for these things. So fine is the legal sense shown in these contracts, that we find Hepzefi, as baron, making a contract with himself, as priest, in which Hepzefi, the baron, conveys certain property to Hepzefi, the priest.

Little did he dream of the time when these contracts should serve as almost our only source for any knowledge of the legal usages of his age, nor of the day when his descendants, on the very ground from which he derived these ancient revenues, should raise beans and lentils, as you see yonder native doing here, with no knowledge of their ancient ancestor, his contracts, or even of the language in which they are framed. He would have been equally surprised had he known that the tombs, which he and his family had hewn out here, should be used as dwellings by the hermit devotees of a new religion still to be born in Palestine, of whom the first forefather, Abraham, was then living in Hepzefi's day.

But such was finally their fate; they were so used for centuries by the Christian ascetics of the vicinity, who were here as elsewhere in Egypt, incredibly numerous. Of these anchorites some became famous, among whom the most widely known was John of Lycopolis (“wolftown”), as the Greeks called this town of the jackal, which was the sacred animal of Assiut.

As we have said, we are now to ascend the cliffs before us, then turn around and look northeast over the modern city and the valley. On Map 3 note the red lines numbered 42, which show what is to be the direction and field of our vision.

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