History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent DiscoveryKing, L. W. (Leonard William)
History
History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent Discovery
King, L. W. (Leonard William)
Egypt -- History -- To 332 B.C.; History, Ancient
The discovery of the tomb of Thothmes I and Hat-shepsu has already been
described. In 1905 Mr. Davis made his latest find, the tomb of Iuaa
and Tuaa, the father and mother of Queen Tii, the famous consort of
Amenhetep III and mother of Akhunaten the heretic. Readers of Prof.
Maspero’s history will remember that Iuaa and Tuaa are mentioned on one
of the large memorial scarabs of Amenhetep III, which commemorates his
marriage. The tomb has yielded an almost incredible treasure of funerary
furniture, besides the actual mummies of Tii’s parents, including a
chariot overlaid with gold. Gold overlay of great thickness is found on
everything, boxes, chairs, etc. It was no wonder that Egypt seemed the
land of gold to the Asiatics, and that even the King of Babylon begs
this very Pharaoh Amenhetep to send him gold, in one of the letters
found at Tell el-Amarna, “for gold is as water in thy land.” It is
probable that Egypt really attained the height of her material wealth
and prosperity in the reign of Amenhetep III. Certainly her dominion
reached its farthest limits in his time, and his influence was felt from
the Tigris to the Sudan. He hunted lions for his pleasure in Northern
Mesopotamia, and he built temples at Jebel Barkal beyond Dongola. We see
the evidence of lavish wealth in the furniture of the tomb of Iuaa and
Tuaa. Yet, fine as are many of these gold-overlaid and overladen objects
of the XVIIIth Dynasty, they have neither the good taste nor the charm
of the beautiful jewels from the XIIth Dynasty tombs at Dashûr. It is
mere vulgar wealth. There is too much gold thrown about. “For gold is as
water in thy land.” In three hundred years’ time Egypt was to know what
poverty meant, when the poor priest-kings of the XXIst Dynasty could
hardly keep body and soul together and make a comparatively decent show
as Pharaohs of Egypt. Then no doubt the latter-day Thebans sighed for
the good old times of the XVIIIth Dynasty, when their city ruled a
considerable part of Africa and Western Asia and garnered their riches
into her coffers. But the days of the XIIth Dynasty had really been
better still. Then there was not so much wealth, but what there was (and
there was as much gold then, too) was used sparingly, tastefully, and
simply. The XIIth Dynasty, not the XVIIIth, was the real Golden Age of
Egypt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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