Stanley in Africa: The Wonderful Discoveries and Thrilling Adventures of the Great African Explorer, and Other Travelers, Pioneers and MissionariesBoyd, James P. (James Penny)
History
Stanley in Africa: The Wonderful Discoveries and Thrilling Adventures of the Great African Explorer, and Other Travelers, Pioneers and Missionaries
Boyd, James P. (James Penny)
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Stanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton), 1841-1904
Menes, “the constant,” reigned at Tini. He built Memphis, on part of
whose site Cairo now stands, but whose centre was further up the Nile.
The Egyptian name was Mennofer, “the good place.” The ruins of Memphis
were well preserved down to the thirteenth century, and were then
glowingly described by an Arab physician, Latif. But the stones were
gradually transported to Cairo, and its ruins reappeared in the mosques
and palaces of that place.
Westward of the Nile, and some distance from it, was the Necropolis of
Memphis——its common and royal burying ground, with its wealth of tombs,
overlooked by the stupendous buildings of the pyramids which rose high
above the monuments of the noblest among the noble families who, even
after life was done, reposed in deep pits at the feet of their lords and
masters. The contemporaries of the third (3966 B.C. to 3766 B.C.), fourth
(3733 B.C. to 3600 B.C.) and fifth (3566 B.C. to 3333 B.C.) dynasties are
here buried and their memories preserved by pictures and writings on the
walls of their chambers above their tombs. This is the fountain of that
stream of traditions which carries us back to the oldest dynasty of that
oldest country. If those countless tombs had been preserved entire to us,
we could, in the light of modern interpretation, read with accuracy the
genealogies of the kings and the noble lines that erected them. A few
remaining heaps enable us to know what they mean and to appreciate the
loss to history occasioned by their destruction.
They have served to rescue from oblivion the fact that the Pharaohs of
Memphis had a title which was “King of Upper and Lower Egypt.” At the
same time he was “Peras,” “of the great house”——written Pharaoh in the
Bible. He was a god for his subjects, a lord par excellence, in whose
sight there should be prostration and a rubbing of the ground with noses.
They saluted him with the words “his holiness.” The royal court was
composed of the nobility of the country and servants of inferior rank.
The former added to dignity of origin the graces of wisdom, good manners,
and virtue. Chiefs, or scribes carried on the affairs of the court.
The monuments clearly speak of Senoferu, of the third dynasty, B.C. 3766.
A ravine in the Memphian Necropolis, where are many ancient caverns,
contains a stone picture of Senoferu, who appears as a warrior striking
an enemy to the ground with a mighty club. The rock inscriptions mention
his name, with the title of “vanquisher of foreign peoples” who in his
time inhabited the cavernous valleys in the mountains round Sinai.
The Pharaohs of the fourth dynasty were the builders of the hugest of the
pyramids. The tables discovered at Abydos make Khufu the successor of
Senoferu. Khufu is the Cheops of the historian Herodotus. His date was
3733 B.C.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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