A Legend of Khensu Nefer-Hetep — And the Princess of Bekhten

THE text of this legend is cut in hieroglyphics upon a sandstone stele, with a rounded top, which was found

in the temple of Khensu at Thebes, and is now preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris; it was discovered by Champollion, and removed to Paris by Prisse d'Avennes in 1846. The text was first published by Prisse d'Avennes, 1 and it was first translated by Birch 2 in 1853. The text was republished and translated into French by E. de Rougé in 1858, 3 and several other renderings have been given in German and in English since that date. 4 When the text was first published, and for some years afterwards, it was generally thought that the legend referred to events which were said to have taken place under a king who was identified as Rameses XIII., but this misconception was corrected by Erman, who showed 5 that the king was in reality Rameses II. By a careful examination of the construction of the text he proved that the narrative on the stele was drawn up several hundreds of years after the events described in it took place, and that its author was but imperfectly acquainted with the form of the Egyptian language in use in the reign of Rameses II. In fact, the legend was written in the interests of the priests of the temple of Khensu, who

wished to magnify their god and his power to cast out devils and to exorcise evil spirits; it was probably composed between B.C. 650 and B.C. 250. 1

The legend, after enumerating the great names of Rameses II., goes on to state that the king was in the "country of the two rivers," by which we are to understand some portion of Mesopotamia, the rivers being the Tigris and Euphrates, and that the local chiefs were bringing to him tribute consisting of gold, lapis-lazuli, turquoise, and logs of wood from the Land of the God. It is difficult to understand how gold and logs of wood from Southern Arabia and East Africa came to be produced as tribute by chiefs who lived so far to the north. Among those who sent gifts was the Prince of Bekhten, and at the head of all his tribute he sent his eldest daughter, bearing his message of homage and duty. Now the maiden was beautiful, and the King of Egypt thought her so lovely that be took her to wife, and bestowed upon. her the name "Ra-neferu," which means something like the "beauties of Ra." He took her back with him to Egypt, where she was installed as Queen.

During the summer of the fifteenth year of his reign, whilst Rameses II. was celebrating a festival of Amen-Ra in the Temple of Luxor, one came to him and reported that an envoy had arrived from the Prince of Bekhten, bearing with him many gifts for the Royal Wife Ra-neferu. When the envoy had been brought

into the presence, he addressed words of homage to the king, and, having presented the gifts from his lord, he said that he had come to beg His Majesty to send a "learned man," i.e., a magician, to Bekhten to attend Bent-enth-resh, His Majesty's sister-in-law, who was stricken with some disease. Thereupon the king summoned the learned men of the House of Life, i.e., the members of the great College of Magic at Thebes, and the qenbetu officials, and when they had entered his presence, he commanded them to select a man of "wise heart and deft fingers" to go to Bekhten. The choice fell upon one Tehuti-em-heb, and His Majesty sent him to Bekhten with the envoy. When they arrived in Bekhten, Tehuti-em-heb found that the Princess Bent-enth-resh was possessed by an evil spirit which refused to be exorcised by him, and he was unable to cast out the devil. The Prince of Bekhten, seeing that the healing of his daughter was beyond the power of the Egyptian, sent a second envoy to Rameses II., and besought him to send a god to drive out the devil. This envoy arrived in Egypt in the summer of the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Rameses II., and found the king celebrating a festival in Thebes. When he heard the petition of the envoy, he went to the Temple of Khensu Nefer-hetep "a second time," 1 and

presented himself before the god and besought his help on behalf of his sister-in-law.

Then the priests of Khensu Nefer-hetep carried the statue of this god to the place where was the statue of Khensu surnamed "Pa-ari-sekher," i.e., the "Worker of destinies," who was able to repel the attacks of evil spirits and to drive them out. When the statues of the two gods were facing each other, Rameses II. entreated Khensu Nefer-hetep to "turn his face towards," i.e., to look favourably upon Khensu. Pa-ari-sekher, and to let him go to Bekhten to drive the devil out of the Princess of Bekhten. The text affords no explanation of the fact that Khensu Nefer-hetep was regarded as a greater god than Khensu Pa-ari-sekher, or why his permission had to be obtained before the latter could leave the country. It is probable that the demands made upon Khensu Nefer-hetep by the Egyptians who lived in Thebes and its neighbourhood were so numerous that it was impossible to let his statue go into outlying districts or foreign lands, and that a deputy-god was appointed to perform miracles outside Thebes. This arrangement would benefit the people, and would, moreover, bring much money to the priests. The appointment of a deputy-god is not so strange as it may seem, and modern African peoples are familiar with the expedient. About one hundred years ago the priests of the god Bobowissi of Winnebah, in the Tshi region of West Africa, found their business so large that it was absolutely necessary for them to appoint a

deputy. The priests therefore selected Brahfo, i.e., "deputy," and gave out that Bobowissi had deputed all minor matters to him, and that his utterances were to be regarded as those of Bobowissi. Delegates were ordered to be sent to Winnebah in Ashanti, where they would be shown the "deputy" god by the priests, and afterwards he would be taken to Mankassim, where he would reside, and do for the people all that Bobowissi had done hitherto. 1

When Rameses II. had made his petition to Khensu Nefer-hetep, the statue of the god bowed its head twice, in token of assent. Here it is clear that we have an example of the use of statues with movable limbs, which were worked, when occasion required, by the priests. The king then made a second petition to the god to transfer his sa, or magical power, to Khensu Pa-ari-sekher so that when he had arrived in Bekhten he would be able to heal the Princess. Again the statue of Khensu Nefer-hetep bowed its head twice, and the petition of the king was granted. The text goes on to say that the magical power of the greater god was transferred to the lesser god four times, or in a fourfold measure, but we are not told how this was effected. We know from many passages in the texts that every god was believed to possess this magical power, which is called the "sa of life," or the "sa of the god,". 2 This sa could be transferred by

a god or goddess to a human being, either by an embrace or through some offering which was eaten. Thus Temu transferred the magical power of his life to Shu and Tefnut by embracing them, 1 and in the Ritual of the Divine Cult 2 the priest says, The two vessels of milk of Temu are the sa 1 of my limbs." The man who possessed this sa could transfer it to his friend by embracing him and then "making passes" with his hands along his back. The sa could be received by a man from a god and then transmitted by him to a statue by taking it in his arms, and this ceremony was actually performed by the king in the Ritual of the Divine Cult. 3 The primary source of this sa was Ra, who bestowed it without measure on the blessed dead, 4 and caused them to live for ever thereby. These, facts make it tolerably certain that the magical power of Khensu Nefer-hetep was transferred to Khensu Pa-ari-sekher in one of two ways: either the statue of the latter was brought near to that of the former and it received the sa by contact, or the high priest first received the sa from the greater god and then transmitted it to the lesser god by embraces and "passes" with his hands. Be this as it may,

[paragraph continues] Khensu Pa-ari-sekher received the magical power, and having been placed in his boat, he set out for Bekhten, accompanied by five smaller boats, and chariots and horses which marched on each side of him.

When after a journey of seventeen months Khensu Pa-ari-sekher arrived in Bekhten, he was cordially welcomed by the Prince, and, having gone to the place where the Princess who was possessed of a devil lived, he exercised his power to such purpose that she was healed immediately. Moreover, the devil which had been cast out admitted that Khensu Pa-ari-sekher was his master, and promised that he would depart to the place whence he came, provided that the Prince of

Bekhten would celebrate a festival in his honour before his departure. Meanwhile the Prince and his soldiers stood by listening to the conversation between the god and the devil, and they were very much afraid. Following the instructions of Khensu Pa-ari-sekher the Prince made a great feast in honour of the supernatural visitors, and then the devil departed to the "place which he loved," and there was general rejoicing in the land. The Prince of Bekhten was so pleased with the Egyptian god that he determined not to allow him to return to Egypt. When the statue of Khensu Pa-ari-sekher had been in Bekhten for three years and nine months, the Prince in a vision saw the god, in the form of a golden hawk, come forth from his shrine, and fly up into the air and direct his course to Egypt. Realizing that the. statue of the god was

useless without its indwelling spirit, the Prince of Bekhten permitted the priests of Khensu Pa-ari-sekher to depart with it to Egypt, and dismissed them with gifts of all kinds. In due course they arrived in Egypt and the priests took their statue to the temple of Khensu Nefer-hetep, and handed over to that god all the gifts which the Prince of Bekhten had given them, keeping back nothing for their own god. After this Khensu Pa-ari-sekher returned to his temple in peace, in the thirty-third year of the reign of Rameses II., having been absent from it about eight years.

Footnotes

lii:1 In the headlines of this section, p. 106 ff., for Ptah Nefer-hetep read Khensu Nefer-hetep.

liii:1 Choix de Monuments Égyptiens, Paris, 1847, plate xxiv.

liii:2 Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, New Series, vol. iv., p. 217 ff.

liii:3 Journal Asiatique (Étude sur une Stèle Égyptienne), August, 1856, August, 1857, and August-Sept., 1858, Paris, 8vo, with plate.

liii:4 Brugsch, Geschichte Aegyptens, 1877, p. 627 ff.; Birch, Records of the Past, Old Series, vol. iv., p. 53 ff.; Budge, Egyptian Reading Book, text and transliteration, p. 40 ff.; translation, p. xxviii. ff.

liii:5 Aeg. Zeit., 1883, pp. 54-60.

liv:1 Maspero, Les Contes Populaires, 3rd edit., p. 166.

lv:1 Thus the king must have invoked the help of Khensu on the occasion of the visit of the first envoy.

lvii:1 Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples, p. 55.

lvii:2 Text of Unas, line 562.

lviii:1 Pyramid Texts, Pepi I., l. 466.

lviii:2 Ed. Moret, p. 21.

lviii:3 Ibid., p. 99.

lviii:4 Pepi I., line 666.

VII.

A LEGEND OF KHNEMU AND OF A SEVEN YEARS' FAMINE.

THE text of this most interesting legend is found in hieroglyphics on one side of a large rounded block of granite some eight or nine feet high, which stands on the south-east portion of Sahal, a little island lying in the First Cataract, two or three miles to the south of Elephantine Island and the modern town of Aswan. The inscription is not cut into the rock in the ordinary way, but was "stunned" on it with a blunted chisel, and is, in some lights, quite invisible to anyone

standing near the rock, unless he is aware of its existence. It is in full view of the river-path which leads from Mahallah to Philae, and yet it escaped the notice of scores of travellers who have searched the rocks and islands in the Cataract for graffiti and inscriptions. The inscription, which covers a space six feet by five feet, was discovered accidentally on February 6th, 1889, by the late Mr. C. E. Wilbour, a distinguished American gentleman who spent many years in research in Egypt. He first copied the text, discovering in the course of his work the remarkable nature of its contents and then his friend Mr. Maudslay photographed it. The following year he sent prints from Mr. Maudslay's negatives to Dr. Brugsch, who in the course of 1891 published a transcript of the text with a German translation and notes in a work entitled Die biblischen sieben Jahre der Hungersnoth, Leipzig, 8vo.

The legend contained in this remarkable text describes a terrible famine which took place in the reign of Tcheser, a king of the IIIrd Dynasty, and lasted for seven years. Insufficient Nile-floods were, of course, the physical cause of the famine, but the legend shows that the "low Niles" were brought about by the neglect of the Egyptians in respect of the worship of the god of the First Cataract, the great god Khnemu. When, according to the legend, king Tcheser had been made to believe that the famine took place because men had ceased to worship Khnemu in a manner appropriate to his greatness, and when he

had taken steps to remove the ground of complaint, the Nile rose to its accustomed height, the crops became abundant once more, and all misery caused by scarcity of provisions ceased. In other words, when Tcheser restored the offerings of Khnemu, and re-endowed his sanctuary and his priesthood, the god allowed Hapi to pour forth his streams from the caverns in the Cataract, and to flood the land with abundance. The general character of the legend, as we have it here, makes it quite certain that it belongs to a late period, and the forms of the hieroglyphics and the spellings of the words indicate that the text was "stunned" on the rock in the reign of one of the Ptolemies, probably at a time when it was to the interest of some men to restore the worship of Khnemu, god of the First Cataract. These interested people could only have been the priests of Khnemu, and the probability that this was so becomes almost a certainty when we read in the latter part of the text the list of the tolls and taxes which they were empowered to levy on the merchants, farmers, miners, etc., whose goods passed down the Cataract into Egypt. Why, if this be the case, they should have chosen to connect the famine with the reign of Tcheser is not clear. They may have wished to prove the great antiquity of the worship of Khnemu, but it would have been quite easy to select the name of some king of the Ist Dynasty, and had they done this, they would have made the authority of Khnemu over the Nile coaeval with Dynastic

civilization. It is impossible to assume that no great famine took place in Egypt between the reign of Tcheser and the period when the inscription was made, and when we consider this fact the choice by the editor of the legend of a famine which took place under the IIIrd Dynasty to illustrate the power of Khnemu seems inexplicable.

Of the famines which must have taken place in the Dynastic period the inscriptions tell us nothing, but the story of the seven years' famine mentioned in the Book of Genesis shows that there is nothing improbable in a famine lasting so long in Egypt. Arab historians also mention several famines which lasted for seven years. That which took place in the years 1066-1072 nearly ruined the whole country. A cake of bread was sold for 15 dinanir, (the dinar = 10s.), a horse was sold for 20, a dog for 5, a cat for 3, and an egg for 1 dinar. When all the animals were eaten men began to eat each other, and human flesh was sold in public. "Passengers were caught in the streets by hooks let down from the windows, drawn up, killed, and cooked." 1 During the famine which began in 1201 people ate human flesh habitually. Parents killed and cooked their own children, and a, wife was found eating her husband raw. Baby fricassee and haggis of children's heads were ordinary articles of diet. The graves even were ransacked for food. An ox sold for 70 dinanir. 2

The legend begins with the statement that in the 18th year of the reign of King Tcheser, when Matar, the Erpa Prince and Hâ, was the Governor of the temple properties of the South and North, and was also the Director of the Khenti men at Elephantine (Aswan), a royal despatch was delivered to him, in which the king said: "I am in misery on my throne. My heart is very sore because of the calamity which hath happened, for the Nile hath not come forth 1 for seven years. There is no grain, there are no vegetables, there is no food, and every man is robbing his neighbour. Men wish to walk, but they are unable to move; the young man drags along his limbs, the hearts of the aged are crushed with despair, their legs fail them, they sink to the ground, and they clutch their bodies with their hands in pain. The councillors are dumb, and nothing but wind comes out of the granaries when they are opened. Everything is in a state of ruin." A more graphic picture of the misery caused by the famine could hardly be imagined. The king then goes on to ask Matar where the Nile is born? what god or goddess presides over it? and what is his [or her] form? He says he would like to go to the temple of Thoth to enquire of that god, to go to the College of the Magicians, and search through the sacred books in order to find out these things.

When Matar had read the despatch, he set out to go to the king, and explained to him the things which

he wished to know. He told him that, the Nile rose near the city of Elephantine, that it flowed out of two caverns, which were the breasts of the Nile-god, that it rose to a height of twenty-eight cubits at Elephantine, and to the height of seven cubits at Sma-Behutet, or, Diospolis Parva in the Delta. He who controlled the Nile was Khnemu, and when this god drew the bolt of the doors which shut in the stream, and smote the earth with his sandals, the river rushed forth. Matar also described to the king the form of Khnemu, which was that of Shu, and the work which he did, and the wooden house in which he lived, and its exact position, which was near the famous granite quarries. The gods who dwelt with Khnemu were the goddess Sept (Sothis, or the Dog-star), the goddess Anqet, Hap (or Hep), the Nile-god, Shu, Keb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, and Horus. Thus we see that the priests of Khnemu made him to be the head of a Company of Gods. Finally Matar gave the king a list of all the stones, precious and otherwise, which were found in and about Elephantine.

When the king, who had, it seems, come to Elephantine, heard these things he rejoiced greatly, and he went into the temple of Khnemu. The priests drew back the curtains and sprinkled him with holy water, and then he passed into the shrine and offered up a great sacrifice of bread-cakes, beer, geese, oxen, and all kinds of good things, to the gods and goddesses who dwelt at Elephantine, in the place called "Couch of the

heart in life and power," Suddenly he found himself standing face to face with the god Khnemu, whom he placated with a peace-offering and with prayer. Then the god opened his eyes, and bent his body towards the king, and spake to him mighty words, saying, "I am Khnemu, who made thee. My hands knitted together thy body and made it sound, and I gave thee thy heart." Khnemu then went on to complain that, although the ground under the king's feet was filled with stones and metal, men were too inert to work them and to employ them in repairing or rebuilding of the shrines of the gods, or in doing what they ought to do for him, their Lord and Creator. These words were, of course, meant as a rebuke for the king, who evidently, though it is not so stated in the text, was intended by Khnemu to undertake the rebuilding of his shrine without delay. The god then went on to proclaim his majesty and power, and declared himself to be Nu, the Celestial Ocean, and the Nile-god, "who came into being at the beginning, and riseth at his will to give health to him that laboureth for Khnemu." He described himself as the Father of the gods, the Governor of the earth and of men, and then he promised the king to make the Nile rise yearly, regularly, and unceasingly, to give abundant harvests, to give all people their heart's desire, to make misery to pass away, to fill the granaries, and to make the whole land of Egypt yellow with waving fields of full ripe grain. When the king, who had been in a dream, heard the

god mention crops, he woke up, and his courage returned to him, and having cast away despair from his heart he issued a decree by which he made ample provision for the maintenance of the worship of the god in a fitting state. In this decree, the first copy of which was cut upon wood, the king endowed Khnemu with 20 schoinoi of land on each side of the river, with gardens, etc. It was further enacted that every man who drew water from the Nile for his land should contribute a portion of his crops to the god. Fishermen, fowlers, and hunters were to pay an octroi duty of one-tenth of the value of their catches when they brought them into the city, and a tithe of the cattle was to be set apart for the daily sacrifice. The masters of caravans coming from the Sudan were to pay a tithe also, but they were not liable to any further tax in the country northwards. Every metal-worker, ore-crusher, miner, mason, and handicraftsman of every kind, was to pay to the temple of the god one-tenth of the value of the material produced or worked by his labour. The decree provided also for the appointment of an inspector whose duty it would be to weigh the gold, silver and copper which came into the town of Elephantine, and to assess the value both of these metals and of the precious stones, etc., which were to be devoted to the service of Khnemu. All materials employed in making the images of the gods, and all handicraftsmen employed in the work were exempted from tithing. In short, the worship of the god and his company was

to be maintained according to ancient use and wont, and the people were to supply the temple with everything necessary in a generous spirit and with a liberal hand. He who failed in any way to comply with the enactments was to be beaten with the rope, and the name of Tcheser was to be perpetuated in the temple.

Footnotes

lxiii:1 Lane Poole, Middle Ages, p. 146.

lxiii:2 Ibid., p. 216.

lxiv:1 I.e., there have been insufficient Nile-floods.

VIII.