Page:Buried cities and Bible countries (1891).djvu/34

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BURIED CITES AND BIBLE COUNTRIES.

six feet in height, and we see by the breadth of his chest and the squareness of his shoulders that he must have been a man of great bodily strength. Professor Maspero, in his official report, describes the body as that of a vigorous and robust old man, with white and well-preserved teeth, white hair and eyebrows, long and slender hands and feet, stained with henna, and ears pierced for the reception of ear-rings. Rameses II. reigned sixty-six years, and was nearly a hundred years old at the time of his death. He exhibited great zeal as a builder, and was a patron of science and art. It was he who built the Ramesseum at Thebes, and presented it with a library. He also built the Pylons and Hall of Columns of the Temple of Luxor, and a score of minor temples in Egypt and Nubia, and made the marvellous rock-cut temples at Abousimbel.

Rameses II. was succeeded by his thirteenth son, Meneptah II., who continued the oppression of the Israelites, and pursued them when they were escaping.

Besides all these monarchs, there were found in the strange repository at Deir el-Bahari, coffins and mummies of Rameses III. (of the twentieth dynasty), the last of the great warrior kings of Egypt, Pinotem I., and Pinotem II., priest-kings of the twenty-first dynasty, and several queens, princes, and notabilities of the same periods. An affecting story, which brings home to us very vividly the universal kinship of humanity, is revealed by the contents of the coffin of Makara, wife of King Pinotem, of the priest-king dynasty. A little coiled-up bundle lay at the feet of the Queen, her infant daughter, in giving birth to whom she gave likewise her life. Thus, and so touchingly, are we led to participate in the affliction of the sick chamber of three thousand years ago. Already had the still-born babe of a queen received a name, Mautemhat, the firstling of the goddess Maut, wife of Amen; and not a name alone, for she is born to a title strange to our ears, namely, "principal royal spouse."