Chapter Two: HISTORY
SO SPEAKS legend, but our science
Finds another birth for Egypt.
At a time before the scribes had
Started to record what happened,
Humans found a fruitful river
Flowing south to north through desert.
Year by year, the river flooded,
Bearing silt from distant mountains
To deposit it at flood-time
On the banks where river-dwellers
Waited to begin their planting.
Once the inundation ended,
Farmers sowed their land with emmer —
Wheat, as the Egyptians knew it.
Soon, it grew so well and widely
That it fed both slave and master;
It piled up in well-built silos
For lean years when floods were scanty.
Egypt thrived on bread of emmer
And on beer, fermented barley;
Egypt thrived on fish and wildfowl,
Vegetables and fruit in plenty.
By the banks rose towns and cities
That in time became two kingdoms:
Upper Egypt, where the river
Flowed straight through the southern desert,
And, above it, Lower Egypt,
Where the river split asunder,
Flowing through a fan-shaped delta
To Great Green, the sea beyond it.
Upper Egypt, land of lotus,
Was protected by a vulture
With a white crown rising cone-like;
Lower Egypt, of papyrus,
Was protected by a cobra
With a red crown in a circle.
Scribes invented hieroglyphics,
Meaning carved in stone to capture
Words and deeds of Egypt's rulers
So that they might live forever
In the memories of offspring.
It was first in Upper Egypt
That the rulers felt ambition
To unite the Nile's long valley
Under one supreme lawgiver.
Scorpion began the process
Of the land's consolidation.
Narmer unified the kingdoms
And put on both crowns together;
Narmer set his throne in Memphis
At the Delta's fertile apex.
Henceforth, Egypt was one kingdom
From the Delta's northern shoreline
To the cataracts far southward
Where the Cushites came with trade-goods
To buy part of Egypt's treasure.
Houses for the dead were fashioned
To preserve unchanged the bodies
Of great rulers, priests, and nobles
For a hope of resurrection.
Rituals of word and gesture
Brought all souls, the priests assured them,
Passage into life eternal
Where the dead, revived, could savor
Life beside a pleasant river
If the grave-goods brought by loved ones
Were sufficient and undamaged.
Early tombs held slaughtered servants
Who, priests said, would serve their masters
Faithfully beyond the sunset.
Later, tombs would hold ushabti,
Servants, carved from stone or timber,
Who would come to life when masters
Summoned them with spells to service
In the kingdom of Osiris.
Death was not the end, but outset,
For the one whom gods found pleasing
For right actions in one's lifetime
And right offerings beyond it.
Making mummies out of nobles
With the guidance of Anubis,
God of death, but life's preserver,
Workers took from them their organs
(Brains, as useless, were discarded)
To be sealed in jars forever.
Next, the workers dried the bodies
In a bed of salt called natron,
Wrapped the shriveled husks in linen
Holding amulets to give them
Life again beyond the river,
And then sealed the finished mummies
In sarcophagi to keep them
Safe, one hoped, from time's destruction.
In the afterlife, a person
Came before the gods for judgment.
While revived Osiris looked on,
Hearts set down upon a balance
Were weighed out against a feather
Representing truth and justice.
If one's heart outweighed the feather,
If one's heart was filled with wrongness,
It would make the feather rise up;
Then a monster ate the bad heart,
And one's life would end in darkness.
If one's heart bore no transgressions,
It was lighter than a feather;
Then one pleased the god Osiris,
And one met a happy ending.
Egypt's king was called the Pharaoh,
'Great house, palace,' for the building
Where he passed both laws and judgment
On his subjects who must serve him.
Bearing crook and flail, the Pharaoh
Told the subjects whom he governed
That he was the loving shepherd
Who protected them from strangers,
But the whip that would chastise them
If they strayed from Pharaoh's pastures.
When the peasants were not farming,
Pharaoh called them out to serve him
In his army for his battles,
Or to build the gods new temples.
When the Pharaoh's lifetime ended,
He became a new Osiris
Reigning over Egypt's fortunes
While his son, the living Horus,
Ruled in life beneath Ra's heaven.
Over time, as Egypt prospered,
Pharaohs grew in their ambition
To preserve their names and actions
For their kin, yet unbegotten,
And to reign in pomp and glory
In the West as kings forever.
One proud ruler, Pharaoh Djoser,
Sought a way to climb to heaven
And to rule the land forever
As a star that shone upon it.
His assistant, wise Imhotep,
First of architects to awe us
With the monuments of giants,
Stacked up houses in a ladder
Of four sides and pointed summit
From which Djoser's soul could fly up
To the sky to be enthroned there.
For Imhotep's matchless wisdom
As a doctor, scribe, and scholar,
He became a god in Egypt,
Which would call on him for healing.
Later Pharaohs felt an impulse
To outdo the feat of Djoser.
They built ladders straight, not stair-stepped —
"Pyramids," the Greeks would call them —
That still dazzle Egypt's tourists
When four thousand years have vanished
Since the pyramid's construction.
Not on ladders, but on sunbeams,
Would the Pharaohs reach the heavens!
Haughty Khufu, greatest builder,
Raised a mountain in the desert.
Son and grandson, aping forebear,
Built two lesser mountains by it.
Those who see the three great mountains
Say that nothing else can match them.
In the tombs, the Pharaohs' mummies
Lay while spells in hieroglyphics
Meant to make each organ flourish
With new life beyond the sunset
Failed to keep vile gangs of robbers
From despoiling royal grave-goods.
Pharaohs stuck on poles the robbers
Whom they
caught, but others prospered,
Making gold and jeweled grave-goods
Serve the purpose of the living.
Pride gives birth to its destruction.
Rendered poor by endless building,
Egypt foundered, Pharaohs falling
Into weakness and confusion
Till a queen became a Pharaoh
In the place of true-born princes,
But could not hold back the darkness.
Minor nobles fought for kingship;
Poverty and famine threatened
Lives as social order weakened.
In the time of Egypt's chaos,
Commoners aspired to savor
Through the blessings of Osiris
Life eternal like the Pharaoh's.
Over time, the chaos turned to
Order as new Pharaohs gathered
Back a rule that had been scattered.
Thebes, a southern city, prospered,
Housing Pharaohs who made Amon
Greatest of the gods of Egypt.
In the south, the dark god Amon
Was the hidden one of Karnak,
Where the world's most mighty temple
Rose to shelter Amon's image.
In his kingdom, writing prospered.
Scribes recorded tales of wonder
That had entertained the people
In the marketplace as singers
Told of distant lands and customs.
Scribes recorded also proverbs
To instruct the young and foolish
In the way of wealth and friendship
That would ease their earthly lifetime
And win favor from Osiris
When they came to him for judgment.
No great kingdom lasts forever.
Egypt met a second chaos
When the Hyksos, vile invaders
From the lands beyond the Delta,
Conquered it and set up thrones there.
Ruling their new realm, the Hyksos
Changed the nature of religion:
Seth, the killer of Osiris,
Now became the god to worship.
Over time, the vile invaders
Stretched their rule to Upper Egypt
Until Thebes, the seat of Pharaohs,
Hosted kings with foreign features.
Hyksos ruled, but won no love from,
Egypt's people, who would follow
Theban princes, serving Amon,
In a war for liberation.
Foremost of the Theban princes,
Ahmose, driving Hyksos elsewhere,
Reigned henceforth in Thebes as Pharaoh.
Those who won, the new Egyptians,
Called the Hyksos evildoers
And despised them ever after.
Still, the Hyksos brought some blessings:
Horse and chariot first entered
Egypt in the Hyksos' heyday;
Lute and lyre first sang in Egypt
When the Hyksos brought them southwards.
Dawn arose again in Egypt
As in Thebes a line of Pharaohs
Born of Ahmose raised the kingdom
To its time of greatest glory.
In this new Egyptian kingdom,
Pharaohs prospered, even dying:
Theban Pharaohs sealed their bodies
Into rock-cut tombs on cliffsides
From which one could watch the sunrise
Over Egypt's fruitful river
And the temples raised at Karnak.
Three great Pharaohs known as Thothmes
Turned a kingdom into empire
As they formed a mighty army
For the safety of their borders
And for conquests to extend them
South to Cush to seize its gold mines,
North to Canaan and beyond it
To a river much like Egypt's.
Pharaohs conquered Cush to gather
Gold for monuments and temples
That still awe the hearts of tourists
When three thousand years have vanished.
In the time of kings named Thothmes
Came a female king, Hatshepsut.
Daughter of the first-named Thothmes,
She was married to her brother
Of the same name as his father
To preserve the godly bloodline,
But conceived no son to claim it.
When her husband Thothmes perished,
Pharaoh's crown passed to a minor
Born of concubine's conception.
He, the third to be named Thothmes,
Waited long to govern Egypt,
For Hatshepsut ruled as regent,
Then as Pharaoh in her own right.
She, to comfort Egypt's people,
Who mistrusted female rulers,
Claimed descent from gods in heaven
And put on men's clothes and whiskers
So that Egypt's eyes could see her
As a man in female body.
Egypt prospered while she ruled it.
Bringing goods from distant nations,
She built monuments to awe us;
She, a diplomat, not warlord,
Kept the peace with lands around her.
Thothmes, though, when he got older,
Slept above a holy statue —
Sphinx, a king with lion's body —
Largely covered by the desert.
Sphinx announced by dream to Thothmes
That, if he would clean the sand off,
He would reign alone as Pharaoh.
How the boy replaced Hatshepsut,
History no longer tell us
(Illness may have claimed her body
To her stepson’s jubilation),
But he struck her name from statues
To conceal that Egypt ever
Had a woman as its Pharaoh.
(Thothmes' efforts were imperfect,
Else we would not know her story.)
He, when king, went forth to conquer,
Making Egypt's greatest empire.
Gods and priests, though, challenged Pharaoh
For the mastery of Egypt.
Where titanic temples honored
Amon as the king of heaven,
Amon's darkness joined his nature
To the light of Ra, the sun-god.
Amon-Ra now reigned in heaven
And controlled the fate of Egypt.
Priests of Amon's shrine at Karnak
Won great wealth and might to match it.
Pharaohs fearing priestly power
Sought a way to overcome it.
As time passed, the name of Aten,
Solar disk with hands to offer
Life to those who sought a blessing,
Came to challenge Karnak's power.
Pharaoh of a peaceful kingdom,
Amonhotep favored Aten,
But, in fear of priests' reprisals,
He preserved the rites of Amon.
Amonhotep's son as Pharaoh
Took a new name, Akhenaten,
To tell Egypt his devotion
To one god without an equal.
Akhenaten, strange of feature,
Said that just the sun-disk, Aten,
Had a claim to praise and worship.
With the lovely Nefertiti
At his side in his decisions,
Akhenaten closed the temples
Of all gods but his dear Aten
And removed the throne of Pharaoh
To a new site in the desert.
In the days of Akhenaten,
Egypt's art defied tradition.
Both in carvings and in paintings,
Pharaoh, wife, and children came out
Far from perfect in appearance,
But showed loved ones their affection
As they hugged and kissed each other
While the Aten shone upon them.
Lack of sons from a great lady
Justly recognized for beauty
Was a blow to Akhenaten.
Nefertiti bore just daughters.
When her husband died, the country
Came to serve a prince whose parents
No one now can name for certain.
He was crowned as Tutankhaten,
But, when priests of old gods rallied,
He would change to Tutankhamon
As restorer of tradition.
He died young with little glory,
But, because his tomb was hidden
Mostly safely from vile robbers,
Our eyes marvel at his grave-goods,
And we know him best of Pharaohs.
Those who followed Tutankhamon
Tried to strike the name of Aten
And the pharaohs who had served him
From the monuments of Egypt.
Noblemen who married daughters
Of the line that Ahmose founded
Sat upon the throne of Pharaoh
Till a new line came from Ramses,
Warlord who served Pharaoh wisely,
To bring Egypt to its zenith.
Egypt's most outstanding Pharaoh,
Second of the kings named Ramses,
Spread his name from Cush to Canaan.
Living long, he built profusely,
Though he often chipped out names of
Pharaohs who had reigned before him,
And replaced those with his own name.
Living long, he moved his throne room
From the south into the Delta
So that he could quickly deal with
Enemies who came from Asia.
Living long, he fought great battles
With a northern foe, the Hittites,
Whom he boasted of defeating,
But with whom he made a treaty
Sealed with two resplendent weddings
To king's daughters of the "vanquished."
Living long, he married often,
Fathering a host of children
Who grew old beside her father
And would hardly long outlive him.
His successors kept the empire
Strong until the third named Ramses
Faced invasions from all quarters.
Enemies of Egypt prospered —
Cushites, Libyans, and Sea Peoples —
And though Ramses fought them boldly
And secured the empire's borders,
Egypt's foes had cost it dearly
In its gold and lives of soldiers.
Lesser Pharaohs, though named Ramses,
Let the kingdom fall to ruin.
Cush and Canaan won their freedom;
Vulture left the side of cobra
As the kingdom re-divided.
In the Delta reigned weak Pharaohs
While, in Thebes, the priests of Karnak
Ruled beneath a Pharaoh's daughter
Who became the wife of Amon.
When strong rule returned to Egypt,
It was foreign hands that governed.
Libyan Sheshonq built an empire;
Then a Cushite king, Shabaqo,
From a land once held in bondage,
Ruled the seed of former masters.
Things got worse for once-great Egypt.
Kings came down from distant Asshur
In the Land Between the Rivers
To drive out the Cushite Pharaohs,
And the wars of Cush and Asshur
Drained the land of wealth and people.
When great Asshur got in trouble,
Psamtek, once a puppet Pharaoh,
Brought in Greeks and Jews to help him
Raise his kingdom from the ashes.
Necho, son of Psamtek, fashioned
A renewed Egyptian empire,
But this empire lived in peril
Of the hostile lands around it.
Babylon, which conquered Asshur,
Briefly offered Egypt freedom.
When, though, Babylon was conquered
By the warlike land of Persia
Far beyond the dawn's horizon,
Egypt faced a new oppressor
Worse than any foe before it.
Mad Cambyses conquered Egypt
To bring glory to his empire
And made Egypt just a province
Sending wealth to Persia's heartland.
Persians sometimes showed respect for
Egypt's ancient laws and worship,
But at other times were brutal,
Making Egypt starve to send its
Food to furnish Persian banquets.
For twelve decades, Egypt languished
Under Persian domination;
Then a prince named Amyrtaios
Forced from Egypt Persia's soldiers
And restored Egyptian freedom.
This was fragile, though, and short lived,
For the Persians soon reconquered
Egypt and restored its bondage.
Amyrtaios' wan successor,
Nectanebo, last of Pharaohs
Born of Egypt's blood and culture,
Hid in Upper Egypt till he
Might regain his throne and empire,
But he died, receiving neither.
No one of Egyptian parents
Would regain the throne of Horus.
Persia fell, and Greeks took over
Till the Romans forced all nations
To obey a western empire.
Roman laws and Grecian language
Changed the old Egyptian customs;
Then the Christians taught the people
To reject the gods of Egypt
For a Jewish God made human
To set free all souls from judgment.
No one studied hieroglyphics,
And their meaning was forgotten.
Though the monuments were standing,
None recalled their rites of worship.
Centuries of silence went by
As each visitor to Egypt
Gaped at monuments of giants
And told stories of their making —
Stories wrong on what had happened!
By strange chance, invading soldiers
Found a stone with an inscription
In both Greek and hieroglyphics.
From the stone, devoted scholars
Learned to read again the legends
And the history set down here
To recall the proud Egyptians.
Though their empire has departed,
And their monuments are ruined,
We still see the proud Egyptians
In their paintings, where they show us
How they lived in grace and beauty.
We can read their hieroglyphics
Carved in stone to tell a future
That adores the proud Egyptians
Of their glory and their downfall.
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this epic poem, you may also enjoy my other Ancient Egyptian writings: my young-adult novella, Asenath’s Tale, and my Biblical epic, The Stars Bow. Down. Both of these works are available at Lulu. Com.
You may also enjoy the Ancient Egyptian historical novel, Asenath, by Anna Patricio. This is available as e book or as paperback at Amazon. Com and other on-line booksellers.
About the Author
If you liked Egypt’s Light, you can read more of my work at:
"Christian Writings by Alfred D. Byrd,"
https://www.byrdthistledown.com
I’m also the author of the following books, available from all major on-line booksellers:
Thistledown
Through the Gate of Horn: The First Thread of the Dhitha Tapestry
The Ghost of Pelfrey's Bend
On the Wings of Dream: The Second Thread of the Dhitha Tapestry
Trinity, Canon, and Constantine: Clear Light on the Early Church
Kabbalah for Evangelical
Christians
and of the following books available from Lulu.com.
Asenath’s Tale
At the Brink of War: The Fourth Thread of the Dhitha Tapestry
Between Two Fires
A Convergence at Shiloh: An Epic of the American Civil War
In the Fire of Dawn: The Third Thread of the Dhitha Tapestry
The Light
Perryville: An Epic of the American Civil War in Kentucky
The Road to Bull Run: An Epic of the American Civil War
A Song of the One
The Stars Bow Down
To Dream Atlantis
To the Throne of God: The Fifth Thread of the Dhitha Tapestry