The morning news., 1898-10-18
HISTORY IN GRANITE.
TELLS OF THE LIVES OF EGYPr'S
ANCIENT KINGS.

Discoveries. Which Tell of Incl
dents In the Lives of the Pha-
raohs-A King Who Was the In
carnntion of SeIf-IntOxIcated Ar
rOGnnce How He Ruled the
World.
From the Cincinnati Enquirer
Egyptian explorers are now loosening
seals that have remained untouched for
more than 5000 years and are exciting the
hope of surprising revelations of the life
OF ancient Egypt. The tomb and remains
of Menes, the founder of the Egyptian
monarchy, have been discovered. and that
public knowledge of Egyptian history will
now be revolutiOnized. Most scholars have
hitherto regarded him as a myth In April
last the mummies of eight kings were dis
covered III the cemetery of Thebes, that
huge storehouse of antiquities OF these
kings some reigned before and some after
Moses.
As the Book of Exodus covers more than
elghty years, there are probably three
Pharaohs in It, Rameses II was the sec
ond of these, the son of Seti l and the
father of Menephthah. About this the ex-
perts are practically unanimous.
The materials for his history are ample
cepuon. They cover miles aud countless
acres; they are scattered over Egypt from
the Great Sea to the second cataract They
o'Ief no temptation to historical critics
Tor the most of them cannot have been
tampered with, as they are craven two or
three inches in the hardest granite.
lie ttourished between 400 and 19O0 he
tore Christ. When boy of II or u he
was made his fathers colleague. His ed
ueauon was stepped in religion His body
was SNAPPED In the nobest mold-tau and
athletic, broad shouldered, with large ewes
ana an aquiline nose, which as some
think, resembled Napoleons His face is
strlklngly like his fathers and has that
expression of refinement. sweetness and
Olympian calm which his people regarded
as eminently king g-becoming. IL was prob
abiy his sister or daughter who saved
Moses He lived chiefly at Tanis or Zoan
a royal paradise in or near Goshen The
monuments supply ever so many person
ais about him. For example the names
of his favorite horses, and of his poet
laureate, Pentaur, are known. whose lit
erary style, Brugsch says, is remarkably
like that of Moses. He survived the dia-
mond jubilee of his reign by seven years
some say that he reached the age of a
hundred, others of eighty. He died In the
month of May, as can be told from the To-
tus blossoms in his funeral wreaths They
arc preserved HI a frame ana their color
is still "as blue as a forget-me-not" His
mummy was discovered in 1881 Ii lies in
glass case in the museum at Cairo The
world can hold few objects more i'm
pressive than that mummy It's skin is
not much more wizened than that of
some men you meet in the street-so ad-
mirably have the embalmers done their
work His face Is not much marred
while his body is of perfect proportions
and his teeth are still white But he
suffered from gout and rheumatism, for
his Joints are swollen. His ears are pierc-
ed' for ornaments like those of sailor
or woman. His face Is clean shaven
though an invalids white beard had
grown about 1t during his last sickness.
The Egyptians gave great attention to
shaving. Joseph had to be shaved before
he could see Pharaoh Heaps of Egyptian
razors are found in the museums The
little hair that was left Rameses Is care
fully dyed red or auburn, and the yellow
pomade of his last toilet is still upon It.
His very looks" one has said, Grown
oppression" The traveller who tarries by
the glass case may easily feel as II he
had been really presented to Rameses IL
so deeply have Pharoah's actual features
been stamped upon his imagination. An
cent history here is not half dream.
If the bodies of Jacob and Joseph were
as well embalmed their features may yet
be Known.
Rameses II was one of the greatest of
Pharaohs. He was surnamed "the Great"
and the Conqueror," and was called Sesos-
iris by the Greeks. Under him Egypt rose
to the summit of It's prosperity and then,
like Its favorite emblem, the lotus flower,
1t began to decay.
Rameses II had large fleet, with which
he made the Mediterranean IAN Egyptian
lake." and he anticipated Lesseps, for he
,.t,f ba tn he Ctt1f Of
Suez. Its direction can sull be distinctly
traced by the side of the modern one. Very
likely, this was a part of the Service with
risor' which embittered the lives Of the
Israelites, who had to work under pitt
less sun and without any sanitary arrange
ments. This Pharaoh was a great warrior
and his movements prove the truth of Inc
saying that men praise their butchers more
than their benefactors. His most famous
battles were fought in Syria, with the Hit
tltes "the vile Khita," as he calls them, A
race often met with in the Bible. This cam
paign is pictured on the monuments and
celebrated by Pentaur, his laureate. in The
Oldest known heroic poem in the world.
The accounts of 1t are found to be eco
graphically correct. They also bear dis
tressing witness to that awful cruelty
which separated ancient from modern
times. Rameses II thus describes his inn
possible prodigies on the battle field: The
whole world made way before the strength
OF my arm; was alone, no one was with
me; the warriors stopped; they retreated
on seeing my deeds" "
Like the Greek basileus, the Caesars and
the Sultan, Rameses ii was high priest as
well as King. Church and state were one,
and the kingdom was, in the highest sence.
a theocracy. All religious offerings were
made by Pharaoh or in his name. On the
monuments he appears as the only wor
shipper.
He was by far the greatest builder the
world has seen. Like the kings of Mesopo-
tamia and the Roman emperors, he had
an Unsuitable mania for building but he
could crafty it more than they. Like
them, he was devoted to the extravagant,
the snowy and the enormous. He made
Egypt anew" Brugsch says. Half of all
the Egyptian buildings that remain are
ascribed to him. His buildings are found
from the sea TO Wady Halfa, distance
of nearly 900 miles. Many Of them daz-
zle the Imagination and confound mod
ern architects. They have survived foI
more than thirty centuries. and are still
among the wonders of the world. The
rock -hewn temple Of Abu Simbul-between