Chapter 43 (part 11)

Because there is no incontrovertible proof that this tomb belongs to the Ist dynasty, the texts on the stele of Shera, a monument of a later dynasty, have been adduced as the oldest evidences of the antiquity of a fixed religious system and literature in Egypt. 3. Many of the monuments commonly attributed to this dynasty should more correctly be described as being the work of the IInd dynasty; see Maspero, Geschichte der Morgenlänsdischen Völker im Alterthum (trans. Pietschmann), Leipzig, 1877, p. 56; Wiedemann, Aegyptische Geschichte p. 170. * Ptah-shepses bore this title; see Mariette and Maspero, Les Mastaba , p. 113.] monuments prove that many of the priestly officials were still relatives of the royal family, and the tombs of feudal lords, scribes, and others, record a number of their official titles, together with the names of several of their religious festivals. The subsequent increase in the number of the monuments during this period may be due to the natural development of the religion of the time, but it is very probable that the greater security of life and property which had been assured by the vigorous wars of Seneferu, the first king of this dynasty, about B.C. 3766, encouraged men to incur greater expense, and to build larger and better abodes for the dead, and to celebrate the full ritual at the prescribed festivals. In this dynasty the royal dead were honoured with sepulchral monuments of a greater size and magnificence than had ever before been contemplated, and the chapels attached to the pyramids were served by courses of priests whose sole duties consisted in celebrating the services. The fashion of building a pyramid instead of the rectangular flat-roofed mastaba for a royal tomb was revived by Seneferu, who called his pyramid Kha; and his example was followed by his immediate successors, Khufu (Cheops), Khaf-Ra (Chephren), Men-kau-Ra (Mycerinus), and others. Revision of certain chapters in the IVth dynasty. In the reign of Mycerinus some important work seems to have been under taken in connection with certain sections of the text of the Book of the Dead, for the rubrics of Chapters XXX B. and CXLVIII. state that these compositions were found inscribed upon "a block of iron(?) of the south in letters of real lapis-lazuli under the feet of the majesty of the god in the time of the King it of the North and South Men-kau-Ra, by the royal son Herutataf, triumphant." That a new impulse should be given to religious observances, and that the revision of existing religious texts should take place in the reign of Mycerinus, was only to be expected if Greek tradition may be believed, for both Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus represent him as a just king, and one who was anxious to efface from the minds of the people the memory of the alleged cruelty of his [1. He conquered the peoples in the Sinaitic peninsula, and according to a text of a later date he built a wall to keep out the Aamu from Egypt. In the story of Saneha a "pool of Seneferu" is mentioned, which shows that his name was well known on the frontiers of Egypt. See Golénischeff, Aeg. Zeitschrift , p. 110; Maspero, Mélanges d'Archéologie , t. iii., Paris, 1876, p. 71, 1. 2; Lepsius, Denkmäler , ii., 2a.