Woodcut 446. Scribe with his inkstand on the table; one pen is put behind his Page ear..... 276 447. Artists painting on a board, and colouring a statue 277 283 284 285 450a The remaining three of the orders of columns.. 286 451. Heads of enemies, once supporting something now removed 287 303 306 454. Levelling and squaring a stone 313 455. Polishing granite statue.... 314 456. Standing figure of a king painted to represent granite.. 457. Bellows 469. Hands of a wooden figure of a woman, with many rings 473. Boxes, or bottles, for holding the kohl for staining the eyelids .. 344 474. Needles, pins, and earrings 345 475. Metal mirrors. (Metal, and even glass, mirrors were also used at Rome, but these differed from some of the Roman “specula” used as ornaments for rooms; from which the Venetians borrowed their mirrors, with figures upon them).. 346 476. Other metal mirrors 347 477. Walking sticks 347 478. Priests and other persons of rank walking with sticks CHAPTER X. Vignette Page P. Tomb of Sakkára, arched with stone, of the time of Psammitichus II.. 356 Woodcut 357 483. Services performed to the dead.... 484. Members of the family present when the services were performed 358 485. A woman embracing, and weeping before, her husband's mummy 358 486. Conveying the mummies on sledges to the closets in which they were kept.. 487. Pouring oil over a mummy 488. An altar in the British Museum 489. A table with cakes and ducks 359 360 361 362 490. Seals found near the tombs 364 491. Closets containing figures of gods. 366 492. The mummy's head seen at an open panel of the coffin. 493. A peculiar attendant at a funeral... 368 371 494. Certain personages present at funerals, and grease poured before Q. Interior of a mummy-pit, and a woman seeking for ornaments.. 400 H. Khonfud, or clod-crushing machine used after the land is ploughed. Heliopolis-Cairo in the distance. CHAPTER VI. THE DIFFERENT CLASSES OF EGYPTIANS-THE THIRD CLASS-THE HUSBANDMEN-AGRICULTURE-PRODUCTIONS OF EGYPT-HARVEST -FESTIVALS OF THE PEASANTS-GARDENERS, HUNTSMEN, BOATMEN OF THE NILE. THE high estimation in which the priestly and military professions were held in Egypt placed them far above the rest of the community; but the other classes had also their degrees of consequence, and individuals enjoyed a position and importance in proportion to their respectability, their talents, or their wealth. According to Herodotus, the whole Egyptian community was divided into seven tribes, one of which was the sacerdotal, another of the soldiers, and the remaining five of the herdsmen, swineherds, shop-keepers, interpreters, and boatmen. Diodorus states that, like the Athenians, they were distributed into three classes the priests; the peasants or husbandmen, from whom the soldiers were levied; and the artisans, who were employed in handicraft and other similar occupations, and in common offices among the people—but in another place he extends the number to five, and reckons the pastors, husbandmen, and artificers, independent of the soldiers and priests. Strabo limits them to three, the military, husbandmen, and priests; and Plato divides them into six bodies, the priests, artificers, shepherds, huntsmen, husbandmen, and soldiers; each peculiar art or occupation, he observes, being confined to a certain subdivision of the caste, and every one being engaged in his own branch without interfering with the occupation of another. Hence it appears that the first class consisted of the priests; the second of the soldiers; the third of the husbandmen, gardeners, huntsmen, boatmen of the Nile, and others; the fourth of artificers, tradesmen, and shop-keepers, carpenters, boat-builders, masons, and probably potters, public weighers, and notaries; and in the fifth may be reckoned pastors, poulterers, fowlers, fishermen, labourers, and, generally speaking, the common people. Many of these were again subdivided, as the artificers and tradesmen, according to their peculiar trade or occupation; and as the pastors, into oxherds, shepherds, goatherds, and swineherds; which last were, according to Herodotus, the lowest grade, not only of the class, but of the whole community, since no one would either marry their daughters or establish any family connection with them. So degrading was the occupation of tending swine, that they were looked upon as impure, and were even forbidden to enter a temple without previously undergoing a purification; and the prejudices of the Indians against this class of persons almost justify our belief in the statement of the historian. Without stopping to inquire into the relative rank of the different subdivisions of the third class, the importance of agriculture in a country like Egypt, where the richness and productiveness of the soil have always been proverbial, suffices to claim the first place for the husbandmen. |
